#smut and lots of it

[ghost-proofbaby]

the hat rule. (e.m. x fem!reader)

the hat rule (n.): you wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.

summary: when eddie dresses up as a cowboy to a night out with friends, you decide to steal his hat.

pairings: eddie munson x fem!reader

warnings: reader is described to be wearing a dress. reader is also dressed up as a black cat. premise is everyone is wearing 'slutty' costumes. overuse of pet names. public teasing, unprotected sex, choking kink, oral (f receiving), ass slapping. 18+.

wc: 13.3k+

happy early valentine's day, babes. shout out to @hellfire--cult for beta reading, as well as @andvys for giving me this idea to begin with.

If someone had told you last week that you’d be attending a slutty costume themed night at a club tonight, you would have laughed in their face.

And yet here you were, at Steve Harrington’s apartment, donned in a black cat costume that shows more skin than you have in years.

The elaborate plan had sparked on a random day after Steve encountered a flyer for the event. It was a nightclub your group had attended before, and one look at the line free drinks for participants had Steve running down your entire group to insist that you all needed to dress up, to participate in this, for the luxury of free Tito’s. 

He’d never considered that the ad might not be targeted towards the male population. And now, you were all gathering at his apartment to pregame, ‘slutted out’ as Robin had so kindly put it – men included.

Nancy pulled out some sort of angel costume she claims she had bought but certainly not worn a few years back, Robin had conglomerated an alluring pirate attire from items you hadn’t even been aware were in her closet. Jonathan arrived in his erotic yet pensive writer’s costume (you’d hardly understood it, but he seemed confident, so you all went with it), Argyle in tow donning some sort of seductive surfer costume, in which you certainly recognized the unbuttoned shirt and cargo shorts that had had a pocket knife taken to them to disregard a few inches. Steve even stuck to his own demands, going all out – a sensual bunny costume.

And then, there was Eddie.

Eddie fuckin’ Munson. 

“Pick your jaw up off the ground, sweetheart,” he teases as he shuffles around you in the kitchen to grab a drink, “Gonna start catching flies otherwise.” 

“There’s a joke in there somewhere about how sweet I am, right?” you blandly reply, keeping your eyes on your room temp cocktail that Steve had so graciously mixed for you upon your arrival, “Something where you call me honey or sugar, yeah?” 

Eddie pauses, bottle of vodka in hand, looking at you with big eyes lined in coal, “Oh, baby, you know me so well.” 

“Cut the pet names, Munson.”

You try to scowl. You really do. But you don’t mean a damn word you say. 

Sweetheart. Baby. Hell, even honey would have done it for you when he was wearing that costume. 

Tight leather pants, flared at the ankle. Worn leather boots that certainly had to have been thrifted, clicking with each of his steps. A cow print vest, and just a vest, over what looked to be an oiled chest. 

And that fucking hat smashing down his curls, adding a shadow across his face that only built into the illusion. 

You hate him. You hate this stupid party. You hate Steve for ever suggesting this. 

“You don’t mean that,” he sing-songs as he pours his own drink into a red solo cup. The vodka mixes with cranberry juice, you think, before he’s dropping a few ice cubes out of the freezer. “Or maybe you do, and I should try saying them with a southern drawl,” Fuck, he does a good southern accent. Slow and syrupy sweet, molasses down the throat as he flutters his lashes at you, “That better, darlin’?” 

You pluck the thin black straw that had been added to your cup for flare, probably stolen from a hotel at some point by Steve and positively meant for drinks of the coffee variety, and flick it in his direction without hesitation. 

“Terrible,” you flatly lie, “Cowboys aren’t even from the south, idiot. They’re from the West.” 

You have no desire to hear Eddie’s Western accent. No desire to hear Texan twang on those lips, putting on his best John Wayne impression. In fact, the faster you can get away from him, the quicker you can get yourself under control. 

It had always been this way between you and Eddie. Push and pull. Will they, won’t they. A game of cosmic shores as the two of you toed at each other’s orbits and bantered effortlessly. Flirtatious threats, inappropriate compliments, lewd innuendos – you had done it all, specifically with Eddie.

That’s just how the friendship worked. 

The friendship. 

Friend. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Eddie won’t leave you alone, though, choosing to lean up against the counter beside you, forcing his way into your peripherals, “Damn. You’re right. Wayne would kill me if he knew I mixed that up.” 

“Oh, I think he has plenty of reasons to knock some sense into you.” 

“Yeah?” he leans forward, tauntingly, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, “Why don’t you do it for him? I think I’d like a slap more coming from you, honestly.”

He’s acting like he always does. This is normal. The fact that his entire torso is on show and you can’t stop staring at the way his tattoo on his peck is shimmering doesn’t change that. 

You play the role, knowing your part well as you lean in as well, forcing a smile right back at him, “Wanna kiss my knuckles before I do it, or am I gonna have to do all the hard work here?” 

“Oh, trust me, you’d never have to do all the work with me, ba-”

“Can you two get a fucking room?” Robin interrupts as she enters the room, clearly coming in for a refill but getting more than she bargained for. 

You’re aflame with the shame and embarrassment, feeling it lick from your ankles up to your throat, as Eddie only chuckles lowly. 

“Sorry, Robs,” Eddie chirps, not sounding apologetic at all, “I promise I’ll behave myself the rest of the night.” 

And yet, despite the words you’re hearing him say out loud, he does the exact opposite. 

There’s no real need for him to do it. There’s plenty of space amongst the kitchen for him to maneuver his way out without laying a single hand on you – and yet he still fucking does. 

His palm is shockingly warm when it curls around your hip, his other hand occupied with a drink, encouraging you to move a step forward so that he can brush behind you far too close for comfort. You nearly stumble over himself as he does it. The feeling of his barren chest barely bumping your bare shoulder blades sends your mind reeling, and his staple rings that have incorporated into his costume press right through the thin fabric of your dress.

Your breathing stops entirely as he pauses, the slightest bit of skin still brushing against yours, and leans in with a boyish grin, “We’ll both be on our best behavior tonight – right, kitty?” 

Something clicks in your mind. The way the nickname rolls off his tongue as he’s looking at you with eyes flaming with mischief, hand lingering on your hip for far too long. 

Your eyes flicker up to the hat on his head, and you smile slowly, meeting his toying gaze, “Right, cowboy.”

Best behavior, your ass. Tonight, you have decided, ends the will they, won’t they of it all. 

It’s about to either be the best night of your life, or the worst. 

—

Another shot with Nancy. Another smoke with Argyle. Another adjusting of Steve’s corset when he complains he can’t breathe (he certainly can, but you’re starting to think he just likes the attention). The pregaming continues on as more of Steve’s friends from work show up, the apartment slowly beginning to buzz with the chatter of more strangers than you can count on one hand.

You’re not even at the club yet and you’re already regretting your revealing attire.

Eddie stays mostly preoccupied with his own devices, and only gets scolded a handful of times by Nancy. You can hear every lewd joke he makes, of course. At some point, you make a private drinking game out of it; a sip for every time he makes the stereotypical joke of ‘save a horse, ride a cowboy’. 

Well, it was a sip the first time. A slightly larger gulp the second time. A chugging of half your drink the third time. 

“There’s no fucking way,” Steve laments at the table the boys as well as a few guests you don’t recognize have taken over for a game of strip poker, “Jonathan is cheating. Or counting cards.”

“I concur,” Eddie mutters around his cigarette, scowling at his losing hand. 

“You’re also cheating, asshole. This is the first round you’ve lost the entire game.”

“Or maybe I’m just really good at cards, Harrington.” 

“Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I’m really good at-”

“He’s not cheating,” Nancy interrupts with a sigh from the couch, lounging as she’s served as a referee of sorts for the group. Her entire body weight is draped against Robin, and you’re certainly not going to comment on Robin’s hands toying with her permed locks, “Stop being a sore loser and just strip.” 

You get why Steve was the most upset. He was down to his underwear and socks, corset tossed somewhere far behind him and bunny ears placed on Robin’s head in place of her pirate hat that she had claimed became too warm. 

“I think Steve should trade both socks and put back on the bunny ears,” she quips as she reaches up for the headband, flicking at one of the floppy ears, “He’d look cuter that way.” 

“Fuck off,” he snaps, throwing up a middle finger as Argyle finally loses his shirt. 

When your attention has drifted, you know he did exactly that, though. 

The game had been boring you half to death, honestly. Watching Steve strip without fail every round, hearing the loud cheers from Argyle when he managed to win a few rounds in a row and exclaimed it was a turkey (it had taken a ten minute intermission to explain to him that was bowling, not poker), watching a few of the girls that Steve had invited fawn over him as they carefully removed boots and gloves when they lost – none of it sparked your interest. The only saving grace had been every smug look Eddie offered as he’d win, time and time again. So far, he’d only lost his boots. 

He was hot when he was cocky. There was no way around it.

And now, as he carefully pondered as to which part of his precious costume to part with, you were on the edge of your seat. He was lovely and enticing when he was excited, when he was jubilant with victory, but as a sore loser? 

Dear God, Eddie Munson was a gorgeous specimen with a pout on his lips. 

“Trying to decide what to take off, Munson?” Jonathan notices the way Eddie is hesitating, even through the offset of conversations that had sparked up in the brief pause amongst the growing group.

You lean forward on the couch, almost subconsciously. 

You don’t care what Stacy from Steve’s job thinks of their manager or the latest drama ongoing there, and Steve would probably agree with you if it weren’t for Stacy’s all-red, latex Devil costume.

Eddie scoffs, waving a hand over his attire, “Obviously. You know, it’s not easy to choose when you have a costume as damn good as mine.” 

“What? Don’t think you’ll be as pretty without your hat?” you decide to contribute to the teasing, shocking yourself in the process. 

The last thing you should do when you’re staring him down in this way, is bring attention to yourself. And yet you were, like some fucking idiot with a death wish. 

“You think I’m pretty?”

It’s the fluttering of his lashes as he says it that gives you the courage. They match all that fluttering in your stomach, all that buzzing across your nerves. Because – yeah, you thought he was real fucking pretty. You’d spent the last half hour imagining how pretty he’d look in all sorts of places, too, especially between your sheets and between your thighs. 

You’re up off the couch, taking confident steps towards where he’s seated at the ground on the other side of the coffee table. It’s a little inconvenient now, but it had been a blessing in disguise for most of the game as you’d had a front row seat to the sight of him. 

“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself,” you tease, entirely ignoring that lightheaded feeling you get anytime Eddie looks up at you this way. Half-lidded eyes, crooked grin. He’s dangerous and he doesn’t even know it, “I only meant you were pretty with the hat.” 

“You wound me,” he gasps, dropping back on his hands dramatically, his pout now for dramatics rather than genuine, “Gonna stand there and tell me I’m not pretty when I dressed up just for you?”

You have to take a deep breath to compose yourself, cross your arms to steady your guard, “Just for me?” 

He was playing that same old, tired game of yours. The same dance the two of you had memorized the steps to – and something inside of you has grown restless of it. You don’t want to keep skirting around each other with double-meaning jokes, you don’t want to keep painting humor over your flirtatious remarks. You want a damn answer to the age old question of will they, won’t they?

And you want that answer to be will they – terribly, terribly so.

His eyes trail along the room slowly, not avoiding you but trying to draw out the anticipation in you as he sucks in a breath, “Okay, and maybe for Steve. And Nancy. And Argyle. And Jonathan. And- Well, I’d say Robin, but I don’t think she’s looked twice in my direction all night.” 

“I haven’t,” the brunette chirps happily from the couch, still letting the weight of Nancy comfortably dig into her. 

You have no idea how she’s tuned into the conversation, given the way most of everyone else around the room was entirely ignoring the two of you. 

“So,” you all but purr, leaning down to be more level with Eddie. You already know where his focus wanders when his eyes don’t meet yours, “Not just for me, cowboy.” 

He’s distracted, staring at your chest as you notice him slip up in his brave facade for a second. Almost as though you’ve gone too far, pushed the limits a bit too hard. Good. You want to break this. You want to shatter whatever cage the two of you have built.

In one smooth movement, your hand reaches out and snatches the hat right off his head. 

He lets out a yelp and tries to grab it away from you, but you have the advantage as you stand up straight once more. Your free hand reaches up and tears off the cat ears you had donned, and in their place, the hat is deposited. 

It fits you a little big, and you nearly make a joke about the size of Eddie’s head. 

“Hey!” he argues, moving as though he might stand up and put up more of a fight, “I didn’t say the hat is what I wanted to take off.” 

“Took too long,” you shrug innocently. 

“Yeah, well, just carefully add it to the pile,” he jabs his thumb over his shoulder, towards his boots, as he relaxes back into his recline.

You should probably behave yourself. 

“No.”

But this is more fun. 

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up in shot, disappearing behind the bangs that are flattened far more than usual. The entire crown of his head is absolutely crushed. No sign of his usual frizzy roots and unruly volume, “No?”

“No,” you confirm a second time. 

And you’re done with this game of back and forth. 

The hat’s staying on your head. It smells ever so faintly of his shampoo, the slightest whiff of his cologne even, and it’s staying on your head for the exact reason he believes is about to be a gotcha! moment.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he’s just tipsy enough that he’s not putting on any specific accent. Instead, his natural Appalachian accent inherited from his uncle begins to break the surface, ��Surely you know about the hat rule.” 

Damn right, you know about the hat rule.

You cross your arms, huff a little, tilt the hat for effect, “The hat rule? Please, enlighten me.” 

“You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.” 

Perfect. 

You don’t even attempt any sort of surprised act. No exaggerated gasps, no fumbling to remove the hat. You knew all about this rule, and it had been one of the first things to come to mind when you’d seen him enter this damn party with the hat on. 

“Yeah?” you question, mocking raising your eyebrows at best, “Hm. What a shame.”

And then you turn on your heel, not awaiting a single response from Eddie as you escape to the kitchen.

You almost wish you would have stayed an extra second to properly witness his reaction. There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s gone pretty and pink, a flustered mess for at least a second as low laughter sounds from the rest of your friends. A tell-tale snort from Robin, and a silent cackle from Nancy. You swear you even pick up on one of the extra guests muttering a confused what just happened? that goes entirely unanswered.

Strip poker doesn’t continue on for long after that.

You refill your drink, this time sans the alcohol, and return to find Steve has officially begun to call for cabs to the club. He busies away on his phone as everyone debates who’s riding with who, the entire party slowly coming to life as everyone stands to prepare to leave for the main attraction. 

When you meet Eddie’s gaze from across the room, the shadow of the brim of his hat cutting into your vision a little, his cheeks match the cranberry juice in your cup. 

Good. 

—

The ride to the club is a blur, and all that really stands out to you is that Eddie makes sure he does not ride in the same cab as you.

Which is fine. Really. It doesn’t cause a single spark of panic in your chest. Not one. 

You’re definitely not working yourself up over the thought that your plan is crumbling right before your eyes, that you’ve gone too far and entirely misinterpreted everything Eddie has ever done during your entire friendship. You’re not mulling over every dirty joke, not dissecting every single line that felt like he was flirting with you and attempting to look at it with fresh eyes. No, the entire ride to the club, you are definitely not beating a dead horse dead. 

Maybe you should have set off to ride the dead horse and not the cowboy. Maybe, then, Eddie would have gotten into the fucking cab with you. 

Your anxieties only worsen once you get inside the club. Pulsing beneath your skin, right in rhythm with the music. Your entire group had each been handed a drink ticket on your way in, and you had noted the fact that the girls of the group were slipped extra tickets. 

Nancy had given all her tickets to Robin, and Steve had given his singular ticket to Stacy. 

“So,” Robin runs up to your side, Nancy not far behind, “Do we waste our drink tickets on shots or real drinks?” 

“Real drinks,” you immediately reply, eyes scanning the bouncing crowd for a certain head of curly hair, “Shots are… well, they can be cheap. We can just avoid the top-shelf shit.”

Was Eddie really going to ignore you the entire night? 

He needed his hat. He couldn’t ignore you the entire night. 

“You’re right,” Robin shuffles the drink tickets in her hands, turning to Nancy, “On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be me to ask you to flirt with men to get me-”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll have us a round.” 

Nancy’s smile is sweet, courteous, as she gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze on her way past her. 

Where the fuck is Eddie? 

“Did you see where the guys ran off to?” you blurt out. Most of the guys, aside from Steve, took the same cab. 

Robin also joins you in a quick survey of the club, lifting onto her tippy toes to squint over the current light show, “Honestly? I have no idea.” 

Fuck. 

As she drops back down onto her heels, Robin looks at you knowingly, eyes flicking up between your twisted expression and the hat on your head. 

“Trying to find a certain cowboy?” 

“What?” you look at her, already defensive, even if it was stupid at this point. Who cares if everyone knows you have a crush on Eddie? Who cares if everyone finds out the very foundations of your friendship with him were built upon quite a bit of truth? “I mean- yeah, he kind of needs his hat to complete his outfit.” 

“Should have just given him your ears for an even trade,” Robin shrugs, clinging to your elbow to avoid getting separated as a few bodies push past the two of you, “I’m sure he’ll pop up soon enough, though. Besides, I don’t think anyone’s too focused on what everyone’s costumes are as long as they’re… well…”

“Slutted out,” you finish for her flatly, trying to not get jealous as your eyes look across the sweaty crowd, stomach churning as you wonder how many other sexy black cats in the crowd would be approaching your cowboy. 

You fucked up. You shouldn’t have taken his hat. 

“Exactly!” she’s excited, unaware of your crisis, already moving along from the topic as she spots Nancy somewhere near the bar top, “Look, free shots!” 

The free shots don’t do much to quell your unease, but free alcohol is always nice.

You take the liquid down, burn and all, more than willingly. And then again, not even five minutes later when Nancy has caught the attention of another random man at the end of the bar. You almost partake in a third, but you finally hear a familiar voice saying a far too familiar joke. 

“You know what they say,” he’s flirting – he’s using a tone of voice that he has never used with you, and it’s clear he’s fucking flirting, “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.” 

Instead of continuing your drinking game from Steve’s apartment, you slam the shot back down and mutter some sorry excuse of being right back to Robin and Nancy before taking off in the direction of Eddie.

He’s stood a few stools down at the bar, hands leaning against the worn wood as his arms bracket a pretty blonde. It almost looks as if the line might be working on her. 

“If you’re a cowboy,” she giggles, and you almost stop dead in your tracks, “Then where’s your hat?” 

Well, that’s as good of a queue for your arrival if any. 

“Good question,” you pipe up as you take a few brave steps towards him, “Where is your hat, cowboy?” 

You’d expected him to be angry, or startled, or possibly even immediately take off running in the opposite direction of you. He doesn’t. 

He slowly turns, and his flirtatious smile has turned into more of a salacious grin as he faces you, “Well, well, well. Nice of you to join us, Kitty.” 

The blonde looks between you two a few times before shimmying down off her stool, “I think…. I’m gonna go. Nice to meet you, cowboy.”

You expect Eddie to react, but he hardly does. A quick glance in her direction, a pathetic wave. 

You’ve just trampled over one of his chances of getting properly lucky tonight, and he isn’t even phased. 

“Been lookin’ for you,” you mumble, looking over him. His hair seems to have been unstuck from his scalp a little, at least. As though he may have been running his hands through it repeatedly, “Thought you might have gone home without your hat.” 

“Not a chance. I haven’t forgotten about the rule, you know.” 

Something twists in you, deep in your gut, between your hips. 

“No?” you hold your breath as he leans in a bit closer to you to be able to hear over the music, “Good thing I haven’t either.” 

He tilts his head, eyes glittering in the multi-colored lights, “You haven’t? Then that means you’ll be giving it back, right?” 

Over my dead body. 

You’re on a mission tonight. You’ll either be ending this night in sore disappointment, drinking away your sorrows of rejection, or you’ll be ending up in a bed with Eddie. It’s up to him. 

You lift a hand to the worn rim, tugging it a bit more securely onto your head, “Not a chance, Munson. You know where to find me once you’re done playing around.”

As soon as your fingers leave the rim, holding tense eye contact with him, his own hand is coming up. You tense, worried he’s about to steal the hat back now, but he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers pinch the same spot yours just had, slow tracing over the rim as his tongue darts out to carefully wet his bottom lip. 

From the front point, around to the side. When he reaches the bit above your ear, his touch drops to your cheek and tucks back some of the baby hairs sticking to your skin with sweat. 

“I do, don’t I?” he hums, voice dropping a bit lower, focused entirely on you. “I don’t think I’m the one playing around right now, though, Kitty.” 

Does he think you’re joking? Does he actually, genuinely think this is all a game to you? 

You nearly make the decision to grab him right there, right at this moment, and shatter all the tension. Get his lips on yours and drag him into the darkest corner just to prove to him how serious you truly were. 

Suddenly, his hand drops away from you entirely, and you almost want to whine. You miss that warmth, that feathery caress, until it aches. “It’s okay, though. Always knew cats were playful things.” 

Is there a dark corner somewhere near you two? Is there a dark hallway to drag him into? Just enough shadow to cover all the sins you’re desperate to commit, just enough light to see that blush rise across his cheeks again. 

“I’m not playing,” you whisper, eyes drifting down to his hand cradling a glass. Something deep and russet, just like his eyes. Likely whiskey. You wonder if you’d be able to taste it all over his tongue before you had him putting it to work where you need him most right now. “Whenever you get that through your big head, come find me.” 

“Big head?” he throws his head back in a laugh, and the tension mists away in seconds. “Who says I have a big head?” 

“I do, as the one wearing your hat,” you readjust it for emphasis. 

You thought the tension had misted away until he’s smirking, tsking a little, “Oh, thought you meant the other one.” 

It’s a replay of the scene in Steve’s apartment, but this time, the roles are reversed. You’re the one left in shock, mouth agape, as Eddie spins around and walks away, leaving you to sit with what he’s just said. 

“Bastard,” you breathe out as you watch him disappear in the crowd, eyes locked on his broad shoulders until one too many bodies separate the two of you. 

A bastard you want awfully, terribly, bad. 

—

You wish you could say you threw back drink, after drink, after drink. You wish you could say you danced with a hundred different beautiful strangers, and each one strayed your mind farther from Eddie. 

You wish you could say you did anything but what the reality of your night had been.

A few men had approached you, only to be turned down repeatedly. Most of your night was spent all but moping at the bar, eyes diligently scanning the bouncing crowd for a certain curly haired figure that seemed to escape you. One moment, you’d catch him pressed against a flirty stranger, hands holding onto whatever bare skin was available to him. And then, his eyes would find yours, and there would be a spark; a wink, a smile, a whisper across a bustling room daring you to come out and play with him. 

You never did. You’d look away, take a sip of your plain coke, and wait a few seconds until it was safe to look back and find him seemingly vanished. 

That in itself had started to become a game. Just like the hat, weighing heavy on your head. 

You’re starting to accept that maybe you had just been a bit too brave. You’d jumped the gun, flown feet first into cold and ragged waters you weren’t prepared to navigate. You knew you wanted a change with Eddie, but were you ready? If you had been, you would have accepted one of his various invites. Would have strode across the room, shoved away whatever man or woman he was dancing with, and slotted yourself into their place. You would have been swaying your hips in rhythm with his rather than allowing him to cycle through strangers, and you’d be reminding him that you wore his hat. 

You’d be the one bringing up the hat rule to him consistently, not him to you. 

When the night begins to wane, you’ve already talked yourself out of it all. 

“I’m heading out,” you announce to Robin when she finally returns back to where you’ve sat at the bar to babysit their drinks, hopping down from the stool before she could argue, “I’m getting way too tired.” 

“What?” your friend gasps, face pink from the heat of being in the crowd, a shimmering sheen of sweat across her forehead, “No! Stay! We can take turns watching the drinks, or just-”

“Robs,” you smile as sweetly as possible, patting yourself down to make sure you have all your belongings. A whistle sounds from a group down the way at the bar, and you ignore them, “It’s seriously okay. You’re having fun! I’m just a senior citizen who needs some sleep. My bedtime was like…. An hour ago.” 

You highly doubt you’ll be getting any rest when you return to your apartment. Maybe some confidence can be built out of fantasies, letting your hands wander and sheets catch fire with all that could have been if you hadn’t talked yourself out of your perfect plan. 

Maybe, imagining Eddie’s hot hands on you rather than getting to properly feel them will light a damn fire under your ass for the next opportunity that arises. 

“I…” she sighs, glancing over her shoulder in the general direction of Nancy, “Okay, fine. But do we want to do brunch or something tomorrow?” 

Not a chance, you think rather quickly, eyes scanning once more for the metal-head-turned-cowboy. Not if Eddie’s going to be there.

“Sure,” you lie, already knowing he will be there, “Just text me.” 

With that, you make your grand escape. 

Borrowed hat on head, phone in hand, you push your way out of the club with a newfound determination. You want to get home and take off this uncomfortable dress, finally do away with the thigh highs that have been rolling down at the most inconvenient of times, driving you insane the entire night. Trade the sexy attire for something comfy – stay true to the cat essence as you curl up beneath your blankets for the night. Hang that damn cowboy hat on your door as a cursed reminder-

“Where do you think you’re going, Kitty?” 

You stop a few feet short of the curb, a cab ordered as you turn to find that bastard leaning against the wall. Cigarette smoke is still clinging to the air around him as he looks at you curiously. 

“Home,” you shrug, trying to ignore your pounding heart. You’d figured you wouldn’t see him again tonight, that your fate had been sealed. “What are you doing out here?” 

“Smoke break,” he lifts his hand with the cigarette pinched between two fingers casually, pushing off the wall to come closer, “It’s hard work, keeping you entertained all night.” 

You scoff, falling back into what’s almost a normal rhythm for you two, “You were not the one keeping me entertained all night.” 

“I hardly saw you dance with anyone at all.” 

“I did!” you try to defend yourself, deciding this could be fine. Some casual conversation as you wait for your ride, a way to pass the time. This is fine. “Robin dragged me out into the crowd at least twice.” 

“I watched you swat a guy’s hands away not once, but three times.” 

“Unsolicited touching isn’t a compliment. He should have taken the hint the first time.” 

Eddie nods in eager agreement, taking another drag of his cigarette, “Damn right. If he had gone in for a fourth try, I was considering dragging him out here for an early smoke break.” 

“Why do I highly doubt it would just be a smoke break?” you question, glancing at him with a smile. Scandalous plans aside for the night, embarrassment swallowed down whole, it’s nice to remember that Eddie is a friend. Albeit a bit flirty, and capable of driving you fucking insane, but he’s a friend.

And maybe that isn’t the worst thing in the world. 

“Oh, no, yeah. You’d be posting my bail.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’ve got my hat, ” he reaches out and flicks the brim with his free hand, and you freeze up a little. You had hoped he wouldn’t mention it again, “Kind of makes me your problem until the end of the night. Speaking of….” 

You already know what he’s about to request as he trails off. This is it. You either give up the bit, hand the hat back over, and go home for the night – or you make one final attempt to get what you had wanted.

Eddie. You wanted Eddie, as more than a friend. 

“I’m gonna need that back, sweetheart.”

At least he’s asking politely, you consider, before it hits you why he’s asking rather than taking. 

The looks across the room. The way he’d been unbothered by the girl he’d been flirting with running off at your appearance. The way he never just took back that fucking hat when he’d been provided ample opportunity. 

He thinks it’s a game for you, and keeps bringing it up, because it isn’t for him. He’s giving you one last chance to back out, or to stand your ground. To say you really want this. 

And fuck, you really want this. 

“Nope,” you lean into his space, pressing closer, fully committed. Your phone dings with the notification of your ride approaching, and you fully ignore it. “My hat now, cowboy.” 

He quirks an eyebrow, and you hear the crunch of gravel behind you. Your ride. “Is that so?” 

“Yep.”

Another ding, another buzz of your phone.

Go ahead. Bring up the hat rule. 

“That your ride?” he asks, tilting his chin in the direction of the car. 

You glance over your shoulder, “Pretty sure it is, yeah.” 

“And you remember the hat rule?” 

Your stomach twists with excitement. Your previous pity party is long forgotten – you’re still hoping to get out of this dress, but you highly doubt you’ll be slipping anything on after it. “I do.”

“Great,” those hot hands you’d been fantasizing about the entire night suddenly reach out to you, gripping your hips tightly as he tugs you into his body. You collide with his chest as he leans down and whispers in your ear, “In that case, that’s my pussy now.” 

His lips linger against the shell of your ear an extra second, warm breath sending chills up your spine before he’s keeping an arm around your shoulders as he guides you to the car. His cologne and the scent of tobacco is suffocating, and you crave to drown in it. You want him to consume you; you want him to take over every breath you breathe, every move you make, to finally get those hot hands and lips everywhere you’ve only dreamt of. 

You barely hear him confirm with the driver that it is in fact your ride – you can only focus on that hand on your lower back, palm heavy on you as his thumb traces arcs that nearly spend you spiraling. 

“After you, kitty,” he murmurs, motioning for you to slide into the backseat first. 

In that case, that’s my pussy now.

You hope he ruins you. 

In the backseat of the ride, it’s all polite distance and hands to yourself. You can’t even make eye contact with the driver, terrified he might be able to mindread and see all the filthy thoughts racing through your head. 

Eddie between your thighs, mouthing at your hips. 

Eddie hovering over you, pulling your knees to your chest as he stretches you out. 

Eddie, proving that your pussy is in fact his for the night. That it was made for him, sculpted out to fit the curvature and every single vein of him. 

Eddie simply fucking your brains out. 

Some polite conversation is exchanged, mostly between Eddie and the driver. The classic questioning of how the night has gone, small talk that buzzes in your ears mindlessly. 

The entire time, you can see Eddie’s hand in the space between you two, fingers tapping away at dark leather incessantly. His rings shimmer like a siren calling to you. 

It’s a small movement, when your own hand drops near his. You keep your eyes trained forward once you begin your mission, inching your pinky closer and closer until it finally collides with his. You swear, you feel him fully jump out of his seat. 

Slowly warming the water, you start off simple – playing with his fingers. Gentle caresses over his knuckles, little pricks to the pads of his fingers. He tries to capture your hand in his, but you have bigger plans at play here. 

You’ve spent the entire fucking night waiting for this. You’re going to have fun with it. 

He huffs after you deter his second attempt at properly holding hands, his knees falling apart a little further. You twist at the ring on his middle finger, a clunky skull you’ve always admired. It has minimal signs of wear, probably pure silver if you had to guess, and you can only imagine how cold it’s going to feel against your skin. 

You can only imagine the imprints it’ll leave if he grabs your hips just right. 

“You know,” the driver hums mindlessly over the low volume of the radio, “You guys are my first ride of the night, surprisingly. Thought it might be busier with all the parties and clubs, but I think it’s just barely picking up now.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks politely, nodding as he looks out his window. Perfect, “I think you’re right. It is getting pretty late-”

He’s entirely distracted, your hand out of his line of sight as it moves in on its target. 

His thigh. 

Just a few inches above his knee, your hand grips at what is clearly sensitive flesh. You watch his entire body turn to stone when you do it, and he moves his head quickly to look in your direction. 

You’re looking straight ahead. 

There had been a time, a few weeks ago, where you’d learned Eddie had… sensitive knees. You’d been joking around about one thing or another, and when your palms had gripped at them through the torn fabric of ripped jeans, he’d nearly launched himself across the room. He just kept insisting they were ticklish, that that skin was just delicate.

You’d seen the tent in his jeans then. You’d just been a bit more polite, a bit better behaved that day. 

“What are you doing?” he hisses in a whisper, reaching for your hand, but you’re quick to slide it even higher. 

His hips jump a little, and the driver is none the wiser. 

“Nothing,” you innocently say, still looking ahead, watching the passing streetlights with intense interest. “Absolutely nothing at all.” 

The entire ride, at every red light, your hand inches higher. 

And every time, you relish the way he squirms in your peripherals.

By the time you’re five minutes out from your place, you’ve riled him up to impossible heights. Every little noise has him on edge, constant twitching and shifting in his seat as he tries to get you to just look at him. You know he’s catching every sly smile that attempts to creep up on your lips – you’re pathetically failing at every turn to cover them up. 

You think you have him like putty in your palms as you give yet another squeeze to his thigh, fingers starting to dance up even higher. When your eyes flicker to his crotch for just a second, you see him straining against that tight leather. 

And then he flips the script. 

You’re so focused on your own goals, you never see that ringed hand creep to your own thigh. It’s not until cool metal nips at you, briefly, before you feel the warmth of his hand overtake, that you realize the predicament you’ve gotten into. 

Just as your hand was beginning to skim over his crotch, Eddie’s hand found solace between the meat of your thighs. Even as you try to clench them together, deny him the access he was seeking out, he finds his way in. Scandalous fingers dipping under the hem of your dress, fighting fire with fire when he lets his middle finger brush across the fabric of your underwear. 

Your touch from him nearly retracts entirely. 

“What?” he leans in closer to you, the driver still focused on the road, “Don’t like a taste of your own medicine?”

As he says it, his fingers dip lower. Hovering right over your protected clit, making your entire abdomen clench. 

You swallow hard, a bit of your jagged pride somewhere amongst the spit as you turn your head to look at him, “I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Still playing games I see.” 

In sync, the two of you lock eyes as you continue to test waters. You apply pressure with your palm and note the way his breathing hitches, and he draws a feather-light circle around the wet patch forming in your underwear. You can feel your bottom lip quiver as you try to refuse to give him any satisfaction, but when he’s this close, it’s a hopeless battle.

When had he gotten so near you? What happened to all that static distance from when you’d first crawled into the backseat?

You’re trying to only focus on your own hand. Eyes darting to guarantee the driver is still oblivious as you roll the heel of your hand harder against the seam of his pants, and biting your lip to hold back a successful grin when he has to cover a gasp with a cough. It’s all fun and games until the action is rewarded with his payback; his knuckle curling up against your cunt through your panties, pressing in hard before slowly sliding his way up, up, up. 

He deliberately stops when he catches on your clit, and you’re the one coughing now. 

“Had enough?” he mutters under his breath, looking at you with half-lidded eyes. He looks good in this lighting, flashes of the streetlights bathing him in soft yellow, headlights of other cars fluttering in through the windshield as they hit his brown eyes just right to bronze them. 

“Never.”

You almost think you’ve won when his knuckle pulls back. 

But suddenly, his entire hand is cupping your cunt, two fingers pressing against your fluttering hole as another drags up your slit slowly once more. This time, when he reaches your clit, he continues moving in small circles. 

You have to bite your lip to hold back any noises, eyes closing for just a second as you hear him huff out a laugh. 

The final damnation is when he brings his lips to your bare shoulder, merely grazing your skin with them as he mumbles, “You sure about that, Kitty?” 

You clench around nothing, and you know when he feels it from where his fingers remain pressed against you. His own hand twitches as the finger circling your clit stutters for a moment. 

“I-”

“We’re here!” the driver says, not having looked into the backseat yet as he finds a safe place to pull the car into. In an instant, you and Eddie remove your hands from each other. You’re both visibly flustered – you can feel how warm your cheeks have gotten, and you can see clouds of pink splattering over Eddie’s chest and neck. 

“Thanks,” Eddie is the one to speak up as the car comes to a halt, not even waiting for the driver to put the vehicle in park as he throws the door open. 

A bit rushed, but still polite as ever before he’s grabbing you by your bicep to pull you out of the cramped space right along with him. 

You can hardly muster a weak wave to the man as Eddie is dragging you towards your apartment building, knees still a bit weak and mind still blank after getting a taste of your own medicine, as Eddie had put it. 

He doesn’t let go of you until you’re at your front door, those cursed shaking hands of yours fumbling with your key ring. 

“Here, let me-” he starts to offer, reaching for the keys that continue to clank together, just as you find the one you’re looking for. 

“I’ve got it-” you try to cut him off, just as you drop the fucking keys in your haste. “Shit.” 

You quickly drop to the ground to grab them, pausing once you have the metal digging into your palms once more. There’s no real reason for you to do it, but you do – you take a second to look up at Eddie from this position, and nearly drool at the sight of it.

Him, standing over you, still a bit flushed and still visibly uncomfortable in his pants. Pretty curls a mess and lips darkening from how much he’s been biting them. 

You want him to ruin you. You want him to absolutely, entirely and utterly destroy you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he laughs, chest heaving a bit as he watches you carefully, pupils slowly growing in the dim light of your building’s hallway. 

You can see his bare torso clenching, the twitch of his hands at his sides – the same fingers that had just been caressing you over your underwear in the backseat of a stranger’s car. 

“Like what?” you’re dragging out the moment, taking time to appreciate the sight of him. 

“Like you want me to just press you up against the wall and fuck you out here, for everyone to see.” 

That’s a new one. That’s a vision that hadn’t come to you in all your dirtiest dreams of the night. 

It sends your clit throbbing. 

You rise slowly, pushing the hat back a bit to see him better, keeping your voice quiet so your neighbors won’t hear as you ask, “Would you? If I asked nicely?” 

He doesn’t let out a laugh, but a breath of air, like you’ve just sucked all of the oxygen out of his lungs. 

No need to say it – you know he would. You probably wouldn’t even have to ask nicely. 

You’re staring at him when he finally moves, one hand snatching your keys out of your hand and the other gripping you around the waist. Back to pulling you, man-handling you to get you right where he wants you – where he needs you. 

One second, you’re pressed against his body in the hallway. The next, he’s managed to unlock your front door and throw you both into the safety of your apartment. 

Hidden from the world, and you’re still reeling as you wonder what it’d be like for the entire building to witness you calling out his name. Or him calling out your name. 

Here within these four walls, Eddie has put some space between the two of you, staring with blown out eyes and a shaking chest as he breathes out, “Sweetheart.”

A few seconds pass, the two of you just standing there, the click of the front door’s lock being the only thing echoing in the silence. If you focused over the roar of the blood pounding in your ears, you might catch every single gasp of his as he stares in awe – but your focus is elsewhere. Far away and out of grasp for the time being. You can only think of one thing, and one thing only. 

Your body isn’t your own as you move to get exactly what you want; you drop to your knees hard enough that you should cringe at the thought of the pain that will linger, possibly for days, but it doesn’t even cross your mind as your hands begin to fumble with Eddie’s pants. The oversized, gaudy belt buckle is in your way, glinting at you as if mocking the way your shaking hands can’t undo it fast enough. You’re about to give up and just start unzipping the leather pants, desperate to get your hands, and your mouth, and your eyes on him properly, when he stops you. 

“Hey,” he sounds breathless - he is breathless - as his own hands quiver a bit and grab onto yours, “Hey, hey, hey. Slow down.”

Those hands let go of your wrists and reach for the hat, and you’re quick to try and swat them away only for him to grab at you, surprisingly gentle, as he drags you back up to your feet. 

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy – right?” you insist, chin held high, your gaze refusing to waver from his. 

His slow and buttery grin makes you lightheaded, his low chuckle sends shakes through every nerve and bone. “That’s right, but maybe the cowboy wants to take his time. Ever think of that, hm?” 

Were you moving too fast? Were you going to scare him off? 

Small, baby steps are taken by Eddie, the click of his heels shattering against your wooden floors until his hips are flush with yours. 

And - oh.

Oh. 

That surely didn’t feel like you were scaring him off. 

You could feel the outline of his cock, hard against your hip, as he gives a little roll. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth, nostrils flaring with a hard breath, and the fear leaves as quickly as it had arrived. 

He wants this. You want him. 

“I’m not a very patient person,” you murmur, eyes glued to his lips now as his head leans in closer, and his hands begin to explore your body. Taking their time as they travel down your arms from where he’d held onto your biceps, slowing as they reach your wrists. Even the press of his thumb against the sensitive inner skin there sends jolts up your spine, little gasps attempting to escape your mouth. 

His fingers tangle loosely with your own for a few moments before his palms find your hips, and he continues his journey. 

“That’s okay,” he whispers back, close enough now that his lips have begun to brush against your own. His nose bumps yours as his hands skate up over your ribcage, thumb sweeping out over the hill of your breast and intentionally avoiding your nipple, “I can teach you, baby.”

Your mouth finally collides with him at the words, nearly going limp in his arms at the words. 

You’ve thought about kissing Eddie for a while now. Every time a snarky remark fell from his lips, you’d wonder how his tongue might taste afterwards. Every time he’d pout his lips at one of your comebacks, or blow a kiss teasingly in your direction from across a room, you’d wonder how hard you might have to bite down to make him bleed. Every drag of a cigarette you’d witnessed, every hard gasp in faux offense, every breathless chuckle at a joke he didn’t want to find funny but did – you had spent a lot of time wondering what it might be like to steal all the air from his lungs, to kiss him until the two of you were both blue in the face. 

“Can’t the lesson wait until tomorrow?” you mumble against him as his mouth, your own fists now gripping onto the lapels of his vest. His hands have reached your shoulders, memorizing the outlines of the curve of your neck where it meets your collarbones, the slope of your chest as you take hot and heavy breaths. 

“Nope,” he insists, pulling back from the kiss, a little bit of spit on his pink lips, “But it’s nice to know you’re thinking about tomorrow.” 

A hand finally finds your chin and pinches it carefully between his thumb and fingers, a careful grip on you to angle you just right so he can all but devour you. Lips, tongues, teeth – it’s a messy ordeal, and you almost make a smart-ass remark that this kiss doesn’t feel very patient. 

But you can’t. Eddie’s taken away all your breaths, all your words, as he starts to guide you backwards. 

Your knees hit the cushions of your sofa, making you jump back from him with a gasp, palms going flat against his chest. 

He feels good. Tender skin soft to the touch beneath your hand, tattoos tempting to trace the outline of. Later. 

“Figured you might want a more comfortable ride,” he laughs against you, breath smelling ever so faintly of mint and whiskey washing over you, before he dips to mouth away at your neck.

You drop back onto the sofa, bite your tongue on a comment about how this cheap piece of furniture most definitely wasn’t the most comfortable option, simply eager at the fact he was letting this move along. 

You want him, you need him, and you have no time for patience. 

His exploration of touches have lit you aflame, and you’re growing a bit desperate at this point. It might be pathetic, it should be embarrassing, but you really don’t care. 

“By all means,” you break out of his hold entirely, catching the way his hand holding your chin lingers a few extra seconds, reluctant to let you go, “Take your seat, Cowboy.” 

He joins you on the couch, eyes never leaving yours even as he throws himself down. Knees spread wide, inviting lap on show, cock still straining against his pants. 

The best seat in the house, as far as you’re concerned. 

“You just gonna keep starin’,” he mocks lightly, looking you over slowly. Taking his time, you suppose, “Or you gonna get over here?” 

His words are all you need. You’re quick to climb onto his lap, swinging your legs so that each thigh brackets his hips, your cunt pressing down on crotch carelessly. You love the way it feels – the outline of him hard against you, the cooling effect of the leather, the sharp edges of the zipper catching just right. 

“There,” he huffs out, grabbing onto you when you give the slightest roll of your hips, “Now we’re both in our seats.” 

When you go to press down harder, guiding yourself over his lap, hands steadying you by gripping his shoulders, he surprises you by his hips jumping up to meet your slow rhythm.

“What happened to being patient?” you try to tease him right back as your forehead meets his, hat comically struggling to stay on between the two of you, “Thought you were gonna take your time with me-”

“Between you and me, I’m not gonna last,” he pants out, hands finding your hips. Those rings you’d been fantasizing of leaving an imprint on you are doing just that as he guides you, “Been dreaming of you too long, sweetheart. Wanted this for so long.” 

Your heart nearly stops. Your hips stutter, pausing as his words rush over you. 

“What?” 

Your head lifts away from his completely, grip on his shoulders tightening. 

He’s wanted this, too? This entire time? 

Eddie takes your pause as a bad thing, a terrible omen as his face pales, “I mean- I just-”

“Munson,” you say lowly, narrowing your eyes at him, “You’re telling me, this entire time, you’ve been flirting with me?” 

Had that tone he used with the girl at the bar been flirting as you’d thought, or simple for show? You’d so cluelessly assumed he’d never used that tone with you because he’d never genuinely flirted with you – and yet, it seems, he’d never used that tone because he’d been genuinely flirting with you. 

“I-” his cheeks are brilliant red, and the wide eyes are from something different than lust now, “Maybe?” 

“Maybe?” you almost laugh, throwing your head back. The hat falls off, but Eddie is quick to retrieve it, “My God, we’re fucking idiots.” 

“Hey, I’m not the one who stole my hat-”

“I like you, dumb ass,” you state plainly, “I wanted this for a while, too.” 

He pauses, one arm outstretched as his hand grips onto the hat, “What?” 

“Been thinking about this, too,” your voice drops a little, almost a whisper, even though you two are the only ones in the room. For all you know, you two might be the only two people left in the world with the way he’s looking at you, “Thinking about you and your lips. Thinking ‘bout your hands and the places they’d go,” as you point out every detail, his body seemingly reacts. A lick of his lips, a squeeze of his hand still on your hip, “Thought about your fingers and tongue a lot, too. How good they’d feel inside me.” 

His hips thrust up at that, and suddenly, he’s placing his hat back atop your head. 

That, it seems, was all the encouragement Eddie needed. 

He deals with that belt buckle that had given you hell, bouncing you a bit on his lap as he fumbles with yanking the entire belt off and tossing it to the side. One hand busies with undoing the button and zipper of his jeans, as the other starts to bunch your dress. 

“Nice and slow,” he insists, looking up at you, absolutely vibrant. Somewhere between the tightness between your hips, all the throbbing between your thighs and in your chest, you feel a sort of bubbly delight creeping up along your spine. “Got it, kitty?” 

You nod once. Twice. On the third nod, he cuts you off with a kiss. 

Your dress is up to your waist, and you don’t know how, but he manages to shimmy off his pants without throwing you off his lap entirely. It’s impressive, really. Probably a symptom of him having thought about this, dreamt about this. He’d probably thought up every scenario possible, and was prepared. 

“Oh, and these?” his fingers find the waistband of your panties, tsking a little as he pulls at the elastic and lets it slap back against your skin, “Those definitely have to come off.” 

“Whatever you say, cowboy.” 

You take your time sliding off his lap, making sure to grind against him before you properly lift away. He throws his head back in a groan, Adam’s apple bobbing as you stand up straight. You take that moment to just admire him, capturing the clench of his jaw to memory, the way his eyes screw shut in pleasure at your influence. 

He’s fucking perfect. You’re sure there’s others who disagree, but you’d pay them no mind. He’s perfect, and he’s all yours. 

You make a show of taking off your panties only once he’s properly looking at you once more, craving his eyes on you as you keep all your movements fluid and steady. No rush, exuding all that patience he’d prattled on about. 

You want to see his face when you gently toss the black lacey piece in his direction, watch him fumble with his own desperation to catch them. 

“Seems a bit unfair that I’m the only one undressing,” you hum as you go a step further and begin to shimmy out of the dress.

“Yeah, well,” he grins cheekily at you, fisting your panties, a hand trailing down to the waistband of his boxers as he eyes you, “One of us was showing a bit more skin than the other.”

“Take off the vest, Eddie.” 

Your command is velvet, and he’s quick to obey. His hand stubbornly refuses to let go of your panties as he rushes to shrug out of the thin fabric over his shoulders, tossing the vest to join his pants and your dress on the floor. 

“And the boxers.” 

You stand there, in nothing but his cowboy hat, as you wait pretty and patient for him to listen. And listen he does. 

The moment his boxers are discarded, his cock is standing at attention, leaking from the tip and deep shade of pink that matches his kiss-bitten lips. You think it might be the prettiest color you’ve ever laid eyes on as you watch a drop of  precum slip down his shaft. 

He’s pretty, even in the fucking pants. 

Girthy, thick enough you almost arch your back before you’ve even sunk down on him. All veins and soft skin, a sensitive tip that you’d trace your tongue over for hours if he let you. 

“Gonna just stand there, or are you going to ride your cowboy?” 

He surely meant to sound more cocky, but the words come out as more of a whine as you watch him twitch under your stare. 

He’s right though, and you’d rather get him inside you than spend another second gawking. There will be time to pay more attention to him and his pretty cock tomorrow. Right now, you need to finish this god-forsaken mission. 

Your thighs find his hips just as his hands find yours, choosing to grip the couch rather than his shoulders as you steady yourself. 

Nice and slow, his words echo in your mind. 

You could have prepared yourself more, but you’d already made it clear to Eddie that you are not a patient person. The fact that you even take your time as you sink down on him, going as far as to grab him by his base and guide his tip to smear precum across your clit, is impressive. 

The stretch is a bit painful. A bit much. A bit dizzying. But you refuse to stop as your jaw drops, eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy. 

“Fuck,” you breathe out softly as you feel him fill you, “Fuck, Eddie.” 

“Feel good, baby?” he questions, reaching up to grab your chin just as he had before. Forcing you closer to him, forcing you to look him in the eyes just as he bottoms out. 

You don’t answer him as you both moan out. 

You stay there for a second, unmoving as you swim in the feeling. Feeling him press into the depths of you, the overwhelming warmth and the coil in your abdomen tightening ever so slightly. 

It’s better than you had imagined it. No daydreams could compare to the feeling of Eddie’s cock finally, finally filling you. Stretching you out, making you his. 

“Go ahead,” he grits out, entire body tense, clearly holding out on you, “Ride your cowboy, kitty. Don’t make me ask twice.” 

Nice. And. Slow.

Three little words that ricochet through your mind as you start to slowly bounce on him. Lifting ever so slightly, dropping back down, aching to feel him even deeper inside of you. Feeling the quiver of his thighs to match yours as you repeat the action, gasps and whimpers falling from both your lips. You’re about to try and kiss him, try and swallow all those delicate noises from him, when he stops you. 

“No, no, no,” he’s chuckling, giving your hips a few squeezes before his palms rub down your thighs, the friction sending you on edge, “C’mon, now. We both know that’s not how you ride.” 

His hands rake over your skin, down to your knees, lighting scratching and squeezing along their entire pathway until they make their way back up to your waist and hips. 

“Do it like this, sweetheart.”

He guides you, no longer allowing you to lift up. You sink all the way down on his cock, whining out at the fullness, before he starts the pattern. 

Back and forth. Gentle circles amidst the rocking. Your clit grazes his pubes, and the coil in between your hips has never tightened more quickly. 

The motion feels familiar - like riding a bull. 

This feels right. You still press down, still clench down on him hard enough to make you both slip out obscenities, but it’s getting you there. 

At some point, Eddie’s grip on your hips slips, but it’s fine – you’ve got the rhythm down perfectly. Slow, intermittent figure eights between the rolls of your hips, his occasionally slamming upward to reward you with that deepness you need. You can feel him in your stomach, in your chest, in your throat. 

You get a bit daring, and take one hand to his shoulders, as the other reaches up for the top of the hat on your head. 

Just like a cowboy. 

“Like this?” you pant out between harsher rolls, eliciting curses that continue to grow louder from Eddie. 

“Fuck, baby, yes,” he groans out, head thrown back, mouth open in gratification, “Just like that. Keep- keep going just,” he thrusts up, “Like,” another thrust, “That.” 

You nearly lose balance, falling forward a bit, too stubborn to let go of the hat. There’s a grin glimmering at the corners of your mouth, and it fully blooms when Eddie throws up a hand to catch you .

A hand on your throat. 

He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t cut off blood flow or breathing. He keeps that warm palm there at the base of your neck, cradling you, holding you. A reminder that he could squeeze if he wanted, that he held you in the palm of his hands currently, but he won’t. 

“You like that?” his eyes shine as he looks up at you, the sight of his rings decorating your neck. 

You nod.

“Tell me with your words,” he commands.

“I like it,” you whimper, looking up further, stretching more of your neck to be vulnerable to Eddie. “I like it so much, baby.” 

When the pet name falls from your lips, you can feel him twitch inside of you. The sudden jut of his hips, the sharp intake of breath. 

“You like that,” you laugh breathlessly, your hand atop the hat the only thing keeping it from falling as you lean your head fully back, eyes beginning to roll back into your head. “Wanna be my baby, Munson?” 

“Always have,” he grunts, the hand on your throat slipping up to cup your face to drag you towards him, “Since the fucking moment I met you, sweetheart.”

When he kisses you, it tastes like the closest to Heaven you might ever get. Soft, plump lips, and an eager tongue. All the wasted time hiding behind jokes and teasing, playing pretend like the flirting was never serious.

It was serious. And if you’d just come clean sooner, you would have had this long ago. 

Your hips are still rolling as your hands begin to roam. You’ve found your balance again, lips pressed to Eddie, and it’s your turn to explore all he has to give you. Your nails graze his stomach when your clit catches once more on that rough thatch of hair against the base of his cock. Your fingers dig into flesh wherever they can find it – his chest, his arms, his hips. At some point, you throw a hand out behind you, grasping for his knee. Learning every curve and every point of his body as he had done for you. 

You wanna memorize the roadmap of him. Take a snapshot in your mind so that next time, none of it is unfamiliar territory. 

Your touch is driving him insane; it doesn’t take a genius to pick up on the way his hips falter to meet your movements, or how he keeps breaking the kiss to gasp, letting his jaw fall slack when he hits a particular deep spot within you. 

It’s when your lips finally trail down the stubble sprouting across his jawline, mouth sucking on the soft skin below his ear, that he’s finally a goner. 

“‘M close,” he gasps out, almost sounding drunk as he slurs through his pants, “Ah, fuck, I’m gonna-”

“Cum for me, Eddie.” 

Maybe it’s the way you had been touching him, or the way your cunt had been fluttering around him, or the persistent rolling of your hips that had become so focused on his pleasure. Maybe it was the sight of you in his hat, looking at him like that. Maybe it was the way his name sounded on your tongue. 

Either way, when Eddie Munson comes undone, he’s beautiful. 

Your own movements slow involuntarily as you gaze starry eyed, watching the way his face scrunches and feeling his grip on you tighten impossibly. Leaving their mark, making you his in yet another way. Warmth fills your cunt and every curse word under the summer sun is falling from his lips. 

Your name, curses, prayers, gratitude – a jumbled mess, and it sounds fucking fantastic when it’s said in Eddie’s desperate tone. 

“Shit,” he gasps out, finally coming back down to Earth, “Shit.”

You sit still on his lap, skin sticky with sweat, lips spread thin in a cheeky grin, “Sounds like I get to keep your hat, cowboy.” 

His eyes shoot open, and for a second, you’re terrified.

Those aren’t the eyes of someone satisfied. 

“You didn’t cum.”

“What?”

“You,” he says, stressing the word as he shifts you off his lap. You don’t miss the way he winces, clearly a bit sensitive, “Did not cum.” 

You hadn’t really noticed, too wrapped up in him to notice your high slipping away from you. You’d been too focused on Eddie: on feeling him cum inside you, on watching him break apart, on tracing the outline of the blood rushing to his cheeks with your eyes and that fresh burst of violet on his neck in the shape of your lips. 

“It’s fine,” you start to argue, feeling the warmth of him leaking down your thighs. You should be a lot more worried about making a mess all over your sofa. You should be, but you aren’t. “I can-”

“You’re not keeping that fucking hat until you cum for me, sweetheart.” 

And, oh, maybe your own orgasm wasn’t racing as far away from you as you’d believed, because those words nearly push you over the edge for him. 

“Get on all fours for me, baby.” 

Yeah. You definitely could still be close. For him.

When you don’t move to follow his command immediately, he’s using those gentle hands to guide you. Encouraging a twist of your hips from how you’re reclining back across the couch, letting you press your cheek down against the cushion.

You open your mouth to argue, to insist it was fine, to say anything, but you’re cut silent when a sudden slap lands on your ass. 

A silent command this time, and you’re finally listening. 

You lift your ass up for him on shaky knees, elbows digging into the cushion now instead of your face. The hat on your head is lopsided, and you almost reach up to fix it when- 

“I’ll be taking that,” For the first time since you’d stolen his hat, Eddie takes it back. Right off your head, too fast for you to protest. When you dig your chin into your shoulder to look back at him, he’s smiling, hat back in its rightful place atop his curls, “You can have it back after you cum for me, at least once.”

“At least once?” you mean to laugh, to sound cocky, but it comes out as more of a squeak. 

He shrugs, leaning forward, his bare chest pressing against the skin of your bare ass – right where an imprint of his hand still sings, “At least. By all means, if you feel the need, don’t hesitate to give me a few. God knows you’ve earned it.” 

You don’t have time to banter back; he retracts before bring his mouth down to your cunt, and your elbows quickly give out at the first long stride of his tongue. 

“Gotta get you cleaned up,” he murmurs, a bit muffled, against your cunt. 

Another stride, and this time, his tongue spends an extra second at your clit, circling it salaciously. 

“Oh, God,” you moan out into a mouthful of couch cushion, tempted to bite down to hide all the noises creeping up your throat when his tongue draws yet another circle, tip of his nose pressed to your sensitive hole.

He brings his tongue back to that space, that hole that feels gaping without him filling you now, and you try to bury your cheek only to earn another slap on the ass.

“Don’t be shy now, kitty. Let me hear you.” 

And let him hear you, you do. 

Each lick, short and timid or long and confident, is dredging up obscene mewls from you. When he enters you with it, curling it and pressing as deep as he can, truly cleaning you up as he had said, you’re chanting his name. 

“Fuck, Eddie,” you cry softly, rocking your body back against his mouth, “Your fingers. P-Please, use your fingers.” 

Your wish is his command as he brings his hand up between your legs, breaking from having his tongue buried inside of you and using a calloused pad of his finger to trace over your clit before he begs, “Say my name again.” 

You do. Over, and over, and over as his mouth and his fingers begin to work against you. Careful focus is placed on your clit, and his mouth runs amok between your cunt and thighs. You feel what will no doubt be hickies along the curve of your ass, nips of teeth against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh as he presses two fingers into you. With every thrust of his hand, your hips are rocking back to match his rhythm, wanting more. 

More, more, more. 

There’s nothing nice and slow about this. You’re chasing after a high, and Eddie is listening to you every step of the way. 

Your thighs begin to shake terribly right around the time your vision blurs, unable to contain the whines that have grown to echoing volumes. Surely, your neighbors can hear. Probably confused as to who Eddie is, probably considering how embarrassing it would be to knock down your door and complain about the noises. 

You really, really don’t give a fuck when white speckles flood your vision, even with your eyes screwed shut, and that tension between your hips threatens to snap. 

Right before your knees give out, your entire body trembling, Eddie pulls back and grabs your hips. You cry out, so close yet so far, until he’s flipping you back over. 

You get one glimpse of him before he goes to work to bring you over that edge – lips and chin slick with you, hair frizzing beneath his hat, a determined glint in his eyes that have your thighs clenching around his ears. 

You were right. Eddie Munson looks damn good between your thighs. 

He quickly returns to his mitigations, and this time, it’s all a bit more strategic. Lips suctioned around your clit and three fingers curling deep within you, a beckoning motion as he urges you to let go for him. 

The white returns behind your eyelids. Your back arches up off the sofa. Your ankles lock as they cross behind Eddie’s back, almost effectively trapping him in place.

You cum hard for him. 

You’re entirely unaware if you scream his name in the process, but you hope you do. As that relief, that ecstasy, floods your system, you hope you make sure everyone within a five mile radius knows who’s responsible. Your entire body continues to shake for far longer than you believe it ever has before. Your hips had lifted, begging for Eddie to keep going even as it all grew painful.

He does. He keeps going, sucking you dry for every drop you have to give him, until you’re physically having to shove him away. 

Your hands are weak as you sink down into the cushion, eyes still closed as you hear him chuckle before you feel him crawl his way back up your body. 

“There,” you don’t even need to see his face to see that smug satisfaction – his voice is dripping in it. “Now you can keep the hat.” 

One of your hands blindly throws itself through the air to smack him, missing entirely as you drift through the afterglow of it all. 

“I’m not sure I’ve earned it,” you mumble as he catches your wrist, limp in the air, “Pretty sure I didn’t break you when I made you cum.”

“Oh, you did,” he notes, hand curling around your wrist. You watch as he slowly brings it to his lips, peppering a few chaste kisses on the soft skin, “Just in a different way.” 

You raise your eyebrows, smiling at the tingling feeling left behind on your skin in the wake of his mouth, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

He tugs you to sit up despite your groan of protest, somehow smoothly maneuvering the two of you so that he’s now the one beneath you, letting the full weight of you bear down on his chest as you lay on top of him. The hand wrapped around your wrist brings it back up for more kisses, more repetitive gentle pecks of affection, as his other arm is quick to wrap around you. Holding you in place, as though he’s scared you might disappear. 

“Well,” you whisper against the bare skin of his chest, nearly shivering when his free hand starts to trail slowly up and down your spine, “Good.” 

Your cheek feels the vibrations of his chuckle, “That’s all you have to say?” 

“Give me a few minutes to recover,” you insist, all but nuzzling into him, “I’m sure I’ll have a smartass comeback for you once I’m…” you trail off, heavy eyes looking up at him, the words lost on your tongue and in the air. 

The gentle curve of his cupid’s bow. The roundness at the end of his nose, still a fading hue of pink. The freckle beneath his right eye. The way the phantom of the dimple of his left cheek never quite leaves his face.

All the things you’ve dreamt of seeing so up close, never knowing it could have been a reality. 

He lets go of your wrist, smiling softly with a shake of his head, “Can’t believe you’re gonna fall asleep on me.”

“Am not,” you nearly say under your breath, sighing in content. 

“Am too,” he mocks, a certain docility to all his teasing before he sighs as well, “It’s okay. You can. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

You hum, eyes fluttering shut as you hear some rustling, “Promise, cowboy?” 

“Absolutely, kitty. You said something about tomorrow, remember?” 

You both laugh in sync as your couch suddenly becomes the most comfortable place in the world. 

Just before losing consciousness, right as you feel Eddie’s breathing even out along with your own, you decide to open your eyes one last time to catch sight of the cowboy hat perched carefully on your coffee table. 

Tomorrow. You hope for a thousand tomorrows as you decide that that hat is definitely yours now.

[femmefruit]

having your dom sit you in their lap with a vibrator pressed between your pussy and their thigh.

a simple enough variation to your usual routine of thigh riding, you let out a pretty sigh and rock your hips forward once before you feel their hands grip your hips to stop you.

“be still for me, baby. no grinding, can you handle that?” you know the sweetness behind the question is all for show, that it’s designed to make you feel small and disgustingly needy. it works. you’re nodding stupidly, already letting the vibrations between your legs overtake your thoughts. they appraise your expression, the way it starts to shift from attentive to blissed out, and turn the vibrator up one setting for good measure. “good, baby. i knew you could do it.”

it’s harder than you thought it would be, holding still through the pleasure. your brain, warm and gooey, keeps trying to urge you into your usual routine of humping away at whatever your partner puts between your legs. every time your hips twitch or shake, their grip tightens around you. you wonder if it’ll bruise. you hope it will. you know you’re getting close, drooling as you kiss and bite at any inch of their skin you can reach without moving your hips. a particularly insistent throb of your pussy threatens to drag you down into an orgasm, and you remember your manners at the last second.

“can i cum?” shakier than you would’ve liked, followed by a long moan. a beat of silence hangs in the air as you realize the answer, but it doesn’t stop you from pleading again, “can i? please?”

“no, baby. wait.” your ensuing cries are hushed, one hand coming up to stroke your hair gently as though you’re not being tormented. you wind up to object again but you’re silenced by a tug on your hair that forces you to look them in the eye. “quit, baby. you know you like how it makes you feel, so wait.”

your cheeks flush hot at the accusation, knowing how much truth it held. your eyes start watering as you try to look for a way out, knowing just by their tone that this will not be a time where you could get away with cumming on accident. you drop your head to their shoulder and try to lift your hips, only to be forced back down onto the toy. your brain vaguely registers the instruction to “sit your ass down and be still,” but it’s nearly drowned out by the wail you let out as you connect with the vibrator again. you start shaking your head, pushing back against their chest in an effort to separate yourself from the overwhelming pleasure while your hips stay locked in place by strong hands. how long have you been holding this orgasm? a few minutes? seconds? it feels like it’ll never end, like you’re letting them dangle you over a cliff for their own pleasure, watching you fight and cry while you try your best to follow the instructions given.

they pull back again to admire the distress on your face, letting out a pleased hum at the state you’re in. you’re whimpering constantly, head resting pitifully on their shoulder. they know they could stay there forever, keeping you desperate and pliant as you pant into their neck. they give an experimental bounce of their leg that sends you into another fit of moaning and begging.

“please, please! i need to cum, daddy. i wanna be good but i’m going to cum, can’t hold it anymore. need you to say yes,”

the grin that spreads across their face could only be described as lecherous, listening to the way they’ve absolutely ruined you. they have to get in close to your ear to ensure you hear, holding you still through the fight you’re still putting up as they press a kiss against your temple. “go ahead baby, give it to me,” they groan out, hearing your moans start to pitch up before they even get the sentence out. as if you needed any help to ride it out, they press you down harder against the vibrator, coaxing out sob after sob as your orgasm tears through your body.

“shh, baby, i know. it’s good isn’t it? why don’t you do it again for me since you were so well behaved?”

[bi-writes]

the new baby you take care of is the cutest baby you've ever met. (a lil dubcon, baby trapping, 18+)

he has a big head with a tuff of little blond waves, and he has the brightest brown eyes in the entire world. he smiles at every face you make at him, and he takes a bottle like a champ and will nap for hours as long as you're quiet.

his father has a strict schedule set for him. when you met that big man for the very first time, you were speechless. your teeth had clacked together with how fast you tried to close your gawking mouth, but it was impossible not to with how much he towered over you, nearly touching the top of the doorway.

he is methodical, down to every minute. tacked onto the fridge, he had shown you his son's current schedule, which he emphasized with a dead glare must be followed to a T.

two feedings in the morning followed by a nap. another feeding. a longer nap. another feeding. another nap. all separated in increments of 45 minutes, with instructions on how to use the bottle warmer and how to measure the formula.

his son does not cry. his father had told you, if he cries, y'r doin' somethin' wrong. and he was right. the baby only cried when he was hungry, and he would fall into a dead sleep as soon as you gave him a bottle.

it's odd, to take care of someone else's baby. especially this man's. there's no woman in the house, as far as you can tell. the whole house is decorated very minimally, cozy and in shades of warm greens and cool blues and browns. there are no heeled boots by the door or pretty fur coats, and whenever you pass by his bedroom, only one side of his bed ever looks lived-in. there are no pictures on the walls, no makeup in the bathroom drawers, and no pads or tampons under the sink.

just a big, unfeeling man and his big, adorable baby.

but you think that your actions to get this big, unfeeling man to like you are starting to have the wrong kind of implications.

it starts with dinner. you start to make it, using the ingredients from his fridge to make stews and buttery mashed potatoes and roasted veggies. the image of you stirring a pot with his baby on your hip has not left him, and whenever you don't have some kind of meal cooking when he gets home, you answer to someone curt, annoyed, and cold, even to the touch.

then it's the decorating. you thought his couch was a little bare, so now there's a few throw blankets laying across the back of it. there's a vase of pretty tulips on the coffee table. you're growing herbs on the windowsill, little pots of thyme and rosemary and basil. you leave house shoes by the door now, and even when you're not there, he sees those fuzzy pink slippers in the foyer, and he can't help the way he chubs up just seeing them when you're not around.

you start to bring some extra changes of clothes. after the baby spit up on you more than once in a day, you bring a duffel bag with you once a week with extra changes of clothes. he snarls when he sees your clothes in one of his drawers; pretty black panties and matching bras, all laid out under your lounge wear right next to his fucking socks.

the toothbrush next to his in the bathroom. the multi-colored chapsticks in the drawers. tampons and pads organized in the cabinet, your moisturizer next to his shaving cream. he smacks his fist against the wall when he sees the finished package of your birth control in the trash because wot the fuck are y'doing taking those things when y'know i want another--

he can see you in the baby monitor. swaying in the dark of his son's room, the baby's head on your chest as you rock him softly. you're singing a little, a gentle hum to soothe him enough that his eyes start closing. he groans a little when he sees your eyes shut as you kiss his son on the forehead, cooing at him as you pat his little back and tell him to have sweet dreams.

you're making brownies when he comes home that night. his son is seated in his high chair, clapping his hands, and you're smiling at him and cooing in that baby voice you do as you take the warm brownies out of the oven. when you see him emerge from the darkness of his living room, you smile at him, taking off the oven mitts.

"hi, simon," you say softly, and his pupils dilate when you slip a hand over his son's head to soothe him. "i made some dessert, hope that's okay. thought you might wanna try my new recipe."

simon comes into the kitchen as you take his baby out of his high chair. you hoist him up against your hip, and when simon comes closer, you giggle as tilts his head to the side and stares down at you both. you tilt your head back a little, blinking up at him, and the flutter of your lashes is enough to have him rock hard in his cargos as his hands curl into frustrated fists at his sides.

"i'm gonna put him down for bed, it's a little late," you tell him. you hoist his son up a little higher on your hip, picking up his little chubby arm and waving up at simon. "say goodnight, daddy."

simon grins under his mask at the soft lilt of your voice. you try not to squeak when one of his big hands slides around your waist to hold you at your back, and he bends down to kiss his son's forehead through his mask.

"goodnight, my boy."

you try not to linger on the idea that he may have grabbed your ass as you walked away. no, his arms are just so long, they grazed you while you passed by him.

the baby always goes down nice and easy. one bottle later, with a full stomach, he's rubbing his little eyes and fussing in your arms as he tries to fall asleep. he's a mover, simon's little one--always grasping around with his arms and flopping onto his side in the bed. oftentimes, after a nap, he's facing the opposite direction and on the other end of the crib when you come to get him.

so you shouldn't be surprised when as he's falling asleep, his little grubby hands reach for you and pull.

your eyes widen when you hear the pop of buttons. you look down, gasping, when you see his son has grabbed onto the front of your blouse and pulled the first few buttons out. they clatter onto the floor in a mess, and you're not able to see where they go with it so dark in his room.

"oh, god!"

you try to be gentle as you set the baby down in his crib. he immediately sticks his thumb in his mouth with his head lolling to the side, and you try to pick up anything you step on as you hurry out of the room, trying to hold your shirt together.

it's useless. you're standing there in the hallway, hastily shutting the baby's room closed, tits out at eight in the evening.

"tha' why he so good ta ya, mama?"

your eyes bug out of your head when you see simon there. he's standing at the end of the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes are focused on your poor open blouse. the bra you're wearing leaves nothing to the imagination--just mesh with underwire, and when simon comes closer, there's virtually nothing separating you when he reaches up with that gloved hand and cups one breast, thumb smoothing over your nipple before he tugs on it gently.

"wha--simon--"

"thinks y'r his mum, pretty tits out like tha'," simon hisses. "'f ya wanted it so bad, why didn't ya just say?"

"simon--"

he tsks, using both hands this time to grip your blouse by the edges and tug it down your arms. it falls around your elbows, and he takes the straps of your bra with it, until it's pooled around your waist and your tits fall free.

"fuckin' hell," he breathes, and your lips part gently as he hikes up his mask and spits on your nipples before sucking them into his mouth. "mmmph..."

you arch your back as he rips the rest of the buttons off with one smooth tug. your blouse falls, and your bra follows it, until you're in nothing but your skirt, backing up into the darkness of his bedroom as he kicks the door shut. you scramble to get him back on top of you when your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you're laying down--grabbing around his shoulders as you try to guide his mouth back to your breasts where he can suckle on them with that filthy mouth of his.

"knew it--" he rasps. "fuck, i knew it--"

your eyes squeeze shut when he ruts his hips against yours. your panties are ruined, slick wet and digging uncomfortably into your folds, but the scratch of simon's jeans have your back bowing at a hard angle, your fingers sliding between your bodies as you reach for his zipper. you gasp when you feel him under your hand, straining against denim, the girth of him tying your stomach in hard knots as you think about what it'll take to get you open enough for him to slip in.

"keepin' me fat," simon murmurs. "holdin' my baby like tha', wot did ya think was goin' ta happen, eh?"

"h-huh?"

"'m gonna make you fat, too, swee'eart," he says, smoothing his hand over your tummy. "saw those little pills in y'r bag. it won't take today, but we'll try again tomorrow, yeah?"

you're drooling as he fucks you. your hips are hiked up, your skirt flipped up as his thighs smack against your ass. you're not privy to the way the fat of you shakes every time he's buried to the hilt, but simon appreciates it, tongue out as he watches you push back against him to try and get yourself filled quicker. he traces your spine with his fingers, leaning over you as he watches your fingers dig into his dark sheets and grip for dear life as he gives it to you fast and deep. it's a mess of wet between you, and you know the bed underneath you will be soaked by the time he's done with you, but you can't think about that when the very thing you've been wanting since the day you met him is so close, so within reach.

you haven't taken a single one of those pills since the first week you met that fat, beautiful baby. maybe simon didn't take too close a look at the dated little pills in your bag and in the bin, the little calendar you used to mark rotting away in a forgotten pocket, gathering dust.

when simon comes, your mouth is filled with saliva, and you gurgle between barely-lucid giggles as your hips sink into the mattress. he's saying something, but you don't hear it. instead you reach down with your fingers and stuff them inside, trying to gather as much of his cum and keep it. when simon tries to cum in your mouth later, you nearly bite his dick off.

how dare he try and waste it?

[rawme-price]

Price has chronic pain so you offer to massage him, right?

Youve got him laying on his stomach, straddling the back of his thighs so you get perfect access to his broad back. Kneading and working over the stressed muscles of his lower back, pressing ur knuckles into his spine.

Price had no idea how much tension he was actually carrying, bc not even moments in hes letting out pleased sighs and rumbling thank you's. As you rub ur palms up and down his back, hands straying to stroke up his sides for a moment, he cant help the moan he let's out. He just feels so good, and you've practically got ur groin pressed to his ass from where ur sitting.

If price feels this good just from a few touches, imagine how good hed feel after a few orgasms. Hes fantasizing about you shoving a toy up his ass, humping the mattress without shame all while you continue to work over his back without a comment. After all, you love watching price lose his mind to simple pleasures, not a captain but a man full of desire when hes under you.

[spikedfearn]

I Thee Bled

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

Summary: On the eve of your arranged wedding, you flee into the woods with trembling hands and a bloodstained gown—only to slip a ring meant for another onto a graveyard root and wake something ancient beneath the soil. Remmick is not a man, not anymore, but he remembers how to be tender. Touch-starved and centuries dead, he offers you the one thing the living never did: choice. In a forest that breathes and remembers, where the dead dream and the moss learns your name, you find yourself questioning everything you left behind. After all, what is a monster—if not a man who waits for you? And what is love, if not something you’re willing to bleed for?

(or: A Corpse Bride au)

wc: 15.2k

a/n: thank you all so much for the overwhelming love and support you’ve shown my fics, it means the world to me!! I originally planned to release I Thee Bled on Monday to celebrate one month since Brittany Broski posted Mercy Made Flesh to her Insta story (!!!), but life had other plans, so she’s arriving fashionably late. This one’s especially close to my heart, and I want to dedicate it to the lovely Moga @somnolenthour, whose beautiful fanart for this fic when it was still just an idea (completely unprompted!!) lit a fire under me, this one’s for you <333 shout-out to my beta readers, starting with Liz who also came up with the title: @fuckoffbard @titaniasfairy @jaythewriter @anhelconhmuda @kkniveschau

warnings: Corpse Bride!au, gothic horror, supernatural romance, blood, vampirism, smut, oral sex (f!receiving), praise kink, dirty talk, creampie, touch-starved monster, monsterfucking, sub!remmick, ghost town setting, period-typical misogyny, vague Victorian era, Tim Burton aesthetics, mutual pining, tragic undertones, Remmick in his final monster form

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

Masterlist

It was a quiet kind of death—to walk toward a future that never belonged to you.

The candlelight danced in its sconce like it too was afraid of the dark, throwing gold and shadow in uneven patterns across the walls of your bridal chamber. The air was heavy with the scent of crushed lilies—white, thick-stemmed, and already browning at the edges—as though the blooms themselves had second thoughts. A bridal veil hung limp from the mirror. You had not put it on.

You sat at the edge of the chaise, corseted to breathlessness, the bony ridges of your knuckles straining beneath the thin layers of skin from how hard you're clutching the ring.

Not your ring. Not yet. It was his—your would-be husband's—a man who smiled without his eyes and spoke of love like it was transactional. Whose name alone made your face pucker like you just smelled curdled milk. Mr. Langdon. So old your mother whispered “distinguished.” So cold the maids whispered other things when they thought you couldn’t hear.

Outside, the wind howled through the wrought iron balcony rails, shrill and wild like something mourning. You stood slowly, your bare feet silent against the marble floor, gown whispering around your ankles like the ghosts of every woman who’d gone quietly before you. The gown had been sewn for beauty, not for running. But you would run in it anyway.

You packed light, brought a white shawl and gloves to combat the chill. You brought the ring.

Not because you meant to keep it. Not because it held sentiment. It didn’t. It had no warmth, no story, no soul—just gold, cool and dull beneath your thumb. But it was worth something. Enough to pawn. Enough, maybe, to buy a train ticket. A meal. A room somewhere with a bed that didn’t come with a price pinned to your spine.

You told yourself that was why you kept it clenched in your fist as you slipped out the servants’ gate and into the dark. Not because it was his. Not because it had ever touched your skin. But because the world beyond your wedding had no place for a girl with nothing—and a gold ring, even one never worn, could be a lifeline.

Or a curse.

Fate hadn’t decided yet.

A band of simple gold, dull with fingerprint smudges, too loose for your thumb. You had not even worn it yet. It was handed to you this evening after supper, set beside a slice of blood-orange cake you hadn’t touched. “Keep it close, darling,” your mother had said, smoothing your hair as if you were already a corpse. “It will be yours come morning.”

You slipped it into your palm. And now it pulsed there like a secret.

The hallway outside your chamber creaked and groaned, the house settling into its evening sighs, and still you waited. You waited until the grandfather clock struck eleven, slow and solemn, each chime echoing like nails hammered into your future. Then—silently, so silently—you fled.

The woods did not wait to welcome you.

They swallowed.

The moment your slippered feet hit the dirt path behind the manor gates, the trees leaned in like they were listening, thick with Spanish moss and shadow. The moonlight fractured through their limbs, casting the path in broken, silver stripes. Your breath came out fast, clumsy, fogging in front of you as the night grew colder with every step, every frantic press forward into bramble and black.

The hem of your gown—once bone-white satin—darkened with mud. Then blood. A snag of thorns caught your ankle, sliced skin. You barely flinched. Pain felt like permission.

You weren’t sure where you were going.

Only that it has to be away.

You didn’t stop until your lungs burned and the trees had turned unfamiliar, too thick, too silent, the air tasting of copper and something older—stone, earth, iron. You collapsed against the base of a twisted tree, your gown a tangle of ripped silk and smeared petals, a bridal bloom gone to ruin.

The ring was still in your hand.

You looked at it—glared, really—angry at its weight, at the heft something so small contains. “To have and to hold…” you muttered under your breath, voice bitter, breathless, a mockery of a vow.

Your fingers fumbled blindly through the loam, sticky with sap and rainwater, until you found what you thought was a root. Something slender and pale rising from the earth like a bony finger.

You laughed, delirious. “Here,” you whispered, sliding the ring onto it. “Do you, strange tree, take me to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

The wind rose.

“I do.”

You reached out to steady yourself against the gnarled bark���but as your hand met the tree’s twisted surface, a sharp edge of wood caught the pad of your finger, snagging your bridal glove and the soft meat underneath. You hissed.

Blood welled—bright and living. It wobbled off your fingertip and fell. One drop. Then another. The red hit the base of the tree and sank into the soil like ink into paper. The bark beneath your palm felt warmer now. Almost…breathing.

Something moved. Beneath the dirt. Beneath you. You blinked. Sat up straighter. Listened.

Nothing.

Then—again.

A twitch. A shift. Like the earth itself was exhaling after a long silence. The root curled, moved, wrapped just slightly around your finger. Cold as the grave.

You yanked your hand back with a startled gasp. But it was too late. Blood had already spilled from your hand, sliced on bark or thorn or bone, and soaked into the black, thirsty soil. You watched it disappear.

The tree shuddered. Not in the breeze—there was no breeze anymore. The air had gone still, heavy as boiled milk, clinging to your throat, your hair, the space behind your knees. Your breath hitched. The birds had gone quiet. The crickets. The frogs. The world was listening.

And below you, the earth moaned.

A sound like old wood splitting. Like ribs breaking beneath dirt. Then, suddenly, a violent lurch—wet, sucking, earthly. The ground near the tree root cracked open, moss peeling back like flesh. You scrambled backwards on your palms, your gown tangling around your legs, but you couldn’t look away.

It didn’t feel like waking the dead. It felt like being watched by something that had never closed its eyes to begin with.

First came a hand.

Wide-palmed, thick-knuckled. Fingers unnaturally long, his nails cracked and gray and dirty, like shale. A gold ring gleamed faintly from the third finger. The wedding band you slid onto what you thought was a gnarled uproot.

Then the second, this one skeletal, stripped clean of flesh and muscle and tendon.

And finally, the rest of him.

He rose in pieces, as if gravity itself hadn’t yet decided whether to allow him back. His body pushed through layers of sod and clay and root like a memory that refused to stay buried. His shoulders were broad, shoulders that had once carried something heavy—tools, a body, a burden. One arm braced against the edge of the grave, veins bulging under pale, slick skin.

You saw the sweep of a dark, deep blue tuxedo, its fabric dulled by dirt and time, stitched with the memory of ceremony. The jacket clung to his shoulders unevenly, one side sagging low with centuries of damp, the lapels wrinkled and soil-smudged. Beneath it, a white collared button-up lay partially unbuttoned at the throat, the linen stained faintly at the seams.

A slightly lighter blue tie hung askew from his neck, knotted but loosened, the silk puckered where it had weathered through the grave. His trouser legs matched the tuxedo, tailored once, but now creased and grimy at the hem. Shoes to match—oxfords, maybe—scuffed to near ruin, soles coated in moss and wet earth.

He pulled himself from the dirt slowly, deliberately, like someone waking from a sleep they weren’t meant to return from—each breath thick in his throat, each movement dragging time behind it.

And his face—God, his face.

He was beautiful. In the way statues are beautiful. The way a ruin is beautiful. Pointed cheekbones beneath a mask of grave-filth. Mud in the seams of his short, messy brown hair, clinging in dark curls across his forehead. His mouth parted as he panted for breath he didn’t need, and you saw the right side of his jaw was ruined—torn open, exposing ribbons of raw muscle and the gleam of sharpened teeth. All of them sharp. Uneven. Crooked in places, silver-fanged and jagged like they weren’t made for a human mouth.

He drooled. Milky and thick, slow as syrup, threading from his teeth to the black soil.

His skin was a deep, post-mortem blue—something between bruised flesh and storm-lit sea, like teal left to darken in shadow. In the moonlight, with his veins just barely visible beneath the surface, it looked like cracked glass. His chest heaved. His head turned. And then—

He looked at you.

His eyes were wide as a frightened dog’s. But in the shadows, they shifted—black, almost red, glowing from somewhere behind the pupil like dying coals still clinging to that cherried spark.

He didn’t speak. He just…stared. Watched. Not like a stranger. Like someone trying to remember you. Like someone who knew you. Maybe before. Maybe in another life.

“Are—are you…” Your voice broke, shamefully small. You didn’t finish the question. Couldn't.

He swallowed, thickly. The sound was wet. And then—he smiled. Not cruel. Not ghoulish. Soft, tender.

“I knew ye’d come,” he said.

His voice came low and lilted, thick with the cadence of an Irish accent—rounded consonants, vowels pulled soft and long, a kind of music in his throat whether he meant it or not. The kind of voice made for stories. For lullabies. For oaths.

He took a single, stumbling step forward, mud pulling at his shoes, laced tight enough to keep the soil from suctioning them off his feet.

You couldn’t move.

“Ye put a ring on me hand,” he said again, gentle this time. Coaxing. He held up his fingers, all blood-caked and twitching, the wedding band glinting faintly beneath the filth, fractals of moonlight dancing off the polished gold, a stark contrast to the dirt and grime clinging to his skin. “And ye spoke a vow. That counts, don’t it?”

He tilted his head, like a curious animal. “Didn’t reckon ye’d be so bonnie.”

You should have run.

You knew that. Every part of you knew that. The sensible part. The terrified part. The part that still heard your mother’s voice whispering warnings about strange men, and worse things still, things that didn’t breathe right, didn’t die right.

But something rooted you.

Maybe it was the ring still snug around that pale, twitching finger. Maybe it was the way he looked at you. Like you were the first warm thing he’d seen in centuries.

He took another step forward. Then another. His oxfords left deep, sucking impressions in the soil, and his gait wasn’t quite right—like a marionette with its strings pulled too hard, or a man remembering how to be one. You flinched when he got too close, but he didn’t reach for you. Not yet. Just stood there, arms slack at his sides, mouth slightly open, that thread of spit still hanging from one fang like an afterthought.

His head dipped low, curls shadowing his brow, and when he spoke again, his voice was almost shy. Like he feared you might bolt.

“Was it the blood that roused me, then?” he asked, one brow raising slowly. Thoughtful. “Or the vow ye whispered?” He swallowed, working his jaw with a faint wince. “Might’ve been both. Hard to say.”

You blinked at him. Swallowed the lump that had risen hard and high in your throat. “Who…who are you?”

His smile faltered. Just a flicker. Not hurt—more like confusion.

“Don’t remember me, do ya?” His voice dropped low, almost tender. “But you called, lass. I heard ya—clear as day, so I answered.”

He tapped his skeletal palm against his chest, right over his sternum, his eyes round and brows raised in a puppy dog look, a pleading little tilt to his head like he's desperate for you to believe him.

“I felt you in here.”

You opened your mouth. No sound came out.

The man—the thing—before you cocked his head again, just slightly. His eyes were too soft for the rest of him, too warm. And the accent in his voice made everything worse, somehow. Made it gentle. Comforting. It stripped you of fear, piece by piece, until all that remained was the strange throb of something you didn’t understand.

“What’s your name?” you asked, finally.

His gaze lit up like the question pleased him. He didn’t answer right away. Just dragged a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of mud and grit and grave soil across his temple.

“I’ve been called a lot o’ names,” he said after a pause. “Some of ’em I earned. Some I didn’t. But the name I remember best is…” A thoughtful frown pulled at the less-damaged corner of his mouth.

“Remmick. That’s what me ma called me,” he said, almost shy now. “Back when the sky was still thick wi’ peat smoke and the land hadn’t yet learned the sound o’ English steel. When we carved prayers into stone ‘stead o’ paper, and the rivers boiled not from fire, but from the rage o’ gods long buried.”

He glanced at you then, as if expecting you not to understand. But you didn’t flinch, causing his smile to grow like a decaying flower that didn't know it was dead yet.

“Back when the forest had a name you weren’t meant to speak after dark,” he added, voice gone soft and faraway. “And folk still left cream out on the stoop, hopin’ to keep the hills quiet.”

You said nothing. You had no words.

He glanced down at himself as though just now noticing the state he was in. Fingers touched the torn lapel of his jacket before dusting the front off next. His nose wrinkled faintly, sheepish, eyes round and sorry.

“Would’ve cleaned meself up a bit had I known,” he said, glancin’ back up at you with a crooked smile. “But by Gods, ye caught me right in the middle of me dirt nap, didn’t ye?”

And then he laughed. A soft, broken sound. It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t hollow. It was almost—sweet. You didn’t realize you’d taken a step back until your spine hit bark.

He noticed.

“No need to fear me, lass,” he said, quickly, voice pitching soft, hands raised just a little, his eyes bleeding red like a freshly weeping cut, “I won’t hurt ye. I wouldn’t.” His fingers curled back toward his chest again. “Not you.”

“Why me?” you asked, finally. “Why—why do you think I called you?”

His smile returned, slow and tender. He lifted his hand—the one with the ring, the one that was intended to collar you to Mr. Langdon before you turned tail and fled, looking sleek and shiny against grimy blue skin.

“’Cause ye put this on me finger,” he said. “Ye made a promise. A vow.”

You shook your head, your breath catching like a bird startled mid-flight, wings beating frantically in your throat. “It wasn’t real.”

“It was real enough for me.”

He looked down at the gold band, turned it with his thumb. “You bled for it, didn’t ye?” he murmured. “Spoke words into the trees. Placed a ring on a buried hand. That’s old magic, love. Older than graves. Older than the Gods above.”

His eyes flicked back to you—red blooming around the edges now like ink through water.

“Old magic don’t care whether you meant it.”

You didn’t know if it was the way he said love, like it meant something eternal…or if it was the silence of the woods, how they held their breath around him…but your world had suddenly been flipped upside down like you'd been living inside a snow globe and someone decided to just come along and shake it. All because you'd gotten cold feet. All because you couldn't bring yourself to walk down the aisle and wed a man who barely made your acquaintance prior to the arranged ceremony.

You recall last night in great detail, the last time you were alone with Mr. Langdon. It had been in your father’s study—dark-paneled, smelling of tobacco and power. He hadn’t touched you, not exactly. But his hand had rested too long on the curve of your shoulder, fingers splaying toward the top of your spine like he was trying to gauge how much pressure it would take to snap it.

“I prefer quiet girls,” he’d said with a smile that didn’t reach his shrewd eyes. “Ones who don’t ask so many questions. Obedience is a virtue, you know.”

You had smiled. You nodded. Because what else could you do?

He had leaned in close, breath stale with wine and something bitter, suppressing the reflexive urge to recoil, “After tomorrow, your body belongs to me. That’s what marriage is. Best you start getting used to the idea.”

You hadn’t answered. You’d gone to your room and vomited in the basin. And tonight? Tonight—you ran. You didn’t bring a bag. You didn’t bring a plan. You brought the ring.

And you brought the no you hadn’t dared speak aloud.

It’s only then that you start to notice—the world around you moves. Not with the subtle rhythm of wind or wildlife, but with a kind of strange, theatrical breath, like the forest is alive.

The tree behind you creaked like a yawning coffin, bark groaning against your spine as if waking from its own long sleep. Overhead, the moon hung too round, too large, almost theatrical in its glow—more paper lantern than celestial body. It cast light not white but a washed-out bluish silver, the kind that made every shadow look like it was up to something.

There were no clouds. The sky didn’t need them.

Instead, the forest itself began to shift—bending at the edges like a curtain drawing inward, branches twisting and stooping with exaggerated grace, their tips curling into crooked little hooks. The trees no longer stood tall and noble; they hunched and leaned like gossiping old women, knotted spines cracking as they bent to get a better look at you.

The leaves above clinked faintly like dry metal. One branch spiraled down and hovered beside your shoulder, like it was waiting for permission to touch you.

And still, Remmick didn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he did.

Maybe he was used to it—the way the world rearranged itself around him, the way nature bowed and blinked and breathed differently wherever he walked.

Maybe he’d never known a forest that didn’t follow.

He took another step toward you.

He was close enough now that you could see where the flesh on his cheekbone pulsed faintly, still clinging to old life. Where blood had dried in a crooked path down his exposed jaw. Where some of his teeth weren’t perfectly sharp at all—some had chipped, split, yellowed in ways that proved he hadn’t always been what he was now. He had once been a man.

You stared. Not at the horror. At the detail.

His collar was unbuttoned. There was a ring of skin just below his throat that was somehow clean, as if protected by the chain that still hung there.

“You’re real,” you breathed, as much to yourself as to him.

He smiled again. Small, head bowed slightly. Like the thought embarrassed him.

“Aye,” he said. “At least I was.”

Your heart skipped. The accent curled around that last word—was—turning it melancholic and soft. He sounded deeply lonely in a way that didn’t scream or shudder, but bled slow and quiet—like a candle left to burn itself out in a chapel no one prayed in anymore.

You didn’t realize your hand had risen until he caught it. His grip wasn’t strong. In fact, it was hesitant. Loose. Like he feared you might flinch, and he was giving you time to do it. To reject it.

You didn’t.

His thumb dragged over the small wound on your finger where your glove was torn. The one you’d cut on the tree. Your blood had dried there, rust-colored and still.

“’S’what woke me,” he murmured. “This wee thing.”

You tried to speak, but the words tumbled over each other, panic and fascination tangled in your throat. “What are you?”

Remmick looked up at you, then down at your hand in his. He didn’t let go.

“I was a man once,” he said. “Before they put me in the ground like a secret.”

There was no anger in his voice. No grief. Just barebones honesty.

“I remember cold,” he continued. “I remember bein’ bound.” His brows drew together. “I remember hunger.”

You swallowed.

His head tilted slightly again. “But now I remember you.”

You opened your mouth to deny it, to tell him he was wrong, that you weren’t anyone, that this was all a mistake. That you weren’t his. That you weren’t meant to be anything.

But the woods behind you had gone too still. And he was staring at you with a gaze so tender it made your stomach twist.

“Ye came in white,” he said, voice softer now. “Like a bride. Ye gave blood. Ye spoke vow.” He brushed a skeletal knuckle to your chin with aching slowness, the bone surprisingly soft, “don’t reckon the veil’s far behind.”

The branches rustled above, though there was still no wind. You realized the forest wasn’t closing in. It was gathering.

And Remmick…he was looking at you like he was home.

It was no longer night in the way night should be.

Time moved differently now. The sky above bled grey and silver and rust, but the moon never shifted from its throne behind the trees. The light stayed fixed in place, like the forest had slipped sideways into some pocket behind the world. Hours passed like fog. You slept, but never fully. You walked, but your feet left no prints.

And Remmick—Remmick stayed near.

Not hovering. Not leering. Just there, always just far enough not to crowd you, yet always within reach, like the forest had redrawn its laws to keep him at your side. Like you were its axis now.

You thought of Langdon.

Of his voice—measured, polished, practiced. The kind of voice that never raised itself above a certain register, as though passion was unsightly. He had a way of looking at you that always felt more like study than affection. Like you were something to be assessed, not adored. His fingers, when they grazed yours, were cold from gloves and colder still beneath them. Everything about him had been lacquered to a shine: his shoes, his manners, his hollow future he spoke of with such sterile pride.

You remembered one night, not long ago, when you’d dined together at his family estate. A private supper. Three courses. Too many forks. You’d asked him if he liked poetry.

He blinked. Set down his wine glass. “I tolerate it,” he said. “In women.”

That had been it.

No questions in return. No warmth. No wanting.

You’d spent the rest of the meal smiling at your plate, wondering if it would be considered madness to simply climb out the window and run.

And now—here.

Now, you were with a man who’d crawled out of the earth, with dried blood under his nails and a ruined jaw, and somehow he made you feel safer than any lace-draped parlor ever had. Remmick, who flinched when he touched your skin like you were the sacred thing. Remmick, who didn’t ask you to perform, or flatter, or prove anything—who simply stayed close because he wanted to be near.

He was a walking corpse.

And he seemed more human than Mr. Langdon had ever been.

Remmick spoke in murmurs. Half-conversations.

“My folk used to call this part the belly,” he said, gesturing toward a clearing that bloomed only with pale fungi and white moss. “Said the trees grew too thick with memory. Said it weren’t safe for the livin’.”

You stepped forward slowly, the hem of your gown brushing through the hush of strange underbrush. The clearing pulsed in stillness, like something held its breath just beneath the surface.

The fungi were long-necked and ghostly, some capped in translucent bells, others curled like fingers mid-spasm. They glowed faintly in the dark—not enough to see by, but enough to feel seen.

Overhead, the trees now leaned inward with impossible arches. Their bark smooth and gray as drowned bone, and where knots should’ve been were instead hollowed faces, soft and suggestive, as though the trunks had grown around someone who once leaned too long against them. One of the branches creaked in a slow, pendulum sway, even though there was no wind.

You tilted your head. The white moss underfoot looked soft, inviting—until you noticed it wasn’t growing in any natural pattern. It coiled in tight spirals, some large enough to circle your slippered feet, others small and delicate as lacework.

When you asked what he meant, what memory had to do with the trees, he only gave a crooked smile and pointed at your feet.

You looked down. The moss had formed perfect circles beneath your heels.

Spirals.

“See?” he said. “She’s already learnin’ you.”

And sure enough, even as you stood there, the spiral beneath you shifted. Just slightly. Not like a plant reacting to pressure, but something alive—tracing the shape of your sole, marking your weight, remembering the heat of your blood. It liked you.

Or worse—it recognized you.

He never called the place a graveyard. He called it “the kept.”

You first saw them while following a worn path between black pines—stones laid flat into the dirt, unmarked, sunk deep with age. You almost stepped on one before he reached out and caught your wrist, not harshly—just quick.

“Aye, mind where ye tread,” he said, voice gentle, Irish vowels lilting around the warning. “They don’t take kindly to bein’ disturbed.”

You stared at the stone. And then you realized it was moving. Not rising. Not moaning. But the soil above it—it breathed.

You took a step back, heart climbing into your throat.

“They don’t wake unless they’re called,” Remmick said softly. “But they listen.”

Far off, from a hollow deeper in the woods, a chime echoed. High and delicate, like a piano key played underwater. Another answered, lower, more metallic. You didn’t see the source, but you could feel them vibrating in your bones. And yet it didn’t frighten you.

He never told you how he died. You tried to ask. More than once.

The first time, he looked away. The second, he closed his mouth mid-sentence and didn’t speak for a full hour. Not angry. Never angry. Just—withdrawn. The third, he reached up and touched the ruined side of his jaw, as if he’d forgotten it was there.

Then he whispered, “Not yet,” and nothing more. You didn’t press.

Some things, you could feel, were kept buried by more than soil.

It was on the fifth day—if you trusted your own body’s clock—that you tried to leave.

You didn’t make a show of it. You waited until Remmick went still beneath the shade of a hollow tree, head tipped back, eyes closed like he was listening to something beyond your hearing. You crept away quietly. You didn’t look back.

You hadn’t meant to stay that long. You told yourself it was only curiosity, only caution, only until you understood what he was. But the forest had begun to feel too quiet in the right places. Remmick had begun to speak too softly, like a prayer meant only for you. And that was precisely the problem. He was too gentle. Too kind. Too patient.

You weren’t supposed to like any of this—weren’t supposed to be lulled by a dead man’s voice or find comfort in a world where bones lined bird nests and laughter came from unseen mouths. You ran not because you feared him. You ran because, terrifyingly, you didn’t.

At first, the trees parted for you. The path unfolded.

You ran.

You didn’t cry. You didn’t call his name. You just ran. But the forest…it shifted.

The branches overhead grew too low, too tangled. Vines curled beneath your feet like hands reaching out to stop you. A bramble reached out like a whip and slashed across your collarbone, slicing clean through the dress, nicking your skin just enough for blood to bead along the uneven seam of your cut. Still, you kept going.

Until you hit it.

The edge.

It wasn’t a wall—not exactly. It was air. Thick, humming, wrong. The veil between life and death. When you stepped into it, your skin felt like it peeled. Your lungs refused to fill. The world blurred and bent at the corners like warped glass.

You stumbled back, coughing. Gasping. Remmick was there. Not chasing. Not angry. Just there.

He caught you around the middle before your knees buckled, arms strong but careful, like you were made of spun sugar and he was afraid you'd shatter.

“Sshh, now,” he whispered, curling you to his chest, soothing, the brush of his lips, the bloodied network of muscle fiber and tendons woven through his jaw pressed to the side of yours, wet and textured, “easy, easy, you’re alright.”

“I—I had to try,” you managed, fingers curling into the lapels of his jacket. “I didn’t want to stay. I didn’t mean to—I can't stay.”

“Shhh,” he soothed again. “I know.”

You felt him exhale into your hair. Slow. Shaky.

“I know wee bride,” he murmured, the accent softening everything it touched. “But she don’t open the same way twice. Not once she’s taken a name.”

You pressed your forehead into his shoulder, trembling. And for the first time—you wondered. Not how you got here. Not how to undo it.

But if you even should.

You thought of Langdon. Of his thin lips, the contracts, the expectations. Of your mother, her quiet threats tucked into lace gloves. Of the veil that felt more like a burial shroud than a blessing.

And then you thought of the way Remmick had caught you—like a man catching the last soft thing left in the world.

Later—how much later, you couldn’t say—you sat with him in the moss-ringed clearing where the mushrooms bloomed like broken teeth, soft and damp and glowing faintly blue at their tips. The forest had gone quiet again, but not heavy this time. Not watching. It simply…was.

Remmick had taken to lying on his side, propped on one elbow, his ruined jaw turned slightly from view, though you were never sure if it was for your comfort or his.

His fingertips brushed through the withered stems, and chose one near the base of a crooked stone. It was long-dead, crumpled and brittle at the edges, the color all but drained. He held it up between thumb and forefinger, and as he rolled the stem, you watched something shift. The petals darkened—deepened—like blood soaking back into flesh. It bloomed, slow and unnatural, into the shape of a dried red rose. Not living, not quite—but remembering life. Like something dressed for mourning.

“These only grow where the veil’s thin,” he said quiet-like, voice laced with that low, lilting Irish bend. “Where things slip in and out. Couldn’t say for certain which side they’re meant for, if I’m honest.”

You didn’t reply. You just looked at him.

There was dirt under his nails. sediment clinging to his collarbone. His oxfords were still caked in grave mud, but he hadn’t touched you with anything other than gentleness.

Your voice felt small when you spoke. “Why did you wait?”

Remmick blinked slowly. His fingers stilled.

You clarified before he could pretend not to understand. “All this time. You said you felt me. But you were already down there, weren’t you? In the earth. Waiting for someone to call you back. Why?”

He didn’t answer right away. Didn’t shift. Didn’t look at you. And just when you were sure he wouldn’t speak—he did.

“I didn’t know I was waitin’,” he said, voice gone low, just a touch rough. “Not truly. Time goes quiet when you’re laid under like that. Y’don’t count the years. Some days, y’don’t even remember your own name.”

He looked at the sky through the trees.

“Sometimes I’d dream o’ faces. Yours, maybe. Or someone who looked like ye. Sometimes I’d think I heard someone weepin’. I’d think, was it me?”

You felt your chest tighten. Remmick smiled again, faint and lopsided, like a man recalling a song he hadn’t sung in years.

“But when I felt ye, I knew. I knew it weren’t just hunger or ghosts or wind. I knew it was real. Ye bled for me. Ye called for me.” He glanced over. “No one’s ever done that before.”

You stared at him. At his hands, broad and veined. At the faded chain around his throat. At the ring you’d slipped, thoughtlessly, onto the hand of a tree like a promise.

A tree that had promised back.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” you said.

“I don’t care.”

You swallowed.

He said it without venom. Without accusation. Just—resolute. And maybe something softer curling underneath. He rolled onto his back, the moss giving way beneath him like a cradle.

“I’d have waited another thousand years for that drop of blood,” he said, quiet now. “Another thousand after that just to hear your voice say I do.”

You turned away. Not because you didn’t believe him. But because some part of you did. And it made your throat ache.

Your gaze drifted to the edge of the clearing, where the trees stood thick and close.

“Will it ever open again?” you asked. “The forest.”

Remmick didn’t move. “Aye. Someday. When she’s good and ready.”

“And if I’m not here when it does?”

He was quiet for a beat too long. Then:

“Then I’ll follow.”

That made you look back. He didn’t smile this time.

“I’d walk through fire to find you, wee bride.”

His voice was still Irish—but there was something else behind it now. Something old. Ancient. Something so sure of its longing it didn’t need to shout. It just was.

You realized, in that moment, how terribly lonely he must’ve been. How quiet his world had become. How loud your heartbeat must be to him now.

And how warm you still were.

He asked if you wanted to see the rest.

Didn’t demand. Didn’t lead without waiting. Just…offered.

With a hand half-outstretched and those eyes still puppy-wide, still lit like you were a miracle he was afraid to touch too quickly, lest you vanish into smoke.

You hesitated. But not long.

The forest parted for you both this time. Not like it had when you tried to run. Now it was more like—inviting. The way a house might creak its doors open when it recognizes one of its own.

You slipped your hand into his, the one that still wore flesh. His fingers were cold, yes—but not corpse-cold. Not the kind that bit. His hand was rough in places, as though he’d lived long enough to carry calluses even through death. His thumb flexed gently along your knuckles, testing. Not possessive. Just…checking.

Reassuring himself you were real.

He showed you the orchard first. Or what was left of it.

A grove of trees that no longer bore fruit, only ribbons—hundreds, thousands of them, hanging from the branches like wilted party streamers. Blue, white, ivory, pale lilac. Some patterned, some torn, some fraying from centuries of wind.

You reached up and touched one.

“They’re wishes,” Remmick said, voice softer than ever, his breath beside your cheek. “Made by the dead. Before they were buried.”

You turned to him.

“But they never came true?”

His expression shifted—fond, wistful.

“Some did. Some didn’t. Doesn’t matter.” He touched the ribbon nearest to him, the pad of his thumb brushing its edge. “It’s the hoping that counts, innit?”

You said nothing. The breeze moved the orchard like a lullaby.

Further in, he showed you a town of sorts.

Carved into the side of a crumbling cliff where the rock split into ribs and the stone seemed to breathe, the little village clung to the earth like a half-forgotten secret.

The houses were squat mudstone cottages, weathered and slouched, their chimney pots crooked like snapped fingers. Moss crept up their sides in thick velvety bands, swallowing old lanterns, window frames, and entire doorsteps. Windowpanes blinked with eyes pressed from the inside.

The doors were low and arched, some made of driftwood painted in peeling funeral hues—deep violet, waxy blue, iron black. A few homes had teacups balanced on their roofs. Others had shingles shaped like fingernails or pressed flowers. Bones hung from strings between rafters, clacking gently in the hush, arranged like wind chimes or family crests, each one carved or etched with little initials, or painted with the ash of something you couldn’t name.

A skeletal cat darted past your ankles, all jangling vertebrae and twitching tailbone, its paws clicking faintly against the cobbled path. Its jaw hung open in a rictus grin. You didn’t scream. It looked up at you once—empty sockets glittering faintly—and carried on.

And then the town began to move.

A shutter creaked open. A door whined on its hinges. A hatless man with no lower jaw swept the stoop of what looked to be a bakery, the scent of charred sugar and burnt cinnamon floating faintly from within. He nodded at you politely, bits of soot falling from the collar of his shirt, and kept sweeping. Further down the lane, a trio of old women sat in rocking chairs that had been nailed directly into the wall of a house—sideways, five feet off the ground—and knitted with thread made of silver hair. One of them had no eyes. The second had too many. The third winked at you with a socket.

“Don’t mind them,” Remmick murmured. “They been there long as I can remember. Like to keep to themselves.”

He led you past a crooked fountain that spewed a slow, syrupy trickle of black water, and through a crooked square strung with dim, blue lanterns that hung from lengths of discolored intestine braided like ribbon. In the center was a music box the size of a carriage, its brass bell warped and dented, still playing a waltz you could swear you remembered hearing in a dream long ago. No one danced to it—but some of them swayed.

There was a tailor’s shop with mannequins made of stitched skin and bent spoons. A chapel whose bell tower rang without sound. A bar, glowing faintly green from the inside, where shadows moved across the windows though the glass had long since clouded over with frost from the wrong side. A child floated by without legs, giggling into a jar that held a swarm of candleflies. You saw a man with a flowerpot for a head watering it with tea. A woman selling buttons shaped like teeth.

This was not a place that mourned death.

This was a place that remembered it, wore it, built tea tables from it.

Remmick led you down a sloping path toward a cottage built halfway into the stone, the door crooked, the curtains made of faded funeral veils.

“This was mine,” he said, his voice almost sheepish. He toed at the dust near the doorstep, head ducked slightly.

“When?” you asked.

He smiled faintly, lifting a shoulder. “When the veil was thinner. When the dead and the livin’ shared more than just memory.”

He said it like someone recalling the smell of something they’d never taste again. Like someone who’d tried, once, to live after he’d been buried.

You looked around you.

The town wasn’t decayed. It was…rearranged. It had rules you didn’t yet understand. Gravity worked only where it felt like it. The dead did not walk in straight lines. Some glided. Some bounced. Some stitched themselves together fresh each morning and wandered about humming.

And the strangest thing of all?

You didn’t feel afraid.

Not in the way you should have. Not even when you turned around and the fountain had grown teeth. Not even when a man tipped his hat and his entire scalp followed. Not even when a door sighed open with a voice like your own and whispered, Stay.

Remmick was beside you, his body casting a shadow even here, where most things didn’t. He looked at you not like you were lost—

But like you were home.

That night—you still called it night, even though the moon hadn’t moved—he brought you to a bridge.

It spanned over nothing. No river. No ravine. Just a stretch of fog and sky. A ghost bridge.

You sat beside him at the edge, your legs dangling off as if you could fall somewhere, though you knew you wouldn’t. He sat close. Close enough that your shoulder brushed his.

He didn’t move away.

“Used to dream o’ this,” he admitted, after a long silence. “Not the forest. Not the dirt. Not the blood.”

He looked over at you, slowly.

“Just this. You. Here.”

You couldn’t answer. Your throat ached again.

His voice dropped, deep in his chest, accent thick with emotion he couldn’t hide. “Haven’t been touched since they put me down.”

The confession wasn’t vulgar. Wasn’t even pleading. It was starved. He smiled, crooked and small. “Can’t remember the last time someone just…looked at me. Like I wasn’t somethin’ to be feared.”

He didn’t touch you again, not even your hand.

He didn’t need to.

Your fingers brushed his pinky. Slowly. Once.

And his breath hitched so sharp you felt it in your bones.

By the next day—if you could still call it that—you weren’t watching the sky anymore. Weren’t thinking about what the world looked like outside these woods.

You walked the paths beside him. You listened to the hush of wind that sang like violins through cracked branches. You let him point out where the ghost-lanterns grew, little flowers with glass bell-heads that chimed when you passed them. You started remembering the feel of his shoulder bumping yours and missing it when it wasn’t there.

And you started to wonder.

Would it really be so terrible if you stayed?

You asked yourself that once. Then again. Then again.

At first it was just a whisper behind your ear. A suggestion. But now it nestled behind your ribs. Grew there. Took root.

Because you remembered Langdon, didn’t you?

You remembered his hand on your waist at supper, always too firm, like you were something to steer. You remembered how he spoke over you in every conversation, like a man correcting a child he hadn’t bothered to raise. You remembered how the ring—his ring—had been handed to you by someone else. No kneeling. No asking. Just expectation.

You remembered the way his lips never curled unless he was closing a deal.

And then there was Remmick.

Who asked if you wanted to see the rest. Who offered you his hand like it might be too much. Who waited every time you hesitated, and looked like it hurt him to do so.

He smiled with his whole mouth—ruined and all. He grinned when you laughed, even if he didn’t understand why. He softened around you like someone desperate to remember warmth. Every time he brushed against you, it wasn’t accidental. It was careful. Measured. Hopeful.

He looked at you like he was still not sure he deserved to.

You sat on the bridge again. Together.

Remmick had his hands in his lap, thumbs tracing nervous circles against each other. Every now and then, he’d glance at you. Say nothing. Then glance again.

You finally looked back.

“What is it?” you asked.

He startled slightly, sheepish. “Ah—nothin’. I just…”

His jaw clicked when he closed his mouth, then tried again.

“Ye don’t wear nothin’ on your finger,” he murmured.

Your breath caught. “Remmick—”

“No, no, love, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, huffing a laugh with no sound. “I know ye didn’t mean what ye said under the tree. I know ye weren’t…ye weren’t askin’ for all this.”

He paused, eyes dropping to the ring still on his own hand, the one you'd given him. “I just thought,” he added, quieter now, “maybe it’d feel a little less lopsided, is all.”

You didn’t know what to say. But your silence wasn’t rejection.

He must have felt that, because something flickered behind his eyes. He turned his palm over, and reached into the inside pocket of his coat. From it, he drew something strange.

A spool of hair, spun fine as thread—white and silvery-blue, like spider silk in moonlight. A broken thorn. A sliver of bone, no longer than a sewing needle. And the petal of one of those ghost-lantern flowers, shriveled but still glowing faintly at the edges.

He looked at you. Not for permission, exactly. Just to be sure you were still there.

Then he began.

He wrapped the hair into a loop, whispered to it in a language you didn’t understand—soft, low, rhythmic, like a lullaby hummed through soil. The thorn pierced the bone. The petal melted as it touched the band, fusing everything together in a slow flicker of light. It wasn’t magic like fireworks. It was quieter than that. Sadder. But it was real.

When it cooled, it had taken shape.

A ring. Fragile-looking, but solid. Matte white, like pearl gone to sleep. Veined faintly in red.

He offered it, resting on the flat of his palm like an offering. You looked at it. Then at him.

“It’s not a bindin’ spell,” he said softly. “I’d never do that to ye. It’s just a…a mark. That ye’ve been seen. That someone loved ye enough to make it.”

Your breath caught. You reached out, fingers trembling, and took the ring. And when you slipped it on—

The forest sighed.

Branches curled in. Flowers blinked open. The bridge beneath your feet thrummed like a harp string plucked once, gently.

And Remmick—Remmick made the smallest sound.

A choked inhale. Then, in a voice so soft it broke your heart:

“Ye look like someone worth waitin’ for.”

You don't remember dozing off.

But you did—still sitting beside him on the bridge, the soft weight of the ghost-ring warming your finger, his presence beside you steady as the moon that never shifted in the sky.

And when you woke, he was gone.

You startled upright, heart lurching. Your hand flew to the ring first—still there. Then to the edge of the bridge—still solid. The air felt heavier. Scented with something faint and iron-rich.

You called his name.

No answer.

Not at first.

You stood, blinking the fog from your lashes—and that’s when you saw it.

Laid carefully across the planks of the bridge, stretching in a line from your feet to the treeline beyond, was a trail of dead butterflies.

Hundreds of them. Each one perfectly intact, wings folded like prayer hands. Black as pitch with veins of crimson. Their bodies still. Sleeping. Dreaming. Waiting.

You followed.

Each step brought a rustle beneath your slippers, the softest stir of powder-dust wings. And up ahead—beneath the crooked trees that hung low like eaves—there he stood.

Remmick.

He had one hand behind his back, and his head tipped, sheepish as ever, like he’d been caught with something sinful in his pocket.

“Didn’t mean t’worry ye,” he said, voice soft.

You looked at the butterflies. Then back at him.

“What…is this?”

His smile wobbled.

“A bit of foolishness, maybe. Or maybe not.” He stepped forward, still holding whatever it was behind his back. “Back where I’m from… when we had no coin, no land, no dowry to offer—only things we’d taken from the earth—we’d still find a way t’make a gift.”

He stepped closer.

“An’ the most prized thing a man could offer…” He brought his hand forward.

In it, he held a locket.

But not gold. Not silver. It was made of bone, carved smooth and rounded into the shape of a heart. Not anatomically perfect—no, it was whimsical and off, a little uneven, the way a child might draw one. Etched into the surface were little spiral markings—like the moss had made beneath your heels that first day.

He opened it.

Inside was a pressed bluebell, perfectly preserved, its color dimmed to twilight. Across from it was a single moth’s wing, paper-thin and gleaming dully like wet stone—its veins iridescent, its edge slightly frayed. It shimmered like dusk and felt like a secret, as if it had been plucked from some dream before it could end.

Remmick didn’t explain right away. He only watched you open it, watched your thumb trace the curve of the petals, the fragile line of the wing. When he did speak, his voice had gone quieter, almost reverent.

“Th’bluebell,” he said, “they grow o’er graves where the dead were loved. Not all graves. Just the ones where someone wept hard enough t’water the earth.”

Your fingers stilled.

"And the wing?" you asked.

He hesitated. His eyes—those soft, wolf-sad things—lowered.

“She followed me once,” he said. “When I had no body. When I weren’t really a man at all. She’d land on me shoulder. Wouldn’t leave. Thought maybe she’d carry me soul somewhere if it ever got light enough.”

His smile came crooked. “She never did. But…I kept her. Just in case.”

You looked down at the locket again. At the love tucked carefully inside it—not gaudy, not gold, not spoken in flowers or poems, but in grief. In memory. In quiet things that didn’t ask for attention, only to be kept.

That was how he loved, you realized. Not loudly. Not demanding.

But devoutly.

With mourning in his blood and hope in his teeth. And you, wearing that little bone heart, felt something ancient stir beneath your ribs. Like maybe you'd been waiting for this place—this grave-bound man—just as much as he'd been waiting for you.

You blinked. Then laughed. It startled even you, the sound of it. But he didn’t flinch. Just watched, like you’d handed him the sun.

“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, that left side of his face pulling with a skeletal twitch where the wound exposed too much. “But I’d like you to have it. If you want it.”

You took it with both hands.The weight of it pressed into your palms like a heartbeat. You looked at him.

At his eyes—those wide, sorrowful things that glowed only faintly red now, not from hunger, but hope. At the way he didn’t reach for you, didn’t presume. Just stood still. Waiting.

You reached up. Tied the chain around your neck. It settled just above your collarbone. Close to your throat. Close to where he watched your pulse.

When your hand brushed his chest after—just lightly, just shyly—he let out the breath he’d been holding like it was his last. That was the moment you knew.

Not the rose. Not the bridge. Not the ribbon orchard. Not even the ring.

This.

This strange, mournful creature who had carved you a heart from the bones of the dead. Who watched you like you were worth every moment of his waiting. Who asked for nothing except to love you.

And you thought—

I feel more alive here, in this place of ghosts and ghouls and goblins than I ever did among the living.

You didn’t say it. But you didn’t have to. Because the forest heard you.

And so did he.

You held the locket in your palm long after it cooled, long after the weight of his gaze had eased—but not faded. He didn’t speak again. Only watched you with that tremble behind his smile, like he was scared his own heart might make too much noise and scare you off.

You looked at him. Really looked.

The sharp, wolfish teeth. The wound yawning over the right side of his jaw, red-veined and lipless but somehow not grotesque—just raw, unhealed, honest. The way his suit jacket hung slightly crooked over his frame. The moss in his hair from when he’d laid down in the grove beside you and listened to your voice like it was music. The wedding band still on his finger, slightly dirty with time passing but not with meaning.

You thought of the bluebell. Of the moth wing. Of all the things buried. And you asked, gently, “you never did get to kiss your bride, did you?”

He blinked. His breath caught like a match about to light. “No,” he said, slowly, voice cracking around the edges, thick with barely restrained emotion. “Never did.”

You stepped closer. Bare feet brushing bone-white moss, slippers silent as ghosts. The town behind you stirred like something dreaming—warm, moon-drowsy lamplight spilling from crooked windows. A cart creaked past on rusted wheels, pulled by a skeletal mule with eyes like glow-worms. Somewhere overhead, a thousand paper bats took flight from the belfry, flapping on stringy wings like dying leaves.

You lifted your hand.

Touched his face—gently, gently—cupping the uninjured side, but letting your thumb rest just at the edge of that ruined jaw. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t lean in.

He just…stood there. As if he was scared his own desire might shatter him.

“Then kiss her now,” you whispered. “She’s right here.”

Remmick’s eyes burned. Not metaphorically. Literally.

A ring of red swallowed his dark gaze—glowing like coals in a hearth that hadn’t felt breath in years. His lips parted, a tiny whimper caught between them. His hand twitched at his side, then lifted—hovering over your waist, then pulling back, trembling.

“I—” he choked. “Tell me if y’don’t want it. I’ll wait, I swear, just—just say it, an’ I’ll wait ‘til the grave grows cold.”

You didn’t answer.

You kissed him.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t chaste. It was raw and starved and aching. His hand finally landed on your back, gripping your gown in a fist like it was the only thing tethering him to the world. His mouth was cold—unnaturally so—but the longer it moved against yours, the warmer it got, like you were coaxing heat back into him.

He whimpered into you.

That sound—ragged and small—was almost too much.

His other hand found your cheek. Not greedy. Just reverent. Like he couldn’t believe you were solid under his fingertips.

And all around you, the forest bloomed.

Not with roses or lilies—but with boneflowers and glowing toadstools, with lantern-bugs that lit the air like constellations. Wind chimes made from ribs began to sing, and the belltower rang once, a low, humming note that quivered like a heartbeat.

You didn’t want to pull away.

Not because it was perfect. But because it wasn’t. Because it was messy and trembling and stitched together from grief and longing and the quiet, sacred madness of being wanted exactly as you were.

When you finally parted, his forehead dropped to yours.

“Christ above,” he whispered, voice gone soft and accented and wet with disbelief, “Ye taste like warmth. Like bloody spring after a thousand years o’ frost.”

You smiled.

Because for the first time in your life, you believed someone meant it.

His forehead rested against yours, breath shaky and uneven as if he’d forgotten how to need anything until now.

The world around you hummed in its stillness. Lantern-light flickered like breath behind gauze. Something in the cliffs sighed—the sound of wind moving through the hollow spaces of a place not meant for the living. The scent of old parchment and smoke-moss clung to the air. The boneflowers glowed dimmer now, like candles burned low in anticipation.

Remmick’s hand still cradled your cheek, reverent as a benediction. His thumb moved once, a trembling stroke along your jaw.

You looked at him. Really looked. The way his lashes fluttered like he couldn’t hold your gaze too long. The way his lips—wet, bitten, parted—trembled just slightly even though he’d stopped kissing you. He looked stunned. Like a man waking from a century-long dream and realizing heaven hadn’t been a lie after all.

You pressed your hand over the one still clutching your back.

And you asked, very softly, “Is there somewhere we can go?”

He blinked. “Go?”

Your thumb brushed his wrist.

“Somewhere private,” you said. “Somewhere we can be alone.”

You let the weight of your meaning hang there, open. Raw.

His eyes—still rimmed in that glowing red, still almost black where the light didn’t touch—widened just slightly.

He didn’t speak right away.

Then: “Y—ye mean…”

You nodded.

He let out a breath that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a sob, but something caught in the middle. His jaw flexed, the muscles around the torn part twitching as if it ached to smile and didn’t remember how.

“Aye,” he said at last, breathless. “Aye, I—Christ. C’ourse there is.”

You followed him through the quiet town, through paths lined with broken gravestones and wrought-iron gates wrapped in black ivy. The skeletal mule lifted its head as you passed, but didn’t move. The sky flickered between colors that didn’t exist aboveground—indigo, absinthe green, deep plum, midnight rust.

The house he led you to was small, crooked, nestled between two weeping trees. Its windows were frosted over from the inside, but lanterns glowed behind them—soft and inviting, not gold but something bluer, like the edge of candlelight seen through tears.

He opened the door and held it for you, eyes not leaving your face even once.

And when you stepped inside, the house breathed around you.

Like it had been waiting too.

The moment you stepped inside, the door shut behind you with a hush like a drawn curtain. No click. No finality. Just the sound of something sealing the world away—just the two of you now, cocooned in this crooked little house where time didn’t dare intrude.

It was warm, impossibly so. Not with fire, but with memory.

Lanterns floated untethered above the room, bobbing gently like sleeping fireflies in glass cages. Their glow was the color of old violets pressed between pages—dim, wistful, soft. A chair sat crooked beside a hearth with no fire, its frame carved with sigils too old to name. The walls were mismatched wood and stone, patched in places with stained-glass panels that bled moody light across the floor. Dust danced in the air like confetti made from ash and pearl.

And across the room stood a bed.

Not some pristine matrimonial thing. No, this was older. Lovingly worn. A frame of twisted wrought iron and bone-white wood, headboard etched with curling ivy and crescent moons. The sheets were moth-gray and velvet-soft, tucked in neat but frayed at the edges like they'd been waiting for years—centuries—to be touched again.

Remmick lingered behind you, his presence like a shadow you didn’t want to outrun. He hadn’t stepped closer yet. He was giving you space. But you could feel the way he vibrated with restraint. His hand hovered just inches from your back, like he couldn’t trust himself to touch without unraveling.

“If ye…” he began, and his voice cracked down the middle. He cleared his throat, tried again. “If ye’ve changed yer mind, just say the word. I’ll not take a thing ye don’t want to give, not even a breath.”

You turned to face him.

There was nothing hungry in his stance. Not yet. Just reverence. Just awe. But something in you had already begun to ache with want.

You stepped closer, silent as snowfall, until your fingers found the button of his collar. He startled at the contact—but didn’t stop you.

“I’m not scared of you,” you said, voice hushed. “I want this.”

You slid off the suit jacket, palms skimming the broad expanse of his shoulders, Remmick's lashes fluttering in response. Underneath, you found a pair of suspenders stretched taut over his chest, creating wrinkles in the fabric of his collared dress shirt.

You undid the top button. He didn’t move. Then Another.

His throat worked around a swallow, breath trembling. The glow in his eyes flickered, pulsing, softening. Like it responded to your touch.

Another.

You watched his chest rise and fall, slow and shallow as he tried not to pant. As if the sheer fact of you, undressing him—not in horror, not with trembling hands, but deliberately—was too much.

Another.

You laid your palms flat against his chest now, pushing the shirt from his shoulders. The white wife beater underneath clung to him, threadbare and soft, stretched over his broad frame. He was muscular in that quiet, devastating way—someone who’d labored long past death. His chest heaved with breath he didn’t need.

He hadn’t stopped watching your face.

Not once.

“I dunno if I remember how to do this slow,” he murmured, voice hitching on every word. “I’m too far gone for gentle if ye ask me to take too much control.”

You smiled, cupping the side of his neck. The unbroken one.

“Then let me.”

You stepped back once, your own hands now at the hem of your gown, torn at the hem, blood dried like rust at your shin. You pulled it loose now, bit by bit, letting it fall from your shoulders with the softest sigh of fabric meeting floor, leaving you in just your panties.

Remmick stared. His lips parted. No sound. His knees bent slightly, like he was fighting the urge to fall to them.

“Sweet hell,” he whispered, reverently. “Ye look like…like the night I died dreamin’ someone might love me anyway.”

And then, as if the words had summoned it, the lanterns above bloomed brighter, casting kaleidoscope patterns over your bare skin. The stained-glass windows threw ribbons of blue and red and indigo across your collarbones, your hips, your thighs.

Remmick reached out—slowly, slowly—and let the backs of his fingers trail along your arm. He didn’t dare touch your breasts. Not yet. He touched the hollow of your elbow. The dip of your wrist. The edge of your shoulder where your gown had once kissed your skin.

“Are ye sure?” he breathed.

You nodded.

“Lay with me.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding that breath since his last life.

And then he moved.

He moved like he wasn’t sure he was allowed.

Like the spell might break if he touched you too boldly—if he let himself believe for even a moment that he could have this. Have you.

You were already on the bed, the velvet beneath you rich and rippling like ink-stained water. Your head resting against moth-gray pillows. The locket he’d given you pressed cool against your breastbone, shifting with every breath. The air smelled of petrichor, moonlight, and something sweeter—something you’d begun to associate only with him. A scent like charred lilac and old longing.

Remmick knelt beside the mattress on one knee, wide palms gripping the edge of the frame like it was the only thing keeping him from coming undone.

“Christ, darlin’,” he rasped, his voice thick, slurred just slightly with his Irish cadence. “Ye don’t know what ye’re doin’ to me.”

But you did.

You could see it—see the way his jaw clenched, the left side twitching faintly where the skin had long since been torn away. The way his fangs caught on his lower lip, not bared, but there—unavoidable. You could see how hard he was fighting himself, how deeply he was suppressing the parts of him he feared you’d flinch from.

You didn’t flinch.

Instead, you reached for him, fingers curling into the front of his thin undershirt. Pulled him closer.

“Remmick,” you whispered. “It’s alright.”

He froze above you, nose inches from yours.

“I can’t—”

“You can.” You cupped his cheek, gently thumbing along the edge of exposed muscle. Not in disgust. Not in pity. But in affection. “I want all of you.”

Something in him broke.

He surged forward with a noise caught between a sob and a growl, his mouth crashing against yours. It was not the kiss of before—this one had heat, had desperation, the kind of longing that hadn’t been touched in over a thousand years. His lips were cold, but his tongue burned. You tasted the salt of old grief and something copper-sharp beneath it. His hands—God, those hands—one cupped your jaw while the other slid around your ribs, feeling flesh and bone simultaneously, cradling your back like you were sacred, like he might be punished for touching you too hard but couldn’t stop himself even if he tried.

“So soft—” he whispered, kissing the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then your neck. “So fuckin’ soft, love, like the world before it soured…”

His fangs dragged the faintest line along your throat. Not piercing—just testing. Just tasting. His breath hitched like it pained him to hold back.

And you whispered again:

“It’s fine.”

That was all he needed.

A low, guttural moan tore from his chest as he finally let himself grip you harder—your hips, your thighs, hauling you into his lap like he needed you closer, needed your skin pressed to his or he might rot again right there on the floor. His body was strong, stronger than a man’s should’ve been, and you could feel that strength now as he spread your thighs wide and settled between them, the weight of him pressing down deliciously heavy.

He groaned when he felt the heat of you beneath the fabric, when your legs wrapped around his waist. He wasn’t shy anymore. His teeth caught on your lower lip as he kissed you again, hungrier now, drooling slightly with want—not from gluttony, but from sheer, unbearable starvation.

“Ye smell like everythin’ I’ve ever lost,” he murmured raggedly. “And everythin’ I thought I’d never be allowed to touch again.”

His hips rolled once, helplessly, against yours. You felt the hardness of him, thick and restrained behind old linen and buttons. His breath hitched, head dropping to your shoulder.

“I’m tryin’, I swear it, I’m tryin’ to be slow…”

“You don’t have to be,” you told him, voice gone small and shaking. “I’m not afraid of you. I want you. All of you. Even the parts you’re trying to hide.”

He lifted his head slowly—eyes glowing red now, the pupils huge and blown with need.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he breathed. “Marryin’ me twice over, sayin’ that.”

You hadn’t meant to tempt him. Not exactly. But you’d said the words—I want all of you—and now you could feel what that meant in the trembling of his fingers as they hovered over your body. Not touching. Not yet. Just breathing you in like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. That you were happening.

His voice cracked through the hush of the room. “D’you know what yer sayin’, love?” He cupped the back of your neck, gentle as a grave flower. His thumb dragged along your pulse like he was listening to it. “A thousand years o’ hunger in me…an’ you go sayin’ that?”

Your answer came not in words but in action—pulling his hand down, pressing it against your chest so he could feel your heart race for him. For this. For the way his eyes glowed like twin embers in the dark.

That did it.

He surged forward, lips grazing the shell of your ear. “Then lie back for me, mo chroí,” he breathed. “Let me see what I’ve been dreamin’ of since before I knew what dreamin’ meant.”

You reclined against the velvet, heat curling low in your stomach, and Remmick followed you down—kneeling between your legs like a knight in a fairy tale gone all wrong and better for it. His skin caught the light, that blue like moonlight over still water, marred only by the right side of his jaw—where muscle and bone were laid bare, yet never once did he try to turn his face away from you.

Because you didn’t flinch.

You reached up and traced the edge of the torn flesh, and he shuddered, a sound like something old breaking loose in his chest.

He kissed you then—not hurried, but deep, wet, needy—and his hand came to rest between your thighs, warm despite everything. His fingers traced the seam of your inner thigh first, featherlight, before his mouth followed. Down your jaw. Your throat. Lower.

Praise spilled from him like prayer:

“Look at ye—soft as sin, warm as summer rain—ain’t never seen anythin’ like ye.”

He mouthed at your thighs, biting down just enough to make you gasp, but never break the skin. He lapped at the indentations like he wanted to memorize every tremble, every twitch. When your legs started to close reflexively, he hooked an arm around one, spreading you wider with a low, sinful groan.

“No, no, love. Let me see. Let me taste. It’s been so long—I’ll be good, I swear it, I’ll make ye forget everythin’ but me.”

His hand moved between your legs again—rough palm against soft heat. He doesn't remove your panties yet, content to tease you through the., letting the slick there soak into the cotton. He rutted his palm against you, slow and grinding, until your hips started chasing it.

You keened. And he moaned in response—open-mouthed, desperate.

“Fuckin’ drippin’ f’r me already…ain’t even had a taste…”

And he did.

One long stripe with his tongue over the damp cotton. Then another. Until he was panting into you like a starving man nosing through the seam of your underwear. One hand splayed over your belly, keeping you still.

Then he sucked the fabric into his mouth like he could wring the taste of you through it.

When you gasped, he looked up—eyes blown wide, red rimmed, lips wet and parted.

“Beggin’ ye,” he whispered. “Let me have ye proper, yeah? Just me mouth for now—let me make ye sing, mo chroí, let me worship ye like the altar ye are.”

And when you nodded—more a whimper than a yes—he pulled your panties aside and groaned, deep and broken.

You didn’t expect him to kiss your cunt.

But he did.

Like he meant it.

Like it was holy.

He parted you with reverence—his breath hot against your folds, one trembling hand holding your thigh like it anchored him to the earth. The other lay against your belly, fingers twitching as though resisting the urge to claw, to grasp, to sink into your softness and never let go.

And then…he kissed you.

Not rushed. Not ravenous. Just lips to flesh, slow and aching, as if the act itself might undo him. As if his very mouth might shatter around you—and he’d welcome the breaking.

Your back arched.

Not from shock—but from the texture.

Because his mouth wasn’t whole.

His lips were soft, yes. Warm, even. But where the skin gave way—where bone and sinew lay exposed, where every sharp, imperfect tooth glistened with preternatural hunger—his kiss became something otherworldly.

It should’ve been frightening.

It wasn’t.

It was devastating.

You felt it not just in your cunt, but in your spine, your ribs, your soul. He didn’t just use his tongue—though God, that tongue, wet and thick and curling with practiced strokes that told you he hadn’t forgotten how to ruin a woman—he used his mouth in full. The broken parts. The jagged ones.

He scraped—not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to tease. Just enough to remind you this wasn’t a dream. That this was him. Remmick. The dead man with the living hands. The monster with the gentle touch.

He licked you like you were spun sugar and sacrament, and when he pressed his tongue flat against your clit and sucked, your hands shot to his hair, tangled in it, dragging him closer—

He moaned. Moaned into you, like the taste alone could kill him.

“Christ alive,” he rasped, pulling back for half a second to pant against your slick. His voice was wrecked, thick with emotion and want, thick with his Irish cadence.

He ducked back down—open mouth, flat tongue, slow circles that made your thighs tremble—and then slid two fingers inside you in one smooth, devastating motion.

“Tight little thing,” he whispered, “grippin’ me like ye missed me your whole life.”

You sobbed something between his name and God and yes, your thighs clenching around his ears, and he groaned again—deeper this time—rutting against the bed like he was getting off on the noises you made alone.

And somewhere between the moaning and the wet pop of his mouth over your clit, somewhere between the slurp of his tongue and the squelch of his fingers moving inside you, the thought came—

My mother warned me of what goes bump in the night.

She whispered it when you were little. When the winds howled. When the floorboards creaked.

She said, “There are monsters, my love. Stay in the light.”

And now here you were, sprawled beneath one, flushed and soaked and gasping, letting him drag you apart with teeth and tongue.

You wondered what she’d say if she saw you like this.

If she knew that you’d chosen the dark—and begged it to keep you.

You felt it coming.

Not like a storm—fast and brutal—but like a tide, rising slow. Heat bloomed between your hips, slow and dangerous. Your thighs ached with the effort of keeping him there, like if you let go he’d vanish back into the earth that made him.

And still he stayed. Mouthing at your cunt like a man devoted. Like a man damned.

His eyes fluttered shut as his tongue circled your clit, drawing wet, lazy shapes—infinity, you thought, or a name—until you couldn’t tell where his mouth ended and your body began.

And then—

His eyes opened.

They glowed dimly at first, that reddish hue flickering like coal beneath ash. But when he felt your hand trembling against his scalp—when you whimpered “Remmick, I—”, his gaze snapped to yours.

Locked. Frozen. Held. It wasn’t lust you saw there. It was awe. It was reverence.

It was a man who hadn’t been touched in thirteen hundred years, now watching you—bare, flushed, trembling—fall apart beneath his mouth like a blessing.

His lips glistened. His fingers curled inside you, stroking something sharp and sacred. And still, he didn’t look away.

He stared at you like he was watching the stars be born. Like you were the only heaven he ever hoped to find.

And you knew—without him saying it—that if you asked him to stop, he would. If you asked him to die again, he would.

But you didn’t want that. You wanted more. So you said nothing.

You only whispered, voice shaking, “Don’t look at me like that.”

His jaw twitched. His breath caught. Then came his voice, low and ruined:

“Can’t help it, darlin’. Ye look like salvation.”

And you broke.

Your thighs clamped around his ears. Your back arched. You came with a sound so soft it felt like mourning. Like prayer. Like surrender.

And Remmick—beautiful, monstrous, trembling—moaned like he’d been given breath again.

He kept licking you through it. Slower now. Gentler. One last kiss to your clit, soft and grateful. He pressed his cheek to your thigh, jaw wound resting against your skin like it belonged there.

And still, his eyes never left your face.

After, you pulled him up.

He came willingly. Crawled over you with something almost shy in the set of his shoulders, the way his body trembled despite its strength. You reached for him—and for a moment, he hesitated, like he couldn’t believe you were still here. That you wanted this. That you wanted him.

You cupped his face.

Cold skin. The torn edge of his right jaw like worn marble. One fang brushing your thumb where it passed his lip. His eyes flickered between black and red—uncertain, afraid he might be dreaming.

“Remmick,” you said, your voice thick and still breathless, “do you want me?”

The question broke something in him.

He nodded too fast, like a man who’s never been given permission to hope. “Aye. Christ, aye, I do—been wantin’ ye since the trees took yer scent. Since ye bled on the bark and woke me.”

Your fingers trailed down his chest, down the wife beater—until you reached his belt. He sucked in a breath, whole body twitching when your knuckles brushed the tented front of his trousers.

“Then show me,” you whispered. “Show me how much.”

His mouth twitched into a smile, wide and crooked. “Ye don’t know what ye ask, lass.”

You leaned up, lips brushing his jaw, your whisper soft and sharp against his skin. “Then show me anyway.”

He kissed you—harder this time, desperate now, hips grinding against your thigh with the ragged rhythm of a man barely keeping himself leashed. His tongue pushed into your mouth, all heat and hunger, and you could taste blood and lavender and something older, something wild, on his tongue.

And God, he kissed like he meant to die in your mouth. When he pulled back, his voice rasped, thick and low:

“Ye sure?”

You nodded once. Twice. Then said it, clear and sure:

“I want to feel you inside me.”

He shuddered. Not just a tremble—but a full-body quake, as if your words went deeper than skin, straight to the buried places inside him.

“Then lie back, ma wee bride,” he murmured, voice shaking, thick with that Irish lilt you’d grown to crave. “Let me make a proper mess of ye.”

He moved slowly, reverently, as he undressed you fully, fingers shaking as they peeled your underwear down. His breath caught at every inch of exposed skin, like he was memorizing it with his mouth slightly parted.

He bent low, kissed the inside of your thigh again—then your hip, your stomach, your ribs. Worshipful. Starved.

And when he reached for himself, undid the buckle of his trousers with fumbling hands, he looked up at you once more, almost apologetic.

“I—ah—may not last long,” he confessed, shame flickering across his face. “Not when ye’re lookin’ at me like that. Not when I’ve waited this long. I’ll—I'll make it up to ye, I swear it—”

You touched his face again.

“Then come undone for me, Remmick,” you whispered. “You’ve waited long enough.”

He lowered himself between your thighs like a man preparing for worship, not fucking.

His forehead pressed to your sternum. His breath trembled. You felt him—not just the weight of his body, but the heat of him, pulsing against your thigh, thick and straining beneath your touch.

And God, he was big.

You glanced down and saw it—long and flushed dark at the tip, veined like marble, so hard he twitched in time with his breath. The way his cock curved heavy toward his stomach made your breath catch. He looked like something carved from sin.

He saw your eyes widen and started to pull back.

“I—I’ll wait, love, I’ll—”

“No,” you breathed, grabbing his arm. “I want it. I want you. Just…slow.”

He swallowed, hard. His throat clicked.

“Gonna ruin ye,” he whispered, voice thick with Irish dusk and awe. “Gonna stretch ye wide and deep and still wish I could go deeper.”

Your legs parted further on instinct. Your heels dragged the sheets. He looked down at you like you were something sacred, worshipped and half-afraid of.

Then his hand moved between your thighs.

His fingers—two at first, slow and careful—slid back into your soaked heat, working you open gently, watching for every flinch, every sharp breath. His jaw—half-torn and glowing faintly with the light of his hunger—tightened.

“Look at ye,” he whispered hoarsely, breath like a vow. “So soft f’r me. So warm already.”

Your hips arched into his hand. You whined when his thumb brushed your clit, your hands clutching at his shoulders, his name escaping your lips again and again in half-sobs.

“Please, Remmick,” you gasped.

He kissed your knee. Your hip. Your inner thigh again. Then—

He lined himself up with you, shaking. “I can feel ye callin’ f’r me,” he said, voice low, trembling. “Can feel yer body beggin’ mine to belong.”

You didn’t have words for what he made you feel. Only need. Only the hot, aching stretch inside as he finally pressed forward, the thick head of his cock nudging into you with aching slowness.

And God—the burn. It wasn’t pain. It was too much and not enough all at once. You clutched his arms. Gasped. He froze.

“Too much?” he rasped. “Do I stop?”

“No—Remmick—don’t stop,” you moaned, “just—go slow—”

And he did. So slow, like he was trying not to shatter.

His cock dragged deeper, inch by inch, your walls clutching at him, your slick coating him as he bottomed out in you with a shudder that shook his whole body. His arms shook. His forehead dropped to yours. His mouth opened but nothing came out—not until your name escaped his throat on a cracked, desperate sound that felt more like prayer than pleasure.

“Fookin’ Christ,” he choked, barely moving, buried to the hilt inside you. “Ye feel—Gods above—ye feel like fire.”

You were full. So full. Stretched in a way that left your eyes fluttering, your voice catching in your throat. You didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe. You only wanted to feel him there, pulsing deep inside, trembling like you were the first sunrise he’d ever seen.

And maybe you were.

He stayed there, deep and still, as if even the smallest movement might break you. His eyes squeezed shut. His jaw flexed against the side of your throat. You could feel him shaking—not from strain, but from the restraint it took not to move.

You wrapped your arms around his neck.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, mouth brushing the shell of his ear. “I can take it.”

He didn’t answer at first. Just trembled, breath warm on your shoulder. But the sound he made when your hips tilted up—when your walls squeezed gently around him—wasn’t human.

It was a groan wrenched up from the deepest part of him. A sound centuries old.

“Ye don’t know what ye’re sayin’,” he rasped. “Ye don’t know what I’ll do if ye tell me I can…”

“I do,” you whispered, meeting his gaze. “I want you to.”

And that’s what broke him.

The first thrust was shallow, but sharp—his hips twitching forward, grinding deep. Your mouth fell open, a gasp slipping past your lips. He did it again. Then again. Each movement just a little rougher, a little more desperate. Until he was fucking you with the kind of pace that spoke of appetite, not lust.

He pressed you down into the sheets, breathing ragged, body arched over yours like he couldn’t get close enough. His lips dragged down your throat, over your collarbone, mouthing at the tops of your breasts like a man starving.

He muttered something in Irish against your skin—raw, thick, ruined—but you didn’t need to understand it. You felt what it meant in the way he rutted into you, deep and fast, his cock dragging along the parts of you no one else had ever touched.

You sobbed his name.

Your nails dug into his shoulders. You felt his back ripple beneath your hands, all sinew and strength, every part of him working to fuck you the way he’d been dreaming of since long before your first breath.

“You feel me?” he groaned into your mouth. “Deep in that sweet lil cunt, aye? So warm—so wet—I could drown in ye.”

You cried out, back arching, thighs trembling.

His mouth kissed down your breast, licking over your nipple before sucking it between his teeth. Your whole body jerked beneath him.

“Fook,” he breathed against your skin. “Ye’re squeezin’ me like you like it when I lose m’self.”

“I do,” you sobbed. “I want you to—Remmick, please—don’t stop—”

He didn't.

He pounded into you, hips snapping, the slick drag of his cock obscene as your bodies slapped together. His jaw wound gleamed faintly with wet, his eyes glowing a deep carnelian red. But even with his mouth parted, his teeth sharp, even with the beast in him taking hold—he still looked at you like he loved you.

Loved you, even if he didn’t dare say it yet. You clenched around him. His rhythm faltered.

He growled, low and broken, “Tell me if I hurt ye, love. Tell me—swear it—”

“You’re perfect,” you whimpered, tears slipping down your cheeks. “You’re perfect, Remmick.”

His forehead dropped to yours. Then he rutted into you with such bruising depth, you saw stars.

He couldn’t stop shaking.

Even as his body rocked into yours, even as your legs wrapped around his hips and your nails raked down the meat of his back, Remmick trembled like a man possessed.

“Can’t hold m’self back,” he whispered, voice rough and wrecked and soaked in longing. “Not when ye’re like this—soft and beggin’ beneath me—so fuckin’ warm—”

“Then don’t,” you breathed. “Remmick, please—don’t stop—don’t hold back—just take me—”

Your words undid him.

He groaned low in his chest, mouth falling open, and something inside him slipped. His pace turned brutal—not cruel, never cruel—but driven. Like centuries of craving finally had a body to answer to.

Like you were the only thing he’d ever wanted, and the wait had nearly broken him.

The frame of the bed creaked beneath his rhythm. Your thighs trembled around his hips, slick and trembling, your body rocked with every deep, ragged thrust. And still—still—he tried to speak.

“You feel me, yeah?” he rasped, forehead pressed to yours. “Deep in that sweet cunt…like I belong there. Like I was meant to be there—"

Your hands curled at his nape. Your lips brushed his ear.

“You do,” you said.

That was all it took.

Remmick let go.

His body slammed flush against yours, hips stuttering hard, cock pulsing deep inside you with a heat so full, so heavy, it knocked the breath from your lungs.

He groaned brokenly against your skin, his whole body arching as he spilled inside you—deep, thick, endless—his forehead resting against yours like he had nowhere else left to go.

You clung to him. His breath hitched. Then again.

And when you looked down between your bodies, when your thighs parted with a sticky ache—you saw the proof of him leaking back out of you, thick and warm where you were still stretched around the base of his cock.

A creamy ring of white.

Remmick saw it, too.

He moaned—deep, guttural—and pulled you closer, nosing at your throat like he was afraid you’d disappear. “So full of me,” he whispered, dazed. “Look at ye. Stuffed so pretty…”

You kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Remmick,” you whispered.

His eyes fluttered open.

And when you looked into them—when you saw the pain, the wonder, the sheer reverence—you knew. He’d been waiting longer than you’d been alive. For this. For you.

His voice cracked, Irish accent trembling:

“Don’t leave me, love. Not now. Not ever.”

You kissed him back.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The air felt different after.

Not warmer, not colder—but fuller. As if something ancient and unseen had exhaled at last. A spell released. A promise made flesh.

Remmick lay tangled beside you, arms wrapped tight around your body like he didn’t know how to let go. His cheek pressed to your shoulder, jaw wound cool and tender against your skin. His breath was shallow, uncertain—like he still couldn’t believe you were real.

You watched the glow-worm lanterns drift lazily overhead. Somewhere outside, the bones in the wind chimes knocked gently together like teeth. The forest whispered.

You should’ve been afraid.

Of the damp, breathing woods. Of the moss that learned your name. Of the way the moon never moved and the veil hung so thin you could taste it when you kissed him.

But you afraid. You were…calm.

He stirred slightly when you traced a lazy pattern down his back—soft whorls against undead skin still damp with sweat. A low, content sound rumbled in his throat, and he nosed into the crook of your neck, whispering something like “m’wife…” so quietly, you weren’t sure if it was meant for you or just the silence.

And God help you, you smiled.

It hadn’t been love with Mr. Langdon. It hadn’t even been kindness.

It had been a future written in ink not your own. One you’d been expected to accept without complaint, because it was tidy. Respectable. Fitting of a girl raised to smile politely, to never contradict her elders, to marry for property and speak only when spoken to.

Your mother had called it security.

Had warned you to stay away from things that wandered in the woods. From things with glowing eyes and sharpened teeth. Things that hungered.

And now—

Now you lay in a moss-slick bed of dirt and silk, bare and marked and full of one such thing. You wore his locket. His bite. His ring.

You brushed your fingers along the smooth place at your neck where his lips had lingered. A perfect bruise. A signature.

And still you weren’t afraid. You weren’t ashamed. You were…

Content.

“I wish I’d met ye sooner,” he whispered against your collarbone. “Back when I still knew how to be a man.”

You turned your head, met his eyes. Those wide, glowing eyes.

“You still are.”

He swallowed, expression caught between reverence and disbelief.

“I ain’t decent,” he said, voice thick with that Irish lilt again. “Ain’t clean. Ain’t right. I sleep in the dirt, I feed when I must, and I carry more ghosts than I do breath in m’lungs.”

“You’re kind,” you said.

“A monster.”

“You’re mine.”

He closed his eyes at that.

You rested your palm over his heart—cold and still. But when you pressed closer, you could swear something stirred there. Like an echo. Like a wish.

He buried his face in your chest, arms tightening around your waist. And you let him hold you.

You never looked back again.

Not at Langdon. Not at the mother who warned you off the dark but allowed the devil in anyway. Not at the world where your name was written beside a stranger’s in a church you hated.

Instead, you stayed in the belly of the forest. In the town built of bones and moss and memory. You watched the ribbons in the orchard sway like breath. You fed the skeletal cat scraps of peach and laughed when it swiped at your slipper. You kissed your husband when the wind moaned, and whispered promises against his cheek when his hands trembled.

Because you loved him. Because he waited.

And because when you reached for a tree with trembling hands and a bloodstained ring, he was the one who answered.

Not Langdon. Not God.

Him.

On the morning the bluebell bloomed again—only one, shy and frost-bitten—you knelt beside it with Remmick and whispered,

“Maybe this was the wish that came true.”

He stared at the bloom, then at you. And smiled.

“I ran from a man with a pulse,” you whispered, lacing your fingers through your undead husband’s. “But I stayed for the one with a soul.”

[sugarwarachan]

18+ - older roommate! aizawa *barks*

you've only been aizawa's roommate for a couple months, but it's long enough to develop an absurd crush on him. he mostly keeps to himself, although lately he's taken to bringing you extra blankets when you fall asleep on the couch watching atla re-runs.

personally, you find it impossible to ignore him. he's broad and gruff and just manly in a way that makes your thighs press together whenever you see his chest hair poking out of his sleep shirt.

(the first time you saw the happy trail ducking into his sweatpants, you waited for him to leave for work before fucking yourself on the thickest dildo you own. you saw the outline of his cock; you know he's hung.)

the only saving grace of working your thankless job is that you can work remote, which usually leads to late nights hunched over the desk, blearily sorting data in cells.

just like how it is tonight, music blasting in your ears and an excel spreadsheet four inches away from your nose.

a hand falls on your shoulder.

flinging your headphones off, you whirl around to see aizawa backing away from you with his hands held up in surrender. he points at his ear. "your music will blow out your eardrums."

god, he's such a fucking dad sometimes.

(you do not let that thought linger longer than it has to.)

your voice comes out squeaky. "you scared me half to death!"

his lips quirk up, and fuck him for still being devastatingly handsome when he looks bone tired. "i should have announced myself. you okay?"

you rub your neck, one eye on the computer. "yeah, i'm fine."

aizawa zeroes in on the movement. "does your neck hurt?"

you can't help laughing. "i'm wound tight as a drum, so it's kind of par for the course."

he steps forward. "where does it hurt?"

"ummm..." your brain short-circuits. "sort of around here?" you gesture vaguely between your shoulder blades. "it's always the worst at the end of the day."

"turn around for me real quick, y/n."

you obey, and immediately, strong fingers sink into the muscles on either side of your neck. you shiver in his grasp at the unbelievable relief in tension.

"feel good?"

he's joking, right?

you manage a nod as he continues to work out the knots along your spine. "it feels really good."

he says nothing in reply, just keeps working the delicate muscles in your neck and shoulders until you're practically as loose as melted wax.

(later, when you've gone to bed, aizawa finally unbuckles his pants and releases his cock, flushed red and sticky with pre-cum and so sensitive to the touch that the second his palm slides over the shaft, he has to bite the inside of his cheek to distract himself from cumming all over his belly)

2025 © all works belong to me, @sugarwarachan! do not repost, translate, or steal any of my works pls. because this is a community and community thrives off interaction, reblogs and comments are appreciated and encouraged!!! <3 and last but not least, f you'd like to be added to my general taglist, let me know!

general taglist <3 @cielito--lindo, @one-scarred-mofo, @uekarashi, @waterfal-ling, @iluvikeu, @bach-ira

[jinx-xxed]

Silver Chains

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

A/N; I’ve already watched Sinners 4 times and became obsessed so I fear it’s necessary for me to write a fic for Remmick at least once 🤕 this is my first time writing vampires and blood like this so please forgive me if it sucks 🙏 also if I’ve written anything in relation to the movie incorrectly please tell me so I can fix it! I have some other ideas brewing that I might write as well so I hope you enjoy :P!

Summary; A hunt gone awry leaves you caught by vampire hunters with the threat of the sun looming over you.

Content; NSFW 18+, AFAB reader, vampire reader, vampirism, vampire hunters, blood and injury, death, feral behavior, you almost die, protective/possessive Remmick, very dependent relationship, bloodsucking, blood eating as kink, a lot of drool, he comes with it what can I say, feeding off Remmick, putting those claws and teeth to good use, eating out, fingering, piv sex, multiple orgasms, little bit of aftercare, soft Remmick

Wc; 7.2k

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

The stench of blood assaults your nose.

It’s not the tantalizing, mouth-watering scent of someone else’s, no, it’s your own. It smells all sorts of wrong, impure and old with decay only to a thing like you.

Your blood runs down your skin in rivulets, staining it a deep, shiny red. Droplets fling from your body as you thrash and jerk against the heavy, silver chains that bind you to a thick and sturdy tree. The pain of the bark digging into your back is nothing compared to the agony of the chains burning your flesh away, steam rising from your injuries like you’d been placed on burning coals. It makes you wild, desperate to get away but with nowhere to go.

There’s no chance of you escaping the chains that sit against your neck, arms, waist, and legs in sets of two, even despite your struggling and the way you try to launch yourself from the tree with the slight leeway you have with your feet. Your unnerving eyes gleam in the moonlight, wide and frantic with fear, your bloodstained, jagged teeth showing in your open mouth. You feel as far from human as you possibly could be, snarling like an animal and chained just like one too.

The men watching you seem to think the same thing.

There’s five of them, two sit on their horses while the other three steadily pace the small clearing they have you in. God damn vampire hunters, armed to the teeth with everything they need to kill the likes of you. Silver bullets, silver chains, garlic and holy water, wooden stakes on their belts. It’s like they’re surrounded by a bubble of protection that you can’t penetrate, that’ll hurt you if they get too close—which isn’t that far off.

You curse yourself over and over. You and Remmick made damn sure to stay away from Choctaw land and yet here you are, caught and beaten. This is a new type of hunter, one you’d never had the misfortune of coming across before. They hunt in the dead of night, they enjoy watching you thrash and suffer, and their methods are cruel, meant to draw out your punishment.

You’ve never heard or seen a lick of them prior to tonight when you’d been ambushed and chased through the woods.

A gunshot had pierced your shoulder, one that brought more pain than your typical lead bullet. It had left you stumbling with a choked yell, steam rising from the hole in your shoulder blade. Then you’d heard the rustling in the underbrush, the hoots and hollers of men with a different kind of bloodlust than what you’re used to. Oh you’d ran, you’d ran as fast as your legs could carry you through the rough terrain of the forest, clearing fallen logs and scraping your bare arms on branches and thorns.

They’d caught you with another bullet to your thigh and a rope around your legs, pulling snug as soon as you tried to take another step and sending you thudding onto the hard ground. They’d wrapped you in silver soon after, seemingly experts on how to maneuver around you to avoid your snapping teeth and deadly nails. The first touch of the silver made your skin bubble and burn, a scream tearing out of your throat against your will. They’d dragged you crying for you don’t know how long behind their horses, all the way to the edge of the forest that overlooks a field that’s flat for as far as the eye can see.

You don’t know where they came from, they’re clearly unrelated to any other group or tribe of hunters, instead being just a gaggle of men who have dedicated their lives to eradicating yours. The history of your kind isn’t widely known, isn’t readily available to the public, so in your pain-addled brain you still wonder where they heard your tales, still wonder what else you might have to worry about if the knowledge is growing.

Your head thumps back, your breath coming ragged through your lungs. You shut your eyes tight for just a moment, trying to force away any more tears and clear your head. You haven’t felt pain like this in a long, long time, especially because Remmick has always been there to keep an eye on you, to keep you out of harms way. But not this time, not when you strayed too far and got too distracted to be vigilant about your surroundings. You’d been stupid and you know that, so part of you thinks you deserve this.

“Just stake me and be done.” You groan, ultimately defeated as the silver chains bite through your skin to the bone. It’s not like you want to die necessarily, you just want to be released from your own agony. You hate the way they’re toying with you, watching like wolves as you writhe and bleed.

One man shakes his head, his face shadowed by the cowboy hat he wears. “Nah, we like to watch y’all burn.” He looks to his watch and then up at the sky. “Ain’t gon’ be much longer now.”

You can’t help looking as well, your eyes finding the ever lightening night sky. The stars have been chased away, the moon laying itself to rest on the other side of the earth. You can feel the threat of the sun as the air steadily warms, as time tick, tick, ticks away. If you had to guess, you have about thirty minutes left at most before yellow rays peak over the horizon line.

You force a swallow down your torn throat, your breathing stutters as panic kicks up in your chest. You figure seeing the sun in your final moments won’t be the worst thing, it has been seven years after all, but nobody wants to be burned alive. You don’t want to feel your skin cook and be engulfed by flames, you don’t want your last memory to be pain. Tears fall down your bloodstained cheeks without you realizing, dripping to the forest floor as your head hangs.

Then there’s a rustle in the trees beyond that makes your attention snap back up. That’s when you sense it, when the tiny hairs on the back of your neck rise. It’s like a blanket of eerie quiet was laid over the clearing, quieting any crickets or frogs or birds and leaving just the whispers of an old wind through the trees. There’s a flash of red, the familiar smell of ancient blood and earth hitting your nostrils. It’s an instant comfort.

Your own reaction has caused the hunters to become alert, clutching their guns a little tighter and looking into the trees. They don’t even realize what’s happening before the screams start.

The first man goes down—the first is always the easiest. The horses startle in turn, rearing up with loud, shrill whinnies that make the men on their backs shout. One falls off his beast while the other gets dragged from the saddle with a yell. The horses shake their heads and shriek before crashing into the forest, leaving their riders behind to get their throats torn open.

You could sob in relief at seeing Remmick, his claws extended and his fangs bared. He looks feral, his hair wild and his eyes wide and gleaming bright red. Blood coats his chin and his neck, staining the collar of his button up as he rips into his victims as messily as he pleases. The two men left got enough of their senses to try and fire their guns, to use the weapons they so carefully prepared. One wields a wooden stake and runs at Remmick who grabs the man’s wrists to prevent the stake from being buried into his heart.

They grapple briefly before the man is being slammed onto the ground with a terrifying ease, something within his body cracking. Claws are raked across his neck in a quick slash, urgency spurred by the cock of a gun, the sound of the shot being fired making you flinch as it rings through the clearing. It misses its target by just a hair and it’s unable to reload fast enough to prevent Remmick from jumping on the final hunter. The man goes down with a choked scream and you hear the familiar sounds of flesh being devoured and blood being drained. There’s only a sickly silence that follows.

All of the spilled blood has thick strings of drool dripping from the corners of your mouth, your hunger flaring up from the lack of food you’d gotten tonight and the exhaustion of struggling against the hunters. You lean forward instinctively, desperate for a taste, before the silver chains binding your body remind you of where you are. You jolt back with a whimper, pain biting into you tenfold.

Remmick’s head snaps up, those sinister red eyes finding you as the bloodlust and blind rage fades, as he seems to remember you. He’s up in an instant, hurrying over and flinching away with a snarl when he realizes what’s wrapped around your body. “Shit.” He spits angrily, doing it again when he looks to the horizon and sees the slow infiltration of the oranges and yellows of morning into the purples and blues of night. Ten minutes left.

“Rem- Remmick- please, please get me out- it hurts, Remmick, please.” You beg, your babbling words warbling with pain and emotion. You don’t want to be left behind, not again, not by him. It’d hurt more than the searing kiss of the sun.

“I ain’t leavin’ you, darlin’.” He says with finality through gritted teeth, even as every instinctual thing inside him whispers to leave you here to die, to save himself and let you be engulfed in the flames of your mistake. He circles behind you, taking a deep breath before beginning to tug at the chains, hissing as they burn the calloused skin on his hands. Despite the pain, they steadily come undone, dropping to the ground around you so you can finally take in a gasping breath.

“I told you to stay with me, didn’t I? Would it kill ya to listen for once?” Remmick snaps as he undoes the last of the chains around your legs, leaving you to stumble forward. You’re charred and covered in wounds, but now your body can finally begin to regenerate. You look a mess and you feel like one too, tears stinging the corners of your eyes as you struggle just to stay standing.

Before you can even get out an apology, he’s grabbing your wrist and tugging you with him. His own blood smears on your skin, the smell threatening to cloud your mind. “C’mon, or else we’ll both be fried.” His tone is low and angry and focused, telling you to save whatever you need to say for later.

You eagerly follow him, doing your best to keep up as you both run to outrace the rising warmth of morning. Panic hangs heavy around you, knowing how quickly those final minutes tick by, feeling the heat licking at your heels. Your skin threatens to begin sizzling again, sweat gleaming on your forms.

But by the grace of some cursed god, it turns out the hunters had dragged you not too far from where you and Remmick have made your home in a tiny little house hidden in the trees. It’s temporary, of course, and you’ll no doubt be moving again after tonight, but in the moment it’s like finding a blessed sanctuary in the midst of damnation. You both fly up the porch steps and burst into your home just as the sun clears the horizon line, its beams filtering through the trees while you slam the door in its face.

You fall to your knees instantly, panting and heaving like a dog as your deep injuries throb and ooze. Your whole body is shaking, weak from a pain and hunger you haven’t experienced before. You can feel the ache in your teeth, the drool that still runs down your chin despite how many times you’ve wiped it away.

Remmick is less fazed, simply shrugging off his sweat and blood soaked button up and tossing it aside, his suspenders falling loose around his hips and leaving him in his once white tank. The thin gold chain around his neck glints in the dim lighting, a twin to the gold band on his ring finger. He’s cut it close enough times in his long past that he’s familiar with the sensation of the sun at his back, but he’s been more careful with you. He makes sure to have you both fed and back with time to spare, but everything seemed to go wrong tonight. Though, he supposes the scare was probably good for you. Teach you not to wander off again.

He looks idly at his hands, at the blisters that are already beginning to fade. He’s always healed pretty fast, while you on the other hand aren’t as fortunate. The scent of your blood fills his nose, fills the room of the house. You’re both lucky his hunger was satiated earlier, otherwise he’d be on you like a leech. Even after he turned you, your blood stayed just as mouthwatering, just as delicious to something twisted inside of him. It proved to him that you were something different, something he’d been searching for without really knowing it.

“Are you upset with me?” You sniffle, quite pathetic really. But it’s been a long while since you’ve felt this much shame and embarrassment, and your body doesn’t quite know what to do with it besides force it out through tears.

Remmick stands in silence with his thoughts for a moment more before he sighs, defeated. “I ain’t angry with ya, sugar. Just worried, is all.” He turns, his steps marked by the too-soft thud of boots against hardwood. You see the toes of his shoes in your vision, but you still can’t make yourself lift your head, to look at him—so he does it for you. He crouches down, taking your face in his hand, making you meet his eyes. “Fuck, darlin’, they almost killed you.”

You can see the concern etched onto his eternally young face, the memory of seeing you chained in silver and presented like a sacrifice to the morning sun. You can’t even begin to understand the fear he’d felt; hearing all the commotion far off in the woods, hearing your screams and hoping he ran fast enough to reach you. He could smell the way your blood poured from your body, the way it burned under your confines. He’d sensed your terror too, your emotions sitting just behind his own like a second pair, locked together by a bond too ancient to be understood. You’d called out to him without your voice and he answered without a second thought.

Oh, how he’d raged seeing you against that tree, begging your captors for a quick death. Your face was covered in tears and blood, you’d looked to the horizon with a mixture of acceptance and panic, something he’s seen plenty of times before. He never should have let it happen, should have known to keep you closer, should have known you were still too young into this and got too excited over fresh meat. Hell, he didn’t even know how you managed to sneak off but he’d looked away for one damn minute and then you were gone. He’d been a fool to trust that you’d come back before a gunshot rang through the forest.

Killing those men was one of the easier things he’s done. Remmick barely even registered their deaths, the only thought in his mind being eliminating any threats to you and getting some food out of it as well. Their wards and stakes and silver bullets did nothing to deter him, they were weak and weightless—the opposite of the other hunters he’s come across, the ones with real strength. No, those men were new and ultimately inexperienced, and yet still stupidly dangerous.

He’d worry about them later. They’re dead and gone while you’re still bleeding and sniffling in front of him.

You lean into his touch like a cat, desperate for comfort. “Yer starvin’, ain’t ‘cha?” He murmurs, running his thumb along your cheek. He can see it clear as day in your gleaming eyes, the drool that won’t stop, and the way your wounds are refusing to close because you don’t have enough sustenance. You nod sadly, your head bowed while tears of frustration burn behind your eyelids. Remmick is quick to wipe them away. “Shh, don’t cry, sugar. You’ll be alright. You got food right here.”

You look at him with confusion before seeing the way he’s presented his thick forearm to you, underside up. Your eyes widen and you almost jump immediately at the opportunity, your teeth aching painfully and hunger howling within you. He nods his head towards his arm. “Go on, darlin’. You know I wouldn’t let ya go hungry.”

You sit up, acting on autopilot as you grip his arm in both of your hands, your drool dripping onto his skin before your teeth sink in. Blood immediately comes to the surface of the puncture wounds, and you take every drop you’re offered. The iron-sweet tang on your tongue instantly brings out your hunger tenfold, your fangs digging even deeper into the soft skin. Remmick makes a low noise, something between a groan and a grunt, watching with satisfaction as you take from him.

It’s rare when he lets you do this. Typically there’s enough food for the both of you, enough to keep you happily satiated until the next time that primordial hunger comes knocking. But sometimes there’s nights when the hunt fails, nights like tonight when the need to feast is bad enough to kill you if it’s left too long, when you need to rely on your last resort. However, no matter what, Remmick will never let his lady go hungry.

The age of Remmick’s blood blooms in your mouth, rich with an aftertaste of ancient iron and old, hidden stories. Only people like you would know how much you can learn from someone’s blood, from the life force of their body. The whispers of the lives they led running along your tongue as you feast, the emotions they held within hopes and dreams. It’s fascinating, and it was something Remmick was eager to show you when you were first turned, teaching you the crimson stained wonders of being what he is.

You relish the feeling of his blood flowing through you, working to heal the wounds littering your body. His other hand rests firmly on the back of your neck, his fingers occasionally squeezing and letting you feel the pricks of his claws that have begun to slide from their sheaths. He keeps you there, encouraging you to take and take and take.

You eventually pull back, twisting out of his hold on you and releasing his bloody arm with a pop. Your breath comes as pants through your open mouth, blood staining your lips and teeth, the gleam having returned to your eyes. Your bites have always been cleaner than Remmick’s, less gruesome and destructive, leaving his forearm with tiny wounds that will heal quickly. The sight of red beading from them still makes you salivate but it’s easier to reel yourself in now, dragging your hunger back by a leash around its neck to keep it from going rabid. It allows your fangs and claws to be more willing to retract, your mind no longer running in restless, desperate circles around the concept of food.

You notice the way Remmick has been looking at you, full of some type of reverence mixed with relief, you think. Relief at the fact you’re not a sniveling, bleeding mess on the floor anymore, your usual shine quickly coming back. Your wounds have stitched themselves back together, bone no longer showing and just the outermost layers still being torn and burnt. It makes you feel like you can breathe again, every movement free of the horrible agony.

“C’mere.” Remmick says, voice dropping a few levels as he continues staring at your blood stained mouth. He pulls you in before you even have the chance to sit up properly, your lips meeting in a clash of tongues and teeth. He groans when he tastes his own blood on you, practically taking it from you with the way he licks you. You gasp against him as he fully invades your space, your back hitting the wooden door so that there’s nowhere else to go, his body effectively caging you in. His hands easily roam over your form, knowing every inch and detail with the precision of a man who’s explored them a hundred times before.

Hands come to rest on your waist and before you know it, you’re being hoisted up with a startled noise that Remmick quickly swallows with a kiss. His muscled biceps flex as he easily holds you against him, your legs coming to wrap around his hips and your hands gripping at his shoulders for purchase. You’re carried upstairs with a newfound urgency, Remmick kicking open the bedroom door and roughly laying you onto the soft sheets of a bed that used to belong to somebody else—before you two took over, of course.

Blood, sweat, and dirt immediately stain the covers beneath you, smearing across the fabric as you move. It’s nothing new, this happens just about every time you return from an exhilarating hunt. You both barely ever have the foresight to wash off first before climbing into bed together. Remmick follows after you, your hands resting on either side of his face to draw him in, never wanting to be apart for too long. His fingers pull at the shirt that was tucked into your pants that are too big on you, the ones you always wear on a hunt that are now ruined by the burn marks of silver chains.

His touch is always just on the side of too cold, a consequence of being undead, the same one that you suffer from. It’s something you were quick to grow used to, along with the way his temperature fluctuates depending on how much fresh blood he has coursing through him. His ring bites like ice beneath your shirt as he eases it up and over your body, tossing it somewhere into a corner to be picked up later.

“Mm, Remmick..” you mumble, your hands coming up to run through his short black hair, his bangs plastered to his forehead with sweat. His bloody chain dangles from his sternum, hanging just above you like a taunt.

“I know, sugar.” He responds, feeling the way your legs rub together beneath him, your body quivering with anticipation. His kisses trail from your lips to your jaw, then to your neck, past the spot where he bit you all those years ago. He licks away stains of the dried blood remaining from your sealed injuries, groaning like an animal at the taste that leaves him drooling.

Saliva smears across your skin on his way down your body, stopping briefly at your breasts. He takes a nipple into his mouth, swirling it against his tongue and teasing it between his thankfully normal teeth as you arch into him, little breathy moans and gasps tumbling out of you. He envelops the other breast in his calloused hand, squeezing and rolling the soft flesh between his fingers. “So beautiful… so good fer me, sugar.” He murmurs against you, his nose nudging at the space between your breasts where more blood has dried. It doesn’t take long for him to clean it off.

He makes quick work of your pants, undoing the buttons deftly and lifting your hips to tug them free. His hands run along your thighs lovingly, goosebumps rising in his wake. He straightens, red eyes roving over your now exposed body with appreciation. Drool beads at the corners of his lips, steadily building and running down his chin while you smile at him.

“Pretty thing, all fer me.” Remmick says it like a confirmation and a vow, even though he needs none. There’s nothing that could separate you two besides a stake through the heart or the sun’s warmth. You gave yourself to him completely the day you let him bite you, let him take your life and forge it into something new, something unholy and damned.

“All yours.” You agree, stretching your arms above your head like a cat. You give him a sly grin. “Now stop teasing.”

His eyebrows shoot up, a deep chuckle leaving him, even as he hooks his fingers beneath your underwear and tugs it off. “Always impatient, huh?”

You hum as he kneels, his strong arms coming up to wrap around your thighs and settle them nicely on his wide shoulders. “I just know how good you feel. Can’t a girl be excited?”

Remmick smirks, huffing a laugh. “Shoot, I don’t see why not.”

His breath fans across your cunt, already wet and glistening with your arousal. The red in his eyes smolders like coals, burning brighter with his desire as he looks at you like you’re his next meal. He leans in, that first connection acting like lightning shooting through you, your body arching and mouth falling open. His tongue licks between your folds, collecting your slick and dragging it up to your clit where he toys with the bud, circling it with little flicks and pecks while you moan above him.

Remmick sucks your clit into his mouth, the rest of you immediately responding in turn as you jolt from the pleasure. He knows how to play you like his banjo, how to keep you easy and pliant while he works you to climax. He knows your body like it’s his own, the bond you share allowing him to hold a presence within you, to tell your emotions and thoughts. Most of all, he knows how you like to be licked, his tongue dipping into your hole as your noises raise a pitch.

“Remmick.. fuck-“ You moan, hands coming down to run through his hair, tugging after a particularly harsh kiss to your clit. He groans into your pussy, the sound reverberating through you as he swallows down your arousal with an eagerness he doesn’t even display during feedings. His drool makes your cunt shine, mixing with your slick to the point you don’t know where he ends and you begin.

He practically buries himself into your cunt, licking and kissing and taking whatever you have to offer. His hands are like vices on your thighs, the unmistakable tips of his claws occasionally pricking your skin as they again slide from their nail beds with his excitement. You can feel the way pleasure courses through you, tightening your muscles and creating a familiar knot in your lower abdomen that will steadily build until it’s ready to come loose. It won’t be long with the way Remmick eats you like he hasn’t had a meal in years.

His nose nudges at your clit, his tongue circling your hole before slipping inside, collecting the wetness you continually drip for him. You whine loudly, pulling harder at the black strands of his hair, your thighs attempting to clench around his head. “Shit- feels so good Rem, fuck-“ You curse, falling back against the pillows, chest heaving.

You writhe under his ministrations, his hands having to move up to your hips just to keep you still, his biceps flexing against your legs. He knows how close you are so he ramps it up, licking from your center to your clit and drawing it into his mouth, his brows furrowed in concentration. Your moans and whimpers are music to his ears, listening to the way you call his name with a breathy gasp as he makes you cum.

It crashes over you like a wave, that knot coming undone and pleasure wracking your body. Remmick drinks it all, not letting a single drop of it go to waste as his eyes burn red. He’s quick to slip a hand between your legs, two fingers sinking into the plush heat of your pussy, his claws sheathed just for now. He pumps them in and out while you ride through your orgasm, scissoring your gummy walls to stretch you even further. He doesn’t let up, even as you grab at him to try and get him off, the attention bordering on overstimulation. He continues to kiss at your clit all the while, his fingers and his mouth bringing you straight into another orgasm that has you seeing white.

Every nerve in your body feels like it’s on fire, overly sensitive and leaving your legs twitching. Remmick licks you clean with as much care and diligence a man like him can muster, his fanged teeth occasionally scraping against you and making you shudder. His fingers slip out of your warmth covered in your cum, your walls fluttering and aching at the emptiness that you know won’t last long.

He finally releases your thighs, letting them fall from his shoulders as he lifts himself from between your legs. The lower half of his face is covered in a shiny mixture of drool, cum, and blood, making him look all sorts of a mess. You couldn’t care less, knowing that no matter what he does, it’s going to be a little messy—and you love that about him.

He slowly makes his way back up your body, kissing from your clavicle to your ribs, to your breasts, and then up the column of your neck before at last reaching your lips. You’re eager to kiss him, hands tugging at his shoulders to pull him in, keeping him as close as possible. You taste yourself on his tongue, along with a familiar iron tang that has your hunger flaring again. You pull away only to lick along his chin, eagerly collecting the bloody mixture until there’s none left. Your fangs released without you even realizing.

“Yer still hungry.” He says it as a statement rather than a question, seeing the blatant craving in your dazed eyes, feeling it within himself as if it was his own. You’ve tried to subdue it all this time, not wanting to take more than you’re allowed, but it still makes your stomach clench, your teeth ache. Your body is too weak to resist the pangs, still too busy patching up whatever damage can’t be seen externally. Remmick coos at you, “c’mon, s’okay. You don’t have to hide it from me.”

You begin to protest, your more human sensibility allowing guilt to take charge. “You already gave me-“

He shakes his head, silencing you. “Sugar, ya won’t last long if yer starvin’. I think I ate enough for the both of us anyhow.” You think back to all those dead hunters in that clearing, their bodies strewn along the forest floor and their blood splattered on the grass like paint. You can still smell their foreign iron-laced scents on Remmick, and it only serves to make you crave more. Drool falls down your chin, and he just smiles knowingly. His head tilts, the skin on his neck becoming taut as he bares it to you. “C’mon now.”

There’s a singular moment of hesitation, where you look into those red gleaming eyes of his for a type of confirmation, and all you find is that he’s just watching you expectantly. Well, if a meal’s going to be served to you on a silver platter like this, you’d do good to take it.

Your jaw goes slack, your teeth sharp and ready, before your body lunges up to latch onto his neck. As the first drops hit your tongue, he grunts, his form falling over yours while he wraps an arm swiftly around your waist so you can both fall back onto the bed. His other hand slams down next to your head while his blood fills your mouth and you gulp it down like there won’t be a tomorrow.

Being fed on is always jarring for Remmick, his body still not used to it after the centuries of him being the only one to feast. His neck is so much different than his arm, he realizes, something dangerous being set off within him this time as a result. But it turns out he’d do just about anything for you, so he makes himself ease into the sensation, even as his claws dig into the bedsheets and his fanged teeth grind together hard enough to shatter, the primal part of him fearing that, for once, he’s being preyed on.

“That’s it, sugar.” He says with a husky laugh. “Shit.”

Past the initial shock, it’s easy for the pain to shift into pleasure. It is quite erotic, really, the way he can feel his own blood coursing through your body. The little noises you make while you feed on him, the trickles of blood mixing with spit on your chin, your strength returning all because of him. It fills him with a twisted sense of pride, knowing that he’s the one satiating that bone deep hunger, knowing his blood is mixing with yours and becoming one inside you. “Take it all, darlin’, suck me dry.” He groans, the tips of his claws making little pinpricks in your sides as he holds onto you.

It’s almost involuntary, the way his hips rut against you, his cock straining in his pants and demanding attention. It has his hands fumbling between your bodies, eager to undo the thick buckle of his belt with a clink, the buttons of his trousers following after. You nearly choke on his blood when you feel his shaft rubbing between your folds, coating himself in the mixture of your cum and his drool. He does a few slow, experimental thrusts, not sinking in just yet but simply feeling you instead. It has you groaning against his neck, your teeth digging in deeper and greedily drinking at the ambrosia that is Remmick’s blood while he pants above you.

You release him with a sharp gasp when the head of his cock catches your entrance, at last pressing in with slippery ease. His moan is throaty and guttural, a shiver running through him at the way your walls draw him in, enveloping him in plush warmth. He sheathes himself completely and he stays with his hips flush to yours for just a moment, allowing himself to enjoy the initial pleasure. It amazes you how he never gets tired of it, even after his centuries of being alive and his years of fucking you.

You pull him back down with hands on either side of his face, encouraging him to kiss you. He does, of course, his mouth enveloping yours just as he begins to thrust, drawing almost completely from your cunt before slamming back in. His tongue roves over yours, licking away any remnants of his blood and swallowing down your moans. He pulls away with his chest heaving, a sharp groan falling from his open mouth, fangs on full display just beneath his lips.

There’s a sudden wetness against your collarbones that makes you jolt, looking down to see blood from Remmick’s neck splattered along your skin. The wound you’d bitten into him is still bleeding, droplets coming loose with his thrusts and the way he’s bent over you. He smirks, lifting two fingers and drawing them over the bite marks, collecting the blood smeared there. “Clean up yer mess, sugar.” He tells you between breathy pants, bringing his fingers to your mouth.

You take them eagerly, swirling the pads against your tongue, licking off every bit of blood and enjoying the earthly, metal taste. He watches you in awe, his eyes burning bright red in the dim lighting, full of adoration and reverence and desire. Your spit coats his fingers generously, leaving them shiny when you let go with a wet smack. He buries his head into the side of your neck with a disbelieving chuckle that quickly morphs into a moan, his hot breath fanning across your skin as your hands clutch at his bloodied white tank.

You use the opportunity to mouth at the bite on his throat like an animal, like a cat grooming its mate. You whine suddenly when he hits that spot at the top of your core, the one that has you keening and pleasure sparking like lightning beneath your skin. “Fu-fuck, Remmick-“ You mewl, claws digging into the expanse of his back, even through the tank. He growls appreciatively at the pain, at the red, angry lines undoubtedly rising along his skin and beading with blood.

Remmick nips hungrily at your neck, his hands digging harshly into your sides. He’s practically laid over top of you while he thrusts his cock deep into your throbbing pussy, keeping you as close as possible. There’s something possessive and raw about it, about the way he breathes you in, clutching at you desperately, biting you as if to prove you’re there.

“Ain’t never lettin’ you out of my sight again. Nearly fuckin’ lost ya.” He snarls with a groan, his claws digging in a little deeper at the memories of what happened just hours prior. Though your body no longer holds proof of it, he won’t forget anytime soon. He’ll chain you to him if he has to, just to make sure you’re safe.

“I- I know- I’m sorry-“ You say, moans stuttering with the way his hips slam into you, fueled by his declaration and the feral desires that howl a constant song within him. It’s not often that Remmick reveals any kind of vulnerability to you, instead letting you guess at it based on what you can gather from the bond you share. But it seems the very real idea of you bound in silver and burning brought it out of him, even if only a little.

You’re both nearing release, the pleasure burning in your core while his movements grow choppy and uneven. The noises he makes change, becoming breathy at the edges as his brows furrow, his nose nudging at your jaw. “Rem- Remmick- shit-“ You whine, feeling the way you’re so close to tumbling off the edge.

“I got ‘cha, sugar.” He says, voice rumbling right next to your ear. One hand comes between you, his calloused fingers finding your clit and swirling it in hurried circles, your mouth falling open and your eyes pinching shut as your muscles tense. His response is near instant, his free hand pinching your chin like a reminder, “nuh-uh, look at me, darlin’.”

You have no choice but to oblige him, meeting his gaze through tear stained lashes. You learned quickly how obsessed he is with seeing your face, seeing your eyes. No matter what position you’re in, he’ll make sure he can still see you or else you’ll find yourself flipped around to rectify it. You think he does it as a way to ground himself, a near impossible feat in an immortal body that’s hundreds of years old. You let him use you as an anchor, keeping him tethered here with you, two lonely souls finding company in one another.

It feels like all the breath gets knocked from your lungs as your third orgasm overtakes you. You whimper and whine and moan Remmick’s name, your hands scrabbling at him desperately. The way your cunt spasms around him makes him quick to follow after you with a loud curse, his cum hot as it paints your walls white, filling you to the brim with him. He rides out his high, emptying every last drop into you with small jerks of his hips and soft words, encouraging you to take it all.

“Fuck, sugar, yer somethin’ else.” Remmick pants, muscled chest heaving, straightening just a little to look at you in your fucked-out state. Hair wild, skin flushed, looking almost human if it weren’t for the unholy gleam in your eyes. There’s sticky trails of blood and spit all along your forms, remnants of both the hunt and your copulation. It’s made a further mess of the sheets below you, but quite frankly, you’re too tired to care.

He slowly pulls out with a groan, cum dribbling from your abused hole with his cock no longer there to keep you plugged full. You wince at the feeling, your energy spent and your body rightfully exhausted. As much as Remmick would love to keep you ruined with the reminders of what he did to you, he knows how you hate sleeping while sticky—and he needs you to be able to rest. He gently pries himself from you, even as you continuously try to wrap your arms around him again. “I’ll be right back, darlin’.” He promises, finally getting free despite your grumbling.

He gets a washcloth from the bathroom, wetting it with warm water before returning. Your arms are open for him, welcoming him back into your embrace so you can feel him against you, so you can feel complete. He holds you like something precious, cleans you like you’re made of delicate glass. He wipes the blood off with no issue, his appetite blissfully satiated for now, and he’s gentle between your legs, this routine so familiar that he could do it with his eyes closed. You go limp from his touch, your body pliant beneath him. He kisses you more than once, unable to help himself when you bask so nicely in the afterglow.

When he’s finished, Remmick tosses the cloth absently into a corner somewhere, followed by his bloody tank that joins his button up on the floor to be washed later. He then settles into a non-soiled part of the bed, sitting back against the headboard and easily pulling you on top of him. You simply follow wherever his hands want you to go, more than happy to relax in his lap with your head pressed to his bare chest and his thick arms enveloping you. His scent floods your nose—sweat, iron, dirt, and old leather, making you hum appreciatively.

“My sweet girl,” Remmick murmurs against your hair, his hand running along your back in soothing lines. He pulls one of the spare quilts free and wraps it around you and you nestle into its comfort, the heavy material soft against your bare skin. You nuzzle against Remmick, too tired to resist fully giving in to those base desires for warmth and safety, knowing he’ll give you exactly that. There’s a kiss pressed to your forehead. “Rest. Y’need it.”

“You’ll still be here?” You mumble, barely able to muster a sentence, eyes already beginning to shut. Sometimes there’s days when you need that extra confirmation, his promise that he won’t leave you behind, that he’ll still be waiting for you by the time you wake up. You feel his grip on you tighten, just for a moment.

“‘Course I will, sugar. I ain’t ever leavin’.”

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆ .。.:*

Tags; @vesnaragast

[shouyuus]

─── Ⅵ FIGURE EIGHTS

violet; 28,888 words; fluff and smut (at the end), semi enemies to lovers, fake dating, hockey!vi x figure skater!reader, ice dancers!meljayce, miscommunication, smau-intermissions, toxic ex!cait, simpgirl!vi, slowburn, the gays r bad at feelings, lots of making out that almost leads to something, emotional edging (for YOU lol), fingering (both receiving), thigh riding, oral (r!receiving), slightly unhinged!reader, no "y/n"

summary: a hockey player and a figure skater kind of, sort of, not really, but then actually fall in love. what could possibly go wrong? (narrator: apparently, everything.)

a/n: YALL. yall. YOU. ALL. lmfao. i can't believe i finished this (i say, after writing any fic longer than 5k words). but i TRULY doubted for a second that i would bc as i kept writing, it kept... getting longer? i hope that this doesn't drag, and that you guys like it. it's really a fucking labor of love. like heavy emphasis on the labor. shoutout to @vifilms for being my emotional support, and to my irl bf for actually physically reading through like 90% of this fic out LOUD with me to make sure the dialogue doesn't sound awk. BUT ANYWAYS. pls enjoy and PLS tell me what u guys think!!!! the smau fake texts won't start till chapter three, but ! it's my first time making like.. fake texts so sldkfjsd.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ━

prologue: party people

chapter one: shut up and kiss me

chapter two: fists to a knife fight

chapter three: love's dream

chapter four: for cup's sake

chapter five: don't hate the player (suggestive)

chapter six: six (nsfw)

─── TAG YOU'RE IT .ᐟ.ᐟ

pls comment below if you'd like to be tagged for this series! :) if you're already on my vi-taglist via my normal taglist link, then you're all good. if you only wanna be tagged for this series, comment below! pls pls have your age visible somewhere on your blog as this will be an 18+ fic!!!! thank you!!!

prologue: party people

─── Ⅵ IT STARTS WITH A GAME of spin the bottle — a college party post-game, the home team the exhalant victors, the crowds of adoring fans the worshippers at their beer-tower altars, doing keg stands and shot-gunning cans of cheap bud lite for an approving grin or a wink.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” you ask, jerking back as a drunken guy nearly topples into you, the red solo cup in his hand sloshing over onto the already sticky linoleum floor.

Mel sighs, “Because, darling, you promised me that you’d come out at least once if me and Jayce made it through the Challenger Series this year.”

She tugs you behind her, weaving through the crush of bodies till the cramped living room area opens onto a much larger patio, the mid-autumn chill cooling your skin.

“It was a joke,” you say, whining slightly even as Mel grabs what looks like an unopened hard cider from the table and presses it into your hand.

“Yes, and one that hurt my feelings,” Mel sniffs, turning her nose up, though a grin teases at her lips, “so to make up for it, you now have to stay at this party and have some semblance of a good time.”

And that was three and a half drinks ago, because sometime between then and now, you’ve found yourself pulled into an unwitting game of spin the bottle with what seems like half the entire hockey team, sitting next to Mel, her boyfriend Jayce on your other side, chatting animatedly with one of the girls hockey girls. You overhear the words “creatin” and “Bulgarian Squat” and decided that it’s time for you to tune out of the conversation.

“Vi, it’s your turn!”

Vi, your thoughts linger over the sound.

It’s a pretty name.

You glance up at the girl sitting across from you, Number Six — you’ve always known her as that, what with the tattoo on her cheek (there were rumors that it’s actually not real and she just reapplies one of those temporary tattoos every two weeks) and the fact that it’s her jersey number, it’s really not too hard to remember.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, laughing as she reaches for the empty beer bottle in the middle of the circle. Her right hand’s bandaged up and you can’t help staring at it. When you look up next, it’s to catch her watching you, your eyes meeting in a startling clash of raw contact — the cacophonous noise of the party dulling out to a thin whine somewhere at the back of your head as you stare at her and she stares right back.

You’d never noticed that her eyes, even in the dark, beneath the dim, flickering patio lights, reads mourning-dove blue, so subtle it’s almost gray, so sharp as she takes you in that your stomach drops from inside you. She smirks and twists her fingers expertly around the bottle, setting it whizzing.

You tear your eyes away, your breath sent astray in your chest by just that look alone. You frown at the spinning bottle, your mind abuzz with fragmentary thoughts you can’t quite string along for long enough to form a full sentence — eyes… her lips are pretty… wasn’t she dating… someone? who??? what’s her name again? something pretty —

“— right, ice princess, you ready?”

“Huh?” you jerk your eyes up from the bottle to find everyone watching you. From your left, Mel nudges you with a sanctimonious grin, her eyes flickering down to the bottle and back up towards —

“Go on!” she hisses, even as you blink uncomprehendingly down at the bottle pointing right at you.

Across the circle, Vi’s questioning smirk is all the answer you need as your alcohol-addled brain finally puts together the pieces.

“R-right…” you push up onto your knees, but something holds you back, a niggling feeling in the back of your brain as Vi’s smirk grows wide and she jerks her head towards the living room.

“Want a bit of privacy? Or… would you prefer an audience?”

Half the circle wolf-whistles at the insinuation, the other half roll their eyes, leaning back on their elbows as if to settle in for a long night.

You lick your lips, feeling your mouth scald dry.

“Privacy. Please.”

You follow Vi stiffly from the patio back into the stuffy house, her fingers closing around your wrist as she tugs you behind her through a long hallway splitting off from the main living room, branching into a series of what look like bedrooms. Half the doors are closed, illicit sounds echoing out from behind them, but Vi finds an empty one near the end of the hallway and pushes it open, leading you inside.

“Oh wow,” you say, looking around the room. It’s a typical fratboy’s room, full of suggestive posters, the floor littered with questionably laundered clothes.

“What, not your ideal setting for a makeout-sesh with a stranger?”

You frown as your eyes slingshot back to Vi, her standing feet from you, hands tucked loosely into her pockets, watching you with dark, firefly eyes.

“Thought we were just supposed to kiss once.”

Vi chuckles, closing the distance between you in a few quick strides, crowding you up against the closed door.

“Sure. We can do that. Or…” she makes no effort to hide the way her eyes flicker down to your lips, trailing back up in a line of fire that sizzles against your skin. “I could show you what a real good time looks like.”

Your breath crystalizes in your chest, and the strange, tickling feeling traces down the back of your head till it gathers, hot and unconscionable at the nape of your neck — a spin-click wheel of half-formed thoughts and images ticking by behind your eyelids as you try to remember why the hell this feels so wrong.

And then, it clicks, and you press a hand to Vi’s chest just as she’s leaning down to graze her lips against yours, the friction so delicious you almost lose your train of thought.

“A-are you sure this is a good idea? Didn’t you just break up with that track and field girl? Caitlyn?” you blurt out, a culmination of all the snippets of whispered conversations and half-caught glances of the pair of them across campus. The It-Girl Couple, people called them, the hockey team star and the track and field genius. They were hard to miss, and even harder to forget.

A moth-wing-flicker of emotions crosses Vi’s face as she takes half a step back, her expression morphing into one of shock, and then hurt, and finally, hard-lined disgust as she looks down at you with a thin-lipped grimace.

“Oh fuck you.”

She yanks you from the door, storming out without a backwards glance. You catch yourself against the half-made bed, your breath coming in heaving pants as your head spins. Guilt curdles in the bed of your stomach like spoilt milk, and it only takes you half a second to realize that of all the things to say, that probably was the worst possible choice.

You’d heard mention of the breakup, even if you didn’t have any stakes in this so-called game. It was harsh and messy and loud, and it had spilled across campus like a backed-up toilet, oozing foulness and stank across the grounds till not a single person was left unstained in the aftermath.

“Wait —” you stumble after Vi, but it’s too late. By the time you reach the patio doors, she’s already settling back into her place in the circle, an easy grin slung across her lips.

You swallow, pushing through the door to scurry over to Mel’s side. Mel beams at the flush in your cheeks, convinced (just like the rest of the circle) that it’d been one hell of a kiss, judging by how entirely breathless you are.

“Damn Vi, you gotta learn how to go easy on them figure skaters, hm?” Margot smirks, her eyes glittering as she looks you over, “look at the poor darling — she can barely breathe!”

Everyone laughs, and Vi flashes a convincingly satisfied smirk, shrugging up a shoulder. You glance at her, only to shiver at the arctic ice behind her gaze as your eyes catch once more.

“What can I say? Easy isn’t a setting I come programmed with.”

You duck your head as Vi casts you one more frigid look before turning to laugh at something a teammate has just said, and the circle devolves into good-natured banter and pocket conversations. You gulp around your too-dry throat and pluck Mel’s drink from her hand, tossing the rest of it back in a single gulp. She blinks at you, eyes wide.

“Darling, are you —”

“I — I’m fine just — it’s — I think I’m gonna head back.”

Mel frowns, “Are you sure? I mean —” she looks towards where Vi’s been pulled into an impromptu arm-wrestling match with some dude from the football team, “you could try and —”

You shake your head, “No, I — I think I’m good. I had a good time, I just —” you run a hand through your hair, “I’ve got practice tomorrow and Amara’s gonna murder me if I get there late.”

Mel stares for a second before relenting, a soft sigh on her lips.

“Alright, alright — go on then. I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow at practice, yes?”

You give her a tight-lipped smile, reaching out for a quick hug before ducking out of the party, skirting the edges of the growing mosh pit forming in the living room till you finally find yourself out on the front steps again.

You close your eyes for a second, pressing your back to the frat house door, feeling the dull thump of the music inside reverberating through the thin wooden frame as you breathe in and out.

You can still taste the heat of Vi’s breath on your lips, feel harsh sting of ice as she’d caught your eyes after. The chill air, once refreshing, pebbles your skin and an involuntary shiver shakes down your spine. You wrap your arms around yourself and give your head a good shake.

Whatever, you think, stepping off the porch, casting your eyes up at the star-strewn sky, a whisp of warm breath fogging up the air before you.

Not like it’ll matter. Bet she won’t even remember me after tonight.

taglist: @traiitorjoe @rizzscary @wetcat020 @alex-thegiraffeboyy @nanasemo @saturnhas82moons @unear7hly @drsnowrose @grantaires-waistcoat @isab3lita @ally-all-around @starrysetup22 @lipsent @lewd_alien @jack-frost-2010 @starsfortaylor @onesockcat @lesbian-useless @armins-slvt

[abbotjack]

can u pls write a fic where the reader absolutely adores going down on abbot because she gets to have him at his most vulnerable and feral, all because of her own undoing

you know what… yeah. there's something about the way jack falls apart when your mouth is on him—quiet at first, trying to hold it together, and then suddenly he's gone. voice rough, hips twitching, all restraint out the window. and the best part? it's not because he's asking for it. it's because you wanted to. because he let you in, and now he can't hide from it. anyway. here you go!

content/warning : explicit oral sex (m receiving), praise kink, military past mentions, emotional vulnerability, established relationship intimacy, Jack is feral and in love. 18+ MDNI!!!!!

words : 1,755

Jack’s hard to catch off guard.

He’s trained for chaos. Built for pressure. Keeps himself wired tight because it’s the only way he’s ever known how to survive—by staying ten seconds ahead of the worst-case scenario, especially if that scenario has anything to do with losing you.

But sometimes, without even trying, you manage to catch him unprepared.

And tonight, he doesn’t see it coming.

It’s past ten. The rain’s steady against the windows, casting shadows that shift across the floor. You’re curled up on the living room couch, half-buried under a fleece blanket, flipping through a worn medical journal you’ve read twice already. You’re not even pretending to be interested—just waiting. Watching.

Jack’s in the kitchen, sleeves shoved to his elbows, scrubbing a pan like it’s got something personal against him. His movements are steady, practiced. Rooted in a rhythm he’s long since made his own.

He hums under his breath, soft and shapeless. Not a song, not really—just a low, quiet pattern that lives somewhere deep in his chest. The kind he slips into when he’s too tired to realize he’s doing it.

He’s already showered. Hair still damp, curling at the ends. A black t-shirt clings to his shoulders, worn soft with time. Grey sweats sit low on his hips, the waistband knotted like an afterthought. One sock. The prosthetic stays on—seamless, familiar, just another part of how he moves through the quiet of the evening.

And something in you pulls tight.

Because no one else sees him like this.

Not the hospital, where he’s all orders and intensity. Not his old unit. Not even his family, who still talk around things like they’re too fragile to touch.

But you do. You get this version of him—the quiet one. The one who moves like the day hasn’t touched him yet. The one who doesn’t have to perform toughness or control.

And you watch him, not for the first time, and think—without warning, without fanfare—God, I love you.

Not in the loud way. Not in the kind you say out loud just to hear it back. Just in the way that settles in your chest and stays there. Heavy. Certain.

He rinses the pan. Dries his hands. Looks up just as you shift your weight on the couch.

And that’s when it catches up to you—quiet, all at once. How much you want him.

Not just the sex. Not just the weight of him on your tongue or the sound he makes when he loses control.

But this. The unraveling.

The chance to take him apart, slowly, just because he lets you. Because he trusts you to.

“Jack?”

He turns, still toweling off a spot on his wrist. “Yeah?”

You slip off the blanket. Pad across the hardwood barefoot.

He watches your approach with that look—careful, measured. The one he wears when he's trying to read you before you speak.

When you reach him, you slide your hands under his shirt, palms smoothing over warm skin. He’s still damp near the collarbone. Still smells like unscented soap and the body wash he only buys because you like it.

You press your mouth to the corner of his lips, soft and slow.

He leans into it before he can stop himself.

“What’s that for?” he asks, voice low.

You shrug. “Just felt like it.”

He doesn’t speak, just studies you—like he’s trying to figure out what changed, what storm might be coming.

You tilt your chin up, fingers still tracing lazy circles on his ribs.

“I want you.”

His brow ticks up. “You have me.”

You shake your head. “Not like that.”

And then, quieter: “Let me take care of you.”

He stiffens—just barely. You feel it before you see it. That split second where instinct kicks in, where he almost says no, almost laughs it off, almost makes it about you instead. Because that’s who he is.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he nods.

And you drop to your knees.

The tile is cool against your shins. Jack shifts his weight—one foot grounding, the other adjusting with practiced ease. You place your hands on his thighs and look up at him, steady under your touch.

He’s already breathing harder.

“Let me have you like this,” you whisper.

He exhales—tight, measured. “Fuck. You sure?”

You smile, pressing a kiss to the base of his stomach. “I’m already on the floor, Jack.”

That gets a low huff of laughter. But his hand settles on the back of your head anyway, fingers threading through your hair.

He watches as you undo the knot in his waistband, tug his sweats down just enough, and take him in your hand.

Already half-hard. Heavy. Familiar.

You lean in and press your lips to the head of him—soft, reverent.

And then you open your mouth.

The groan that breaks from him isn’t polished. It’s not restrained.

It’s raw.

Like it catches him off guard. Like he thought he could stand there and stay composed while you took him apart piece by piece.

But the second you suck him down, his composure splinters.

His thighs twitch. His hips jerk just slightly, then freeze like he’s trying not to move, not to hurt you, not to fuck your mouth the way he clearly wants to.

Your hands move instinctively—one braced on his stomach, steadying him, the other wrapping around the base of his cock as you work him deeper.

Jack’s head falls forward, mouth parted.

“Christ,” he breathes, voice shaking. “You—baby, you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” you murmur against him. “I love this.”

You swirl your tongue and take him deep again, and his knees almost buckle.

He adjusts—shifts his weight again, subtly, stepping back, his hand now braced on the counter for balance. You glance up. The way he looks at you—lips parted, eyes heavy, jaw clenched like he’s trying not to beg—you could cry from it.

And then, when you moan around him, low and slow, he loses it.

His hand fists tighter in your hair.

His abs twitch beneath your palm.

“You’re gonna fucking ruin me,” he groans.

You hum, dragging your mouth off him long enough to grin. “That’s the idea.”

You take him back in—deeper—until he hits the back of your throat, and when your nose brushes his stomach, he gasps. Like he can’t believe how good it feels. Like it hurts. Like he doesn’t know how to survive this kind of love.

His balance wavers again, and you feel it when he compensates—hip shifting forward, muscles flexing, the barest tremble in his thigh as he tries to keep still.

“Sweetheart—” he chokes out, “—I’m gonna—fuck—I’m close—”

You just keep going.

Let him have it. Let him feel it.

Every pulse. Every vibration of your mouth. Every second of you choosing to take him like he’s something sacred. Something you need like air.

And when he comes—it’s not quiet.

He groans, guttural and broken, hips stuttering forward, hand tightening in your hair, and your name spills from his lips like a confession.

You swallow. Gently. Like it’s a gift.

And then, slowly, you rise.

He’s still leaning hard on the counter, chest heaving. You just step into him. Rest your hands on his hips.

He pulls you in, eyes blown wide.

You kiss the corner of his mouth—soft, grounding.

“You okay?”

He exhales, a low breath that’s more laugh than anything else, but it breaks halfway out of his chest. “You’re gonna fucking destroy me.”

“You said that already.”

“Still true,” he mutters, tugging you in by the waist until you’re flush against him.

You lean in, forehead bumping his, nose brushing his cheek. His skin’s still warm from the shower. You press your lips to his jaw—gentle, reassuring—and whisper, “Come sit with me?”

He nods, but doesn’t move right away. Just stands there, arms wrapped around you like he’s trying to get his breath back.

Then, finally: “Yeah. Okay.”

You slide your hand down his back and tug lightly at the hem of his shirt as you pull away. He follows without hesitation.

When you reach the couch, you’re the first to sit—curling into the cushion with your knees tucked up, leaving space for him without saying a word. Jack lowers himself beside you, slow and steady, one hand bracing the armrest as he shifts his weight and sinks into the cushion.

He leans toward you, hand sliding to your hip. “C’mere,” he murmurs.

You go easily, letting him guide you as you swing a leg over his and settle into his lap. Your knees bracket his thighs. Your arms loop around his neck, and his hands find their place—one at the curve of your spine, the other curling into the fabric of your sweats at your thigh like he needs you close enough to breathe.

He doesn’t speak for a moment. Just breathes. Forehead pressed to yours.

“You always do that to me,” he says eventually, voice low and rough.

“Do what?”

“Take the fucking ground out from under me.”

You laugh softly. “You’re dramatic.”

“I’m serious,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at you. His eyes are still heavy, a little dazed, but there’s no edge in his voice. Just something raw. Open. “It’s not just the sex. It’s the fact that I—” He shakes his head, exhales sharply. “I never used to let anyone see me like that. I didn’t know I could.”

You rest your hands on either side of his face. “You don’t have to let go for me, Jack. You just do.”

His jaw tenses for a second, then softens as your thumbs brush his cheekbones.

“I love you,” he says.

You blink. Not because you didn’t know—but because it sounds different this time. Like it came from somewhere deeper.

“I know,” you say. Then you smile. “But say it again.”

His eyes flick between yours. “I love you.”

You kiss him. Slow, unhurried, like there’s nowhere else to be. And when you pull back, he leans in and kisses your cheek. Then your temple. Then just stays there, arms around you, face pressed into the curve of your neck.

You stay like that for a long time.

Quiet. Still.

Wrapped around each other in the soft hum of your home. His heartbeat under your hand. His presence so familiar it aches in the best way.

[oztri]

lando with his fingers in your mouth.

lando with his fingers pressing and exploring the wet warmth of your tongue, pressing along your teeth, petting the flat of your tongue. those fingers, long and thick and calloused dancing along your soft palate. spit trickles down your chin, soaking his palm, his wrist, the band of his wristwatch.

lando laughing, low and condescending as you struggle to take his fingers further, pushing at the back of your throat and making you gag—it’s not pretty. it’s loud and obscene and he only just barely inches his fingers back, letting you catch your breath while he shushes you.

he loves the way your eyes go all wide, then they glaze over until you’re relaxing, staring at him like he hung the stars in your sky.

he’s addicted to the feeling of you finally going lax, hands wrapped loosely around his forearm while you breathe through your nose, just like he told you to.

tells you, “you’re so easy. you open up so well f’me. wonder what else i can fit in this pretty little mouth of yours,” when he finally pulls his fingers out and rubs the spit he’s collected on his fingers around your mouth and chin, cupping your jaw to lick into your mouth roughly once he’s got you right where he wants you.

[gutsby]

Brighter Times

Pairing: Dark!Joel x Reader

Summary: You’ve always been Joel’s favorite. Always.

Warnings: 18+. NONCON. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT. Graphic depictions of nonconsensual sexual encounters, past and present. Unprotected p-in-v. Forced breeding. Allusions to disordered eating and depression. Age gap. Lima Syndrome (i.e., a reverse of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein a captor grows an attachment to their victim). Orgasm vis-à-vis nipple stimulation. Dacryphilia (brief).

Word count: 8.3k

You made him happy.

Few in your group fully understood the importance of keeping a man like Joel Miller content, but when you didn’t do your part as expected, they sure as hell felt it.

When your wet cunt didn’t wake him up first thing in the morning, or greet him within minutes of his return from a hunt or raid, all of them became the objects of his wrath. He got angry. Impatient. Cruel. Not that those sorts of things weren’t already percolating beneath the surface of your leader’s cold and callous exterior, but when you weren’t fucking him punctually, the bad got much worse.

Which was why you didn’t resist when he called on you all hours of the day. It didn’t matter if you were mending clothes, preparing a meal, feeding the livestock, tending the garden, washing heaps and heaps of bloodstained whatever-the-fucks needed cleaning after the latest, most violent incursion the group had made—Joel took precedence. He always did. His dick was as tyrannical and repulsive as the man it served, and that man didn’t like to wait. For the sake of the group, you never let him.

“Why does she get to stop after just one bucket?”

That came from the same sniveling cunt it always did.

You were picking berries. Your knees groaned and ached from having been plastered to the forest floor a grueling hour and a half last night, getting nailed from behind. One of Joel’s men had died that day. Evidently, it was as much your problem as it was his. Now, it hurt to stand.

It also hurt you to sit, so you were currently propped up against a tree and relishing the momentary respite while the rest of your company went scouring for blueberries.

The woman who led your group—the only other person who knew about your little ‘arrangement’ with Joel, and saw you wincing as you walked to the fields that morning—shot the younger girl a look. She murmured something about it being none of her goddamn business what you did or didn’t do, just mind your own, and silently, you thanked her. You didn’t chance a smile, knowing how much worse the accusations of favoritism would get, but you squared your shoulders. You cast a look around.

And then, as if on cue, the second most dreadful voice you could’ve heard that morning shouted your name from somewhere behind you. You turned, frowning.

“Yeah, Tommy?” you yelled back.

Yards away, the younger Miller brother waved you over.

“C’mere. Joel needs you back at camp, sweetheart.”

As soft, kind, and saccharine as the words seemed reaching your ears, their sound produced the opposite effect. Every head turned to you, and several snickers ensued. Others scowled or rolled their eyes. Meanwhile, your legs felt as heavy as lead trudging that way, and your gut clenched. Why did he have to do this now?

Surely Joel could’ve picked a less conspicuous time.

Was he trying to humiliate you? Let it be known that you were his own human fleshlight, to be used on any urge?

Well, that was kind of what you were. Still, this sucked.

And you were startled again when next Tommy yelled:

“Bring Rachel with you!”

Rachel. The same bitch who berated you relentlessly for getting ‘free passes’ during work and made you feel like shit about yourself every hour of every day? That Rachel?

If Joel was asking for a threesome you’d personally kick his teeth through the roof of his mouth. What an asshole.

To your dismay, Rachel was already trotting beside you.

Smiling.

“Must be my lucky day. I get to fuck off and do noth—”

“Shut up.”

Your new companion’s grin only grew. She leaned closer.

“You think Joel’s gonna ask me to suck his big, fat—”

THWACK.

Admittedly, self-control was never your métier. You smacked her across the face and kept plodding on.

Luckily, the hit was quick, and Tommy didn’t see.

Your voice lowered to a hiss as you drew closer:

“Be my fucking guest. Fuck his geriatric brains out for all I care—it ain’t all the fun you seem to think it is. It sucks.”

And that was the truth. You detested Joel. Every other day was like a waking nightmare with just the Cordyceps shit alone, but having to fuck a creep three times your age? Go right ahead, Rachel. Take him off my hands.

You just hoped Joel would leave you out if she did.

All he’d needed you and Rachel for was mending a fence.

A fence.

Half the camp was gone for the day—either out in the fields or doing recon in a nearby town—and that had meant Joel had had some extra slots left open on perimeter duty. He’d just needed two warm bodies to carry boards over to fix a gap that was left in the thing.

And you felt fucking stupid for being singled out in front of everyone else, all of whom assumed that you and Rachel were sent back to camp to ‘service’ Joel.

The fucking twat.

You’d left as soon as the job was done. You hadn’t bothered going back to scavenge for food or have another little tête-à-tête with your best friend Rachel. You’d gone home and stayed home, where you remained all afternoon in a half-enraged stupor. Your knees ached.

Your head throbbed, too, when, after supper came and went and you hadn’t been able to bring yourself to go, your stomach was empty. You realized you hadn’t eaten since the night before, when Joel had abruptly dragged you out of the canteen for your brutal forest rendezvous. Though the idea of a meal sounded revolting to you, you knew you needed to eat. You just wished it didn’t have to end with your knees bleeding and your back smeared with cum. You rolled onto your side in bed and sighed.

And just when you contemplated closing your eyes and trying to sleep, you heard a knock on your front door.

It was quick and soft.

Probably the kind older woman from your group. She sometimes dropped food off at your place if she noticed you’d been missing from a meal. Slowly, you sat up.

“I’m fine tonight, Cleo!” you called out weakly.

Your belly ached and your head swam with nausea and pain, but right now, the last thing you needed was human interaction. Especially the courteous kind.

The knocks sounded again.

“Cleo, really, I’m alright.”

You felt a bit like shit for treating the one and only friend you’d come to make in months like this, but something in your head just wouldn’t allow for pleasantries. You stared blankly at the door from where you lay in bed.

When several seconds passed and the knocking ceased, you started to close your eyes again, softly and slowly.

And jerked them right back open again when the front door to your home went crashing back on its hinges.

The lock was snapped. The wood bent in with a kick.

You shot up in bed to see Joel Miller barrel through the threshold, arms bulging and broad and bracing themselves hard against the wood that gave way beneath his force. One bicep bled through his sleeve.

“Joel!” You instinctively flinched back where you sat.

You cast a look around yourself to make sure you hadn’t left out any contraband—whether that was magazines, books, or even food your leader didn’t want you eating outside of the dining hall—and your pulse quickened. It spiked when Joel thrust himself into your bedroom next.

You expected him to speak. He didn’t.

You expected him to claw at your body first thing. He did.

Seeing greedy hands outstretched and moving fast on your thin, pale dress, you had only to yelp a weak protest—‘Joel, please, please, no’—and swat helplessly at him. He shoved you off. Ignored your pleas. Didn’t blink twice when your face screwed up in pain at the first pull on your hair. In fact, his grip only tightened. He yanked your face up to greet his own in the dim glow of your room.

“Joel, I don’t wanna,” you whimpered like a beggar.

Joel’s hand made a fist.

“Don’t wanna what?”

Well…have sex.

You couldn’t say the words aloud, but your eyes were silently welling with tears. Your two hands pawed at his forearm and tried to pry it away, but Joel kept holding.

“Don’t wanna what?” he growled.

He glowered down at you. The man wanted a reply.

Slowly, you got your lips to work: “Don’t wanna…do it.”

You had no idea why you were afraid to say the word ‘sex’ around him, but your throat was tightening, and the moisture in your eyes had begun to slide down your face. You met Joel’s gaze with another watery, pleading look.

“By ‘it’ do you mean ‘eat’?” he scoffed. “‘Cause I don’t recall seein’ you in attendance at dinner, sweetheart.”

Your stomach involuntarily clenched.

Your grip loosened from his arm.

Joel’s only constricted. He tilted your head to keep your eyes locked on him. And then he thumbed at your skull.

“What? Cat got your tongue tonight?” he sneered.

Seconds had passed and you still hadn’t spoken.

Your throat was thick with discomfort, but somehow, you managed to muster up the courage to respond quietly:

“I just couldn’t…move much today. I’m still sore, Joel.”

And when you blinked, a new barrage of tears fell.

Frankly, you half-expected your leader to slap you across the face. No bitchin’ about a sore, achy cunt, y’hear me? Your body was made for it. But instead, the hand that ordinarily doled out punishment for whining took to stroking your cheek while the other held your hair.

Joel nearly looked sympathetic to your plight.

Then he cupped your chin. Lifted it to him.

“Was I too rough on you last night, hm?”

You nodded slowly.

For some reason, seeing him appear kind and contrite made your stomach turn worse than if he’d just hit you. You winced when his thumb stroked your bottom lip.

Then he loosened his grip from your hair and your chin and he dropped down beside you in bed. He sat back.

Joel straightened against the headboard and regarded you with an inscrutable look. You couldn’t tell if he was pitying you or preparing for the roughest fuck of his life.

Maybe both.

You sniffled and wiped at your nose.

“I-I know you like what you do to me—and how good it makes you feel—but my body ain’t made of rubber, Joel. I can’t just…go back to normal after you…you do those…”

Without your permission, your face screwed up again.

Fuck, were you about to start full-on sobbing?

No, no you were not.

You forced your gaze to the ceiling and started blinking.

And before you knew it or could attempt to get him to stop, Joel leaned in closer to you. He brushed a knuckle against your cheek, which sharply turned from his touch.

“Hey,” he started, low. You expected him to strike you.

Then the words came out even more softly than the first:

“‘S’alright. I know it hurts. I know you’re still hurtin’.”

Almost as quickly as you’d turned from him, your head cocked back. You couldn’t believe that tone of voice.

Joel had never spoken so gently to you in your life.

It wasn’t like he was incapable of it. The man had a dog, and every so often, you heard him talk sweet to the little wiry-haired mutt. C’mere, sugar, that’s it. You like those little scratches jus’ behind your ear, don’t ya, Daisy girl?

It sounded pathetic, but there had been a time when you wished Joel would speak to you that way. At least with the dignity he gave a dog—why didn’t you deserve it?

Presently, your eyes were fixed on his. You frowned.

“What? Y’think I’m some kinda monster who can’t tell when somebody’s a little wore-out? C’mere, kiddo.”

C’mere.

Well, at least you got the same treatment as Daisy.

It wasn’t regularly in your best interest to be drawing anywhere close to Joel Miller, so your body stayed planted where it was on the other side of the bed. You grimaced only a little when you felt his hand close around your wrist and tug you over to where he sat.

His shirt smelled of blood and something woodsy.

Both made you want to recoil, but Joel held tight.

“Now don’t go squirmin’ away. Hey.” He shook you once, when you’d unconsciously jerked back from his grip, and your body froze in place. You knew that hold well, and how tight and unforgiving it could get. You didn’t move.

“That’s better,” Joel hummed. “Now, on your side.”

The order made your skin bristle, but you followed it.

Joel smiled and proceeded to lie down next to you.

That big, broad, bleeding arm you’d seen before was shortly enveloping your frame, dragging your back to press up against his front, and then snaking around your waist. Joel held you to him so that his face could rest comfortably behind your shoulder. You tensed up.

This was how it started.

Joel behind you, holding you tight so that you couldn’t escape. In no time at all, he’d be unzipping the fly on his jeans, unbuckling his belt, and then pressing his palm flat across the side of your face, telling you to stay still, or I’ll make sure you regret it. You didn’t often get a warning before Joel pushed inside. There had never once been a time when he’d asked if it would be OK to do it.

You didn’t expect tonight to be any different.

In an effort to ease his passage and save yourself any more pain than was absolutely necessary, you closed your eyes and tried to think about pleasanter things.

Like plush, stubbled lips brushing up the column of your neck. Hands kneading the flesh around your hips in a comforting way. Eyes trailing lightly—appreciatively—over your body as you’d always thought a lover might do.

It wasn’t like you were craving romance, per se. Hell, the concept of it half-scared you to death, with the thought of someone else touching your body and cherishing it and not wanting to use it merely as a means to an end seemed like something out of a fairytale book at this point in your life. You’d accepted that love would never touch you personally; these fantasies that played on repeat in your mind were little more than a vestige of a world no longer in existence. There was nothing wrong indulging when faced with a thing as awful and raw as—

“Hey.”

Joel shook you again.

Your chin jerked back to him, and you blinked.

“Y-Yeah?”

Over your shoulder, Joel stared back at you.

“You need a minute?”

You blinked again. You couldn’t hope to control the look of pure bewilderment that was painting your expression.

“What?”

“Do you…need a minute? Y’know, to stop the…hurtin’.”

Joel had never stopped to consider your pain in all the years you’d known him. Not on a raid, not out in the fields, not on a ‘job’ you both knew you hated, like cramming his dick in your mouth or any other place he deemed appropriate. He’d regarded your feelings as something ancillary, always. Even as you’d sobbed in his arms before, his choices invariably, inevitably defaulted to him. Without fail. Why he was acting any differently now was beyond you. You sat back, fully dumbstruck.

“What?” you asked him again.

Behind you, Joel just smiled.

He trailed his touch up the side of your body as if it were the most normal thing to do in the world, and he stopped when it reached the crook of your neck. He brushed his knuckles against your pulse point, then stroked it more.

“Tell me where it hurts.”

Your mouth was dry. Somehow, you managed to indicate with your fingers and a murmur that it hurt right…here.

Just below where his own hand had strayed, there was a bite mark on your collar bone where Joel had sank his teeth into flesh the night before. The wound was bright red and throbbing, reminding you every hour how wholly he controlled your body. Your frock bared the sight for everyone in camp to see, including the man himself.

Joel leaned down and kissed it.

Where canines had once punctured skin and pulled back to flash you a smug, conceited grin, beaming at the way they had marked you up, Joel’s lips only soothed it now.

He caressed the little lesions on your skin and drew back.

“Where else?” he asked.

Still, your mind was too discombobulated to form a single coherent sentence, so you pointed instead.

With a slow, shaky hand, you gestured to your legs.

Joel peered down after it, down the mattress.

“Banged your knees up pretty bad, huh?”

“Y-Yes.”

In your mind, you sounded pathetic. Yes, these poor little legs had to hold yourself up in doggystyle last night after Joel had decided to fuck a day’s worth of frustration into your cunt. That was the norm.

And this was where Joel would slide down the bed to grip your thighs, hold them tightly, and press his lips to all the cuts and bruises on your kneecaps, apparently.

You watched it all unfold with a harrowing sense of awe.

He’d never touched you there. He’d never kissed you there. Joel Miller had never so much as held your hand unless it had been to drag you someplace dark and isolated, and now he was petting your injured legs?

Out of habit, you jerked back from that touch.

You clambered quickly, gracelessly up the bed into a kind of half-sitting position, and with your eyes wide and fixed on his, you managed the first words in what felt like ages:

“What are you doing, Joel?”

The man who’d just kissed your neck and your kneecaps planted a hand on the bed. He slid closer to you, no doubt seeing a fear seize your features as he did.

He placed that palm on your thigh. He squeezed it lightly.

“I’m tryin’ to be nice. Helpful an’ all that.”

You didn’t know what that meant.

You were so stunned by his words and actions that you scarcely even felt it yourself when fingers tapped skin.

Joel drummed a gentle beat, posing a new question.

“Where else does it hurt?”

“It…it…”

You shook your head. Blinked through your present daze.

“Show me where it hurts. Use your hands,” Joel said.

So you did.

Gingerly, wordlessly, you drew your hand to your tummy. You placed a palm over your middle and felt pretty silly.

It hurts inside.

You didn’t give me a chance to prepare last night, and now every inch where you invaded feels like it’s on fire.

You wished you had the strength to tell him it hurt. That you hated him for it and wished he were dead most days. Instead, when Joel placed his hand over yours and searched your eyes with a soft, tender look in his, you felt tears spring up again. You shook your head, wincing.

“It hurt here, too?” Joel nearly whispered.

Now you nodded your head. Yes, it hurts.

And Joel stroked it gently. Delicately.

He lowered his scarred, stubbled face to yours, and in yet another act that would leave you shocked for hours, he kissed your cheek. He continued to rub your stomach.

Meanwhile, it felt like your gut plummeted to the floor.

Done jumping away for the time being, though, you tilted your head to him. You opened your mouth to either speak or suck in a breath, and suddenly that, too, was invaded by his mouth. Joel kissed you on the lips.

It was so soft you didn’t think to stop him.

The man had forced your mouth to his plenty of times before, but never had it felt like this—featherlight, gentle.

The kiss was as calming as it was disconcerting. Joel’s lips worked expertly over your own, which were limp and unmoving, and a hand cupped your cheek. You didn’t close your eyes, even when his tongue traced the seam of your lips. This was how the lovers in your dreams always kissed. But Joel was no lover; this was odd.

“Wanna lay back?” he asked after pulling away.

You didn’t. But you did it anyway.

With Joel following your descent to the bed, slotting overtop your body in the fashion of a man about to mount, you thought surely it would happen now.

He would fuck you, whether you liked it or not.

Those kisses had been but a sickening prelude to something much worse, something more violent than you could likely even imagine. You closed your eyes.

Joel slid between your legs.

He pressed his hips to yours.

His breaths fanned over your face in a familiar and menacing way, and his expression was probably cruel.

He kissed you again.

This time, you couldn’t help but jump. He was using tongue, gently. Working the muscle in your mouth like he wanted you to enjoy the feel and savor the taste of him.

You’d been fucked against your will many times. You had no idea how to tongue-kiss someone and make it good.

You whimpered into Joel’s mouth, and as if sensing your thoughts, he drew back. He peered down, smiling faintly.

“Is this OK?”

A beat.

“I— I guess.”

Joel fully grinned at that, teeth gleaming in the lamplight. He pecked your lips again, softly, and you could feel a chuckle rumble through his chest as he did.

“You are too precious, y’know that?” he said.

You sat in silence while he leaned back to lift the hem of your dress. Again, you thought he would be undoing his belt and the zip on his jeans and then shoving his cock inside you in the next moment. That was usually how it went. But for what felt like the hundredth time that night, you were surprised to find that he wasn’t pursuing that route at all. He was simply raising your dress above your belly so that he could rub the tender skin that was there.

He pressed a palm to your tummy, and it had an alarmingly calming, warming effect. Your muscles eased under his touch. Though your chest rose and fell in quick, uneven breaths at the prospect of what was to come next, your lower half was tranquil. The pain ebbed away.

Your gaze flickered to Joel’s face, and you found he was already watching you intently. He tipped his chin down.

“Feel any better?”

You waited. You watched him back.

After a second, you nodded your head.

And that wasn’t a lie. His hand smoothing circles over your stomach had made the ache from last night drain out of you, it seemed. You couldn’t believe it. Slowly, a pleased smile worked its way onto Joel’s face, and he was rubbing circles even gentler than he had before. He kissed your forehead, and something stirred inside you.

You ignored it.

You blinked, and suddenly, Joel was lifting your hemline higher with his other hand. Up your belly, your ribs, and—

“Hey.” That came out as more of a squeak than a plea.

Joel’s smile didn’t flinch. He dragged the fabric past your chest, baring your breasts to the open air, and strangely, his gaze never left your face. You shot a look down in embarrassment, wanting him to pull it back into place, but you didn’t dare take hold of the hem yourself. You just sat back in muted discomfort, wanting to move.

“‘S’okay. They’re just more body parts, kiddo. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with showin’ ‘em off when I’m here.”

They were nothing he hadn’t seen before, either.

You squirmed in place and pursed your lips.

And, though you wanted his gentle ministrations on your stomach to continue, this kind of development made you antsy. Achy. You couldn’t quite explain the medley of strange emotions that came from being bare around a man like Joel, in a context like this, but you were almost positive you didn’t like it. You peered up at him, pleading.

“What’s the problem? I just wanna help,” Joel replied.

And, before you could shoot another look his way or turn from him, curling away, he did something unexpected.

He leaned down and, just like he’d done with his mouth working yours, he pressed a kiss to one of your breasts.

He didn’t budge, even when you did.

Even when you jumped—plainly frightened of that new, wet feeling latching onto your nipple—Joel rooted himself in place and didn’t stray an inch from where he was. He sucked on that stiff, hardened peak with all the assuredness he had mowing down herds and herds of infected in the woods outside your community, and it didn’t seem to register at all with him that you were uncomfortable. He simply licked and sucked and kissed.

The ache in your belly got bigger, but not with any pain.

Joel sucked your nipple into your mouth, and you felt it—trembling pleasure. The kind you fantasized about when the man was otherwise draining the sensation from your body with every brutal stab of his hips. At last, it was a thing for you to feel, and not just dream about. The shock hit so hard you had to grip something behind you.

Your pillow.

That was fine.

You sucked in a breath that sounded a bit more like a gasp than a normal inhale, and you clasped on harder.

“Joel,” you mewled.

Joel lifted his head.

“What’s wrong? Did that hurt?”

Your wide eyes met him, bewildered.

“I…”

You swallowed, so wholly unacquainted with the feeling you didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t painful, just a bit…

“Strange, huh?” Joel grinned.

The hand that rubbed your stomach moved to your side to tickle it lightly. You jerked again, and the grin grew.

His mouth lowered back to your breasts—the other one, now—and his eyes never left yours once while he did. He kissed your nipple like he’d done to the first. You saw his tongue dart out past cracked lips, under a sea of mostly grey facial hairs, and he licked that hardened nub. He smeared saliva all over the flushed little thing, and you should’ve been disgusted by how much spit spread down your skin, but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to hate it. The feelings his actions roused were pleasurable.

You blinked and let out a ragged breath.

You drew another into your lungs, and your chest shook.

Joel couldn’t have looked more enamored if he tried.

“Does that make the hurt go away? Make you feel a little…warm and tingly inside?” he asked you delicately.

“Feels…yeah.” You’d lost the power to think again.

You’d lost the powers of basic human cognition, and all you wanted was for his lips and tongue to caress your nipples. This man that you hated made you feel something good. You didn’t have words for it.

“Has anyone ever done this to you before?”

Right as he asked it, Joel returned to where he’d been and dragged his mouth over one peak. He sucked it in between his lips, then released it with a loud, wet pop.

You couldn’t help it; you whimpered.

You let out a shrill, soft whine like this was the single best thing you’d ever felt, and Joel Miller was the cause of it.

He did it again.

And again.

And he reached up to tweak your other nipple between his forefinger and thumb at the same time, and that was when you felt it: a hot coil. A tightening knot. You sighed.

Your chin jerked down to your chest to see the chaos for yourself, and you found Joel grinning back up at you.

“Has anyone ever done this to you?” he reiterated.

“No.”

You shook your head. You wanted more.

You needed more of his mouth, more of this feeling, and you hated feeling beholden to anyone else, but a pleasure like this felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to a girl like you, and you had no idea when the next time Joel would ever be this nice, so you asked.

“Can— can you do it again?”

Joel obliged you without another word.

He took sweet, pebbled flesh between his teeth and tugged it. Pinched your nipple with his fingers and twisted. Licked you repeatedly, drenched you with his spit, and somehow, you loved every filthy second of it.

You ground your heels into the bed. The own noises bubbling out of your throat were growing louder, and Joel’s suckling sounds, too, were picking up volume as he worked his mouth quicker and harder and greedier than he had before. The wrinkles and the greys on his face showed his age with every breath he took—made this whole encounter feel that much more depraved—but how he took you between his lips made him seem years younger. Ebullient and spry and keen in how he did it.

That old, strange something in your tummy was growing. You were hardly aware of what it meant, much less able to control how it spread. It swelled inside you, and all you knew was that you wanted it to keep billowing, keep rising, keep numbing the pain inside you, and save you from the harsh, cruel reality of the hand you’d been dealt in sex to date. You wanted to get to feel good, for once.

Joel drew your nipple in his mouth one last time for a thick, wet brush from the tip of his tongue, and that was when the knot in your stomach snapped. You cried out loud, eyes almost crossing from the sheer pleasure that was coursing through your body and—shit, was this what Joel got to feel every time he pushed himself in you?—your toes curled. Your eyes closed. Your back promptly arched off the bed, pushing your chest even more into him, and the man clearly didn’t mind in the slightest. He continued to lap at your taut, sensitive flesh while he pinched at the other, and something like a groan thrummed through his chest. You could feel it.

When your eyes opened again, they landed on his face.

Joel’s was upturned, addressing you with a beaming sort of look while he hovered no more than an inch or so over your breasts and panted like he’d just sprinted a mile.

“Did you just…orgasm?” he asked, half-breathless.

You weren’t totally sure what that was—had never experienced one yourself, so you couldn’t say with certainty if that was what it had been. You stared back.

“I don’t know.”

You swallowed, hoping that wouldn’t make him angry.

On the contrary, Joel swept you into his arms a moment later. He held you tight to his chest, your breasts pressing to his white, soiled shirt and briefly commingling with the blood spattered there.

You tensed out of habit. Then you eased just a bit.

He was hugging you. Crawling up your body in bed and laying you back in the sheets, where you’d so kindly just showed a climax Joel almost certainly wasn’t expecting.

He kissed your neck. Your cheeks. Your lips. He overcrowded your space, but your head was so busy with all the bright, fuzzy feelings of release that you didn’t have the sense to notice. Dimly, you heard the clink of a belt, but in your near-anoetic state, it didn’t fully register.

That was what it was supposed to feel like.

No crying, no begging, no pleading for your life.

Just bliss, swollen to the limit and flooding your system.

You wanted to do it again. Maybe not with Joel, but just a man who put your pleasure first. The one you always pictured in your fantasies could be a reality, someday. He’d probably be a little closer to you in age, maybe learning these things for the first time like you. You could experience it together; you wouldn’t have to remain the way you were under Joel’s thumb if you just branched out a bit. Talked to people who weren’t him. The sudden influx of dopamine and oxytocin had your head humming with new ideas, and you knew it was likely too soon to start planning a way away from Joel, but just maybe—

“That was the best thing I ever seen,” he said presently.

You snapped back into the moment and saw Joel hovering over your frame: hips bracketed by your legs and arms bracing themselves on either side of your head on the pillow. His jeans and boxers were shoved down his thighs, just far enough to let his cock spring free of its confines, and currently, the round, leaking head of the thing was gliding up and down your slit. You shuddered.

“What— what was the best thing?” You needed to stall.

Joel brightened above you, like he was charmed by the tone of voice you’d used. He leaned in and kissed you.

You tried not to wince. You tried to look positive.

“You. Cummin’ from just my tongue and fingers on your nipples. Sexiest sight I seen. I knew you’d come around.”

Joel grabbed the base of his dick and started lowering his hips to draw closer to your entrance. He bumped the ring of muscles with the tip, and you were stunned to hear a weak, but audible squelch from where he met you.

You couldn’t see it now, but you could feel the insides of your legs soaked through with your arousal. It dripped like nectar from your cunt and gave Joel the perfect opportunity to slick himself up with your wetness.

The old man rolled his hips and nudged you again.

“It’s gonna be so much better from now on,” he went on. “Tommy was right—a little sweet talkin’, nipple tweakin’ before a man gets to stick it to his woman and she’ll make it real easy by gettin’ wet. Even better if she cums.”

Your stomach turned at those words: his woman.

You didn’t want to do this with Joel again, at least not in the way he’d just made you climax. That felt intimate, and completely wrong for the dynamic you two had developed. As you slowly made the descent from replete pleasure to dread, you sensed something extra warm, leaking beads of precum at your still-wet entrance.

Joel planted an arm even closer beside you and nudged your nose with his own. His eyes were glossy and wide.

You knew a good man wouldn’t be found behind them.

He sank the first inch of his cock within the embrace of your cunt, and the face above you twisted. Yours did, too.

His was out of pleasure. Yours was more like a life-sized, grating kind of agony for which you could not find a name. Your body ached with it, though you didn’t dare to show it on your face. You sighed instead. You bit your lip.

And all the while, Joel was wedging his impossibly hard member inside you. Making way by force, but in a much less painful way than he had before. You were wet enough to give him a tolerably smooth entrance.

He filled every ridge and crevice of your most intimate place, and he heaved a groan at the gratifying sensation.

Joel always enjoyed sex with you.

Even at his lowest, with his eyes seeing nothing but red and likely viewing you as more sentient hole than human being, he always preferred the space between to your legs to anyplace else. As far as you knew, he had sex with no one else but you. Sometimes, you wondered why.

But tonight, you couldn’t think for long when the tip of Joel’s cock kissed the edge of your cervix. For the first time in your life, it didn’t hurt, and in fact felt pretty nice. You made a face to mask the pleasure, and his length buried itself even deeper. Joel groaned as you whined.

“That feels good, don’t it?” he murmured. His hips increased their pace, and suddenly, his thrusts were shaking you. Your bed frame clanged against the wall.

Out of sheer necessity, you had to wrap your arms around the back of Joel’s neck as he fucked you. You felt the weight of his balls slap your ass with every thrust he delivered, and your heels dug hard into his lower back. Slick sounds and stifled whines were all you could hear for several seconds, save for Joel’s breathing, which was loud and shallow. You detected a trace of bourbon on it.

“That feels nice, havin’ your old man balls deep in this sweet, perfect cunt, huh? Tell me,” he said, tone dark.

You nodded once.

Your eyes pricked with moisture again, and this time, you couldn’t tell with any degree of certainty which emotion it stemmed from. You felt vulnerable. Overwhelmed. Like you weren’t in control of yourself—which, physically, you weren’t—and you couldn’t decide what words or sounds would come from you next. You held onto Joel tighter.

His cock plunged in and out at a dizzying pace. He didn’t slow when he saw your tears, but they did beckon him in.

Joel cupped your face in a sly, patronizing way. Smiling.

“You’re scared to feel good. That’s what’s holdin’ ya back,” he said gently, as if it was the most obvious thing.

His thumb brushed your cheek just as he bottomed out, and your body convulsed. You cried some more, wanting to push him out completely, but the feeling was oddly stimulating, too. Joel went on to catch every tear that crawled down your face, and he wiped each one away. He got a half-crazed look in his eye, and he smiled again.

Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked.

He was fucking you, and he was tasting your tears.

You’d never seen anything more disturbing in your life but were forced to hide your aversion as Joel continued.

“Pussy’s all wet. Soakin’ me just like these pretty little tears. That must mean she likes me, darlin’. She likes it.”

“But I—” you started, breath catching on a particularly hard thrust. “—I’m still hurtin’. You— you’re hurtin’ me.”

Perhaps an appeal to his pathos would slow him down. Get him to stop, or at least quit eating your fucking tears.

Joel’s tongue would lick you occasionally when a fresh stream trickled down. He did it again, even while you writhed in pain. He grabbed your face, and he groaned when your walls clenched involuntarily around his length.

“It’s all— all in your head, honey. You want this. Your cunt wouldn’t be half as soaked as it is, and you wouldn’t be cryin’ with pleasure if you didn’t need it as badly as me. You’re just…scared to feel good, is all it is. Let go of that.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing—and were equally dismayed to find that your wet, achy cunt was making noises beneath Joel’s thrusts so obscene you would’ve sobbed harder to know it was you who was making them. Slowly, sluggishly you pushed at his chest.

“I ain’t— ain’t scared, Joel. I don’t like this,” you wailed.

“Sure you are. You feel guilty about how good this feels.”

Well, maybe there was some truth to—

“No.” You shook your head. “I-I don’t.”

“You do.”

“I don—”

“Is that why you sent her over for me, sweetheart?”

You froze. Joel’s thrusts slowed down a little.

What was he talking about? Who was ‘she’?

As if reading your mind, Joel went on.

“Rachel. You sent her, didn’t you?”

You had no fucking clue what he was talking about. All you knew was that you loathed the girl and were trying your hardest not to succumb to the pleasure that was building with every second. Somehow, Joel’s gentler strokes made you throb and ache in the best way.

Your gaze flitted down to see his hips meeting yours relentlessly—cock plunging in and out at a grating rhythm and making a mess of your shared fluids. Sweat coated your skin; the bed continued to creak and groan.

“R-Rachel?” you whimpered back.

Joel’s gaze narrowed at you.

“Don’t act naïve, honey.”

Suddenly, he was stopping completely to push your legs over his shoulders. Your limbs were limp and gave no resistance. Then he resumed his soft, steady thrusts.

Your pussy squeezed him even tighter at this angle, and Joel swore under his breath. You whined at feeling it, too.

“After you two helped…fix that fence,” he grunted out, eyes focusing on yours. They were markedly more stern. “I was back home tendin’ to my arm. Rachel stopped by.”

You glanced to Joel’s bicep, which was bulging and still staining the sleeve of his shirt through the fabric. The red patch seemed to grow darker with every push of his hips, but maybe you were imagining things. Trying to distract yourself from the eyes that were boring into your skull.

“She must’ve heard I got hurt last night. Or somebody told her,” Joel went on, unfazed. His cock kept drilling, rendering you immobile on the bed underneath him. “Either way, she made it real clear…real fuckin’ quick that my injury wasn’t the only thing that brought her there.”

Gradually, heat rose to your cheeks.

No way had Rachel done what you thought she did. What you told her sucked, and wasn’t worth any of her time.

“She seemed to think you were gettin’—” Joel paused to drive his cock in hard, hitting your sweet spot as he did. “—preferential treatment of some kind, on account of what you do for me. She wanted the same treatment.”

Now your face was on fire.

That fucking idiot.

“W-What did you say?” you asked weakly. It wasn’t even your curiosity that was piqued—it was genuine fear for what Joel might’ve done had he been of a mind to be offended by her offer. What he was liable to do if he thought you were behind it. You swallowed hard and had no choice but to ignore the growing coil in your stomach.

“I said what any man in my position would’ve told her,” Joel sneered, and your feelings of trepidation only rose.

Against your will, the pleasure in your lower half stretched commensurate with your panic, and you found yourself trembling, teeth grinding together, and eyes itching to roll back in bliss and raw, unmitigated dread.

You weren’t sure if this was preparation to cum or to cry. By the look on Joel’s face, it appeared he craved both.

He gripped your chin in one hand and brought his face right down to yours. His hips didn’t withdraw again; he wedged his cock in deeper and deeper, until it felt as if something were ready to snap, and you cried out, shrill.

“Joel, please.”

“Wanna know what I said?”

“Y-Yes. And stop. Please, no deeper.”

His tip was hitting your cervix repeatedly. His knees were bracing themselves hard against the bed, like he couldn’t get far enough inside your soft, lithe body and the mewling sounds you made were invitations to go further.

They weren’t.

He knew they weren’t.

Still, Joel’s grin was wide as he pinched your face in his hand and grit his teeth like he was proud. Listen to me.

“I told Rachel to get fucked, that’s what,” he snarled. “But not by me. I only fuck women I’m in love with.”

Out of all the things he could’ve said, that was the worst.

Your face fell where he held it, and your eyes widened.

You wanted to shake your head, but his grip was tight.

“Joel.” At the same time, fear flooded you.

Nothing made sense like it should’ve. Nothing felt right, and that was ignoring the fact that you were being forced to fuck a man you so thoroughly despised.

Joel was watching your expressions. Waiting for you to process what he’d said, and when he saw that you had, he assumed an even more brutal pace with his thrusts. He carved at your insides with his cock, pleased as ever.

“Didn’t even…realize it until she approached me today,” he confessed, chuckling when he felt your walls clench—and at the same time, more tears welled up beneath him.

You were going to cry again, except now you were also on the brink of climax. Split down his cock and whining.

“You were made for me, sweetheart. No one’s ever…ever gonna touch what’s mine or get between me and you.”

Those words made you want to die.

Tears were spilling out, and you sobbed.

“You— you don’t mean that, Joel,” you cried.

“But I do, baby,” Joel teased. He pushed your legs even higher when he leaned down to kiss you, and you didn’t miss the way he licked at your tear-streaked skin after. He was sick. Repulsive. Shameless in what he was doing. “If someone like Rachel thinks she can drive a wedge between us, who’s to say there ain’t others who feel the same? Folks need to see who you fuckin’ belong to.”

With that, the man seemed to confirm your worst fear.

His gaze locked on yours, and he thumbed at your cheek one last time. Then he slid his touch down your body, to find your clit, and started rubbing mercilessly. Your hips bucked under his touch, throat working and begging him, hoarsely, stop touching me there, I don’t like it.

In truth, that place was about to send you over the edge. You didn’t like it; you loved it. You hated that you relished every second stretched over Joel’s length and how good it made you feel. You hated him. You hated him so much.

“I love you, honey,” Joel panted, lips grazing over yours.

One more push of his hips and your ankles were almost hovering by your ears. He had you folded in half for him.

And his circles on your clit weren’t stopping anytime soon. He jerked himself in and out of you, again and again, a little sloppier now with how much focus he was placing on that tiny, pulsing bud. Your stomach clenched.

Your walls bore down, and it was clear you didn’t have a say in the matter: you were tumbling toward climax again whether you liked it or not. Your whines turned to shrieks.

“I— I-I don’t love you, Joel,” you said through your teeth. “I fucking hate you. You’ll never mean…anything to me.”

Frankly, you didn’t give a single fuck whether he beat you for it later. He was damn near making you say it.

And rather than bristle with rage, Joel only beamed.

“You mean it, baby?”

Fucking psychopath.

You would’ve reached up and clawed at his face in desperation had your own not been cupped in his hand next. Gently and affectionately, he drew it closer to him.

You mean it?

“We’ll see how you feel when you’re carrying my child.”

Your eyes went wide. Joel’s grin grew bigger.

No.

No.

No, no, no, no, NO.

You weren’t thinking. You reared back and finally landed that taut, sharp blow across his face. The man didn’t flinch, even as you reached out again and raked your nails into his cheek—you fucking sick, sick bastard.

His skin bled. His lip split from where you’d hit him.

All the while, he kept that smile stretched wide.

He seemed to revel in your hatred, leaning in to tell you again: ‘Folks need to see who you fuckin’ belong to, hon.’

“And now they will,” he went on, tone taunting and low.

Joel made sure you felt him from then on. Ensured he shouldn’t budge a single inch and you wouldn’t either. Even as you grit your teeth, cursed him up and down, kept fighting tears—and losing—he wasn’t letting you off.

He would be getting you off, though.

With one more kiss to your neck and a quick series of circuits with his thumb, you were coming apart beneath him. You couldn’t help it. Every last nerve-ending in your body was shot, and you couldn’t breathe without sobbing through tears of misery and pleasure.

Like most every other moment you’d endured that night, your climax was against your will. Your walls pulsed and spasmed, and the fast circles on your clit nearly sent your vision blurring from how indescribably good it felt. All the while, inside, you were cursing Joel’s name and hating him more than you ever had before. Your orgasm triggered his own, and you wished you’d never been born—if this was how your life was to be spent, with the spray of a pervert’s seed painting your walls every night until you gave him a child, well…you would rather be dead.

Better yet, he should be dead.

The idea took root in your mind the second Joel had emptied the last spurt of warmth inside you and drew back with a crooked, sleepy grin. When he kissed you, and licked up the side of your face to collect whatever tears had trickled down since your orgasm had hit, the thought was cemented in your mind. Tired as you were yourself, you couldn’t show this on your face or betray a shred more of your outright contempt, or determination, than you were feeling right now. You let him kiss you. Let him lick you wherever he pleased, tell you he loved you and knew you would love him too, one day, as much as you would love his baby. His cock rutted deeper inside you with a low and sickening squelch, and by the time he’d rolled away, you’d made it a promise to yourself.

Whether it was today, tomorrow, or ten years from now—no matter how long it would take—Joel Miller was dead.

And that made you happy.

[shy-writer-999]

1-800-LONELYCHEF . ₊ ⊹ .

Summary: The same man calls you every Friday at 11:30PM. It seems like he has nothing better to do. After months of the same routine, you've started to take a liking to him, which is a problem, considering that he's your client... and you work at a phone sex hot line. WC: ~7k. CW: NSFW content! ANGSTY! Afab reader w/gendered language (she/her pronouns). Masturbation, oral sex. MDNI plz!

“Hello?”

You’re very familiar with the caller on the other end of the line. He calls you once a week—every Friday, after his shift at the bougie restaurant he works at, 11:30PM on the dot.

He must be very attractive, or at least that’s what you’ve garnered over talking to him for many months.

At first, he was evidently too shy to make use of your more… explicit services. This is a phone sex hotline, after all.

He honestly sounded like he just needed someone to vent to. So, you listened, as was your job. After the first few months, you both got more accustomed to one another. His shyness melted away. He got friendlier.

It’s been six or seven months since he first called. You’ve become very fond of him, but you have no idea what he looks like. So, one day, you decide to ask.

“Your voice is so sexy,” you start, giving him a line that you gave everyone, except this time you mean it. “I can’t help but wonder what you look like, Sanji.”

With other callers, you’d have to check what their name is before you say it. But you’re far past that point with him, and every time you say his name it makes his heart flutter.

“Well,” he says. “I’m blonde. And my eyebrows have a little… curl to them. I’m a decent height and I have a bit of a goatee.”

“And what color are your eyes?” You ask, trying to get the full picture.

He notes that question. It’s a thoughtful one. You’re thoughtful, in general. He knows that you are just being nice to him because, well, it’s your job, but also… he can’t shake the feeling that you have a soft spot for him. Do you talk to everyone like this?

“My eyes? Hmm. It depends on who you ask. I don’t know, really. Some people say they’re black, other people say grey, I’ve had a few tell me they’re blue. I’m not sure.”

You hum in response. There’s a beat of silence.

“What sort of eyes do you like?” He asks. He’s cheeky like that. You have the feeling that he has a real soft spot for you, too. Why else would he call you every week? There are plenty of others he could call. But he just sticks with you every time.

You respond. “It depends on who you ask. But historically I have liked guys with black, grey, or blue eyes. Do you happen to know anyone who fits the bill?”

He can tell that you’re smiling. He finds himself blushing, getting giddy for a few moments before he realizes that oh, right, you are at work, and oh, right, he is paying you to talk to him, like the loser he is.

His voice falters a bit the next time he speaks, a couple of seconds later. You know the exact thought that just went through his head. It’s something you are well aware of but… it does make you a bit sad with him. You like him far too much for your own good.

You wonder if you would like the look of him in real life, painfully single as you are. You wonder if he would like the look of you.

You might have a teeny tiny crush on this guy you’ve never met. Teeny tiny is a massive understatement. Just because he’s so consistent—you’ve never met a man as consistent as him—and so kind, and such a gentleman, even on the phone.

But tonight, the call ends earlier than usual. It seems that your open flirtation was a bit too genuine for him. Hit a bit too close to home. He finishes the conversation and dodges your attempt to take it farther.

“Thank you as always, beautiful. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. See you next week.” The phone hangs up abruptly. He’s gone now.

He always calls you beautiful, like everyone else does, but… it just means something coming from him. Maybe because he’s the only caller who has ever wanted to truly know something about you. And every time he hangs up, he says ‘see you next week,’ even though you never see each other. It’s cute.

You find yourself wishing he was still on the line. You’re a bit bummed that he hung up this early, not because you’re going to be left wanting for money (he always overpays), but because you always look forward to talking to him.

When you take the next caller, you’re quickly reminded that Sanji is by far the youngest and kindest of anyone who has ever called you.

---

“Hello?”

He’s on the line again. It’s Friday again, 11:30PM sharp.

You respond, tone warmer than it needs to be, given that you’re speaking to a client. “Hi.”

You’re glad to talk to him. Very realistically, this is the only interesting thing you have to look forward to—it’s not like you can afford to go out and party on the weekends. Or any day, for that matter. He’s your Friday night date every week. That doesn’t escape him.

“How was your week?” He asks, like he always does. He’s the only client who has ever asked you that.

You respond as frankly as you can without overstepping. “Hmmm. It was alright. Pretty boring, in general. It could have been better. How was your week?”

He pauses for a moment. “It was pretty good.”

“Tell me about it.” You prompt, and he begins detailing his week for you, as is your routine.

The things you know about this man’s life are random and vast, among them, you know that he lives in the city next to yours, he eats oats every morning for breakfast, and that he chain smokes as often as he can get away with (which is almost 24/7). You’ve been privy to him trying to cut back on his nicotine intake more than a few times, and he has never forgotten that you cheer him on every time he tries.

Among other things, this week he had to go to work on his usual day off (Wednesday) because the sous-chef called out (again). You can hear him roll his eyes when he says that. You roll them too, even though he can’t see.

He vents about that, and you hear him out.

“The sous-chef sounds like a real asshole,” you say. “Always has. Didn’t he call out a couple weeks ago?”

He laughs out loud at your honesty. “I fucking know, right? And yes, he did. It’s ridiculous.” Then his heart skips a beat. You really do pay attention to what he says.

“They don’t appreciate you as much as they should, Sanji. I bet I could talk some sense into them.” You say, and you both chuckle for a moment.

“What else happened this week?” You follow up, genuinely wanting to know. This man fascinates you. With how charming and sweet he is, it’s a wonder to you that he’s single. Also, the life he lives is quaint. He is a man of routine, a hard worker, and he’s driven. He has a strong and warm personality.

When he replies to your question, you can’t quite make out the tone of his voice—is that reluctance? Hesitation? Shyness? Or awkwardness? It’s hard to tell.

He responds to your question. “Well… I went on a date last night.”

Before you can wonder why, your heart starts to sink. Fuck. You really do have a crush on this guy, don’t you?

You regrettably (internally) acknowledge your disappointment. You do have a massive crush on this guy. And he’s your client. So, get a grip.

Your acting skills have to be excellent for this job. You make good use of them now. “Oh, a date?” You emanate the pinnacle of excitement for him. “How was it?”

This has happened maybe half a dozen times before. The dates always go well but the follow through rate is bad. Obviously. Or else he wouldn’t be here. But every time it has happened, your heart always sinks. Not a fun feeling.

“It went really, really well.” Sanji’s voice is happy. “Might have been the best date I’ve ever been on.” You know he’s smiling right now. Positively beaming. Your heart breaks a bit before you reprimand yourself. You have no right to like this man the way that you do.

He probably wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot-pole if he met you in real life (you tell yourself this, and you know it is a lie, but you try to say it to make yourself get a grip… needless to say, this strategy doesn’t work.)

“How was she?” You ask because you know he wants to talk about it.

“She was thoughtful, kind, and considerate. Very sweet. Kind of like you, actually.” He says, not realizing how much those words make your smile fall. “One of the cooks set us up. Like a blind date. I had no idea what to expect but she was gorgeous. Wow. So funny, too.”

His voice trails off. It’s your turn to talk.

“Awh, Sanji, I’m so glad. You deserve some attention.” Your voice is sugar coated like usual and his heart patters.

The conversation wanders into various topics. The woman he went on a date with is a veterinarian. That sours your mood. She must be real swell. Caring for sick animals and all that stuff. Ugh. The whole topic is forcing you to accept the fact that you like this guy wayyyy more than you should. You have no business having this intense of a crush on him, having this intense of a crush on a man who is, ostensibly, and for all intents and purposes, using you as his rent-a-girlfriend.

The pair of you then talk about relationships—has he ever been in one? (Yes, ages ago.) What is his love language? (Physical touch and acts of service.) What’s his type? (Essentially, you.) You ask him questions and he asks you them back. It’s a nice conversation, an intimate one, one that would have you feeling better if not for the fact that he just happened to have an amazing date.

After a while, the conversation dwindles. You know that he’s in the mood to do what this whole thing is really about—phone sex. When Sanji is in a really good mood or a really bad mood, he takes advantage of your expertise in this area. Tonight is the former.

“Is there anything else on your mind, handsome?” You ask, gauging what he’s up to tonight.

“Mmmm, there is. What are you wearing, gorgeous?”

You smile. He’s cute. Usually, you lie when men ask you this question. But with Sanji you tend to be a bit more truthful. Maybe it’s the fact that you feel like he’s going to get taken off the market soon and never call you again one day, or maybe it’s something else, but you’re getting the urge to be more candid and flirtier with him than you’ve ever been before. Real flirty, not work flirty. You’re getting the urge to step out of whatever character you put on when you pick up the phone.

“Do you want the regular client answer, or the Sanji answer?” You say, bold and not giving a fuck. Why not? He can have the real answer, hell, he can have some realness because you’ve talked for so long, and because you like him so much. Like you said, he deserves some attention.

“Oh. How about both?” He’s tickled and intrigued. “I’m flattered that I have my own option.”

“You always do. Well, the regular client answer would be that I’m wearing a babydoll slip dress made of black mesh… with a black lace thong and thigh-high black stockings. Do you like that?” Your voice starts to transform; it starts to drip pure lust, candied in honey and flattery. It’s a well-trained skill. Sanji gets hard almost immediately, tenting his pants and widening his thighs.

“I like it very much.” His voice is getting huskier, thicker. You love it when he sounds like that. His voice really is sexy. He continues. “Now, tell me the Sanji answer.”

“It isn’t nearly as glamorous. Do you still want to know?”

He nods, but it’s not like you can see him. “Of course.”

“I’m wearing a black tank top and blue plaid sweatpants. No bra, but I actually am wearing a black lace thong.” You laugh. “Very sexy, right?”

His voice comes out raspier this time. “It is, though. I much prefer the Sanji answer.”

“You’re sweet.” You say, and he can tell you mean it. “Now, what are you wearing?”

Sanji blushes and his erection strains against the fabric of his boxers. “Do you want the regular client answer, or the You answer?”

You laugh again. “How about both?”

“Well,” he continues. “The regular client answer is that I’m in black slacks and a white button down. A few buttons are undone and my sleeves are rolled up to my forearms. I’m wearing black loafers and black socks. Now, the You answer isn’t nearly as glamorous. Do you still want to know?”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t have a shirt on and I am coincidentally wearing blue plaid sweatpants as well. Can you believe that?”

“No way. Really?”

“Yep.”

“Anything underneath?” Your voice is coy and his erection pulses.

“Yep. I have boxers on. Boring black ones.”

“And what’s going on underneath of those?”

He dryly chuckles and reaches down to rub his hard on for a second. “A lot.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.” You practically purr and he runs his palm over his bulge in response.

He lets out a soft groan that make you feel some sort of way. “Oh yeah? Y’know, even though I don’t really know what you look like, I just know that you’re looking sexy in your pajama outfit right now.”

Your witty reply is stopped short. He’s the only one who is this real with you. Most of the men on the other line tend to be creepy, old, and just downright weird. This is a dying profession, after all. Sometimes the other clients are rude and dismissive, too. But Sanji… you know he really means what he says.

“You’re adorable, Sanji,” you say. “I’d venture a guess that you look pretty good right now, too.”

“Mmmm.” He hums, heartbeat rising as he continues to palm himself. “I wish I could see you right now.”

You can’t tell if this is part of the fantasy. You really did wish you could see him, though.

“What would you do to me…” your voice is smooth as silk. “If I peeled off my tanktop and shimmied out of my sweatpants?”

Sanji’s breath hitches. Something feels realer than usual about this—knowing what you’re wearing right now, what you’re really wearing, is turning him on beyond belief (assuming that you’re telling the truth, but he always chooses to believe that you are).

“If I was there, I’d kiss you, actually.”

His answer catches you off guard. You’re not sure he’s said something like this before.

There is silence for a second. You don’t know how to respond, really. You decide to just respond honestly, without appearances. Fuck it. He’d probably be off the market soon if his amazing date was anything to tell for it, so might as well.

“Wow, that’s really sweet. I’m not sure anyone has said something that nice to me in years.”

He tuts. “That’s my lowest bar of sweetness. I can go much sweeter than that, my love.”

He’s never called you that before, either. You’re starting to forget that this is a work call. It feels distinctly different than one.

“I’d like to see how sweet you can get, Sanji.”

His cock twitches again. Fuck. You really have a way with words. You get him more riled up than anyone he’s ever met before.

You continue. “After you kiss me, what would you do to me?”

“I would kiss every inch of you.”

Your heart melts. Fuck. Is this guy a saint? Where does he get off being so suave?

“Mmmm. That sounds nice. I’d like to return the favor.” Your tone, to Sanji, is effortlessly erotic. The thought of you kissing every inch of him—yes, even those inches—has him grinding the palm of his hand over his cock.

“Sounds even better. Then, if you let me, I’d go down on you.” The blonde is starting to get worked up. You can tell from his voice—when it gets all husky like this, you know he’s about to start touching himself, if he isn’t already.

Also, the fact that he said ‘if you let me’ really struck you. No one had ever said that before in your line of work. He has the tendency to say things you’ve never heard before, and he always surprises you.

“Of course I’d let you go down on me,” your voice gets softer. “What exactly would you do?” You wonder if he’d be any good. Maybe his answer will be elucidative.

“I’d start by kissing up your thighs, one at a time. Then I’d very slowly, very gently kiss your clit. Hopefully it would feel good. After a while, I think I’d be able to tell if you liked it. I’d run my tongue downwards and taste you. And tease you as much as you’re willing to put up with.”

“Mmmm. I think I could put up with a lot.” You let out a breathy sigh. You’re starting to warm up between the legs. With that voice, and those words, and that mental image… it sounds divine. You’re about to let yourself get carried away. It’s tempting.

“Is that so?” Sanji decides to keep going with the fantasy as long as you’d let him. Frequently, this happens the other way around. You usually describe to him, in great detail, what you would do to him. Apparently tonight it would be the other way around.

“In that case,” Sanji continues, “I’d take my time with you. I’d push my tongue inside of you delicately at first, then harder, and switch between that and licking your clit.”

You can feel that you’re getting wet. It has only ever been with Sanji that you’ve actually gotten aroused while talking to a client. Usually, you’re as dry as the Sahara when talking to clients. But this man does things to you. Sinful things.

“What else?” You ask, biting your lip and sneaking your hand lower. You decide that, just this once, it’s okay to get carried away.

He can hear it in your voice. The synthetic, sugary (but still very much erotic) tone is dissipating and he’s hearing, for the first time, your voice bathed in genuine arousal. Your breaths are quicker than usual, your tone is less composed, and he can tell that you’re hanging onto his every word.

At the same time that his hand goes under the waistband of his boxers, yours goes under your underwear. He starts to stroke himself, relishing the first ripples of pleasure from his hand, and you do something similar. Each movement of your fingers is accompanied by his voice, by some filthy image he puts in your head.

“When you’re moaning loud enough, I’d press my middle finger into you slowly, to make sure you’re comfortable. After a moment, I’d move my finger and caress you inside a bit, and if it seemed like you liked it, I would press my ring finger into you.”

You start to mimic what Sanji is describing. It feels dangerously good. A barely audible sort of gasping sound falls out of your lips and Sanji hears it. His fist goes faster. He hasn’t ever heard you make that sort of noise before—he’s heard fake moans, sure, they were still hot (and he always told himself they were real). Anything you did was hot. But this sort of noise was the sort that could only be caused by one thing—pleasure.

Sanji’s fist goes a bit faster when he concludes that you may be touching yourself. The idea makes him feel like he’s on fire.

“I’d curl my fingers inside of you and find your g-spot… draw circles around it and press it while I place some kisses on your clit. Would you like that?”

His question catches you off guard—you’re getting lost in the act of fingering yourself.

“Mmmm. I would like that, Sanji.”

“How would I know that you liked it?”

“I’d, fuck,” another soft moan slips out of your lips and Sanji squeezes his cock tighter. “I’d run my fingers through your hair and pull you closer. Buck my hips into your tongue so you, ah, get deeper.”

“What would you say?” His voice is low now, and you can hear a faint sound in the background. He’s fisting his cock to your conversation, which is nothing new, but it brings you more of a rush than usual right now because you’re touching yourself too. “What would you say if you liked how I ate you out?”

“Don’t stop,” you shudder, and it sounds like it would if he was actually eating you out. The noise makes his heart flip. He can hear wet sounds from your end of the phone, too. He can hardly believe his ears, but sure enough, he can make out the noises of you bringing your fingers in and out of yourself.

“I wouldn’t,” Sanji says and then groans. The obscene noise goes straight to your aching core. You’re going to orgasm soon. “I wouldn’t stop until you came all over my face and I licked you clean.”

“Fuck,” you mewl. “That sounds, ah, sounds like it would feel good, Sanji.”

“Does it feel good?” He counters, twisting his hand over the head of his cock. His fist brings down the precum that has been beading at his tip, and the sensation makes his hips rock up inadvertently.

“Mmmmphhh, I—yes, it feels good, Sanji. Feels so good.”

You curl your fingers inside, searching for the spot that Sanji mentioned before. You press on it as you speak. You know he’s going to love the noise you make.

He grunts and throws his head back. He’s going to cum soon. He’s going to cum if you say his name some more. He wants it. “Say that again.”

“Fucckkk, Sanji. Feels so good.”

“I love hearing you say my name. I’m—hah—‘m gonna cum if you do it again.”

“Sanji. Sanji. Sanji, fuck, Saannnjjjiii.” On repeat, you moan his name through your orgasm, which you finally allow to wash over you. He can hear it in your voice, can hear you trying to force his name out of your mouth between keens.

Your voice has never sounded so good. He’s sure now, sure sure, that you’ve been touching yourself this whole time and that you just came. It’s a first for him. He’s suspected your arousal at other times, but this time, it’s a confirmed fact. In an instant, the fantasy fades and he can see the moment for what it is—you’ve thrown away the pretenses, acting skills, and flattery, and, for a handful of minutes, you’ve been 100% yourself with him, more so than ever before.

That’s what makes him cum. Your unreserved sincerity and desire. It’s the hardest he’s cum in a long time—and that’s a high bar, considering the fact that any time he broaches these activities with you he cums hard.

When you’re both panting in the euphoric aftershocks of your orgasms, Sanji whistles. “Damn.”

You hum in agreement. “Wow.”

He cracks a joke. “So, am I supposed to send you an invoice after this one?”

He’s hilarious in general, and this one makes you laugh. “I might allow it.” Your tone is uncharacteristically bashful. You’re about to say something you’ll later regret. “I think you’re the only person who has ever gotten me off over the phone.”

Sanji is taken aback for a second. “Really? I’m honored. And surprised.”

You almost instantly wish you didn't overshare, chuckling awkwardly before you realize that this is a work call, and you should act accordingly. But it’s hard to pull yourself out of the intimacy of this moment and you don’t want to. So… against your better judgment, you don’t.

“I’m impressed, Sanji. Maybe we should do this more often,” you say, and Sanji’s heart thumps again. “You don’t have to only call me once a week, you know.”

“As long as you won’t get sick of me, I would love to. And we can do this again any time, gorgeous. It’s seriously my pleasure. You don’t know what you do to me, it’s only fair that I return the favor.”

While he’s saying the last part, Sanji realizes that this isn’t a favor, really. He tries to brush off that sad feeling for a moment but finds himself wondering what you really think of him.

It’s time for him to go to sleep, he concludes. He’s exhausted after a long shift and a hard orgasm.

“So, same time next week?” His voice is chipper.

“Mhm. I look forward to it, Sanji. See you later.” When the words leave your mouth, you wonder if he feels butterflies, too.

“See you later, sweetheart.”

Sanji hangs up the phone.

In your respective bedrooms, you’re both wondering what the fuck just happened. This call was full of lots of firsts and, little do you two know, the other feels elated.

But Sanji thinks about it more. He weighs his feelings for you against the practical understanding that he is, presumably, nothing more than a client to you. His heart aches at the thought.

And then he looks at his phone. The person who he went on a date with texted him while he was on the phone with you—she’s asking for another date. She says she looks forward to seeing him.

---

A week passes.

It’s Friday again.

11:30PM comes and goes. No call from Sanji.

In a span of over six months, this is the first time he hasn’t called you.

As you sit and wait for him, passing off other phone calls in case he decides he wants to speak to you tonight, your heart starts to sink.

Was last time a mistake?

Ten minutes go by.

Twenty minutes go by.

Many minutes go by. The time is now 12:30AM.

You’re left to conclude that last time was, indeed, a mistake.

You decide to take the night off. Your tears are making it hard to get any work done. You can’t put on that sultry voice and moan at old men in your current state.

There’s no denying it—his absence hurts you. Bad. Especially after last week. Especially after you admitted to him that you had never orgasmed over the phone before, and that you wanted to talk to him more often.

Why hadn’t he called you?

You wrack your brain for possibilities, but one major thing stands out. That date he went on. Maybe he went on another one and decided he liked them better.

Liked them better? You ask yourself after realizing what you just thought. He’s paying you to talk to him on the phone. Get over it. He isn’t going to keep calling you forever. What did you expect after last week? That he would just confess his love, offer to pay all of your bills, and that would be it?

You frown harder, hurting yourself deeper with your own rhetoric. The tears won’t stop.

It’s excruciating to realize that you like Sanji this much. You really like him. You know almost everything there is to know about him, too. And as much as you generally try to avoid giving out personal information, he knows a large chunk about you. Maybe that’s why it hurts so bad.

No, you tell yourself. Don’t kid yourself. You know it hurts this bad because you were hoping he liked you for real. You were hoping that this man, who you had never truly met before, who you had never seen, would, against all odds, decide that he wants you, even if he hadn’t seen you.

Fat chance, you tell yourself. Never do that with a client again, and this will never be a problem again.

---

Sanji does not call you back the next week.

Or the next week.

Or the week after that.

Or the month after that.

You are over it by the time the second month rolls around.

It’s pretty good timing, on your behalf. You think you’re really over this huge crush on a man you’ve never seen before. By the fifth month, you’re still telling yourself that you’re over this “crush”.

But that’s a delusion—any time you’re in public and there’s a blonde man, you find yourself scanning his face. Does he have a goatee? Could those eyebrows be considered curly? What color are those eyes?

When you see one that you think might be him, you always work up the courage to speak to them. But it never is Sanji. You would recognize that voice anywhere.

You wonder what you will say to him if he ever calls you again. Or if you see him in person. You decide that if he ever calls you again, you’ll either curse him out or break into tears.

In your most down-bad-hour, you contemplate showing up at the restaurant he is the chef at. You contemplate asking if you can see the kitchen. You just want a glance at him. A glance will keep your heart quiet.

But the joke’s on you—his restaurant is too expensive for you. Truly. You couldn’t afford a drink there if you tried. Okay, maybe just one. But you refuse to stoop to that level of desperation.

You’re a call away from him. He just has to dial your number.

You, on the other hand, have no way of calling or texting him. The service you work through scrambles client numbers before they’re patched through to you. The only way you know it’s Sanji is when he calls, at 11:30PM on the dot, on Friday nights. That’s Sanji time.

But it seems like Sanji time has come and gone.

You can’t shake the feeling that he did you dirty—but then you remember that he doesn’t owe you anything. This is your line of work. Phone sex. And that’s what you had. You just stepped over a boundary that you usually stay far away from. Whose fault is that?

No amount of logic can shake that feeling, though. You develop a little grudge against this man who you will never meet.

That’s what you tell yourself—that you’ll never meet him. But there’s a nugget of hope inside that, someday, he’ll call you. Someday he’ll kiss you. You try to obliterate that nugget though, as it is antithetical to the remedy to your lovesickness that you’re seeking.

Which will come first, him calling you, or you quitting this job that you’ve been meaning to quit for months at this point?

You hate to admit this to yourself, but he’s the only thing that was keeping the thoughts of quitting at bay. Maybe you really will quit this time around.

---

It is a Saturday night and you’re working again. It’s an unfortunately slow night, which sucks, because you really could use the money.

You’re scrolling on your phone, waiting for the next call to come in. It has been three hours with no calls. Guess all the creepy old men have plans tonight, which is such a shame because you need to pay rent soon. Sigh.

Time passes. You check the clock. It’s almost 11:30PM. The time doesn’t remind you of him anymore (well, much).

Maybe if you channel some of your good karma, ask the universe to cut a check of it right now, someone will call you for one long, lengthy conversation. You can help get them off as many times as they want. Five times in a row. You’ll break that record and go for six times if they just pay you. No questions asked.

Sure enough, a call comes through. You check the clock again. It’s been moving at a snail’s pace tonight. It’s 11:35PM. Hopefully whoever this is feels like talking.

“Hello?”

Your heart stops.

It sounds like Sanji for a second. But there’s no way. It’s been five fucking months.

“Hi.” You respond in your sugared up, sultry voice.

“It’s been a long time, gorgeous.”

It is Sanji.

Your heart flutters and your stomach flips. You’re speechless.

Don’t forget your game plans: curse him out or cry. But you can’t bring yourself to do either now that he’s waiting on the other line. You’re about to hang up the phone. You owe this man nothing and he owes you nothing—it’s that simple.

As you go to press the end call button, he speaks again.

“I’m sorry.”

The tears start now. The dam inside of you breaks. Hot tears pour out of your eyes and down your cheeks.

You didn’t think that hearing his voice would have this strong of an effect on you. But the heartbreak that you once thought faded away is now back in full force.

He’s waiting for a response before he hears shuddering breaths from you as you cry. Your tears are all the confirmation he needs—he knows that he was right months ago when he worked up the courage to confess to you. He should have done it. He knows that he was wrong to take the coward’s way out. And he knows he was wrong to tell himself that you didn’t care about him and wouldn’t care when he disappeared, because he was just a client to you. He was so terribly wrong. The sound of your sobs shatters him.

“I should have called you before. I’m so sorry. And maybe you hate me for waiting this long to call you again. I understand if you do. I just couldn’t keep it inside anymore, I—”

“Where the fuck were you?” You cut him off. Your anger is starting to seep through the tears. Maybe the first game plan can still happen. “I waited for you, Sanji.”

He doesn’t even try to think of a comeback or excuse. He tells you plainly what happened and, even though it breaks your heart some more, it makes sense.

“Well… I finally found someone. Last time, after I hung up, I had another date with that person I mentioned, and it went really well. So, we just kept going on dates. It didn’t feel right to keep calling you when things with her were progressing so quickly. We got together, and—”

“I understand, Sanji. That’s all I wanted to hear. Thanks.”

You slam your finger down on the hang up button. Your heart is broken enough as it is. He can keep all that yapping to himself. Good for nothing heartbreaker.

So what, he was with whoever that was. So what, they love each other and have been together almost half a year at this point. So what, he was just a client the whole time and you had gotten your hopes up for nothing and—your catastrophizing is stopped in its tracks when your phone starts to buzz again. You feel like it’s Sanji.

You pick up the phone. It is.

“Wait, wait, don’t hang up, please let me finish, please.”

“What, so you can tell me how much you love your girlfriend? I get it, Sanji. You paid me to talk to you for so long that of course you got sick of it and finally got what you had been after the whole time, a loving, very real partner. I understand that I’m just a service to be used and discarded later. That’s fine. Goodbye.”

“No. Listen to me.” Sanji’s voice is stern and harsh, a tone you’ve never heard from him before. “We got together and then she very quickly dumped me. Do you know what she kept saying to me? She said I was too absentminded. She thought I was thinking about someone else. Dumped me after two months because I couldn’t give her what she wanted. Absentminded.”

His words hang in the air for a few moments while you try to process why the fuck he’s explaining any of this to you and why it matters. He continues. His voice is emphatic, hurried, and nervous sounding.

“And if I’m being honest, I was absentminded. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I know this sounds fucking ridiculous because we’ve never met, and I understand if you tell me to go fuck off because I’m sure this happens to you all the time, but… I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve tried to for months. Three months. I told myself that I was an idiot for falling for someone out of my league. And the crazy thing is, I don’t even have to see you to know you’re out of my league. The way you act is out of my league. YOU are out of my league. You’re thoughtful, and kind, and considerate, and you pause before you respond whenever you talk because I can tell you’re really thinking over your response. And you’re funny. And witty, and charming, and you never once made me feel weird or less than for calling and finding solace in you. I’ve been lonely for years. I make the first move all the time, but it never works out. And I know I fucked this one up, and I know I didn’t have a chance in hell with you to begin with, but I just, fuck, I had to get this off my chest. I love you. I fell for you the first conversation we had. Now please tell me to fuck off.”

You can tell that every word he is saying is sincere and earnest. You can hear the emotion in his voice. While you wipe your tears dry and mend your heart together, you take deep breaths. He can wait for your response. Like he just said, you’re intentional about your responses to people. Every word matters. Especially with Sanji.

“Do you know how bad it hurt after our last conversation to not hear from you again?” You start.

He winces. He knew that was coming.

“I’m so so sorry. I’m so sorry. It was disrespectful of me, and callous, and if you hang up and never want to speak to me again, I understand and I deserve it.”

“You do deserve it.” You say, regaining some composure. “You really do, Sanji.”

“I’m sorry.” You can hear his frown. It’s a cute one. Fuck. His cute words are playing back in your ears too. So, he loves you?

Should you tell him how you feel? How you’ve felt for a long time?

One part of you is screaming at you to get a grip. But the other part—all the other parts—are finally, finally hearing what you’ve been wanting to hear for around a year at this point. That he likes you for you. That he sees you as you, and not some dolled up object of affection that’s only there to get people off and talk dirty to them. It has never been like that between you.

“If I accept your apology, Sanji, what then?”

“I—I actually didn’t think I would make it this far. But if you accept my apology, my next step is to ask you out to dinner with me. And to ask for your phone number. Your real phone number.”

You let out a long, deep sigh. “Sanji. My love. You could have told me these things months ago. It would have saved both of us so much heartbreak. I was devastated. Do you know that?”

You know that he already profusely apologized but you feel like driving it home a bit more. He deserves it. But while you talk, his hopes start to rise. You’ve never called him ‘my love’ before. Maybe that bodes well?

“I’m so sorry. I really am.” He sounds like he means it. You trust him enough to know that he does. Well, fuck it.

“Don’t think I’ll just forget about this because I’m head over heels for you, okay?”

“You—what?” He’s caught off guard. “You are?”

“Sanji. Yes. And you could have found out ages ago. Now, when are we going to dinner? You can apologize to me again then, too. And even if you don’t like what you see, you have to pay for everything. I’m getting an appetizer, an entrée, a dessert, at least two drinks, and whatever else I want. Okay?”

He laughs in relief. “Yes, okay. Yes. Holy shit, I didn’t think you would say that. I wish I could kiss you.”

“Wait—one last thing. If you decide you don’t like me after our date, Sanji, you have to tell me there on the spot. You can’t leave me waiting for another five months. You just can’t.”

“I promise, I won’t leave you waiting. I promise.”

When you hang up the phone a few minutes later (after more twisting the knife), you’re so thrilled that you can hardly breathe.

You can’t believe this is real life. You also can’t believe how quickly you just forgot your dignity, but you’ll unpack that later.

Dinner is set for tomorrow night. 7:30PM on the dot. Sanji is calling out of work, and he’s taking you to the (second) nicest restaurant in town (his is the first, obviously, and he wants to save that for a night where he can really plan ahead and spoil you).

---

When you get to the restaurant, Sanji is already there, waiting outside with a large bouquet of flowers.

He’s more handsome than you could have imagined. Of course he is. You do have great intuition, and you knew from the start that he was sexy. But… goddamn, he is sexy.

It makes sense now what he meant by curly eyebrows. He’s dressed well, too. He’s wearing black slacks and a white button down. A few buttons are undone, and his sleeves are rolled up to his forearms. He has black loafers and black socks. And he smells good. And he smiles good.

He’s so nervous he could puke. He hopes that when he sees you the nerves will melt. But they get 20x worse because he’s enamored with you. You’re beyond his wildest dreams—no number of fantasies could have led him to guess that you look like this.

He’s so obsessed that he starts to stammer before you tell him to calm down, and that he’s making you nervous.

Over dinner, you catch up on everything you’ve missed in the past few months of silence. You fill him in on details in your life that you previously kept to yourself, and he sees a whole new side of you.

At the end of the date, he tells you that he still loves you, that he loves you even more now, and that he’s so so sorry. He says that he’s mesmerized by you, that you’re more than he could have ever dreamed of, and that you can count on him for anything.

You seal the night with a kiss. A long one. It’s so romantic that you feel a bit disturbed with how happy you are after.

And it turns out that yes, this is your big happy ending. You make a perfect pair.

Epilogue: The day that Sanji finally shows off the techniques he told you about long ago, you’re more than satisfied. In fact, it seems like he was actually underselling himself there. You always knew he was the modest type.

thanks for reading! this was inspired by a whole lot of laufey! i hope you liked it. i love sanji so much it hurts me ;(

click here for part 2! also here's my masterlist if you're interested!

[quantum1mmortality]

General sfw/nsfw hcs for Jacob and Edward<3

Never hold me to a promise when it comes to making fics ever again

Also HIIIIII TWILIGHT FANDOM (⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠)

Cw/tw; human!reader, miscellaneous and not sorted hcs, afab!reader for both nsfws, no use of y/n, no dialogue, f! Receiving oral, mentions of cumming inside, finger sucking, mentions of quickies, nipple play(???)

Not proofread

Edward

Sfw

Protective. Not overbearing by any means, but he advises against certain actions if he thinks it'll keep you safer.

Before you guys got together, he'd use his mind reading to figure out what you like and dislike to make it easier to woo you.

Finds flowers in random places and gives them to you. Whether it be in a field or pulling over on the side of the road, he'll pick flowers just to gift to you.

Speaking of gifts, he gives you a lot of trinkets. Anything that catches his attention and makes him think of you, he brings straight to you. He's like a crow.

Knows how to cook. If you work, he has meals prepared for you when you get home. If you don't work, he'll have you help him in the kitchen.

Physical touch and gift giving are his love languages, the latter we spoke about previously, the former being much more complicated.

Complicated because of how cold he is. He usually tries to keep his touches to a minimum, but something about the heat you give off entices him. Everything about you entices him.

Nsfw

Service dom. 100% a service dom.

He's much more into eating you out than penetration. Mainly because he's so scared of hurting you(i KNOW y'all saw how he broke the bed on his and Bella's honeymoon, he's TERRIFIED of losing control).

He would definitely make you wait a few months before actually sleeping together. He'd want it to be the perfect time and setting, possibly even scheduling the entire thing cause he's weird like that.

Edward is definitely a romantic. If he were to schedule your first time together, he'd make a home cooked dinner with your favorite meals, then take you to the bedroom for dessert.

His horribly cold hands make red, burning marks on your thighs, mainly from how hard he's gripping them in an attempt to keep them open, though.

When it did come to actual penetration.. he came. VERY quickly. He explained it was because of being pent up for so long, he couldn't help it, you were too irresistible!

Of course you both went for a few more rounds, stopping when your fragile human body physically couldn't take anymore, but he made up for his lack of performance at first.

After that, he'd run a warm bath, submerge you both in it, and clean you up, being careful around your now excruciatingly sensitive lower half.

His tongue is also ice cold, do with that information what you will.

Jacob

Sfw

Overprotective. Won't let you leave the house without him. Says it's because he, "can't trust a pretty girl to be around desperate men." It's more about them than it is you.

Can't cook for shit but he can bake some good blueberry muffins.

He usually brings fruit platters whenever he sees you, makes sure you don't eat beforehand so that he can feed you.

Also giving you gifts every chance he gets, but his a much more heartfelt. He'd give you custom made jewelry with your favorite crystals, gorgeous paintings of landscapes he'd commission, etc.

He gets a bit upset when you don't wear the jewelry he gifts you; especially necklaces. They're his favorite and seeing you without them breaks his heart a bit.

I know it's canon already but he's an absolute fucking FURNACE. You're never cold when you're near him, he heats up any room he's even slightly near.

Very into pda. Like, VERY into it. His hands are constantly touching yours, his arm is constantly around your waist or shoulders, he's never not touching you in some way, especially around other people. Mostly to 'mark his territory'.

If he saw another man staring at you for a bit too long(which to him is any longer than a simple glance), Jacob would definitely either lean in to kiss you or touch your ass. He doesn't care who else is around, he just wants to one up everyone and show off what's his.

Nsfw

A switch, mostly a top though; but he LIVES to see you ride him.

Jacob has a scarily high sex drive, so as long as you're down with it, sex is an everyday thing.

Can't sleep at night if you're not cockwarming him. It doesn't matter if he's overstimulated beyond belief, he wants to be inside you at all times.

Speaking of which, overstimulation!!!

Jacob gets overstimulated VERY easy. Whether it be cumming one too many times in your tight pussy, or cumming in that sweet mouth of yours, sometimes it's just too much for him, and he can't help it!

He loves your tits. Whether they're small or big, saggy or perky, he loves them. Grabbing, pinching, tugging, licking, sucking, he's doing all of it.

If you're riding him and randomly start grabbing at your nipples, playing with them in front of him, he cums, right then and there. Hard, too.

Wouldn't be opposed to quickies. If he's getting a bit more hot and bothered than usual when you guys are out, there's a good possibility he'll take you somewhere secluded and fuck your brains out. Then just walk back into the crowd with you like nothing happened.

Very into finger sucking. No further comments on that one.

Much sloppier than Edward. Jacob is romantic of course, candles and flower petals on the bed when he thinks it's a good time to be extra, but Jacob is a lot more primal with it. His love is more animalistic, he needs and he learns more than Edward ever could.

A/N; does Jacob have a knot? 🤔

[dykeriver]

imagine getting high with ellie and edging her until she cums so hard that she squirts all over your wrist and bedsheets <///3 she’d be so cute, kicking a little bit as you finally give her what she wants — a solid, unyielding tempo against her swollen red clit. it doesn’t take her long to get there for this last orgasm, gasping against your fingers, chest rising and falling almost frantically. “ah, ah, gonna-” she hitches out, desperate and so, so far gone. “go ‘head, baby. let go for me,” and fuck, the strength of her long awaited orgasm slaps ellie directly in the face. hard. her head is thrown back against your pillow, hands clenching the sheets for some support. the girl is so quiet, too focused on the sensations to emit any noise at all. she doesn’t realize what she did at first, just thinks she came really hard, so when ellie sees the mess all over the bed she turns as red as an apple. you just smile at her, soft, sweet. but your gaze turns predatory only moments after. “…one more time,” you whisper. “you can handle that, right baby girl?”

[azzibueckers5]

take another drag (turn me to ashes) (pt. 2)

synopsis: part 2 of my messy fwb pazzi! i would call this fluff and smut. your cws are alcohol and sex as always. uhh idk what elese ngl. azzi and paige are idiots but it works-- capiche?

wc: 10k (ao3 link) (part 1 link) (my masterlist)

a/n: welcome back to my attempt at a porn without plot oneshot that is now 17k and 2 parts <3 enjoy <3 sorry this took longer than expected i got scared of all the people who were waiting on it lmfao </3 hope it lived up to the hype if not don’t lmk please <3 um i tried to make azzi’s inner monologue a bit nonsensical because she’s drunkyyyy so if it got difficult to follow i apologize <3 this is extremely unedited btw i'll go back and fix stuff later but my eyes are closing and i want to sleep <3 ok bye

when azzi trudges back into the kitchen, she finds that the environment in the apartment has mellowed considerably since she slipped away, and it makes her even more aware of how long she must’ve been in the bathroom. 

she eyes the handle that has miraculously been transported from the floor in between a circle of teammates to the kitchen counter, and how the line of liquid has mysteriously dropped even further. typical. 

and lucky, considering this means the likelihood someone noticed her extended absence, and more alarmingly, paige’s absence in addition to hers, was slim. 

she surveys the room further, and tries to keep herself from immediately looking for a mop of blonde hair, but nonetheless frowns a little to herself when she fails to lay eyes on paige, a little disappointed she left without saying goodbye. even though she’s mad at her.  whatever. 

there are a few others missing, too, most noticeably, azzi’s roommates nika and olivia, and she groans to herself in annoyance that she’ll have to walk back alone. 

caroline notices her then, standing on the edge of the kitchen, and motions for her to come join her on the couch, pulling away from her conversation with amari to pat the cushion next to her. azzi debates finding an excuse to duck out– she really would rather be in her room right now to wallow in sexual frustration– but she hasn’t spent any time with caroline tonight and owes her a quick chat. 

she immediately regrets this choice. 

because as soon as she sits down on the ugly brown suede of the couch, caroline is dragging her eyes over azzi’s flushed face and most likely swollen lips and saying “when are you two gonna get your shit together?”

azzi blinks. “i have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

she panics a little– annoyed that caroline would allude to paige in such a populated environment, but when she looks around she sees nothing but teammates who are extremely drunk and paying no attention to their conversation. which is good, but also doesn't give her the out of not wanting others to listen in on this conversation. 

caroline tilts her head and looks at azzi. “really? so paige was in the bathroom helping you- what, pee? giving you emotional support while you took a shit?”

azzi glares, tipping her chin up in defiance. “how do you know even paige was in the bathroom with me–” she pauses for a second, realizing that sounds almost like a confession, and adds “-i mean. why would you think that. that’s ridiculous.”

caroline raises her eyebrows. “okay, azzi. totally believe you right now.”

“good,” azzi huffs. “you should.”

goddamn caroline and her penchant for staying mostly sober and preying on young, innocent, emotionally vulnerable people like azzi. nika and her should start a club. 

the girl in front of her sighs, and nudges their legs together, in what is probably an attempt at comfort. “i just don’t want you to get hurt, az. or paige.”

and that. makes azzi pause for a second, not because she thinks it's truly a possibility, but because she’s surprised at the genuine worry in caroline’s tone. 

she knows that messing around with your best friend on mostly undefined terms doesn’t exactly have the highest success rate in the world, but, well. it was paige and azzi. and even though she was aware that she sounded a little naive in believing that they’d be fine no matter what, she knew that neither of them would intentionally hurt the other. 

paige would probably rather lose every basketball game she ever played again than hurt azzi on purpose, and though azzi was loath to admit it, she felt the same. it might be strange to say that she wasn’t worried for their future, knew that they would always be alright, but azzi felt it in her bones. and not even in a drunk way either. 

caroline might not get it, but as long as her and paige did, they’d be okay. 

“carol, we won’t, i swear” she states plainly. 

caroline eyes her, disbelieving, but azzi knows this isn’t something she’ll be able to explain, certainly not in tonight's brain state, and decides that this conversation is over. she pats her leg, before standing up shakily and stumbling around the room to say her goodbyes. 

it’s at least a little bit nice knowing that everyone she’s leaving behind is definitely more drunk than she is, and she doesn't even have to convince evina that she needs someone to walk her home beyond rolling her eyes and saying “it’s literally one building- i’ll be fine.”

the trudge upstairs is quiet, and azzi lets her conversation with caroline wash over her. a year ago, she’d probably have freaked out at the reminder that her and paige meant as much to each other as they did, and that they weren’t anything more than best friends. 

but now, even with her anger still simmering towards paige, the thought is vaguely comforting. they’re not dating– won’t be for a while azzi’s sure– but it worked for them, in a twisted, irrational way. 

she smiles to herself, and then immediately frowns at how ridiculous she is, stumbling down a dark hallway by herself and grinning about the girl who’d just left her wet and aching with no remorse. the annoyance at paige comes back in full force.

she’d always been a touch emotionally unstable when drunk.

she climbs the final set of stairs thinking about how supremely excited for the solitude of her room she is, as the nights events have tested her sanity, her libido, her liver, and many more things that she can’t be bothered to name, but her plans to march straight into her bedroom and dive under the covers to take the edge of the night off are derailed when she opens the door to their suite and her eyes immediately catch upon nika and paige splayed out across the couch, game controllers in hand. 

because of course. of course paige was in her home, just to torment her. 

they both look up at the sound of the door, and paige’s face lights up before schooling it into a more reasonable expression, and azzi hates herself for flushing. 

“what are you doing here,” she accuses, beginning to toe off her shoes. 

“oh i’m sorry, i didn’t realize i wasn’t allowed to hang out at nika’s place,” paige tosses, so visibly relishing in getting under azzi’s skin that it made her want to throw something.

“nika’s place is also my place. and olivias.” she retorts, regaining her balance from a brief stumble caused by her mistake of trying to balance on one foot to untie her stubborn right sneaker.

“you and olivia aren’t the only ones who live here,” paige says loftily, controller slack in her grip, even through nika’s nudges to get her back in the game.

“yeah well me and olivia don’t need to hear you guys playing video games all night.” azzi shoots back, beelining towards the kitchen to get herself a much needed glass of water. 

nika puts her controller down in defeat, accepting the derailment of her plans to continue playing their game. 

paige doesn’t even seem to notice, eyes following azzi as she walks across the room, the open floorplan making it too easy for her to watch. “olivia’s not here. she went to her boyfriend’s ages ago- said she wasn’t coming home.”

and.  “oh.” 

that’s why paige was so blatantly trying to piss azzi off. nika says something about how it’s probably because liv got horny at the questions she was asking, but azzi’s focus is on the fact that paige had probably known that azzi’s suite would be free from people who were unaware of their dynamic, had probably planned to come back here before she’d even followed azzi to the bathroom. it meant she’d always had plans to finish the job, just with a little teasing to prove her point.

she refuses to let that thought soften her annoyance but her subconscious– who looks and sounds a lot like the whiny blonde in front of her– puts up a valiant fight. now is not the time to focus on that. because she has angry appearances to uphold. 

she also does not mentally acknowledge how obsessed with her paige is when she stands up off the couch and comes to plant herself across from azzi, leaned up against the counter and arms crossed.

she watches azzi fill up a glass with sink water, and azzi hates that she can feel her eyes like a physical sensation. she swallows down the cool water gratefully, hoping it will cool her down.

“so you didn’t miss me?” is the tactic paige decides to go with when azzi finally looks in her direction, expectant and glaring. 

honestly. 

“no,” she bites out, icily. “i miss the peace and quiet of not being around you.”

paige’s smile only grows. “you’re bein’ mean, baby. you mad at me or somethin?’”

and dear god why is she pulling out pet names right now. except. azzi knows why: it’s always impossible for her to be annoyed with paige when she’s calling her baby. which is manipulation. she contemplates dumping her water over paige’s head. 

“yeah, i’m fucking mad at you- take a wild guess as to why.”

paige smirks. “prolly cause i called you out on your lie.”

“no, because you’re a fucking tease,” azzi spits. 

somehow this is the wrong answer, because paige cocks her head. “aw, is she cryin’ for me? bet she is. should've just admitted i’m you best, and i woulda take care of you, hmm?” she pouts, as if she isn’t spewing pure filth in the light of azzi’s kitchen with nika still sort of in earshot.

sometimes, it was hard to reconcile this paige– confident and cocky and so sure of herself– with the paige that had once bashfully admitted to practicing how to drive with only her left hand in the off chance azzi would let her hold her right; the paige whose hands had shaken so badly the first time they’d kissed that she’d knocked her phone off the ledge of the pool they’d been sitting on. 

azzi loved every version of paige, always, and knew that at least almost every version of paige belonged to her in some capacity, but the way she was acting right now, so much like the lothario version of paige that so many people thought of her as, was fucking with her head. 

she was aware that it was a direct reaction to her own declaration that charlie had been her very best, and that paige was putting on this show just for azzi, because she was jealous, but the nagging idea that she’d picked up this persona from sleeping with other girls had azzi fucking pissed, even if it was irrational.

and also, paige like this was really, really hot. which made azzi angrier. and meaner. and, well. wetter.

“i can take care of myself,” she glowers, and she doesn’t mean for it to come off as suggestive as it does– doesn’t mean for paige to know that she has every intention of getting herself off– but the thought slips out before she can catch it and paige’s eyes darken. god damnit. 

azzi can see her hands clench around her upper arms, like she’s trying to stop herself from reaching out. 

“yeah? you don’t want my help?” 

“no,” azzi grits out, even though she kind of does. 

paige goes to respond, leaning forward off the counter, but nika beats her to it, a touch of exasperation and disgust in her tone. “get out of our kitchen and go have this fight in your room, i don’t want to hear it.”

azzi scowls at her, knowing that’s exactly what paige wants, and sure enough, the blonde smiles, sharp and pleased, and spins on her heel with an overdramatic flip of her hair, sighing exaggeratedly. “if we must.”

“no, paige it’s not your room,” she calls, but it’s no use. 

paige flips her off without looking back and smacks a loud, messy kiss to the side of nika’s arm. “nighty night twin, sleep with a pillow over your head, yeah?” 

azzi might actually jump her. and not in the fun way. 

“paige,” she shrieks, vowing to refuse any and all attempt by paige tonight to get in her pants. 

nika groans at the same time and hits paige across the shoulder. “i’m going to kill myself.” her grumbles fade as she disappears down the hallway, and azzi is left to follow paige’s retreating figure into her bedroom, slightly dazed and extremely pissed, as any normal person in her position would likely be. 

she stops short when she gets to the doorway, however, because paige has somehow deemed it necessary to strip down to her sports bra and boxers. because of course she has. 

such a presumptuous idiot.

azzi stops and stares for a split second, before trying to get her fuzzy brain to ignore the miles of skin now exposed, including but not limited to: the pale meat of her thighs, her biceps from where she’s tucked her hands behind her head, the ridges of her abs, the muscle on her– azzi needs a gun. 

so she can kill herself. 

actually. scratch that, kill paige, and then kill herself. in like. a romantic, shakespearean way. 

paige’s eyes flick to where azzi is sure her cheeks are flushed and grins, self satisfied and stupid, and then she interrupts azzi’s mental designation of herself as romeo (much more romantic) and paige as juliette (long luscious locks)(she knows paige will disagree with these role assignments and she makes a mental note to bring it up later so they can argue about it) with a lazy “s’hot in here, hope you don’t mind,” and azzi is reminded of why she’s thinking about shakespeare plays in the first place. 

murder. she wants to murder paige. lounging on azzi’s bed, like she hadn’t left her high and dry without a single apology only twenty minutes prior. 

what a fucking asshole. azzi hates her. 

she huffs, spins around to shut the door, perhaps with a little more force than usual, and then stalks to the edge of the bed. she’s too drunk to be dealing with this. it’s hard enough to stay mad at paige sober, but drunk, with a half naked paige on her bed? she’s fighting an uphill battle with 50 pound weights on each shoulder. 

“put your clothes back on, dickhead. i already told you, we’re not-” she cuts off her response, squinting. “is that my bra?”

paige blanches. 

“no,” she blurts, voice in that high pitched tone she uses whenever she’s lying, “it's not.” her face is crimson. liar.

paige is absolutely wearing her sports bra, the white, faded garment doing terrible, terrible things to azzi insides as it emphasizes the lingering tan of paige’s skin from summer. the added knowledge that paige had chosen one of azzi’s to throw on does nothing to help the heat in her stomach.

“paige,” she scolds, trying not to let affection of all things at the act of thievery well up inside of her. “that’s totally mine. it has the stain from when you spilled wine all over me last summer.”  

that had been a delightful accident. 

paige had tripped, knocked azzi’s cup all over her, and then had had a perfect excuse to drag her inside and away from prying eyes to change. 

twenty minutes later, they’d rejoined the bueckers’ family barbecue with flushed cheeks and giddy eyes, because paige had deemed a make out in the laundry room an extremely necessary addition to her apology.

paige appears to be relishing in that exact same memory, and she grins, cocking her head to the side. azzi was hoping she’d show at least some remorse. she should’ve known better. 

“want me give it back?” she taunts, arms coming down from where they’d been behind her head to start tugging the flimsy fabric up. “can do it right now, if you want.”

“no,” azzi all but shrieks, lunging forward onto the bed and halting paige’s hands. 

which is. extremely stupid for two reasons. one, the fact that it actually probably does serve her best interests if paige takes off her bra, and two, she’s somehow landed astride paige’s hips, knees on the mattress on either side of her torso, and hands gripping paige’s wrists.

their eye contact is heavy, and paige’s hips shift beneath azzi, searching for friction even when she knows she hasn’t earned it. 

“kinda seems like you want me to take it off, hmm?” 

azzi tries to stop herself from grinding down on paige’s torso, but is woefully unsuccessful. 

“i don’t,” she moans. how she got here– when five seconds ago she swore she was standing on business– was beyond her. reason and logic never applied when it came to paige. 

in a flash, paige frees her wrists from azzi’s hands– that have gone slack from her focus elsewhere– and flips them, pinning azzi’s hips to the bed, and then just looking down at her for a second, wild and turned on. 

“i think you’re lying,” she breathes, gaze focussed on azzi’s lips. 

azzi’s too distracted by paige’s eyes above her to process the words for a split second, but by the time they register, paige’s mouth is already crashing down on her own, swiping a tongue in almost immediately like she’s been dying without it in the last thirty minutes. 

and azzi- azzi lets her deepen the kiss, lets her press azzi back into the bed, even lets paige tug off her t-shirt and suck a hickie into the sensitive skin below her chest as she arches into it, because she has a plan forming. 

paige mouths down azzi’s stomach, smug and stupid but still so, so good at ready azzi’s body, knowing exactly what she needs, and when paige hooks a finger in the waistband of her shorts and boxers, azzi nods approvingly, lifting her hips to let paige tug them off. 

humiliation burns a little at how wet her boxers are, how slick is already glistening on the inside of her thighs, but paige’s gaze is hungry, intentional, and azzi smiles to herself. 

just as paige ducks down to lave a kiss on the skin of azzi pelvis, azzi wiggles out from under her, the process made easier at paige’s surprise. 

she settles a few inches away on the mattress– still on her back and legs spread wide, exposing her dripping hole– and paige’s tongue darts out to wet her lips, like she’s trying to taste the brief glimpse she got of azzi’s skin under her mouth. 

in a trance, paige crawls over trying to resume their previous positioning and reaches out to touch, almost mindless, like she can’t help it. azzi bats her hand away. 

she’s aware that this might against her self interest– paige above her and inside her and all around her was eons better than her own hand– but she knows there’s no better way to make paige suffer than to show her exactly what she wants and not let her have it, and the desire to make paige feel as desperate as azzi had felt in the bathroom wins out over her own desire to get off fast. 

“you don’t get to touch now. you had your chance earlier,” she rasps, eye contact steady even as her breath hitches at the neediness in the dark blue of her gaze.

paige makes a wrecked, disbelieving sound in the back of her throat, but her hands still on the sheets, not making another attempt at touching, and azzi tuts approvingly before slowly gliding her own hands down her abdomen, tracing at the mark paige’s mouth had only just made underneath the swell of her breast before dragging down to ghost over her cunt.

“azzi” she moans, eyes fixated on the movement of her fingers, gathering the abundance of slick on two digits before dragging them back up to nudge at her clit. 

azzi’s back arches at the feeling, and at the piercing intensity of paige’s gaze, pleasure curling in the base of her spine at how good it is, and she feels herself clench around nothing. 

if it were paige’s hands, azzi knows she would drag it out, would wait to press inside and only give her light touches until she were incoherent, but it's her own hands on herself, so she simply dip her fingers down again, but this time, instead of tracing the edge of her hole, she slips one in and relish in the pleasure that curls hot and wet. 

they both gasp at the act of it– paige’s more of a longing whimper– and azzi needs more.

one is not nearly enough– not when paige is moaning next to her like she’s the one being fingered and azzi is already worked up from their bathroom encounter earlier– and azzi immediately slips a second in with the first, choking back another moan at the pleasure that pools in her stomach again, and trying to angle her hand so she can thumb at her clit in the process. 

it’s all wrong though– the angle’s a little off, and azzi can’t get the right stimulation on her clit and inside at the same time– and this is all heightened by the fact that paige is watching beside her, jaw slack and eyes hooded, and. 

and azzi wants to cave so badly, let paige replace the heat of her gaze with the heat of her mouth, but she hangs on a little longer, determined to make paige suffer. 

but then. then paige starts talking, slurring about how good azzi looks, how good paige could make her feel if only she were allowed to touch, how badly she needs a taste, and azzi feels her remaining control start to slide away, despite herself. 

“you’re so wet- just havin’ me watch you finger your pretty little pussy, hmm?” paige chokes out, hands twitching at her sides and eyes wild, gaze tumbling over the pink of azzi’s cunt in between her thighs and dragging upwards across the rest of her body. 

azzi’s too turned on by the filthy words to disagree, whining out an affirmative instead, and her head falls back against the pillows when she increases the pace of her fingers, trying to curl them into that spot that paige always seemed to find on the first go.  

paige must be encouraged by her reaction, must know azzi is close to relenting, because she doubles down. “look so pretty for me, wanna touch azzi.”

azzi stutters out a moan, and twists her fingers harder. it feels good, great even, but the knowledge that it could be paige’s fingers is making her frustrated at her self, and it turns out being frustrated makes it hard to focus on pleasure, even with paige’s voice in her ear. 

“you’re not doin’ it right, baby, know i could do it better, please let me do it better,” paige breathes, and azzi can see her hands lift in the corner of her eye before falling back down onto the mattress in defeat. 

and paige is right, she’s not doing it right, too fast paced, she can’t get the angle quite right, her mind is scattered, and she huffs a sigh. paige being right– being able to read her body so well just by looking, watching, makes azzi angrier, and she doubles down in her resolve, even if that means not coming for the next twenty minutes. 

but then. but then paige starts begging, “please azzi, need to touch- can i please touch,” and azzi is undone at the desperation in her voice.

before she can process her agreement, she’s moaning out “yes, yes, paige,” and in a heartbeat, the blonde is on top of her, licking into her mouth for an open mouthed kiss, hands knocking away azzi’s to take their rightful spot between her legs.

immediately, she nudges her own two fingers inside azzi, and she swallows her moan at how much better it feels, how much fuller she is, how much better paige is at curling just right, and she nearly cries with relief. 

she’s close from her own fingers and paige’s words, and she’s sort of expecting paige to finish the job in under a minute, seeing as she’s extremely capable and also has a point to prove. which is why she’s surprised when paige’s ministrations are just shy of enough, not quite their usual finesse. 

she whines in frustration, kissing paige harder, trying to coax her into giving azzi what she wants, but paige pulls back above her and smirks. “you can come when you admit i’m the best you ever had.”

and oh my god. why was she still on that. 

defiance wells in azzi, sharp and bratty, and she glares at the cruel vision above her. “you’re not-” her voice cuts off when paige curls her fingers exactly right, and paige laughs– laughs– above her. 

“you sure, baby? sound so needy for me, just gotta say it, then you can come.”

azzi chokes on a moan, before gasping out “don’t need you to come.”

paige drags her fingers out and circles, punishing her for that sentence. “you sure? cause two minutes ago you were begging me to come finish it, couldn’t do it without me, huh baby” 

jesus fuck, her words were messing with azzi’s head, and she only has the ability to whine in protest, beyond words. she was letting paige edge her twice in one night. god help her.

“know i could make you come so good, baby, you just gotta tell me,” paige continues, breathing all of this into azzi’s ear, sending her shuddering. “just say it, say paige, you’re the best i’ve ever had, baby, and i swear i’ll get you right- just gotta remind you who you belong to.”

and it’s almost embarrassing how fast azzi folds. but paige had paired that last sentence with a grind of her palms against azzi’s clit, relentless, and. azzi never really stood a chance.

“okay, paige, paige, feels so good, best i ever had i swear, please make me come,” she babbles, hands digging into paige’s back and tears forming at the corners of her eyes from how desperate she feels. 

paige shushes her, soothing, and quickens the drag of her fingers, finally in that rhythm that always has azzi gasping for breath. it’s immediately so good, and azzi really doesn’t stand a chance when she drags her thumb up to rub at azzi’s clit in time with the thursts of her fingers, whispering “good girl, you just had to say it baby,” into the skin of her shoulder. 

“you can come, az- want you to, just for me,” paige breathes, mouthing at azzi’s neck, and that’s what does it, snapping the band in her stomach.

she comes with a drawn out moan, thighs clamping together and hands clawing at paige’s back, and she’s too far gone to be embarrassed by the tears she releases in pleasure.

but then, instead of coaxing azzi through her climax like she normally would, paige’s face is suddenly gone from above her. azzi’s head is too delirious with pleasure to catch up to where she’s going, and she misses paige all around her immediately, but then she feels her presence in between her thighs, licking azzi through it, and she genuinely might die here, in this dorm bed in fucking storrs connecticut. 

and jesus christ it’s too much, pleasure and pain warring for attention in azzi’s mind and making her already fuzzy head even more so, and it’s so much and she feels like she’ll explode, and.

“paige i cant, i cant–”

but she gets cut off by paige’s “you can,” her fingers wrapping around azzi’s thighs to hold her still and diving in, drinking up the remnants of azzi’s orgasm and then continuing on, as if her first one was simply the appetizer. 

“s’to make up for the one i didn’t give you earlier,” she rasps, hands still keeping azzi’s body steady as she ducks back down for another taste. 

azzi doesn’t have words anymore, and resigns herself to the pleasure-pain, twisting her fingers into paige’s hair in a way that is sure to be painful, and will also probably get paige even wetter, the freak.

and there’s. a reason paige is the best she’s ever had, and she seems determined to prove that all over again, relentless with her tongue as she sucks azzi clit into her mouth. 

her back arches, drawn taught from overstimulation, and she’s sure she’s making all kinds of pathetic noises but all she can focus on is how she’s already at least half way to coming again, heat curling tight and thighs trembling. 

paige looks up at her from between her legs, looking reverent even in her determination to remind azzi of how wholly paige’s she is, and smiles sharply. “‘member what christyn asked me earlier?”

and. what. azzi’s brain is a lot fuzzy and entirely confused on why paige is bringing anyone else up right now, let alone one of their teammates. 

she whines in confusion, trying to drag paige’s head back down where she wants her, hands grabbing at her hair, but paige holds steady, letting her chin rest on the soft skin of azzi’s pelvis, moisture glistening on her mouth. 

“in the game. she asked me what my favorite sex position was.”

azzi has some vague recollection of this, but she’s not exactly focused on anything except for paige’s mouth right now, and she’s rather insulted that paige is so coherent. 

her head dips back again, against the pillow and she gasps out “uh huh,” wiggling her hips to trying and speed this intermission up, remind paige of what’s right in front of her, but instead of reattaching her mouth, paige smacks at her hip, just enough to sting, and grunts “be good, baby, focus.”

fucking hell. 

azzi is trying to focus– focus on the feeling of her impending orgasm– but she chokes out a gasp at the pain and makes eye contact again, shuddering at the desire on paige’s face. somehow the hit to her hip made it even harder to not writhe under her gaze, but she lets paige’s words wash over her and tries to focus. 

“s’always gonna be this, baby,” paige slurs once she has azzi’s attention, “always wan’ my mouth on you, best place in the whole world, best pussy in the whole world and it’s mine to taste.” 

azzi somehow, impossibly feels herself get even wetter, her ability to think of anything but paige melting entirely, slipping through her veins and leaking out from her cunt, surely dripping onto the sheets by now with nothing to lap up the slick. 

distantly, azzi remembers that she was right– that the first thing her brain had gone to at the question had been how much paige loved eating her out– but she can’t even relish in that small victory, too busy trying to be still and good for paige and not spontaneously combust.

“tastes so good- azzi- would die here, swear,” paige continues, voice husky, and even though she’s not physically touching azzi– not where she needs her at least– azzi can still feel her words winding the coil in her belly tighter, pushing her closer to the edge. 

“paige, please, need it, need it so bad,” she cries, and she actually feels like she might die if paige doesn’t touch her. 

and then, finally, finally, paige is dipping her head back down to azzi’s neglected cunt, teasing the edge before slipping inside, and azzi has to fist a hand over her mouth to muffle the strangled cry. 

if paige was ruthless before, it’s nothing compared to the pace she sets now, switching between laving her tongue across azzi’s clit and diving into her hole, and azzi is back on the edge in seconds, trying not to thrash her legs at the overwhelming pleasure. 

she can hear herself babbling– a jumble of paige and please and fuck– but her ears are ringing and all she can focus on is the growing spark in the base of her spine. 

and then paige pauses for a second, one hand moving from azzi’s hip to rub at her clit, and she gasps “wanna see you come again baby, come for me,” before dipping her head back down, and azzi shatters completely, hands tugging at paige's hair and thighs tightening around her head.

her first orgasm had been loud, crashing down around her, but this one washes over her more gently, like she’s surrendered entirely to the feeling. 

she shoves paige’s head away when she can feel her arms again, and tries to get her breathing under control, reeling from how hard she came.  

immediately, paige is crawling up her body to kiss her. 

azzi’s limbs are buzzing, pleasure curling in every nerve of her body, and she lets herself be moved onto paige’s chest, her mind in that blissed out, malleable place and her gasps muffled into the bare skin of paige’s shoulder. 

she stays like that, floating, for an undetermined amount of time, and then she leans back to press their mouths together in a gentle thanks, smiling against paige’s lips. 

they kiss for a bit, slow and lazy and perfect as azzi comes down from her high, and she’s warm, and still a little drunk, and so perfectly sated that she could absolutely fall asleep like this, trading kisses with paige's hands stroking down her back until her eyes fall shut. 

but then paige, wonderful, lovely paige who’s just taken azzi apart piece by piece and then put her back together again, makes a soft, needy noise when azzi’s hands move gently across her stomach and she’s reminded that the other girl has yet to come. 

which is, like, surely a crime, and one that azzi has the power to rectify. 

she rolls on top of paige and deepens the kiss, sliding a knee between the blonde’s and bracketing her face with her arms. paige exhales sharply at the change in position, hands moving with azzi to stay fixed to the dip in her spine, and when azzi moves down to press an open-mouthed kiss to her throat, paige’s hips shift up involuntarily. 

her head dips back against the pillow, blonde hair splayed out across the pale blue of the sheets, and azzi wishes, desperately, that she could suck a mark into the alluringly pale skin of her neck that’s revealed with the motion without having to deal with the consequences. 

instead, she moves down to paige’s collarbone, encouraged by the stutter in her breathing and the flex of her fingers against azzi’s back, and finds a spot she hopes will be hidden under the collar of her shirt come morning to leave a mark, sucking at the skin and relishing in the arch of her body beneath her and the bruise she knows is already forming. 

her only coherent thought when she leans back to look at the mark on her breastbone is mine. 

which. paige isn’t hers, not technically, not in the ways you could label definitively, but she also definitely, assuredly is, in the same way azzi belongs to paige, in the unspoken but not unacknowledged way that many things with them are. 

she looks back up at paige’s face for a moment, and is struck, yet again, by how achingly beautiful she is like this, soft and needy and entirely azzi’s. it makes her heart crack open in her chest at the thought, and she presses their mouths together again in hopes of distracting herself.

she blames the earnestness of her thoughts on the vodka still sliding through her veins, even if that simmer has started to fade away and she thinks these thoughts multiple times a day. 

azzi deepens the kiss, as if she can press her sentiments of care and impossible fondness and mine into paige’s lips, and she responds twofold, like she can hear azzi’s thoughts of you mean so much to me in the way she drags their tongues together and reciprocates them right back to her, nipping at azzi’s lip gently, a you mean so much to me too. 

eventually, they’ll have to start using the actual words, but for now, with the upcoming season and the team dynamics looming above them, this will have to be enough. azzi will force it to be enough.

she drags one of the hands next to paige’s head down, skimming over the fabric of her sports bra to brush at her nipples through the material and then moving lower, nails scratching lightly over paige’s abdomen in the way she knows drives her a little crazy. 

sure enough, paige whines in her mouth, but when azzi’s hand dances under the waistband of her boxers, she pulls back for a second, breathing hard. 

“you don’t gotta- like- i know you’re tired,” paige says, pupil blown wide and lips slick. her eyes are dazed but steady, and azzi knows the buzz of vodka has started slipping away from her too, taking the desperation with it and leaving only tenderness. 

she smiles, half at paige’s expression, and half at her unflinching selflessness. “just wanna make you feel good, that’s all.”

paige tilts her head back, eyes flicking around the room so she doesn’t have to make eye-contact. “you don’t have to, like- swear we can just sleep.” 

her cheeks are red, and azzi’s smile grows at her shyness. 

honestly. she just had azzi spread out before her, begging and incoherent, mumbling the filthiest things in her ear, and a simple wanna make you feel good has her blushing and squirmy. affection blooms in her chest, pooling sticky and sweet, and she presses a kiss to paige’s cheekbone. 

paige has never been one to shy away from reciprocation, so azzi’s a bit confused, but she’s still joking when she teases, “what’s wrong, baby, worried you’ll come too quick?”

paige’s guilty hesitation is an unexpected confirmation, but delightful all the same. 

“no- that’s not- m’not-” her voice cuts off in a whine when azzi cups her over her boxers, and azzi smirks, tries not to be affected by the feeling of how soaked paige is even through the fabric.

“really?”

paige’s hips twitch against her palm, fingers scrabbling against her back.

“azzi,” she moans, and that’s all it takes to have the younger girl slipping her fingers underneath the waistband and pressing at her clit. 

“i know baby, need it so bad, hmm?” she coos, mentally reeling at how wet paige is– all from working azzi up again and again– and the fact that she would’ve gone to sleep anyways without release had azzi wanted that. 

god. 

paige whines in affirmative, and normally azzi would try and draw it out, try and build paige up slowly to prolong her pleasure and selfishly prolong her view of paige falling apart, but tonight, paige is already too keyed up, and she rubs immediately at her clit in firm circles, the way she knows works her up quickly. 

she’s rewarded with another moan, and paige’s hands move from the base of her spine to her face, tugging azzi in for a messy kiss as she begins to grind against her hand. 

her fingers dip down to paige’s entrance, and she groans into her mouth when azzi slips two fingers inside, the glide almost too easy with how wet she is. she pumps paige slowly, curling her fingers into the spot she knows like the back of her hand, and paige breaks the kiss to let out a broken sound, eyes squeezing shut in pleasure. 

“doing so good for me, baby” she breathes, cataloging the way her praise cause paige’s eyes to flutter; her hands to grasp azzi’s shoulders; her cunt to clench down on her fingers. 

she loves paige like this, loves even more how they can go from rough and messy to soft and reverent in a matter of minutes, and she tries to savor every sound that rolls off of paige’s tongue, every twitch of her hips. 

her fingers continue their slow, unyielding rhythm, with paige a mess below her, and when she can feel her start to get close, making all sorts of delicious sounds high in her throat, azzi pauses her ministrations. 

not to be mean and drag it out like paige had done earlier, not tonight, but to rid her of the boxers that she’s being constrained by and tug off her sports bra so as to see all of paige spread out before her to touch, to admire.

and god is it a sight. paige is too gone to make fun of how beyond love sick azzi probably looks, thank god, so azzi hovers above her and just takes it in, scouring over every inch of paige: the jut of her hip bones; the blush of her nipples; the taut muscle of her thighs.

she must take too long simply observing, because paige whines, hands pulling azzi back down so their skin is flush together, and the older girl moans into her mouth when azzi dips down to kiss her again, one of her hands coming up to hold at the base of her neck, claiming. 

azzi can feel the flutter of her pulse beneath her palm, and it’s more erotic than she was expecting.

she breaks the kiss, suddenly hit with the greedy urge to taste paige everywhere, to feel her tip over the edge on her tongue, but when she goes to crawl down paige body, she’s stopped by paige’s hands on her back and a whine in protest. 

she pulls back in confusion, just as paige whispers, high a needy, “can you- want you to stay up here, need you close.” 

god. if azzi malfunctions a little bit, no one can blame her. 

she doesn’t have a verbal response right away, just surges into to kiss paige again, wet and needy, and when she pulls back, paige’s pupils are blown so wide her eyes are nearly black, cheeks flushed, and azzi wonders if its possible for her heart to physically leap out of her chest. 

“‘course, baby. whatever you want,” she chokes, and she wonders if paige knows how true that statement is, how azzi would give her anything in the world if she only asked. if her voice is rougher than it usually would be, paige is too desperate to point it out.

she shifts them on their sides, so she has both hands free, and uses one to pull paige back into a kiss by the back of her head, trailing her other hand down to her previous position in between the blonde’s thighs, rubbing circles on her clit and swallowing her gasp, before dipping back down to her hole and slipping two fingers in. 

if paige was worked up before, it’s nothing compared to how wet she is now, and azzi fights to keep her composure and not melt into her own puddle of slick at the tangible feeling of paige’s desire. 

she curls her fingers, working up to an unforgiving rhythm inside of paige, pressing as deep as she can and curling her fingers. paige arches into her with a cry, babbling out a string of incoherent words and azzi’s name, and though she’s not usually this vocal, something about the sacredness of the moment must have opened the floodgates, because paige seemingly can’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. 

“god, azzi, please, fuck-, please don’t stop-” 

azzi would never dream of it. a different time, perhaps, she might remind paige of that, make a teasing comment about how she’s never not gotten paige off before, but something about how delicate the blonde looks beneath her stops that thought before it materializes.

“i know, baby, i’ve got you, doing so good for me,” she breathes instead, and is rewarded with a choked off moan, paige’s hands gripping azzi’s shoulders like they’re the only things grounding her to earth.

azzi tilts her head down to rest on paige’s shoulder, watching her fingers move in and out, and continues curling her fingers repeatedly, making sure to grind her palm against her clit in the process, and relishing in the desperation she can feel radiating off of paige. 

she knows paige is close, can feel it in the tremor of her thighs, the pulse of her walls around her fingers, and she leans up to rasp “come just for me, paige, all for me,” into her ear, pairing it with the addition of a third finger.

it does exactly what she expected, and paige writhes against her hand, mumbling “just for you azzi, only for you,” before breaking off into a high pitched gasp and tensing, coming all over azzi’s fingers. 

azzi kisses her to try and swallow the rest of her cries, and pumps her fingers slowly, working her through it, before pulling away when paige mumbles “too much” into her hair, breathing labored and hands tugging at azzi’s back. 

paige’s thighs are shaking. azzi resists the urge to make a smug comment, but only barely. 

she licks her fingers clean, chasing the taste of paige dripping down her hand, and paige makes a soft, wrecked sound in the back of her throat, pulling azzi even closer.

she then kisses paige on her temple, sweaty hairline be damned, and presses as close as she possibly can, relishing in how needy paige is right now.

they lie there, curled together for a couple minutes in contented silence, basking in this version of each other that they only get occasionally now, before azzi decides she’d really rather not wake up hungover and sticky, and gets up to grab a washcloth. 

they should probably shower. that is one hundred percent not happening tonight. a washcloth will have to do.

paige grumbles sleepily at the separation, but lets azzi go with a kiss to her temple and a swat of her ass, and azzi pretends to be scandalized when she bends down to grab a shirt off the ground so as to not walk in the hallway naked and paige whistles behind her at the view. 

she doesn’t bother with pants, and as she shuffles to the bathroom across the hall– noting gratefully that there’s no light coming from under nika’s door– she feels the beginning of an ache in her thighs and she grins to herself as satisfaction wells in her stomach. she hopes she feels it for days to come– hopes rather possessively that paige does too. 

the lights of the bathroom are brighter than she was ready for, and she squints in annoyance as she wets a cloth and wipes carelessly at the mess between her legs, before dropping the cloth on the edge of the sink to wash her hands. 

absentmindedly, she thinks to herself, a little ridiculously and definitely still a little drunkenly, that she misses paige. it’s been maybe a minute max. she has got to get a grip. 

but then, as she’s reaching to turn off the water, she feels two arms snake around her waist and the familiar weight of paige curling into her back, tucking her head into the crevice between azzi’s neck and shoulder and pressing a kiss, as if summoned by her needy thoughts. 

sometimes she thinks their brains are synced up on, like, a telepathic plane.

“your legs stopped shakin’ then?” she says as a greeting, and paige folds herself further into azzi, almost bashful. azzi fucking loves when she gets like this, in that possessive, greedy way that comes with the knowledge that she’s the only one who’s ever gotten to see this version of paige. 

“shut up, bro.”

azzi just giggles. 

paige is also in only a large t-shirt– no doubt stolen from azzi’s drawer– and it’s inside out, the tag sticking up against the collar and the faint, backwards outline of st. john’s basketball is just barely visible through the material. it hangs loose and oversized, hitting mid thigh in a way that should not be as sinful as it is, and she looks rumpled and soft and azzi thinks she might possibly drown in affection.

she spins them around, leaning paige up against the sink, and moves to wipe the washcloth gently between paige’s thighs, mourning the unblemished skin and the missed opportunity to leave her mark and return the favor that paige had given her earlier. 

next time. (not that- not that there’s going to be a next time. or anything.)

paige must feel the heat behind her gaze, because she shoves at azzi shoulder and rolls her eyes. “you’re insatiable.” 

azzi simply hums in agreement and spins them back around, curling into paige’s side to face the mirror and grabbing her tooth brush. 

she brushes as efficiently as possible, rolling her eyes at the faces paige makes at her in the mirror, and then forces paige to use her toothbrush too. 

paige protests this until azzi says she’ll withhold morning kisses, and paige almost knocks the toothbrush out of azzi’s hands in her haste to use it.

azzi ignores the urge to say something entirely stupid like we should do this always and then you could have your own toothbrush here. from paige’s lopsided grin around in the mirror, foam lingering on the corner of her mouth, azzi thinks she probably understands the unsaid words anyway. 

they pad back to azzi’s room with their fingers intertwined, trying to step on each other’s toes to be as annoying as possible, and paige’s hand smacks over her mouth when she laughs too loudly in the silence of the hallway at a near stumble when they trip over each other's feet. 

paige flops onto the bed unceremoniously when they return, denying azzi’s offer of boxers while the brunette throws on a faded pair of her own, and she only moves from her face down position when azzi worms up next to her, nudging paige over until they can curl up under the bedsheets chest to chest, azzi tucked up under her chin.

it warms her heart to an impossible level that it wasn’t even a question if paige would sleep over. she prays that when they wake up, they can stay in their bubble for a little while longer, and then decides to voice that thought aloud. 

sort of.

“if you’re annoying about this in the morning i swear to god-” 

“-oh if i’m annoying– were you not the one who made me sneak out at the ass crack of dawn last time?” 

that had absolutely happened. but in azzi’s defense, both nika and olivia had been home, and had interrogated her when they got up about who she’d brought back from the bar, because they’d heard that she’d had someone over. she’d nearly killed herself of embarrassment. 

instead of admitting to this, she wriggles closer and says, pettily, “must’ve been one of your other bitches.” she’s joking. definitely. 

paige huffs, annoyed. her hands move further down azzi’s back, gripping her waist, and azzi stays firmly tucked into her shoulder, hiding from her face, but she just knows paige is rolling her eyes aggressively. 

“bruh you’re not serious.” 

azzi is dead serious. she, again, doesn’t really have the right to be possessive, but they’re breaking every other rule tonight– paige put on quite the jealous performance– she might as well indulge too. 

distantly, she’s aware that eventually, when they’re not being stupid and ignoring this whole sleeping-together-and-not-talking-about-it thing, they’ll need to discuss the fact that they’re definitely in love. and she knows that the responsibility of bringing it up will eventually fall on her, that paige will follow her lead, would probably do anything azzi asked of her, but whatever. 

that’s tomorrow, sober azzi’s problem to freak out about and then subsequently ignore. right now, she stays stubbornly quiet, and paige sighs, exaggeratedly loud, making azzi’s whole body move with paige’s chest when she inhales. 

with as much conviction as a girl who’s had seven shots in the last four hours can muster, paige uses the hand not currently on azzi’s waist to tilt her head back so they can make eye contact, and says “azzi, bro, you gotta know i don’t have other girls.” 

her eyes are a little unfocussed, from the sleepiness or the fading drunkenness azzi doesn’t know, but she does know that paige is telling the truth anyways, with that kind of quiet earnestness that only she has ever been able to exhibit. 

she’d known, on some level, that paige wasn’t messing around with anyone else, but there’s a difference between hearing paige mumble confessions in the middle of an orgasm and hearing her assuredness in the after. 

she also knows that exclusiveness probably goes beyond the normal realm of best friends with benefits, but that's neither here nor there, and satisfaction settles in her gut anyways and she smiles, probably disgustingly wide. 

she tucks her head back into paige chest, lest she give away how happy that confirmation makes her and give the other girl an unneeded ego boost. 

“me neither. y’know. if you care.”

paige definitely already knew this, but operating under assumptions and hopeful thinking is very different from a verbal acknowledgement. this isn’t really in the realm of casual. azzi can’t bring herself to care. 

paige hums, and azzi doesn’t know how, but the simple, minute sound exudes smugness. she should’ve kept her mouth shut. 

“yeah, i know. prolly cause i’m the best you ever had,” paige singsongs. 

azzi bites her shoulder. “i never said that. you’re making assumptions.” 

“you literally said that, like, thirty minutes ago.” indignation laces her words, and then she pitches her voice up in a terrible impression of azzi, drawing her words out breathily because she’s a pest, and mocking, “ohhhhh paige, feels so good, best i ever-”

azzi elbows her in the gut to shut her up, and she makes a funny, cut off sound in surprise and (hopefully) pain. good. 

“please just go to sleep.”

“i’m just pointing out the fact that you literally just said i was the best-”

“paige, i swear to god if you don’t shut up-” 

“you’ll what,” paige dares. she probably thinks this is foreplay, and it would be, too, if azzi wasn’t already exhausted and sated.

“or i’ll call charlie.” it’s an empty threat and they both know it, but paige gets huffy anyways, and azzi smiles into her chest. 

“azzi do not play with me right now,” she grunts around azzi’s giggles, hands tightening on her waist, before adding “it is not funny.”

“it kinda is.”

“it’s not.” she grumbles. a beat, and then “never want to hear his name ever again bro, swear.”

azzi just laughs. 

paige is quiet for a second, but azzi knows better than to think this means she’s going to leave it, and sure enough, five seconds later, “s’okay, y’know, that i’m the best you’ve ever had cause, like, you’re the best i ever had too. so like- it works.” 

satisfaction spreads deliciously through her body and azzi resists the urge to say i know into paige’s shoulder, grinning instead, as the other girl continues on loftily with her speech. 

“but like i’m the best you ever had even more than you’re the best i-”

“-paige,” she cuts off. 

“what.” 

“shut up,” azzi grumbles, bringing her hand up to try and find paige’s mouth and cover it blindly in the dark. “sleep time.” 

it’s a cop out and she knows it, but also it’s probably nearing two am and she’s trying to limit how bad her hangover tomorrow will be, and if paige keeps talking like that they’re gonna, like, end up having sex again and not sleeping. or something. 

paige nips the finger that azzi’s placed haphazardly over her mouth and finally quiets, blessedly taking a command for once in her life. 

they settle more comfortably into the sheets, twisting around so paige is pressed up against azzi’s back, legs tangled and hearts beating in sync, and azzi feels her whole body relax into a state of peacefulness that only comes with being wrapped up in paige, cozy and quiet and safe. 

it’s silent for at least a whole minute, so azzi mistakenly thinks paige is done yapping for the day and starts drifting off. but then paige– azzi really needs to get her checked for adhd– whispers “hey azzi” into her hair.

she debates whether she wants to respond. 

the combination of alcohol, post sex-haze, and paige’s arms wrapped around her is making her entire body feel warm and fuzzy, and she was kind of already halfway to sleep, but her unflinching, rather self-sabotaging tendency to humor paige no matter the circumstance wins out. 

“mm,” she mumbles, and tries to make her voice sound as sleepy as possible so paige will make this quick. 

the other girl is silent for a second, and azzi wonders if she’s going to say anything at all, and then her fingers twitch against azzi’s stomach where they’ve wormed under her t-shirt and she whispers “if we wake up drunk can we fuck in the shower?” 

under normal (see: sober; awake) circumstances, this sentence would cause azzi to shriek, and probably pinch paige somewhere she knows would leave a mark. instead, she hums, considering, pretending like she hasn’t already decided the answer is yes, and slides one of her legs further between paige’s.

they won’t wake up drunk; are barely riding tipsy right now. they both are fully aware of this. it’s an unspoken request that they continue their little bubble of paigeandazzi with no rules until later tomorrow– that when they wake up they can mutually pretend the alcohol hasn’t left their system and extend the breach in their precariously constructed facade of a platonic relationship.

“maybe.” 

this means yes and they both know it, and she can hear the smile in paige’s voice when she says “bet.”

azzi laces their fingers together against her stomach, and grins into the dark. “‘night, p, love you,” she whispers. she chooses to ignore how decidedly not casual that is. 

paige squeezes their fingers. “love you too, az,” and she can feel the grin on paige’s face pressing into her shoulder.

her last coherent thought before she drifts off is that their new rules are supremely stupid, but if it takes becoming an alcoholic to break the rules every night, she’d consider it. 

(they do, in fact, pretend to still be drunk when they wake up, and paige doesn’t stop using her comically exaggerated, extremely annoying pretend drunk voice until azzi makes her shut up. they absolutely fuck in the shower. and also in the kitchen. which is where nika finds them, rumpled and glowing, arguing over who would be romeo and who would be juliet. she doesn’t even bother saying i told you so.)

(they last barely ten days before it happens again.)

a/n: badda bing badda boom! sorry for being a whore <3 and sorry for leaving this off without writing them getting together for real…but i think this is a happy ending while still making it feel appropriate for the pace of this story and the trajectory of their relationship :)) pls don’t kill me we all know they’re in love including them!!! as always comments and anons and stuff fuel me like nothing else and i die a miniature death every time someone tells me they liked my work so <3 love you <3

[aeraminth]

nsfw— zayne who can’t help but praise you the first time you two are intimate. his hands trace the curve of your breasts and his broken sigh gives him away, his gaze never leaving as he cups your tits and you squirm in his lap. “such a pretty girl,” he coos, and his fingers trail down to where you need him most. “so perfect for me,” and he’s sliding two fingers in, committing your scrunched up expression and breathy whine to memory. and when he curls his fingers and rubs your clit, he tells you “look at you, taking my fingers so well—hm? does it feel good, love? should i keep going?” you enthusiastically respond, begging for the feeling of his cock deep inside, and he unravels at the seams. “so needy, hm?” he would tease, even though he rushes to line himself up with your glistening folds, a ragged breath escaping him as he runs the head of his length in your arousal. “so, so wet, and just for me…” he’s so lost in the way you feel that it takes you grabbing his wrist and pleading with him for zayne to realize how long he’s kept you waiting. your eyes, with tears pricking at the corner from desperation staring back at him as you try to move your hips, whines and whimpers falling from your lips with reckless abandon. “don’t worry, baby, i got you,” he murmurs, sliding into your tight heat, his eyes knitting shut from the pure pleasure of your warm walls clamping down, sucking him in and never letting go—he could die happy, enveloped by your heat and blessed by the sounds of a long, drawn out moan from your lips. and you’re not faring much better, with every bit of imagery being put to shame with how good the stretch is, how his cock pulses with need in your pussy and how hard he grips your waist to stop himself from losing control. “m-move-hhngh-zayne..” you mumble, delirious from the feeling, and he snaps, pulling out only to fill you up to the brim. he chases his high, driven by lust as he leans down to whisper in your ear. “d-dirty girl—fuck! taking me so well, hmm? ahh- shit— you feel so good around me—mm—squeezing me..” and all you can do is clench around his cock, his words making your mind go blank. zayne plunges deeper and deeper, hitting the spongy spot inside of you that makes you see stars, babbling how you need him to come inside of you. “please, please zayne, i’m so close—!” and he reaches down, rubbing quick circles into your bundle of nerves in a chase to see you come undone. your hips jerk with the added stimulation to your clit, squirming even more as he pins you down and fucks you even faster, only stilling when he feels you squeeze around him impossibly tighter. your release washes over you, leaving your skin warm and your mind hazy. zayne’s no better, emptying himself and coating your walls white when you tell him to come inside, and his shallow thrusts make you shove at his chest, feeling overstimulated. he can’t help it though, the sound and sight of where you connect puts him in a frenzy, where he can’t find himself to stop even when it becomes to much. “z-zayne—‘ts too much!” but he needs to see you cream his cock one more time, and he’s not stopping until you’re both spent.

“the first time i’ve ever seen you like this,” he comments, his voice barely over a whisper. his finger swipes up and down your damp folds, playing with the cum that oozes on to his finger, “but not the last. never.”