secretliteradite

[secretliteradite]

Sleepyhead

Superman x Reader

Summary: Your superhuman boyfriend just can't get enough of you.

Warnings: Dub-Con bordering Non-Con, no plot whatsoever

➥ banner by @vase-of-lilies 

⭑

Clark could never get enough of you.

From the very moment that you kissed him at the end of your first date, it seemed like he was smitten instantaneously. He didn’t stop kissing you for a whole five minutes it seemed, and it took some convincing to get him to stop chasing your lips every time you pulled away. You were sure that Clark would have taken you right there against your door if you’d allowed him to. Of course, you both knew that he could do absolutely anything he wanted to if that was what he so desired.

…and sometimes he so desired.

Having a superhuman boyfriend certainly came with its perks, but you never thought it would come with any drawbacks. You hadn't even entertained the thought, seeing no reason to because your boyfriend was the savior of Metropolis himself. The red caped guardian angel who saved children and made people feel safe by just being in the vicinity. That super strength was always used for good, but sometimes…when he got his hands on you…that strength was used to keep you right where he wanted you.

When the days felt longer than usual and a fight took more out of him than he hoped for, he came crawling to you to find refuge in your arms. You kissed him and laid a gentle touch on his arm and ran your fingers through his dark curls, providing a healing that went beyond the physical. The hum from deep within his chest would reverberate against your frame, and Clark would turn his head to press a long kiss to your chest.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he would say.

…but you had a pretty good idea.

At night you would hold onto your boyfriend with a lax grip, lashes slowly fluttering as you fought to stay awake. He carried your body along with his as he slowly thrust into you, his soft lips peppering kisses all over your face before they traveled down towards your neck. Your legs would struggle to remain around his waist, your body growing heavier by the minute.

When your girlfriends would say sometimes their boyfriends fucked them for what felt like hours, you didn’t have the heart nor stomach to tell them that yours fucked you for literal hours. There’d been days where the sun was still high in the sky when he laid you down, only for the moon and stars to take its place when he finally rolled off of you.

Clark used your body for all it was worth and then some.

When you grew too tired to continue pushing yourself down onto his cock, he’d tighten his arm around your waist and pull you closer. He’d pay no mind to the way your lashes drooped and the way you lazily leaned in his hold. He’d press those soft lips to the corner of your mouth with a whispered ‘I can take it from here’ before doing just that.

You’d once thought there was a limit to how many times you could come around someone, but you didn’t know if you believed that anymore. Those days outnumbered the ones where Clark preferred to drag it out, lazily pushing himself into you and prolonging your climax until you were a tired and whiny mess.

“Just a little bit longer,” he’d quietly say, a hint of begging in his tone.

Although, you didn’t know why.

Clark would never have to beg for anything for there wasn’t anything you could ever actually do against him. Sometimes when you wanted to stop—would practically beg him to give you a break—he’d tighten his hand on your wrist, the other on your waist, and continue to push his cock into your soaking cunt.

“Just a little bit more…”

You’d lose track of how many times he’d say that or how many times he’d tell you just a few minutes more. He used your body to drain away the stress of the day, finding solace and healing between your thighs for as long as he wanted to. He’d encourage you to hold on and ask if you were still with him and beg you to keep your eyes open for ‘just a little longer’.

“You know how I get,” he breathed against your lips. “So hard to stop…”

“Clark,” you softly begged, pushing against his torso.

Your thighs ached and your arms were tired and your eyelids felt oh so heavy. There were even moments they closed for more than just a few seconds, and when you opened them again, he was still on top of you, stretching you out on his cock with his face pressed to the crook of your neck. Just on the precipice of sleep, your fingers absentmindedly traced along his skin, making him groan against yours.

“You’re doing so good for me.”

“I’m so tired,” you whispered back.

“I know,” was his only response.

…and still he allowed himself to get lost in the feel of you wrapped around him. Your thoughts would jumble together into one hazy mess of exhaustion and lust, tiredly humming as you dripped around him, embarrassingly wet from the literal hours he’d spent between your legs. Clark was more than human and required more than the average human could give, but for you, he’d try to make you give exactly what he needed.

With his arms under your thighs, he caged you beneath the weight of him, skin meeting yours again and again. He kept you from moving, kept you from leaving, and even when the feeling of him in your walls stopped being pleasurable, Clark still sought after what would give him sweet relief. He’d touch his forehead to yours, telling you to keep looking him in the eyes to stay awake, to stay up with him until he was finished.

“You just don’t know,” he sighed. “You just don’t know what you do to me.”

Despite his words, every inch of your body could feel what you did to him. Your whining and begging was met with gentle chides, your legs and hips protesting his every movement against you.

“This is the best part of my day,” he kissed along your jaw. “Let me savor it.”

[secretliteradite]

ceaseless

Pairing: general!sukuna x oiran!reader

Synopsis: A lot can be said about Sukuna. He’s a true warrior. Beastly. A man fully capable of overthrowing the current regime if he wanted, but chooses not to because he’s lazy. He’s also irritatingly persistent, that much is known with how many times he’s come into the brothel demanding your presence rather than going with all the other courtesans he’s been offered… for free, thanks to the power and status that comes with his name.

It's been years now. You can’t hide from him forever, especially not when your mother, the Madame herself, is starting to grow tired of turning him down.

Cw: explicit smut, profanity, alcohol and tobacco use, historical au, loosely inspired by apothecary diaries and demon slayer, sukuna's a menace, the emperor's afraid of him, readers an oiran (highest rank)

notes!! 10.3k words. reader scares sukuna and it ends up turning him on

m.list | last chapter | chapter five | next chapter

“You said she was sick the last two fucking times,” he complains, clearly not happy with getting turned away again, but not as mad as the young servant thought he’d be. 

Not yet at least. 

The servants weren’t very thrilled to find out that you were back to avoiding the young general again. With his track record of terrorizing the entire staff and customers who’d unfortunately come at the wrong time, it was safe to assume that he’d go back to doing just that until you decided to see him again. 

The first time they turned him away wasn’t that bad. He actually believed you were sick and had a bunch of herbs and spices sent to the brothel, in hopes that it’d put you on the fast track to recovering. Then there was the second time, which also wasn’t that bad, but that’s also when he did start to grow suspicious. Some of the servants could just tell from the way he stared at them, studying their expressions, in search of something that would validate the voice in his head that told him something was off. 

And now here he is. He wasn’t even that mad when he first walked in, just annoyed. Inconvenienced. His work has nearly doubled since he told the west’s king to basically fuck off. No one knows what his response to that will be, but he’s been preparing for retaliation ever since. All he’s been wanting lately is a moment to wind down in one of the stupid tea rooms and talk about nonsense with you. Smoke out of his pipe and drink whatever fine liquor the brothel had to offer, maybe peer pressure you to try both while he was at it too. 

But no, you keep lying about being sick.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she sheepishly responds, eyes once again back on the ground. “B-but I can offer you one of our other court-“ 

“Never offer me another courtesan again,” he casually cuts her off, looking back up the steps as if he’d see you walking by. He doesn’t believe you're sick. Not one bit. “Being sick for three weeks straight is a little concerning, no?”

“Y-yes, but we have a wonderful doctor that’s been checking on her frequently,” she tries to assure him. 

It doesn’t get her very far.

He lets out a low laugh, one that would come off as threatening to just about any grown adult, so it’d be easy to guess how fast it made the young girl's stomach drop. The goal for today was to be a little more considerate of others, but he failed. Not that he feels much remorse. It wasn’t any worse than you, waking up and deciding to throw a young servant girl to the wolves today. 

Or your evil witch of a mother. 

Who knows, who cares. All he knows at this point is that you’re avoiding him, again. The thought of being back to square one annoys him in ways nobody could comprehend. 

“Seems he’s not wonderful enough if she still hasn’t recovered. Perhaps I should pay him a visit and remind him that this is an oiran he’s caring for?”

The veiled threat made her eyes widen. She’s heard about his temper, and now she knows just how quick his mood can shift from firsthand experience. Violence wasn’t something he needed to work himself up to, it was already a part of him to begin with. 

“I really don’t think that’d be necessary, General,” she scrambles to say, her response coming off as more of a plea than anything else because she doesn’t want an innocent old man to fucking die. “He has gone above and beyond what most doctors are capable of. Her recovery is slow, but she is much better now than she was when she first got sick. We’re very thankful for him.” 

It was like watching a guilty child swearing they were innocent after doing something they were explicitly told not to do— not realizing it was the fear of being punished that held them back from exuding a certain amount of confidence needed to sound convincing. The confidence to lie— something the man in front of her mastered before she was even born. 

“Alright,” he shrugs, continuing to stare her down with the same inconvenienced look. For a moment the girl wasn’t sure if he was even listening in the first place. You could tell her that he decided to listen to the demons in his head instead and she’d believe you. 

He probably wouldn’t listen to them anyways, unless it was something he wanted to hear, like the word “yes”. He’s been in this god damn brothel for over 20 minutes now and has yet to hear that simple three letter word. 

“Well if she’s much better now, then I’m sure it wouldn’t be much of an issue if I went up to see her for a minute,” he stubbornly persists. 

“Oh it would be,” the madame cuts in, finally stepping into the waiting area after realizing he was never going to take the girl seriously. 

The madam was a completely different story compared to the poor servant. You could feel the certainty that followed closely behind the lies that slipped past her tongue. Didn’t matter if she was telling the truth or not, she already knew she’d get away with it either way. Like him, she also has the ability to hold power and control over others, she just wields it in her own special way. He’d honestly respect it a little more if she just stepped aside so he could go see her fucking daughter for a minute.

“We wouldn’t want such an important man as yourself getting sick now, do we?” 

Sukuna knows he could croak over right before her eyes and she wouldn’t care, worry would be the very last thing on her mind. If anything she’d probably rummage through his pockets before reporting his death. 

Just one look at her is enough to realize that the world doesn’t get to call him evil, not when it turns a blind eye to the one woman that understands what free will is and runs to the stars with it. He knows about the things she’s done behind closed doors. What she does to the girls who don’t meet the house’s standards, the standards that she created. Hell, he’d argue that she’s worse than him. 

But for obvious reasons, he doesn’t.

“I don’t get sick,” he says, looking at her as if she was an idiot for even suggesting the idea in the first place.

It makes her pause for a moment— his arrogance truly knows no bounds. He actually believes he’s nature’s exception. Not that she’s surprised, there’s just not much you can say to someone who sees the physical embodiment of perfection every time they see a reflection of themselves.

The madam has looked at him and seen many things throughout the years— a pest, a lovestruck fool, and given his unmatched streak of corruption in every shape and form, the law itself. 

But today, she sees the reason why she fully supports diets that include a generous serving of abortifacients. He’s her reminder as to why she tells people not to have children. On most days she feels anger. Sometimes annoyance. This interaction, however, has brought her nothing but disappointment. 

Not in you, but in herself.

All the years spent yelling at you to just have one conversation with him, all for you to turn around and only see him for multiple weeks in a row. Then when she reminds you of what you do for a living, you turn around and run to the opposite side of the spectrum. Why you decided to completely shut him out again, she doesn’t fucking know— not once did she tell you to stop seeing him. It should be basic knowledge at this point that ignoring him doesn’t work. 

Stupid girl. Out of all the men in the world you decided to do that to, it just had to be the one man that enjoys proving that he can be so much worse when given the opportunity. 

Motherhood. There is nothing rewarding about it. The gods must find entertainment in punishing her, they probably laugh when they choose you to execute those punishments for them too. If she could go back in time and slap her younger self in the face for deciding to follow through with a pregnancy for once, she’d do it in an instant. She’d probably do more than just a slap over the stupid reason she had at the time, which was simply wanting to try something new– a change in her routine. She was successful anyways, it’s not like she didn’t have the means to do it. She thought maybe she could raise someone who’d take it a step further, be better than her and all the generations of women before her. Maybe her daughter could be the first one to experience what it meant to be happy and to walk through life with a sense of purpose. 

The gods must’ve only heard a small portion of her sincere, yet incredibly vague prayers that day. The only thing they delivered was a child who took it a step further. Nothing else. They didn’t even bother sending you in the right direction. 

You took it a step further alright. You are a fucking deviate. Never in her life had she ever had to order servants to tell a courtesan to let a customer go home. She would’ve never guessed that it’d be her own daughter too, one that hailed from a long line of women that hated their jobs, including herself before she took over the brothel. As your boss, she loved how much money you brought in. But as your mother, she loathed the reason why you’ve been able to bring in so much money. Deep inside she wanted you to despise your surroundings so much that you’d come up with a plan to leave, to grow up and reach the breaking point that no one was allowed to reach. 

But you’re satisfied with your life, so much so that you’ve expressed never wanting to leave— a stark difference from your grandmother who was known to hate her job despite having such a high rank herself. 

No amount of gifts and praise made her happy. The brightest of diamonds gifted by smitten nobles couldn’t distract you from the misery she held in her eyes. And no one seemed to care, not even her customers that claimed to have loved her. She was nothing but a prisoner to all that she knew— too bitter to look at the good in her life, too scared to leave to see all of the good outside of it. She was stuck. The only thing that grew in her long career as a courtesan was the list of missing people in her district. Even if those around her grew suspicious, it was impossible to trace them back to her. Behind all that misery was a sharp, cunning woman whose only talent went towards survival. Who knows how far she could’ve gone had she been born to a good family. 

The madam grew up to hold that same anger in her heart, but for some reason she had more patience than her mother did despite having an equally rough start. It was one of the many things that made them different from each other. 

Truth be told she could count all the times her mother actually spent time with her on just one hand. She didn’t even know who her mother was until she was 8. Not that it changed anything, the courtesan continued to live her life as if she’d never given birth. But during the times she allowed herself to be more than just her job, she’d approached her with the kind of sincerity that you couldn’t fake. You could tell she enjoyed her daughter's company, even if the sole purpose of it was to prepare her for the real world. There was something about passing down generations worth knowledge to her own child that softened her. She wasn’t the violent woman that everyone learned to fear, she was soft spoken and warm. Wise too. She probably would’ve been a good mother had she been given the chance. 

The madam held on to all that she was taught when it came time for her to take customers of her own. 

Some were sweet. Most didn’t care. Then there were the ones her mother warned her of the night before she moved to a different brothel. It was the last time they ever saw each other, but the memory of her continued to live on as she added to the number of missing persons in her own district.

She often wonders what her mother would think of you, if she’d like you or if she’d resent you for having the freedom to choose which customers you could take. If she’d look down on you for dodging the struggles she went through as you worked your way up to the title you had now. The madam also continued the tradition of passing down that same wide range of knowledge to you and she’s certain this is the first time someone hasn’t used it for hiding the dead bodies of their most difficult customers. You’ve never had to deal with difficult customers to begin with, you worked under a woman that was feared in the district. 

The only information that has been of use to you was learning how to make aphrodisiacs and how to prevent pregnancies— something the generations before you could not relate to.

She wanted to give you a good life and she did. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than most in your position. You’re safe, you haven’t starved a day in your life, and you’re comfortable enough to complain around her while the girls in other homes received military grade punishments over something as little as talking with food still in their mouths.

But for fucks sake did you drive her nuts. She’s never had someone piss her off while leaving her in a state of disbelief at the same time. Someone once told her that it’d get easier over the years and here she was over two decades later waiting for that day to come. 

If anything, you’ve managed to make her life harder. You turn down proposals, you refuse to get married, you refuse to leave the house. You hardly take customers, and when you do, they stumble out of the fucking house looking like they’ve aged by 10 years. 

And the one man who’d probably walk out of here rejuvenated is currently standing in front of her, annoyed that he can’t see you and will probably blow off some steam afterwards by terrorizing his own soldiers, all because some idiot decided it’d be a good idea to recommend him as the head of the military.

If you’re not ignoring him, she has to deal with your regulars and watch a good chunk of that day's income walk away from her. And if you are ignoring him, then she has to deal with the headache he’s more than happy to give her when he hears the word “no”. 

Realizing that the only reason why she has to deal with this delusional idiot in the first place is because she decided to keep a pregnancy for once in her life.

Nothing works. She’s punished you, lectured you, fought you, and threatened you over a wide range of issues, yet new ones always seem to arise because of you. She could do what she’s done in the past to others and sell you off to a different house, but they wouldn’t care for you in the way she did. She could also throw you out onto the streets, but she couldn’t stomach the thought of you sleeping outside on a mat in the cold, selling yourself for loose change just so you could have a meal that was a fraction of the size of the food you’re served daily. 

Locking you in your room and choosing your customers for you? She could never. 

She already knew if she sold you to one of the customers that has offered to buy you out in the past, you’d just come back the next day, covered in dirt and offering to extend your contract for the next 50 years to make up for running away from whoever wasted their money on buying you out. 

You were given more luck than most, yet you still continue to push it. The worst part is none of it makes her care about you less. You have given her a heart that she never wanted to have, she could only compare that feeling to being held against her will. 

She especially feels that way right now– forced to listen to a grown man that claims he doesn’t get sick, unable to fully ban him from the establishment because there’s only so much she could do to him.

“I don’t get sick”. Oh how her blood boils. She can’t fucking stand him.

“Sit down,” she snaps at him, pointing at the seating area.

And Sukuna listens, not because he finds her intimidating, but because he’s impressed with how easy it was to get her to break today. He’s never seen someone get so offended over such a simple statement. She is seething and everyone in the house probably already knows too from the sheer force she drives through her feet with each step she takes up the stairs— it’s amazing. 

By the time she swings your door open, you’re back on your bed and reading some random book, pretending like you didn’t just spend the last 20 minutes with your ear pressed up against the wall. 

“Go down there and see him. Now,” she demands, using a tone you haven’t heard since you were 15. It sends like a light shiver down your spine. 

What could he have possibly said that made her this angry? 

“I thought you didn’t want me to see him anymore,” you cautiously respond. 

She shuts the door and sighs, trying to compose herself. It doesn’t work, breathing exercises never do. “When the fuck have I ever said that?!”

“A couple weeks ago!” 

“I told you to stop turning down your regular clients. I never said to choose between one or the other,” she corrects you. “Useless fucking harlot— this is what I meant when I said you were starting to act like you belonged to him. You didn’t even take customers again until after you cut ties with that bastard— the worst part is you didn’t even tell him that you didn’t want to see him anymore and now he’s back to tormenting me.”

“Can you please keep your voice down?” you whisper through a clenched jaw, desperately hoping he didn’t hear a word she just said. The walls in this house are thick and meant to give courtesans and their customers privacy, but they’re no match for your mother when she’s in a fit of rage. 

“His head’s shoved too far up his own ass to hear anything,” she stubbornly responds, yet still lowers her voice. She’s trying to understand, she really is, but she’s a woman of logic. 

Nothing you’ve done in the last month has made sense to her. 

She takes a deep breath, “I need you to explain to me why you feel the need to be faithful to him when he is just a customer at the end of the day.” 

“What are you talking about?” you sit up, looking more defensive than you realize. “I never said that.” 

“You didn’t have to,” she says, too tired to even point out that you are in dire need of some self reflection. Even if you couldn’t see the stark change in your mood within the last month, she sure as hell can. “You used to light up whenever I’d tell you one of your regulars was waiting for you downstairs, and now you whine and groan about having to take them. I was forced to give one of them a partial refund the other day because you ‘didn’t feel like touching them’. You have been moping for weeks now and it’s driving me nuts.” 

“Fine, I won’t do that again,” you murmur. 

“That’s not the point,” she grumbles, taking a seat on the bed. The urge to scoot away is strong, there’s nothing more unsettling than watching her step away from her role as your boss and suddenly become your mother again. 

You slowly avert your eyes away from her as she brushes the back of her fingers down your cheek, knowing that whatever she has to say will most likely be harsh and make you feel worse. 

“You’ve done this before— having more interest in someone than you should and forgetting about everyone else.” 

“I don’t see why you have to bring him up,” you gently cut her off. “That was a long time ago.”

“Because Toji used to tell you all the things you wanted to hear— you were stupid enough to believe him too,” she doesn't fail to mention. She’s glad that phase of yours has ended and you’ve learned your lesson, but the embarrassment of watching her own child fall for lies was clearly alive and well in her thoughts. “He was always letting you down, but it was the confusion he’d give you that kept you grounded.”

Much to her surprise, Sukuna didn't flood you with lies and promises, and that makes it all worse. 

“It’s not like that,” you sigh, head now in your hands from having to listen to her. “I’m already doing everything I need to do, why do we have to talk about this?”

“You are doing everything you need to do— you aren’t doing a very good job though,” she says with a laugh, taking another dig at you. “That general’s an asshole too, but he doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t try to buy your love or win you over either. It’s horrendous.”

“…why do you say that?” 

“Because there are no promises for him to break. No lies for you to find out about. He doesn’t leave much room for surprise either since he’s shown you who he was from the beginning,” she explains, still in that warm tone she rarely uses. 

There was no second guessing him, something about the way she said it made you sad almost. She caught the way your expression dropped of course, but for once just let it go. 

“It made you comfortable and fed whatever thoughts you were starting to have. I don’t need to know what they were, but I watched you forget about your regulars while taking him. I’m sure you would’ve liked to keep it that way too.” 

“So now what? You’re just going to rub it in my face?” 

“I’m not,” she scoffs, holding back on a few choice words for the sudden attitude. “I’m saying I understand wanting just one regular without getting bought out, and I can tell that’s something you’ve been trying to get over.” 

“Can you also tell I don’t really want to talk about it either?” 

“Of course I can,” she murmurs, still somehow able to act calm. 

“Sorry, came out ruder than I thought it would,” you mumble, all she does is nod her head, too absorbed in her own thoughts to really care. “I’m just having a hard time with work in general. I’m trying to get over it.” 

“I need you to try harder,” she says, looking you dead in the eyes. You couldn’t help but notice there was a trace of worry somewhere in there. Anybody would feel that way if one of their best selling products suddenly broke. “Using time to get over something isn’t a luxury we have— we don’t get to have bad days. You need to get it together. I know you want to finish your contract, but that won’t happen if you end up losing all of your regulars.” 

“I know.” 

“And if taking just one customer is what you truly want, you’re going to have to accept that your life will eventually change.” 

“I know,” you repeat yourself, hoping she’d lay off. 

“Do not give me that attitude right now. Believe it or not I want you happy at the end of all of this too,” she mumbles under her breath, rubbing her temple from the days she’s had. “Dumb girl. Do you have any idea how much stress you’ve given me lately? If I’m not fighting with that bastard downstairs, then I’m trying to convince your customers that you still like them.” 

“M’sorry about that,” you stifle a laugh, making the woman scoff. 

“You’re taking advantage of me,” she says, getting up from the bed. 

“No I’m not.” 

“You are,” she insists. “Just go talk to him, see what he fucking wants. I’m too old for this, I need to go lay down.” 

“You’re not old,” you click your tongue. “But fine.”

She stops at the door one last time, pointing a finger right at you. “And you better fix this mess too before I start justifying going to prison for murder.”

She’s gone before you even get the chance to respond to her. How dramatic. 

And honestly, so were you with the way you kept putting off going downstairs in an attempt to relax, which did the opposite. You got more nervous with each minute that passed and after around ten, you noticed a servant walking past your room and asked her to bring him up instead. 

Not long after, there were a few knocks at your door that were firm, yet cautious. It was Sukuna’s attempt at knocking gently, something he’d never be caught doing outside of here. 

Right when you thought you had it together, your mind decides to go completely blank once again. The first thing you noticed when quietly opening the door for him was how offended he looked, which was enough to look away and step aside for him. He doesn’t utter a single word when he walks past you, finding a place to sit and ultimately choosing the chair that faced your bed. 

“You know when people are sick, they tend to look a little more dead,” he says in the most unimpressed manner.

“I feel dead,” you respond guiltily, taking a seat at the edge of your bed.

“You’ve done a good job acting like it,” he adds. “You were a little more convincing this time around too, had to remind myself that you like seeing me suffer.” 

“No I don’t.” 

“You’re also a better liar than that little servant girl that you sent to turn me away today.”

“I mean I have been feeling really tired lately, so it technically wasn't a lie.” 

He shrugs at first, acting like it wasn’t that big of a deal, then makes it a big deal. “They all made it sound like you were bedridden— and now you're smiling. Did you enjoy starving me of your attention?” 

“Can you be any more dramatic?” 

“I can but I’d rather not give you another reason to start avoiding me again after I leave,” he admits, trying to lightly push for some sort of explanation. “Especially when I still don’t know what I did the first time.” 

“You didn’t do anything.” 

“Don’t play dumb,” he hums. 

“I’m not,” you sigh. “I just— I don’t know.”

Silence settles between you. He was as calm as ever leaned back in the seat, patiently waiting for an explanation. It was worse for you than it was for him, probably because of the way he just watched you. It was hard to hold eye contact with him, yet looking away somehow made it worse. Eventually he spoke up again, after realizing you weren’t going to say anything else to him. 

“I wouldn’t like it if you told me to stop coming here, but I hope you know I’d still respect your wishes.” 

“It’s not that.” 

That releases a good amount of Sukuna’s tension. He didn’t even realize it until his shoulders lightened up, finally letting him relax. It helped you too, especially when his face finally softened. You were already a mess to begin with, the silence and the way his eyes zeroed in on you nearly sent you into a crisis. 

“Just haven’t been myself lately,” you continue, attempting to explain yourself. “I guess the way I’ve been acting is going to make me lose my regulars. If I don’t get it together soon then my mom might have to start taking offers into consideration.” 

“You don’t wanna get bought out?” 

You shake your head, unsure of how he’d take the answer since his goal is to also buy you out. 

“I uh—“ he ends letting out a laugh at first, more boyish than usual. It almost made you feel ridiculous for admitting it from how small he made it seem. 

Coming up with a response was a struggle on its own, there’s not really a way to casually mention that you’ve been off the market for a while now from how high he’s hiked up your buyout price from his own offers throughout the years. There’s only a handful of people that could actually afford to get into a bidding war with him, and he’s made it very clear that their deaths would pave the way for a new art style if he lost. 

“You’ll be fine,” he ends up saying, but that obviously wasn’t enough judging by the look you gave him. He tiptoes around the subject for a bit, only to eventually tell you what you've already known: how he’s made it impossible for your regulars to afford you. 

It was 100% greed on his end, you can tell from how he tried to hide how proud he looked when admitting it. 

“You really have nothing to worry about,” he adds, trying to come off as more reassuring than boastful. 

“But then she’s going to take your offer,” you remind him. “And then I’d have to leave.” 

“Who said that?” 

“That’s the whole point of a buyout, I’d be leaving to live with you for the rest of my life.” 

Ouch.

“I’d just be paying off what’s left of your contract,” he mutters, mind still stuck on how awful you made it sound to live with him for the rest of your life.

“It’d be a waste to pay for something you couldn’t bring home,” you softly argue.

He takes a moment to think about it, aware of how someone could see it that way, but his stance stays the same. He’d even go as far as saying buying out a courtesan, only to lock her up in a home was a waste of money. But maybe he only felt that way because it was you.

“Let’s say somebody bought a bird as a pet, gave it food and shelter, but also clipped its wings because they didn’t want something they owned to fly away. Would you agree with the owner or would you feel bad for the bird?” 

It takes you a moment to answer that, you never took him to be the type that cared about someone’s free will, let alone a bird's. He looked so serious asking the question too. 

“I’d feel bad for the bird.”

“You should,” he lightly scolds you. “Don’t sit there and think having your contract paid off is a waste.”

“I guess,” you murmur, not really in the mood to talk about the differences. There wasn’t a point anyways, your views on the matter are similar enough. “I’ll be fine– just need to get my mood up.” 

“Right,” he just ends up saying, letting the topic go for now. Your mind seemed to already be made up on how you’d be ending your career. It seems you only trust yourself when it comes to this matter and that wasn’t something he could get mad at, so he shifts the mood. “I bet you’d probably feel better if you spent more time with me than with those little regulars of yours.” 

“Someone sounds a little jealous,” you softly laugh. 

“They’re poor,” he casually says, as if that explanation alone in itself was enough to prove he didn’t feel threatened by them. They weren’t even poor, he’s just a dick. “It’s just disappointing — watching you play favorites and all.”

“It’s different,” you quietly respond, hoping he’d leave it at that. The last thing you wanted was to talk about work. 

“Yeah?” he grins, clearly jumping to his own conclusions. Only he could manage to blow up his own ego in the process. 

You scoff, “you’re so annoying.”

“I pay just like everybody else, princess. More, actually,” he reminds you, not planning on letting go of the little slip up anytime soon. “So what makes it different with me? If anything, I should be the one getting special treatment.”

“Go away,” you groan. He’s going to drag this out for as long as he can.

“No, please— take your time. I threw enough money on the table for the whole day.” 

“It’s nothing. I didn’t mean it like that,” you insist, but it comes out as a whine, pulling a laugh out of him. 

“Why are you so defensive then?” 

“Because you’re annoying.”

“Yeah, you said,” he says rather fondly. “I must be your least favorite then. You’ll probably go right back to avoiding me once I leave and giggle about it behind closed doors.” 

“Oh stop,” you click your tongue. “You know I'm not gonna do that.” 

“I don’t, actually,” he says, grin widening. “You haven’t even apologized for turning me away for three weeks straight.” 

Circling back to that as if it were a fond memory manages to throw you off, unsure if he’s actually pressing for an answer or if he’s just teasing you.

“You haven’t even given me the chance to.” 

“Alright,” he leans back comfortably in the seat, cocking his to the side in amusement. “Go on then.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“That’s it?” 

“I’m sorry and I don’t plan on avoiding you again,” you add, hoping that’d do the trick.

“That’s a little better.” 

“A little?” You find yourself holding back a smile. “What more do you want?” 

“I would say be a little nicer, but I kinda like it when you drop the act and go back to being a spoiled brat,” he admits, the shit eating grin on his face widens. “You get all whiny too, probably because you’re so used to your other customers agreeing with you.” 

“I can promise you that’s not the case,” you say, pushing yourself off the bed and making your way to your vanity. 

Since he’s so set on staying, you might as well do something productive like decluttering. 

“Doubt it— explains why you said it was different with me,” he says, continuing to poke and prod at you. “You’re so used to them sweet talking you that you get all mad when someone dares to question you for once.”

“Are you enjoying making random assumptions about me?” you calmly ask, which took more effort than you thought it would. Paying no mind to others opinions was a skill you’ve honed over the years, but it seems to have dulled for the moment.

“I wouldn’t say they’re random. I just think it’s funny how you gave me all your attention for a bit but then pulled back when I wasn’t giving you more.” 

He sounded so absurd that you had let out a laugh. “I think you’re just making things up at this point.”

“Right,” he sarcastically agrees. “So they don’t sit there and praise you the whole time, telling you how special they think you are?” 

“What the f—“

“It’s okay if they do,” he adds, not that it helps. 

You firmly plant a bottle of perfume back down on the table and turn to him. Getting interrupted was frustrating enough and seeing the smug look on his face only made it worse. “Why are you being so rude to me all the sudden?” 

“I’m not,” he laughs. “It’s a yes or no question, it doesn't get any more difficult than that.” 

“It’s not just a yes or no question— you’re trying to make me look like a pretentious bitch,” you respond in a sharper tone.

“I never said that. I’m just saying it’d make sense to prefer the types that rolled over and wagged their tails for you. Customers that made you feel important.”

It takes you a moment to process what he just said. And it’s not just his words, it’s his face and whole entire attitude about it. It feels like he’s just trying to get you to admit to something you didn’t do at this point.

“Is that what you really think?”

He shrugs, holding back a smile. “Your reaction makes it hard to think otherwise.”

“Because you just said I surround myself with people like that to feel better about myself when I don’t! I already said—“ your words died out before the rant began, no longer wanting to explain yourself to someone whose mind seemed to be made up. “I’m not doing this anymore— get out.”

Nothing about him is taking it seriously, he looks at you as if you were just joking. “Are you ser—“ 

“Yes, I’m serious!” you cut him off and his eyes start to grow wide as you begin to unload on him. “Get out! I have been so fucking miserable having to take customers this entire time, trying to work off what’s left of my contract. It’s either that or getting bought out, which is what I’ve been trying to avoid for years now, so I have to suck it up and take enough customers to meet the amount of money I’m expected to bring in, because if I don’t?! I break my contract and get sold off.”

It all came out so fast and was immediately followed by hot tears of anger. The general was speechless. He really only wanted to push your buttons and rile you up a bit, not make you cry. 

There was no way you’d believe that now. 

“And now I really don’t have a choice— look at how you just treated me! You’ve been coming here for years and that’s how you’ve felt about me this whole entire time?! I don’t act like that— you literally just tried to punish me over something you created in your own fucking head!”

Sukuna is well aware of how crazy he looks when you break it down. Not to mention that he doesn’t even know how to console someone. The last time he saw someone cry, he told them to leave the building until they were done. 

But he still tries and gets up from his seat, scrambling to come up with something that, at the very least, won't make you spiral even more. 

“No,” he finally says, still in shock over how fast everything happened. “I’ve never thought of you like that. I-“

“You’re just saying that!” you cut him off.

“I’m not, I swear I’m not. I was just giving you a hard time,” he says, cautiously stepping closer to you. “Come here— I swear I didn’t mean any of that.”

“No.”

“You’re fuckin’ crying, come here,” he grumbles, reaching out for your wrist and pulling you, keeping the same caution he’s had since you started yelling at him. 

He was met with some resistance, but you eventually let him pull you in and wrap his arms around you, missing the mix of shock and confusion on the man’s face.

“And whose fault is that?” you ask, continuing to argue back in the way you could at the moment.

“Mine,” he mutters, feeling the guilt that came with taking responsibility over something. “I wasn’t trying to punish you, wasn’t trying to make you seem like you were someone you’re not, never looked at you that way either. I chose the wrong time to pick on you and took it too far.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he murmurs, then continues to over-explain himself— something he doesn’t even realize he’s doing because he’s never done it before. “What you do or which customers you take does not bother me, I was just being an asshole and making fun of them. I really wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Okay,” you murmur, voice all muffled from your cheek squished against his shirt. 

“You sure?” he asks, still rubbing your back. 

“Yeah.” 

“Alright,” he breathes out, still in shock from how hysterical you were. He just knows he’s going to remember this if he ever considers doing that shit again, especially since he had no idea you were already stressed out. It happened so fast he didn’t even get to catch everything you fully said and mustered up the courage to ask.

“So you’ve.. been taking more customers to keep up with your contract, but you haven’t been wanting to take them.” 

“Yeah,” you grudgingly respond.

“And you started avoiding me because… that encourages your mom to take my offer?” he continues, starting to just guess at this point. 

“Not really. I took a break for a few weeks before that and she said if I didn't start taking customers soon then she’d consider your offer.” 

“And then what? It freaked you out because you realized you’d be done for, so you went straight to work?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” he murmurs. “M’sorry you couldn’t take a longer break.” 

“It’s fine,” you sigh. “I told a customer the other day that I didn’t feel like touching him and it’s kinda been like that lately.” 

Sukuna enjoyed hearing that way more than he should’ve and laughed a little harder than usual because of it. “How have you not gotten in trouble for that?” 

“They were all fine with it, except for one who complained to my mom after and asked for a partial refund. Luckily she wasn’t too mad, but I’m never taking him as a customer again.” 

“Good,” he chuckles. “What’s his name?” 

“Not telling you,” you immediately say, shutting down whatever thought he had in his head.

“You don’t trust me?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Smart.” He takes a step back to get a better look at you, going as far as cupping your cheeks and moving your head around. At that point it was more so for you, to lighten the mood a little. 

“Can you stop looking at me already?” you mumble, beyond sick of him at this point.

And of course this sick fuck loves it. He’s smiling again when he asks, “why, are you gonna cry again?” 

“You don’t get to joke about that with how much you started panicking,” you remind him. 

Not that it does much, he just starts reminiscing over the events from just 5 minutes ago. “Anybody would, you didn’t even give me a heads up before you blew up on me. I was right about you getting mad if you got picked on. You’re sensitive,” he says in a tone that is way too affectionate, making it sound more like he was complementing you. 

“No, you were just being rude,” you argue, annoyed you even have to explain. “It felt like you were interrogating me.” 

Having interrogated someone just the night before, he refrained from explaining what a real interrogation was. 

“I didn't mean to take it that far,” he says, going along with whatever you say at this point. “Guess I just have to play nice with you.” 

“You should already want to be nice to me. I don’t know what you were expecting from me earlier.” 

“An insult at least,” he shrugs, sounding way too casual about it. “Maybe a slap in the face.” You can just tell he was smiling when adding that last part.

“What’s wrong with you?” 

A lot. You’ve known this since before you finally took him in for tea, there was no need to act surprised all the sudden.

“Just felt like making you mad,” he casually goes on to tell you the truth, “saw you squirm a little bit and wanted to annoy you some more.” 

“I’ll start avoiding you again,” you murmur, clearly not meaning it at this point, he just deserved to hear it.

“I know,” he murmurs, wrapping his hand around the back of your neck. “Don’t worry I’ll be really sweet to you from now on.” 

“Doesn’t feel very safe coming from you,” you respond apprehensively.

“Never does,” he hums, his mind somewhere else at this point as he cranes your neck up to look at you. “You’re lucky I like listening to you.” 

“That doesn’t make me feel better either.” 

Your words grew more hushed while looking at him, the pout on your face having yet to vanish— the two were enough for him to know that you were okay with being close to him.

“Wasn’t trying to.” 

He didn’t leave much room for a response, his lips were already pressed against yours before you could blink. They’re too soft and he was way too gentle, yet it felt more restrained than cautious. He breathes in a little too sharp, you can feel the grip he has on the back of your neck starting to tighten. He pulls away once to see how okay you were, and then goes in again. Less restraint. More needy. A lot more dizzying. 

“But I can make you feel better,” he adds, tone raspier. 

“Are you asking me or telling me?” 

“Both,” he leans forward, and you think it’ll be another kiss, but he nips on your bottom lip instead. “I’m asking you to leave me out of this little sex ban of yours,” he gently pushes you back, making you walk backwards to the bed. “It’s not like I’m some lazy, selfish noble that expects you to ride my cock all night.”

“And who told you that’s all I did?”

“I’m sure you do more, but if they were that good you wouldn’t be on a break, telling them you don’t want to be touched and what not.”

“You don’t always need a reason to take one, though,” you argue, just for the hell of it. “They’re just good to have once and while.” 

“I’m sure they are,” he easily agrees, still towering over you, making you take more steps back. “By all means, take a break from them.”   

“And what about you?” you stifle a laugh.

“I am the break. I can give you so much more than them, for longer too— fuck.” He stops and laughs after seeing the sudden interest on your face. “Is that what you like to hear?”

“Mhm,” you nod, trying to control yourself because you are way too giddy right. “You should tell me more.”

“Well,” he lets out a pleased hum. “I’m probably bigger than any man you’ve ever been with. You’d probably struggle taking it at first too, but you’d fuckin’ love it,” he says with certainty, it sounded more like a promise coming from him.

“You think so?”

“Mhm,” he nods. “I’ll even be nice and go slow at first, take my time working you open. Makes it easier to do all the other stuff I wanna do.”

You smile, “…like?” 

“A lot,” he responds in amusement. “Pin your knees up to your chest and hold you down, watch all the pretty faces you make when you cum. Put you on all fours and show you what it feels like to actually be fucked. If that’s too much we could take a break, have you get on top and watch you fuck yourself before I eventually take over again.”

“Sounds fun, but I don’t know…” you sigh, wanting him to say just a few more things. “I feel like there’s something missing.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he shakes his head and laughs, knowing it was no longer a matter of how, but when he’d finally get to take your clothes off. “Forgot to mention that I’ll cum a bunch of times and it’ll be all over you. Your face. Your chest. Your hair. And don’t worry, I’ll still fill you up with it too. Lucky for you, I don’t get tired, so you get to see how much of a mess it makes while I fuck it back in and out of you.”

“Oh?” you fight back a little smile. “I got really lucky today, didn’t I?”

“Very lucky,” he responds, clearly happy with himself. “I’ll take real good care of you. You’re gonna love taking breaks after this.”

“Sounds like you just want to ruin me for everyone.” 

“I am going to ruin you for everyone sweetheart,” he says, as if it were fucking obvious. 

Then he gives you one final push back onto the bed, pulling on the tie holding your robe together. He was expecting there’d be something underneath, but instead he was met with absolutely nothing. His mind goes straight to all the other times he’s been around you while you were fully covered in similar thin silk robes.  “Do you ever wear anything under these robes?”

“Depends. I usually don’t when I’m alone. You’ve visited a few times where I’ve been too lazy to change and just stepped out wearing them,” you add, not exactly sure if it’s regret or annoyance on his face right now.  “Surprised you never noticed.”

“I was being respectful,” he mutters, looking over your body once again. He doesn’t even know where to start.

Good thing he didn’t have to be respectful today. His eyes immediately go to your thighs that you’ve tried to keep together, seeing a small trail of slick led to him grabbing both knees and pulling them apart, and it left him stunned. 

“You’re soaked,” he groans. Out of pure impulsiveness, he licks a clean strip up your inner thigh without a warning and you’re pretty sure he moaned from it. “Can’t believe you got this wet from me talking to you like that.” 

You can. He did too good of a job trying to convince you and now your mind's on one thing and one thing only. 

“Let me see it, Kuna.”

“Never took you as the impatient kind,” he smirks, clearly flattered at how quick you were to bring it up. 

“I’m not but you got me excited for it. Don’t make me beg, take your clothes off already,” you murmur, sounding more needy than anything else. 

And who was he to deny you? He ends up having to remind himself that he’s been waiting years for this. He can always tease you next time, but for today, clothes start coming off and thrown in random directions. The last were his training pants and you were already sitting up, just waiting to see it. 

And he did not disappoint. 

It’s long. And thick. Heavy too— his cock didn’t even slap up to his torso. It hung. 

Not to mention his tattoos and how built he was. 

“Don’t look so surprised when I already told you,” he murmurs, taking another step forward. 

At least you didn’t look scared. If anything you were fucking drooling just looking at him. You were looking at his cock the same way you would at your spouse that you were happily married to.

He wasn’t sure if it was flattering or concerning. 

“Fuck— you can just give it to me now,” you say with way too much confidence. “You don’t have to wait.”

“Y—“ he had to quickly cut himself off from the way you just made it seem like he was the impatient one. He’s had women actually run from him. He refuses to boil your eagerness down to being just a courtesan either. “At least let me prepare you f—.”

“No— it’s okay. I don’t need it.”

His jaws practically on the floor from how ready you are to make the world's most foolish decision.

“I’m gonna hurt you,” he says, nothing but disappointment in his tone. 

“People get hurt all the time,” you easily respond, as sure of yourself as ever. “You told me I’d struggle taking it but that I’d love it— I agree.”

Sukuna nearly spirals from having to choose between what was right and what was wrong, for once in his life. He even starts calculating how much damage he may do in his head, in hopes of keeping himself in the morally correct side of things for once, but then he gets interrupted by a certain someone who’s greed was clearly inherited. 

“Please— I need you so much right now,” you continue to whine, and he’s starting to believe you. “I feel like I’m going to die.”

“This isn’t even greed anymore,” he mutters under his breath, dragging a hand down his face as the last of his patience dissipates away. 

“On your back,” he gestures toward you. He swore he just heard a little squeal, but chose peace and ignored it. To no one’s surprise, you happily follow his orders. He slowly pumps his cock as he kneels on to the bed, slotting himself in between your legs and you are still so fucking wet— maybe everything will turn out fine. But he still gets the last word in. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

A satisfied hum escapes your lips when he starts to slowly run his tip through your folds, collecting the slick that just drips out of you at this point. Just that thought helps him so much more, the last thing he needs is tearing up the breadwinner of the house. 

He finally lines himself up and slowly pushes in, already cursing under his breath from how tight of a squeeze there is around just the head alone. 

He ends up grabbing the backs of your thighs and pushing them up. From the way you were sucking him in, he needed something to grab on to. It somehow grounded him enough to not slam all the way into you.

You didn’t make it easy either— with how into it you already were, he’d never be able to figure out if he needed to lay up on you. 

“Feels so good already,” you softly comment, focused on watching you take him. “Are you okay?”

Why did that question have to be so sweet?

“Mhm,” he responds, trying to match the warmth in your question, but the low rasp in his tone took away from it. “Just— fuckin’ tight.”

“Are you struggling with that right now?”

“What do you think?” he huffs out in frustration, moving forward to cage you in his arms so you’d hear his complaints loud and clear. “Didn’t let me open you up with my fingers or eat you out, and now it feels like I’m in a fight with your cunt that has no business sucking me in when I barely fucking fit in the first place.”

“So mad about taking care of me,” you end up letting out a shaky breath that he knows would’ve been a laugh if you weren’t being split in half right now. “But you’re so good at it.”

He was more than halfway in when the sudden praise pulled a pained groan out of him. You didn’t mean it, you just wanted him to shove the rest in, not realizing the only reason you were okay is because he hasn’t.

“Greedy whore,” he mutters to himself, as if you weren’t right under him. “I know what the fuck you’re trying to do— stop it.”

“It’s true,” you swear, paying no mind to the pained look on his face. “Working so hard trying not to hurt me, making me feel so good while you do it too.” 

“Don’t,” he warns you, even though his own body betrays him and buries himself deeper inside you. 

The sudden moan that came out of you made it sound like you really liked that. He knew it from the way you clenched around him too. Then without warning, he does it again, pulling the same reaction out of you. 

“Fuck— can you—“ your words get caught in your throat, because he fucking does it again, no longer having the same self control he had just a minute ago. 

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he groans, snapping his hips forward, picking up his pace. This is why he isn’t nice to people, the one time he tries he gets bullied out of it. “You cry over too many questions, but not this?”

“God no— look at you,” you murmur, shuddering with each drag of his cock. “This is a dream.”

“A dream, huh?” he hums, pleased from the words you sang so easily. “You spent all these years hiding from me for being a barbarian, just to enjoy the way this barbarian stuffs your cunt.”

“You still are a barbarian,” you shamelessly stand by it. “Now I’m just waiting for you to act like one again so you can finally fuck me.”

Without another word he abruptly pulls out, you gasp but it gets cut off from the way he yanks you up and puts you on your knees, laughing when he puts your back in the meanest arch with one hand and pushing your head down with the other, taking a moment to appreciate the view before he lines himself up again. 

He leans forward and moves some hair away from your face, making you think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. 

It was just to get a good look at your face when he shoved his entire length back inside of you in one go— knocking you forward and tearing a strangled moan out of you. 

“Oh my god—“

“Does it feel like you’re being fucked now?” he darkly mutters in your ear, already dragging his cock back out so he could slam it back in. 

Right before you’re about to respond, he pushes back in with a low groan. It’s intense— making you just remember all the things he’s known for outside of these walls, rather than who he chooses to be when he visits. Jaw hanging open and barely coherent, the only answer he gets is a nod. 

“Good,” he says, mockingly. He leans forward and mounts you completely, enjoying the way you fall apart underneath him when he keeps going. 

Whatever restraint he had is gone, he just starts to fuck you without a care in the world, driving his cock into you knowing you’ll make room for him anyways. He does it with ease, making it look like it’s light work while you’re an absolute mess from him bullying the spots most people can’t reach. 

The sight’s obscene— the consistent sound of his hips slapping against your ass, accompanied by lewd, wet squelches. He’s in your ear muttering vile threats disguised as promises, already delivering on some of them, leaving you wondering what you’d look like at the end of the night if you were already a mess now.

So much so that you didn’t even feel your first orgasm start to build up until after you started cumming around his cock, hard. And even then he didn’t falter, continuing to fuck you through it instead, telling you how much of a good girl you were and how you were going to do it for him again. 

And you did, because he knew how to work them out of you. Finding that one spot that drove you crazy and hitting it over and over again until you fell apart just as much as you did the last time.

“That’s it. Just take it for me,” he rasps, low and drawn out, chest now completely pressed against your back, wrapping an arm around your waist. “Fuck— m’gonna cum.” 

It goes straight to your core. How breathy he gets when he’s close, how needy he sounds. The way he just holds on tight while chasing after his own release. Cursing under his breath when he starts filling you up. Never coming to a full stop, even when you both can feel his cum start to seep out. 

He meant every word he said.

“Get up,” he breathes, abruptly pulling out and flipping you over. “I’m not done with you.”

—

For a second, the madam thought she must’ve lost her god damn mind when she saw a full head of messy pink hair from the corner of her eye. It made sense, the only person she knew with pink hair has done a tremendous job at making her miserable in his presence for years now, having ptsd from it wasn’t out of the question.

But no, she was right. The man lazily walking down the steps was indeed the general and she doesn’t know what pissed her off more. The fact that he ended up spending an entire night here without paying, or the fact that he looks well rested and ready to start his day. 

He is fucking glowing.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks him, pulling him out of whatever daydream he was having. 

He has the audacity to look behind him when she asks, then points to himself when he turns around. There was no one else in the room, it was obvious who she was speaking to. 

“I’m on my way to serve this nation,” he manages to say with a straight face. 

She lets out a disgusted scoff knowing he could care less about the good of this country. The only reason why there’s so much peace is because everyone knows he’d be more than happy to bring entire bloodlines to a complete stop. 

“Just pay what you owe and get out,” she sighs.

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[secretliteradite]

sour fingers

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | western!au | oneshot | a light AU to daughters with soft underbellies

After countless years of traveling, Simon Riley wanders into a small-town saloon owned by an old man who's quick to anger. His poor daughter seems to take the brunt of his berating for simple mistakes. As a favor to himself, Simon decides to buy the girl off of him as a wife.

cw: old west alternate universe, wayward outlaw! ghost, smut, dub-con, alcohol and intoxication, improper (or maybe too proper) use of spurs, blood and injury, historically typical views of women and purity, simon is a jerk but hey at least he's better than your dad

An old, fat dog lounges in the corner of the saloon with his eyes closed and belly facing up towards the smoke stained ceiling. 

Simon’s been watching him for the last hour while he sips on his whiskey and chews on the butt of his cigarette, filter dissolving on the tip of his tongue. It’s as if he’s looking in a mirror. A washed up mutt with hardened skin finally reclining after too many years of work. Tapping his finger on the table, he keeps count of each respiration and breathes in time with the creature. He twitches in his sleep—tail wagging, cheeks puffing up with emphatic growls that hardly roll past his canines. 

There’s nothing else of value to watch in the saloon besides the mangy creature. The poker game taking place three tables down is smothered with ancient men sporting white hair and liver spots who hardly let anything out of their lips except wet coughs, and the bartender has been muttering curses to himself for half the evening that Simon doubts he would make good conversation. Besides, he's a wayward man. Constantly on the move, traveling from place to place, refusing to linger for too long lest trouble finds him.

For now, he’s perfectly content on leaning back in his chair and enjoying his solitude—

—until you stumble in. 

Pale pink fingerprints stain the cotton of your apron that you either didn’t bother to remove or forgot to hang up in the kitchen before bursting into the saloon with wild eyes and a heaving chest. As he takes a drag of his cigarette, Simon half expects some inebriated bastard to stagger in after you, caught in a drunken stupor trying to chase after some girl who he doesn't have even half the skill to catch in his maw. You are a sight for sore eyes. Certainly better than the half dead mutt keeping him company. Clad in a sky blue dress that seems all too common for women settling in the west and a gaze that can’t help but be magnetically attracted to the floor as you walk to the bar on lubberly legs, he nearly chuckles when you hold your hands behind your back. 

“You’re late,” the barkeep berates. 

“Sorry Daddy, I was finishing up chores, and the geese were pitching a fit again—” You’re tripping over your words worse than you do your feet. They spew between your teeth like water from a well pump that has too much pressure behind it. 

“I don’t give a damn what held you up, girl. I tell you to be here no later than seven, and I expect that you listen to that,” the man—your father—snaps. Your apology comes so quiet that Simon can’t make out what you say, but he can tell by the curling of your shoulders that it exists. All you get in response is raised brows and a clenching jaw. “Well? Go on. I didn’t ask you to be here just to stand around.”

You slink away from the bar without another word before your gaze is cast out at the swathes of unoccupied tables around you. Simon flicks the ash from his cigarette onto the floor as he studies the way you mentally drink up the tasks laid out for you before you're springing to work. One by one you ignite the oil lamps that hang from the ceiling with precariously rusty chains. A curse hisses between your pursed lips when you burn your fingers on one of the matches, and you shove the raw pad against your tongue to numb the pain.

Simon doesn't bother to hide the way he watches you. His gaze is heavy beneath the brim of his hat, darker than the coal mines that line this pathetic excuse for a town and ten times more suffocating. You make the mistake of not carrying a canary with you as you approach his table—there is no sudden silence of a bird's song to warn you of the danger you're in—a meek smile graces your face as you light another match and reach up to ignite his lamp.

"Good evening, sir," you greet.

His fingers freeze against the table. Simon's lost his interest in keeping count of an old dog's breathing. "Evenin."

Your scent washes over him just as the oil begins to burn. Sweet like fresh strawberries, yet smothered by crude, unadulterated earth. Wet soil, the muck of animals. Simon studies the curve of your face as the flames illuminate your skin. Delectable flesh, pliable and soft—softer than him—yet the blemish on the apple of your cheek screams at him.

"Look at me, sweetheart." The pet name is kind, but his voice isn't. Jumping, the match burns down to your fingers again forcing you to yelp, but even through the pain you listen to him.

He's traded one dog for another.

When you question if something is wrong, Simon gives you no answer except for the beckoning of his fingers. Complying, you lean forward as he snatches your jaw in one hand and sticks his thumb into his mouth before smearing his spit across your cheek. It's wet like a kiss, and your skin drinks up his touch like starved earth yearning for any bit of rain the skies will bless it with. The dried mud flakes off with ease, and he wipes the remainder off on his stained jeans.

"O-Oh." When he relinquishes you, your hand flies up to your face where you begin to rub at your skin as if you can feel the mark he's left on you. "Thank you, sir."

Simon only hums in response before tapping the side of his glass. It rings like church bells on a bleak Sunday. "I'm dry."

Gruff. Short. Seemingly having no time for pleasantries. You awkwardly snatch his glass up before bringing it to your father where he berates you for not asking what was in it before you took it away. Luckily the saloon isn't too busy, and when you return his drink back to him Simon's happy to find that it's exactly what he ordered even though half of it is beaded on the outside of the cup from your blatant mishandling.

His night has become much more interesting now that he can watch you through the haze of his whiskey. Bent over on your hands and knees, sweat beading on your brow, you scrub the floor in the unoccupied areas of the saloon with a bristle brush. The view is nice. The curve of your ass presses through your dress like rising sourdough while you work, and when you're facing him your bodice cuts so low your cleavage glistens in the marmalade lighting.

John Price has always told him views like this were worth the money. His business partner has always been fond of the little thing he keeps locked up at home fat with his kids and sticky with the food he buys. Always got a fresh meal on the table for dinner and a sweet cunt to sink into for dessert. It's not half bad, Riley.

But he knows that type of life isn't for him. Always on the road, gloves tainted with blood turned russet from weeks of baking in the sun before he even bothers to rinse it off. The money in his billfold is far from honest, but men like Simon Riley don't leave the comfort of England to come to the American West for pure business. Face muddled with scars, thighs sore from years of riding, and back ruined from sleeping on the cold earth—he'll be dead long before he ever sincerely dreams of settling down with a wife and kid.

Still, the thought is tempting.

His daydreams shatter the moment you bucket spills, sending water and suds all along the floor, flooding the wood until puddles reflect both the oil lamps and your shame back into your face. Cursing, your father marches over to where you stare at your mess with watery eyes. You jump when he kicks the bucket, sending it flying across the room. Even the near-dead dog in the corner can't sleep through the ruckus.

"Useless daughter of mine! What are you good for besides making a damn mess of my work?" His disparaging cuts so deep Simon can see the quiver in your bottom lip as you stare up at your father, hands neatly folded on your lap despite the way the water soaks your apron. "Don't just sit there! Go fetch some rags and dry this shit up!"

When you stand to your feet, Simon is reminded of the fawn he slaughtered last spring. Wobbly legs, unsure feet, trotting out the door as if you're a fresh babe again. He only killed the small creature out of pity, not malice. Having shot its mother, it was left alone with without a teat to suckle on or any maternal guidance to raise it into adulthood. It didn't even flinch at the flash of his knife or the cut of the blade, it only stared up at him with soft brown eyes that reflected the whole world back at him.

The meat wasn't half bad, neither.

Sucking down the dregs of his drink, Simon saunters up to your father with his empty glass in hand while you work on fixing the mess you've made of the floor. He towers over the bar so much that when he goes to lean on it he has to curve his spine forward, shoulders hunching as if he's some inhuman creature preying on the animals below him. Your father looks at him without so much as a second glance before swiping his empty glass away from him.

"Another?" he asks. He's already grabbing the bottle of whiskey before Simon even nods.

While his cup is poured, Simon glances back down at you. Head bowed, you're wringing out your rag back into your bucket in an attempt to fill it up, but at the rate your tears are streaming down your face, he knows you'll have another flood to worry about before you're even halfway through.

"That your daughter?" Simon inquires with half-hearted interest.

Your father doesn't even bother to look at you before scoffing. "You mean that useless animal? Yeah, she's mine."

"What's she good for?"

Your father sets Simon's drink in front of him, prompting him to return the favor with a few coins on the scarred counter. The whiskey slides over his tongue like rough sandpaper, but the burn in the back of his throat and the cotton being shoved between his ears is worth it.

"Not a damn thing," he huffs before crossing his arms. Your father glares at you from across the room, and you must feel his gaze on you because it isn't long before you're finally raising your head. Sorrow is strewn all over your face, a hefty guilt you can't rid yourself of. "She's a klutz, hardly speaks loud enough for anyone to hear her, always hurting herself like she's still some child."

"Haven't married her off yet? That'd get 'er off your hands." Simon means it as a sour joke, but your father grumbles before he returns to his chores.

"No man's stupid enough to marry her."

The harsh reality of it is no worse than Simon's used to, but he finds himself mulling the idea over anyway. Certainly you're good for something. Glazed eye candy for men to gawk at—men who like their women soft around the edges. Tiny little puppy teeth that can hardly break skin and gets a chuckle when it starts to tickle.

Besides, Simon's learned well enough not to trust the words that comes spewing out of an angry father's mouth. Rancid with the decay clogging their arteries, his own father wasn't much different. A right bastard who knew just how to wiggle his way beneath everyone's skin, slicing through tendon and pure bone just to get a reaction, anything that would justify his hand upon a cheek.

Simon won't pretend to be a good man, but he's certainly better, and if it wasn't for the fact this man has provided him the means to get drunk, his blood would be joining the soapy water in an instant.

"I'd buy 'er off ya."

It takes your father several moments to formulate a response; long enough for Simon to down the rest of his whiskey in a single swig. For the first time since he's walked through those doors he finally notes a smile on the man. It's ugly, twisted at the corners in the way only malevolent things can, but it's sincere.

"Quit pulling on my leg, son," he dismisses.

"I'm not pullin' on anythin," Simon grunts.

A large hand snakes through Simon's vest as he presses his fingers into his breast pocket to retrieve his billfold. It's old. Probably ancient. A dilapidating piece of leather he snatched off of a body just outside Lead two years back when he realized it was much better than the coin purse he had. Perusing through the folded up notes, he yanks out a fifty dollar bill and places it face up on the counter.

Your father's smile vanishes once he sees the money, but the twinkle in his eye only strengthens. "What are you playing at?"

"I'm playin' at buyin' myself a wife and giving you a migraine free end of your life," Simon says bluntly. Brows raising, he spots a bottle behind the man and nods towards it. "Better throw in that bottle of Kentucky bourbon, too."

"Now why would I do that?" your father scoffs.

Simon shrugs. "A wedding gift."

It doesn't take your father very long at all to think over this offer before he snatches the money off the counter and hands Simon the key to his spoils.

"You have my blessing."

You put up a teary-eyed fuss as your new future is laid out before you in the form of a tall stranger who smells like whiskey and iron. Despite the pitiful protests that bleed from your lips, your father has trained you all too well—a sharp snap, a show of teeth, and you're falling quiet like the dead of night in winter. Your father doesn't tell you that he's giving you away for a crisp fifty dollar bill. Not out loud, anyway. He certainly doesn't try to hide it when he shoves it into his pocket.

With his bourbon in one hand and the small of your back in the other, Simon leads you out of the saloon. Neither he nor your father give you any opportunity to gather your things back home—you have nothing to your name but the clothes on your back. Dusk brushes over the sky with a plain pallet of deep reds and bruising purples only to be blotched out by migrating geese that honk in the distance. Long shadows tickle your footprints in the dirt until you reach the hardened rocks and earth that surround your hometown. Not a single word is exchanged between the two of you as your travels begin to wane. There is only the jingle of the spurs on Simon's boots and your intermittent sniffling as you attempt to keep your tears at bay.

Simon's camp is nestled in the valley of a ravine where the soil is cool and the walls are high—a protective den for a wild animal to hide in with his back covered and eyes focused on any throat that gets within sniffing distance. He sets you at the yawning mouth of his tent, a simple lean-to with stained white canvas and hardly enough space for the brute of a man himself, let alone you too.

You try to keep your shivering at bay while Simon crouches in front of a stone fire pit. By the looks of it, he's been here for a few days at least. A moderate stockpile of wood rests next to where his horse is hitched and his feet mar the earth so viciously you fear she may be scarred until the next thunderstorm rolls overhead to smother out all traces of human life.

Fire blooms to life with waifish flames licking up towards Simon's face, demanding more. He feeds kindling and small blocks of wood into it until it's purring content near the tips of his toes, illuminating all the gnarly features that comprise his body. Deep scars cut without care around his cheeks and lips, some spanning even as far as his hairline, distorting the growth with keloids and angry skin. His nose is curved worse than a sickle, and is more crooked than a pianist's index finger.

Despite his flaws, he is not an ugly man. Only slightly painful to look at in the way beasts are—striking fear through your heart as if wielding a dagger. His broad shoulders would be something your friends would squeal over, and his height would send any mentally stable person running for the hills if they were ever unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. Still, you're not sure what to make of him or the way he looks at you. Dark eyes pinning you into the dirt, dry lips parting just enough for him to huff as he stands.

"You hungry?"

All you can do is stare at him. Simon Riley; this man who is to now suddenly be your husband, who bought you off of your father for a single scrap of paper. Some untamed piece of you wants to snap at him, snarl with your teeth bared—how dare he pretend to care for you as if he sees you as anything more than a piece of meat.

"Yeah, starvin' aren't ya? Scroungy thing you are." Before you have the time to argue with him, Simon begins to sort through an old leather satchel held together with a spotty stitching job and a half-hearted prayer. From it, he produces a fair amount of jerky and holds out a stringy piece for you to take. "Here."

You swallow down the smoke wafting from the campfire. "I'm not hungry."

Simon doesn't waver in the face of the stern attitude you attempt to wear; instead, he presses the jerky closer to your face. "Mad at your daddy so you're mad at the world, yeah? That shit doesn't fly with me, sweetheart. Eat your dinner 'fore I give ya somethin' else to keep that pretty mouth occupied."

He doesn't give you an opportunity to argue further before he's pressing the food against your lips, pressing past them and jamming into your teeth. To prevent him from shattering your enamel, you take it from him with a fawn-like glare. It's salty. Harder than the rocks at your feet. Still, you gnaw on it, jaw clenching as your molars grind it as best as you can. As you swallow, you pretend it's Simon's throat.

Your husband-to-be doesn't bother to sit while he eats. The speed in which he devours his food like some gluttonous beast leaves your brain spinning—crooked teeth, sharp canines, and a bad habit of licking his lips afterwards like he yearns for something more than just simple brine on his tongue. Neither of you speak. You're glad for it. Conversation has never been your strong suit, and your father has always treated every sound that's ever left your throat like a chore.

Sparks fly into the night sky to dance with the stars as Simon tosses another chopped log on top of the fire, but you don't get the chance to revel in the beauty of the flames before he's obscuring your view. He removes his hat to reveal short cropped hair before he tosses it onto the bedding behind you where it lands with a dull thunk. You stare up at him. Already a large man, he looks baronial when you're settled on your haunches, attempting to make yourself unnoticeable by his burning gaze.

"You know what comes next, don't ya sweetheart?" he questions.

It's as if the fire doesn't exist at all. You can't stop shivering. Simon's belt buckle flashes in the umbra as he sticks his thumb into the waist of his jeans. You can smell him now—or, at least your brain can make sense of the scent. Long soaked tobacco and the whiskey he drank at your father's saloon, along with something heavier. Like ichor. Like lead.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." Your faux courage doesn't get you very far—there's a waver in your voice that trills on the end of your words, and Simon finds it cute enough to chuckle.

"Didn't realize I bought myself a dumb fawn."

A fat palm rests on the nape of your neck with lightning speed and precision, and before you know it your torso is twisted until you're face first into blankets that smell like musk and gun powder. Your yelp is lost into the sparse padding against your cheek. A wounded animal, bleeding out and waiting to be gutted.

You jump as his other hand lands on your rump, not in a spank but in an arcing motion that smooths over your thighs. Even through the skirt of your dress he can feel the way you quiver as you struggle against the palm on your neck. A feisty barn cat, scruffed when it doesn't want to be.

"That's alright, I don't mind spellin' it out for ya if ya need it," Simon muses.

"Wait, wait, please!"

He silences your pleas as his hand wanders down the back of your thigh. Breath catching in your throat, fingers curling into rough blankets that choke you with lingering tar—you squeal when he pulls up the skirt of your dress, exposing your backside to the fire. Warmth licks up your legs both from rigid shame and the flames dancing behind you, but nothing compares to the way he rips through your pantalets as if they're as thin as paper.

"This is how this is gonna work sweetheart." His hands are wandering further, fingertips brushing where they shouldn't, dipping into the warmest part of you with enough friction to make you yelp. "You're gonna lay right there nice, pretty, and quiet for me while I christen this new union of ours, yeah? Gonna get the best bang for my buck, that's for fuckin' sure."

Squeezing your eyes shut, you nod. One of the working women in town once told you what sex was like. Your father has always held purity in high regard, but she talked about it as if it was nothing of importance, a flippant union that she did for work nearly every night.

Ain't nothin' but a slight burn and pleasure so underwhelming you'd wish you had your own fingers down there instead.

Finally, you nod. "Yes sir."

Chuckling, the pressure on the back of your neck vanishes as Simon stands to his feet, spurs jingling on his boots and kicking dirt up into the air as he positions himself behind you. He whistles low as if looking at a painting. Always hung up high in the gallery at the library, brushstrokes vivid as they swirl in prismatic colors—a work of art, just for him. He makes a few adjustments as he tears further through your pantalets with a knife. The iron runs across your skin. A gentle kiss with teeth hardly held at bay. You shiver as the night air rushes to meet your sex.

"Spread those legs, sweetheart," Simon orders. His words are tough, but slurred. Whiskey heavy on his tongue, alcohol burning through his blood like wildfire devouring a mountainside.

Obeying, your weight wiggles side to side as you move your knees further apart and it feels like cutting into yourself. A doe with a knife gralloching herself so that the hunter's work is less laborious.

Simon only chuckles. "C'mon, you can do better than that."

When you try again and he still isn't satisfied with the way you're contorting yourself, his feet thud into the ground behind you just before something bites the inside of your thighs. They're cruel. Like thickets gnawing into your skin as you attempt to fetch the enticing berries just before you, but you get no sweet treat in the end. Just ichor running down your legs as you lurch away from the source of pain, quivering legs spreading until your hips can't take it anymore.

"Yeah, tha's good," your husband-to-be purrs.

Shoulders curling, you attempt to look between your legs only for your dress to block your vision. "Did you- did you cut me?"

"Just used my spurs for some extra motivation," Simon shrugs. The said item jingles as he falls to his knees again, but it's smothered by the sound of his fly coming undone. "If it's not cruel 'nuff for my horse, then it's not cruel 'nuff for you."

"T-That hurt," you snap. You're glad he can't see your face right now and the way pathetic tears plunge down your cheeks with each flutter of your eyelashes.

"I'll kiss it better later if it means that damn much."

His promise tastes stale in the air as his jeans rustle down his hips and the sound prompts you to freeze as something presses against your backside. It's too warm to be a hand. Blistering hot like the surface of the sun jumping out to snatch you up on a warm summer's day. It's too smooth to be his hands; those palms of his are calloused beyond recognition.

You don't realize that it's his cock until it's butting up against you, pushing your labia apart until you're choking him. The stretch burns. Like a paper cut being pried too far apart, flesh splitting, blood oozing from the pathetic laceration. An ache blooms in your jaw as your teeth clench together, and you have to fight the urge to chew on the bedding against the side of your face. Simon grunts as he moves closer, attempting to push further into you, but your body refuses to give. Skin dimples, organs flutter, and you're left wincing at the small intrusion.

"Fuckin' hell. Never been fucked properly before, have ya?"

As Simon curses, he pulls away from you and the pressure dissipates throughout your body. Relief comes next. Bitter and cutting, it tingles between your thighs as the muscles in your back liquefy. Perhaps he's finished with you.

You don't realize how terribly wrong you are until his hand yanks back on your shoulder, forcing your torso off of the ground until your spine is bending like the branches of a willow tree. Sour fingers dart into your mouth, pushing past your lips and knocking around your teeth until gunpowder and stale tobacco presses against your tongue. You gag as the fingers move to the back of your throat, nails digging through your soft pallet, slicing up your throat until you're pulling on his forearm for any bit of reprieve he'll allow you to earn.

"Dryer than a goddamn desert," he mutters against the back of your skull. "Can hardly get you to take even an inch."

He leaves you coughing and sputtering as he retracts his fingers from your mouth and pushes you back down on the blankets. Spit coats your chin, but it isn't long before it's coating your sex too. Haphazardly wiping his fingers along your labia, Simon pushes two fingers into you, plunging too far too fast. Your feet kick at the intrusion, but Simon only laughs.

"That hurts!" you squeal, hips moving side to side as if you could buck him off like a rodeo horse.

"Relax, sweetheart. I'll get ya singin' real pretty f'me in no time," he discards.

There is no time to think or breathe before he's replacing his fingers with his cock. You split apart easier this time. Faster. Body giving into his, flesh decoupling where it's never bled before. All you can do is hold your breath as he fills you with slow, even pressure. When you're so full of him that you can't take anymore, he continues to try despite it. Breaking the laws of physics, bending your will to his own, all while growling like a guarded wolf refusing to share a meal with the rest of the pack.

"Yeah, that's it," Simon praises between gritted teeth. "Just like this, sweetheart."

When Simon picks up his pace—pumping in an out of you faster than your brain will allow you to comprehend—you realize that prostitute you spoke with all those years ago is a liar. This is more than a simple numbness swallowing you, wishing that you'd take matters into your own hands. You feel every ridge and angle of him. The way he pushes your walls out of the way, organs displacing to make room for his demanding cock, everything sliding against one another as if to start a fire within you. Friction too great. Nerves melting off at each junction.

His fingers curl into your hips as if to mark you. White hot branding iron against your skin, shaping you into the swirls of his finger prints—your husband-to-be. You've never heard of men claiming their wives with anything other than a ring on their fingers, but you suppose this man—Simon Riley—might not be much of a human at all.

"Sweet little thing, you are," he grunts. His pace continues at the same speed he's kept since he began, relentless and fast, desperately chasing for something he hasn't gotten in such a long time that it's left him half brain-dead. "Dunno why your daddy treats you the way he does. I've always liked dumb fawns."

Though his words sting, the pain is nothing compared to the way he moves inside of you. His words seem kind and sincere but the verbiage is cutting and wrong—a backhanded compliment meant to leave you floundering. Keeping your lips tight, you refuse to respond to him. You're not sure what you would even say to such a comment anyway. This man, who bought you off your father as a wife, now staking his claim before the matrimony has even taken place.

Seemingly displeased with your silence, Simon's pace falters as one of his hands snakes around your front and down between your thighs. His weight presses on your back. Soft stomach rolling against your rump, hair rubbing against the tender skin—he steals your breath away as his firm fingers swipe against the rawest part of you. The part where your skin hardens, puffy and stiff, blood rushing between your legs until you're brimming full with electricity like lightning.

Simon hisses as your body tenses, back arching as you lift your head up from the bedding, arms aching from keeping yourself from toppling over. He sounds like a snake. An angry rattler slithering through a garden he doesn't belong in. He chokes it off with a chuckle when you begin to gasp and choke on your own breath.

"Yeah, there she is," he chuckles as his pace begins to pick up once more. "Just need a little extra coaxing."

It feels like a betrayal to yourself to admit that it feels good—but it does. It numbs the burn inside of you as Simon continues to take what's now rightfully his. Adding water to the fire until it's no longer roaring, but sizzling, smouldering remains snuffing out with each swirl even as you clench so tightly around him that you nearly trap him inside of you.

His nose rests against your back, crooked tip nestling into the bend of your spine. You feel each exhale. Hot breath soaking into your skin. It makes you shiver.

"That feels—oh—I don't… I can't…" It's the first sentence you've attempted to string together since he began, and it comes out disjointed. Half formed stutters on a tongue that's too limp underneath his fingers.

"I feel it, sweetheart," Simon pants. "Squeezin' me as tight as you are, not sure I could stop myself even if I wanted to."

And he doesn't. He goes faster. Hips snapping against you, thighs rubbing against the new cuts on your skin, blood smearing along him until his legs are bright pink, fingers raking over your sex, digging deep until he's twisting the nerves to his liking, rewiring you until all you can do is hold your breath with clenched fingers. Then, there's the swell. The change in pressure that tenses in your core and skull. Brain throbbing, eyelids fluttering until everything becomes so tight—

—that you finally shatter.

A million pieces of you scatter all over Simon's tent as you come. Thighs quivering, cunt fluttering around him despite his relentless pace; it's sweeter than the strawberry pastries you spent all afternoon baking but the acid that follows bites worse than a wasp. A wretched give and take that leaves you gasping in the stilly night air.

Simon plunges in not too far after you. Both hands returning to your hips, he yanks you towards him and keeps you locked against his body while his cock begins to pulse inside of you, jumping rhythmically as if to a tune you can't hear. Your brain can't make sense of it until he's pulling out of you with a grunt and something warm runs down the inside of your legs—he's truly consummated this marriage-to-be with a gift only man can bestow upon a woman.

He allows you to collapse, but not without another mocking chuckle. On your side, you curl your legs up as close to your chest as you can get while Simon shuffles through items out of your view. Ruined pantalets at your ankles, dress wrinkled beyond recognition; you're soiled. Claimed down to your very marrow by this stranger who blew into town and suddenly decided to take you for himself out of the kindness of his heart.

A kindness soaked in acrimony. Both your tongue and eyes water at the mere stench of it.

When Simon yanks the skirt of your dress over your exposed rump, you can't help but jump. Hands pushing into the earth, you look over your shoulder at him and you're nearly blinded by the fire that dwindles into coals waving with remnants of heat. He holds something out for you to take—a large bottle with a skinny neck and fat bottom. Amber liquid sloshes around inside as he settles down next to you, head skimming against the lean-to tent canvas.

"Go on, then," Simon prompts.

You take the bottle into your hand and realize it's the fresh Kentucky bourbon your father sells at the saloon. The cap has already been popped off, and fresh liquid stains the rim with the remnants of Simon's lips.

"I'm not thirsty," you say, ready to discard the bottle back into his grasp.

"I told you to drink, sweetheart," he corrects you, tone severe.

Brows heavy with a scowl, you ignore the pang between your legs as you sit up and press the bottle to your mouth. Tiny sips allow the alcohol to seep between your lips and though the flavor is smooth, the sting is violent. Needles on your tongue, coals down your throat. When your mouse-like sips aren't enough to satisfy Simon, he tips the bottom of the bottle up, flooding your sinuses with the drink until you're choking it down and coughing at the sting.

"Atta girl," he chuckles before swiping it away and swallowing more gulps than he should.

The earth moves but you stay still. Frozen in time as everything moves around you, time and space warping with you at the epicenter of the destruction of your life. When your husband-to-be settles for bed, he pulls you close to his side but doesn't seem intent on offering any sort of comfort to you besides heavy snoring from his crooked nose.

Your eyes glaze over as you stare at the dying fire. It no longer cracks and spits sparks into the air, it only dances with trembling embers that remind you of waves on a lake. As a coyote howls in the night, you think of how easy it would be to wander back home. To slip from Simon's faint grasp and vanish into the night. You do not scrounge up the courage to leave.

Like your father has taught you—love is nothing if it is not painful.

When dawn breaks you are alone in the tent, but Simon is not far. Breathing life back into the campfire, he crouches next to it with hunched shoulders while boiling water for a canister of dry tea that rests next to his boots. Eyes like soot quickly find you as you peek your face out from the blankets, body stunned into silence as you watch him.

"Mornin' sweetheart," he greets.

Breakfast is just as dull as your pathetic dinner was. Hardtack with not enough salt, and tea that tastes like raw juniper without sugar—you do your best to keep your discontent to a minimum. Your hot cakes are better. Smothered with freshly churned butter and doused with maple syrup from up north. You think about telling him as much, but decide to keep quiet when he stands to his feet and begins to dismantle his tent.

You turn your attention to the dwindling fire as he works. It is a difficult task to focus on the way flames sputter and cry when you can still feel the way Simon ruined you last night. Your sex is swollen, puffy between your thighs, chaffing in areas you never thought were possible. His stench smothers you. Hard work and musk, salty cum between your legs, scabbed cuts screaming at the mixture as it spills out of you, soaking into your tattered pantalets.

Reality hits you without any qualms the moment you place your hand on your stomach. Even that much movement alone hurts.

There are womanly duties that are expected of a bride—of a wife. Of anyone unfortunate enough to be born into the life you are. The seed has been planted, and you're worried about the growth that will overcome your body if it decides to germinate.

"Here."

Simon's voice lulls you back to your senses. His hand is extended for you, and in his palm lies several five dollar bills, all crisp with a neat fold in the center to be stowed away somewhere safe. There's a fat wad of them—nearly 100$ total if you had to guess. Brows creasing, you look up at him.

"What's this? An allowance?" you ask with shaky snark.

He shakes the bills with a tilt of his head. "A parting gift."

Dry lips part in shock. A half-formed demand balances on the tip of your tongue, but you cut it in half with your teeth as you stare up at Simon. "A parting gift?"

"Should be plenty to get you on your way. I'll take ya to the next town over, then what you do from there is up to whatever your sweet little heart desires," he says, voice heavy laden with sarcasm.

Legs contracting, you attempt to stand to your feet only for your knees to give out underneath you, leaving you struggling like a poor-shot doe waiting to be put out of her misery. "But you-! You bought me! Told Daddy you were gonna make me your wife! And last night you took me Simon Riley!"

Tired of holding out money that you don't seem to care about taking, Simon drops the bills to the dirt at your knees. "I'll be real honest with you, sweetheart. I don't have a need for a wife. You're nothin' but just another mouth to feed. Baggage I don't need. Just needed a good night's rest, and that little cunt of yours got the job done just fine."

His haphazard disregard of you leaves thick shame bubbling in your chest like molasses being brought to a boil. No man will take you like this. A whore who has already given herself to someone who has no intention of marrying her, virtue stolen away and devoured as a midnight snack.

"You can't do this to me." Despite your anger, your words only escape your mouth as a hissing whisper.

"Trust me, sweetheart. It's better this way."

"No!" Just as he begins to turn away, your fingers curl into the front of Simon's jeans. A thick layer of dirt and grime wiggles beneath your finger nails, but you ignore the discomfort as you stare daggers up at him with wet eyes and an iron jaw. "You bought me off my daddy, you fucked me last night here in the middle of nowhere—I'm coming with you. Please Simon, you can't just… just leave me. I'll die out there."

As Simon looks down at you with your wet eyes and desperate hands, he realizes he's found himself another fawn. Dumb, looking up at him with a gaze so glassy he can see the whole world reflected within it, lost without guidance. Begging for something to be done. A knife to their throat—anything.

He has long known that he's had no use for a wife. Some woman to calf out children and stay home like a singing bird locked in a cage. But you? This fawn begging for him, desperately in search for someone to trail behind, ready to listen to his every whim? Perhaps he can get used to that.

"Okay sweetheart." He softens right before your eyes. Warm palm against your cheek, thumbing away at the tears on your skin before pressing them into your mouth, all but stunning you into silence. "I'll take care of ya if that's what ya really want. Don't mind havin' a pet."

Simon's sudden change of heart leaves you dizzy, and the thumb on your tongue doesn't help to stabilize you. You promise to be quiet as he finishes packing up the rest of camp, storing away all his items on his horse who lazily watches you while chomping away at the sparse greenery at its feet. When he's finished, he stands in front of you with the rim of his hat sitting low on his face and his thumbs hooked behind his belt buckle.

"Stay right 'ere, sweet fawn. Gonna go get your things from your daddy, yeah?"

It takes all of twenty minutes to convince yourself that Simon's abandoned you. The only thing that can convince you otherwise is that his horse is still here. Just as obnoxiously tall as he is with the same dull, dark eyes staring at you as if he doesn't know what to do with you. Either that or he's gone off to buy a horse from someone else to abandon you without hearing your pathetic shrill cries. He's certainly got enough money for it.

Yet, about an hour later, you hear him huffing and puffing as he settles back down into the ravine. Clenched in one of his hands lies your old carpet bag, something you haven't used since you stopped visiting your friends for sleepovers when you were a child. Even from a distance you can tell it's full to the brim, old fabric bulging beneath the weight of your items as they clank around.

He doesn't bother to greet you upon his return. Too busy tying your carpet bag to his saddle back, thick fingers working along frayed rope as he gives his horse yet one more thing to lug around. Rocks and sand crunch beneath your shoes as you approach him. Even at a distance you can smell the sweat on him. Thick perspiration and musk seeping from his skin, getting his pallid flesh to glow in the sunlight as morning draws dangerously close to noon.

Fingers lacing together, you rock back onto your heels just as Simon turns to face you. "Is everything alright?"

Nodding, Simon digs his thumbs behind his belt buckle once more. "Yeah."

"Good." It's impossible not to notice the stench of blood that follows him. Fresh ichor, iron thick on his skin. When you look at his hands, you see the splitting of epidermis—knuckles busted open like overripe peaches. "Did my daddy say anything?"

"Yeah. Said he was sorry."

You blink. "Sorry?"

Huffing, Simon begins to stalk forward, boots heavy on the ground, spurs ringing with each step, until your cheek is cupped in his hand. It feels wet. Freshly cooled in a nearby stream.

"Said he was sorry 'bout everythin' he ever said 'bout you, 'n that it won't happen again," he explains. The cogs in your mind begin to twist, cleaning the rust off of the gears until every web and speckle of dust is gone. Before you can stop it, you're smiling as you admire this strange man before you. Broad shoulders, crooked face, and fresh blood on the collar of his shirt. "C'mon, sweetheart, let's get outta 'ere."

You situate yourself on the back of his horse as best as you can—legs swung over to the side, arms wrapped around his torso as he kicks the beast into action. It's far from comfortable. Each bump reminds you of the way Simon's cock took you the night before, rabid like a beast and chuckling like a hyena in the night.

Still, as the horse begins to climb out of the ravine, you can't help but smile against Simon's back when you realize you'll never have to be at the butt of your father's scathing abuse ever again.

[secretliteradite]

Moth hybrid reader and the guys using flashlights to disorient them till all they think about is their cocks???

oh my god oh my god

cw dubcon mayb??

They condition you into it. At first they're really considerate, dimming the lights in every room, special goggles during missions. Anything they can do to keep you comfortable and sharp on the job.

Johnny is the first to accidentally flash a light in your eyes. Taking you by surprise by snapping a photo, not realising the flash was on. And boy, your cute little dazed expression, the way you whined in confusion. He was so hard he barely had time to apologise before he was dashing off to his room to deal with it. He didn't want to hurt you, too many bright lights and you would complain about a headache. But one flash had your brain short circuiting and he needed to see it again.

Sparring with you he would switch on a flashlight then shove his thigh between your legs. Delighting when you instantly started to grind down on the firm muscle until your brain came back online.

He made the mistake of mentioning this guilty pleasure to Simon. And of course he had to try it himself. Picking a movie that would have lots of flashing lights and shoving his hand down your pants, playing with your clit as the lights make you dizzy and dumb.

And very quickly one by one the whole team is in on it. Flashing a light in your eyes when they pass you in the hallway so they can shove a few fingers down your throat. Or dazing you mid makeout so all you can do is whimper and drool as they nip at your neck.

You're the horniest you've ever been in your life. And the worst part is you don't totally understand why. You know the team is handsy, but you struggle to remember what happens after the bright lights. They've just trained you to react to the flashes that way.

Gaz teaches you to drop to your knees after a certain sequence. You'll come back to focus and you'll be choking on his cock. Spluttering in surprise as he laughs at you.

Price uses a small flashlight to keep you in check. If you get too overwhelmed in bed and try to pull away he'll just turn you off for a bit. Liking how limp and pliant you become.

They learn your limits quickly too. They can tell if they've gone too far. And you'll wake up with a cool compress over your eyes and a bottle of water ready. And of course on of them, usually Johnny, will eat you out till you just have to forgive them.

[secretliteradite]

Title: Brave [14 of ?]

Pairing: Orc!Steve x Reader

Summary: Your relationship with Steve suffers a radical change.

Warnings: 18+ Only, Genre typical violence, Warlord Nomad AU, Dark Fantasy AU, Enemies to lovers, Eventual smut, References to past abuse, Fighting, Monsters, Animal Death, Violence, Mildly described gore

A/N: ALERT ALERT THE ENEMIES ARE LOVERING, I REPEAT THE ENEMIES ARE LOVERING—

“You accepted the shell.” Carol pops a bit of the crusty bread you’d baked into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Not bad.” Two more loaves sit on the windowsill, cooling. It’s tough and chewy, but for your first attempt you suppose it’s decent. Sleep had not been forthcoming, and so you had scrounged the ingredients from Carol’s newly stocked kitchen in the early hours. 

“But I didn’t know!” You argue, setting down your spoon a little harder than necessary. If Carol notices, she does not say anything, instead she shrugs. “He—he didn’t tell me.” You finish lamely, scuffing your foot against the floor beneath the little table in Carol’s kitchen. 

“He told you with the gift,” she says as she chews. “And you accepted.” 

My brave warrior. 

For the briefest of moments you imagine pressing your mouth to his. Would his tusks be sharp? Would he scrape them against your throat as he—Your face goes hot again and you groan, slapping your hands to your cheeks. No. You shouldn’t think of such things, especially when you cannot be sure of whether or not you should continue. 

Gods.  

“Carol what if I don’t want Steve’s mating promise?” 

“Then you should tell him so.” Your face heats. Damn Orc bluntness. “It does not seem as if you do not want the mating promise,” she reaches for the pot of honey on the table between you, delivering a healthy dollop to the top of her porridge. “If your scent is anything to go by.” 

“What?”

“Your scent. Oh come now Little Human. You must know all things carry a scent—”

“I’m not an Orc!” You say shrilly, pressing your hands to your flaming face in an attempt to cool it. “The only thing I can smell is baking bread and porridge.” You press your hands against your knees as you look down at them, embarrassed. She shakes her head and the look she gives you is pitying. 

“All the same. Tell him, as you told Peter.” Your throat tightens at her words. You have been courted once before, a priest’s son. Perhaps the woman you might have been could have loved him, with his gentle hands and loving eyes. But the woman you are now, the one with zhut scars across her back; she longs for the feel of callouses on fingertips. Of hands roughened by toil, and bloodshed.

Warrior’s hands. 

“I cannot tell him that.” You say softly. Carol looks at you in question, and you respond by focusing down at your own bowl of rapidly cooling breakfast.

Carol’s gaze lights on something behind you just as your skin prickles with awareness. 

“Tell who what?” You turn to see Steve leaned in the open doorway, arms crossed as he watches you. He is bare-chested but for the thick belt of his kilt that ran diagonally across his muscular body. It had been adorned with weapons when you had traveled the grass sea, pauldrons on his shoulders, but here in the city you suppose there is no need for them.

“I came to fetch you for breakfast, but I fear I am too late,” he says with an apologetic quirk of his lips. Your face, already hot from Carol’s teasing and her bluntness, grows impossibly warmer. Gone is the tentative comfort you felt just the other day, and there instead is a fluttery sort of trepidation, like bird’s wings in your belly.

“It’s well past midmorning,” Carol chastises him as she makes space on the bench for him. “Come, sit. There’s porridge, and bread. She made it.” Carol jerks her thumb at you with an approving nod. “It’s good.” Out of the corner of your eye you watch as he scoops the remainder of the porridge from the pot over the fire before pulling the dagger from his belt to cut a few thick slices of bread. “Why so late?” 

“I was called to the council at dawn,” he grouses, frowning. Carol’s expression dims. “It took longer than expected.” His words are laced with apology when he looks at you, and you swallow thickly, the porridge suddenly turning to cold glue in your throat. “I did not forget my promise, Little One.”

Oh. The library. You suppose you had forgotten, in the wake of your… discovery. Luckily, Carol keeps you from having to respond as she shakes her head, scraping the last of her breakfast from her bowl. 

“Surely they can’t mean another raiding party so late into the planting season? Even with the Gods blessing you wouldn’t be back before the snows.” 

“No, not a raiding party. Not ours, leastways. He taps the point of one tusk with the tip of his finger. ”Scouts, most likely.” 

 She grimaces, baring her teeth. “Another tribe?” 

“They were Men. In fine armor, the crest was one I do not know.” He sits across from you with his full bowl, two slices of bread thicker around than your arm stacked beside it. “More than a hundred leagues from the city, but headed in our direction, sure as the sunrise.” A nervous feeling settles in your belly. Humans. 

“What was it?” You ask. “The crest?” His response is a tight smile. 

“A star, with six points. Do you know it?” A shiver passes through you. You do. It is the crest of Halith’s chosen, the crest of royalty. Of a King. 

“Of the three Mountain Kings, that is the crest of King Andrys. The King of Pyres.” You lick your dry lips, remembering the burnings. How close they had come to taking your mother—only the winter fevers had taken her before the priests ever could. 

“King of Pyres, eh?” Carol replies. “How does one come by a name like that?”

“Burning witches.” You say quietly. “To… appease Halith.” 

Carol shudders. “And you call us savages.” She picks up her bowl and takes it to the bucket of wash-water in the corner. Steve’s dark eyes rest thoughtfully on you, and suddenly you find it difficult not to fidget now that you are alone at the table with him. He lifts the spoon to his mouth and chews. A small smile flickers across his lips before it’s drowned out by the worry that creases his brow. 

“I must ask something of you.” Steve’s words are heavy with regret. “Will you come with me and tell the council what you know?” You remember your village council, old, angry men with distrust in their eyes and selfish desire in their hearts.  Steve reaches across the table to place a comforting hand atop your own. 

“They are good people who have served the city well. You have nothing to fear from them.” 

“Then I hope they shall not make a liar of you.” You reply, and you watch his mouth curl into a smile around his tusks. 

“Have I yet?” As though she had read your thoughts, Carol creeps up the stairs to her quarters, and you wait for the telltale sound of the hatch closing before you reply.

“You were not honest with me.” You say, crossing your arms. “I did not know you felt… that you feel…” The words stick in your throat, and suddenly you are glad for Carol’s perceptiveness, for if you had to recite these words before an audience you fear you might keel over. “That you wanted me.” You finish lamely, playing again with your borrowed skirts. 

“I have told you many times.” He shakes his head, clearly amused. “What fault is it of mine that you humans are hard-headed?” You scowl indignantly. 

“I thought Orcs valued honesty.” You fire back, and Steve lets out a booming laugh. “Not secrecy.” 

“Or perhaps I wanted to court you in the ways to which you are accustomed. Is that such a terrible trick?” He asks. “Would you rather I court you as Orcs do?” 

“And how is that?” 

“Little One, I’d have had you on the back of my horse many times over.” His admission makes your mouth dry, and your cheeks hot. You press your thighs together so tightly that they ache. He licks one gleaming tusk. “I would have had you at the river.” You tighten.

“You didn’t know me.”

“I knew you were mine.”

Gods. You hope he misses the tremor that passes through you, doesn’t smell the wash of slick you suspect is between your thighs.

“So you lay claim to me—”  

“Sweetmeat, I have not yet begun to claim you.” The heat behind his words sends a tremor through you. You are glad of the over-long dress you’ve borrowed, it hides the shaking of your knees. “But I do intend to. Of that, you should have no doubt.” 

“And…if I don’t want that?” 

“Give back the shell.” He reaches for your face, and a pleasant heat thrums through you as he traces the outline of your lip with his calloused thumb. His touch is almost reverent. “And break the mating promise.” And just like that the power is in your hands, and yours alone—and he has relinquished it willingly. 

Gladly. 

Slowly, you reach up and curl your own fingers around his, holding his hand against your cheek. 

“I don’t want to break it.”

To be continued…

Brave Masterlist

[secretliteradite]

broken. angst. satoru gojo. ryomen sukuna. chapter index.

The first lesson fatherhood taught Satoru was that he hated sharing.

Watching your boyfriend drop you and his pretty princess off at the playground, pressing a kiss to each of your foreheads and rubbing your back before climbing back into his truck? It was fucking torture.

Made him wonder if he'd passed away in that stupid accident and the past few years were just his own personal hell, being tormented by the prospect of a future where you weren't his.

To see the pretty tilt of your head when you waved at Sukuna as he drove off, a tiny hand clasped in your other one. His girls saying goodbye to the father of the year.

And here he was, trying to catch up in a game he only just realized he was playing.

In a week, you'd sent him probably a thousand photos of Saori over the past two years. Videos too. Her as a baby and babbling. Chewing on toys and toddling. Her first steps and words. It didn't fill the ache in his chest, but it dulled it. Made the harsh edges of the regret not quite as sharp.

Let him video chat with Saori every night for the past week. Usually just for fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour, until she got bored and scampered off to play with toys or grab a snack.

But Satoru still treasured every second. Tried to cement every detail she rambled about and figure out how to translate her toddler talk into real words. Let himself enjoy each one of your smiles and soak in your laughter.

He understood why you didn't tell him. Even if it hurt.

And in the faint circles under your eyes your makeup couldn't conceal, he could tell you were hurting too. Your nails were bitten down, nail polish chipped. Probably just as nervous for this as he was.

You readjusted your bag over one shoulder, Saori already clamoring for you to pick her up with outstretched arms, but Satoru was hurrying to swoop in.

To be the one to hold her this time.

"Satoru, um, hi," You started, a slightly stilted greeting, but Saori had already turned to squeal excitedly at him approaching. All big cheeks and tiny teeth and wide eyes as she chirped papa.

He'd prefer daddy or dada, but he'd take anything from either of you.

Saori was half-sprinting, jumping up against him to be lifted in the air and spun around. She was heavier than he expected, but to be honest, he'd never held a kid like this before, never known what it was like to have one in his arms. Let alone one that was his.

"You wanna play, princess?" He grinned, resting her on his hip like he'd seen you do, using his free hand to poke your cheek.

She eagerly nodded, clumsy hands tugging at his shirt and leaving crumbs behind on the neat blue button-up he picked out like it'd actually impress you today.

You noticed, brows pinched as you sighed. "Sorry, I don't usually let her eat in the car, but-"

"It's fine," Satoru waved it off, smiling at you in the hopes you'd return it.

You did. It wasn't big, or bright, but it was sincere. Soft.

"I wanna swing," Saori tugged at him with one hand, pointing at the swing set on the other side of the playground with the other.

"Sure," He nodded, waiting for you to step forward, to be by his side before he started towards it.

It was a little awkward. Strange to be striding across a park with the woman he still thought of as his other half and the daughter he was desperate to know, but Saori didn't seem to care. Just accepted him as part of her life, another new person to buy her toys and shower her with affection.

Maybe he didn't come to him totally naturally, nearly dropping her trying to get her situated on the seat of the swing, but it was nice to hear you giggle at him catching her and trying to play it cool. Guiding your (and his) daughter's tiny hands to hold onto the chain while he gently nudged her.

But his daughter was like him, and a little airtime wasn't enough.

"Higher," she whined, and you threw him a little look, like fine.

Greed was just in the genes.

And as much as he loved this, as much as he adored spending time with both of you, he still wanted more. To not have to leave from here and go back to his empty fucking apartment while you took her to your pretty house with those blooming hydrangeas and the picket fence he wished was his.

Saori got bored swinging after fifteen minutes, making him chase her and play tag before a little boy came over to tug on the hem of her sleeve and ask her to play with him instead. Satoru felt an unexpectedly sharp pang in his chest when she happily agreed and toddled off after her new friend onto the toddler playground.

"Sucks when she ditches you, doesn't it?" You murmured, understanding and sweet, rubbing the back of your neck as you stood next to him to watch.

"Yeah," He agreed, sucking in a shallow breath. "It does."

You looked up at him, and he was pretty sure his already aching heart stopped. "How have you been?"

"I'm okay," He lied. He was a wreck. He missed you, missed this, missed being by your side and feeling the heat off your skin and the smell of your perfume when it actually was on you instead of just spritzed on his pillow. "Just a lot to adjust to."

You nodded, glancing back over at Saori to make sure she was okay before turning your attention briefly to his face. "Honestly, I figured you probably would've remarried by now."

Satoru barely stifled a laugh.

He'd spent all this time wishing for a redo with you, when you were convinced he moved on with someone else.

"Did you want me to?" He teased, and you rolled your eyes.

"I wanted you to choose," You spoke in a small voice, quiet but steady. And it hit him, something he couldn't believe he never fucking thought of since the day he discovered the divorce paper. "Whatever it was that you wanted."

Part of you had always hoped he'd come back and choose you. And he hadn't. Well, he had, but in the wrong way, too little and too late.

"If I ever got remarried, it'd be to you," Satoru said, only half-teasing now. You shook your head, thinking it was just another joke, and he didn't have it in him to tell you he was being serious.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get remarried," You muttered, and he heard that thread of raw hurt that still tinged your voice, the pieces of you he'd left shattered in that hospital room. The ones his distance only crumbled into dust until you divorced him.

"Oh," He breathed.

And it was wrong, but there was some little spark of hope spreading in his stomach that Sukuna wouldn't get to call you his wife - that maybe there was still some chance for him to fit in your life as more than just a coparent.

"Do you ever think what would happen if we, you know, stayed married?" You asked, looking away from him. Watching Saori with that hint of a smile on your lips, like you couldn't help grinning when your eyes were on her.

"More than I should," Satoru admitted.

"Me too," You confessed, shrugging your shoulders like it didn't mean much. But he knew that wasn't true.

"We probably would've had another kid," He said, and hated himself for how stupid it sounded when your spine went stiff. You looked down at your feet, awkwardly cleared your throat. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said-"

"You're probably right," You interrupted, forcing a smile. "Sukuna just wants to have one, um, you know, give Saori a sibling."

Satoru hadn't realized he still had something left inside him to snap.

"Oh," He said again, but it was broken, barely clinging on to his friendly veneer.

You didn't say anything, and Satoru couldn't tell what you were thinking.

"Um, do you want to?" Satoru eventually asked.

Your shrug wasn't particularly convincing.

"I think I'm going to tell him yes," You admitted, but then Saori tripped, scraping her knee on the small stairs. You were moving first, calling out her name as tears welled in those big blue eyes that looked so much like his own.

You were pulling bandaids out of your bag, scooping her up effortlessly and carrying her over to the closest bench. Getting down on your knees in front of her while you peeled the paper off the back of the bandage and carefully applied it over the broken skin, pressing a kiss on top with promises of getting her a sweet treat while Saori sniffled.

"Are you gonna come?" Saori pouted at him, giving him her best set of puppy dog eyes as he looked to you for approval. And you looked up at him like you wanted him to too.

"Sure, baby," He promised, leaning down to ruffle her hair.

And when he buckled her into the brand new carseat he'd watched three videos to make sure he installed correctly, opened your car door before you could protest, he couldn't help but think this was how it was supposed to be.

His family instead of his ex-wife and the daughter who called another man daddy.

He tried to act unbothered, to smile and fake it while he drove you to some overpriced ice cream shop and ordered your favorite without you needing to ask.

"How'd you remember? I don't think-" You started, brows scrunched together in confusion while he readjusted his hold on Saori.

"Some stuff started coming back," He admitted, and you looked like someone stabbed you. "Mostly about you."

Just sat across the table from him stunned and silent while Saori eagerly chattered about dinosaurs and learning how to count. Satoru ended up spoon-feeding her half the time, napkins scattered across the table at the mess she was making while you barely chimed in.

You pulled out your phone, chewing on your lip when you typed something out and pouted as you deleted and retried. You noticed him looking though, offering yet another smile that doubled as an apology. "Sorry, it's just Sukuna asking when to pick us up."

Hearing his name from your lips left a bitter taste in his mouth.

How could he hate a man that loved you? Took care of his daughter and tucked her in when he wasn't there?

He couldn't. Well, he could (and did), but he was trying his hardest not to.

Satoru didn't want to watch you have another man's baby. Didn't want you to go back home with him. But he didn't have a choice, did he?

"I could drive you," Satoru offered, popping his own spoon in his mouth.

"You really don't have to," You hesitated, and he leaned into the toddler next to him.

"It's no problem," He promised, looking down at his daughter. "You wanna go for another ride in my car?"

"Mhm," She nodded, mouth still stuffed full of ice cream.

"I'll, uh, let him know," You relented.

And it was probably a terrible idea, but he couldn't help what popped into his head watching you stress over a simple text.

"When's the last time you've taken a vacation?"

Your head tilted to the side, confused and a little apprehensive. "What?"

"When?" Satoru asked again.

"Um, our honeymoon, I guess?" You answered honestly, nose scrunching up and lips turning down.

"Why don't we go on another one?" He proposed, stomach flipping over waiting for you to flat-out reject the idea.

"Satoru," You tried to speak firmly, anxiously looking over to see if Saori understood.

"A week or two away. Us and Saori. Let me get to know her better. Probably be nice to get a break from everything and go to the beach, you know?" He suggested, and he could tell you were about to shoot him down. But you looked so pretty biting your lip like that, hesitating like you didn't want to hurt his feelings. "I'll pay for everything. Your boyfriend can come too."

"Are you being serious?" You asked, and he could see the gears in your brain turning as you started to genuinely consider it.

"Of course," He reassured you. "It'll be fun."

He'd just have to manage not to strangle the guy trying to get you pregnant.

[secretliteradite]

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Before: After:

Before the war, we lived a simple but happy life in Gaza. Our home in Shujaiya wasn’t big or luxurious, but it was filled with peace, love, and comfort. We had our own land — a small garden where we planted vegetables, a roof where we sat on warm evenings drinking tea, laughing as a family. Our kids went to school every day with joy, dreaming about their future. We had work. We had neighbors we trusted. We had routines, family dinners, birthdays, laughter. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was ours. It was full of meaning.

The bombing started, and we had to flee our home during the first week of the war. We left everything behind — not knowing it would be the last time we would see our home standing. We first went to Rimal, hoping to be safer. That’s where we heard the news: our home, the place we built with love and hard work, was destroyed. Flattened. Just like that — gone. Everything we owned, everything we saved for, was buried under rubble.

After that, we kept running. From Rimal to Al-Zawaida. Then to Rafah. We’ve been displaced four times. Each time we carry less with us, but more pain. We sleep on floors. Sometimes there’s no roof. Sometimes we stay in tents. The nights are cold, the days are burning hot. There is no electricity, no clean water, no toilets, no privacy. We wait hours just to get a piece of bread. We lost our jobs, our income. We lost our safety, our dignity. We live in fear every day — fear of the next bomb, the next loss.

We used to dream of the future. Now, we just dream of surviving the next day.

We are the Anas family — like many families in Gaza — ordinary people who only wanted peace, a safe home, and a chance to live in dignity. But the war has taken everything from us: our home, our land, our jobs, our dreams, our stability… even our sleep.

It’s hard to write this. It's hard to ask for help. But we are desperate.

Please, if you are reading this, help us. Even a small donation could mean we sleep under a real roof again. Could help us buy medicine, food, or clean water. Could bring back a little dignity to our lives. If you cannot donate, please share this story. You might reach someone who can.

This isn’t just a story. This is our life. And we’re still living through it.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

💔

Please, we are in dire need of you and your support. If you cannot donate, you can share☹️❤️🥹

Even $20 will make a big difference and save us!

You can donate through any of the following link:

1-gofundme

[secretliteradite]

drooling over the thought of being squished in the backseat of a truck, bracketed by simon and kyle who are biting, and nipping at my neck, pinching and paying at my chest, legs spread over one of their thighs, johnny on his knees eating me out like a man starved and humping simons leg and john sitting in the drivers seat giving instructions to everyone while fucking his hand

nonny my love my darling your mind is a wonderful thing.

Kyle would get your mouth. The kiss deep and rough. Grinning every time you would whine against his lips. Keeping a firm grip on your jaw so every time you would get distracted, zoning out from the pleasure he could tug you back. Making you focus on the kiss despite all the different sensations overwhelming you.

Ghost had the mask tugged up over his nose. Mouthing at your neck, leaving a dark mark before switching to a different spot. You would be covered in bruises and bite marks by the time you returned to base. Turtlenecks for the next foreseeable future. His hands wander your body. Teasing your nipples just enough to have you whining in desperation. Every now and then he would reach between your legs, threading his fingers in Johnny's mohawk and pressing him closer to your soaked cunt.

Johnny almost looked worse than you. Cramped in the foot well of the truck. Legs tucked under himself uncomfortably. But he would admit in a heartbeat that he had never been happier. Drooling and fucking slobbering all over your cunt. Teeth grazing against your clit. Each needy groan he let out vibrating against you in the most wonderful way. After your second orgasm you had tried squirming away in overstimulation, but he had just gripped onto your hips to keep you still and kept going. Every eager lick over your aching clit making you jolt and whine around Gaz's tongue shoved in your mouth.

Price was the only one you would have trusted to drive in this scenario. Easily able to focus on the road. Even as one hand lazily stroked his cock. Occasionally he would glance back in the rear view. Chuckling at your blissed out expression and ordering Soap to curl a finger deep inside you. Squeezing the base of his own cock as you arched off the seat. Trembling as you gripped Kyle's bicep. Tumbling into another almost painful orgasm.

[secretliteradite]

Title: Brave [13 of ?]

Pairing: Orc!Steve x Reader

Summary: You explore the great Orc stronghold of Tarrath, and what you find is unexpected.  

Warnings: 18+ Only, Genre typical violence, Warlord Nomad AU, Dark Fantasy AU, Enemies to lovers, Eventual smut, References to past abuse, Fighting, Monsters, Animal Death, Violence, Mildly described gore

A/N: thank you as always for any and all feedback and interaction with my work! tentatively re-considering starting a taglist—let me know what you guys think!

Tarrath is easily triple, quadruple the size of the Kings’ City, and Steve takes great care as he guides you through it. In another life, you might have been joined by a chaperone to ensure no impropriety were to occur. But in this new life the two of you make your way without a third party for modesty, your hand held in his massive one. 

Just to keep from being separated.

“I trust Carol showed you the market.” Steve ushers you through an alleyway, and you emerge in a small, tiled plaza. There is a fountain in the center of the little square, and children laugh and play in the clear water. 

“A-a little. It was…” 

“Overwhelming?” He supplies. “It will be better when you’ve learnt our tongue.” You nod.

“It seems rather difficult,” you admit. 

“Not so difficult as yours,” Steve replies with a laugh. “So many vowels.” 

“I—where did you learn? Common?” You ask, following him through the space between the houses. The street you exit onto is busy, but the crowd of people part for Steve, like water curving around a stone. He grasps your hand again, and you feel the familiar warmth in your cheeks and belly as his thumb curves protectively over your knuckles. 

“In the King’s City.” Steve says after a moment. “When I was still a youngling.” His eyes go dark. “It is a story for another time.” You try to imagine a young Steve, an Orc in a city of Men, but it is difficult to see him as anything other than what he is—

Power.

The sky is bright over the tops of the shops and houses, the sun a brilliant circle set into the peerless blue. And beyond them—

The cliffs. Your heart pounds. 

“Will we go over?” You ask, and he grins. 

“Oh yes Little One,” he says. “I will show you the Fall.” 

The edge of Tarrath is worn smooth with the passage of time and many, many people. Just beyond it the ocean crashes against the rocks, the scent of saltwater rising up from the distant shore below. Steve holds out his hand when you hesitate. 

I’ll fall, I’ll fall and die—

“The city’s magic is old and strong,” he says, one foot on the cliff’s edge. “It will not fail us today.” He smiles at you gently. “Trust me.” 

Do you? Do you trust him? You recall that first day—the last day, you suppose, the last day of your old life. 

I’m telling you to run. 

You are not that woman anymore, scared, incompetent. Your blade hangs above the mantle just the same as Carol’s, your deer horn on the little table at your bedside. 

You’ve only to make it to the river!

The woman you had left in the river could not kill a deer. Nor could she skin a rabbit, hold a sword or navigate the stars—it is she who doubts him, you decide. She who whispers fearfully that he will lead you to death and ruin. But you?

You place your hand in his and step forward with him over the very edge of the world. 

For a moment there is a rush of air, and the sensation of falling—before your feet touch paved street once more. The world is shifted on its axis now, the sea sparkling at you from the end of every street, like a great wall of endless blue stretching up above your head to that infinite place where it meets the sky. 

You stare at it, breathless and wide eyed, too stunned to notice that the orc’s gaze is not on the spectacle above, but on you, a soft smile on his lips. 

—

“Are you hungry, Sweetmeat?” 

You realize that you are—starved. The meal you had shared with Carol earlier that morning is long gone now, and your stomach twists as if realizing that it is completely empty. 

“Yes. But I—”

“You’ve no need of coin with me.” Steve replies, silencing your objection. 

Oh.

Your face grows uncomfortably warm again, and you are ever more aware of your hand in his, of every time your bodies brush together as you pass through the streets of Tarrath. 

“There is a tavern by the library.” 

“There’s a library?” You ask excitedly, and Steve chuckles. 

“There is no rival in all the lands. I will show you another day—the hour grows late, and the archivists do not stay long past dusk.” Disappointment dulls the spark of your excitement, but only barely. Steve is a man—well, an Orc—of his word, you know you can trust that he will make good upon his promise. 

You’ve been wandering the city the better part of the day, and now the sun hangs low in the sky, close to setting. The heat has abated a little, but not much. Still, you enjoy the breeze that rises up from the sea, cooling your sweaty face.  Steve leads you down a merchant-lined street, toward a wide building with a wooden sign out front. There is writing on it that you can’t read, the letters strange and unfamiliar. As you squint at it, Steve chuckles. 

“Don’t worry, Sweetmeat. I’ll teach you.” He pulls aside the cloth covering the entrance and ushers you inside. 

The inside of the tavern is brightly lit with a fire roaring in the hearth despite the heat outside. A few rabbits roast over it on a spit, and beneath them is a huge, bubbling pot. You sniff the air and your stomach rumbles. It smells good, like warm spiced meat and ale. 

There are not many empty tables, but Steve finds one, settling down onto the wooden seat with a sigh. The seats are rather large, and your feet dangle a little off the ground when you heave yourself up into it. The barmaid approaches, furiously wiping down a warped looking glass. She chatters something in Orcish at you, and you smile apologetically. 

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Com-mon?” She asks brokenly, her smile still broad. “Food eat you?” She asks, pointing at her mouth and then the cauldron over the fire. She holds up two fingers, and you realize after a moment that she means money. You look to Steve for help, and he laughs, before answering for you. You watch as he roots around in the pouch on his belt before producing two bronze coins. She takes them happily, biting one hard before reaching into her massive bosom and producing a purse of her own. She drops them in and then stows it away again. 

“Bowl,” she replies happily. “I bring.” She bustles away, returning shortly with two full bowls bigger than your head along with two mugs of ale. She’s given you a healthy portion of stew and a good chunk of rabbit. You look to Steve. 

“How do I say thank you?” 

“Ahn lat.” 

“Ayn lat,” you try, and the barmaid giggles, and says something else before she hustles back over to the packed bar. You glance at Steve. 

“What did she say?” A small smile creeps across his face as he lifts the spoon to his lips. 

“She said that my pretty human has nice manners.” He takes a bite as you choke on air. Your whole body goes cold and then hot, skin prickling beneath your borrowed dress. 

“I—I’m not—” You grab for the ale, taking a big swallow. “I’m not, I mean, we’re not—” You think of Peter’s rejected courting gift, of the shell on your little table. 

“Of course not.” He replies, though it doesn’t look as though he means it at all. You’re unsure of whether or not that bothers you. “Eat your food, Sweetmeat,” he says, eyes glittering as he takes another bite. “While it’s still warm.”  

You do, taking your first bite with the too-big spoon, and it’s delicious. You close your eyes, savoring it. The spices are new and rich, and you wonder what plants they come from, if you might grow them in your little garden. 

“What’s in this?” You ask through a mouthful, and Steve cocks his head. 

“Probably aissa, maybe some spice-leaf. Easy enough to grow.” He smiles at you. “Would you like some seeds, Little One? For your garden?” You look down bashfully. How had he known? ”I will bring your seeds, then.” 

Gods, you don’t know what to make of the feeling in your chest, joy, anticipation, and some new kind of terror that leaves you breathless. It isn’t like  when the zhut had descended upon the pack, or when you had seen the village fall. This is softer. Newer. 

When you are done eating—try as you might you cannot finish the massive bowl—Steve takes you back to Carol. The sun is nearly set, the first stars beginning to appear in the sky as he opens the gate for you. Carol is waiting in the doorway, arms folded with a wide, knowing grin that makes you want to flee back the way you’d come. 

“Showed her the city, did you?” Carol asks. You nod.

“It was wonderful.” You turn back to Steve. “Thank you.” 

“It was my pleasure.” He runs his thumb over your knuckles before letting you go. “And I shall bring you your seeds.” You watch him go until he disappears into the tide of bodies. Carol leans over to pat your shoulder. 

“Makes quite the tender suitor, doesn’t he?” She asks, laughing. You stare at Carol, open mouthed, breath caught. Suitor? No. No. He isn’t. Least of all to you.

“What did you say?”

“Your suitor. Tender, isn’t he?” The smile on her face grows impossibly wider as you turn tail and flee up the stairs to your room as Carol’s laughter follows you. 

To be continued…

Brave Masterlist

[secretliteradite]

still thinking about marine biologist!reader. come home the kids miss you 🥹

Orca Mer!ghost and marine biologist!reader who runs a mer sanctuary???? Yeah.

Ghost was a new rescue, youve been told. He was found off the coast of a popular tourist spot, and had suffered a broken arm from a boat getting too close. As one of the few on-call staff members with medical experience, you get called in to fix him.

Its...bad. when you first see the mer, thats all you can think. Bad. His arm is limp and cradled to his chest, you only catch glimpses through the tight anxious circles he swims. On his eighth turn you spot two notches and a tag on his dorsal fin. He was one of robas, that bastard.

Protocol states that he should be sedated for the procedure. It also states that you should never even stand close to a tank with an agitated mer. Soap, one of your three permanent patients, had once told you that seeing figures looming over the surface of the water was much more threatening than someone dipping their legs in. when your feet are in water, soap always had the best speech, growing up alongside humans we can see you are human stepping into our territory. We could easily drown you. It is like...submission? I dont know the English word for it.

So, you don a wetsuit and place all the needed supplies by the edge of the pool. The second your feet breach the water surface, ghosts hand is wrapping around your ankle and yanking you into the water. He had crossed the tank in seconds, and you were about ready to accept this would be how you die.

Except, you never feel your back hit concrete, or water filling your lungs. No, ghost just drags you into the centre of the pool then...leaves you there. You tread water as he circles you slowly, silently grateful for all those days spent in prices tank. Just as you begin to think ghost is waiting for exhaustion to overtake you, he pauses his circling and stops directly in front of you. "You..." his voice is scratchy and wavering, clearly unused to english "you...water...why?"

You had been trained on how to speak with mers that had limited speech. They weren't stupid, but you couldn't ramble at them like you could soap. Slowly, you gesture to your forearm, then point at ghost "broken. I'll fix it."

Ghost makes a displeased rumble that you know means danger. "No."

You nod, no need to anger him. "I promise, ill fix it. Can I show you what I want to use? Just so you can see?"

When ghost doesnt say anything, you slowly drift towards the edge of the pool again. He watches silently, and you think youll make progress, only for him to growl when you reach over the sill. "Hey, hey." You put your hands up so he can see them "its just stuff to fix you, okay? Do...do you want to come look? You can touch and ill tell you what it does."

Water sloshes against the sill as ghosts large form swims close. The bandage looks comically small in hid hands. "Those," you explain, careful not to grab at them, "are waterproof bandages. Its to help hold your arm in place when I fix you."

Ghost nods, picks and pulls at the stretchy fabric for a bit before moving on to the next item. You spend the next hour like that, going over each item and what it does again and again. You would spend the whole day here if thats what it took for ghost to feel safe.

You seriously think this will be all the progress for today, content with it even if youd prefer ghost be fixed sooner than later. Youre so caught up in whether his arm could handle another day that you dont register the presence drifting closer to you until a large hand circles your waist.

With a yelp, you're dragged backwards to lie on ghosts chest as he floats belly-up. He just rumbles at you when you squirm, hand nearly as big as your abdomen resting over your stomach. He holds his broken arm in fron of you, "fix it."

...well, you would never say no to helping a mer. So you work with what ghost gives you. Laid back as items are passed to you. He doesnt react when you pull at the bones until they set properly. The hand on your stomach may have been playful were this gaz, but you know its nothing more than a warning. Ghost could gut you if you upset him.

Its slow work, but as the sky is beginning to shift into warm hues, ghosts arm is bandaged and properly set. He startles you against by picking you up with one hand and sitting you on the sill. The second he lets go, ghost is darting to the farthest, deepest end of the pool.

Mildly, you note that he isnt swimming tight circles anymore.

[secretliteradite]

Lucid Submission - chapter 7

(feudal lord!sukuna x reader)

synopsis:

The fearsome demon king, Sukuna Ryomen, is reborn as an immortal human man as punishment for ruining the balance of good and evil in the divine realm.

To lift his curse and return to his original form, Sukuna must complete the condition bestowed upon him by the deities.

However, it requires him to have a child with the street thief who stole his coin pouch.

fanfic masterlist

Your eyes absorb each and every movement Sukuna makes. His words soon muffle into nothingness when you realize how soft his hair looks under the winter sun, like fuzz on a snow peach. 

Oh, what you’d do just to run your–

You internally grimace at the thought of finding your husband attractive. The man had picked you up like a sack of rice and dragged you home to forcefully marry you. There was nothing attractive about that.

But then again, he was surprisingly patient to earn your trust and affection, going as far as letting you hold a weapon so you could learn how to fight. He wholeheartedly believed that you wouldn’t use it against him. Skittish little tiger cub, you are. You bare your fangs, but the concept of attacking is entirely too foreign, only embedding your canines in thick skin.

But then again, he was only in control of half his mind. The other half was a demon lord who believed you owned something special, a magical marble of some sort. Whatever that may mean. Maybe the rot eating his brain away will catch up to him sooner rather than later, and he’ll be easier to manipulate in the coming days. Wishful thinking often tends to get your hopes up and then disappoints you.

“Do you understand?” Sukuna asks you from across the yard, his bamboo stick heavy in his grasp. You’re taken aback. Suddenly, weeks of sword fighting just vanish into nothingness in your mind. “I suppose,” you muster up, steadying your arm to mimic his swing.

You clearly seem to execute it wrong because your movement causes Sukuna to tut and correct your form. Slowly, you’ve started to lose the tension in your shoulders every time he stands near you. His scent is musky and earthy, enveloping you wholly in his embrace. It lingers in the back of your throat as the miasma hits all your senses. The heat of it makes you break a sweat even in the chill of wintertime.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he reprimands, steadying your waist, large hands flat against your body, twisting and turning you to his liking. He seems like the kind of man who would take control and mold your body to his liking. Bent over, arched, panting into the mat as you stretch around–

You yelp when he squeezes your waist to get your attention. “You might as well be dead with the way you’re so distracted. Tch, disobedient woman. I ought to teach you a lesson for it,” he grumbled behind you.

You scoff as you push his arms off you. “For a master swordsman, you sure do not have the grace for it. Nor the patience,” you counter as you lift your stick, bracing yourself to attack him.

Your husband smirks, a glint of excitement in his eyes as he positions himself. “I only have patience for those who deserve it. A woman like you is anything but good at listening.” 

The sentence strikes you in the pit of your stomach, and you charge towards Sukuna with a rage that only fills you when your abilities are questioned. Lightening fast, Sukuna dodges you with ease, a chuckle escaping his lips as your energy gets expended in an empty hit instead.

Your breathing quickens as you feel him creep up behind you. You lift your stick, defending yourself from his strike. His strength reverberates in your arm that the leg steadying you nearly shakes.

A student can never defeat their master–it’s an age-old belief, but there’s this force in you that’s determined to refute it. All restraints unchained, you give everything into each and every hit and dodge, but Sukuna is just too good at recognizing your patterns, no matter how fragmented you try to make your next move seem.

“Come on, fight me like you actually hate me,” he taunts as he circles around you.

“I already do!” This time, you lunge at him, surprised to see that his resolve had slipped when you hit him. His staff falls out of his grasp, and you both look at each other in surprise for a second. A victorious gasp escapes past your lips, but your joy is short-lived. Sukuna flips your staff out of your hands, easily throwing it across the yard like a javelin. 

He looks at you like you’re the only remedy that’s going to quell his lust for bloodshed. You try to fight him off with the basics he had taught you, but it was futile. He had you tackled to the snowy ground, wrists bound above your head with a single hand.

“You’re improving,” he comments, much to your irritation.

“‘Tis a shame you’re so handsome, or I would’ve scarred your face by now,” you spat out. 

Sukuna takes up your entire field of view. From east to west, his face is close enough that he’s your only sky. Sweat trickles into his thick brows as his upper lips glisten. Every muscle in your body begins to burn with something other than ache, and it’s hard to quell that whisper of a feeling because of Sukuna’s musk.

“With what weapon?” he mocked you as he pulled away. Dazed, you lie on the ground till Sukuna pulls your hand. “Let’s get washed up.”

The sun rolls up into the sky, beaming with an intensity you haven’t seen since the last day of summer. You think it’s contributing to the heat you feel on your skin, but really, it’s just the steam building up in the kitchen.

The smell of soup and rice wafted in the air, prompting your stomach to make noises that weren’t so gracious for women. Uraume, the ever-so-impassive, placed a platter of rice cakes in front of you.

“Surely there must be something more worthwhile your time than watching me cook lunch, Lady Sukuna,” Uraume said as he stirred the soup that was thickening as it simmered.

Uraume’s right, but you needed a break from your husband’s constant and looming presence. “I was supposed to be learning how to sign and organize the contracts for the ports Sukuna Ryomen owns, but I took a day off.”

Uraume hums as he places a dried fish head in a small wicker bowl. It looked like it could’ve been used. Your audacity has never failed you (well, unless you count marrying a rich feudal lord as a punishment), so you speak up.

“What are you going to do with the leftover pieces of the fish? The head looks perfectly fine for the soup.”

Uraume looks up at you before his eyes move back down at the wicker bowl next to him. “I was going to throw the head away. Lord Sukuna does not prefer to eat it.”

Of course, he had to be picky. Sukuna dictated everything you did in a day, down to how long you’d do it for, so it’s no surprise he had his spoilt choosings regarding food as well. Only someone like him would waste something like a perfectly usable head. Not having much money in your pocket or food in your belly has taught you to be resourceful. Especially considering that you had to cook for large groups of people as a job before your fate turned for the worse.

You walk over to Uraume and take the bowl in your hands. “The head adds more flavor to the soup. I’ll eat it if he’s that picky.”

You’re about to drop the piece of meat in the broth, but Uraume stops you with his ladle. “Lord Sukuna has also instructed me that I do not give you anything that may seem like it has too many bones, My Lady.”

“But I do not mind it. I like the head. And the soup will taste better,” you insist.

But Uraume does not move the ladle. “Eating the head is a sign of poverty. Lord Sukuna will not be happy to see it.” The sentence hits you hard, deep in your gut, once where hunger used to twist.

For a moment, you had felt smaller than an insignificant grain of dust. You realized that the life you used to lead–the one not of your choosing–was looked down upon by many, including your husband. Accepting him and his kindness would mean becoming part of the very people who turned their noses up at the fact that you couldn’t afford to eat three times a day.

“Fine, then can you at least remove the head after letting it boil in the soup?”

Uraume sighed, moving his hand away.

You scurry over to the dining area, much to Uraume’s insistence. Sukuna is already seated in the middle of the room, meditating. Your shuffling pulls him out of his trance, and he smirks.

“You’ve escaped me today, but don’t you forget that I will make some use out of you. The contracts and ledgers sitting in my office need a second pair of eyes on them.”

You roll your eyes, slouching in all ways that are unladylike across him. Uraume soon walks in with two tables and trays of food. Your heart races in anticipation as you watch Sukuna’s brow furrow as he stares at the soup. As secure as you’ve started to feel around your husband, there’s still an element of fear that you experience when there’s even a slight shift in his usual body language.

You wait for him to take a sip of the soup, elbows tense and stuck to your sides as he lifts the spoon. Sukuna lets the flavor linger on his tongue, frowning deeper as he asks Yuuji, who is standing right outside the room, to fetch Uraume.

Sukuna was probably going to yell at him, maybe even have his head, who knows, and it would all be your fault. Morality tends to grey when you have to fend for yourself, but you had just put Uraume in the maws of the beast, and you’d take the blame to save him. Worst comes to worst.

Uraume walks in, already staring at you as he stands by the door. “Yes, my Lord?”

“The soup. It tastes better today. Make sure to only cook it like this from now on.”

Surprised, both your and Uraume’s eyes widen as you discreetly try to look at each other. He opens his mouth to say something, but you vigorously shake your head. Sukuna looks confused once his attention shifts from his meal to you. It takes you a second to realize how ridiculous you look moving like that.

“Uh, I’m just a little cold.”

Sukuna lets out a grunt of acknowledgement before he asks Uraume to fetch your dotera from your quarters.

You’re in the kitchen once again the next day, watching Uraume prepare a meal. He’s irritated as it is. A person of solitude, he prefers the quiet over the mindless chatter that usually surrounds Yuuji, Megumi, and Nobara. Uraume only ever converses with a person unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Which is why he’s trying his best not to yell at you as of now. So far, you’ve basically changed his whole menu for lunch from top to bottom.

“My Lady, if you were going to do everything yourself, then why am I sweating over the food?” Uraume complained as you grabbed the ladle from him.

“I mean no offense, Uraume, but it is clear that you can add more flavor better if you change just a few–”

“Just a few? Pardon my interruption, but I do not even know what I first had in mind to cook when I came into the kitchen. Should I have known that you were going to intrude, then I would have simply prepared myself for the mental exhaustion that is your company here.”

Uraume’s words fall on blissfully deaf ears. You don’t remember the last time you were so excited to cook. Back at the brothel, cooking felt like a chore. You’d slave away in a boiling hot room, hands and shoulders aching from stirring large amounts of food, only for so much of it to be thrown away at the end of the day. It was a never-ending cycle of pain and exhaustion.

Cooking at Sukuna’s estate was different. For the first time in a while, you could cook whatever you wanted and were enjoying it. It was about the principle of freedom.

The high of joy is short-lived when you accidentally put your hand too close to the fire, scarlet blooming on your wrist. 

“Enough!” Uraume drags you out of the kitchen and quickly gathers snow to cover your burn. “I will take care of the rest. If Lord Sukuna finds out that you had been cooking the whole meal yourself, he will not be happy. Forget sleeping in your own quarters, he will begin bathing you with him!”

You gasp, pulling your hand away immediately, but Uraume only rolls his eyes and places more snow on your wound. “I will apply a salve some time before dinner. Be sure not to let your sleeves slide up in front of Lord Sukuna.”

Sukuna was not expecting to find peace in your presence. At first, you were simply just a pretty face to look at, but the more he got to know you, the more his demon heart pulsated with life.

After every fight, he’d sit in the bath, staring at the very reflection he used to find repulsive, only now, he doesn’t yearn for his second set of arms or eyes. He only worries that if he had them, then it would be a great disadvantage for you to beat him while swordfighting.

That and you’d find him horribly terrifying to look at. And you even claimed not to believe in the supernatural.

The Divine Judges’ voices echo in his mind like a painful reminder every day. The turquoise sheen over your real eye color is both delightful and agonizing to look at. His time is infinite, yet his moments with you are not. What a dreadful juxtapositional dilemma.

Sukuna often rubs his chest, seeking life from something that has never existed in a literal sense. Your pulse is something he loves to feel against the rough skin of his thumb; he only wishes that you could feel his too, but it rots in a way that only makes sense to his kind.

Demonhood; that world seems so far away now. Especially after your arrival, which is strange because he has never been so close to returning to his former glory.

Even now, he mindlessly seeks you wherever he goes. Normally, he’d be meditating by his old statue, but instead, he's walking around the estate, hoping to catch one glimpse of you where you aren’t in a perpetual frown. Hoping to catch you wearing the hairpin he had gifted you.

But instead, he hears distant murmurs of Uraume scolding you. He waits behind a wall, first trying to understand the situation. “If Lord Sukuna finds you cooking the whole meal yourself, he will not be happy!”

“I will apply a salve some time before dinner. Be sure not to let your sleeves slide up in front of Lord Sukuna.”

Something foreign blooms in his chest and curls around his ribs like vines on a branch. He thinks about the slow change in your attitude, how you slowly unfurled yourself in front of him. 

In the beginning, you were all but a spiteful woman, deeply scarred from her unfortunate past, but now you were changing. Sukuna deeply hopes it was for the better.

Nobara would sometimes tell him what you’d do in your spare time, most of her accounts being about you reading old poetry written by Sukuna back when he had first turned into a human. Though none of the other things she reports to him endear him like the time when she had caught you applying rouge on your cheeks before Sukuna’s arrival at the estate.

Maybe his human form isn’t so ugly after all.

At dinner, you stay quiet, fidgeting with your sleeves. Uraume is usually calm under pressure, able to mask most emotions, but tonight, Sukuna could sense a drop of sweat trickle down his subordinate’s temple.

“Dinner is served.”

Back in the Demon Realm, Sukuna enjoyed playing with the minds of souls before he consumed them. The torture added to the taste which he relished; ferric and a little acrid.

This was no different.

“The spread looks marvelous as always, Uraume. Do describe to me how you made today’s dinner,” Sukuna announced with a smirk.

Sukuna notices your eyes flitting to him almost immediately, but when he meets your gaze, you look down at your soup.

“I…I added a few new spices.”

“What kind?”

Uraume’s eyes shift to your figure, and Sukuna is hit with the urge to laugh at you both, but he stays silent.

“Just some new ones that the Dutch have brought from overseas. They were quite expensive.”

“And? Tell me more.”

And for the first time in years, Uraume’s voice had a hint of a tremble. “Well—“

“Will we ever be able to eat? Please halt this needless conversation because I am starving,” you complained with a huff. You tried to fold your arms, but then quickly put them down.

Sukuna smirked. “Well, whatever my wife wants, she gets.”

It’s just the two of you when Uraume leaves the dining area. Sukuna’s eyes are trained on you as he takes a bite of the food.

He swallows thickly when your gaze stays fixed on the way his tongue swipes broth across his lips.

A bead of sweat trickles down your temple when you land a final blow on the dummy Megumi had constructed for you. After another week of training, Sukuna had announced that you had earned the right to fight with a dull blade. Sure, the urge to slash Sukuna had come up, but you were enjoying your lessons too much to think about killing him.

Seion was still in the midst of winter, yet the heat of exercising was unbearable. When you ask Uraume about your private onsen being ready, he only looks at you apprehensively before telling you something that makes you angrier than Kyo’s existence.

“I was not able to fetch enough water for both onsens. You must wait for Lord Sukuna to take his bath first.”

Your head whips to your husband, and he only smirks as he clears the courtyard. “But I want to bathe first. I am the Lady of this estate, am I not?” you ask as condescendingly as possible. 

“You are, but this estate first and foremost belongs to Lord Sukuna. He gets first claim on everything.”

Once again, a woman is left to be secondary. You had been dragged to this place without your consent, forced to become an idiot’s wife, and now you couldn’t even bathe whenever you wanted.

“I object. This is my home too. I will bathe first.”

Uraume sighs as he looks behind you, watching Sukuna walk over and place a sweaty hand on your shoulder. “I understand your frustration, dear wife, but unfortunately, I have a meeting with some traders soon, and I cannot go smelling like I’ve rolled in soil.”

But ever the ornery, you insist on bathing first. Already walking towards Sukuna’s private bath. 

“I will get the room ready. Whichever one of you chooses to bathe first is not up to me.”

Your stubbornness is a curse and a gift. Sheer spite and determination alone have led you to some interesting paths in life, helping you survive to this day. Your resolve, however, constantly gets tested through it all. Like now, when you’re sitting in the same bath as your husband.

The hard planes of his chest and abdomen are glossy and damp. It’s not an unwelcome sight, but you can’t help but be conscious of your own nakedness because of it. Sukuna scrubs himself with no shame. He had barely batted an eye when he’d stripped down completely, showing you all of his manhood unabashed as he entered the onsen before extending a hand out to you.

Once again, your discomfort was of your own design. Had you not been so persistent in taking a bath, Sukuna wouldn’t have suggested that you bathe together to save time. Of course, rejection was sitting at the tip of your tongue, but the scoundrel had brought up the fact that you probably wouldn’t be able to control yourself after being in such a state with him.

You glared at Sukuna as he scrubbed himself clean. He knew exactly how to push your buttons; you always had a knack for proving people wrong.

“Why aren’t you cleaning yourself?” Sukuna was not ashamed to look at you, eyes hungrily raking down your figure, stopping right where the bottom half of your body submerged in water.

“I will once my hands aren’t occupied.” The concept of modesty was a joke at this point. A formality, if you will. The last thread of respect before the tattered fabric tore completely. Your hands covered your breasts with the utmost security, making sure that the man across wouldn’t even get a glimpse, even when he had already seen them.

Sukuna only laughs, “The water will get cold before you’ll even get the chance to clean yourself. But then again, this is your home too, so do as you please.”

It angers you how he takes so much pride and enjoyment in mocking you. You don’t want to hit him, so you splash him instead, uncaring that you were now fully bare in front of him.

“H-hand me the rag!” Sukuna tosses your designated cleaning rag to you, enjoying the sight of you running your hands down your body. His gaze is heady, half-lidded, and mouth parted as he rests his arms on the tub’s edge.

“Seems like you’re the one who cannot control yourself,” you comment as you wring excess water out of the piece of cloth. You turn around, swiping your hair to the side, mainly so you can get away from Sukuna’s fixation on you.

You don’t get any sort of reply. Not even a chuckle or a cough. If it weren’t for his heavy breathing, you’d think that you were alone in the room. You’re deeply engrossed in your cleaning routine when you hear the ripples of water approaching you. Your hands freeze, dropping the rag in the water. A large palm meets your waist as your husband’s warm breath hits your ears.

“You are correct, but it is a shame that I cannot do anything about it as of this moment,” Sukuna richly whispers. A breath you didn’t know you’d been holding is released when he presses his plush lips against your neck. He sniffs deeply, growling at the scented oil you’d used.

“Smells just like me.”

This intimacy is nothing like what you’ve experienced with him before. Both of you nude, sharing a bath, yet he does not even press his chest to your spine, nor does he dip his hand between your thighs, searching for the honey you were already dripping for him.

You choke out a muted sound, and he gets out of the bath before you can address what had just happened.

“I want to make him a gift,” you tell Nobara. She nearly drops her blade polishing stone when she hears the request.

“You…wish to give Lord Sukuna something?” she asks, trying to make sure what she had heard was correct.

“Yes, I am not sure what, but I am certain I will know once I see my options at the street market,” you answer earnestly.

“I am sure you have Lord Sukuna’s best interests in mind, but I cannot help but feel that you are ploying to run away instead,” Nobara says as she walks over to you by the courtyard steps. 

You drop the poetry journal you’d been reading and look at her pleadingly. “Please? I am most genuine with my request. I will be in your sight for the entirety of our time there.”

The girl looks away into the distance, deep in thought, before speaking up, “The market is more crowded than usual. There is some sort of winter festival that will take place soon. I suggest we stay close to one another the entire time.”

It’s embarrassing how you get up with so much excitement, running inside to change into your outing clothes, and Nobara only shakes her head at your giddiness.

“Demon Lord, have mercy on my patience,” Nobara mumbles to herself.

Turns out that Nobara had overestimated just how crowded the market was going to be. Children ran around with toys and candies gripped in their little hands as their parents hollered promotions.

“Three for two! Three for two! Buy your lanterns here!”

“Rice cakes! With foreign spices too!”

You’d been around your fair share of noise. The brothel was always vibrant with cheers and laughter as the women entertained high and low-ranking men, likewise. The sounds of copulation were a constant disturbance as you tried to sleep, such that you had developed the skill of staying unconscious through almost anything. 

Surprisingly, Nobara had been enjoying herself. Her eyes were constantly distracted because of all the trinkets and fabrics being sold.

“We should buy you something as well,” you say with a little more volume because of the crowd.

“What?” Nobara yells.

“I said, we should buy you something as well!” Nobara sends you a small smile when she finally understands your sentence, and you send a beam back. You make it a point to scold Sukuna for not taking her out more often. She may be a guard/attendant, but she was also a girl who enjoyed being spoiled.

You notice a place for sword sheaths, but it is a little further out of the market, away from the hustle and bustle. When you turn to ask Nobara to follow you, you see that she’s deeply examining the kimono fabric at one of the stalls.

You feel bad for the girl, so you let her be. It wasn’t like you were going too far since you were still in her field of view, just a little veiled because of the crowd.

You walk towards the shop, the same red coin pouch you’d stolen a long time ago now sitting safe in a hidden pocket.

“Excuse me,” you call out, a frown slowly setting on your face as you wonder why someone would leave their shop unmanned. By now, the crowd had grown denser near the other shops, leaving you even more isolated than the rest.

“I would like to buy a sword sheath for my husband,” you say again, hoping that the vendor would hear you, but there was still no answer.

Growing bored, you start looking at the different types of sheaths, running your hands along the different materials, trying to figure out what would suit Sukuna the best. You’re about to leave a few coins on the table in the middle of the stall for one until you hear an eerily familiar voice.

“Boss will be happy to know that you’ve cleaned up well.”

You slowly turn around to face Jogo, Kyo’s henchman and fellow human trafficker.

Before you can scream or do anything to get Nobara’s attention, you are hit with an indescribable pain on the side of your head, before the world hides away in the abyss.

[secretliteradite]

Margaritaville

For days now, you’ve been seeing the same broad-shouldered man lounging around the resort. Or: the knocked up on vacation au Part 3 masterlist

-

A shower and thorough scrub after the fact washes away most of the more damning evidence, but paranoia still buzzes under your skin when you rejoin your friends downstairs. They’re sitting beside each other in a row of lounge chairs by the edge of the pool when you reappear, beach bag in hand, waving at you from across the way. You hurry over to join them.

“What—did you fall asleep up there?” one of them asks you, and it takes a second for you to recall the excuse you gave them about going upstairs to look for a book to read. 

“Yeah,” you lie. “I wasn’t feeling too good, so I lied down for a bit.”

“Oh no,” one of them says with a frown, sitting up on her elbows to get a better look at you. “You feeling better now? We can go back to the hotel room if you want.”

“Nah, I’m alright now. I had a shower too, so I’m feeling much better.”

You might’ve been better off pretending that you just fell asleep upstairs rather than lying about feeling sick. 

Though still hours from sundown, the sun isn’t anywhere near as thick in the sky anymore; a cloudless expanse of blue as far as the eye can see, stretching from zenith to offing. Despite the slight breeze and the UV index starting to inch back down, you still slather on a fresh layer of sunscreen. 

“So what’d you get?”

You look up from your legs and a glob of sunscreen slips down your calf and onto the chair. “Huh?” 

“Your book,” she repeats, looking at you like it should be obvious. “What book did you go get?”

Your hands freeze over your bag, a cold sweat leaking through you. All that just for you to forget to bring back a fucking book. 

“Oh, I, uh,” you stammer, looking in your bag helplessly like a book might suddenly appear out of nowhere. “I must’ve left it back upstairs. Damn.”

Lucky for you, no one has the energy to care or look past the obvious stutter in your voice, accepting your words as gospel. Your friend closest to you rolls her eyes and pushes her sunglasses back up her nose. “It’s alright—here, I’ve got another in my bag. It would be such a waste of time to go all the way back upstairs.”

“Yeah,” you say, swallowing when you think about heading back into the resort and taking the elevator to the next floor up from your room, following the long hallway back to John’s room, where he’d be waiting for you with a wry smile and open arms, towel still cinched around his waist. “That would suck. Thanks.”

For one singular day, you actually make a concerted effort to steer clear of John. 

That means: no surreptitious glances or orchestrating accidental run-ins. You keep close to your friends the whole day, never more than a couple feet away. 

And for the most part, it works. You’re mostly successful that first day. For a while after your little hookup, you don’t see hide nor hair of him anywhere around the resort. Where before John was seemingly everywhere, now he’s nowhere to be found. 

It’s almost infuriating. Had he been this elusive in the days since you arrived at the resort, you might not have felt as tempted by his constant presence. It was the proximity and blatant invitation that gradually wore away at your resolve. 

You keep deferring responsibility for your actions. That belongs to a future, stronger you, whether or not she’ll ever come to fruition.

“Looking for someone?” your friend asks when you glance around the poolside for the umpteenth time. Her words are laced with a subtle kind of humour, some inside joke that you haven’t caught on to just yet.  

You shake your head. “Nope. Just people watching.”

“Right,” she drawls, only burying her nose in her book again after sending you a sceptical glance.

When her attention is back on her book, you peek around again, searching for any sign of someone in pin-stripped swim trunks. Disappointed when you find nothing. 

The girls insist on going down to the beach and renting jetskis in the afternoon, guaranteeing that you won’t see John for the rest of the day, but at least it gets you out of your head for a while. Air whips by your ears and you scream in delight, your arms cinching around your friend’s waist as she guns the engine.

Afternoon melts into evening, which melts into night. At supper, someone mentions taking a dip in the hot tub and you pounce on the thought, the four of you giggling and tumbling down the stairs on your way back to the pool area. 

The hot tub lights oscillate between purple, pink, and blue at a timed interval, keeping the water bathed in a cool, dark colour as night falls. Dusk ushers in a changed world. Large snails leave slimy trails as they creep out of the potted plants and slither across the furniture. Spiders and moths emerge from dark corners as well, the nocturnal world coming to life around you. 

The three of them get out of the hot tub around nine, someone complaining about still being hungry. As tempted as you are to join the girls for a late bite to eat at the restaurant, the hot water and jets are doing wonders for your sore muscles, especially after the previous day. You can’t exactly explain that to the others though, so when they try to cajole you out of the water, you brush them off and promise that you’ll join them in a few minutes. 

Besides, you’re overdue for some alone time. The more you have, the less likely you’ll be to start fights over nothing, cabin fever finding no foothold in a person aware that it hovers on the periphery. 

Around the complex, the pools glow cyan like bioluminescent glowworms, the floodlights on to keep drunk tourists from falling in on their way back to their rooms. Some angelic-voiced eighties singer croons over the speaker, music still playing around the pool area until it abruptly cuts out and silence rushes in like a wave to fill the emptiness. The silence doesn’t worry you though; it’s almost serene sitting alone in the dark and gazing across the way at the buildings still brightly lit from the inside. 

You don’t realize that you aren’t actually alone until someone joins you in the water. 

The loud splash of his feet entering the water is what alerts you to his presence, the sudden noise causing your heart to jump up into your throat, head snapping to the side when a large body sits down beside you, displacing the volume of the water in the hot tub. 

“Oh shit,” you gasp, heartbeat going wild for a second. You scoot away instinctively and hit the low wall to your left. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you, honey,” John apologizes, settling in beside you. “You seemed lonely all by yourself, so I thought I’d join you.” 

His body inadvertently crowds you up against the pool wall. Or at least, it feels inadvertent, like he just sat wherever happened to be free, notwithstanding the fact that by doing so, he had trapped you at the edge of the bench. 

John rests an arm behind you, almost tucking you into his side when he slides over a bit more, thigh pressed against yours under the water. Spreading his arms out along the edge of the pool forces his chest to stick out and his shoulders to broaden. 

“Where’d you come from?” you ask, glancing around behind you. 

“Around.” He cocks a thick, dark eyebrow, studying you. “Were you looking for me?” 

“No,” you deny, almost vehemently. More to yourself than to him. “You just caught me off guard. I thought I was alone.”

“Noticed that. Why aren’t you with your friends?”

“I am,” you object. “…I just wanted to be on my own for a bit.”

“Needed some time apart? They give you a hard time for what we did earlier?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks at that. “No,” you hiss, teeth clenched, pitching your voice lower to keep anyone from overhearing. “I didn’t…tell anyone. And we aren’t fighting. They’re getting something to eat and I wasn’t hungry.”

“Seems like I’m always catching you on your own.”

“I like being by myself.”

Your breathing is a little quicker than usual. His presence now is different than the times before, back when he was nothing more than a pretty face to you. You know what his mouth tastes like now, what the bristles of his beard feel like on the delicate flesh of your inner thighs and how deep his fingers can curl inside of you. He isn’t just a stranger across the pool anymore, but a man that knows you intimately. Biblically.

You wrap your arms around yourself to shield your breasts from his eyes. That’s what you tell yourself anyway. Maybe you cross them to make sure that you keep your hands to yourself.

“Why come with them at all then?” John asks, breaking the silence. 

“…I’ve never travelled on my own.”

He nods approvingly. “Good. Smart girl.”

That pisses you off for some reason. Probably the insinuation that there’d be something wrong with you travelling by yourself. Like you couldn’t take care of yourself. “I could if I wanted to.” 

“Didn’t say you couldn’t, but it’s smarter that you don’t. Safety in numbers.”

If he wasn’t so handsome, you’d probably be mildly off-put by the condescension in his voice. It’s part and parcel of him though, that slight arrogance that clings to his skin like the smell of smoke, like dirt wedged into the grooves of his fingers. Old and lived in. 

“Maybe I’ll just ask my husband to come with me the next time I feel like going somewhere,” you say snarkily. 

He doesn’t respond right away. When the weight of his stare gets a bit too heavy, you glance up at him to find his pupils blown wide. 

“Maybe you should,” John rasps. 

The sound of his voice, rough as tire over gravel roads, makes your nipples bead in your damp swimsuit.

For a moment, it feels like there’s nothing else in the world except for the two of you. All of the chatter and music from the nearby buildings drop to a hush. If you shut off your mind, you could almost trick yourself that it’d always been this way. 

Damp, calloused fingers pinch your chin and hold you in place, rooting you in that moment like his hold is the only thing tethering you to the world. 

“I should get back to my friends,” you say. Even though you practically whisper the words, they pierce through the silence, a little nearby lizard scuttling across the damp concrete floor towards a tree, where it disappears into the darkness. 

“They can wait a little longer,” he murmurs, leaning forward until your lips slot with his and your sigh makes your whole body tremble, lips parting when his tongue slips in and he slides a hand in between your thighs under the water. 

It’s torturous to see him around the resort and not be allowed to touch. 

Another day in the scorching heat and you’re on the verge of defeat. You sweat and you sweat until the only thing left to give is your will. It bends like straw, chaff breaking off the closer it comes to snapping. 

At a certain point, you have to accept responsibility for your own actions. You’re a big girl after all. Old enough to understand the weight that each of your choices bear and the consequences they’ll inevitably bring about. Disappoint your friends or disappoint yourself. Simple a choice as has ever been put in front of you. 

And, selfish as you’ve been this entire trip, the choice is easy enough to make in the end. 

In the early morning before the rest of your friends have woken up, you quietly slip out of bed and take the elevator up to John’s floor, knocking twice before he opens the door and pulls you inside with a growl. 

“John—John, fuck, please—”

“I know, honey, I know,” he murmurs into your neck, exhaling heavily when he drops you back down onto his cock, juices running from the base of his shaft to his balls. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Your thighs burn with the effort to bounce on his dick, John having to do most of the work once your muscles begin to give out. 

Not even the pretense of a condom this time. You didn’t say anything when he didn’t make a move to take one out and now it feels a bit too late to bring it up. It’s not the end of the world though; you’ll just tell him to pull out when he’s close to coming. 

“Fuck, honey, Jesus Christ—”

“Sorry,” you whimper, inner muscles suddenly clenched so tight that you nearly come right then and there. Just the thought of him coming in you raw sends a sharp spike of pleasure through your body. 

All you can think of is sticky, messy cum leaking out of you. Thick strands ribboning between your fingers when you pull them apart. It’s a dangerous thought; you’re playing fast and loose with the most dire of consequences. 

“Ohmygodohmygod—” you whimper, tears building on your waterline and spilling over. “Oh f-fuck, I’m gonna—come, John—” 

“Yeah, you are,” he grunts, brow furrowing in concentration, the vein in his forehead more pronounced than ever. “C’mon, honey, give it to me—give me it—”

It rushes over you all at once, inner walls tensing and squeezing around his shaft. Eyes rolling back in your head when you feel him come inside you, a rush of heat flooding against your womb. 

He doesn’t make you wait long after pulling out, immediately ducking his head down to burrow his face between your thighs, running his tongue up the seam of your sex and huffing out in pleasure. Hot breath blows over your clit, and your whole body jolts at the sensation. Your clit is too sensitive, puffy and engorged. Your walls squeeze around his fingers when John shoves a couple in and busies himself with laving his tongue over your clit and sucking it into his mouth. 

“Wait, wait—” you squeal, threading your fingers into his hair and trying to pull him off. “I can’t—I can’t—”

His own cum trickles out down his fingers as he plunges them in and out of your hole, feeling the mess he left inside of you. Heat floods to your cheeks at the lurid squelch of your hole when he presses his fingers back in.

“You can,” John says unsympathetically, the fingers pistoning in and out of your hole punctuating his words. 

And, true to his words, you do. 

When you limp back down to your room an hour later, you turn the knob extra carefully lest someone wake up to you doing the walk of shame. 

You were stupid to ever think this could be a one time thing. That you could have him once and then move on like it never happened, like it scratched that itch of yours permanently instead of waking it up from its slumber. 

Now it buzzes under your skin morning, noon, and night. Insatiable—libido ramped up by a factor of ten and no matter how many times he fucks you senseless, you’re always desperate for more. When you see him from across the pool, it’s all you can do not to swim across and crawl into his lap, wedging his thigh between your legs and grinding down until the pressure tips you over the edge.

From the looks of it, your friends don’t suspect a thing. How could they after all? You leave the hotel room at the crack of dawn and come back before they’ve even turned over in bed. 

John is as subtle in public as ever. A thousand times more discrete than you. He’s so good at ignoring you around the resort that it’s almost infuriating.  It’s your own fault, seeing as how you begged him to keep a low profile. You have no one to blame but yourself for his inattention.

In the privacy of his hotel room, it’s a whole different story. 

Sometimes he says weird shit when you fuck. The pet names you can excuse because they get you all hot and bothered, but it’s harder to ignore the way he laces your fingers and looks deep into your eyes while rocking into you, patting your cheek roughly when you try to close your eyes. It’s too intense. Too intimate. Not the kind of thing you do with a vacation fling.

You’re speaking from limited experience though. A small sample size, if you can even call your love life that. Maybe this is something people do with their flings, the rules of intimacy eschewed with an established understanding of finitude. You are going home at the end of this, after all. Whatever you do in between then and now doesn’t matter. 

You could say or do anything and it wouldn’t matter. It’s not like you’ll ever see him again. 

On the pet name front though, you do test him on the off chance that he actually just forgot your name entirely. It catches you off guard when he remembers not just your first name but your last name as well, murmuring it back to you like he’s memorized it when you ask.

“Oh,” you reply, unsure of what else to say. “…Sorry. I thought…”

His thumb brushes over your cheekbone when he cups your face in one hand. “I know what you thought, honey. Never had anyone pay enough attention to you, have you?”

You don’t know what to say in response to that. He pops his thumb into your mouth when you gape at him for too long, letting it rest on your tongue. The weight of it holding your tongue down is almost soothing and the thoughts in your head fizzle and pop like stars when you close your mouth around it and suck. 

Sometimes though, you’re the one that makes things weird.

“I wish I came here with you,” you admit in a hushed whisper when you’ve been backed into his bed.

“Would’ve been me if I’d found you first,” John grunts, gripping you by your calves and yanking you towards the edge of the bed. 

Big hands scoop up under your ass and lift you into the air to get the angle right. He impales you on his dick inch by inch, the stretch familiar now even though it still takes your breath away. 

“Yeah?” you breathe. 

John doesn’t answer at first, eyes going blank as he draws you off his dick and then plunges back into you. His stare is blank and yet it doesn’t waver. Locked on your face even though he almost stares right through you. 

“Yeah,” he rumbles, snapping his hips forward. “Could’ve made a baby here instead of sneaking around like teenagers.”

Oh—

(fuck)

You know it’s just dirty talk, but you get all tight and tingly anyway, licking the sweat off your upper lip when you repeat, “A baby?” 

His eyes go darker when he hears you say it. Animalistic; mindless. And suddenly all you can think about is the fact that you’ve foregone protection again to let an older, virile man hit it raw. Dirty talk trembling over the edge of make believe and staring down into the abyss because he could

really knock you up right here and now. 

His lip curls up almost into a snarl. “Came enough times in you by now. ‘Be a miracle if you weren’t.”

You lick at the sweat beading on your upper lip. “You want that?”

Dumb question. You know there isn’t a shot that a man his age on vacation is looking to knock up the first girl he comes across, but it gets you so hot that you forget about common sense for a second. It’s irresponsible. Selfish. Stupid. 

He hikes a knee onto the bed to get some leverage before folding his whole body over yours. All however many pounds, enough to take your breath away and make your heart beat faster. A heavy, suffocating presence punctuated by the way he fucks into you even harder, huffing as he chases after it.

“Would’ve used a fuckin’ condom if I didn’t,” John snarls right in your face, and the pleasure that evokes hits you so hard that you nearly pass out when you come. 

Sooner or later, you were bound to slip up. 

Your friend catches you on your way out the door one morning on your way to see John, your hand barely brushing the doorknob when her voice suddenly comes out of nowhere. “Going to get breakfast?”

You flinch at the sound of her voice, head whipping to the left. In your hurry to meet up with John, you hadn’t noticed her standing in the bathroom with the door wide open. Arms crossed and already dressed, staring at you like catching you almost out the door isn’t surprising. 

“Uh, yeah. What’re you doing up?”

She shrugs. “I slept long enough; been up for a while actually. Mind if I come with? I’m starving.”

You do in fact mind, but short of telling her why you’d prefer she didn’t, you have no excuse for why she shouldn’t join you for breakfast. You acquiesce instead, forcing a smile and nodding before following her out the door and in the opposite direction of the elevators. 

Breakfast is awkward, to say the least. The conversation comes strained and stilted, like it’s the first time you’ve ever met the girl sitting opposite you instead of a friend of several years. You can tell that she suspects something, but since she doesn’t bother bringing it up, you don’t either. 

All you can focus on is the fact that somewhere upstairs, John is still in his room waiting for you, and that as more time passes with you downstairs at breakfast, the less time you’ll have with him when you finally make it upstairs to his room. 

“Hey? Are you listening to me?”

Your head snaps up. “Hm?” 

The look she levels you with is thoroughly unimpressed. “I asked if you’d finished your book yet.”

“Oh, yeah. I finished it the other day at the beach. Did you want to borrow it?”

“Yeah, that’s why I asked.” She sounds annoyed, and with good reason. You’ve been flighty and inattentive at best; downright neglectful at worst. 

You eat quickly, downing half your plate before a server comes by with coffee, which you very nearly refuse until you catch the way your friend squints across the table at you. Too obvious. Her hackles are already up, suspicions hissing like snakes in her hair. 

The terse conversation that follows only further illustrates that. If she hasn’t already figured it out, she’s at least begun to suspect your frequent absences and the perpetual smell of sex on you. She’s just nice enough to not come right out of the gate and say it. 

A busser comes by as soon as they spot your empty plate, gathering everything up and piling the cutlery on top before hurrying away to bus another table. When the server comes by again to top up your cup, you politely refuse, finishing the rest in a single swallow. 

“What’s the rush?” your friend asks, cocking an eyebrow. “Somewhere else to be?”

“No, I just—” You freeze, half out of your seat, the sound of the chair scraping against the tile underneath abruptly cutting out. Excuses assemble on your tongue but refuse to leap off, choked back by the fact that you just don’t know what to say. “I just…I’m done eating.”

“Right,” she drawls, arms folded on the table, nearly full plate still in front of her. “I guess my conversation was staler than the food.”

“No, look, it’s not—”

“It’s fine,” she sighs, waving you away. “I’ll tell the others you went down to the pool when they wake up. Just be there in an hour.”

You didn’t expect the reprieve. You barely deserve it, as a matter of fact. But her dismissal rings loud and you aren’t about to pass up the opportunity to go up to John, despite the guilt curdling in your belly. 

“Yeah, okay,” you promise. “I’ll be there.”

And you really, truly think you’re in the clear until you turn to walk away and she says her parting words. “Give him my best, by the way.”

Full body cringe. You don’t turn back around though, shame finally catching up to you, and the sound of your flip-flops squeaking against the tile on your way towards the elevators mocks you the whole way up to John’s room.

[secretliteradite]

yeah. i'm into him.

[secretliteradite]

Title: Tonality [8]

Pairing: Prince!Geralt x Princess!Reader

previous chapter

Summary: “The white wolf wants you. He’ll have no other.” As you grieve the loss of your father, your mother marries the king. Whilst you struggle to acclimate to your new life, you begin to suspect the interest your new brother has in you is less than familial.

Warnings: 18+ Only, Dark Fantasy, Darkfic, Step-cest, Medieval/GoT inspired AU, Genre Typical Violence, Mild Descriptions of Violence, Slow Burn, (Future)Smut, Dubcon/Noncon, Manipulation, Gaslighting, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, MINORS DNI!!

The rain does not set in until after the procession leaves the city center. It falls in heavy sheets against the carriage’s roof, making conversation with your fellow occupants an uphill battle .You do not mind its absence; you do not think you would find words should you attempt to reach for them anyway. 

You ride to watch a man’s death. 

Truly you are less unsettled by this fact than you would like to be, all thoughts of empathy run through with cold iron. It was Emhyr himself that has chosen this end. Your hands curl into fists in the folds of your skirt. I did not choose this for him. You wonder if his time in the vast, terrible nothing will be like yours, or if other things await him there. 

As the carriage bumps along the path to the Wolveswood, the falling rain is interspersed with the sound of loping paws beating against the earth. The great beasts beneath the keep esily maintain pace with it, and occasionally through the open window, the scent of heavy animal musk flows in beneath the rain. It is already dark and gloomy beyond the carriage’s narrow windows, but the sky seems to grow blacker and angrier as you approach the wood, the sky roiling. 

When the footman opens the door, for a moment you wonder if you have to watch, if perhaps you might simply wait in the carriage until the deed is done—but you have never been a coward. The rain is oppressive as you step out into it, lashing at the places your cloak cannot cover like icy needles. 

Emhyr is bound at the front of the procession, his fine robes now ragged and tattered, his face filthy, expression drawn. His weeks in the cells beneath the keep have thinned his cheeks and sallowed his features. Were you not absolutely certain that the man before you is the same one who had slid the dagger neatly into your belly you might wonder if he had been replaced. But the hatred that lights his gaze when it rests upon you is all too familiar, as is the disgusted curl of his lip. 

He spits on the ground, holding your gaze. 

It is meant as an insult, you know, but you find your lips curling, the barest hint of a smile on your face. Is that all you can muster in the face of death, my Lord? To your left, the great white wolf paws impatiently at the earth. 

Before now, you had not seen Geralt astride his fierce steed. The wolf’s golden eyes—so like his own—are locked on the duke, ears perked and muzzle twitching. It almost looks bigger than it had in the kennels, the beast dwarfing even the other wolves. The broad stallions behind the pack paw the ground nervously, nostrils wide with the scent of predators. You can taste the sour stink of their fear, acrid and bitter beneath the rain. 

There are few present to witness the execution, fewer by the thousands than the crowd gathered in the city square to hear the list of the duke of Nilfgaard’s misdeeds. Other than your mother and the prince, Only a few lords, the members of your Stepfather’s council, remain to watch his end. 

Vesemir urges his black wolf forward with a quiet word. 

“You stand accused and guilty of treason of the highest order.” King Vesemir’s voice booms through the clearing, ringing louder than the heavy rain. “And yet still, I am merciful.” Emhyr’s hateful glare speaks to his belief otherwise, and you watch his bound hands strain against the thick lengths of rope that binds them. 

“Is this mercy, my King?” Emhyr spits the question with venom. “Is this the famed benevolence of His Majesty?” Vesemir’s wolf, a great, hulking beast with soot black fur growls, licking its muzzle. The duke flinches. “Majesty, I implore you—”

“It is the Gods whom you should beg.” The king’s voice is cold with finality.  “It is their mercy you should seek to play upon, for mine ended the moment you drew steel upon my kin.” King Vesemir motions the guards forward. “Unbind his hands. I will not send a man into this forest of claws and teeth with hands tied.” 

The guard cuts the bindings away, tossing them down into the mud before stepping away. 

“You may go, now, Emhyr, son of Fergus, son of Torres, Regent of Nilfgaard, and die with honor.” For a moment, the duke does not move, his eyes darting between the wolves and the forest, panicked and wide. It brings a twisted sort of peace to your frayed nerves to know he is afraid, that he will go to the dark place, the nothing place, and wander there. You do not know how you know this, but you know it. 

And you know it with the same certainty that Emhyr, son of Fergus, son of Torres, Regent of Nilfgaard, will die this day. 

He looks to you only once more, though whether for pity or exoneration you  are not sure. The duke says nothing, grimacing as he rubs the raw spots on his wrists where the ropes had been.

“Go now.” the king repeats, eyes steely. “And die well.”

There is only the sound of his terrified breaths, feet sticking in the muck as he flees into the forest. The king and Prince dismount as Emhyr disappears into the trees. 

“Go.” Geralt passes his hand down the white wolf’s back, and its ears flatten against its skull as it takes off without looking back, its claws tearing at the mud. The others follow it into gloom, disappearing into the birches. There are a few silent minutes with only the rain and the smell of the green all around you. 

You shiver as a chorus of shrill howls echo through the Wolveswood, a call and response that sets your teeth to chatttering and makes you glad indeed you are not their prey. There is a panicked, terrified scream that comes ripping through the trees, the one you somehow knew would come, and the baying of wolves cuts short the plea that follows. 

And so passes Emhyr, Regent of the North.

Across from you, Geralt’s eyes are closed, moving quickly beneath his lids. But on his lips, rests a small, satisfied smile. He opens them suddenly, and for a moment his brilliant golden eyes seem milky white—but when his heavy gaze meets yours it is the same as it ever is; hungry, wanting.  

You look away. 

Before long the pack returns, muzzles and paws stained red. They stink of fear and blood, so thick you can taste the copper of it on your own tongue. The white wolf approaches Geralt, and he reaches up to stroke the space between its eyes. After a moment, it lowers it’s massive head, wide jaws opening to reveal the delicate prize held in its mouth—

A finger drops onto the wet grass by Geralt’s feet, jagged white bone protruding from the place where once you imagine it must have been joined to a hand. A ring rests upon it.

Your stomach turns, and you cover your mouth to keep from retching as Geralt picks it up. 

“Hail,” he says, pulling the signet ring from its knuckle. “In death he is made clean.” The circle gathered there repeats it, though you cannot bring yourself to speak the words until your mother fixes you with an irritated, frustrated look you know will mean suffering if you do not comply.

“In death he is made clean.” 

—

The night before the Hunt dawns clear and cold, the earlier rain swept away by the chill wind that rises up from the sea. From your window you watch as the moon rises from the dark water, pale and shimmering. It had been full that night in the Observatory, but now a piece is missing, the bright circle incomplete.

I should be abed… The Hunt begins at dawn.

The thought fills you with quiet dread. 

You’ve only just arrived in Rivia, the White Keep is less your home than the one you left behind in Redania, but it is still a home, of sorts. And now, after only scant few months you shall leave this one as well. You do not relish the thought of the weeks you will spend on the road, the caravans and tents.

Gods give me strength.

At least Kassandra will be with you, her own father being a member of the king’s council meant that she, too will be forced to undertake the journey right alongside you. 

Movement in the courtyard below draws your eye, and you squint before your eyes widen in shock—someone is sprinting across the grounds, towards the gardens. White robes billowing behind them, they disappear between the hedges. 

Who on earth…?

You’re knotting your own robe about yourself before you have even given it the slightest thought. 

The halls are silent and dark as you follow the path of the figure you had seen, your step as quick and light as you are able. Your wound ails you still, especially now with the cold and damp of autumn, and you suspect this will always be so. Only a few minutes have passed as you make your way outside from the east wing, this entrance to the gardens guarded by stone gryphons who watch your entrance with cold, dead eyes. 

In the center.

There is a feeling like thread snapping taut as the knowledge gives itself to you without you looking for it. I will find what I seek at the center. You’ve learned most of the routes to the center of the gardens walking with Kassandra. Tonight you keep your step light as you retrace those paths, fingers trailing along the hedges. You are surprised to hear the sound of voices, hushed but furious.

“Why?” A woman asks, her voice cracking. “Aren’t I good enough anymore?” 

“No, Samille, you are not.” You go cold—you know that dark, leering voice even without seeing its owner. Immediately you want to stop listening, to return to your bed, but the same morbid curiosity that had reared its head your very first night keeps you frozen. Geralt sighs. 

“And you know this too, otherwise you would not have signed with her name.” 

“I just wanted to know if the rumors were true,” Samille spits. “If your proclivities are as…interesting as they say.” Her attempts at cruelty earn her only a derisive laugh from the prince.

“Is that a threat?” He clucks his tongue mockingly. “And here I thought you had no head for politics.” You peek around the hedge. Samille steps forward, pointing an accusing finger at your step-brother. 

“You fucked her!” She shrills, and he laughs again. 

“If I had, Samille, there would be a crown upon her head.” He cups her cheek, and there is a ghost of affection in the touch. “And should you threaten me again, I will cut the tongue from yours.”  Her eyes go wide. “You think my attentions affection, an error I trust you shall correct.”

“Your Majesty—” You watch the woman cower as though he’d struck her. “I love you,” Samille whimpers. 

“Ah, now we come to it at last.” He sneers. “Your love is of my cock, my tongue and my title. There is little of it for me.” Geralt’s words sting even you, though they are not meant for your ears. “I have enjoyed you, girl, but you will mind your wagging tongue or you shall lose it.” 

“I—”

“I apologize, Your Majesty.”

After a long moment, Samille repeats after him. “I apologize. Your Majesty.”

“I accept your apology. Go back to your rooms, Samille. I shall speak to your father on the morrow. I daresay you have had your fill of court.” 

You lean back around the hedge, your heart hammering. Poor Samille. She has never regarded you with anything more than a respectful disdain, but you feel pity for her anyway. There is only so much room in your head for pity, however, the prince’s words making your throat tight. 

If I had there would be a crown upon her head.

You want to think that surely he had meant in the way that any wife he took would wear the Queen’s crown someday, that he does not mean to crown you and take you and own you—but had he not told you as much in the observatory? Had he not spun the most delicious—and heinous—web of words you’d ever heard? Even now your cheeks warm, center clenching jealously around air at the memory of his hungry mouth.

There is a part of you that stretches and basks in the evidence of Geralt’s affection, and then a larger part that wonders that if you are not the first, then how can you possibly be last? 

—

The sharp rap at your door at dawn makes you sit up blearily, blinking as your mother and two of her maids sweep into your rooms. She clucks her tongue at you, eyes sharp with disapproval. 

“You should be up, my Love, we must ready.” Her smile is beautiful and cold. “The Hunt begins today.” Two footmen carrying a trunk between them enter a few moments later. It seems heavy, judging by the sheen of sweat on their brows. “Set it down there, thank you.” She motions at the foot of your bed. You sigh. You suppose you have avoided packing long enough. The footmen bow, closing the door behind them as they go.

“Now I have a little surprise for you,” Your mother claps her hands together as you step forward. She opens the lid, and inside you see dresses. At least half a dozen, all in different colors and fabrics. You swallow. “Do you like them?”

“They’re beautiful, mother,” you say truthfully, leaning down to finger the sleeve of a deep burgundy gown. “The fabric is quite fine, ‘tis wonderful, thank you.” She beams at you. You have no great love of things, but you know it makes her happy to dote, and to be thanked. So you do. 

“Then I we shall bring them, shall we not?” Your stomach drops. Perhaps foolishly you had thought the Hunt a respite from the demands of court. “They’ll make a stunning impression.”

“Impression? Upon who?” You laugh. “I think the villagers should be glad enough to see their troubles eased by a Witcher.” 

Your mother rolls her eyes. “Upon their Lords, you silly thing.” She plucks out a dress in a deep shade of orange, black all laced through it like a butterfly’s wing. She hands it to you. “Try that on.” Your mouth goes dry.

“And why should I wish to make a good impression?” 

“Oh come now, don’t be childish, daughter. It does not suit you.” The maids begin unlacing the back of the dress. You clasp your hands behind your back so that your mother cannot see your fingers twitching nervously. “We must begin thinking of a good match for you. Someone worthy of you.” 

“Mother I-I don’t—” She keeps speaking like she doesn’t hear you.

“And we’ll be selective, after all we can afford to be, can we not?” She laughs. “I should think the eligible bachelors will be readying themselves for introductions.” 

“Mother I don’t want to get married!” The words seem to suck all the air out of the room, and for a moment your mother looks at you in shock, her delicate lips slightly parted and perfect eyebrows raised. She schools her expression into one of neutrality and clears her throat. Your mother looks at the maids over her shoulder.

“Leave us.”

They do it without question, practically dropping the copper bathing tub in front of the hearth as they pause filling it. The door is barely shut before she rounds on you. 

“What foolishness do you speak?” She hisses exasperatedly. “You are twenty-one summers now—shall the Princess be a spinster?” You sink back onto the bed, looking at your mother but not really seeing her. 

“Father promised—” Your fingers curl into the thin fabric of your chemise. “He’d said I could wait.”

“Your father is dead, Gods rest him. And we have waited. You are a woman long grown.” You can feel the teeth of the trap closing around you, and your throat grows tight. Marriage is nothing more than a contract, an agreement for sale. You know that as well as anyone, you have seen the disdain upon the faces of couples forced together for nothing more than their families’ convenience. A pretty gilded cage for a pretty little bird. 

“You are Queen! Anything you wish can be so,” you plead, catching her hands in your own. “I wish only for the freedom to remain as I am!” Your mother shakes you off, scowling. 

“I am giving you more than was ever given to me.” The Queen reaches for you then, stripping your chemise from you with one firm pull of the fabric. “You are simply too insolent to see it.” The loose tie at the back of your neck comes undone and the dress pools around your bare ankles. She pushes you towards the tub, her nails digging into the meat of your shoulder like talons. The water is still steaming, but you know better than to complain as she cups it and pours it over your hair before picking up a brush. 

Her strokes are hard, tugging at your thick curls with the teeth until she reaches the ends and starts again. You are reminded of the baths of your childhood, your mother’s rough hands and sharp words. Despite the anger burning in your belly you feel helpless, like you are a child once more in the face of her wrath. 

“Mother—”

“Do you think I chose your father?” You know she had not, that her own father had been paid prettily for her hand. “You should be grateful for what you have been allowed,” she wraps a coil of your hair around her finger before slowly releasing it, forming a delicate ringlet. “It is more than any woman should hope to have.” She does the same all around your head as you scrub yourself, angry tears burning unshed behind your eyes. 

“And what am I allowed?” 

Your mother grasps your chin when she is finished, forcing you to look at her. 

“A choice.” 

—

The Hunt’s procession is gathered in the courtyard by the time you arrive. There are dozens of footmen and servants working in the cold morning mist, hitching horses to carriages and carrying heavy crates of what you can only assume are supplies for the journey. 

The wolves are there too, two of them. 

The memory of Emhyr’s screams rise and turn your stomach to lead as the white she-wolf returns your steady gaze with her own. Even from across the courtyard you can feel the weight of it, and you wonder if perhaps there is more than animal curiosity behind those luminous eyes. You shiver and look away. 

“Are you alright, my Lady?” Kassandra chirps from beside you. “Should we wait inside the carriage?” You shake your head. 

“No thank you. I should like to enjoy the air a few minutes more.” The autumn air is cool but bracing, and you prefer it to the stuffy insides of the carriage your mother and the King already occupy. You will have to bear it for weeks upon end, and it is not a thought that brings you joy or comfort.

“You are still recovering,” your mother calls from inside. “Perhaps you should.” She hasn’t stopped fussing over you since this morning, needling you with both her words and fingers. Your scalp still aches from the pressure of her brush. 

“Mother, I would stand as long as I can,” you reply over your shoulder. “I shall have my fill of that carriage by day’s end.” There is movement on the wall, by the parapets.

“Open the gates!” Calls a guard from the rampart. “The Prince has returned!”

You watch as the great iron gates to the White Keep swing open. A dozen or so armored guards ride in on stallions, the King’s banner raised high between them. The Prince is among them, his silver hair pulled back into a loose braid. Your breath catches. Behind him is a doe. Her horns are small, covered in the same milk-white down as the rest of her. You watch her nose twitch as she catches the scent of the wolves, ears flattening against her skull. 

On her back is a saddle, the fresh brown leather gleaming even in the gray morning light. 

The prince swings down from his horse, and the guards break from their protective circle around him. You find yourself amused at the sight—he doesn’t need them, you know that well enough. Geralt is dressed in silver and gray, the delicate inlay of his doublet is gold—like his eyes. You want to take a wary step back as he approaches, but you know you cannot. You have spoken little since that night in the observatory. 

For once you are glad for the thick, heavy Rivian dresses your mother seems to favor, because he cannot see the gooseflesh covering your arms, or the way your weak, traitorous knees buckle ever so slightly at the memory of the fire he had lit beneath your skin. 

You bow. 

“My Prince.” He offers you his hand as you rise, and you feel the eyes upon your back as you take it. He smells like the woods, like green and rain. 

“Princess.” His gloved thumb traces the shape of your knuckles before he releases you. Geralt’s gaze flicks behind you, where you know your mother is watching with sharp, irritated eyes. “I bring a gift, in honor of your first Hunt.” He motions to the doe. “To ease the journey.” 

Your heart pounds out a desperate rhythm against your ribs. 

“F-for me, my Prince?” 

“What a thoughtful gift,” King Vesemir claps his hands. Your mother, however, narrows her eyes.

“Yes.” She replies with a tight smile. “Thoughtful.”

The doe paws the ground nervously. You can taste it too, the stink of her fear on your tongue. She’s terrified. You hold your hand out for the reins. 

“Your pulling is not helping,” you say to the guards as they hand them over. For an instant you fear she will buck, pull away from you, but she quiets when you hold out your palm. She takes a moment to consider your scent, nostrils flaring as she takes it in. 

“Easy,” you breathe softly, reaching forward to stroke the velvet down on her damp nose. She lets you, leaning into the touch. “Tefra,” you say. “The brightest star in the southern sky.” Something warm curls in your belly, and the smile you give Geralt is painfully genuine. 

“Thank you, Majesty.” The saddle across her back is lovely, gold filigree laid into the highly polished wood. “This is a most gracious gesture. To what do I owe the honor?” You ask carefully. 

”I suppose that is a matter of perspective.” Your cheeks go hot as the fire in your belly spreads up through your chest. You bow your head again, feeling your mother’s fury radiating against your back but you cannot spurn this gift, not when you feel its giving so keenly. 

“Would you like her made ready for travel, Majesty?” Asks one of the footmen, and you nod. 

“Yes, thank you. I should very much like to ride.”

“Your wound!” Your mother gasps, a hand held over her perfect mouth. “Surely you cannot mean to ride in your condition! I forbid it!”

“Mother I assure you I am fine,” you begin, but you find an unexpected ally in the king. He places a gentle hand on your mother’s knee.

“Oh let the girl ride, Thayet,” he says, kissing her cheek. If you did not know better, you would call the set of your mother’s face a pout—an angry one. “Tis a fine gift her brother has brought her. You were young once, my Love. Besides, there is no safer time for it than within the Rivian border.” 

“You’ll come in the moment you feel ill, won’t you?” Your mother pleads, her lip trembling. “You mustn’t push yourself. Remember what Healer Janna said.” 

“I promise, Mother.”

She sighs, still looking displeased. 

“I will ride with her, my Queen. I shall ensure she stops the very instant she looks unwell.” This does not ease the frown etched on your mother’s brow, and you watch her force it smooth.

“Thank you, Prince Geralt.”

You turn back to the Prince.

“Surely you mean with a horse?” You ask, and he shakes his head.

“It will be good for her to know the scent of wolf.” He motions to the deer. Your heart suspends itself in your chest as he leans down to help you up into the saddle. It’s well made, the leather butter smooth and soft. Tefra shifts a little  under your weight but settles after only a moment. Geralt’s fingers skate along your wrist for the ghost of a second before he lets go. 

“And besides. The wolf knows she is not for eating.”

Masterlist

next chapter

[secretliteradite]

領域展開

Ryōiki Tenkai

[secretliteradite]

A Spoonful of Sugar

Rafe Cameron x Reader

Summary: You find yourself in a pickle when you accidentally toss Rafe's stash.

warnings: DUB-CON, slightly toxic relationship, voyeurism (or some form of it), Rafe is mean but what else is new, dumb!reader, bimbo!reader, kook!reader

➥ banner by @vase-of-lilies | divider by @firefly-graphics

⭑

You picked at the omelet Sarah made you, stuffing the scrambled egg into your mouth as she ranted about your boyfriend.

“...and then he has the nerve to actually be peeved at our dad like he’s not in the wrong,” she scoffed. “He asked you to do something important, you told him you would, and then you didn’t. It’s not hard math.”

She roughly dumped the skillet into the sink, shaking her head as she turned back around.

“You know what it is…?”

You stared at her as she angrily stabbed into her own omelet.

“I bet you anything he spent the money on booger sugar instead.”

You blinked at her at that and after a few moments she finally lifted her head. Your gazes met as you evenly stared at her, and with a small sigh, she touched your hand. A small smile was on her lips.

“Cocaine.”

“Ah,” you softly replied, nodding.

You weren’t exactly a fan of Rafe’s…habits, but you also saw firsthand how mad Ward could get with him sometimes. Rose too, and when Rafe explained to you one day that the drugs helped to clear his head and prevent him from doing things he’d regret, you became a little more understanding. You supposed that it did help you a bit to see firsthand that he was able to still behave pretty okay whenever he was high, sometimes watching with a slight frown as he snorted the powdery substance off of his hand.

“That doesn’t hurt?” you’d asked him one day.

His only response had been a wolfish grin as he asked you if you wanted some. He’d only laughed to himself before kissing you when you shook your head. You’d never given it much thought—the idea of partaking in that particular hobby of his—but Sarah had done a good job of scaring you away from the idea of ever trying it. Sometimes you swore that Rafe secretly didn’t want you trying it either despite his jokes. That’d been the only time he’d ever offered even though you’d witnessed him with the white substance on many occasions, especially in the privacy of his bedroom.

It was with that thought that your lips parted, something going off in the back of your mind.

“Cocaine is white…right?”

You knew that, but you needed confirmation from someone who wasn’t you. You were starting to second guess what you knew to be true in the hopes that it wasn’t true. In the hopes that you were just having a dumb moment—something Rafe often said— that was different from the dumb moment you were positive you’d had earlier. Sarah gave you a strange look before giving a slow yes, the word dragging out of her mouth.

Your heart skipped a beat.

“...and…kind of like powder?”

Again, her answer remained the same.

“Yes.”

“Oh God.”

You felt her eyes on you as you hurriedly stood up, feet tripping over each other as you rushed to the big garbage in the kitchen. Your heart dropped at the sight of a brand new bag in it, bringing your hand up to your mouth before facing Sarah again.

A ball of dread filled your gut.

“Rose already took the garbage out?”

Sarah’s frown deepened.

“Yeah–Y/N, what is going on, right now?”

“Oh my God, Rafe is going to kill me,” you whined.

“Why–? Hey! Hey, what’s going on?”

She was standing with you, now, her hands on your arms as she forced you to remain still. You heaved a shaky sigh, glancing up towards the ceiling as it was starting to sink in that you fucked up. Again.

“I was straightening up Rafe’s room this morning… You know, putting things away and getting rid of trash,” you softly started, shrinking in on yourself.

Sarah eventually blinked before rolling her eyes.

“I’m not even going to get into that, right now, but okay…”

She urged you to continue.

“I was just tossing away junk…and there was a bag by his lamp, not very big, and there was like…white powder in it…”

Sarah straightened up when you trailed off, lips parting as she seemed to understand what you did before you even said it.

“I didn’t realize what it was!” you rushed to say, explaining yourself. “It didn’t really click at the time and then you started talking about booger sugar and I had it on my mind and…”

You huffed, rubbing your forehead.

“Rafe is going to be so pissed,” you mumbled.

“Who cares? Serves him right, if you ask me,” the blonde shrugged, sitting back down to finish her breakfast.

“Sarah! It helps him,” you defended.

The laugh she barked made you frown.

“Is that what he told you?” she stuffed her face. “It only ‘helps’ him because he’s so goddamn addicted to it. It helps him like tequila helps an alcoholic.”

She didn’t seem concerned in the slightest, and you crossed your arms over your chest.

“So, you’re not going to help me replace it?”

“Uh…that would be a no, and that should go for you too,” she threw you a frown. “God forbid he forgoes the hard drugs for a day or two. Let him be pissed.”

With a frustrated huff, you turned away from her, ignoring her as she told you to just forget about it.

This wasn’t the first time you’d accidentally thrown something out that Rafe needed, only this time was the first time you hadn’t been able to get it back, and you recalled him talking about how expensive it was once. You grimaced at the thought of how much you’d have to pay to replace what you’d thrown out, but it was better than the alternative.

While you were positive Rafe loved you just the way you were, you also didn’t think he’d prefer to deal with your screw ups all the time if he didn’t have to. You frustrated him, that was no secret, and while that frustration never seemed to last for long, you knew that it couldn’t be easy to have you as a girlfriend. You didn’t like to remind him of that.

“Stupid, stupid” you mumbled to yourself as you grabbed your purse, lightly hitting the side of your head.

“Hi! Barry…?”

The dark-haired guy wasn’t alone, and the way he turned his head towards you told you that you had the right guy. Topper had given you a few spots as to where he might be—albeit reluctantly—and you were grateful that you’d only had to go to two locations to find him. Feeling so relieved that you found him—and that Rafe wasn’t going to kill you—you hurried towards him.

He looked at you like you were crazy.

“Oh, thank God,” you sighed. “You sell cocaine to Rafe, right?”

His reaction wasn’t what you expected, at all, the other guy quickly sporting a frown and harshly telling you to ‘shut the fuck up’. You blinked in shock, only able to follow along as he roughly grabbed your arm and pulled you away from the guys he was with. You struggled to keep up—stumbling a bit—and when he felt satisfied enough with the distance to let you go, you almost fell.

“Ayo, are you stupid or something?” he asked you, his fingers pressed to his temple. “You can’t just ask me that, and especially not in front of whoever I’m with.”

Your eyes were wide as he snapped at you, and you deflated a bit, swallowing.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

It didn’t occur to you to be discreet about it, and now that it had been pointed out to you, you felt silly.

“What, you wanna buy or something?” he threw his arms out.

You nodded at that, perking up a bit.

“Yes, please. Whatever you normally sell to Rafe…”

Barry paused at the mention of your boyfriend, eyeing you for a moment before his face evened out entirely. A soft chuckle left his lips as he shook his head. The soft chuckle turned into a full blown laugh, and you felt awkward as you waited for him to finish.

“You’re with Country Club,” he finally said, pointing to you. “You’re his girl…”

You pressed your lips together, head tilting a bit in confusion. 

“Rafe,” he gently told you, leaning in, his gold tooth winking at you.

“Oh! Yes,” you excitedly confirmed. “He told you about me?”

The thought made your stomach flutter. 

“Oh, yeah,” he dragged the word out, smile crooked. “He’s told me all about you.”

Your smile widened, and he only shook his head again.

“Now…Rafe said you didn’t do drugs,” Barry said, his voice much gentler now as he took your arm and led you away.

“I don’t. It’s not for me, it’s for Rafe…”

“...but I just sold to Rafe. Not even three days ago. You’re tellin’ me he went through all of that already?”

You grew quiet at that, and you glanced away. At the feel of his eyes on you, you met Barry’s gaze again, teeth sinking into your lip.

“Something you wanna tell me?” he softly asked you, leaning in again.

“I accidentally threw it out…”

He seemed to find that hilarious, letting out a laugh that made you jump.

“I was cleaning Rafe’s room,” you started, feeling embarrassed. “...and…”

The dark-haired man wouldn’t stop laughing, and you felt your face heat up.

“Stop! It’s not funny,” you whined. “Rafe is going to be so pissed at me, and I’m trying to replace it before he notices.”

At that, Barry calmed down a bit, but the odd chuckle still climbed you of his throat every time he glanced at you.

“Well, isn’t that sweet,” he commented. “Alright…”

You blinked at him.

“I’ll sell you what I normally sell him, and you know what?” he hummed, thinking.

“What?”

“Since you’re so sweet, and you’re just trying to be a good girlfriend, I’ll sell it to you for a discounted price.”

“Oh!”

Your mood lifted at that.

“Really? Thank you! So, where is it?”

Barry paused at that before chuckling again, and truthfully you didn’t understand why. You weren’t saying anything particularly funny, but you allowed him to lead you along as he neared a black bike.

“See, I keep the uh…cocaine,” he lowered his voice. “...back at my place.”

“Oh,” you softly replied, nodding because that made sense.

“...and you walked here. So uh we’ll have to go on my bike,” he told you, gesturing to the vehicle.

Now, it was your turn to pause, eyeing it as you both stood by it. There didn’t seem like much room for you to ride on it, not unless of course you were plastered to him on the back. You chewed on your lip, weighing it over in your head.

Rafe wouldn’t be happy about this, at all. Your boyfriend practically lost his mind any time another guy so much as glanced at you, so you didn’t want to imagine how he’d feel about you riding on the back of some other guy’s bike. On the other hand though, you wondered what would upset him more? The coke or the bike? Not to mention…

You wouldn’t have a ride back.

You’d likely have to let Barry drive you back to this side of the island, and you sighed in frustration.

“What’s wrong, Mrs. Country Club?” he sweetly asked.

You ignored the nickname.

“How am I supposed to get back…?”

Barry softly laughed at you before climbing on his bike, seemingly sure that you’d be tagging along. You watched him grab the helmet before handing it to you, and you hesitantly took it. When Barry smiled at you, the sun glinted off of the gold on his tooth.

“Don’t worry,” he told you. “I’ll make sure you get a ride back.”

His response seemed genuine, and so you allowed him to slide the helmet over your head, tilting it back to let him secure it. You struggled to push the skirt of your dress between your thighs as you comfortably settled behind him, obeying when he told you to wrap your arms around him. It was only when he was pulling off that it occurred to you that you’d never even ridden on the back of Rafe’s bike like this.

Barry’s house…wasn’t what you expected.

As you sat on the couch in his living room, you looked around the limited space with wide eyes. He’d disappeared into a room somewhere in the back almost immediately the moment you both stepped through the door, telling you to take a seat as he left. You did as he said, and the couch was where you’d been for the past thirty minutes or so.

This process was completely unfamiliar to you, but you told yourself to be patient. You liked to think that Rafe wasn’t home yet and that you still had time to replace his drugs before he noticed. If your boyfriend had noticed, there was no doubt in your mind that he’d currently be blowing up your phone. Speaking of, you glanced at said device again, frowning at the time and wondering what was taking so long.

Just as you were about to call Barry’s name, he finally rejoined you.

“I was starting to think you fell in,” you teased.

He didn’t smile, merely raising one dark brow at you, and you sheepishly chuckled.

“It’s a joke my father says, sometimes…”

You trailed off, shaking your head.

“Is it ready?”

You hoped you didn’t sound as frantic and as desperate as you felt, but you really wanted to get back before Rafe noticed.

“Yeah,” Barry drawled, a crooked smile on his lips as he held the bag up. 

You started to stand, but he held a hand out, signaling for you to stay, and you frowned.

“How much do I owe you?”

You watched as he merely sat down across from you, and your frown deepened just as you heard a vehicle outside. You thought nothing of it, instead focused on Barry as he tilted his head from side to side. The dark-haired man hummed to himself.

“I haven’t decided just yet,” he grinned, spreading his arms along the back of the chair. “I’m waiting on a second opinion.”

His answer confused you, and you blinked a few times, trying to decipher what that meant when his front door opened. You didn’t realize he was expecting someone else, but when you turned your head, your eyes widened and your stomach dropped.

“Rafe…?”

Your boyfriend didn’t say a word as he shut the door behind him, and you didn’t need to be a genius to see that he wasn’t happy. Your lips parted, mouth opening and closing as you struggled to understand why he was here, right now. Had he noticed that his drugs were gone and was currently here to buy more? Was this merely an unfortunate coincidence?

“Country club!”

You jumped at Barry’s loud voice, never taking your eyes off of your boyfriend. He kept his hard gaze on you too.

“Glad you could make it—nice girlfriend you got here. She’s a sweetheart, man. I mean, really, she went through all this effort to fix her fuckup,” he said, making you frown. “I almost felt bad calling you.”

At that, you finally looked away from Rafe, spinning around to face Barry, gaze accusatory.

“You called him?” you almost yelled.

“Yes, he did.”

You looked down at the sound of Rafe’s voice, your boyfriend finally speaking to you.

“Get up,” he sneered, nearing you, and you made a noise when he pulled you to your feet.

“Rafe…”

“Inside.”

He forced you back into the very room Barry had disappeared into, surprised to find that it was his bedroom. You didn’t get a chance to look around.

“Are you insane?” Rafe snapped, forcing you to face him with a tight grip on your arm. “Going to Barry? Letting him take you to his house? Alone?”

“He’s your friend,” you mumbled.

You watched Rafe’s nostrils flare.

“He’s not…”

Your boyfriend huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Barry and I aren’t exactly friends,” he said to you. “There’s mutual bullshit between us that makes this transactional relationship work, but he’s not my friend and even if he was, you knew better.”

You threw your arm out.

“I was trying to…”

“I know what you were trying to do,” Rafe cut you off. “Barry told me everything. So I ask once again, are you fucking insane?”

“I didn’t want you to be mad at me,” you defended yourself.

Rafe ran his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. He chuckled to himself before leaning in, his nose brushing yours.

“Well, good job, baby because I’m not mad,” he quietly told you. “I’m fucking furious.”

“Rafe–!”

“You throw away my shit and then in an effort to replace it, you ride on the back of some guy’s bike alone to his house!”

“Well, how else was I supposed to get here?”

“Don’t come here,” he bit out at you, hitting his hands together. “How is that not obvious to you? Anything could’ve happened.” 

“I figured you knew him so it was okay…”

Your words died in the air as soon as Rafe started to shake his head.

“I don’t care if it was Topper or Kelce, you know better,” Rafe spat. “So, now not only am I pissed about the drugs, but I’m pissed about this too.”

You felt your throat tighten, and with one look at your eyes, Rafe rolled his own.

“No, no, don’t give me that bullshit…”

“I was trying to fix it!”

Silence stretched between you as you sniffed, looking away from Rafe as you wiped your face. You leaned against the door, staring at the wall as he stared at you. Neither one of you spoke for what felt like a while, and you hesitantly looked at your boyfriend again.

You figured you had a long night ahead of you, but the situation with Rafe’s coke seemed more pressing, and you accepted that you couldn’t make Rafe not mad about this.

“So…what now?” you quietly asked. “How much is he making you pay to replace it?”

Rafe didn’t respond right away, and you felt confused as he moved to sit down on Barry’s bed before reaching out to you. Despite the fact that he was frustrated with you and you were frustrated with him, you went to him, taking his hand. When he pulled you closer, there was a gleam in his eye that you didn’t quite recognize.

“Barry feels bad for you,” Rafe murmured, dragging his eyes over your frame. “To be honest… I think he’s got a bit of a hard-on for you.”

You felt your face heat up at Rafe’s crass language, feeling like you should be used to it.

“Okay,” you dragged the word out. “So how much is he charging…?”

Again, Rafe didn’t answer the question, choosing instead to pull you between his parted knees. You blinked when he slowly reached under your dress, his fingers grazing your thigh as he pressed his lips to your stomach through the fabric. You were slow to catch onto a lot of things, but never when Rafe wanted to get your clothes off of you.

“Rafe…what are you…?”

“You were just trying to fix your fuckup,” he whispered. “I know that, baby…”

He roughly cupped you, making you gasp as he forced you into his lap.

“...but you still have to make it up to me.”

Your lips parted in a silent gasp as he kissed along your throat, worriedly looking at the door.

“Rafe, we can’t! This isn’t–.”

“Don’t worry about it,” was all he said to you, pulling you into a rough kiss.

His 180 gave you whiplash, and every time you tried to remind him that he was in someone else’s room—someone else’s house with said person right outside of the door—he didn’t care. You always said that Rafe was a hard person to say no to, and you really did try. After all, you didn’t feel right about this, at all, but all of your doubts completely disappeared the moment he had you pinned on top of his face. 

Your hands pressed against Barry’s wall as Rafe swiped his tongue between your folds, struggling and failing to remain quiet. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear that Rafe was trying to make you scream. Every time you tried to get off of him, he only tightened his hold and sucked on you harder. It made you gasp and whimper on top of him, squirming with every swipe of his tongue.

“Rafe,” you sighed, feeling no sense of relief when he let you go.

Your chest was heaving and you were fighting to catch your breath when he wrapped his hands around your ankles, yanking you towards him and pushing your knees back. With his own thighs pressed to the backs of yours, you were trapped as he released himself, stroking his cock a few times and rubbing it against you.

“Let me hear you,” he gruffly told you just before sliding his cock past your folds.

You couldn’t hold in your sharp gasp at the intrusion, no longer caring about whose bed or house you were in. Rafe didn’t waste any time, picking up a steady pace and pushing his cock into you to the hilt over and over. You reached up to press your hands against his shoulders in an attempt to ground yourself.

Despite what you wanted, choked moans and soft gasps started to escape your lips. The sounds of them seemed to egg Rafe on, his thrusts growing rougher. Every curve of his hips against yours created static in your brain, and you couldn’t stop mewling beneath him.

“Rafe…oh my God,” you breathed, throwing your head back.

“That’s it,” he whispered from above you.

The unfamiliar bed jostled beneath his movements, and you bit your lip in an effort to stifle the noises climbing out of your throat, but Rafe only fucked you harder at that, making it nearly impossible.

“Rafe, please,” you brokenly gasped. “I’m trying… I’m trying to be…”

“...but I don’t want you to be,” he purred, leaning in and kissing the corner of your mouth. “You know I like it when you get loud.”

You did know that, but you also knew that this wasn’t your house and you were not alone. That didn’t seem to bother Rafe a bit though, and you long decided not to let it bother you when Rafe eventually had you on your hands and knees. One of your hands was pressed into the wall in front of you while the other twisted into the sheets, unintelligible sounds leaving you.

One of Rafe’s hands was pressed into the small of your back while the other was tight around your throat. Your underwear had long been yanked off and thrown somewhere, Rafe’s skin slapping against yours as he pressed kisses to your cheek and jaw.

“I’m not mad anymore,” he whispered against your skin. “...but you can’t trust everyone I trust. You understand?”

“Uh huh,” you breathed, eyes rolling.

“...and stop touching shit in my room.”

“Okay,” you whined, toes curling.

“...but this was really sweet of you…even if it did piss me off…”

“I’m sorry,” you moaned.

“I know, baby,” Rafe breathed, stretching you out around his cock.

When you came around him, you couldn’t stop moaning and whimpering—something Rafe encouraged—and you felt completely worn out when he finally pulled out of you.

The embarrassment didn’t start to set in until a few moments later, and you sat up with wide eyes. Rafe was already coming to you with your underwear, and you didn’t know what to say as he dropped to his knees and slid them up your legs for you.

“Rafe… Barry, he… Oh God,” you sighed, pressing your hands to your face.

Rafe only chuckled before grabbing said hands, pulling them away from your face and you to your feet.

“Barry’s not going to care. Trust me,” he said, leading you to the door.

“How do you know?” you wondered.

Your boyfriend’s only response was a haughty chuckle, and when you exited the room, Barry looked as calm as ever, still in the same spot.

“You two lovebirds make up?” he wondered, a grin on his lips as he eyed you both.

You avoided his gaze, face feeling so hot.

“We’re good?”

You watched as Rafe held his hand out, Barry dropping the bag of coke in it.

“Yeah, Country Club, we’re alright…”

When Rafe started to walk you out, you frowned.

“Wait, but you didn’t pay him…”

Rafe leaned in, his lips brushing your ear.

“Don’t worry about it.”

You didn’t understand, but you didn’t get a chance to think on it more, Barry telling you goodbye from the door.

“Bye, Mrs. Country Club!”

Not wanting to be rude, you peeked around Rafe’s arm.

“Bye, Barry!”

“Pleasure doing business with y’all…!”

Rafe was forcing you into his truck before you could respond to that, tossing you the coke you went through so much trouble for.

[secretliteradite]

hey but listen yall because: (this is sweet until it's kind of not)

you haven't seen Simon in a few years. not since you moved away for the job opportunity of a lifetime. not since you packed your things into the back of your tiny sedan and cried in the driveway because you don't know why it hurts to leave someone who didn't even try to fight for you.

it hadn't even been a dramatic breakup. just life leading you both in different directions.

but you text him the night you come back to town, not truly thinking. the words come out familiar, muscle memory:

hey. can't sleep. you up?

his response is almost instantaneous.

for you? always. door's unlocked.

he looks the same but not really. sharper jaw, longer hair, in a sweater you don't recognize. an older scar splitting his brow, silver-pale. but still the same eyes. still gentle. still sure.

Simon hugs you like no time has passed. you breathe him in before you can stop yourself. his hand swallows yours when he grabs it— the crooked knuckle on his pinky wasn't crooked before— and pulls you in, where the hours slide away like nothing.

he makes you tea, the way you've always liked it. let's you talk, just smiles a little at your stories, asks about your job, your friends. you forgot how easy it was to be around him. how it felt like you didn't have to be anything but yourself. real.

sitting on the couch turns into stumbling down the hall, shedding pieces of clothing like breadcrumbs. it turns into the bed, your back hitting the sheets, your legs hooked over his shoulders, the heels of your feet digging into muscle pulled taut.

he fucks you soft, quiet, reverent. like something half-remembered— looks at you like he's memorizing the faces you make all over again. like it matters more now.

you're the one who whispers it, in the dark, your breath hot against his jaw:

"i missed you."

he just holds you tighter, groans louder and comes harder.

you wake up to sunlight bleeding through unfamiliar curtains. your head feels heavy, your eyes heavier. you slept too deeply. the sheets smell like him. the shirt on your body is his. there's no stopping the tiny smile creeping on your face, the heat licking up your chest, embarrassed, buzzing gently with the sweet ache of yesterday. tipsy with the warmth of closure.

you get up quietly, planning to slip out without a fuss, but your bag isn't where you left it. your phone is no longer on the nightstand. your keys are also gone. you frown, padding barefoot into the hallway. the door is shut, locked, and not with the little knob-lock you remember from before. there's a bolt now. a latch. reinforced.

the air in your chest stiffens, uncertain. there's a soft clink of a mug in the kitchen; the sound of coffee being poured. you round the corner, slowly. Simon's there, just like the old days. shirtless. hair messy from sleep (or from you tugging on it), holding out a cup without turning around.

"thought i 'eard you up," he says, voice thick with sleep. you take it numble.

"...where's my stuff?"

he takes a sip from his own cup— tea, you reckon— before answering. "somewhere safe."

your stomach sinks down to your knees.

"why?" you ask, breath shaky.

Simon finally looks at you. calm. affectionate. eyes too soft for the cold knot tightening in your spine.

then, after a beat, almost tender he says, "watched ya walk away once." he steps closer, the knuckles running along your cheek feel both featherlight and electric. the touch makes you flinch from how familiar it is.

how careful.

like it's love.

"i waited," he murmurs. "i gave you time. space. freedom. and you still came back to me."

you open your mouth, try to croak out words but he cuts you off— still gentle. when you try to take a step back, his fingers encircle your wrist. still soft. but you think you can feel the steel behind it. "one time is all i 'ave in me."

your grip tightens around the warm mug in your hands, his around your wrist. not painfully, just finally.

"let's get breakfast from that place you love. we'll stay in."