yuzukiii3

[yuzukiii3]

ugh i need to drink with post-graduate suga i just know it would fix me >_>

[yuzukiii3]

Soul Meets Body

After the final battle with the Netherbrain, you and Halsin have found solace in what was once the Shadowlands. Domesticity and nature interweave with your every day life now that you are parents, but for the past few months, something has been missing. Halsin shows you how much he's missed your body.

Pairings: Halsin (dad!) x fem reader (plus sized after giving birth)

Warnings: SMUT, p in v sex, oral (female receiving), breeding kink, body image issues, swearing, angst, hurt/comfort. 18+ MINORS DNI

Word Count: 5.2k

Requested: yes

A/N: As a plus sized fan fic writer, I hardly see plus sized stuff, especially for Halsin so I decided to write something! This fic deals HEAVILY with body image issues of a plus sized reader after giving birth, so please read with caution if that is a trigger for you! ALSO: based on notes and patch updates from Larian, the Shadowlands were renamed the Reclaimed Lands, and in original notes for Halsin, his last name was Silverborough! So that's why those details are included. Also also dad Halsin is my fave ok bye.

The sun hung high in the sky midday, casting beautiful shadows through the leaves of the trees. The nearby laughter of children cascaded throughout the village, leaving a permanent smile on your face wherever you went. Your baby Lora, wrapped snug in a sling on your chest, cooed as you weeded the perimeter of the village, tossing the uprooted plants in a basket for Halsin to use later on.

Little feet scampered past you, calling your name in greeting as you knelt in the soft earth. Every time a little voice graced your ears, you perked up - what a life you were now leading, filled with such hope and joy. You felt lucky from the moment you woke up, to the moment you went to bed, for three reasons: the beautiful children that graced the Reclaimed Lands, which was once the Shadowlands, your beautiful daughter Lora, and of course, Halsin.

Your life had taken on new meaning once the final battle against the Netherbrain was won. Throughout your journey, you thought that the one thing you wanted more than anything was to return to your old life - to go home to the familiarity of Baldur's Gate. But when you had met Halsin - and subsequently fell in love with him - everything had changed, and you found yourself back in the Reclaimed Lands with the Alderman himself, becoming the unofficial parents of more children you had ever expected to have.

Of course, some adults came to the Reclaimed Lands to start anew as well - people pushed out by the curse returning home, or some wanting a fresh start. The little village you now claimed as your own was growing by the week, and nothing filled your heart more than knowing the love you and Halsin had put into cultivating the safe space.

A mere two months after you had gone home to the Reclaimed Lands, you discovered you were with child, baring the tiny bulge of Halsin's baby. It was no surprise to either of you - the elf who wanted to do things "as nature intended" acted on those natural instincts as often as they found him, and the idea of starting a family together was something both you and him couldn't get out of your head.

Once you had become pregnant, Halsin was unsurprisingly the perfect partner. Caring and attentive, you never needed nor wanted for anything. As if he could read your mind, before you could even ask, Halsin would appear with whatever you seemed to crave. Whether it be the particular berries near the river you seemed to want at night, a massage under his giant hands, or even a shoulder to cry on whenever your ankles swelled or back ached, Halsin was there to provide for you.

Your lovemaking never ceased while pregnant, either - in fact, your sex life with Halsin seemed to do nothing but increase. Often times, you caught Halsin staring at you while you absentmindedly cleaned up after dinner, or played with the children during the afternoon - his eyes falling to your growing belly. At night, while you sat on top of him, legs wrapped around his hips as he thrusted into you, he sucked and nibbled on your swollen breasts, his hands gently caressing your belly and large behind.

"How beautiful you are," He would breathe into your ear, your bodies slick with sweat, "Creating this beautiful life inside of you. You are ethereal...I am in awe. I am not worthy of your beauty." He'd cup your cheek and suck on your bottom lip as you quietly cried his name, tears overflowing from your eyes from both pleasure and love.

When Halsin was feeling more territorial, taking you from behind, but still being more gentle than usual, he would lay his chest flat on your back so he could be as deep as his cock would allow. "Knowing that everyone can look at you and see that I did this," He would grunt, his thrusts strong and pleading, "Knowing I filled you with my seed. That I love you so often and so well that the future is growing inside of you. I need it. I crave it," His would say through gritted teeth, "Everyone knows you're mine. And I am yours. Forever."

Once Loradove was born, your sexual appetite had basically ceased. Nights that were once full of screaming and thrusting and panting were now full of changing diapers, aiding cries, and soft lullabies. Halsin, of course, was the most doting father - taking Lora without asking so you could rest, playing with her so you could do some chores, or even doing the chores himself. He was the perfect father - you knew his urges to have you were increasing tenfold as every month passed that you didn't make love. But you also knew he would never complain...thinking only of his sexual urges made him feel selfish, you knew, and he would never want to act selfishly towards you.

It had been five months since Halsin last touched you in that way. Truth be told, it wasn't just that you were too busy with the village and children and your own daughter to have sex. You also couldn't bare to look in the mirror at your newfound "mother" body. A body that, once, when fighting goblins and monsters alongside Halsin and saving Faerun, was taut with muscles and curves. Now, your belly was soft and expanded, the defined muscles you once had nowhere to be found. Stretch marks decorated you stomach and thighs, and you needed a completely new wardrobe. You dreamed of being the type of mother you had known throughout your years - weeks after giving birth somehow going back to what they once were - small and desirable.

You only felt ugly. Looking at Halsin's body, rock solid and sexy, there was absolutely no way - in your mind - he could have found your softness alluring, especially when he had met the smaller, more attractive version of you. The idea of being fully naked in front of him used to send shivers down your spin and make your heart race, but now, it was enough to make you cry.

A child's playful laugh snapped you out of your day dream, your hand limply holding on to a bundle of mugwort that you had pulled a few minutes prior. Shaking your head, you placed it in the basket near your feet, watching Halsin appear into the village around the bend. A few children had run over to him, immediately hanging on his large limbs like he was a tree branch. He smiled and lifted them in the air, sending them flying before he caught them, gently kissing their temples and placing them on the ground.

As his usual way, he scanned the village, his eyes softening when they found you. You stopped weeding and stood, your smile matching his. A few moments later he was by your side, the children trailing behind him. He bent his head to give you a soft kiss - one that still gave you butterflies.

"My heart," He spoke gently, his hand immediately finding your waist. You winced inwardly as he gripped the soft rolls of your side. He slowly pushed back the cloth wrapping that hid Lora's face, and when her eyes met his, she instantly cooed. The smile Halsin reserved for her appeared on his face, and he gently pulled her from the cloth, holding her close. "My little one. How beautiful you are! Were you helping your mother today?" He eyed you, his eyes glittering. You chuckled.

"Quite so. If she wasn't swaddled, I'm sure she'd be reaching for the belladonna to try and have an afternoon snack," You sighed, smiling and wiping your brow, "She's lucky she's so cute."

"Cute?" Halsin asked, his eyebrows raising, "She's magnificent. Breathtaking. She is perfect...cute is nowhere near the word to describe Loradove Silverbough." Suddenly, Lora screeched, causing Halsin to furrow his brows immediately.

Laughing, you gently placed your hand on his bicep, "I think she also is tired."

He chuckled, pressing a small kiss on her cheek, "I will put her down for her nap. Go, do whatever your heart desires, my love. I will see to it that you have the afternoon for yourself. Daddy's got it from here." He winked, causing you to blush.

How the word "daddy" had changed in your lexicon in 9 months.

A few minutes later, you found yourself at the nearby creek on the outskirts of the village, your sweater off and laid beside you in the afternoon heat. Your feet dangled in the cool water, the laughter of the children still around you as you dozed in and out of a nap in the sunlight. Moments like this one were not rare - with Halsin, it truly was a partnership, splitting responsibilities 50/50.

When you opened your eyes again, the sun was setting, a sure sign of heading home. It was almost dinner time, you knew, which meant that you had spent at least a few hours dozing off by the creek. Your feet, wrinkled from being submerged for so long, felt chilly as you took them out of the water. Holding your shoes in your hands, you made the short walk home, passing by the children being herded inside by the adults.

As you opened the front door to your cottage, a whiff of food hit your nostrils, sending your stomach growling - some sort of roast was being prepared, with the sounds of banging pots and giggling coming from the kitchen.

"My heart!" Halsin cried, "Is that you?"

"Yes, I'm home, Halsin." You shouted back, dropping your shoes by the door.

"Lora! Mama's home!" You heard Halsin proclaim, to which Lora responded with a delightful squeal. You smiled, wiping the immediate happy tears from your eyes.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

As you rounded your way to the kitchen, you found Halsin plating up dinner, Lora in her little feeding chair, bits of mushed food all over her face. She immediately reached for you when she saw you, so you scooped her up, grabbing a towel from a nearby table and wiping her face gently.

"My precious angel, you eat like such a little whirlwind." You murmured, kissing her eyelashes. She cooed and grabbed at your hair as felt Halsin's hand on your shoulder. Turning towards him, he smiled and leaned down to kiss your cheek, then slowly moved to your earlobe.

"My love," He breathed, his voice low. A shiver went down your spine as you leaned into his body. Your eyelids fluttered shut, the familiar feeling of comfort warming your body. He sighed contently and ushered you towards the chair nearest you, "Sit, my heart. Dinner is ready."

You sat, opening your eyes again and smiling. He placed the plate in front of you, and was about to take Lora from your hands but you shook your head, holding her closer.

"I missed her."

Halsin chuckled and sat across from you, "Of course. If she gets too rowdy while you try to eat, I'll put her back in her chair." He made a face at Lora, who made the same one back - their version of a secret handshake.

Idly chatting about your days, you ate dinner slowly, savoring the moments with the two of them. Soon Lora was starting to fuss, alerting the two of you to her nearing bedtime.

You bathed and dressed her, putting her down in her crib while Halsin washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Walking into your bedroom, he was discarding his clothes for the night, slipping into the bed the two of you shared. As you walked in, he smiled.

“Did she go down easy?” He asked. You nodded.

“For the most part. Some tears when she realized that it was bedtime, but she was so exhausted that she went down almost as soon as her back hit the bed.” You took a sleep dress from your closet, putting it over your day clothes. Underneath the dress, you slipped the straps of your shirt off, and then your pants; the way you had gotten changed every night since Lora was young. Halsin said nothing of the intricate dressing, but you knew he watched you every night, probably wondering why his love wouldn’t stand naked in front of him. You turned and he smiled softly, patting the bed next to him.

As you laid next to him he tucked the blankets to your collarbone, kissing your forehead. “Early night? I have quite the day ahead of me tomorrow.” You yawned and nodded, nuzzling into him.

“Yes. I, myself am also exhausted.”

Halsin blew out the lamp and wrapped one of his strong arms around you, falling asleep almost instantly. You closed your eyes as well, but sleep came harder for you - the nap you took earlier in the day apparently robbing you of sleep this evening.

After an hour of tossing and turning, Halsin’s voice spoke in the dark room. “My love…are you alright? Your stirring woke me.”

You huffed as you moved on your side, throwing your arms at your side in the blankets, “I’m sorry, Halsin. I’m having a hard time falling asleep.”

Halsin was silent for a moment, but you felt him move closer to you, as he had drifted a bit during sleep, an arm wrapping around your waist. He started to pepper kisses on your neck, his breath hot in your ear. Eventually, his hand lightly palmed at your breast, your nipple gently pinched in between his fingers.

“Well…if you can’t sleep…maybe we can make use to the extra time given to us.” He whispered in your ear, rolling your nipple in his hand. Your heart fluttered, but you felt your stomach drop. Gently pushing him away, you turned to him.

“Halsin…” You started, unsure of what to say. This wasn’t the first time Halsin had tried to have sex with you since Lora was born, but every time he had tried previously, your excuses of being tired seemed more plausible. Now that it was five months, you weren’t quite sure what to say.

The hand that palmed your breast found its way to your cheek. “Please, my heart. Talk to me. I don’t want to pry, especially after you have given me the gift of our beautiful daughter…but why won’t you let me make love to you?”

In the darkness, you felt like you could cry. How could you explain to this man - this sweet, caring man - how you felt so uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping together? How you were afraid to show him what your body had become…how you were afraid that, if he saw you, he wouldn’t think of you the same?

It wasn't as if you didn't want to have sex with him - your heart stirred often when you saw him. There were so many nights where you just wanted to reach out to him - to bury his head in between your legs, or take his member in your mouth. Often you were so pent up with sexual frustration that when Halsin left the cottage, and Lora was down for a nap, you had to pleasure yourself in order to find some sort of release.

As his thumb stroked your cheek with such care, you knew it wasn’t fair to him to leave him in the dark like that. To leave him wondering if he had done something wrong, no matter how embarrassing your reasonings seemed.

You swallowed your nerves, placing your hand on his. “My body…” You started, your voice low. You could already feel the tremble in your voice as you held back tears, uncomfortable with your admission of these feelings, “My body is not the same as it was when we first met. When we…first fell in love.”

“Of course it isn’t,” He spoke plainly, “You have given birth, given Lora the gift of life. It is as nature has intended it - change is inevitable, and your body is meant to change when you grow full as one does when pregnant, my love.”

“No, that’s - that’s not what I meant,” You sighed, trying again. “What I mean is…my body is not…as nice as it was when we met. As…beautiful. As…sexy. I’m afraid you’ll look at it and be…disappointed. Dissatisfied.” Though you couldn’t really see him, you cast your eyes down to your sleep shirt, unable to look in the direction of his eyes.

A large span of silence passed. Slowly, he lowered the hand cradling your cheek. Heat rose in your body, flushing your cheeks.

"How...could you say something like that?" Halsin eventually asked, "Your body is beautiful, no matter what it looks like. You think a little softness will deter my yearning for you?"

"It's not just 'softness', Halsin," You said, the tears spilling from your cheeks, "It's...rolls. It's stretchmarks. Dimples and expanded skin where there was none before."

Suddenly, the oil lamp on the bedside table was lit. Halsin stared down on you, his brows furrowed in sadness. He took your face in his hands, kissing away the tears that had spilled.

"Oh, my love," He sighed in between kisses, "If only you could peek inside my heart...inside my brain. So you knew that my words match how I really feel, that I am not exaggerating," Pulling away, he smiled softly and looked into your eyes, "Your body. Is beautiful. It is a beautiful work of nature - of art. Your size does not dictate how badly I want to be inside of you. Your soul does. I love your body in every way it comes...would you stop stirring for me if I had added rolls and marks? If I had dimples on my thighs, or added skin on my belly?"

You smiled at his tenderness, which you always somehow knew he would respond with. "Of course not."

"So please know that when I mean my body stirs for you, I mean it. I would never want you to feel pressured or uncomfortable, but know that I have fantasized about ravaging you ever since the cleric gave us permission to make love after Loradove's birth. If you'll have me...please let me show how much I yearn for you."

You bit your lip, looking at him. He was completely nude - as he slept every night - and was on top of you. The very sight of him was causing an ache in your core, and you pressed your thighs together. Slowly, you leaned your head forward, pressing your lips to his.

At first, it was gentle, but as you felt his body press into yours, you very quickly found yourself get carried away, your tongue pressing into his mouth. Very gladly he opened his mouth, his tongue dancing with yours. He immediately wrapped his arms around your waist, and as you felt his erection press into you, you moaned. Nervously, you reached down to the hem of your sleep dress, but desperate to feel Halsin's skin on yours (and to get it over with), you grabbed the dress and pulled it over your head, discarding it on the floor.

There.

It was over with.

The one thing you had been so anxious over - finally being naked with Halsin again - had finally happened. You had discarded your clothes in front of him, being fully naked with him for the first time since you had given birth. Holding your breath - wracked with nerves - you watched his eyes take your body in. He didn't speak for several moments as his eyes moved from your head, all the way to your feet multiple times. He moved one of his hands from behind your back, to slowly tracing lines down your body, sending shivers up your spine. Dipping his head to your body, he started to slowly kiss you, gently planting kisses on your stomach, on your thighs, paying extra attention to the stretchmarks that covered your lower half.

Finally, he looked into your eyes, and you realized they were glassy with tears. He shook his head slowly and he enveloped your lips in a kiss that was so passionate, it knocked the wind out of you. When he pulled away, he cupped your cheeks once more.

"For you to think that you are anything other than beautiful is a thought I never want you to have again," He spoke, his voice low, "I covet every mark, every dimple, every soft roll on your body. Regardless if you gave life or not...your body is a beautiful work of nature, and if I need to make love to you every night in order for you to see it, I will gladly sacrifice." He smiled lightly, kissing you again. Shivers ran up your spine as he lowered his fingers to tease your clit, his fingers weaving in between your folds. Once he felt how wet you were, he moaned into the kiss, "Silvanus help me, you're going to make me finish before I even start."

His touch sent shockwaves through your system - five months of your pent up sexual desires for Halsin were starting to unravel, causing you to careen to your orgasm faster than you ever have in your life. As Halsin rubbed circles on your aching clit, you whimpered, your arms finding their way around his neck. He held you close as he brought you to him, leaning you forward so you were mere inches from his face.

"My gorgeous, gorgeous, girl," He whispered, kissing your temple. The combination of his increasingly deep movements on your clit, and the tender whispered nothings in your ear was leaving you overstimulated.

"Halsin...I'm already close." You whined, gently biting down on his shoulder. He chuckled and growled at the bite, taking his fingers off of your clit and inserting two of them inside your cunt.

"Already? My heart...I'm afraid I will be sending you over the edge many times tonight if that's how long you are going to last." As he pumped into your pussy, you threw your head back, pressing your back into the bed. Quickly, he slid down your body, gently kissing you along the way. He never stopped pumping his fingers, but as soon as his head reached your core, he pressed your legs open with his nose to suck on your clit, taking it in his mouth in its entirety. He moaned loudly, his tongue lapping over your entire pussy, the wet sounds emanating from the two you absolutely sinful.

Arching your back, your vision started to fuzz as you squeezed your eyes shut. As you looked down at Halsin, he seemed absolutely enthralled by you, his face reminiscent of the eating a delicious meal. His fingers curled upwards as he continued to switch between sucking on your clit, to lapping at your folds with his large, flat tongue.

"Gods, I'm going to come!" You whined, gripping his hair as he sucked. He didn't deviate from his movements, completely focused on making you feel his ecstasy. As you bucked your hips into his face, your orgasm crashed around you, Halsin inserting one more finger to pump into you to send you over the edge.

You screamed his name, so loudly you felt like you were going to blackout. Halsin continued on for several moments before he pulled away slowly, taking in the sight of you writhing underneath him. His chest was heaving as he gripped your thighs, his eyes dancing as he took you in. When you finally calmed down enough, you opened your eyes, looking into his.

Immediately, you burst into tears.

"I was so scared to do that." You confessed, your tears spilling over. You laughed, embarrassed, as Halsin leaned forward to kiss you.

"Never," He said, his tongue sliding on your lower lip, "Never be scared with me. Never again."

Resting your hands on his solid chest, you felt your desire focus, watching Halsin stroke his cock above you. You moaned at the sight of him - large, and beautiful, and fucking perfect.

You would never go this long without him again.

"Halsin, if I don't have you inside of me soon, I think I'm going to go crazy." You said, reaching down to help him with his strokes. His mouth fell open and he lolled his head back, murmuring your name. He took your hand from his erect penis to his mouth, kissing it gently before he lined himself up with you.

"Anything you desire, my heart." He said, before taking your hands and pinning them above your head. He held your wrists with one hand as he slowly slid inside of you, never breaking eye contact. The further he slid in, the more you two moaned, brows furrowed. Once he bottomed out, he growled. "Hells - I do not think I'll be lasting too long, either."

You laughed and he chuckled, winking at you before he began to thrust. Slow and deliberate, he grunted with his movements, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.

You couldn't help but moan - there was no trying to stay quiet anymore. The past few months of not having Halsin had made you so pent up, that any touch from him seemed to cause your core to stir.

Picking up his pace, the headboard creaked. Halsin palmed at one of your tits, dipping his head to suck on your nipple. You arched your back so he could take you deeper in his mouth, and soon, he started to suck on the skin around your nipple. Heat rushed to your head as waves of pleasure continued to spread throughout your body.

As the two of you fucked, you were sloppy, messy. Noise and juices and movements shared between the two of you with no regard, with no holding back. Both of you were desperate for each other's touch, your whole body felt like it was on fire.

Eventually, as Halsin thrusted into you, he spread your legs with his other hand, abandoning your wrists above your head. After he spread your legs, he pressed one of his large fingers to your clit, circling it slowly.

"You, are so beautiful," He spoke, every word accentuated with a thrust, "The most beautiful creature nature has ever created. The most beautiful creature I have ever seen."

"Gods, Halsin - you make me feel so good. You fuck me so good." Your whimpers were bordering on incoherent as he fucked you, but it didn't matter. You were safe - you were fucking the love of your life, and Hells did it feel good.

"That's it," He spoke, moving your legs so you were on your side. He stopped thrusting for a moment to adjust you, closing your legs on his cock so he could thrust deeper, "That's it, my beautiful goddess," He be began to thrust again, and palmed at your tits, "I love this body. You are so beautiful. I love you."

"I love you too," You moaned, your back arching, gripping the sheets underneath you, "Daddy, I love you."

Halsin's eyes were set ablaze at your words. Your use of Daddy before Lora was around during sex, but you had a feeling that it took on a whole new meaning while you fucked him. He smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow. You could tell by his thrusts that he was nearing his edge, which was soon for Halsin.

It seemed the five months had the same affect on him, too.

"Daddy's fucking you good?" He groaned, grabbing a fistful of your ass. He squeezed hard before winding his hand back, giving you a tight slap on one of your cheeks, "You like it when Daddy fucks you like this?"

"Yes!" You screamed, grabbing hold of his forearm, "Gods, you make me feel so good!"

His grip on your ass tightened as he started to switch between his thrusts - slow and measured, and rough, pounding into you so hard his cock coming in contact with your cunt made a loud SMACK noise with every movement. Your walls clenched around him as he roughly gripped your hips, his hair becoming wet with sweat. Every time you clenched around his cock he growled, a noise that reminded you of an animal - feral, full of wanting.

"You're going to make me come," He said, his chest heaving. The sound of his cock and balls slapping against your wet core filled the room at an increased pace, and he didn't stop. "I'm going to fill you, my heart."

"Fill me," You commanded, looking into his eyes. Halsin groaned and leaned forward, his forehead touching yours. With three more thrusts, he growled and released, filling you with his orgasm. A silent scream came from his lips, followed by him murmuring your name over and over again. He bucked his hips a few more times to drain himself in you before he slowly slid out, immediately cradling you in his arms.

Both of you were panting, sweating, but you didn't care. You were holding on to each other for dear life, thankful for how the night turned out.

Halsin kissed every inch of you from your chest up, cupping your face with the utmost care. Pulling away, he looked at you.

"You put the stars in the sky, my heart," He spoke, gently kissing you. "The moon...the sun...they pale in comparison to your beauty," Gently running his hands over your body, he titled his head, "How do you feel?"

Still catching your breath, you smiled at him, "Incredible. Beautiful." You answered, honestly.

Halsin's face lit up and he pressed a kiss to you again. His tongue found its way into your mouth, and soon, his body was pressing against yours again, his pent up desire found his movements.

"If you give me just a bit of time, I would love to make you feel beautiful again." He spoke, sending shivers up your spine. Brushing a piece of hair out of your face, you were about to reply.

Suddenly, Lora cried from her room. Both of you stopped in your tracks, and when you realized she wasn't going to stop, you bot started to laugh. You went to get up from bed, but Halsin gently pushed you down, springing up himself.

"Rest, my love. I have her," He started to walk out of the room, but turned back quickly, "When I come back into this room, you better not have put your clothes back on."

You giggled and titled your head, feeling seductive for the first time in Gods knows how long, "Mr. Halsin, if you don't watch yourself, you're going to have put yet another baby in me."

Halsin's eyes darkened, and you knew you hit his desires on the head. His cock twitched and he coughed, trying to control himself. "Who says that's not the plan?" He asked, before slipping into Lora's room.

You laid back down on the bed, your breathing returning to normal. From the other room, you heard Halsin speaking softly to your daughter, singing her a lullaby to get her to go back to sleep. Pulling the covers over your body, you relished in the feeling of the blankets on your naked skin. Sighing happily, you moved your legs around in the bed, the sensation spreading warmth throughout your body.

How lucky you were.

---

If you liked this one, don't forget to leave a comment - it’s so so appreciated ❤️ Thank you all for reading!

[yuzukiii3]

she was a knife prints | patreon

[yuzukiii3]

L’ESSENTIEL EST INVISIBLE POUR LES YEUX

a gruesome battle breeds its own kind of beauty

pairing: childe x f!reader

themes/content: smut, depictions of violence. p in v, there's like literally no prep, you are both a little insane, also relatively explicit descriptions of a battle/war and its aftermath but i think it's still kinda hot (wk: 2.4k)

a/n: happy early birthday to my boy <3

There’s ash in his lungs and blood on his hands and Childe wants so, so badly. He wants in a way he’s never wanted for something before, in a way that feels like those cold hands laying on the ground are trying to claw their way from inside him. He needs to get it out he needs to run he needs to do something-

-until across the plains he finds you, and watches the way you pull your blade from another, lesser man’s chest as he falls to the ground. The body collapses with an unceremonious thud, and you turn, searching for something.

It’s only when your eyes meet does Childe realize you were searching for him.

He’s running to you, then.

Perhaps as a blessing, his mind ignores the crumpled bodies he navigates between on the shortest path towards you. They meant nothing to him, not really, not when they rose against the great Tsaritsa, not when they met you on the battlefield, and certainly not when they were slain by his hands. And yours.

The moment he reaches you, time stops. The uneven rise and fall of your chest, strained with exertion, slows; the wildness in his gaze, fueled by battle and by victory, calms.

Hands grab your face, and bring it to his own.

When he kisses you, it’s not gentle or tender. It’s urgent, ravenous, teeth clashing and lips pressed so hard they bruise. He kisses you as though he could breathe the air from your lungs and return it to you, still smelling like the smoke that’s settled deep within his chest.

He nips at your lower lip, and you respond with a strained hum. It’s one of satisfaction, he knows from when you’ve managed to land a well-placed strike to his abdomen during a spar, or when the moon had risen above the clouds and in the haven of your bed he had angled himself inside you just right and brought you to the pinnacle of bliss.

You aren’t sure how or when you hit the ground, but it knocks a groan from your throat as sore muscles scrape against soiled dirt. Resting on top of you, his body is heavy but not crushing. It doesn’t drain the oxygen from between your ribs nor dampen the dizzy beating of your heart, certainly nothing like a hard strike between your shoulder blades or the hurl of a sword. It’s a weight you know well, one that makes you wish for cooler days spent in dew-damp grass under a kinder sun. But before you can wish for too long, his tongue finds yours and searches for some salvation in the softness of your mouth.

He must have found it when he groans into you, when his hips press into yours and the familiar hardness between them grazes your core.

Then, those rough and hungry hands tear beneath your clothes. Through layers of tanned leather irrevocably stained red, through cloth soaked in well-earned sweat, until they land upon your waist.

Childe releases another sigh at the contact, at the proof that there is something warm and safe and alive still here on this wretched field. That it is something he would give his body and his soul for in order to protect. That it is not something that needs protecting. For you, you brave, righteous being, have no need to be saved. And yet, you let him pretend in these moments (the thought has crossed his mind that it is not you, though, but him who must be saved; he pretends that he deserves it, too).

(The bodies around you would disagree, of course. They would say he is vile and cruel and deserving of the worst fate that could befall a man. But he does not hear them, for they have no means with which to voice their opinions when the vitality has been stolen from their hearts and given to him. He uses it, every last drop of energy to tell you with wind-hardened skin how much he wants you, how much he constantly, eternally needs you.)

Drowned by the eagerness, by your own haste, you reach into the near-nonexistent space between your bodies, down to the waistband of his trousers, and rip apart the cage that bars you from your prize. The buttons that held his clothes together forfeit with little protest.

The action is quickly returned, your pants tugged down past your thighs to reveal the waiting heat beneath them.

Childe never breaks the kiss, not for a second, not even as he strokes his length and brings himself to his full size, not even as he pulls your underwear away and nearly shreds it to pieces in the process, not even as he finally allows the head of his cock to breach the yearning warmth inside you.

The wetness that had begun to pool within your folds the instant your eyes sought his after that final, fatal blow thankfully lessens the resistance, but as always, the stretch still burns for a moment. But it’s nothing worse than that of your aching muscles, nothing that won’t be soothed by use. He told you, once, that you have to train until you feel like your bones could fall apart; at the time, you thought it was silly, and laughed at him, until you sparred for six hours and the sun had set and you worried that the pressure within your chest could spread into your head and kill you - and not once had Childe tired.

He certainly has not tired yet, despite the battle that raged here mere moments ago, the one that left fallen heroes and cowards littered around you, until the two sole victors emerged.

And now, these lucky champions shall claim their winnings.

This grand prize comes in the form of Childe’s rasped whine as he slowly enters you.

Every bulging vein slides through you until you’re sculpted into a shape that could never hold anybody else. When he’s finally fully inside you, his pelvis brushing your own, you realize that neither of you have spoken. Too consumed by the all-encompassing chaos and thrill of conquest, there was no need to speak, not until he looks down at you with those beautiful, frenzied eyes and you wish there were words for the pride that blooms between your ribs.

“You were incredible,” you say with a voice roughened by barking orders at now-dead subordinates and comrades for the last eight hours.

It seems to have done its job when a smile cracks apart his face and a blush stains beneath those freckles you have come to love (on calmer, quieter nights, away from slaughter and loss, you had counted them and graced each one with a kiss, until the two of you were left giddy, giggling messes, and were no richer in body counts or honor, but in one-hundred and thirty-four presses of your lips to his cheeks).

“You were too,” he sighs through a laugh. “You never fail to amaze me, you know that?”

Before you can respond, he pulls his cock from within you, and pushes himself entirely back in. That gnawing ecstasy returns, and you arch into him.

“See? Incredible,” he says with a smile brighter than the sun.

After another few thrusts, he settles on a deep and uneven pace (perhaps even the great Tartaglia has exhausted himself today, you dare to think before remembering how he earned that title and decide against it). And yet, it is enough to have you chasing your own pleasure, ignoring the scorching light overhead and the uneven gravel that digs into your back. You clench and moan around him and he glows.

Somewhere off in the distance, a fire burns, one left over from a last-ditch attempt at defense. It smells horrid, and the smoke makes your eyes sting and you have no choice but to close them. Without facing the glaring carnage, your senses are free to roam - to Childe’s firm palms along your hips, to the tip of his cock pulsing at your cervix, to the metal and mint that hangs in his breath.

Every movement is erratic and when his lips crash into yours it’s desperate and violent and you think he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever had the privilege of touching.

He knows it, too. He’s seen the light that bursts from inside him because he sees the same in you, shining his reflection back to him.

(You’d let him kill you, you think. With it comes the idea that maybe one day you’ll be forced to kill him. But those thoughts don’t serve you well; instead, you focus on a particularly hard thrust that rips a mewl from your throat and has him grinning.)

“Cocky bastard. You’re just trying to earn a few compliments now, aren’t you,” you manage to get out once your breathing has regulated and your body has adjusted to his size (you’d think by now you would be used to it, but something about him precludes prediction - perhaps that’s why you’ve never managed to beat him in a fight, or why you still have to take more than a few deep inhales to steady yourself when he offers you the privilege of his body).

But Childe provides you little respite - nothing new, of course, not when he drinks the sounds you make with a dry throat, when he claims them with his tongue and his teeth. With another punctuated jolt of his pelvis, he chokes the air straight from your lungs, and laughs.

“Aw, c’mon. I don’t need to beg for your praise. I know what I am.”

“Oh? And what is that?” you ask, barely registering his words through the haze of your lust and devotion.

With a wicked grin, he pushes himself so deep within you that you can do nothing but claw at his shoulders and whine.

His head settles within the space beneath your chin, hot breath puffing against your neck.

“I’m the one who’s going to kill gods.”

At that, his hips become faster, his cock stretching you until you’re near delirious, his own head swimming in the depths of his indulgence (after the months you’ve spent training with him, you know it’s not just from the earlier bloodshed - dedication and enjoyment are distinct entities).

It’s you, this time, who brings his face to yours, foreheads touching and breathing each other’s air with open, aching mouths. Your knuckles tangle in his hair, damp and matted, and he groans under your touch.

It’s a mystery how, even in this state, Childe manages to be heavenly stunning. How the roll of his back is graceful, how the hand that snakes its way down your torso until it finds that tempting bundle of nerves between your thighs moves with such precision.

But then, moments of the battle that played out under a hot and heavy sun return to your mind, and the poise with which he conducts himself even in the throes of combat shows itself once more. The crack of a blade as he effortlessly cuts through armor and metal and down to flesh and bone. The flex of shoulders that know the feel of your nails, the crouch of thighs that know the planes of your hands, the tilt of a neck that knows the points of your teeth. A perfectly welded being whose strength could - will - rival that of the gods.

He once called himself a weapon, but a weapon can only be wielded for one reason; here, with one hand resting upon your cheek and the other brushing against your clit, with his eyebrows pulled together and ocean-blue eyes trained upon your own, he has carved himself another purpose.

You realize a moment too late that he’s speaking to you.

“-if you’d like.”

“What?” you say, mind and body pulled in too many directions between the sole deliverer of perfection above you and the feverish tension coiling within your stomach.

His laugh quells any soreness in your overused muscles and joints, and only further spurs the fluttering euphoria inside you. “I said, you should come with me. To the top. To conquer this world and make it ours.” A brief pause, one you’d be tempted to call hesitation. “If you’d like, that is.”

Your lips mirror his as they spread into an unruly grin.

“I’d love to.”

Hysterical in your own hedonism, the two of you, away from the battlefield and the hierarchies and the servitude, craft your own world for just a moment. One of endless joy and clear skies and pleasure so intense it threatens to open your chests only to find that there is already space made for one another inside them.

It’s at that moment that Childe begins to shudder above you.

Your legs wrap firmly around his waist, holding tight as to not let him pull away (as if he’d ever leave you, as if there’s any place in the world he’d rather be than right here with glory thrumming in his veins and a mind clouded with hubris and havoc).

With his cock twitching along the smooth heat inside you, his thumb still circling your clit in frantic motions, it’s enough to unleash the light that had been burning within you.

As he releases with a silken moan, one too breathtaking and holy for a place like this, you finish around him, writhing into the rocks and dirt below that don’t seem half as bothersome now.

Somehow, his arms manage to catch him before he fully collapses onto you (in all your time training together, you really have never seen him tire - perhaps it truly is impossible).

You love him, you think, or at least this version of him that fights and conquers and wins. But then, there’s the other version, too, the one who brews you coffee in the mornings and who kisses your forehead at night, who tells you stories about heroes and the stars. Perhaps they are the same person in some way: a boy who falls from the sky always yearns to return to it. And how lucky you are to be invited on this grand journey.

Both of you rejoin your lips in unison, and despite the filth and ash that clings to your bodies, it is nothing short of pure.

“You are incredible,” he whispers into your skin, and you brush the dirt from his hair, and pull him into the bright space within your chest.

ps: what a wonderful way to end my many months long writers block :’) here’s to the most darling, daring boy :3 i love him so much i’d go to war with him any day he makes me want to bite him and never let go <3

[yuzukiii3]

a prayer in perfect piety (homelander x plus-size reader)

originally written as this prompt here. 18+. 5.2k, f!reader, body image, smut. see AO3 Link for detailed tags.

Homelander invites you, his girlfriend, to your first public event as a couple. He's over the moon to show you off to the world, dressed to the nines and utterly smitten with one another. At some point, he loses track of you in the crowd. Confused, he goes looking for you, only to find you crying your eyes out in a bathroom on an entirely different floor. Someone hurt you, and he's going to put them in their place.

Tonight's gala is a significant one. Not only does Homelander have about a dozen deals to grease with a firm handshake and some oily promises, it's your first time attending one of these events at his side.

He couldn't be prouder.

You took his breath away in your formal wear; a sight to behold that had him clapping his delight. "You're gonna knock them dead," he whispered in your ear, savoring the flustered, breathy way you laughed. Strange now that when he looks for you, Homelander doesn't see you on the event floor. You had gone to get drinks while he spoke with this senator—who has officially lost any and all of his interest in the wake of your disappearance—but you've been gone too long. Like an itch at the back of his neck, something doesn't feel right.

"Ah, apologies, senator, I seem to have misplaced my date," he says, flashing his best award winning smile. "Gimme a minute to find her. Make sure she hasn't gotten herself into any trouble," he says, throwing in a wink for good measure. His pleasant expression falls off as soon as his back is turned to the boring little man. When Homelander doesn't find you on the event floor, he steps out. He listens for you, filtering out the music, the chatter, the noise of the world. He seeks what is familiar to him, what he would know from a meter or a mile away, and what he hears puts a lump of ice into his gut. You're crying . Homelander moves swiftly down the hall, finding the women's bathroom in a heartbeat. You've gone far from the  event floor, bypassing the nearer bathroom to use one further away. You're hiding, he realizes, but he can't fathom what from. He moves faster, imagining that you're hurt, that someone has you, that— "Babe?!" Homelander calls sharply, slamming open the door. He doesn't mean to scare you, but he can see in your expression that he did. Your eyes are wide and red, tears trailing black mascara down your cheeks. You stand with your hand lingering on the bathroom sink, and as the shock fades, your expression falters. He's never seen you look so... sad. It twists in him like a hot knife, the discomfort he feels at it turning immediately into rage. Anger comes quickly and easily to him. His voice is low when he demands, "Tell me what happened." "It's nothing," you try to dismiss, picking up the tissues you dropped on the floor to toss them into the garbage. "I just got overwhelmed at the party." "You're crying in a bathroom a floor down from the event, it is categorically not nothing," he argues, taking hold of your arms once he's near enough. He pulls you into him, lifting a hand to cup the side of your face. Thanks to plenty of experience with makeup in film and television, he knows better than to smear the blackened tears on your cheeks, though the impulse to wipe them away is there. "C'mon. Tell me." You lean into him as you always do. He is a pillar, just as you have been for him. He can't stand seeing you like this. "I don't belong here. I don't... talk, or dress, or look like these people. They're all..." You lift your hands, gesturing vaguely. Your voice sounds hoarse. He can't bear the sadness in it. "Perfect." "You have to be kidding me," Homelander says, his disbelief genuine. "The gaggle of sycophants and suits back there? They're insipid. Boring as all hell. I can't even tolerate being in the same room as them without you anymore," he says, huffing a laugh in an attempt to ease your mood. Anything to bring back your smile. "Seriously, what brought this on? You've never given a shit about all that pomp before." Your gaze drops. He knows you're hiding something from him. "Hey, c'mon," he coos, using the knuckle of his index finger to tilt your chin back up. "Tell me, and I will make it better." One way or another. With visible reluctance, you take a breath. "I... went to get a drink, like I said," you begin, fidgeting with the zipper on his glove. "When a group of people kind of cornered me at the bar. They seemed nice at first, they were asking questions about me, about us, which I know you said to expect, but then..."

Your eyes prickle, he can see fresh tears well up as you speak. Homelander slips a hand to your back, rubbing it, his brow furrowed. Sounds like someone's going to die. "One of them commented on my dress, she said that... Vought must not be used to dressing women my size," you say, voice falling quieter with every word. New tears fall. Homelander's jaw tenses. He looks away from you, blinking back that familiar crimson burn.

"They all started laughing, and I just wanted to disappear," you say, a tight little sob escaping your throat as Homelander pulls you in against his chest, rubbing your back. "I'm sorry I didn't-"

"No," Homelander interrupts, his anger making the word sound harsher than he intended. "No," he says again, correcting himself to be gentler. This rage isn't for you, after all. "No apologies. Let's get you cleaned up, alright? Get back out there."

Someone is definitely going to die.

You tense up, pushing back from his arms to look up at him. "Please, I'd really like to just go home."

"We will," he assures you, smoothing his hands up and down your arms. "Soon. I want you to show me the group who spoke to you."

"I don't want to cause a scene," you plead, flattening your hands to his chest. "They're not worth it."

"No, they're not. But you are," he says, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your lips. He holds you firm until he feels you begin to melt, yielding to the warmth of him. “Let me make this better.”

By the time he draws back, you look sufficiently pliant. "Okay," you say quietly. He bites back a predatory smirk. "Nothing too dramatic, please?" You plea, leveling him with an attempt at a firm look, despite your big watery eyes. He’s never been less intimidated in his life, and never more endeared.

"Me? Dramatic?" He asks, feigning outrage.

"I mean it," you stress, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

There it is, Homelander thinks. There is not a single heinous thing he would not do to see you smile. "Relax," he purrs. "I'll handle this."

When the two of you return to the event floor, it only takes you a moment to point out the offending group. With an arm wrapped securely around your waist, Homelander brazenly guides you to them. He feels you squeeze his hand  anxiously, but he isn't the least bit deterred. "Heyyy, what's up!" Homelander greets boisterously, bulldozing into their conversation with the friendliest of tone. Only you are wise enough to recognize the venom dripping from the corners of his mouth. His canines glint sharply in the light, eager for a bloody meal. The air is strange, a mixture of drunken excitement and surprised nervousness. It's not every day Homelander himself steps into your conversation. A few of them look at you before they exchange  glances, but clearly enough alcohol has been imbibed that they're feeling brave. They don't see the danger they're in.

Homelander runs his tongue along his teeth. Clueless fucking idiots."Homelander, oh my god! I was hoping to run into you," one of the women announces. He can smell the liquor on her breath when she leans in, putting a bold hand on his arm opposite to the one he holds you with. "I'm such a fan, you have no idea. I've seen every one of your movies," she says, flushed giddy. "Always great to meet such a dedicated fan," he says, lying through his teeth. A glance through the material of her bag gives him exactly what he needs; her Vought security badge. She works in communications. "Kathleen, right? In Communications," he says, pointing a finger at her, his eyes slightly narrowed, as if he's just now recalling this information.

"Oh, I-wow, yes! I can't believe you know who I am," she says, glancing back at her companions. "I try to know everyone I work with," he lies smoothly, subtly shrugging her hand off of his shoulder, placing his hand on his hip. Not all of them work for Vought, but all of them have their ID on them. A quick flit of his super powered vision between them is all it takes for him to know each and every one of their names. Homelander cocks his head to the side, giving her a once over. Her dress is richly patterned, a myriad of black, white and red. The belt bears a familiar double C logo.

“Wow, Kathleen, look at you. Chanel, huh? Oh, wait…,” he stops himself, leaning forward to take a better look at the details of the dress. He clicks his tongue, standing straight. “Nooope, I misspoke. Chanel doesn’t bleed. Not a bad knock-off, though,” he says with a brief downturn of his lips, shrugging. Immediately, all eyes fall on Kathleen. There are a couple of stifled giggles and some childish oohh's . The man to her left, seeming eager to play along with Homelander’s little game of Mean Girls, readily chimes in, “Busted.” “I’d be quiet if I were you, Chuck,” Homelander says, rounding on the man so sharply, his laughter falls immediately silent. The shock on his face is understandable. He doesn't work for Vought. Homelander has no right to know his name.  “I can smell the red paint on the bottom of those misshapen Johnston & Murphy’s you’re trying to pass off as Louis Vuitton. Now that’s embarrassing.” This time, no one’s laughing. There’s no mirth left in Homelander’s voice, and they've all finally realized it. His gaze is drifting from one potential prey to the next, his mouth set in an unyielding line. He lifts his brows, waiting for them to continue their jeering. “What? No one has anything to say to that? How about you, Jason?” He asks, startling one of the other men. “Why don’t we talk about those fucking ugly veneers of yours? I mean, god damn . I’ve never seen a more square smile in my life. It’s like staring at white slatwall every time you open your mouth.” Homelander begins to laugh. The sound of it is thorned, vicious to behold. “Aww, c’mon, don’t be so fucking sensitive . You wanted to have a laugh at my girl, right? Let’s laugh, then,” he says, lifting a gloved hand to snap his fingers impatiently, demanding, “Laugh!” Like a bark from an obedient dog, a single man amidst the group forces a stilted laugh.

Homelander hones in on him with the precision of a heat seeking missile, dropping his hand. Deadpan, he asks, “Something funny, Jim?”

Jim audibly gulps. “Y-you said-”

"Y'see, that's your problem. You're all just a bunch of fucking sheep, so desperate to be seen as somebody, you end up being no one at all. If you put half the effort you put into kissing ass into a personality, you might be a fraction as interesting as she is," he says, gesturing to you with the hand he doesn't have holding you close. "But instead you prop yourselves up on all this..." Homelander spins his hand loosely through the air before sighing, "Bullshit. It's boring. You're all so fucking boring and miserable with yourselves. You reek of it," he says, lip twitching in a near snarl. "Go. Get the fuck out of my tower,” he rumbles, voice set low. “All of you. Before I throw you off the balcony myself.” There's a pregnant pause before Homelander snaps, "Now!" Like roaches, all of them scatter. Homelander watches them with a sneer. He would have preferred literally tearing them apart, but it's neither the time nor the place.

"Holy shit," you whisper.

Homelander hums quietly, turning to look down at you. Before he can say a word, you grab hold of the back of his neck and kiss him senseless. He grins against your lips, turning to pull you properly into his arms. His ego swells immediately, the kiss speaking volumes. You're pleased. Pleased with him. He greedily soaks up the feeling of your body against his, lips moving against yours, eager to chase away the salty smell of your tears with something a little more salacious.

The two of you break apart before the kiss becomes any more scandalous than it already is, the buzz of the crowd around you dulled by the fervency pulsing between your bodies. "That was... the hottest thing anyone has ever done for me," you whisper, your heart beating heavily in your chest. "Hottest thing so far ,” he says, smiling wolfishly. He gives your plush hips a squeeze, licking his lips. ”Because this dress on your body has been driving me wild . All. Night. Long," he says, punctuating each word with a kiss. “And I cannot wait to tear it off you.” You bite your lip, inhaling a sharp, flustered little breath. "Can we get out of here yet?"

"You're damn right we can," he says, kissing you again.

Homelander slips away from the venue without an ounce of fanfare, half because you’re so eager to be home, and half because he knows Stan Edgar will be pissed that he took off without shaking the hand of every single political figure the man wants a finger in the pie of.

Fuck Stan Edgar, and especially fuck every one of the brownnosing nobodies invited to that sycophantic cesspit.

The only person in the world he cares about right now is you. ~~~ He wasn’t kidding about the dress. The second he has you back in his room, he’s pushing it off your shoulders, trailing kisses from your neck to your chest. He drags the fabric down until it’s pooling around your waist. You gasp so sweetly in his ear when he snaps your bra apart in a single tug, leaving your upper half bare. 

Your breasts hang heavy and flawless, soft in his gloved hands as he fondles them. “Love your tits,” he says, sucking your nipple into his mouth, coaxing it with his tongue until it’s hard, and you’re squirming in his arms, panting and pulling at his hair. He comes off of it with a wet pop. He cups your ass in both hands, grinds against your thigh so that you can feel how hard he is. “You’re so fucking soft. Wanna fuck ‘em, wanna fuck your tits.”

Those idiots at the gala had no goddamn clue what they were talking about. They were jealous of you, jealous knowing that it wouldn’t be any of their sorry asses he was going to worship inside and out tonight. They wanted to be you, or they wanted to be him, and they were stained an ugly green in their envy. He should have punched their hearts clean out of their chests for making you feel anything less than perfect. 

You–the divine creature you are–nod your assent, breathless and flushed. You’re staring up at him with reverence that runs deeper than the insipid glee he sees in the hoards of livestock he tends to every day: the American populace. You aren’t just awestruck by him, you love him. He wants to devour you for it.

“Okay,” you say, eager and sweet. He lets you take a step back from him. “Do it. I want you to.”

Homelander watches you drop down onto the bed, intently tracks every bounce of your body. He steps towards you, and takes in the sight of you while you work on unbuckling his pants. He touches your hair, cups your cheek. He likes the way your skin looks against the crimson of his gloves, wants to see you stripped down bare and ruined by your hero, your god. Tipping his head back, he stares up at the mirrored ceiling above his bed, lets out a soft groan at the sight of you both.

The suit is carved into the shape of an adonis, rippling muscles that jut and curve. It creates the illusion of the body people expect from a man who can bend steel with his bare hands. It’s everything he should be. He sucks in a sharp breath when you free his cock, but he stops you when you go to push his pants down, grabbing hold of your wrists. “Not yet. Leave ‘em,” he says, distracting you by bringing your hands to your chest. 

“Hold ‘em up for me, alright? That’s it, there you go, just like that,” he says, licking his lips. He takes hold of his cock, and takes a step closer, nudging the leaking head of it under your breasts. There’s not enough slip to be comfortable for either of you, so he leans over to the bedside table and pops open the drawer, pulling out a bottle of lube. With a brief flash from his laser vision, he warms the bottle.

“Lean your head back,” he says, and you do. You look like a work of art, your breasts heavy in your hands, spilling between your fingers where you’re holding them up, pressed together nice and tight. He drizzles the warm lube all across your chest, watches with perverse hunger as it rolls down the slopes of your body. Admittedly, he goes a little overboard, taken in by the image it paints.

“Too much,” you say, but he gives the bottle an additional cheeky little squeeze anyways.

“Can’t help it,” he says, tossing the bottle back into the drawer. “Y’look like a goddamn porn star.”

He can feel the heat of your flush. Somehow, you look demure, even as you sit naked from the waist up, holding your breasts for him to fuck. “Will you fuck me like one?” You ask, and Christ, he feels your words like punches to the gut.

“Is that what you want?” He puts his hands on yours, and slips his cock between your slick breasts, rocking his hips slowly. They feel unreal, enveloping him, impossibly supple and warm. “Want me to fuck you like the whole world’s watching?”

Your blush deepens, crawls all the way down from your cheeks to your chest, where he can feel the heat of it all around his cock. Holding his gaze, you nod, too flustered to respond verbally, which only drives him wilder.

All the while, he can smell your building arousal. The wetter you get, the more his head spins, focusing on the nuances of it: the damp smell of those pretty silky panties he bought you, the way you’re subtly rocking your hips like he won’t notice, seeking any friction at all to feed your own mounting desire.

He’ll have to resist ripping those panties off you. He wants to keep them as a trophy. The smooth slip of your breasts is sweeter than words, but as he thrusts faster, he aches for more. More tension, more friction, more everything. Homelander groans roughly, and pushes you down onto the bed sharply enough that you yelp, falling back harmlessly onto the plush bedding. He wastes no time in tearing the dress from your body, to which you make a noise of protest.

“But–you got that for me, I-” “I’ll get you another,” he dismisses. “I’ll get you ten of them, twenty. You’ll have everything. You understand me?” He drags his hands down your sides, hooks his fingers on the hips of your panties to slide them off. Those? Those he tucks into his pocket. “You’ll have everything.” He dips his hand between your legs, gloves slick with residual lube, and rubs your wet entrance with the leather clad tip of his middle finger. He pushes it in deep.

“I already do,” you gasp, reaching for him. He leans over you, lets you take hold of his hair, his cheek, obliges you when you pull him in to kiss. His hunger is barely contained, leaving him in sharp little nips to your bottom lip, and the ravenous press of his tongue into your mouth. He slips another finger into you, crooks them wickedly as he rocks them in and out, turning your voice thin and breathy. “You are everything to me.”

“Keep talking,” Homelander tells you, drawing out of your hold. He kneels at the edge of the bed and hikes your legs up over his shoulders, mindful of his pauldrons. He never stops pumping his fingers, keeps his pace steady while he leans in and sucks your clit between his lips. You jerk up, but you’re powerless against his hold. 

“You’re so good to me,” you breathe, tangling your fingers in his hair. He’s never fingered you with his gloves on before, but you’re certainly not complaining. You’re moving with him now, pushing into every thrust, moaning. “You’re so beautiful. O-oh, god, I could watch you forever.” Homelander’s gaze flickers up. He realizes you’re not looking at him, but at the mirror above you. He smirks, nuzzling in against you, enjoying that you’re watching him ruin you. You used to hide from that mirror, stay under the covers as much as you could. Now look at you, splayed out beneath it, enraptured by the vision of him swallowing you down. He preens with your words, shakes his head against you. Drags his tongue through the wet mess and fucks you deeper, firmer. He keeps going until your litany of praise and prayer falls off into sharp gasps and wordless euphoria.

He can taste your orgasm when it hits, smell it in the chemistry of your body. Your clit throbs wildly against his tongue, and he sucks it greedily. He doesn’t stop until you’re nearly sobbing from whe overwhelm of sensation, pushing him back with frail, exquisitely delicate efforts. He could hold you down if he wanted to, it would be easy to wring another bursting climax from you, but he relents.

This time.

 Standing up, Homelander drags his gloved hand over his mouth, wiping away the majority of the mess. He unzips both gloves, and tosses them to the side. He wants to feel what he’s about to do next.

You look heavenly, sprawled out loose-limbed and spent, but there is such fire in your eyes when he meets your gaze. “I didn’t forget,” you say, to which he quirks a brow. “Like a pornstar,” you remind him, and he grins.

Effortlessly, Homelander flips you onto your stomach. He loves the way you giggle when he manhandles you, moving you as though you weigh nothing at all. To him, you don’t. You’re light as a feather, and he uses that to his every advantage. He lifts you up onto your knees, brings you right to the edge of the bed, and presses in close behind you. He grabs two helping handfuls of your ass, kneads it while he grinds his cock along the line of it. He gives an appreciative little slap.

You moan, resting your head atop your folded arms. Despite your release, there is neediness etched into your every movement: the anticipation in how you spread your legs, impatiently rocking back into his hands, your nails clawing at the bedding. He’s more aware of your body than you ever will be. He drags it out a while longer, finds your clit with the head of his cock and grinds against it. 

“Stop teasing me,” you whine, trying to push back against him, but he holds you easily in place. He licks his lips, his own cock achingly hard. “Tell me then, sweetheart,” he says, his voice reduced to a low rasp. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you say without hesitation, twisting your grip in the bedding.

“Specifics,” he pushes, his ego nearly as demanding as his cock.

“Put your cock inside me and pound me until your name is the only one I know,” you say, voice wrung tight and impatient. “Please, please, I want you in me. I need to feel you. You make me feel so good , please–”

Fuck, your voice drives him insane. He’s maddened by the eagerness with which you appeal to him, the sincerity in it even when he’s edging you, toying with you, riling you up to see if you’ll crack, to see if you’ll lose this perfect sweetness in the way you profess your love and your need, but you never do. He aches for it, he never wants to stop digging it out of you.

Your string of adulation is cut short when he finally lines himself up and pulls you back onto his cock, wringing a keening moan from you, a noise of relief and pleasure and agony all at once. He’s only barely breached you with the head of his cock. It isn’t nearly enough to satisfy you. You want more. You want all of him. You want to be fucked by Homelander’s fat cock.

Tipping his head back, he stares up at himself, dressed still in red, white and blue while you’re stripped naked, wearing worship and vulnerability more beautifully than he’s ever seen it. He grabs hold of your hips and steadies you, sinks you back onto his cock in one smooth pull. You make a noise that goes straight to the heat at the core of him, feeding it like kindling to the flames.

“Look at you,” he moans, watching both of your reflections. He alternates between the curves of your body, and meeting his own eye. “So fucking perfect .”

Sliding his hands up your sides, he drops his head to kiss a trail up your spine. He cups your breasts, fondles your nipples with his thumbs. They feel so much better in his bare hands, soft and still slightly slick. He gives a shuddering moan and picks up a steady pace, kneading them against your chest while he starts to fuck you in earnest. 

You asked him to make you forget everything but his name. That’s exactly his intent as he pounds into you. Holding you steady against the sharp slap of his hips, he’s moving so relentlessly that you can’t get in enough air to string together any of those pretty words. He doesn’t care anymore, the gasps and half-sobs of pleasure each thrust knocks out of you are music to his ears. He’s already walking the wire’s edge, so hard and sensitive that it almost hurts. Dropping one hand from your chest, he takes those slick fingers and presses the middle to your clit, cradling your belly against his arm, sinking again and again into the sweet, wet softness of you, wanting only to ever be closer, deeper. He moans when the contact makes your pussy tighten up. He barely has to move his finger when he’s fucking you fast and hard enough to jostle you against it. You come again, and this time, you pull him over the edge with you.

Homelander slams in deep, practically growling against you as load after load spills into you in wet pumps. He comes so hard his vision tunnels for a split second. It takes him a full minute to recover, to feel as though his soul has tethered itself back to his body.

Carefully, suspecting you will be tender, he withdraws from you, gentle in the way he helps you sink back down onto the bed. He lets out a long, slow exhale. Christ.

While he had expected you to immediately melt into a pile of goo on the bed, you surprise him by sitting up, adjusting until you’re sitting in front of him. He begins to usher you back, get you comfortable down on the pillows, but as weak and lovely as you are, you refuse it. “Let me undress you now,” you say, unbuttoning the lapel of his suit top. Reflexively, he stops you, hand exceedingly delicate on your wrist.

“Yeah,” he says, still coming down from the high. With it, those complicated feelings from earlier come bubbling back to the surface. “Yeah, in a minute. Lay down.”

Still, you do not.

“You love my body so well,” you say, tone supplicating. He nearly flinches, a part of him hating that you know him well enough to know to speak so tenderly in this moment. “Let me love yours, too. Please.”

Disarmed, Homelander slowly drops his hands to his sides. With a kind smile, you unfasten his top, working it off of his shoulders until it falls to the ground. Up on your knees, you rest your hands on his shoulders, and he begins his hands to your waist. He watches the top of your head as you kiss the center of his chest, then the left side, then the right. You pepper these saccharine touches all over his torso, murmuring sweet nothings against his skin all the while.

Eventually, without his permission, his vision begins to blur. He blinks it back stubbornly, caught off guard by the sudden threat of tears. Why is this happening? He’s happy.

You work his pants off as well, sweeping your hands down his slender thighs. They’re nothing like the carved musculature of his suit. He pets your hair, his other hand sliding to the back of your neck as you kiss your way back up to his chest. Your hands glide down his shoulders, his arms, and you squeeze. He flexes subconsciously, though it does little to make up for the bulk missing from his suit. His heart falls into his stomach when you meet his gaze, and he sees your expression falter.

“I’m fine,” he says reflexively.

“I know,” you say, ever so persistently gentle. “I love you so much. Every part of you–” you say, tracing your hands down his sides, to the sharp jut of his hips. “–is so unbelievably beautiful. Sometimes I can’t believe that it’s mine,” you say wistfully, leaning in to kiss his throat, his jaw.

Closing his eyes, Homelander wraps his arms around you, cradling your head in the crook of his neck. “I love you,” he echoes, voice little more than a low rasp. You coax him under the blankets with you, your body a relief to sink in against. You wrap your arms around his waist, and he tucks your head in under his chin, your legs easily tangling together. There is an ease in the way your bodies slot against one another, as if they were always meant to.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“What for?” He asks, absently stroking your hair.

“Everything. For defending me. For loving me. For seeing me. Just… For all of it. Thank you,” you say, squeezing him as tight as you can. Somehow, despite the disparity in your strength, it’s the most securely held he’s ever felt.

Homelander is rendered speechless by it. He squeezes you in turn, nuzzling in against the top of your head. He feels warm and heavy all over, lost to the steady beat of your heart. Your heart, this precious, bleeding thing that you’ve given him so wholly and freely. He would think it foolish if he was not so painfully aware that you, too, hold his heart in your hands. It is a mangled, ugly thing, battered and discolored from years of misuse, but it is yours nonetheless.

Now more than ever, he thinks that it’s never been safer.

[yuzukiii3]

The Athenaeum Portrait

18+ 4.7k homelander x f!reader. established relationship, first time having sex, reader has a complicated relationship with sex, abuse of superpowers for cunnilingus, overstimulation, penetrative sex, lite sublander, praise kink, slight coercion, unhealthy dynamics, implied codependency, implied verbal abuse.

Your relationship with Homelander is a delicious, precarious thing. Like a perfectly ripe peach, its closeness to something bruised and rotten makes it all the sweeter.

AO3 link. inspired by this anonymous prompt. thank you! 🖤

Homelander did not enter your life so much as he bull-rushed into it, a living whirlwind that uprooted you and hurled you into a familiar yet strange new world as unceremoniously as the tornado that took Dorothy to Oz. 

Vought Tower sparkles just as vibrant as the Emerald City, and provides no less surreal of a backdrop to your new life. Homelander's penthouse is a bizarre caricature of personhood, loaded with hundreds of years of American history. It would ring false, just another aspect of his brand, if not for the fact he can—and often does—regale you with a laundry list of historical facts on any piece in the collection.

This is how you find out that Gilbert Stuart is one of his favorite painters. When you ask Homelander why that is, he shrugs. "He painted over a thousand portraits, and he's most famous for the one he didn't finish. Ironic, huh?"

The Athenaeum Portrait, it's called. An unfinished portrait of George Washington that was replicated and sold by Stuart over a hundred times before his death.

The original was never completed.

The more time you spend in proximity to him, the more you start to understand why the piece resonates with him. You see replicas of him sold throughout the world on a daily basis, his face synonymous with Vought’s branding. There is a completeness to the commercial image of Homelander, America’s wholesome hero, but behind closed doors, you see his frayed and unfinished edges.

You feel his desperation for someone who will complete him in the way he touches you. He takes hold of your hands and brings them to the places where he is sketched at best, a ready and yielding canvas for your fingers. He likes when you stroke his hair, and sometimes touching his face turns his eyes glassy. There is a woundedness to the way he seeks your love, like he’s never entirely sure whether to expect the carrot or the stick.

You’ve never raised the stick to him, but it’s clear that those who came before you certainly did. It’s difficult to imagine that a man as powerful as him has been hurt like this, but he is a painfully obvious man at times, wearing his emotions like the scars his impervious body will never show.

When you lie down to read on the couch, he’s drawn to you like a magnet. He has no problem making space for himself within your bubble, sprawling on top of you, snaking his arms around your middle, his head settled on your sternum. You smile to yourself and rest your book on the top of his head as you read.

He gives a small grunt of complaint, but you’re fairly certain he’s smiling, too.

For every night of domestic bliss, so too are there sudden perils. Unexplained nights of absence, wild mood swings, fits of paranoia. He fights as many battles in his own mind as he does on the city streets and on foreign soil, a living weapon used to the fullest extent by Vought and the American government.

It feels like you lose him temporarily, like he becomes someone else. He paces around you like a caged tiger with his teeth bared, daring you to give him a reason to bite. You never do, and he never does, but sometimes you worry just how close of a call it was.

Occasionally he comes to you spattered in muck and bloody viscera. On these nights, he can’t seem to comprehend your presence, your gentleness, your love. It’s as if these concepts ring false in the wake of everything he has been made to endure. It’s suspicious to him that you would love something so repulsive, so opposite of everything Vought has polished his image into being.

He screams at you for this, takes you by the shoulders and demands you explain what he cannot understand, but you can’t. You can’t explain something that you don’t always understand.

Your relationship with Homelander is a delicious, precarious thing. Like a perfectly ripe peach, its closeness to something bruised and rotten makes it all the sweeter.

When things are good, they’re very good. He’s sweet, a romantic who learned everything he knows about romance from jewelry ads and Valentine’s Day specials. He brings you roses on random days of the week and adores showering you in gifts, especially the kind you wear. He tends to gravitate towards soft, velvety fabrics for your clothes because he likes the feel of them. He buys you perfumes that smell like vanilla and pink pepper. He likes fresh, warm scents. Nothing too floral or artificial.

Most importantly, he likes you. There’s rarely a day that the two of you don’t make each other laugh. His sense of humor is strange, but in the same way that yours is. Sometimes it feels like you’re two aliens creating a brand new language that only the two of you will ever know. The more time you spend together, the less the people outside of your relationship seem to understand you.

Not that it matters much. You spend the majority of your time with him these days, consumed by the excitement of this thrilling new thing the two of you share. Homelander is profoundly tactile, always needing to feel or touch you in some way. He loves to kiss you, content to make out languidly with you until your lips start to chap.

You’ve learned to keep lip balm on hand at all times.

Inevitably though, his hunger for intimacy outgrows quaint touches and kisses. You’re cuddled up together on his couch, only half paying attention to the movie playing. Homelander is nuzzling at your neck, pressing warm, wet kisses to it while his gloved hand slips beneath your shirt, fondling your breast through your bra. There’s something endearingly innocent about it, like a fumbling teenager piloting the body of a man in his forties.

Sex is nice enough. You have nothing against the act, but you’ve never felt as though you get as much out of it as the partners you’ve had in the past. Homelander’s touch feels good to you because it’s his, and because you know he wants to make you feel good in his enjoyment of you. You reciprocate by pushing your fingers into his hair, nails scraping along his scalp, eliciting a sweet, rumbling moan from him against your neck.

“Want you,” he mumbles fervently against your skin, his need so palpable it gives you goosebumps. “Can I have you?”

You knew this was coming. It’s not that you don’t want to fuck him, it’s that he’s not the only one whose portrait feels incomplete. You’re a fully grown adult, and never in your life have you managed to pleasure yourself to completion. In your youth, you’d just faked it for partners once you’d had your fill. With Homelander, you’re not even sure that would work. You’re not sure you would want it to.

He’s got a thing about lies, even little white ones.

You swallow and softly say, “Yes.” Ultimately, you do want him to have you. You just hope that what he gets doesn’t disappoint him.

He smiles into the crook of your neck, withdrawing his hand from beneath your shirt. He kisses you as he gathers you effortlessly up into his arms, carrying you to his bedroom. His strength is another aspect of why sex has made you nervous: the internet is full of horror stories of accidental sexual mutilation occurring between humans and supes. 

However, Homelander seems hyper aware of your fragility versus his power. He’s never harmed you. It seems to come naturally to him after years and years of navigating a world not made to withstand him. In the same way you’re capable of handling an egg without shattering it, he has learned how to hold you.

He lays you down on the bed, and then begins the ritual of shedding his signature suit, starting with his belt. You recline, content to watch him, but your gaze seems to make him uncharacteristically self conscious. You’ve never seen him without his suit before, another little quirk that you’ve largely just accepted to this point.

“Aren’t you gonna…” He gestures vaguely to you, expecting you to undress as well.

“Just enjoying the show,” you say coyly, attempting to lighten up a bit of the tension in his expression.

It doesn’t work. The furrow of his brows deepens slightly. “Ah, well. Y’know, the suit, they uh, pad it up some, so don’t–it’s different,” he says, fumbling over his words.

Your expression softens. “I know. It’s okay. I’m excited to see you,” you say, sitting up. In solidarity, you pull your shirt off first, and then wiggle out of your pants, kicking them off the bed. Homelander smiles at this, and works his pants off the rest of the way, kicking off his boots as well, leaving behind just a pair of dark red briefs. You sit up on your knees to help him with the fastenings of his suit top, which he seems to be the most apprehensive about.

To distract him from it, you kiss him. He melts eagerly into the press of your lips, slipping his tongue between yours with that same hunger to taste, to feel, to have. He’s bolder now that you’re no longer playing the part of spectator, shrugging his top from his shoulders and letting it fall with a surprisingly heavy thud to the floor. His ungloved hands skim up your sides, warm and positively thrumming with excitement.

You explore him as well, mapping out the slopes of his body that have previously been hidden from you. He’s leaner, more manageable than the ridiculous bulk of the suit. Part of you had always assumed there was a level of exaggeration in the chiseled, over the top musculature of the suit, but his build is still more slender than you expected. Regardless, it does nothing to detract from his raw strength as he catches you by the backs of your thighs and flips you onto your back, startling out a giddy bark of laughter from you.

He grins down at you, descending to catch you in another slow, consuming kiss, making space for himself between your legs. His lips trail from yours to the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your neck. He turns his head to messily suck two fingers into his mouth, and then slips his hand down the front of your underwear. He finds your clit with surprising precision–someone definitely taught him that–and begins to rub slow figure-eights over it, as gentle as he is deft. It does feel good, so you close your eyes and try to simply enjoy it for what it is, for the touch and warmth and intimacy of it all.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t come. This is still nice. You can feel his desire for you in the heat of his body, in the hot huffs of his breath wafting across your skin between kisses. He eventually slips a single finger inside you, patiently working you open. You drag your nails up his back and into his hair, breathing deeply, willing your mind to pause and let you experience this pleasantry in the same way you would a hot bath or a nice massage.

However, no matter how you try, the looming matter of expectation weighs heavily on your mind. You’ve never been comfortable with the attention being solely on your pleasure: it feels like dangling a treat in front of someone on a treadmill. They’re running for something they’ll never reach.

“Hey,” Homelander calls quietly, yanking you from your mental downward spiral. You see him above you, no longer tucked against you, working your skin with his lips and teeth. His brows are slightly furrowed. “You’re quiet. Am I doing something wrong?”

“No,” you exhale, the question immediately putting a wash of guilt through you. “No, not at all, feels good. I’m just really in my head right now,” you admit, cupping either side of his face. “You’re doing great, I’m ready. I want you inside me,” you tell him in a breathless flurry, pulling him down into a kiss. 

He does relax at that, sinking in against you for a moment before lifting himself back up. He shucks his underwear down and then pulls yours off as well, lifting both of your legs over his shoulder as he slips the panties completely off of you. While he does that, you unclasp and toss your bra aside. He turns his head to kiss the side of your leg before he lowers them both back down around his waist, lowering himself back down atop you.

The thick head of his cock presses wetly to your cunt, sliding up and down, spreading his slick and yours. You can already feel his excitement in the tension of his body, his shoulders drawn tight beneath your hands. You knead them, rolling your palms against steel-woven muscle. “That’s it,” you encourage, working to relax the both of you. “Nice and slow, mmm… Fuck, you’re big,” you say, biting your lip as he spreads you around the girth of his cock.

“You’re tight,” he moans in response, already sounding frayed. He moves his hips in slow, slightly jerky motions–clearly holding back for your comfort–until he finally bottoms out, keening so sweetly in your ear you can’t help but stroke his hair, hushing him.

“Good, good, feel so good in me,” you coo, the words a familiar script. He shudders for the praise, kissing down your chest, mouthing hungrily at your breast, the same he’d been fondling earlier. His mouth is hot and wet, perfectly pleasant as he sucks at your nipple, moaning into your skin. You cradle his head in both hands, adjusting to the onslaught of sensation. 

It’s been awhile since anyone fucked you. The feel of it is just as alien as you remember, but you’re distracted by the persistent swirl of his tongue alternating with the pull of his lips as he lavishes attention on one breast, and then the other. With his bare skin against yours, you’re more aware than ever of the superhuman frequency of his body, how he seems to literally vibrate with restraint and eagerness in equal measure. It’s like there is a line of semi trucks driving by you, the bed itself buzzing with it.

“You’re amazing,” you marvel quietly, tightening your legs on either side of him to feel that preternatural hum against even more of your skin, tingling your inner thighs. “You feel amazing.”

He grunts out a needy, strained noise at that, followed by a jagged thrust deep into you. To your surprise, you realize then that he’s coming apart, dull nails biting crescent marks into your skin, clutching you as tightly as he dare allow himself. You thought that maybe his powers would give him superhuman stamina as well, that he might fuck you raw before he came, but if the shaky cadence of his thrusts are any indication, he’s already holding himself back.

“I can feel how bad you wanna come,” you murmur, carding your fingers through his hair. “Mm? You can, you can come in me,” you say, feeling his whole body shiver from your words. You clench, tightening up around his cock so suddenly that it makes him gasp.

“Fffuck, fuck, oh god, y’can’t–fucking Christ, you–mmm, fuck!” He rasps, choking on his own breath as he comes, burying his face between your breasts at the same time he slams in deep, fading into tight, erotic little whimpers as he loses himself to the rhythmic clench of your cunt. You do it purposefully, milking him of his orgasm, enamored with how thoroughly you’ve reduced a demigod to these simpering noises. The flood of come is hot inside you, already dripping out where your bodies are connected.

All that, and he still never lost control. You doubt his fingerprints will even bruise, though you find a part of yourself wishing they would. 

Homelander comes down gradually from his high, limp against you, breathing shallowly against your skin. He looks dazed, eyes only half open. It’s cute, which isn’t a word you necessarily would have ever thought to associate with The Homelander before you started dating him. When he looks up at you, you smile, already more satisfied than you’ve been with sex in your life.

“That was playing dirty,” he tells you, voice a touch fried.

“I just wanted to make you feel good,” you respond simply, watching as he nuzzles into your hand.

He rumbles out a low hum, kissing your palm. “Which means it’s my turn to make you feel good,” he says, moving to slide out of your hands. You stop him, taking hold of his arm.

“You don’t need to,” you assure him, tugging gently to lure him back up. “Really. That felt incredible.”

He frowns, looking every bit like a confused puppy. “But you didn’t come.”

“I know,” you say, that ball of tightness coiling back up in your gut. “It’s okay.”

He exhales an incredulous little scoff. “What kind of boyfriend d’you take me for? I’m gonna make you come,” he says, shrugging off your hand as he moves down your body, sliding out of you.

“Homelander,” you implore, reaching out for him. “Really, it’s okay, you don’t need to–”

“What, you don’t think I can?” He asks. You can see the challenge in his eyes, but you also recognize the potential of a stinging wound to his ego in those words.

You sigh, folding your arm over your eyes as you lay your head back. “It’s not that I don’t think you specifically can, I’m… Eugh.” You take a deep breath. “It’s not something that I do. I can’t. I’ve never been able to,” you say to the darkness of your arm, fingers rolling apprehensively. “And I don’t want you to take this as some kind of challenge, and then be upset when it doesn’t happen,” you say, speaking from very specific experience.

The space between you is silent for long enough that your curiosity beats out your apprehension, and you lower your arm. Homelander stares at you from between your legs, expression pinched, eyes flickering slightly, as if he’s solving the world’s most complicated puzzle in his brain. His eyes narrow softly, his bewilderment showing.

“Like… You haven’t come… Ever?”

“Ever,” you confirm. “It’s not that I haven’t tried, there’s just something broken.”

He processes that a moment longer. “But all of this still felt good, at least… Yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course it did, I liked it. You really do feel amazing,” you assure him, lest he think you were lying with what you said earlier. “It just never finishes for me. That’s all.”

“Alright,” he says, the gears in his brain clearly turning. “So. Sure, no crossing the finish line, but I can still, y’know. Take you for a cruise? A little joyride?” He asks, making you laugh softly.

He really is cute. Sweeter than one might expect, too.

“A joyride?” You echo with a quirk of your brow, smiling.

He smiles, too. “Yeah. No destination, just a little drive.”

“I can do a little drive,” you say, feeling that knot of tension in your gut begin to untangle itself.

“Good,” he purrs, shouldering down between your legs. “Gimme that pillow,” he says, which you promptly do. He slides it under your ass, adjusting your hips until the angle is just right. He smooths his hands up and down the outsides of your thighs, glancing up at you. “Now, you just sit back and relax. Close your eyes, and imagine some smooth jazz.”

“I hate jazz,” you laugh.

He laughs as well, breath rolling over your wet pussy in hot waves. “Well, fuck, imagine something you do like.”

Relaxing back against the bed, you exhale a deep breath, closing your eyes. The first wet, hot slide of his tongue makes you jump a little. He responds by gripping your thighs and pinning you still, which does admittedly run a little thrill up your spine. You test his grip by pushing against it, and when that fails, pulling away, but neither grant you any leeway.

“Squirming already?” He asks between drags of his tongue.

“I like feeling your strength,” you say through a pleased little smile.

He gives an intrigued hum at that and spreads your legs wider, forcing them down against the bed. To even your surprise, that pushes a small, thin noise out of you. Encouraged, he presses his tongue inside, lapping up the mess he made inside you. It feels fine enough, but after a bit of his tongue pushing in and out of you, you give his hair a little tug. “Clit,” you say simply, a command he happily obliges, drawing back up to suck your clit between his lips.

Without the looming pressure to achieve some kind of euphoric release at the end, you find yourself more capable of simply enjoying this for what it is. Homelander is good at this, but it’s really his persistence that elevates the experience. At no point do you feel him begin to waver or slow, or shift and breathe in impatience. He’s relentlessly consistent, swirling his tongue and lapping at you like he’s starved for the taste.

You sigh, idly scratching his scalp as you toy with his hair. “Mmm, that feels good,” you say, more aware of the effect your praises have on him. He makes an appreciative noise, nuzzling into your cunt. One odd thing is that your clit is starting to ache in a way you’re unfamiliar with. You shift back a touch, but Homelander pulls you right back in.

“Greedy,” you accuse, which draws a low laugh from him, the rumble of it making you shiver a little. You must be growing oversensitized. You’ve lost track of how long he’s been at this.

He pulls back, and the cool air almost stings for the loss of his hot mouth, but that ache was beginning to grow uncomfortable anyways. You’re just about to thank him for his service when a whole new sensation steals the words right off your tongue. You don’t even know how to describe it: hot, pressure, but weightless. Your whole body jerks, but Homelander keeps you still, forces you to endure whatever the fuck it is he’s doing now.

“Wh-what the fuck is that?” Watching him, comprehension dawns; he’s blowing on your clit, lips pursed, forcing out a concentrated stream of warm, almost hot air that has your thighs quivering in his grasp. “Oh fuck,” you gasp, equal parts bewildered and overwhelmed. You try to close your knees, but once again, his hold is completely unrelenting, keeping them spread wide. Immediately that same ache is skyrocketing back up, spreading tightness low in your belly.

“Hold on,” you groan, gripping his hair tighter. You expect it to end before too long, for him to at least need to inhale, but beyond all logic and reason, he just keeps going. The heat of it is surreal, the weightless pressure of it constant. Your toes curl, heels digging into the bed while every muscle in your body starts to lock up.

Homelander’s gaze flickers up to meet yours, nothing pure wicked delight in his eyes. Just as suddenly, he descends upon you, tongue feeling hotter and wetter than ever as he dotes on your clit with it, focusing it with alarming precision. The abrupt change in sensation makes you thrash, stumbling over a stream of nonsense as you pull at his hair, that aching tightness now so prominent that you can hardly take in a breath.

“That’s enough, that’s–fuck, Homelander, it’s too much, it’s too much, s-stop, s–” your pleas erupt into a gasp because he’s focusing that stream of air right back on you again, the feel of it so surreal, so indescribable that your brain can hardly function around it. Your eyes roll back, you writhe, but he’s so much stronger than you’d ever really wrapped your mind around. He’s entirely unyielding in a way he’s never felt in your arms, against your body on the couch. He’s more inhuman than he’s ever been, and it’s driving you wild. 

Tears gather in your eyes. This  assault of sensation walks the knife’s edge of pain, but never quite falls over it. Your whole body is throbbing, and you feel like you’re going to fucking explode. He twists that knife by taking you again with his tongue, swirling and slick in contrast to the dry pressure of his breath.

“H-Homelander, Homelander, please, I’m–I’m–fuck!”

The world turns white, and suddenly you can’t breathe. You hear yourself make a strained noise you’ve never heard before, but it might as well not even be you. You’re somewhere outside of your own body, floating in a torrent of indescribable sensory input that is so alien to you, you don’t even feel real anymore. Homelander isn’t holding you still anymore, but you can still feel him slowly lapping at your throbbing clit, watching you through foggy eyes as he licks you through your first orgasm, no doubt tasting and smelling the endorphins that flood your body.

Every single taut muscle in your body snaps like the strings of a marionette, leaving you to collapse limply on the bed, panting through it as your soul gradually descends back down into your body. Blissfully, Homelander ceases his torment and joins you, laying sideways with his head propped up in his palm while his other hand rests on your hip, thumb rubbing soothing circles. 

“Oh my God,” you whisper eventually.

“Please, you can still call me Homelander,” he says, sounding just as smug as one would expect him to be after such an accomplishment. If you had any power whatsoever left in your lifeless arm, you’d smack him. However, he quickly makes up for it by drawing you gently into his arms, kissing your forehead. 

“I can’t believe you did that,” you say, more malleable than ever as he adjusts you both beneath the blankets. “I thought I was going to die.” It’s only a slight hyperbole.

Homelander laughs softly, beaming at you with pink cheeks and a sly, delighted little smile. “See? Nothing’s broken,” he murmurs at your ear, catching you off guard. That had been such an offhand remark, you didn’t expect to hear it come back around.

“What if I hadn’t? What if all that, and nothing happened?” You ask, adjusting slightly while he entangles his limbs with yours, bodies slotting together like jigsaw pieces. You’re both jagged in all the right ways, fitting nicely together.

He gives a small shrug, stroking his knuckles up and down your spine. “Still would’a been a hell of a ride. Not everything has to be finished to be good.”

Slowly, you smile. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

Loving Homelander isn’t always easy or good. There are times when he makes it hard, and there are times when you make it hard, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned in this lifetime, nothing worth doing is ever easy. Love may start as an incidental thing, a passion that ignites as readily as tinder, but the upkeep of it is more like pottery. It’s messy, and even once you get the shape of it right, you don’t always know how it will react to the heat necessary to give it solid form. It can be broken, it can be fixed, it can even be remade, but never is one the same as the last.

Still, even when it hurts, when it’s frustrating, when it doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to, the euphoria of creating something so beautiful keeps you coming back to it. When the same love that burns you can also warm you against the cold, coat your throat like honey, and fill your night sky with stars to guide your way in darkness, it becomes impossible to let go of.

To love something is to heal it. Everything that is loved is beautiful, even things that are unsightly, unfinished, unappealing. Even things that are broken.

Finally, you think you understand why Stuart never finished his original painting.

He loved it precisely as it was.

[yuzukiii3]

i'm thinking about john killing someone in front of his s/o, but that was about to kill them so his violent is seem a protectiveness. to be seem bloody and not be feared....

18+ 2.7k homelander x reader, established relationship, gore, blood, morally grey reader? shower sex, fingering, praise kink, breast play, dirty talk, rough sex, count down, needy/possessive/yandere HL, reader is nondescript with f!anatomy.

Homelander is breathing shallowly, eyes wide—wild—blood dripping from his chin and from the stray strands of hair that fell forward when he lunged. He's elbow deep in a man's sternum, and his other hand is wrapped tight around his broken neck, the bones like fragments of glass poking out from beneath rapidly cooling skin.

It all happened in an instant. One second, the man currently in his hands was grabbing you by the hair, a knife swinging wildly towards your throat, and the next he was dangling from Homelander's grasp, heart slowing against his knuckles.

He laughs through his teeth, licking his lips reflexively. The blood is sour, contaminated with god knows what, but that hardly takes away from the thrill of the moment.

It's been a while since he held the gaze of someone whose life he just claimed. Long enough that he forgets where he is, and who he's with.

He drops the man to the ground like a wet sack of potatoes, innards spilling out from the hole his arm leaves behind. In the man's hand, Homelander sees something that sets his teeth on fucking edge: strands of your hair ripped from your scalp in that limp, dead palm.

"You stupid motherfucker," he growls through a crooked sickly smile, lifting his boot to crush the hand like it were nothing more than an insect. The man's heart has long since stopped, but the rapid pound of another is still loud in his ears.

Yours.

Slowly, he turns around to look at you. You're cradling your skull where you'd been grabbed, tears gathering in your wide glassy eyes, the shock of it all catching up to you. You're staring intently at the corpse, watching blood pooling out from beneath it.

You've never looked at him with fear in your eyes before, but that's precisely what he sees when your eyes meet his. It makes him bristle internally. What was he supposed to do? You were in danger, and the way you screamed will follow him into his nightmares.

He could have lost you just now. You could be the one soaking in a puddle of your own blood, losing your life to the press of nothing more than a flimsy metal blade. While Homelander has always been logically aware of your humanity and the tender vulnerability that entails, nothing has ever put it so viscerally in the forefront of his mind as a freak incident coming so close to erasing you from his life.

He did what he had to. You'll understand. You have to understand.

"Hey," he says, hands raised to you placatingly, as if coaxing a spooked wild animal. The blood just makes his crimson gloves look glossy. He blocks your view of the body. "Hey, it's alright."

Your terror is palpable in the race of your heart and the sour smell of adrenaline coursing through you.

He reaches for you with the hand that isn't drenched in viscera, but before he can take hold, you beat him to the punch, throwing yourself into his arms, your own wrapping tight around his middle, hands clasping together beneath his cape.

Caught off guard, Homelander's arms hover awkwardly for a beat before he returns your embrace. He'd been certain that he was the source of your fear after a display like that.

"He just-he tried to kill me," you rasp, tears overflowing, spilling down your cheeks, wetting his suit further. "Yeah, yeah he sure did. S'alright, he's not gonna hurt you again," he coos, stroking your back with one bloodied hand, the other cupping the back of your neck. He kisses the top of your head as you cry, working the shock and fear from your system. "Ssshhh, shhshh."

Looking over his shoulder once, he lifts you up into his arms and takes off gently into the night sky, keeping you gathered close as he flies, carrying you far away from the mess spilled all over the pavement.

Not his problem. His focus is you.

With your face buried in the crook of his neck, he can feel your tears rolling down into the collar of his suit, can smell the sea salt sweetness of them. He's never let you see that side of him before. When the shock wears off, will you see the moment for what it was?

Will you realize how much he enjoyed it?

Landing on his balcony, your arms are still tight around his neck. Neither of you have said a word since take off. He's not sure where your head is, other than the fact your racing heart has slowed to a more natural—albeit still nervous—patter.

Inside, he sets you down gently on your feet. Your balance wavers, and he settles you with his hands on your hips, staining your clothing with smears of dark blood.

He's almost afraid of breaking the tenuous quiet, but he needs to know where your head is. When you glance away, are you looking towards the door, planning your escape?

His hands tighten reflexively on your hips, and your eyes spring back up to meet his.

"You okay?" He asks quietly, warily.

"Yeah," you say, though it's hardly convincing.

"You're in shock," he says, touching the side of your face. Enough of the blood has been wiped on your clothes that it doesn't transfer much to your skin. "You remember what happened?"

Maybe your distress will leave you malleable enough for him to shape the incident just right. Make sure that you remember first and foremost that- "You saved me," you say, cutting his thoughts short. "That man was trying to hurt me, and you... you saved me."

His brows lift, surprised to hear you say it first. "Yeah. Course I did."

"You were so..." You trail off, gaze moving along his features.

Apprehension prickles from his spine all the way up to the back of his neck. He's accustomed to being scolded for his brutality by Madelyn, or looked on with thinly veiled disgust by Maeve.

They're both long gone from his life now, yet he finds himself waiting with bated breath for your response, his throat tight under the gripping hands of the ghosts of his past.

"Amazing," you exhale, banishing his specters with the sweeping wind of your breath. "God, I've never been that scared in my life, but you reacted so fast. No one has ever protected me like you do," you say, cupping his blood spattered face in your palms, smearing it into thin pink swaths across his skin with your thumbs.

He breaks into a slow, pleased smile. "Well, you've never been with anyone like me before."

"No," you agree. He can still feel a slight tremor in your hands, your body still coming down from the adrenaline high. "And I never will."

That strokes his ego deliciously. He likes the finality in your voice, the dreamy way you're looking at him, even as the smell of blood hangs heavily in the air. He almost kisses you before he remembers he's got the blood of some random thug all over his face.

"I need a shower," he says, lips close enough that his breath teases yours.

"Me too. Guess we'll have to share," you say, feigning resignation.

He grins. "Uh oh."

In the bathroom, Homelander makes quick work of undressing, but you're faster. You're already in the large shower, steaming water pouring down from above. He steps in with you, letting the water wash over you both. The water turns pink as it carries the blood away, and then sudsy as you both soap and shampoo the mess of the day from you bodies.

Once he's rinsed, he slips in behind you, wrapping his arms around you and nuzzling into the crook of your neck. "I love you," he says at your ear, trailing kisses down to the lobe, to your neck. He loves the feel of goosebumps rising against his lips.

"I love you, too," you respond as you have a thousand times before. Maybe more. He stopped counting when he was sure you'd never stop.

"How much?" He prompts, hungry for more. Your praise and assurance after a moment of such uncertainty has only made him desperate for more. He wants to wring more pretty words of admiration from you, hear more of just how good he is to you.

He can't help but color your answer with a slip of his hand between your thighs, toying with your clit.

The touch earns a shivering sigh from you. "So much. More than I can stand sometimes," you say, leaning your head back against his shoulder.

"I thought you'd be scared of me after seeing what you saw... What I'm capable of," he murmurs, pillowing the reminder with deft, wet fingers. "Are you?"

You shake your head. "No, m'not, mmm... You'd never hurt me," you say, breath hitching as his fingers slip in further, fingertips stroking the lips of your pussy.

"Never," he echoes, his other hand slotting over your throat just to feel each noise you make. He pulls you back flush to his body, presses his hardening cock to the curve of your ass with his a shaky groan. "I liked it," you admit quieter, moaning when he slides his middle finger inside you. The confession stirs something primal in him, makes him growl out a rough little noise against your skin, grinding his cock into you.

"I wanted to rip his fucking guts out for touching you," he says, working another finger into you, savoring the slick, velvet feel of you around them. "For trying to take you from me." His words make your cunt quiver. He can't help himself, has to pull them from you just to taste you, sucking the nectarine sweet flavor from his fingers, rolling his tongue between them, hungry for every ounce of it.

He moans around his own fingers when you reach back and take his cock firmly in your hand, jerking him slowly. "I want you inside me," you say, your legs spreading slightly, back arching into him. "Touch me until yours is the only one I remember."

Fuck. Yes, that he can do.

You let go of his cock, and he wraps an arm around your waist, guiding himself between your wet, soft thighs. You close your legs, earning a breathy noise from him as he rocks between them, the warm, wet heat of your cunt a tease along the top of his cock.

"Take me," he murmurs fervently at your ear. "Wanna be in you, feel you, fuck you, make your pussy mine."

Shuddering against him, you reach down between your legs. Pressing your fingers to the underside of his cock, you push it up as he moves forward, the thick head of it catching on your entrance and splitting you open in one long, slow thrust.

Christ, you're so fucking tight. He can feel your muscles contracting, flexing, pulling him deeper. Your cunt feels made for him.

No one will ever take you away from him.

His right hand goes across your chest, cupping your left breast and rolling your nipple between his thumb and index finger while he braces you tighter to him. He rolls his hips slowly at first, relishing the tight, slippery pull of your cunt before he begins to pick up a proper pace.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" He grits out, the slap of naked skin against skin loud in the shower. "Tell me how good it feels."

"Feels like being fucked by the fucking sun," you moan, gripping his arms, useless for anything other than taking his cock when he holds you like this. "Hot, you're so hot inside me, and I can feel... I can feel you holding back, it's like you're vibrating," you say, voice catching with every solid thrust. "It's like... it's like getting as much as I can take from something so much bigger than me."

He doesn't know what he expected to hear, but it isn't that. The idea that you can feel the true gravity of his power behind each restrained thrust drives him wild, makes him want to give you more, but he knows he can't. Not without breaking you. Sweet, frail, human thing that you are.

If he could, he would break you apart, fuck you until you fall to pieces in his hands, and then he would put every single fragment back where it belongs, but he can't. If he breaks you, he will lose you.

He needs you to survive him.

"Fuck, fuck," he rasps, holding you that slight bit tighter, lifting you nearly off your feet as he arches his back, lifting and dropping you onto every thrust of his hips. "M'gonna come," he says, voice reedy. "Come with me, let me feel you. I know you're close, can fuckin' feel it. Touch yourself for me, sweetheart."

Immediately, you drop a hand to your clit, the tips of your fingers brushing where he's pounding into you. The touch must be electric because you jolt against him. "I am, I am," you whine, rubbing yourself, the pleasure making you squirm.

"M'gonna count us down, alright? And you, mmmgh, you're gonna come with me," he says, already fighting to hold himself back. Your cunt is only getting tighter the closer to release you get, making it hard for him to stay focused.

"Five... four," he manages to say, desperately holding onto his final tethers of control. You're beyond speech now, reduced to nothing more than desperate, needy noises as you finger your clit, not even bothering to try and hold yourself up while Homelander mercilessly bounces you on his cock,

"Three... two..." His words are strained, balls drawn up tight, cock throbbing in the slick grip of your cunt. He needs to come so bad it makes his toes curl, but he won't let go until he feels you coming undone.

"One..."

One, two, three more thrusts, and you're screaming his name, knees curling up, your whole body tightening like a vice. The spasm of your orgasm rips his clean out of him, has him gasping into the crook of your neck.

He comes so hard his vision goes white, every movement halting, his focus purely on the ardent pounds of his cock emptying deep inside you, flooding you so thoroughly that the excess spill back down his shaft, his balls, mingling with the hot water and making him shiver from head to toe.

When he can, he takes in a deep, shuddering breath, easing his hold on you, though not by much. You're all but limp in his arms, panting, head lolled back against his shoulder. He lets the water run on the two of you a little while longer, savoring the aftershocks of your release before gingerly slipping out of you.

Carefully, he rubs the water between your thighs, tenderly cleaning you, kissing your neck, your shoulder.

"That was..." You trail off, words half slurred, and then you just laugh softly, the marvel clear in your voice.

He laughs, too, his own voice frayed. "Sure was."

The two of you put as much effort as it takes to get dry before making your way to bed, slipping beneath the cool sheets and rapidly warming them with your bodies, Homelander's in particular. He's always run hot, and you seem extra appreciative for it tonight, wrapping your arms around his waist and snuggling into his arms.

"I love you," you mumble sweetly.

Homelander draws the covers up over your shoulders before slipping his arm around you, drawing you into the warm, safe circle of his arms. "And I love you," he purrs, gently rolling his knuckles up and down your back.

You look peaceful, he thinks, watching as you begin to drift to sleep. He's sure it helps that he wore you out so thoroughly, but still, he'd anticipated that the shock of the evening would still have you worked up. It could be that you're still processing, that the trauma will return in nightmares that follow you into the night.

Maybe the threat of a rat simply makes less of an impact when you're cradled in the jaws of a lion.

Regardless, should you sleep fitfully or peacefully, he will be here.

No force in this would can keep him from you.

[yuzukiii3]

Resignation

Summary: 18+ 1.5k homelander x reader, established relationship, dirty talk, thigh riding, grinding.

After you have a particularly rough day at work, Homelander offers you some sound career advice, and a little stress relief.

spiritual successor to Customer Service, but stands alone. this is for everyone who's sick of this capitalist hellscape, and the crummy jobs we're forced to work to survive. not proofread, we die like men. 🖤

Another day, another dollar, another near meltdown.

You spend most of your commute home trying to pull yourself together. After the day you’ve had at work, the last thing you need to do is burst into tears before you even made it home. It’s taking everything in you to keep it at bay.

There’s just something about you that apparently screams Hey! Abuse me! in the workplace.

At least you’ve got something to look forward to when you get home.

Or rather, someone.

“I’m home,” you announce tiredly, stepping inside. You kick your shoes off, and despite your mood, you smile at the pair of tall red boots that sit next to them. It took some convincing to get him to take them off consistently, but ever since he’s started spending more and more time hiding out at your place, you’ve insisted on some ground rules

“Living room,” Homelander calls back.

Walking in, you find him crouched in the living room, staring at your cat with a level of intensity you’re not sure what to make of. “Uh, something going on here?”

“Yep,” he answers evenly. “Asserting dominance.”

You watch your cat blink slowly before lazily rising, stretching into a wide yawn, and hopping down to greet you. Homelander stands, scoffing triumphantly. “I won.”

“Uh-huh,” you give back distractedly, bending down to scritch your cat's ears.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, frowning as he approaches. “Your eyes are all red.”

“Hard day,” you tell him, readily accepting his encroaching embrace. You sink easily into his arms, noting that his gloves are off today. That’s new. You slip your arms around his neck, your body tired and heavy as you trust him with the full weight of it. He holds you up effortlessly.

He exhales a huff of hot air right by your ear that gives you goosebumps. “Quit,” he says, his voice set low.

“That’s what you always say.” “Because I mean it,” he shoots back fiercely, pulling away to meet your gaze. “Quit. Fuck those assholes already. You don’t need them. You have me,” he says, reiterating a conversation the two of you have had at least a dozen times now.

Money is nothing to him. He could buy you out for three times your salary for the rest of your life with his pocket change.

“I can’t just not work,” you say, pulling your hands down from his neck to lay flush on his chest. “I need my job.”

“The only thing you need is me,” he stresses again, kissing you. He always feels like he’s restraining himself when he touches you, holding himself back from moving too hard, too fast, from devouring. It’s thrilling to lose yourself in. “Why do you insist on tormenting yourself?

Stomach fluttering, you can’t help but laugh at the slight petulance that slips into his voice. “Because if I give up and let you take care of me, you might get bored, and then I’ll have nothing,” you say, and though you mean to make a joke of it, to fill your voice with playful whimsy, the confession lands harder than you expected it to. You’re tired, you’re stretched thin, and as your own words sink in, you realize just how bad it’s gotten.

Homelander withdraws, leveling you with a look that confirms it: that wasn’t a joke, and neither of you are amused.

You blink several times, suddenly speechless. “I…” You realize your eyes are burning again, and with every blink, your vision gets more bleary. “I just meant…”

“Do you really believe that?” He asks, his brows pinched.

“No,” you answer reflexively, voice too sharp even to your ears. “No, not that… I don’t know, I was trying to make a joke, but maybe… I don’t know. I get scared sometimes,” you say carefully, trying desperately not to spill the tears gathering in your eyes. “That someday I’m not going to be enough because y–”

His lips meet yours before you can continue, muffling the rest of your sentence. His hands are impossibly warm as they sweep up your back, eventually cupping either side of your neck. He kisses you like he’s starving, like he needs the taste of you to breathe, like he would die without you. He kisses you until your brain feels foggy and there’s a dull throb between your legs.

“You’re ridiculous,” he all but growls against your lips, thumbs stroking your cheeks. “I’m not going to get bored. Good fucking luck getting out of this one,” he says, slipping a hand to the back of your neck and squeezing for emphasis. You shiver, your tears lost in the wake of the slow rolling heat moving through your body. “Besides, you know damn well you’re the one who’ll be taking care of me.”

You can feel his smirk against your lips, and you laugh unexpectedly, the sound of it bordering on the sob you had very nearly fallen to. “You need a babysitter now?”

“Why, are we roleplaying? That’s pretty naughty,” he purrs.

“Stop it,” you laugh, pushing his face away, but he doesn’t relent. 

“What? Sexy babysitter could be fun,” he says, kissing a trail up your neck.

“Pervert,” you accuse, turning your face to kiss him. He accepts greedily, tongue slipping between your lips. You sigh a soft moan into his mouth, which only encourages his hands to wander even more, eventually settling on your ass. Without warning, he grabs tight and hauls you up, hitching your legs around his waist, swallowing up the startled gasp you give.

He settles down onto the couch, and maneuvers you until you’re straddling his thigh. You can feel the magnitude of his strength thrumming between your legs, pressed up tight against that same throbbing heat he ignited in you with those fervent kisses.

Cupping your face, he pulls you down for more of the same.

“Go ahead,” he says against your lips, his own curved into a gloating smile. “Grind. I can smell how bad you want it.” His voice is low, as coarse and sweet as raw sugar. His words hit you like a punch to the gut, worsening the pulse of your need.

Immediately, you start to rock your hips, grinding down against him. He rewards you with a hand on your thigh, squeezing as it slides slowly higher, his thumb skirting along your inner thigh. “No more stress,” he murmurs, the words warm on your lips. “No more tears. Just you… with me… mine.”

The way he rumbles that word against your ear sends a shiver trilling up and down your spine, the heat at the center of you spiraling up, up, up, blossoming throughout your entire body. He flexes his thigh and gives you one sharp little bounce on it, wringing a moan out of you. You roll your hips faster, tightly clenching your thighs on either side of his. You push both hands up into his hair and hold on tight, panting into the crook of his neck.

Homelander slips both hands back to your ass, gives a generous squeeze while he helps your body move, rolling it in time with the way he flexes and occasionally bucks his thigh against you. “Say it. Say you’ll quit, and you’ll be all mine,” he demands softly, grip flexing on you. There’s a neediness at the edges of his voice. “Give me that. Give me you.”

You screw your eyes shut, keening breathlessly. The grind of fabric against sensitive skin is almost too much, too dry, but it’s fucking good, too. You’re getting wetter and wetter, losing yourself to the relentless pace he sets for you, and the hungry way he kisses at your throat. 

“C’mon. Give it up. Give me everything. M’never letting you go,” he pants, at which point you realize he’s also grinding against your leg. The arousal–the sheer animalistic need–in his voice makes your stomach flip, and with one last shuddering noise, you’re coming against his leg, moaning loud in his ear as the wave of pleasure slowly wrings out every last bit of tension that you had been holding onto.

You collapse against him, your arms hanging limply around his neck. He nuzzles at your jaw, kissing a trail to your lips. You reciprocate lazily, your eyes closed as you luxuriate in the aftershocks of the unexpected release.

“Quit,” he whispers persistently, lips pressed to the corner of your mouth. “We’ll take care of each other.”

“This is playing dirty,” you slur, feeling stupefied in your post-orgasm haze.

“Oh, I’m just getting started,” he says, taking your hand from around his neck, and slipping it between his legs. You bite your tongue. Christ, he runs fucking hot. Even through the fabric of his suit, you can feel the throb of his cock. “You’re gonna be writing your resignation letter in my cum by the end of the night.”

You make a sound somewhere between a laugh and an unsteady moan, clenching against his thigh. “Okay,” you say, lifting your head to kiss him. “Prove it.”

Much to Homelander’s delight, you submit your notice of resignation the very next day.

[yuzukiii3]

Customer Service

1.2k, f!reader x homelander. a cathartic and indulgent little gift fic for @irenadel! You work in customer service, and unfortunately, one customer has decided you're the perfect outlet for his consumer rage. What this customer doesn't realize is that that none other than Homelander himself is waiting right outside for you, and he doesn't like what he's hearing.

Another day, another one of these assholes. “Sir, if you’ll listen, I–” You try to reason, but to no avail. You’re interrupted again. “No, no, no! I’ve had enough, your policy is ridiculous!” The man snaps, waving his rolled up form in your face like a newspaper at a misbehaving dog. It’s not even your policy. You just work here, and yet you’re the one forced to take all the abuse. This man has been yelling at you for the better half of ten minutes, but everyone around you is so desensitized, not even the glassiness in your eyes seems to matter. It’s just customer service. It’s normal. “You’re the one who needs to listen! I’ve told you what I want, and your job is to do it, alright? I’m the customer, so unless you’re too fucking stupid to–”

“Whoa, whoahhhhohoh there, champ,” a familiar voice cuts in, followed by a flash of crimson as a gloved hand falls on the man’s shoulder, cutting him short. The man whirls, prepared to maintain his fury, but the words evaporate from his tongue the instant he sees who has intervened. “H-Homelander?” The man stutters, bewildered. Uh oh, you think, but it takes everything in you to not smile. He did say he was going to pick you up today. Your eyes flicker to the clock, and you realize your shift ended five minutes ago. The store is closed, leaving just the three of you and a handful of your coworkers, who evidently would prefer to hide in the back than help you deal with an angry customer. “The one and only,” Homelander confirms, smiling jovially, though you alone recognize the undercurrent to his expression. You see the snarl in his toothy grin. Meanwhile, the man smiles with a dumbstruck kind of awe, a lamb wholly fooled by Homelander’s sheepskin. “What in the world is all this yelling about?”

“Oh, I– uhm,” the man fumbles, gesturing vaguely with his tightly rolled form. The redness from his anger is beginning to drain from his face, and with it he’s beginning to look smaller and smaller, as if he’s just drunk a particularly potent shrinking potion. Homelander often has that effect on people. He makes them seem so… insignificant. You feel your own eyes beginning to dry already. “Just, uh, these policies, you know? They’re so against the consumer, right? And it’s just–it’s ridiculous, you know? Like I pay her fuckin’ salary and she can’t even–” The man begins to point that sinister roll of paper towards you, but Homelander catches him swiftly by the wrist, gripping hard enough that the man drops it with a startled little gasp. “Don’t do that,” Homelander says, voice sharp as the crack of a whip, maintaining that chipper smile. “Y’see, real men don’t yell at pretty little ladies, much less go around waving sticks at them,” he says, the words sounding venomous even in the bright commercial timbre of his voice. “It’s all about having self control. Have you ever been at the mercy of someone stronger than you? Someone who, I don’t know… lost that control?” He asks, tone growing colder with every word. You can hear the threat in his question loud and clear, but you don’t intervene. You find yourself watching with a kind of distant fascination, like you’re watching these events unfold from somewhere outside yourself. No one has ever stepped up for you like this. “I–I–I didn’t–I wasn’t– y-you’re right, I–I lost my cool,” the man sputters, beginning to lean away, attempting to twist slowly out of Homelander’s iron grip. “Listen, I’m just gonna–” “Apologize,” Homelander interjects. His smile never budges, but you think the man is starting to understand just how unfriendly the gesture really is. There’s sweat prickling all along his forehead, rolling down his temple, passing his wide, frightened eyes. “Go on. Tell her you’re sorry.”

Looking back at you, you’re amazed that anyone this pitiful ever had the power to make you cry. “I’m sorry,” he blubbers, looking at you now like you’re his only salvation, his wrist still upheld firmly in Homelander’s gloved hand. “I’m sorry for yelling, and calling you stu–” the man attempts to finish, but the unmistakable crack of his wrist snapping in Homelander’s grasp robs him of anything other than a cry of pain. Immediately, Homelander releases him, and starts to laugh, his first genuine smile emerging as the man screams. “Ohh, golly! Jeeze, that was just so clumsy of me. Oof, that’s a nasty pinch, huh? I’d go get that checked out if I were you,” he says, patting the man so firmly on the chest that he stumbles backwards, clutching his wrist with wide, watery eyes. He looks pathetic, red and weepy, shocked by the turn of events. “You broke my wrist! You broke my fucking wrist! Why would you do that!?” The man asks, voice climbing quickly into hysteria as he stumbles away from Homelander, towards the door. “Well,” Homelander sighs, lifting his hands in a helpless kind of gesture. “I dunno, I guess I just… ‘lost my cool,’ ” he says, making quotation marks around the words with his fingers, watching the man fumble his way out the door. Meanwhile, you stand behind Homelander in a mix of awe and a devious kind of delight mingling in your expression. There was a time you might have felt guilt, or horror. Not anymore. “That was… really bad,” you whisper, hands over your mouth, concealing your smile. Homelander turns around to face you, his arms clasped behind his back. His eyes soften when they land on you, and his smile looks a great deal more boyish than it does that of a wolf. “Mmm, but it felt good, didn’t it?” He asks, leaning in close. He bumps his nose against yours in a quick little nuzzle. “No one talks to my girl like that,” he tells you, bringing his hands up to cup your face. His words sound like a promise. The juxtaposition between this man, who cradles you in tender hands, as though you’re made of glass, and the one who just snapped someone’s wrist on a whim, is a dizzying one, but you’ve grown to really love it. You’ve never been so certain of someone’s love for you.

You get butterflies when he kisses you. Slinging your arms around his neck, you hang off of him just to enjoy the way he makes you feel weightless when he straightens up, bringing you nearly off your feet. “C’mon,” he purrs against your lips, lifting you up properly into his arms. “That moron made us late for our date.” “Okay,” you say softly, burying your face into the crook of his neck. You inhale deep the minty evergreen scent of him, brushing your fingers along the closely shorn hair of his undercut, savoring the feel of it against your fingers. Everything about him brings you a peace that you didn’t know another person could, filling your senses with warmth, with the thrill of his devotion. You rest your cheek on his shoulder as he carries you out of the building, holding on tight for what you know is to come. Homelander launches straight up into the sky with you, above and beyond all of the problems that felt so big a few moments ago, but now feel so very, very small.

[yuzukiii3]

A little bit of 20|34 Mobrei that I couldn't finish on time for mobreimob week, but here it is at last.. Reigen's love for B rated movies finally relevant.

[yuzukiii3]

i drew Mobrei again

:P

[yuzukiii3]

Can you spare us some Scara crumbs for this starving pigeons pls?🥺🥺🥺 I miss the way how you write that shortass gremlin so much (I miss my wife, tails... I miss my wife)

There comes a point where even you, one of the few species capable of withstanding long-term exposure to a certain Harbinger, find yourself exasperated. Beneath his apathetic façade lies a volatile ego, poised to misinterpret the most innocent acts as a knife through the heart. Scaramouche's treated you coldly since you both retired to your personal quarters. You'd like to claim ignorance, but you know better — know him better — which makes remedying the issue harder.

"You had a fun evening, I take it?"

His voice shoots across the room, releasing the taut string that's had you in the crosshair for hours.

"It was fine," you accentuate your indifference with a shrug. Then, a counterattack of your own: "Why?"

He puffs his cheek to the side, looking more like an indignant child than one of the most feared forces at the Fatui's disposal. "Oh, no reason. I just couldn't help but notice how eager you were to fawn over my co-worker."

And there it is, you think. Why did we have to run into Childe, of all people...?

"I was just being polite."

"'Polite?'" He repeats, barking out a hollow laugh. "That smile, those sweet expressions were polite? Are you sure you weren't auditioning to be a courtesan?"

You offer him your most unimpressed look. Scaramouche returns it tenfold, narrowing his eyes and closing the gap in distance between you. You take it as an opportunity to examine the finer details he works so diligently to hide. The trembling of his lower lip, curling of his fists, and the watery sheen coating his eyes.

Although he doesn't require oxygen, his chest heaves like he's been deprived of it.

Or something of equal significance.

"I can't stand it," he admits, raising a shaky hand to cup your face. "You— that... nauseating charm. You're bound to attract pests everywhere you go. I thought by now, it'd be clear that you're off limits, but..."

Electricity crackles in the air.

Then, he freezes when you lay your hand on his.

"No one's going to try anything," you reassure. You leave out the part that they might as well be bringing about the end of the world. "Let's just call it a night before we get more worked up, okay?"

His fingers twitch.

Eventually, he averts his gaze, a rosy blush dusting over his cheeks.

Scaramouche clears his throat, then grumbles, "... I'm not worked up."

Regardless of his complaints, he silently acquiesces to your wish, slinking his way over to your wardrobe to contemplate what he'll have you wear the following day.

[yuzukiii3]

Whenever you’re in labor absolutely cussing Ayato out for doing this to you and putting you through this because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, he’s staring at you with heart shaped pupils thinking you are the loveliest woman to ever have graced his presence and he can’t wait to put another baby in you as soon as he can

[yuzukiii3]

Guys I have to say something about Ayato

[yuzukiii3]

The thing with Ayato is like. Everything about you post partum just makes you more appealing to him. You hate it, though. At first you really hate it. Your thighs are thicker and your belly is still a little chubbier than you remember and then the skin is loose and stretchy now in a way it wasn’t. But he loves it. You don’t want him to see you like this and you get nervous and anxious—you know you shouldn’t, you know he’s not shallow and he loves you. But you’re still nervous about the way that you are.

And he doesn’t understand it. Well, he does but he also doesn’t. He’s not dense enough to be confused why your body changing after bringing life would upset you—but that’s the thing. You brought life. Your little baby who has ten fingers and toes and has his moles and your eyes and his mother’s smile. It’s your baby. His and yours and you guys did that together and your body is only proof. It’s one of the seven wonders of the world as far as he’s convinced—and honestly, even then, he doesn’t really think that there are six other things out there in the world that are as wondrous as you, so you might just have to carry that title alone.

You wallow in self pity for a while as you mourn the way your body’s changed, and all that really does is make him that much more insatiable and that much more shameless about wanting you.

[yuzukiii3]

the delicate line between friends and lovers — ft. alhaitham

in which the akademiya’s scribe and bimarstan’s head nurse develop serious feelings for each other in between hook ups. evidently, neither of them are very good at being able to communicate these feelings, though

contains: 14.0k word count ; female reader ; explicit content—not suitable for minors ; fwb to lovers ; mutual pining ; banter and teasing ; angst with happy ending (this one goes out to all the girls who wonder if their fav would choose them: they would!) ; reader is the (very overworked) head nurse at the bimarstan ; mentions of blood and injuries (alhaitham) ; reader has insecurities ; jealousy ; dry humping—and kaveh being a major cockblock unfortunately ; alcohol drinking—4ggravate (minus alhaitham) appearance! ; clothed sex ; unprotected vaginal sex ; no prep ; creampie

the akademiya is well connected in its networks. meaning one thing: gossip travels fast. against his will, alhaitham learns far more about people than he wants to, details upon details that travel even through his soundproof earpieces at times. 

today, for example, he learns without meaning to that the akademiya has decreased the previously approved funding for the bimarstan. this piece of information is able to irritate him enough that he almost itches to demand for the title of acting grand sage once more. sumeru, a nation of free healthcare, couldn’t possibly hope to underfund one of the pillars of the citizens and their well-being. not unless someone who’s as incapable and underdeveloped in critical thinking as the last grand sage himself (before alhaitham, of course) was in office. 

he walks to the bimarstan, footsteps heavy in the dead quiet of the night as he trudges through the door of the hospital. you’re already there to greet him, eyeing the way the arm under his cloak is tense and curled under the fabric. 

“another eremite attack?” you murmur, walking towards an empty room as you gaze at him over your shoulder to follow.

he does so wordlessly, eyeing the tired, overworked, and disarrayed nurses along the hospital as he walks past them. 

you’re no different, he studies, watching as you stifle a yawn, taking in the darkened circles under your eyes as he sits on an examination table while you bring out the necessary supplies to clean his wound. 

the akademiya—no, sumeru was blooming under his lead. that much he was aware of. you’d said it yourself, too, the first time he came. 

oh, it’s you! we’re most grateful for your changes, acting grand sage, you’d smiled at him, they’ve really helped improve things here at the bimarstan.

he wasn’t expecting that. the only reason why he’d stopped at the hospital for care instead of going home was because he’d run out of bandages, nothing more. one look at you had all but changed that, the tilt of your lips as they smile spinning his world on its axis in a completely new direction. you tend to his cuts that night, and even though he’d told himself he wouldn’t, he returns after the next expedition. 

and the next. and the next. and then it becomes routine. 

for a while, alhaitham told himself he only came to the hospital for his wounds instead of patching himself up after long expeditions in the desert because it was nice to see how the bimarstan ran. it’s important for him to be aware of necessary changes that must be made as acting grand sage—however temporary the job may be, he has every intention of doing it properly. so he studies and assesses the functionality of the hospital and makes decisions accordingly. those things can only happen if he visits frequently. 

but then he starts to notice that his feet truly only carry him here on the nights you work. though you work often and late into the night, too. being head nurse requires as much, of course, but he notices all too quickly that he’s begun to memorize your schedule. 

slowly but surely, he resigns himself to fate. he comes for you. 

“it’s just a light graze,” he mumbles after some time, revealing the small gash on his arm under his cloak. your eyebrows crinkle in concern for a moment before you set off to work, methodically and expertly cleaning away at the dried blood and disinfecting the wound. 

he doesn’t talk for a while before he finally says, “you’re short-staffed.”

it’s a question presented as an observation—he has a habit of doing that, of speaking his mind and waiting for an explanation to follow. 

you sigh, bandaging his arm as you murmur, “people are quitting. it’s been hectic in here—and the funding cut doesn’t exactly allow for a pay that seems worth the grueling hours.”

you love your job. it’s the first thing alhaitham knows about you. you take it very seriously, scolding anyone, even the acting grand sage, about proper care and healthy habits. 

did you stitch these yourself? you’d gasped when you first noticed the scars on his chest, that’s dangerous! do you know the infections you could contract from an improperly tended wound?”

it’s not as amusing now to watch the other nurses listen awkwardly as you scold him. he’s back to being the scribe, no longer tied to the title of sage. the nurses aren’t as alarmed anymore by your lack of formality—although, he’s sure by now, they’re a bit used to it too. 

“and i assume you’re not resting properly?” he gives you a knowing look, reaching forward with his free hand and brushing a callused but gentle thumb under your bruised eyebags. 

you close your eyes at the fleeting touch, humming before giving him a guilty smile. 

“i can’t let things get out of hand here.”

“you should take your own advice,” he snorts, “what was it again? something about proper rest and sleep to ensure a healthy lifestyle?”

“if you’re here to throw my words back in my face, i recall also mentioning getting into less trouble,” you huff, momentarily glaring at his arm before meeting his eyes. “what happened to being more careful?”

“like i said,” he shrugs, hissing slightly when you press on his wound to prove your point, “it’s just a graze.”

you and alhaitham are, no doubt, an unexpected match—if you can call yourselves that, even. it’s a complicated relationship you share, you and the former grand sage turned scribe. 

you patch him up late at night one day, and he so chivalrously accompanies you on your walk home after your shift. that’s all it was supposed to be…but, well, things are never as simple as sticking to the original plan. 

you invite him in for drinks, he accepts, you clumsily trip on your rug, he catches you swiftly, and somehow, in the mix, both of your lips end up meeting in the most heated kiss you’ve ever shared with someone. clothes are easy enough to shed, and stumbling to your bedroom is hardly complicated, and in a far from ideal turn of events, you sleep with the akademiya’s scribe. 

multiple times, in fact. 

by now, his visits to the bimarstan to see you are as frequent as your visits to his house to see him. the only difference is that his visits tend to be for medical reasons, and yours are…personal to say the least. it’s, of course, as these arrangements tend to go, one that’s strictly physical. 

being physically involved with a patient is scandalous enough, but romantic involvement would be nothing short of unethical. and he’s not a very romantically inclined individual anyway, so not toeing the line of something more is easy enough for the both of you. 

still, you’re quite fond of him—he’s funny when he wants to be and a gentleman underneath the blunt responses and straightforward remarks. you like to consider him as a good friend. one who knows your body a bit too well than most friends should, but a good friend nonetheless. 

you look at him unimpressed as you finish tending to his wound, scoffing and rolling your eyes as you point out, “you’d call it a graze even if your arm was dangling off the bone.”

that gets a chuckle out of him, his head tilting up as he looks at you. if you weren’t in a hospital with your work attire, this would feel oddly domestic: cleaning tenderly at his wounds as he looks at you softly. 

you and alhaitham never toe the line of something more, but you do take steps dangerously close sometimes. 

“when do you finish your shift?” he asks, voice a low rumble. 

“now,” you grin, giving him a mock glare as you add, “you have me working past the clock.”

“let me walk you home, then.” he’d do it anyway, regardless of whether or not you accept. still, you never turn him away. 

“how kind of you,” you say sarcastically—you know better than he does what he means, what he wants, and you can’t exactly say you don’t want it yourself. 

“i can be rather giving when i want,” he shrugs. 

“oh, yes,” you snort, “quite the giver.” the grin he sends you is nothing short of fond. 

the line blurs a little like it’s been drawn in the sand, grains carried away by the wind and leaving the faintest trace of the border you draw. somehow, even though you shouldn’t, you step closer to it, just at the edge. 

but it’s never enough to cross it. 

“am i?” he muses, “i’m glad you think so.”

“you know, most people would believe you talk too little. but i think you talk too much.”

his cloak falls back in place over his arm as he stands, lips curled in a rare smile—well, rare to anyone other than you, that is. he walks out, and you follow.

it almost feels like you're getting closer and closer to stumbling past the line against your will every day. 

——————————

alhaitham knows your home well. well enough that he knows to drop his cloak in the basket you keep for laundry so you can wash away the blood soaked into the fabric for him. 

is it normal to do the laundry of your fuck buddy? you’re not even sure. it’s not like you’d ask anyone, anyway. 

but it doesn’t matter—not when his lips find yours before you can think about it too much. it’s a slow kiss. he’s good with his mouth in more ways than one—good at kissing, good at pleasing, and he’s even good at talking. he’s a linguist, anyway, so it only makes sense. 

“eager,” you murmur in between kisses, nipping at his lips as he shivers. “did you miss me that badly in the desert?”

“of course,” he rasps, gently guiding you to fall back against your bed, his hand cupping the back of your head like you’re fragile as glass, “eremites don’t have as enticing of a touch as you do.”

“maybe if you ask nicely, they’ll be less rough with you,” you wiggle your brows, giggling.

he clicks his teeth, angling your jaw to trail kisses along the slant of it as his hands travel to your hips, gently rubbing the bare skin of your hips under your shirt. you hum appreciatively, closing your eyes and sighing at the soothing feeling of his warm palms seeping heat into your skin. your fingers thread into his hair, tangling into the locks for some sort of means to hold on and ground yourself. 

it’s like warm drizzles of syrup, his touch sinking into you as you absorb his sweetness. 

“and why would i need that when this is far better?”

every word alhaitham alhaitham says is punctuated with the warmth of his lips pressed into your skin. it’s almost soothing—he feels calming. it doesn’t feel heated, not the passionate kind that kindles something carnal in you. 

it feels warm, the soft and gentle kind that makes everything feel a bit lighter. a bit cozier. something more homely in this house of yours. 

“mhm,” you hum, your fingers slowly slipping from his hair as they fall to his shoulders, barely holding him in place as your eyes remain shut. it’s soothing, everything about him. enough that you don’t even realize you’re dozing off until he chuckles. 

“did i bore you into sleep?” he pecks your cheek. 

“no,” you tug your eyelids apart, giving him a sheepish grin, “sorry, you’re just warm.”

“oh yeah?” he grins, amused. he’s climbing off of you, much to your dismay, making a soft whine run past your lips as your hands chase him. 

he’s quick to replace the lack of him, though, planting himself beside you as he pulls you into his chest. 

cuddling isn’t new for the two of you. usually, it’s a post-coital activity, though—you start to think alhaitham is just as bad at drawing a clear line in the sand as you. he’s gentle as he pulls your covers over you, pressing one more kiss to your head before he sighs and relaxes. 

“i’m not tired,” you protest weakly. 

“no, you’re not,” he agrees to satisfy you, eyeing your drooping eyes knowingly. “i am, though. it’s been a long trip.”

“right,” you nod, humming. “weak.”

he rolls his eyes, though fondly—you barely make out the action through your half lidded eyes as you glance at him one last look before your eyes force themselves shut. he’s warm, smells like that spicy hint of harra fruit in his cologne, and feels painfully safe when he lets you curl into his strong arm as it wraps around you. 

normal people don’t cuddle when they’re just fucking like this—you and alhaitham are anything but normal. it’s a mutual sort of agreement, though. you allow the small domestic tendencies to slip past the line, only to let the shore wash it away from the sand. 

it never stays for long, this feeling of intimacy. real intimacy, the kind that’s far more personal than seeing each other nude and feeling each other at your rawest. the kind where you both fall asleep beside each other, tangled, safe, warm, trusted. 

but you’re just friends. you think. you can’t afford to be anything more—alhaitham isn’t the sort of man to grant you something like that. you’re sure of that. he’s kind, good natured, even. but there’s not one romantically inclined bone in his body—you’ve seen it yourself. 

he’s rejected one too many brave women with her heart on her sleeve. never cruelly, but always definitively. 

sleep doesn’t let you think about it all for too long. you resign yourself to a peaceful slumber beside him, breath slowly evening out as he rubs the small of your back. 

and, when morning comes and you awaken, you don’t think about it for too long then, either. because he’s gone. because, of course, he wouldn’t stay—not when this is physical and nothing more.

you’re not disappointed, you think. you’re aware of the nature of things. and he’s a gentleman, as always, leaving you a note on your bedside. 

i had to file some reports from my expedition. i believe i’ll be needing my cloak back. 

you chuckle, shaking your head. it’s an invitation—bring me my cloak, and we’ll finish what we started. 

it’s how things are with you and alhaitham. you do his laundry with yours, he walks you home and forces you to rest, and sometimes, you happen to partake in some debauchery in the process. there’s nothing wrong with it. 

and even if your toes dance along the edge of the line, they always drag along to draw it sharper in the sand. 

——————————

coming to alhaitham’s house seems like second nature these days. he comes to you at night, and you come to him in the afternoon of your day off—luck would have it that yours happens to coincide with his. you knock three times and he opens as soon as your knuckles pull away from the cool surface of his door. it’s like he expects you, maybe even waits for you. 

you step in and let the door close behind you, grinning when he steps closer and cages you against the tight corner that is his front entrance. 

“i brought over your cloak,” you hold up the cloth, gesturing for him to move so you can put it on him. he looks at you incredulously, like you’re out of your mind. 

“why would i put it on now?” he asks in confusion. 

you tilt your head, raising an eyebrow, “you always wear one?”

“and why would i dress when we’ll only be undressing in a short moment?” he quirks his own brow like it’s obvious—which, to be fair, alhaitham is not exactly wrong. but it doesn’t make you any less flustered when he says it. 

“you’re shameless,” you huff, looking away in embarrassment. he chuckles lowly, leaning down and trailing his nose along your collarbone, breathing in your perfume. 

“i think i’m more practical, is all,” he murmurs into your skin. you sigh, goosebumps traveling across your body at the fan of his breath against you. 

“if only people knew how unstiff the akademiya’s scribe can truly be,” you grin, finger tracing the sliver of skin showing from his chest window. “did you know i overheard a few patients discuss how bad you are at conversing?”

“i don’t get paid to partake in small talk,” he says, voice a low vibration as he shivers at your touch. “i have things to finish when i’m on the clock apart from socializing.”

“what, you’re that concerned when you have your lovely pay raise? i’m sure you could afford a few minutes,” you tease, making him roll his eyes. 

alhaitham certainly won’t admit it, but he finds a good amount of amusement from your quips—the small grin on his usually downturned lips tells you as much. 

“if you want me to spend my earnings on you, there are better ways to ask,” he shoots light-heartedly. 

“you’d accuse me of such shallow schemes?” you pout. “do you think me to be after your mora?”

his answer is instantaneous, coming in the form of a delicate kiss pressed to your lips as his hands grab your hips. your arms have a habit of their own, always wrapping around his neck before you can even comprehend the action, and just like always, you both end up a tangled pile of limbs that can’t even make it past the doorway, let alone the rest of the house. 

you like it this way, perhaps even love it. something about him being unable to wait the time it takes to walk to his room fills you up with a sense of glee. 

“being the scribe is a much simpler job than sage,” he mumbles between kisses, “there happens to be much more time for other things.”

“things like taking the head nurse against the door of your home?” 

“perhaps,” he smiles with a chuckle. 

who would’ve thought alhaitham could smile so painfully charming? just a few weeks ago, you had never seen him smile before at all, willing to bet that he’d never smiled a day after stepping into adulthood with that seriousness he holds so dearly. 

“i don’t have much time,” you hum in between kisses, fingers fiddling with the short hair at the nape of his neck. 

“we’ll make do, i’m sure,” he says through a breathy groan, already semi-hard as your thigh slots between his legs, rubbing against the forming tent in his pants. 

your head tilts up as his head buries into your neck, lips branding searing kisses into your skin. you wonder if this is what it feels like to be his, to be stamped with his affections one kiss at a time until no one else could hope to have you. your eyes flutter shut, sighing as he sucks attentively to your sweet spot. 

“don’t leave marks,” you scold, “i can’t show up to the bimarstan looking so scandalous.”

you’ve felt his lips against your skin enough times that you can tell them by heart. you don’t have to look to know they’re pouting against your neck—you can feel it against your skin. you giggle, cupping the back of his head as your fingers delicately thread through his hair. 

“i’m meant to hold back then?” he grumbles. it’s almost petulant, but he still softens the nipping against your skin, careful to leave no evidence of his existence against you, however disgruntled he might be. 

“don’t be so whiny,” you laugh. archons must have it out for you, though, because as soon as you say that, his hardened cock brushes against your crotch, making you whine at the friction. it’s something, but it’s hardly anything at all—the separation from the fabric makes everything not nearly enough. 

he seems to know it, too, because he pulls away, eyeing you with a certain gleam in his eyes that looks like a cross between smug and amused. 

“i’ll try,” he says smugly. you glare, but you’re cut off by the brush of his cock against that sensitive spot between your thighs once more, his hips grinding against you as you fall slack against the door. you can feel him rub against your clit, sending shockwaves along your spine as your back arches and you breathlessly moan his name. 

at first, he only does it to tease you, but after the first few rolls of his hips, it’s evident he can’t bring himself to stop. it’s not enough, not for either of you. the ache settling between your legs can’t be quelled with a few simple rolls of his hips with fabric separating you both from each other. but alhaitham’s sense of control seems to wash away with the tidal waves of pleasure, each thrust of his hips brushing his cock against your heat and leaving him panting into your shoulder. 

“m-more,” you plead, grabbing at his cape and fisting the material as you hold onto him tightly, “i need more—please.”

alhaitham, for all his composure and self-preservation, is simple to take apart when his throbbing cock is pressed against your cunt, rubbing against the length and building the pressure he so desperately needs. 

he doesn’t even seem to hear you, hot breath fanning against the crook of your neck as he buries his head and groans, hips sloppy and rough as they rut into you. you can feel the outline of his cock clearly even through his pants and yours, hot and undoubtedly hard. the bulge in his pants brushes against your clit through yours—and even if it’s nowhere close to feeling him inside of you, you can feel yourself just about to break. 

“sorry,” he gasps, “sorry—c-can’t stop. i-i’m c-close. so close.”

the last part comes out like a plead. it’s like he’s begging you to free him of this torment, like he needs you to make him fall over the edge because he can’t bring himself there. you think that might be the case, so you wrap your fingers around his hair and tug. 

he moans—maybe if you were feeling teasing, you’d call it a whine and watch his cheeks flush as he scowls. but there’s no chance for that. not when you’re both so close, so achingly close that you can just make out the twitch of his cock in his pants. 

and then the doorknob twists. 

a series of muffled curses can be heard through the other side of the door, and you both pause—rigid, tense, stiffly alert as your eyes widen. his head perks up from its place in your neck, staring at the doorknob in equal parts rage and equal parts confusion, like he blames it for cutting you both short of a much-needed, much-wanted orgasm. 

“oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” you hear a voice groan exasperatedly through the door, “again?”

you’re completely lost. who could be trying to enter alhaitham’s house at this hour? 

the only hope you have for answers is, of course, alhaitham—one look at the recognition and irritation on his face, and you can piece together that it’s certainly no stranger. alhaitham, if his cold glare could freeze anything where it stands, could potentially risk turning sumeru into the next snezhnaya. his eyes are hardened, and his jaw is clenched as he breathes out a heavy sigh through his nose. 

“and you’re kidding me,” he mutters bitterly. “now?” 

“hey! i know you’re home! open this door and stop pretending like you can’t hear me,” the voice demands, tapping on the door with more conviction than the last time. 

you furrow your eyebrows and look at him expectantly; an explanation demanded through the crinkles of your forehead as you look at him in confusion. he pulls away, jaw still tight as he adjusts himself in his pants, trying his best to hide the still painful erection he sports. 

“my roommate,” he says quietly. deadly. 

you almost feel bad for the poor soul that must be waiting on the other side of the door, unaware of the pure wrath he must be about to face judging by the look on alhaitham’s face. 

you hear the voice again, “ugh! you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? you—”

“calm down,” alhaitham calls, unimpressed and unamused as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. he seems to hold it for a moment like he’s fighting the tension in his body, before he slumps and lets out another sigh. this time, it’s much more defeated as he gives you an apologetic look when his eyes open. 

you both adjust your appearances, erasing any trace of debauchery before you step aside and let him approach the door. 

the swing of the door opening is a rather aggressive one, and alhaitham stands taller and straighter than you’ve ever seen him, like he’s trying to tower over the figure that enters the house. 

you recognize him immediately. 

“oh!” you gasp in awe, “you’re that architect! the one who designed the palace of alcazarzaray!”

both men look equally as haunted by your statement. alhaitham’s eye all but twitches as he takes in the breathless admiration in your voice—you’re no doubt praising kaveh’s work. as for the latter…well, he looks like he might just about launch himself into the blade of an eremite willingly the first chance he gets. 

“wh-who are you?” kaveh demands, “and what are you doing here?”

“she’s obviously a guest of mine,” alhaitham shoots coolly, tone as condescending as ever. “have you lost all manners? that’s no way to greet a guest.”

“what did you say to me? i want to hear nothing of the sort from you—god knows your temper isn’t one to speak on my manners.” 

kaveh turns to you, taking one better look at you, squinting as he thinks for a moment before realization flashes across his features. he seems to recognize you—though most people in sumeru do know you quite well. the nurses at the bimarstan are limited, these days. 

“ah! you’re the head nurse from the bimarstan! you looked at my wrist,” he recalls. 

you smile, nodding as you gesture at his hand and ask kindly, “is it better now? i do hope it’s not as sore anymore. did you apply heat as i suggested? and i hope you’re taking ample rest in between sketches—architects are very prone to sore wrists as is, you know.”

alhaitham rolls his eyes at your lecture, grumbling, “as if he would follow anyone’s advice. he’s far too stubborn.”

“i’ll have you know that i followed her advice quite closely,” kaveh says pointedly. he turns to you, voice much softer as he smiles and adds, “and my wrist is much better, thank you.”

“of course,” you nod. and then you pause, staring between the two unsurely as you falter and ask, “but…i wasn’t aware you two were friends. alhaitham tells me you’re his roommate—he’s never mentioned you before today, though.”

they both glare at each other through the corners of their eyes. something tells you maybe friends was a bit of an exaggerated term. alhaitham makes no moves to speak, crossing his arms and staring expectantly at kaveh—the blonde scoffs, shaking his head with a scowl. 

“friends…is a generous word. we’re roommates,” he nods in confirmation, “i’ve…ran into some trouble for the time being, so i’m staying here for a bit. won’t be much long, however. i need a space less…suffocating.”

“and how well is that plan faring for you?” alhaitham’s words seem to poke at kaveh, riling the blonde up further as you watch the scene before you awkwardly. 

“you—” but before kaveh can finish whatever retaliation was on the cusp of his tongue, he pauses. it’s like all at once, the situation hits him before he’s staring between the two of you, instead. “hang on a moment. how do the both of you know each other? i didn’t know alhaitham was acquainted enough with the head nurse for her to pay a visit.”

“well,” you start, trailing off as you cough lightly, tensing as the question throws you off guard. “umm…alhaitham visits the bimarstan sometimes after his trips to the desert. so…”

so what? how would that explain your visit to his home? it’s not as though you become friendly with all your patients and drop them a visit—in fact, alhaitham is the only one you’ve ever done that for. and of course, it’s not just a visit that you’re doing here. but kaveh doesn’t need to know that. 

that would be quite the scandal—getting so intimate with a regular patient. and apart from that, you and alhaitham aren’t exactly in an ideal situation. what would you tell kaveh? that you come over just to hook up? it’s not exactly a rare occurrence to have a beneficial relationship with someone like this, but still…admitting it like that is a bit too shameless for your liking. 

and then there’s a much more complicated, much less easy-to-tackle problem, too. you’re not even sure if you can confidently say you don’t have feelings for the scribe. that’s not something you were counting on, ever. saying you only partake in intimate activities with no strings attached might just hit you too hard in the gut, even if it’s not exactly a lie. but admitting the words out loud isn’t something you’re prepared to do. 

almost like he senses your turmoil, alhaitham steps in, bless his soul. he almost looks a bit conflicted, studying you carefully. you don’t have time to dwell on it, though, before he speaks. 

“so she came to check on a wound she patched up,” he finishes for you, quick and easy and confident enough in his words that it makes up for your nerves. he quicks a fleeting glance at you before raising an eyebrow to kaveh. “i left in a hurry and didn’t really let her properly tend to it last time. not that it’s your business, of course. i’m perfectly within my rights to bring guests over to my house.”

“be careful,” kaveh glowers, “anymore attitude, and you’ll risk showing your guests your true colors if you’re not cautious. you wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on the same person who tends to your wounds, do you? that would be fatal.”

“you two are quite the duo,” you chuckle, shaking your head, “it seems alhaitham has finally met his match verbally. you truly don’t let him have the last say.”

alhaitham almost looks offended, looking at you in disbelief. “i am not outmatched by his—”

“if it’s not too much trouble,” kaveh laughs nervously, cutting alhaitham off with a sharp look, “could you keep this…uh arrangement of ours a secret? i don’t really want this getting around and such.”

“my lips are sealed,” you promise. kaveh perks up, relief sagging into his shoulders at that before he nods, giving you a friendly smile as he waves at you. 

“i’ll be off to finish a project, then. nice seeing you.”

as soon as he walks away and you’re certain the door to his room shuts, you let out a soft breath of relief. 

“that was close,” you whisper, “he could’ve figured it out.”

“right,” alhaitham says vaguely. he doesn’t say much else, arms still crossed as he stands there and looks at you—something about the way alhaitham stares at you is too uncomfortable for your liking. 

not because he looks at you weirdly or even inappropriately, but because it almost feels like he can pick apart every thought in your head just by his gaze alone. 

you shuffle on your feet before you give him a tight smile. 

“i should go—the patients are never-ending these days,” you chuckle nervously. 

“make sure you don’t overwork yourself,” he nods. 

you linger for a moment. you’re not sure why. it’s not as though you can expect him to give you a goodbye kiss—that would be preposterous. and far too wishful. 

so instead, you give him a small wave before turning towards the door—but he stops you before you can reach for the door handle, pulling you flush against him, your back to his chest. 

“will you come back tonight?” he whispers, voice low and husky as he presses his still-hard crotch against you. you shiver as he nips at your skin to get his point across. 

“what about kaveh?” you ask softly, biting your lip, unsure. the little voice in your head screams, who cares about kaveh?

“he’ll be dead asleep,” he snorts, “last night was the third all-nighter he pulled. there’s no chance he’ll make it past seven pm today.”

“you’re insatiable,” you tease, shaking your head as you snort. “do you know that?”

“i’ve never had a decline on your end,” he shoots back. 

“i have a shift later tonight,” you say apologetically, sighing as you think about the extra hours you’ll have to put in soon, “there aren’t enough people tonight without me.”

“you should really speak to someone about this funding cut,” he frowns, slumping against you, “it’s getting out of hand.” 

“no one listens.” your voice is so defeated, so uncharacteristically tired. you’re sure he notices it in a heartbeat—you notice it yourself. “but i’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“sure,” is all he says. 

hesitantly, you pull away. his hands leave your hips reluctantly, too, like they’re most comfortable when they have you to house them. but neither of you say anything, simply nodding at each other as you look at him over your shoulder and exit through the door. 

the footsteps down his steps and away from his home are the heaviest ones you’ve taken all week. 

you decide you hate the sand. and that stupid line you both seem to have drawn.

——————————

it takes two failed attempts at fucking alhaitham to realize you’re not strictly only after the physical pleasure he brings. 

the first time, you weren’t even disappointed you didn’t get that far. it was only a disappointment that he was gone when you woke, and you realize it’s because the absence of him is why you’re even let down in the first place. the second time, you’re unhappy because you have to keep the nature of your relationship a secret—that’s a more complex problem. 

it’s secret because it has to be, because of how lewd it is by nature and how partially unprofessional it is. but you decide you also hate it to be a secret. no one knows that you see alhaitham bare and at his most vulnerable, and you can’t handle that anymore. especially when you watch a nurse flirt so poorly with him right before your eyes. 

“oh, it’s you, acting grand sage,” she giggles, “what can i do for you today?”

“i’ve actually returned to my previous position as scribe,” he corrects, entirely unaffected. 

“oh, is that so?” she gasps—you know it’s all for show. everyone is aware of his stepping down. “well, i, for one, think it’s a shame. you were so capable as a leader.”

alhaitham doesn’t like leading. for all he claims it’s because it’s too much trouble and far more work than he appreciates, you know that it’s also because the easiest way to never be swayed by power is to stay far away from it. he keeps himself grounded this way. he uses his smarts for only what’s necessary and only enough to quell his thirst for knowledge and never anything more. his principles are admirable.

and should the next grand sage also abuse such power like the last, he’ll step up from his humble position as scribe and fix the problem again—because that’s what he knows to do best. use his genius to solve issues as they arise, not control the situation entirely. 

of course, she wouldn’t know that. she doesn’t know anything about him. 

you fight back the roll of your eyes with the last shreds of self-preservation you have left. 

“the position wasn’t really for me,” he says plainly. “any idea where the head nurse might be? i have some business to discuss with her.”

it shouldn’t satisfy you as much as it does when she deflates at at his dismissal. but does—enough that you saunter up with a grin on your lips as you greet the two. 

“why hello. what business does the scribe have with little old me?” you hum. the nurse becomes background noise when your eyes meet his teal ones, staring at the small fleck of amber in his pupils while his piercing gaze rakes over your face as if to study you. 

you feel oddly seen under his stare—he’s seen you stripped and bare, at your most vulnerable under him. but somehow, you’ve never thought about it much in the moment like now. right now, he sees you with a clear mind, without the clouding haze of lust to fog his mind. right now, he can see you for every flaw and every imperfection, so up close. he can notice the way your fingers fiddle with themselves to calm your nerves. he can catch every nervous shuffle on your heels as you fight the urge to lean into him from the proximity. 

finally, you break out of your trance when the nurse clears her throat and mumbles, “i’ll uh..i’ll be off, then.”

he blinks at the same time as you, shaking his head slightly to bring himself back to the present as he clears his throat.

“can we speak somewhere more private?” he asks quietly. you don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad. but you nod nonetheless, leading him to an empty room as he follows. 

it’s a long, painstakingly dreadful walk. your mind is filled with too many possible scenarios that it’s a miracle your brain is even functioning properly. it should short circuit. what if he wants to end your arrangement? what if he’s aware of your slowly shifting feelings (if you can even call them that)? what if he’s found someone he’s interested in? what if his roommate has pieced together something, and now he needs to come up with a cover? 

the possibilities are endless, and they plague your mind so heavily that your lip is chewed raw by the time you enter the room and shut it behind him as he follows you in. 

“you wanted to talk?” you ask hesitantly. 

he doesn’t say anything—the only thing he does is press a folded piece of paper in your hands as you stare at him, confused. 

“open it,” he insists.

so you do. and reading over it makes you pause as you glance up at him in disbelief. the bimarstan funding—more than doubled. 

“what?” you breathe, in absolute awe, “how…how is this possible?”

“i’ve pulled a few strings,” he says plainly, shrugging. as always, he brushes off his actions as though he hasn’t just changed your entire job for the better. “it’s a nice perk of being an ex-sage.”

“you’ve used corruption just to help me?” your words are a playful jab—but there’s still an underlying question that you really do mean to ask. why go to such lengths for me? 

“it’s hardly corruption,” he grumbles, crossing his arms. the dust of red over the tips of his ears is the only thing that gives away the slightly flustered part of him, “i had a few favors owed to me, and the conditions here play an important role to everyone in sumeru. it was a simple correction to their terrible decision-making skills.”

“oh, haitham,” you chuckle. this time, the nickname really does make him flush more obviously, his eyes darting away to look off to the side as he clears his throat again. 

“well, that’s all,” he says stiffly, “i have to go home and…and make dinner. kaveh is of no help.”

“sure,” you beam, looking at him knowingly. you pause for a moment, contemplating before you cave and add, “and thank you. really.”

“it’s really nothing to look into,” he says awkwardly, “hopefully, now you can work fewer hours.” 

“the other nurses will also really appreciate it,” you say softly, “i’ll be sure to let them know—they’ll really have the hots for you this time,” you snort, making an indirect reference to earlier. he shivers, like the thought leaves him unnerved. 

“that one nurse of yours hasn’t left me alone since i stepped up as grand sage for that short while,” he grumbles, making you snort at the troubled look on his face. it shouldn’t make you feel as good as it does to see him so disgusted by the affections of someone else, but you’re only human. “doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.”

“oh c’mon, she’s sweet,” you tease. now that you know he’s uninterested, it’s fun to mess with him and get under his skin, giggling as you reach over and poke at his arm. 

“perhaps,” he shrugs, “but not very good at keeping her emotions in check. i’ve known her since my student days—i don’t think i could last one day with her lack of…composure.”

“what, you’re too above emotions?” you ask amused, “i would disagree. you’re a rather grumpy man, you know.”

“am i?” he fights back a grin, “i hardly noticed.”

“without your morning coffee, yes,” you quip. 

he laughs, shaking his head as he stares at you with something that looks oddly close to fondness in his eyes before he murmurs, “i do really need to make dinner. kaveh will truly whine my ear off if i don’t tonight.”

“have fun,” you pinch his cheek. he rolls his eyes, and with that, he nods to you and leaves, swiftly walking away and leaving you to yourself in the empty room with the slip of paper in your hands, a lovesick smile still on your face. 

you don’t even know where the line starts or where it ends anymore. all you know is that you’ve undoubtedly crossed it all on your own—and it might be the end of you, truly.

——————————

it takes one nice gesture from alhaitham to make you realize you’ve fallen hopelessly hard for him. before, every small action of intimacy was always just the two of you being friends, amicable and good-natured in between sex. 

now, you’re not sure you could spend a single minute next to him without wondering what it would feel like to do those things as a couple. 

sometimes, after sex, alhaitham likes to read. because it’s hard for him to sleep, and he doesn’t want to disturb you from your much-needed rest after a long day at the hospital. you don’t realize how reliant you’ve become on the sound of his pages flipping until you lay in bed alone, tossing and turning under your sheets as you try your hardest to sleep.

you can’t. not when all you think about is him. him, him, him. he’s all your mind drifts to nowadays. 

but you know alhaitham—better than a lot of people, in fact, seeing as you get to see parts of him that are otherwise… off-limits. being in a relationship is the last thing he wants, especially with you. otherwise, he’d have told you by now. you’re scared of a lot of things, scared to speak your mind, and tend to overthink too much for your own good. 

but alhaitham? he’s blunt and to the point. if he’d wanted something more with you, if the line had blurred and blurred for him until it risked being nonexistent like it did for you, he’d have said something. but he hasn’t—and neither can you. 

because you know as soon as you do, it’ll be over. the kind gestures, the gentle touches, the heated kisses, the nightly visits, all of it. gone with the wind as it blows the line in the sand away for good—not because he wants to cross it, but because it simply doesn’t need to exist anymore if he never speaks to you again. 

 alhaitham is not a romantically inclined guy. he’s good-looking enough that not just a handful of girls have tried their hand at confessing to him, and he’s always turned them down instantly. you’ve seen it, heard about it, know it to be true. and apart from that, are you both even that compatible?

sure, you get along great as is, but a relationship is much deeper than that. you’ve always appreciated how honest he was, how straightforward he put things. but relationships come with a lot more vulnerability and emotions than you’ve ever shown him. his bluntness will be too easy to mistake for casual cruelty when you’re in over your head. he’s quiet; he doesn’t appreciate too much interaction—would he even enjoy going on dates? what if you insisted on an evening out, and all he wanted to do was stay in and read? would he want to do all that stuff? everything you want seems like it would be something of a chore for him, something that makes him see you as a chore. 

he even said it himself the other day, calling that nurse too emotional for his liking. sure, it was an off-handed comment, but you’re one emotional day away from potentially being too much for him too. you couldn’t handle that. not when you like him so, so much. not when you want him so bad, you couldn’t handle him not wanting you just as badly. 

would he even want you that badly? logic tells you no—and logic is at the forefront of his mind at all times. your emotionally charged outlook on life would be a bleeding mess of color in his neutral, logically categorized approach. 

you’d be dooming yourself to loving a man who would hardly know what to do with your affections. 

so you do the only sound solution to this predicament of yours—you end things before he can do it himself. it’s inevitable, of course. whether it’s in a few weeks or months, eventually, alhaitham will grow bored of your casual fling. and he’ll end things, completely fine and normal while you fall apart at the seams. the best thing you can do for yourself is let things end on your own terms, and early on, too, before the feelings fester into something all too serious. 

it’s not as though you love him yet—things are still early on enough to make sense of them. 

or is it? some part of your mind asks viciously, are you sure you don’t love him? 

you push away the thought as quickly as it pops into your head. rolling your shoulders back, you straighten your posture, taking a deep breath before you knock on his door. 

he opens it instantly, smiling that small, ghost of a smile of his. you falter immediately. 

“hey,” he hums, swinging his door wider, “come in.”

“no, that’s okay,” you say stiffly, not meeting his eyes, “i…can’t today.”

“oh.” you hate that you can hear the frown in his voice and practically see the confused crinkle of his eyebrows. “did you want to talk about something, then?”

yes, you want to say. there’s a lot i want to talk about. 

there’s a lot you should talk about—and if you were keen on discussing this like an adult, you would lay it all out on the table. 

instead, you blurt out, “i think we should stop.”

he eyes you carefully, raising a questioning brow as he asks, “stop what?”

“this,” you point between the two of you, “whatever…whatever this is we’re doing.”

and just as you expected, his face is blank, so neutral and so hard to read you want to scream at him. yell at him for making you want him so bad when you can’t even tell if he’s even a fraction as crazy as you. does he want you? he certainly treats you well sometimes, but maybe that’s just because you get his dick wet and stitch up a few wounds here and there for him. does he actually even toss and turn and stay up thinking about you the way you think about him? 

the answer is probably no. you don’t even want to find out if you’re right or not. but he’s never made you believe he has, so you don’t entirely think you’re wrong in your assumptions. 

“and what are we doing?” he must be playing dumb, you think. 

“hooking up,” you hiss, “having sex. fucking. whatever you want to call it, alhaitham. we have to end it. now.”

“and what brought this on?” he crosses his arms. 

you want to ask him why he’s being so cruel, so intent on keeping you when you clearly can’t stay, when there are so many women who would throw themselves at him for a chance to get in bed with him if a physical partner is what he’s so hellbent on keeping. but you can’t be that for him any longer, not when your emotions are tired of being a jumbled mess that slowly but surely eat away at your decaying soul. 

“we…we’re just…it’s not—we just have to, okay? i don’t appreciate you treating me like i’m easy.”

“wha—when have i ever treated you as such?” he looks at you bewildered, getting defensive. 

“that’s not what i meant,” you pinch your nose, groaning as you try to process the words you want to say in your spinning head. everything is too much—the way he’s close, the way your body feels aflame from just standing near him, the way your eyes are involuntarily misting over. “this…this is just an easy arrangement, that’s all. for both of us. but i don’t want to be someone’s quick and easy hook-up for the sake of convenience. i need…i need something more from someone, so we should stop while we can so i can find myself that.”

there’s a minimal twitch of his jaw as he clenches and unclenches it, nodding slowly.

“you want something more, is that it?”

“w-well, yes—but that’s not what i entirely meant, so don’t read into it—”

“so how would ending this get you that, then?” he challenges. you hate that he makes you feel stupid, that he looks at you like you’re not thinking when that’s all you’ve been doing these last few…archons know how long. he’s plagued your mind for so much time you can’t even pinpoint for how long. 

“i want something more, but not from you,” you spit, slamming your hands to slap against your thighs in frustration, “that’s obviously why i’m ending it! must you always make everything difficult?”

he doesn’t speak, silently stunned a bit at your outburst. so you take a deep breath, willing yourself to calm down before you collect your thoughts better. 

“i just…i’m sorry, okay? i didn’t mean to yell at you like this is your fault. i…i can’t say i can get into bed with you anymore without wanting us to actually mean something to each other, and i know that’s not what you want—”

“who said that’s not what i want?” he interrupts, looking at you with the first hints of emotions all day. there’s a small etch of frustration building in the twitch of his brows as he continues, “you’ve just decided for me how i feel, and that’s a bit unfair, don’t you think?”

“you’ve never said anything about how you feel,” you shoot back.

“well, neither have you, but that doesn’t mean—”

“i may not have said it, but you’re telling me you never noticed? i do your laundry for you, for crying out loud, alhaitham! and you’ve never so much as dropped a hint!”

“i see,” he nods slowly, going back to the blank slate that is his face. still so infuriatingly neutral and unbothered by it all that you can’t help but lose it a little. 

how can he be so unbothered? how can he be so calm and collected when you feel like you might need to check yourself into the bimarstan yourself from the stress of it all? you’ve spent weeks, months in each other’s beds. familiarized yourselves with every part of each other’s bodies. he knows about that birthmark no one else sees, and you trace that mole on his left pec every night before you sleep. you’ve slowly but surely been dying to cross the threshold of just friends (with a few perks, of course), and here he is, nodding along as you tell him you want him, want more of him.

and he’s got nothing to say. because, for some reason, after months of feeling you, spending nights and days tucked away against you, he doesn’t seem to feel the same, so he doesn’t have much to offer you. how can he be so unbothered by your presence after months with you? is it really that easy not to be affected by you? 

some part of you lets go of the hold on your control as you snap, “and this is why we can’t have anything more.”

“why’s that?” he tilts his head, voice an uncharacteristic edge to it, “enlighten me.”

“because…because…because you’re you!”

finally, a flash of hurt crosses his face, making itself home in his eyes and forehead as it crinkles at your words. he studies you, quiet. unnervingly quiet that you almost wonder if you’re just deaf.

“are you trying to say there’s something wrong with me?” he presses, looking so lost that you almost feel guilty. 

not as much as you feel like you’re about to cry, though.

“yes,” you say without thinking—and the way hurt settles into his eyes more makes you scramble to reword things so you don’t sound like a total jerk, “i mean no! i mean…i mean you’re just you, and you and i won’t mix.”

“we won’t mix,” he repeats, blinking. “interesting—”

you can’t stop yourself from going on the tangent now that you’ve begun, spilling your every thought one by one as you cut him off, “you’re so quiet, and it’s unnerving, you know? you never speak a single thought on your mind, you’d rather just read than talk about your day. and everything you say is so painfully to the point—would it kill you to soften the blow sometimes? people don’t always need the cold, hard truth, okay? sometimes, saying what someone wants to hear can make all the difference. and…and…i don’t know, okay? i need someone who can work with my emotions without applying logic to everything, and that’s not you so…so we have to end things because it’s not fair to either of us. i want it to actually mean something with someone when i’m with them, and you don’t want someone to taint everything with their fragile feelings, so we need to go our separate ways. okay?”

you’re practically panting when you’re done speaking, and alhaitham is just standing, thinking, processing everything you’ve said in that painfully complex head of his. 

finally, he breaks the silence and says, “i didn’t know so many things about me bothered you.”

“they didn’t,” you sigh, “not until recently. i guess…i guess it just hit me how difficult it would be to get along in a proper relationship.”

“you know that because what? you think it?”

“i know it because i’m actually looking at things realistically,” you say exasperatedly, “just because we had sex for a few months doesn’t automatically mean we’re a compatible pair.”

“we haven’t really gotten to know much outside of sex to decide that,” he shakes his head, “i’m not understanding how you can so easily dismiss these feelings by deciding it won’t work—”

“look, alhaitham,” you cut him off, voice so uncharacteristically small, he pauses to look at you in shock, “i’ve been slowly losing it for weeks, okay? the last thing i need is for you to make things difficult for me. you’re a good guy, and i really, really wish things were different, but i just need more than what you can give me without completely changing yourself. neither of us should have to compromise anything about ourselves for things to work.”

“you don’t know if i’d be willing to give you what you need or not,” he says quietly, “maybe i wouldn’t be changing a thing.”

“then what about that girl?” you scoff, “the one you said was too emotional for you to handle? you think i’m just being crazy? you said it yourself, so what else should i believe?”

“her? she’s different—”

“why? because she’s not me? because she doesn’t let you in her bed? you’ll find my emotions just as burdensome as hers one day, and then what? we fall back on sex to keep the spark alive?”

something about him is defeated. shoulders slumped, eyes dim, and arms uncrossing to lay limply at his sides. he takes a deep breath before nodding, looking at you so intensely you almost feel frozen in place. 

“okay,” he whispers, “if this is what you want. that’s fine.”

his door closes, and your first tear slips. 

——————————

nine days. that’s how long it’s been without alhaitham. your mind tells you this is for the best, but your heart is practically on its knees, begging you to reconsider. 

a part of you wonders if you were being unfair like he said, judging him before you could properly give him a chance. the other part of you thinks it’s important not to let attachment cloud your better judgment. alhaitham is a good man; there’s no doubt about it. 

but is he a man good for you? that part is a difficult question to answer. protecting your heart seems like the safest option. still, you can’t help but miss him horrifically often. it doesn’t hit you how badly you’ve fallen for him until you don’t see him anymore. no more late nights at your place, no more afternoons at his, and no more routine bimarstan visits. 

your life has at least gotten a bit easier, though—more funding means more people to hire, and more people to hire means fewer grueling hours for you. though, when you really think about it, you owe this small win to the exact man who’s been plaguing your thoughts. 

you intend to drink your woes away, but it seems even in the tavern, you can’t escape him—well, not exactly him, but his roommate. but kaveh still reminds you of alhaitham, so the cleared head you hoped for is out of the question for the night.

the thing about kaveh, though, is that he’s loud. painfully so, and especially when he’s drunk. you could hear him from the other end of teyvat, you think—it’s hard to ignore him even if you want to. 

“he’s been insufferable lately,” kaveh huffs, “worse than usual. that awful temper of his needs to really get a check because i’m not sure how much more i can take.”

you didn’t know kaveh was friends with the general mahamatra—seeing cyno loosened up with a deck of tcg cards was not on your list of expectations for the night, but you can’t help but listen in when he adds, “his last few reports to me from his investigations were not up to his…usual work ethic, either. i’m not sure what’s up with him.”

“maybe he’s overworked,” tighnari suggests—you know him as a fellow amurta scholar, recognizing him from your student days. you hadn’t realized alhaitham was friends with such an interesting assortment of people—well, you don’t know if kaveh fits as a friend, but the other two seem like safe bets. 

“i don’t think so,” kaveh grumbles, “he’s hardly been sleeping. it’s not like he takes work home with him, you think he’d be the type? but he’s been drinking all the coffee—i actually work into the night. shouldn���t he at least leave some for me?”

“i wonder what’s up with him,” cyno hums thoughtfully, “he must really be brewing in his emotions.”

you snort at the poor pun, watching as the other two around him wince and groan. 

finally, kaveh sighs, rubbing his temple as he mumbles, “i don’t know. i’ve never seen him like this. i think it’s serious.”

that makes guilt pool in your gut, making you feel so full that even one sip of your drink feels like too much. you’ve lost all desire to drink your sorrows away—you couldn’t have possibly dampened someone like alhaitham so deeply, could you? he’s always been unaffected by things more than others, and you’d never imagined him to care that deeply about your relationship. if you could call it that, even. 

“what do you suppose has brought this on then?” tighnari’s ears twitch in worry, “he’s…not exactly the most emotionally available.”

well, at least you’re not alone in your beliefs. 

“i don’t know,” kaveh says quietly—and even if they claim not to be friends, you don’t think they hate each other a fraction as much as they let on because his voice seems to be twinged with clear worry himself as he adds, “his eyes have been red in the mornings. it can’t be something small.”

that’s all you can stomach to hear before you slam your glass down and swiftly make a beeline for the tavern’s exit. some part of you, weak and bound to alhaitham, is unable to listen any longer about his misery. the misery you caused. the misery you brought yourselves both because insecurities ebbed and flowed into the deepest crevices of your mind and rotted away at the reasonable parts. 

of course, you’re different. of course, there’s a chance things will go sour. of course, it won’t be easy. but isn’t that the case for every relationship? love was never meant to be a simple feat—otherwise, it would never be half as scary to take the fall. 

but you’ve been careful, too careful. so careful that you forgot to let yourself try and be happy, and so careful that you’ve stomped on someone’s feelings enough that his friends exchange their worries over drinks instead of having a good time with him. 

so you decide that enough is enough. if alhaitham isn’t meant to be yours, then celestia themselves will have to take him from you—because you’re not risking losing him a second time. 

not again.

——————————

contrary to popular belief, alhaitham has never been difficult to track down if you simply know where to look. he might be good at making himself scarce, but there’s only a handful of places he could be. the light of his home shining through the window tells you that your first guess is not very off.

you knock, silently staring at the tips of your shoes as he slowly opens the door.

“hey,” you murmur as soon as the door swings open. you haven’t even looked up yet, but you’re certain he has the same neutral expression on his face. but kaveh is right about one thing—his eyes are definitely a little red.

“hey,” he says quietly. 

it’s awkward for a moment. you don’t know what to say, and he doesn’t have any intentions to fill the silence. some time ago, that worried you. his quietness came across as an inability to keep up healthy communication. but now, you miss it—the quiet flip of his pages as he sat beside you, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. the way he let out a soft little breath when you lay on his chest, rubbing his palm slowly in circles against the small of your back. the soft, peaceful silence of his presence. 

you never appreciated it enough, the comfort of knowing you’re valued without having to say anything at all. 

“listen, i—”

“you don’t have to—”

you both stop, pausing when you speak at the same time. 

“go ahead,” you say instantly. 

he clears his throat, shaking his head as he swallows. “no,” he mumbles, ever the gentleman, “no, that’s okay. you go first.”

you think your nerves might just explode one by one if you have to wait any longer, so you don’t bother putting up much more of a fight, nodding before fiddling with your fingers as you take a deep breath. 

the words spill faster than you can process what you’re saying. a long, jumbled string of thoughts that rattle off your tongue like a dam finally breaking at the leaking crack. 

“i was wrong. for all the things i said, i mean. there’s nothing wrong with you, you know? you’re really kind, and you remember the little things, and you always keep your promises, and those are really nice things. and i don’t hate when you’re quiet, by the way. i used to think it bothered me, but i miss it, you know? just having you sit next to me and read and stuff. i guess…i guess i just never bothered trying to think about how to love you the way you needed because i was so busy worrying if you could love me the way i needed and…and i just fucked a lot of things up. i got in my head and made a lot of assumptions that weren’t fair and just…i got cold feet. and i’m sorry. and i love you—really, really love you. all of you. you don’t have to believe me or even say anything at all. i just needed you to know all that because you deserve to.”

he’s silent. you can’t tell whether from being stunned or from disinterest. both are fair, regardless—you think alhaitham could slam the door shut in your face, and you’d deserve it. but he doesn’t. because just as always, he’s your same, kind, gentle alhaitham underneath all of the blunt stoicism. 

“i lied,” you whisper, “i do want you to say something. anything.”

“i don’t know what you want me to say,” he stares at his feet, still looking as hurt as the day you left him. “you…you just assumed i wouldn’t be able to love you, is what i’m gathering.”

“i just thought…” you swallow thickly, tongue like sandpaper against your dry mouth, “i just thought we were too different.”

“i thought we got along well,” he shrugs, trying to pretend there isn’t as much hurt on his features as there is, “maybe i misread things.”

“no,” you shake your head desperately, “no, i overthought them, that’s all.”

“why did you leave me?” he asks hoarsely, “why couldn’t we have talked about things?”

you want to say because you were a coward, maybe even a hypocrite. you insisted he’d be too constipated emotionally to communicate properly with you, but all you’ve done was decide things for him and avoid the hard, heart-to-heart talk.

really, it’s because you were never brave enough to try and love alhaitham the way he would have loved you. the way he loves you. you were blind to see it—weren’t even willing to believe that he ever would. not until after you let him go and realized what you had. he’d walked you home, made sure you got proper rest, pulled strings, and used up favors just to make things better for you. and you missed all the signs, all because it was so easy to walk away, to label his blunt nature as causal cruelty, to confuse his quietness as disinterest, to assume his logic was the absence of emotion. you never gave him a chance because you were never brave enough to take the fall. 

but alhaitham was always ready to catch you, arms aching to wrap around your form and hold you. not because he wanted you to love him, but because all he’s ever wanted was to love you. 

you think that’s the difference between the two of you. you’ve always wanted to be loved, and he’s always wanted to love. you’ve always wanted to take and he’s always wanted to give. you’ve always wanted him to be enough, and he’s always wanted you to know you’re enough and more. 

it’s too much to tell him though, so you settle on cupping his cheeks and whispering, “because you scare me. the way you make me feel.”

“how do i make you feel?”

not too long ago, you’d think he was asking just to confirm what he already knows. now, you know he’s asking because he needs to hear the words for his own sake. just to be sure. just to ease the uncertainty in his own head. 

“you make me feel a lot of things, haitham,” you murmur, “you make me feel happy. appreciated. very pretty. capable. important. sometimes a little dumb,” you giggle as he frowns, squeezing his cheeks as you add, “but only because you’re so smart. i could list a few other things you make me feel, but…they’re not as proper.”

“i thought…just…d-did i do something?” he asks, voice hesitant. there’s a painful, awful squeeze in your heart at his words. but your heart is the last of your worries right now—it’s the least you can do, putting your feelings aside for his own, seeing as you’ve stomped all over his.

so, in an effort to show him that everything is okay, you smile—you’re sure it’s a pathetic, wobbly little thing, but you don’t have time to care. not when he’s right here, under your fingertips, and one possible moment away from slipping away. 

a watery chuckle escapes you as you whisper, “no. you didn’t do anything—it was me. but i’m not running away anymore…if you still want me, that is.” 

“you’re all i want,” he says instantly. “the only thing.”

“i know,” you breathe, “and you are all i want too.”

you kiss him. because he deserves to feel you choose him, to feel you close the gap and show him you’re here. your lips press gently against his, molding into them like two pieces of a puzzle—except you don’t think neither of you fit anywhere else but each other. incomplete without each other and unable to fit anywhere else. your thumb traces the soft, warm skin of his cheek, soothingly caressing it as if to let him know i’m here, and i’m not going anywhere. 

he stumbles back, and you follow him in, pressing against the door of his home just like those days ago before an unwelcomed interruption. this time, though, you think kaveh could freeze outside all you care—you’re not letting anything interrupt this moment. 

“i’ve been losing my mind for weeks too,” he mumbles in between gasps for air as you kiss, “just so you know. it wasn’t you alone.”

“that’s good to know,” you hum, grinning against his mouth. 

“and i thought i was giving signs,” he adds, “that’s why i went through the trouble to fix your schedule. so i could spend more time with you—i…i apologize if i wasn’t obvious with my intentions.”

“don’t be,” you say softly, “i’m the one who missed them. you did everything right.”

“did i?” he asks, unsure. 

you press your lips firmly against his when you hear the crack in his voice, as if sheer touch alone will express the way you feel. maybe it does, though—because he melts against you, letting out a soft moan as your hands travel to his broad chest, feeling the muscled and toned body he hardly hides under that skin-tight shirt. 

“i get scared easily,” you whisper, “will you be patient with me?”

“i’m not good at expressing my emotions,” he whispers back, “will you be patient with me too?”

“we can be patient together,” you hum, pecking his lips a few times as he chuckles softly. 

“good plan,” he nods, “sounds like it should work.”

“oh, thank you,” you wink playfully, pulling away to wrap your arms around his neck and press your forehead to his as you look at him cheekily, “i’m a bit of a genius.”

“that you are,” he nods, smiling in amusement. and he means it. you’re every bit smart and capable as he makes you feel—inadequacy was never something alhaitham made you feel; it was always something you brought onto yourself. you’re used to shifting the blame, you realize. it’s so easy to blame everything and everyone but yourself for the intrusive thoughts in your head. 

but they melt away tonight, one feathered kiss at a time, pressed to your jaw delicately by warm, familiar lips you’d know blind. 

“your friends are worried about you, you know. kaveh—”

“please do not mention kaveh’s name right now,” he groans, “i’ll hear all about your alarming story of my friends at the tavern, but right now, i only want to hear you say one name.”

“yours?” you wiggle your brows. 

“glad to know we’re on the same page,” he confirms, humming as your hands trail under his shirt, feeling the ridges of his built muscles. 

“i don’t want anymore casual sex,” you murmur, pouting, “it’s driving me mad.”

“okay,” he nods, shivering as your palms glide over his nipples as you pull his shirt up, exposing his chiseled abdomen for you to admire, “will girlfriend suffice?”

“girlfriend would be great,” you nod, beaming. 

“just so you’re aware, i am very concerned with the emotions of my girlfriend, however heavy they might be. i do still think, however, that nurse was on a…unique realm of her own, though,” he adds the last part with a pointed look.

“don’t mention other women when you just asked me to be your girlfriend,” you huff, “don’t forget who stitches you up. don’t get on my bad side.”

“my apologies,” he laughs. 

and then you’re back to kissing him, fervently and so desperately, you think this might be your last day on earth, making the most of it before you’ve breathed your last breath. alhaitham groans into your mouth, lets your hands wander all over him as you feel the tautness of his physique. 

it’s not the first time you’ve felt him, but it is the first time you can take all the time you want, memorizing him because he’s yours to keep locked away in your memory. 

“i love you,” you pant against his mouth, wet, hot kisses interrupting your sweet confession. 

“i,” he kisses your cheek, “love,” a kiss to your other cheek, “you,” a kiss to your nose, “too.”

this time, he leans down and kisses you right over your pulse point, right where your racing heart rate is beating erratically. you gasp when he bites and sucks at the flesh, making you whimper as your knees buckle. 

“how much?” you ask, pleading to know.

“enough to lose sleep,” he murmurs, “because my dreams were plagued with you. i couldn’t escape you in waking hours or in slumber. that’s how much you torment me. take over my body and mind. is that what you needed to hear?”

he’s a linguist—sometimes you forget that. perhaps he’s not so bad at saying what you need to hear, after all.

“maybe,” you hum, kissing his cheek, nibbling affectionately at the soft flesh, “you like me that much? how cute.”

“i’ll like you a lot more if you stop teasing,” he grunts, pressing his hot, searing erection against your thigh as your thumbs toy away at his nipples. you gasp when you feel him prod at you, feeling the heat even through the fabric that separates you. 

neither of you are patient enough to do this properly right now—but you have plenty of time for that. plenty of time to take it slow, explore each other, and map your bodies in ways you never dared to before. scared to cross that stupid, useless imaginary line you drew for no reason at all. you decide from here on out there are no more lines—just endless sand, your footprints next to his as you trek the path of lovers. 

you rub at his hardened cock through his pants, making him grunt before he grabs your hands and pins them over your head. 

“i said love you,” he says intensely, eyeing you with a carnal hunger you’ve never seen in him before, “but i didn’t say i’d be patient tonight.”

with that, his free hand tugs down both of your pants—his just enough to free his aching cock, and yours enough to expose your leaking cunt as he teases your clit with the blunt tip of his length. you whimper, bucking your hips into him, feeling the beads of precum spread along your heat as he shudders. 

“put it in,” you whine, clutching his shirt with tight fists. 

“you’re…not ready yet,” he insists, teeth grit as he gives his all to hold himself back from taking you just like you plead. 

but you’re stubborn—and alhaitham? he’s too weak to you to fight you when you are, doomed to give into any and every whim of yours.

“don’t care,” you shake your head, “don’t care, don’t care, don’t care. i just want you—please, please, please haitham.”

that’s all it takes for him to crack—slowly, so, so carefully, he nudges past your wet folds, inching his throbbing cock into you as you gasp at the stretch. this isn’t the first time he’s split you open—but it’s never something you get used to. the burning stretch still feels as new as the first time. he groans, low and breathless, as your walls clamp down on him as he slowly but surely intrudes into your cunt. 

“so tight,” he murmurs, voice filled with wonder—like this is the first time he’s ever felt you so raw. maybe it is. he’s never felt you as his, as yours. “does that feel good? do you feel me? what you do to me? and you thought i didn’t feel the same? like i didn’t purposely let blades slice my skin just for an excuse to come find you? feel your touch, watch you worry? just for a moment of your attention? surely, you can’t be so blind.”

his words make your head spin, making you throw it back as a soft escapes you when the last bit of his length slips in, filling you full and to the brim as he nudges at the most sensitive spots inside of you. he’s so deep; you think your lungs are filled with him, like every breath you take is filled with him, him, him. 

“yes,” you say through a shaky voice, “yes—so good, you feel so good. i want you, haitham. all of you.”

“you have all of me,” he kisses the words into your neck, “that’s not enough? you want more?”

“yes,” you plead, “more!”

he chuckles, smooth and low and so pretty, you feel an ache in your clit from the sound alone. “well, alright then. more it is—i could never dream of denying such a sweet wish.”

finally, he rolls his hips, all but pulling out completely before pressing back into you, dragging along every ridge of you, nudging his thick tip against the spongey, sensitive at the back of your walls. you’re slack against his door, held up by him and him alone as your body betrays you, unable to keep balance as he fucks into you the way he does. 

it’s been nine days without you. the way his hips snap so desperately into you, you’d think he’s a man thirsty, gone a year without rain in the deepest, more treacherous ruins in the desert. all you can do is cling to him, repeat the same mantra of haitham, haitham, haitham—more, please haitham.

he knows your body well. so, so well, he knows exactly how to toy with your clit, thumb finding the sensitive nub, enough pressure to make you whine with a jolt, but not enough to let you fall over the edge just yet—not until he allows it.

“i love you,” he punctuates with a roll of his hips, “repeat that. so i know you believe it. so i know you believe me.”

“p-please,” you gasp, tugging at his hair, “i…i need to c-cum—”

“say it,” he demands. 

“you love me—oh,” you cut yourself off with a sharp breath, his thumb abusing your clit in faster circles. 

“again,” he says firmly.

“you love me,” you whimper, “you…you love me. only me.”

“good,” he nods, groaning as you squeeze around him at the praise, “and don’t forget it. not for a second.”

“l-love you too,” you stutter, voice cracking as he rolls his hips unforgivingly, the friction making your mind fog with pure lust. “love you so, so much.”

that makes him inhale sharply, breath catching in his throat. his head falls to your neck, hot breath fanning against your skin as he moans lowly, hips sloppy and ungraceful in their pace but never failing in precision to angle right into your sweet spot. his thumb rolls circles into your clit, fast and desperate to send you over the edge so he can follow. 

and you do—you fall off the edge so fast, so hard, your nails dig blunt, raw crescent moons into his skin as you arch your back off the door and cry his name. luckily for alhaitham, his house is built conveniently enough that he has no close neighbors. no one to hear such filthy sounds right against the door for them to witness just by passing by. no one should be at this hour—but even if they were, you hardly could bring yourself to care. 

“c-cumming,” you wail, “cumming, haitham.”

“so beautiful,” he kisses the corner of your mouth, voice strained as he chases his own orgasm, “can’t…can’t believe you’re mine. mine.”

it’s like the realization that you’re his is what pushes him past the edge, his cock twitching with hot, thick ropes of cum into your abused cunt and painting the walls white as soon as he repeats the word mine. 

mine, mine, mine—he doesn’t stop repeating it even as he fucks himself into you and works himself through his high. you can feel the wet, messy trail of his cum and your slick leaking down your thighs, so filthy, so lewd, so devastatingly raw. 

“yours,” you confirm tiredly, kissing his head as he pants into your neck, muffled moans pressed against your skin as you soothe him while he falls apart against you. “all yours. not going anywhere, i promise. i promise.”

finally, he slumps against you, panting as he tries to catch his breath, sweaty and tired but never unsatisfied. 

“if you leave me again,” he quietly admits, “i think i’ll go mad.”

“then i won’t,” you say gently, stroking his sweaty locks. 

“i love you,” he reminds you once more, “do you believe me?”

“i do,” you nod, smiling like he’s handed you the sun, “and i love you too. do you believe me?”

“i do,” he hums, wrapping himself around you tighter. 

there’s a jiggle of the doorknob behind you, followed by an incoherent, slurred string of curses. alhaitham deflates against you, looking up at you tiredly. you throw your head back and laugh, gleeful, and so, so in love. 

“i’m tired of him,” he grumbles.

“let him off easy this once,” you brush back his hair, “it’s thanks to him that i came to see you tonight.”

“then i suppose just this once, i won’t leave him out to freeze,” he relents. 

you realize for a moment, alhaitham had never drawn the line in the first place. perhaps it was always just you, making rules in your head when all he ever did was want you from the start. he waited so patiently for you, so you cup his cheeks and pull him closer, giving him one more firm kiss as a reward for all you put him through. he pulls away, dazed as he stares at you with unfocused eyes. 

“i’ll give you another like that if you run me a warm bath,” you say cheekily. 

“do i get to join this bath,” he raises a brow, eyeing you in amusement as his hands rub soothingly into your hips. 

you pretend to think for a moment, mockingly tapping your chin in deep thought before you murmur, “okay, fine. but no funny business.”

“i wouldn’t dream of it—”

“hello?” kaveh’s slurred call interrupts, followed by rough knocking. 

“he can freeze,” alhaitham says bitterly.

“don’t you dare!” you gasp, fighting back a laugh as he looks at you miserably.

well…….what was supposed to be maybe 4-5k words at best has…..gotten quite out of hand LOL. 14k words later i present to you my official love letter to alhaitham. anyway i suppose this fic stems from sometimes wondering if i would be compatible with the characters i enjoy. but the question is not whether or not you’re compatible, but whether or not you’re willing to put in the work to make compatibility. and alhaitham would certainly do that. anyway!!! i hope you enjoyed. i’m not sure if many peiple will read this, but if you do, reblogs and comments are really appreciated! giving you all a hug and reminding you that your favs would 100% want you <3

[yuzukiii3]

Neuvillette pines for you.

Furina learns to avoid him simply so she doesn't have to hear about whatever thing you've done lately that Neuvillette is obsessed with.

The ache is so deep in his soul it almost hurts.

The rain comes in a downpour sometimes. To match the wetness on his cheeks. Though sometimes he can't tell if it's the rain or his tears on his face.

You find him like this one evening. An umbrella tucked under your arm as you find the Chief Justice on the shore, head bowed and completely soaked.

"Monsieur Neuvillette?" you ask softly, coming up behind him. Your umbrella is just big enough to protect him from the rain. "Are you alright?"

He turns to you with shock on his face, tears still running down his face. A thousand thoughts race through his head, everything from did you see him crying to why in the world are you out in the rain?

A soft, gentle hand touches his cheek. It takes him a moment to realize it's your hand, the softest thing he's felt. Instinctively, he wants to lean into the touch. So he does.

"Are you crying?" your voice is soft, concerned, without the barest hint of judgement he so easily passes on to the players of his court.

The umbrella is shoved into the crook of his arm, and another hand reaches up to join the other. You cup both of his cheeks, though he has to bend slightly to allow you to do so, which he does so easily.

"There," you murmur, brushing your thumbs under his eyes. Your smile is so soft, even softer than your touch. "You have beautiful eyes, Monsieur Neuvillette. I hate to see you so sad."

The rain stops suddenly, as though someone has turned off a switch in the sky itself. His cheeks are dry and the sky is clear, and before he can say a word, you're looking up at it instead of him, still smiling.

"The rain stopped." You sound so happy about it, he almost feels bad for making it rain. You press the umbrella further against his hand.

Your touch feels warm. Inviting, and soft. Everything about you feels soft to him.

"Keep it for next time, okay? I'd hate to stumble upon you wandering through the rain again. You could catch a cold!"

He clears his throat softly, trying to figure out words. He's pretty sure words didn't exist before you started talking to him, and now he's floundering over them like a child.

"Allow me to walk you home," he finally manages, as though he didn't stumble over words for the first time in his life.

You smile, and link your arm through his own when he offers it. The sky above you two hasn't been this clear and blue in ages.

Perhaps, after he finishes walking you home, he can figure out how to finally ask you to dinner.

But who knows, really. After all, if he cries again, will you touch him as softly as before?

There's only one way to find out.