Tumgik
#(i liked how for your eyes only had a grounded plot and he did his job well as a villain where he feigned allyship but turned out to be bad
BEAST DAZAI PLEASEEE JUST ANYTHING BEAST DAZAI OR BEAST AKUTAGAWA
Brought Together At Last {Dazai Osamu}
Tumblr media Tumblr media
A/n: thanks for requesting, I hope you like this since you didn't really give me any plot points. Sorry about it being short.
Pairing: Beast! Dazai x reader
Trigger warnings: spoilers for Beast manga
Tumblr media
There were things Dazai could fix, whether he wanted to fix them was actually a different question. But there were certainly some things that felt heavy to carry after knowing everything in the book.
Knowing everything about all his other selves in the alternative universes felt odd and depressing. Yes, Oda was alive in this universe but the void his death had left in every other universe had been filled by you. And since Oda was alive... there was no you.
So, naturally, Dazai couldn't help but wonder. If Oda were to die again in this universe, would he meet you? Would you accept him as he is now? An empty shell of a man who runs the deadliest organisation in Japan? He had seen how you acted with the other 'Dazai'; giggling and participating whenever he wanted to judge something the Port Mafia did.
You hated the Port Mafia.
It was rare for him to leave his office but he did so anyways, he needed to go for a walk around town. Somehow, he found himself sitting at one of the tables at the cafe on the ground floor of the building the ADA also occupied. He only lowered his eyes once when the waitress placed his coffee in front of him and by the next time he raised them up again, you were sitting at the table across from him.
Dazai's heart stopped. You looked beautiful, mesmerising even and the funny thing was that you weren't even doing anything. A small notebook was in front of you and you seemed to be focused on what was written on it, scratching off a few things every now and then. The waitress brought your coffee order without even asking you what you wanted and he couldn't believe that you had been a regular there all this time.
For a brief moment he thought about talking to you. But he didn't know how to approach you. What was he supposed to say? Could he even hope that since everything in this universe was all messed up, you could perhaps show some interest in him even though he was in the Port Mafia?
His hopefulness was short lived. Exactly three minutes later, a tall man sat in front of you and your smile -the same smile he had been seeing in his dreams whenever he was thinking of you- lit up the entire room. The exact same smile you would show him when he would bring flowers and chocolate back home in the original universe. The smile you had promised belonged to him in the only universe where you got married.
And suddenly, Dazai was jealous. Not meeting you at all seemed way better than meeting you and finding you with another man.
47 notes · View notes
Text
THE CHASE - Part 8 | Hangman X Reader
I’m so sorry for the long wait on this part. There’s been a lot happening for me the last little while. I turned 30 yesterday and it was a bittersweet day for me. Lots of tears this whole week.
As always, thank you so much for the support and love on this story and in general! It means the world to me. Picking up where we left off and getting a little spicy! Thanks @dizzybee03 for helping me through my plot block!
Warnings; teasing, dry humping, I don’t think there’s anything else but I’m posting from my phone so maybe? Let me know if there’s something I missed!
PART 8
“Well then, what are you waiting for Seresin? Kiss me.” Jake’s brain must have short circuited. Looking at you standing in front of him, in that adorable looking sundress, the half drank beer bottle hanging from your fingers, asking him to kiss you. He stood up, the glow of the flames flickering across both of your faces, as your eyes searched his face, he searched yours. He lifted his hand to brush his knuckles against the apples of your cheeks, warm from the sun and the fire. “Are you sure Darlin? Once we do this, there isn’t any going back.” You met his gaze head on, the flames from the bonfire reflecting in your intense stare. Jake cupped your cheek and pulled you closer to him, his other hand snaking around your waist as his lips slanted against yours in a soft kiss. You brought your arms up around his neck and held yourself closer to him, kissing back.
Neither of you heard any of the whistles, cheers and “told you so’s” that were emanating from the group, you were so wrapped up in the feel of each other. You feeling the warmth of Jake’s body against your front and the heat of the fire against your back, the softness of his lips on yours as he maintained a PDA safe kiss, the smell of wood burning, mixed with his signature cinnamon and sandalwood scent and combined with coconut and salt from the lotion you’d both applied throughout the day. It was perfect in your mind. When he pulled away from you slowly, your eyes fluttered open, meeting his sincere gaze “guess there’s no going back now Darlin’” You smiled and shook your head “guess not”. You both turned to face your friends, hands intertwined. Bradley was grinning ear to ear, Natasha who looked partially disgusted because “Bagman?! Really?” You rolled your eyes with a smile that she returned before glaring at Jake and poking him in his ridiculously solid chest “be good to her Bagman, if Penny loses another bartender, she’ll kill you. But this one’s actually our friend too so if you break her heart I’ll break you.” You couldn’t help but let out a small giggle at her threat and gave her a hug “thanks for having my back Nat.” Javy was the only one who was grinning like the cat that got the cream, as he approached Jake and gave him a strong slap on the shoulder and then pulled him into a hug and said quietly into his ear “I’m proud of you, man.” He then pulled you into a hug too, lifting you up off the ground “finally!” You laughed and patted his back “thanks Javy.” Jake smirked “get your hands off my girlfriend, Machado.” Javy grinned at him and set you back down, “you have no idea how long he’s been waiting to say that.” You looked at Jake whose cheeks were tinted pink and you leaned into his side, relishing in the warmth from his body heat and the fire. You two returned to your seats by the fire and the rest of the squad joined you, breaking off into their own conversations.
This was not what you had expected to happen on your day off. In less than 12 hours you got asked out by a friend, a new boyfriend, and all your friends had found out about the relationship. After a whirlwind day and the blazing heat on the beach, being sat next to a roaring fire and Jake’s warm body beside you, you began dozing off. Only when the warm beer was removed from your slackening grip and a pair of even warmer arms were wrapped around you and you were lifted up did you start to rouse briefly, before the warm smell of sandalwood and cinnamon, smokiness and coconut sunscreen lulled you back under. “I’ll get her home, thanks Phoenix.” Jake’s tone was hushed, as to not wake you as he lifted you easily into his arms, Coyote had grabbed both of your bags and walked ahead of him to the truck to open the passenger door for him to set you inside. Once he had you buckled in, he closed the door and gave Javi a bro hug before climbing in himself and pulling out of the parking lot towards your place.
You felt it as soon as his truck stopped in front of your place, but you kept your eyes closed to relish in the feeling of his warm embrace. You heard him rustling around and when he got out of the truck but it took longer than it should have for him to come around to your side, you almost opened your eyes to check, but as you were about to you heard him on the opposite side of the door, opening it and reaching in to unbuckle you. “Come on sunshine” he scooped you into his arms easily, as if you weighed nothing and carried you right up the front steps and into the house. He kicked the door closed and that's when you realized he must have gone to open the door before coming to get you. He brought you into your bedroom and you squeaked when he tossed you onto the bed not so gracefully. Your eyes shot open and you were met with his shit eating grin “you snore Darlin’.” Your mouth dropped in mock shock but didn’t stay that way long as you began giggling “sorry, the heat must have knocked me out” You sat up on your knees and moved towards him, almost eye to eye with him while you were kneeling on the bed and he was standing, it sent shivers up your spine. “I should get going…” He didn’t look convinced at his own words, in fact you were sure it wouldn’t take anything to get him to stay. His hands were stuffed deep in his pockets and he was looking at you with such tenderness that it made your heart ache a little. You brushed your fingers along his cheek softly as your eyes met his and you said quietly “stay…” You saw his resolve crumbling behind the green of his eyes and you moved a little closer to him, letting your other hand rest against his chest “please?”
Jake was a goner. He was so hooked on you that you could probably ask him to do any number of things that would get him kicked out of the Navy and he’d happily do it just to see the smile on your face. When you asked him to stay and added the small please after, coupled with your hands on him, he nearly let the moan that was buried deep in his chest escape. Instead he slipped his hands out of his pockets and around your waist, as he pulled you the rest of the way in for a breathtaking kiss, figuring that if his mouth was busy he wouldn’t say something stupid like ‘I love you’ or ‘will you marry me’ both of which were bouncing around in his primitive brain because he knew deep in his bones that he wanted to make you his forever. But he couldn’t scare you. So he kissed you, with everything in his body that he could muster. It was so forceful that you fell back on the bed, pulling him on top of you and giggling, as he chased your lips with his. You ran your hands through his sun kissed tresses and he instantly felt the tension ease out of his body and you couldn’t help the small whimper that escaped you at the feel of his weight on you, even though he was careful not to crush you. At that sound, a sound that of course went straight south, he pulled away, sitting back on his knees looking at you spread out below him, chest heaving, dress slightly askew, eyes wild and cheeks pink. He wanted to burn this image into his mind forever. You reached back up for him, your hand running down his chest over his t-shirt before your fingers slipped underneath it brushing against his abs. He inhaled sharply “Darlin’”
The look you gave him should have struck him dead if he was anyone else, but he was Jake, and he was a little turned on when a girl was mean to him. “Don’t you Darlin’ me Seresin.” You sat up, legs still mostly pinned between his thighs. “We are both consenting adults, and I’m positive I don’t have to explain to you that there are a number of things that we can do without having sex.” He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. God he was obsessed with you. He cupped your face tenderly as he leaned down to capture your lips in a soft kiss that was very much Jake and not Hangman at all. “I just wanted to make sure you were sure of what you wanted to do.” You looked up at him with an eyebrow raised, before you pushed up his shirt and took it off him before tossing it somewhere in your room “I’m sure, so so sure.” Your hands found their way to his shoulders as you pulled him back down on top of you, lips finding their way together like magnets.
Jake was positive there would be no other feeling better than your lips on his, and the way your waist was seemingly molded to his hands like it was carved out just for him. Your entire body just fit with his like a puzzle piece and the sounds you made as he let his hands roam your form made him never want to stop touching you. Somehow, you had rolled the two of you so he was pressed against your mattress and you were atop him, straddling his hips. He knew you could feel his erection and he was about to pull away to adjust when you pressed yourself with more force and let a breathless moan slip from your lips. He tensed under you, causing you to pull further away to look at him as you continued to slightly move your hips against him, essentially dry riding his erection. The wink you shot him before letting your head tip back told him you knew exactly what you were doing and doing it on purpose. His hands slipped down your waist to your hips as he helped to guide you, mesmerized by the way your body was moving, lost in the way you knew what you wanted, and the way you took it while still honoring the fact that he wanted to wait a little longer before actually sleeping with you. And when you finally came undone, with all your clothes on, he was able to see exactly how your body reacted; the sheen of sweat along your chest and neck, the way your hands had cupped your tits just before you came, the way your eyes closed and mouth opened in a silent o, and he felt your thigh muscles tighten around his waist and then immediately relax as soon as you came. He filed that away in his memory bank for next time because he wanted to make sure you always had that reaction with him. He was so caught up in watching you he didn’t feel his own release building up until it was too late. “Oh shit.”
Your body was wound so tightly, everything about him surrounded your senses and that alone was almost enough to make you cum. The way he helped guide your hips as you dry humped him, the small squeeze he gave to your thighs at random moments when he probably thought you weren’t going to notice, the way his green eyes never left your face for a moment, and of course the way his length was hard as a rock beneath you, everything coupled together made for a perfect storm and with another swirl of your hips you came for him, soaking your swimsuit bottoms and likely his too.
Your body shook with spasms of aftershocks as Jake pulled you down against his chest, hands immediately running up and down your back and muttered praises into your ear. “Shh I’ve got you baby, such a good girl, I’ve got you.” You let out a small whimper at the “good girl” and then went nearly boneless on top of him. “M’sorry, gimme a minute” you mumbled into his neck as he just continued rubbing your back and let out a soft chuckle “when you’re ready”. He was still semi-hard between your legs and another shiver ran through you at the thought of his stamina. After a few minutes, you pushed yourself up slightly with your hands on his chest, and pressed your lips to his lightly. It seemed he read your mind because before you could move your hands lower on his chest and mutter “your turn”, he grabbed your wrists and held your palms flat on his pecs “this is about you Darlin’. I’m good.” As you were about to protest he silenced you with a kiss “really, I’m good to just lay here with you.” You just about melted into a puddle at his words “but-” He shook his head “no buts.” You realized you weren’t going to win any argument with him, so you settled for climbing off his lap “I’m going to go shower and brush my teeth… I’ll leave an extra toothbrush for you” He nodded and watched as you made your way into the ensuite bathroom and left the door a tiny bit open as an invitation.
Once you were in the bathroom Jake relaxed into the pillows and ran his hands over his face and through his hair. How did he just cum in his shorts like a fucking teenager. When he heard the water turn on in the shower, he stood up and removed his soaked swim trunks, he couldn’t tell what was yours and what was his and it was low key hot as fuck. As he was about to grab a fresh pair of boxer briefs from his duffel, he paused, eyes moving to the bathroom door that you left partially open. He stood up straight and before his brain could talk him out of it, walked into the bathroom with as much confidence as he could muster to join you in the shower.
You were humming along to a tune in your head and Jake watched your shadow on the curtain for a brief moment as you brought your hands up to run them through your hair. You looked like you had your back to the curtain, face under the spray, so he took advantage and pulled back the curtain and stepped in behind you, pulling the curtain closed again. His hands immediately found their way to your waist and he gave himself a little distance between your bodies, as much as he could being in a confined shower stall. He was mesmerized by the way the water trailed down your back and your ass was a lot cuter naked than it was in any piece of clothing he’d seen you in. Jake’s hands found their way to your waist, leaving goosebumps in their wake as you brought your hands down to meet his before you looked at him over your shoulder, fighting the urge to cast your glance downwards “I’m glad you joined me”. He pressed a small kiss to your shoulder as he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him as he reached for the loofah with one hand, soaping it up and beginning to run it across your back and shoulders “i’m glad I did too, you have a really cute butt.” You giggled “Jake Seresin, are you an ass man?” He shrugged “only for you.” He continued sudsing you up and you let your body relax into it, enjoying the comfortable silence. He guided your body under the warm spray again to rinse off and you turned to face him, arms wrapping around his neck and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “Will you stay tonight?” He wanted to laugh, as if he could leave you now. He would stay with you even if it meant getting up at 4 am to be on base at 6. He pressed his lips against your again “of course, Darlin. I think you’re going to have a hard time gettin’ rid of me now that you let me in.” You giggled and ran your hands along his shoulders, marveling at how normally you were hardened against men’s advances, but with Jake here in your house, touching you so gently, you turned into a puddle. You were a bit surprised he hadn’t turned the touching into anything even remotely sexual and you hadn’t even looked, but you could feel, and even soft he was impressive. Jake tilted your chin up to meet your eyes with his “not tonight, go towel off and get into bed. I’m right behind you Darlin’” You sank your teeth into your bottom lip as you stepped out of the shower and into the cooler bathroom air, skin prickling with goosebumps. You wrapped yourself in your fluffy towel and grabbed one for Jake as well, before going about your nightly routine
Jake turned off the water and wrapped the towel around his waist, before joining you next to the sink, not missing the way your eyes followed a water droplet that trailed down the middle of his chest and into the towel. He took the extra toothbrush you offered and began brushing alongside you and when he finished rinsing he pressed his lips to your cheek and left the bathroom so you could finish your routine. He slipped on his boxer briefs and ran the towel through his hair a few times, before checking the route to base from your house and setting his alarm. Then he lay in bed waiting for you. He admired, with a soft smile on his face, as you came out of the bathroom still wrapped in your towel and grabbed yourself panties and something to sleep in, before slipping back into the bathroom. When you emerged the next time you were wearing a satin short set, with your hair braided and you crawled into bed next to him.
Both of you turned to face each other, your hand finding its way to his chest even in the darkness, trailing soft patterns with your nails and the next thing he knew, your hair was lightly tickling him as you rested your head on his chest. His heartbeat already lulling you to sleep and you knew that you’d probably never get another good nights rest without him beside you. Your blood pounded in your ears as you began to panic at how fast and how hard you realized you actually were falling for Jake. And as quickly as the panic came, it faded with each light stroke of Jake’s fingertips on your back. “You’re in control Darlin’. We can talk about it if you want to.” You shook your head lightly and whispered quietly, not wanting to break the stillness “not now, we can talk about it later.” You felt him give you a small squeeze and then continue tracing his fingertips up and down your back. That was how, combined with the steady beat of his heart, you fell into one of the best sleeps you’ve ever had.
Tag List
@horseshoegirl
@dizzybee03
@shanimallina87
@kmc1989
@lynnevanss
@midnightmagpiemama
@djs8891
@blue-aconite
@rosiahills22
@hecate-steps-on-me
@cherrycola27
@roosterforme
@roosterbruiser
@beyondthesefourwalls
@paigewinchester67
@potatothatcanwrite
@theharddeck
@thedroneranger
@hangmandruigandmav
@86laura11
@themusingofagothicsoul
@wayward-river
@perfectprettypisces
@auntiegigi
@littleenglishfangirl
37 notes · View notes
goblinontour · 10 hours
Text
Use Our Power For Good
Tumblr media
why start your own firm…why not?
warnings: lawyer!alex, smut, oral (m receiving), mutual masturbation (tiny bit), fucking, alex & his cocobolo
word count: 8.3k
You sat at his table, legs crossed, nibbling on a piece of toast as you watched Alex move around the kitchen. He was shirtless, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and an old pair of grey sweatpants slung low on his hips. 
There was a subtle elegance in how he moved, even when he was doing something as mundane as making eggs. That messy dark hair of his hung loosely over his forehead, framing the sharp lines of his face, the kind that made people stop and stare in courtrooms. He looked different in the mornings. Softer than the man who cross-examined witnesses with a razor-sharp tongue. 
He turned towards you, the smirk already forming on his lips before he even spoke. “You staring at me for a reason, or are you just plotting your next move?”
You took another bite of toast, letting the corner of your mouth lift in response. “Can’t a girl appreciate the view without ulterior motives?”
He set the pan down, eggs forgotten for a moment as he walked toward you, his fingers trailing across the back of your chair before he bent down, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “Just making sure. Gotta stay sharp.”
The kiss wasn’t hurried or overthought. Just a habitual gesture, like he couldn’t help himself, like staying too far away for too long was never really an option. His lips lingered against your skin for a beat longer than necessary before he straightened and returned to his side of the table, sitting down with his plate of eggs and toast. He always touched you like this, as though you were just an extension of him. It made your chest warm.
You took another sip of coffee, watching him dig into his breakfast. He was quiet again, focused on eating, but his free hand slipped across the table, resting on your thigh under the tablecloth. He didn’t even look up as he did it, just absently drew slow circles with his thumb, a familiar gesture. A reflex.
He was scrolling through his phone, probably checking emails or reading up on the day’s news. You took another bite of your toast, watching him as he absently poked at his eggs. 
“Big case today?” you asked, mostly out of habit.
“Yeah.” he replied, still staring at the screen. “Closing arguments.” He finally glanced up at you, his lips quirking into a faint smile. “Should be a fun one.”
“Is it ever?”
He smirked, that familiar, cocky glint in his eyes. “Not if you’re doing it right.”
You rolled your eyes but smiled back. 
“So…” you said, setting your mug down. “Are you ready for those closing arguments then?”
He nodded, mouth half-full, but his eyes flicked up to meet yours. “Yeah. All prepped. Just gotta go in there and do what I do best.”
“Being an insufferable ass?” you teased.
“Being brilliant.” he corrected, a mischievous grin curling his lips. “It’s why you like me, right?”
You gave him a look, shaking your head with a mock sigh. “I like you despite that, Turner.”
“Right. Of course.” he said, but his eyes never left yours, that sharp, unreadable gleam in them. “Anyway, you’re not exactly a saint yourself. Might even say you’re worse.”
You shrugged. “Only when necessary.”
Breakfast went on like that. Quiet moments, punctuated with the occasional quip. The kind of banter that was so ingrained in your relationship, it felt like breathing. You never really had to explain things to each other, never had to go over the same ground. You just existed in sync, even when the silence stretched between you.
After finishing up, you stood and wandered toward the bathroom, and soon enough, Alex followed. The two of you brushed your teeth together. In sync, like it was second nature. He was to your left, his arm brushing yours every now and then as he mimicked your movements. Spitting, rinsing, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, as if it was part of some unspoken choreography you’d long ago perfected. It was all part of this strange, unpolished intimacy. 
Neither of you said a word. There wasn’t any need. You didn’t even look at each other, but you could feel him there, right next to you, every breath, every subtle shift of his body.
No declarations. No grand gestures. Just being.
When you both finished, he ran his fingers through his hair and turned to leave, heading to the bedroom to get dressed for the day. You followed, watching as he rummaged through his clothes, tossing them carelessly onto the bed. He slipped into his trousers first, the charcoal grey fabric sitting perfectly on his lean frame. He was halfway through buttoning them when his fingers faltered, fumbling with the belt.
He cursed softly under his breath, the faintest flush rising on his cheeks. He wasn’t used to asking for help, in any circumstances really.
“Need a hand?” you asked with a teasing lilt in your voice, crossing the room.
Alex shot you a mock glare. “I’ve got it.”
“Mhm, sure.” you said, reaching for his belt before he could protest further.
You slid the belt through the loops, threading it carefully around his waist. His eyes stayed on you, watching the movement of your hands, and for a brief moment, the air between you shifted, heavier. His fingers brushed your wrist lightly, and you glanced up at him, seeing the way his lips tugged into a small smile.
His grip lingered just enough to send a clear message, his touch unmistakable. His smirk widened, knowing full well what he was doing. He couldn’t be more obvious if he tried.
“You want me to have carpet burn on my knees at work?” you teased, already undoing the button you’d just buttoned and pushing his pants back down with ease.
“You don’t have to wear a skirt.” he replied, the suggestion just as casual as it was loaded.
“Maybe I want to show off my legs.” you retorted, sinking to your knees in front of him, your fingers already tracing the waistband of his briefs. He reached down, brushing your hair back, his thumb grazing the side of your jaw.
“Nah,” he said, voice low, “they don’t need to see your legs.”
“I’ve got beautiful legs.” you countered, your hands deftly working to pull him free from the confines of his briefs. 
“That you do.” he agreed, voice rougher now, desire evident. “But one admirer is enough.”
“Yeah?” you asked, looking up at him, lips grazing his skin.
“I’d say so.” His hand wrapped around his cock, guiding it to your mouth. You licked, tasting him, and his groan sent a thrill down your spine. His fingers threaded through your hair as you took him deeper, his head tilting back with a stifled moan. 
There wasn’t much time, but that never seemed to bother him. You’d had sex the night before, but Alex was insatiable, always wanting more, always needing you. His hips rocked gently toward you as you worked, your mouth warm and eager, and each sound he made was a reminder of how deeply he craved you.
“Just like that.” he breathed, his voice ragged, and you could feel the tension coiling in his body.
His grip on your hair tightened, just enough to keep you where he wanted, guiding your movements as his breathing grew heavier. You moved in sync with him, the rhythm between you both intensifying. Every little moan, every gasp, fueled you, pushing you to keep going, to give him exactly what he needed.
“Fuck.” he muttered, his hips stuttering slightly, and you could tell he was close already. His thighs trembled, muscles tensing beneath your touch as you sped up, your lips and tongue working him over, eager to push him to that edge. “You’re so good...don’t stop.”
His words, though steady at first, soon dissolved into incoherent murmurs, half-formed phrases that trailed off as his pleasure overtook him. His grip in your hair became more insistent. His fingers flexed. Possessive, almost desperate. His chest heaved, and the next groan that escaped him was louder, more guttural. “Gonna-” He couldn’t finish the sentence, the words cut off by the pleasure coursing through him. 
He pushed himself deep, holding you there as his release hit, his body jerking as he came into your mouth. His moans filled the space, deep and raw, and you felt the satisfaction of knowing you’d brought him there, unravelled him like no one else could.
He swore under his breath, the sound escaping between clenched teeth as he held you close, his fingers pressing into the back of your head, keeping you there. “Swallow…” he muttered, his voice strained but commanding. “Yeah…swallow it- fuck-”
You did as he asked, feeling his release warm inside your mouth as his hand gently relaxed its hold on you, his body beginning to soften from the intensity of the moment. Finally, he pulled back, his breathing still uneven, and you took a deep breath, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as you stood.
His head was still tilted back, eyes closed, a lingering smile on his face as he came down from the high. When he finally opened his eyes, meeting yours, the look he gave you was one of pure satisfaction. “You’re too damn good at that.” he muttered, voice still hoarse with lingering pleasure.
You grinned, standing up and brushing yourself off, giving him a playful smirk. “I know.”
The air between you was thick with the afterglow on his part. You helped him pull up his pants and fastened the belt you’d teasingly started to buckle earlier but ultimately failed. Alex watched you with a blissed-out expression, his usual cool demeanour softened.
“Thanks.” he murmured, a small grin tugging at his lips.
You couldn’t help but smile back, straightening his collar with a quick touch. “Don’t get used to it.” you teased, but the warmth in your voice betrayed the affection that always lingered beneath the surface.
Alex chuckled softly, the sound low and easy, as he leaned back against the desk behind him, still catching his breath. He pulled you close, one arm snaking around your waist as he leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to your lips. When he pulled back, his grin was softer, but still wicked. “Round two later? Pay you back.” he teased.
You raised an eyebrow. “Only if you can handle it.”
His laughter echoed through the room. “We’ll see about that.”
His hand came up, fingers gently adjusting the collar of your shirt in turn. “You know,” he said, his voice quieter now, more serious, “you never get your collar right.”
His touch was deliberate but light, moving on autopilot, as if he was still half-asleep despite other parts of him being very much awake just minutes before.
You arched an eyebrow, your lips quirking into a smirk. “I think I’m capable of managing a collar.”
“Just doing my part.” he shrugged. “Gotta keep you looking sharp too, don’t I?” he said, with just a hint of that teasing tone you both fell into so easily. 
You tilted your head at him. “Maybe I’m just waiting for you to fix it for me every time.”
“That’s probably it.” he murmured, his hands lingering at your collar for a beat too long. His thumb ran across the fabric one more time, smoothing it down before his hands rested on your shoulders. 
As he finished getting ready, you grabbed your blazer and slid it on, reaching for your bag. You could feel his gaze following you across the room. He was fastening his cufflinks now, the polished lawyer reappearing beneath the quiet intimacy of the morning.
“Am I gonna get to see you for lunch today?” he asked, his tone casual but his eyes sharp as they met yours through the mirror.
“Yeah.” you said, not looking away as you smoothed down the front of your blazer. “I’ll make it work.”
“Good.” he said, his voice dipping lower. “Can’t go too long without you.”
He said it like a fact, not a compliment, not even an acknowledgment of your relationship. Just a truth. 
“Wouldn’t want to have to go a whole day without seeing your charming self.” you shot back. 
The smile on his face was disarming, warm, and so utterly Alex. There was something so simple in it.
With one last glance at each other, he grabbed his briefcase and you headed out the door together, slipping back into the roles you played so well. But in these quiet moments, in the space between courtrooms and deadlines, there was something else. Something neither of you were quite ready to define but were already living.
Tumblr media
The morning had flown by, and your mind was still buzzing with the details of your case as you sat at your desk, flipping through documents. The office around you was its usual hive of activity. Murmured conversations, the soft hum of printers, the distant clatter of keyboards. You barely noticed the way the time slipped away until your phone buzzed on the desk, cutting through your focus.
Alex’s name lit up the screen.
You answered, leaning back in your chair and rubbing your temple with your free hand. “Hey.”
“Hey.” he replied. You could hear the low hum of the car engine in the background. “I’m in the car, just a few minutes out.”
You glanced at the clock, biting your lip. The familiar pang of guilt settled in your chest. “I don’t have much time.” you said, your words rushing out quicker than you intended. “I’ve got a meeting in twenty.”
There was a pause on the other end, a small silence that felt heavier than it should have, just long enough to feel his frustration seep through the line. You could almost picture him, fingers tapping impatiently against the steering wheel, his brow furrowing in that way it always did when he was frustrated but trying to hold it in. “Yeah, I know.” he muttered, his voice quiet. You heard him shift, a soft exhale of breath escaping him. “The traffic’s a nightmare today. Honestly, how do people drive in this city?” he grumbled, half to himself. “Should’ve just walked at this point.”
You smiled faintly at the thought, but the weight of what came next erased any humour from the moment.
“We need to talk about this,” he said suddenly, his voice dropping an octave, growing more serious, “you and me. This is getting insufferable. You know we should just work together. It makes sense.”
Your heart did that thing it always did when he caught you off guard, skipping a beat, leaving a rush of warmth in its wake. You felt a knot form in your stomach, the kind you got when you knew something was coming that you weren’t ready for. You’d always had this unspoken line between work and...whatever it was the two of you had. A line you knew could blur if you weren’t careful.
“Work together?” you repeated, more as a stall than anything, trying to gather your thoughts. “Alex, I don’t...”
“Yeah.” he cut in, his voice stronger now, as if he’d been rehearsing this in his head. “You and I, together. We’d kill it in court. Think about it. Why keep butting heads at different firms when we could just...” He trailed off, but you knew where his mind was going. It was in the space between his words, hanging heavy in the air like he didn’t need to say it out loud. “It’s logical.”
The idea wasn’t new. He’d hinted at it before, thrown out suggestions here and there, always couched in some half-joke. But this was different. He was serious now, no more dodging around it.
You didn’t know what to say. Logically, he was right. You’d been a force to be reckoned with whenever you faced off in court. The cases you’d gone against each other on were some of the best work you’d ever done. Exhilarating in a way that made you feel more alive. But there was something about mixing work with...this. Whatever this was. It wasn’t just simple anymore.
“I don’t know.” you said finally, your voice softer, hesitant. “It’s just...it’s a lot, Alex. You know that.”
He sighed on the other end, and you could hear the frustration mixed with understanding. “Yeah, I get it.” said, and you heard the creak of the steering wheel as he gripped it tighter, a long exhale filling the silence. “But it doesn’t have to be. You and me, we’re already halfway there. We could just make it official, take it to…to the next level, you know.”
You closed your eyes for a moment, feeling the tension of the conversation build in your chest. It wasn’t just about working together. It was about everything else that came with it. The unspoken moments between you, the way he kissed you without thinking, the way you fell into this easy rhythm together. You didn’t know if you could handle that being tangled up with the ruthless, high-stakes world you both worked in.
“I’m not sure,” you admitted, “I need to think about it.”
There was another pause, and you could feel him shifting in his seat, probably glancing out the window, his mind already running through different arguments to convince you. But he didn’t push it, not this time. The car’s engine hummed softly in the background, and you could hear the faint click of his turn signal as he switched lanes, inching his way through the traffic. You could practically see his expression, the tight line of his lips, the slight twitch of his jaw as he waited for a different answer. 
“Alex?” you called out, knowing he was still there but not knowing how to change the subject already without hurting him more.
“I’m here.”
“Alex…” you hesitated, running a hand through your hair as you leaned back in your chair, staring at the stack of papers on your desk. “You know it’s not just about work. If we did this- if we worked together it- it would change everything. It’s not just you and me in court, you know that.”
“Yeah, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.” His voice was firm but quieter, trying not to push too hard. “I know we’ve got something good going on, but it could be better. We wouldn’t have to hide it anymore. We could be a team, inside and out.”
You could hear the light change through the phone, the faint rev of his engine as he started moving again. He was getting closer, but you felt further away from an answer. This was Alex. The same man who made you feel more alive than anyone else but also made you question every line you’d ever drawn in the sand.
“I just don’t want to mess this up.” you said softly, almost to yourself.
“You won’t.” he replied quickly, like he’d already made up his mind. “We won’t. We’re good together. You know that.”
The knot in your stomach didn’t unravel, though. If anything, it tightened as his words echoed in your head. You knew this wasn’t the last time he’d bring it up. He wouldn’t let it go easily. The idea of working together, of making your personal and professional lives one...It was a lot. Maybe too much.
But knowing Alex, he wasn’t going to stop until he made you see why it made sense.
“Just...drive safe, okay?” you added, trying to shift the conversation away from the heavy stuff. You couldn’t tackle this right now. Not with a meeting in twenty minutes and a head full of case details.
“Yeah.” he said, and you could hear the tension in his voice, but he didn’t press further. “I’ll be there in 5.”
“Okay.” you breathed. “Bye, Alex.”
“Bye.”
You hung up, staring at your phone for a moment as his words echoed in your mind. You stared at the wall for what felt like two seconds but when you glanced back at your screen you saw his text saying he’s pulling up. You sprinted out of your office, the door barely clicking shut behind you as you rushed down the stairwell. Taking the stairs was faster than the elevator, and besides, it gave you a few extra seconds to collect yourself before you met him. 
You and Alex had this unspoken routine. You’d meet him in the parking lot most times, tucked away where no one else was around. Down there, you didn’t have to be the sharp lawyers the world expected. You could just be you, and he could be him.
You pushed open the heavy door, the cool breeze hitting your face as you stepped out into the open. The lot was mostly empty this time of day, just a few scattered cars from the building’s occupants. You stood there for a moment, catching your breath, the usual knot of anticipation already forming in your stomach.
Then, you saw him.
Alex pulled up in his black car, the engine purring as it rolled into a spot a few feet away from you. He cut the engine and stepped out, immediately shrugging off his suit blazer and draping it over his arm like it was second nature. He looked every bit the part of the high-powered lawyer anyone would expect. White shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tie slightly loosened. But there was something different about him here, something softer, more familiar. His eyes found yours as he walked toward you, and that faint smile of his tugged at the corners of his mouth.
He greeted you with a kiss on the cheek, his hand brushing lightly against your arm as he did. It was casual, but the contact lingered, like he couldn’t help himself.
“You always beat me down ‘ere.” he teased.
You shrugged, pulling out a cigarette from your jacket pocket. He reached into his own for a lighter, flicking it to life and holding the flame out for you. You leaned in, the tip of the cigarette catching fire, and took a slow drag as he watched you, his eyes searching your face for something unspoken.
“About earlier…” he started, and you could hear the nervousness creeping into his voice. He wasn’t usually like this. Hesitant. “I was serious, you know. About us…working together.”
You exhaled, the smoke swirling in the air between you as you passed the cigarette to him. He took a drag, his eyes never leaving your face as he waited for your response.
“What do you say?” he asked, his voice low but insistent now that he could actually see you, not just hear your voice.
You glanced down at the ground for a moment, buying yourself a few seconds before meeting his gaze again. “I just- I don’t see why it’s so important to you that we work together.”
He held the cigarette between his fingers and then, carefully, brought it back to your lips, watching you as you took another drag. His fingers brushed your chin lightly, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. You just stared at him, and he stared right back, his expression unreadable but intense, like he was trying to gauge what you were thinking.
“I mean,” you gestured between the two of you, “we’re already…you know.” The words were clumsy, but he understood. “Why do you need me for this?”
He looked down for a second, his brows furrowing as if he was choosing his words carefully. When he looked back up, his voice was soft but steady. “I don’t need you. I want you.”
You felt your chest tighten at the simplicity of his words, the quiet honesty in them. You held his gaze, letting the weight of what he was saying sink in. 
“You’ve got me.” you said, kicking his foot lightly with the heel of your shoe, a small smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Just…not as a law partner.”
He chuckled softly, a brief, resigned sound, as if he had expected the answer but had hoped for something different. You took another slow drag from the cigarette, savouring the moment, then passed it back to him.
“I have to get back to work.” you said after a pause, nodding toward the office building. “You okay?”
Alex hesitated for a moment, looking down at the ground, then back up at you with a small, almost imperceptible smile. “Yeah, no. I’m fine. Go on.”
You lingered for a moment longer, searching his face for something. An answer, maybe. To what question you didn’t know. Or reassurance. But all you found was that quiet confidence. He wasn’t going to push it, at least not right now. 
“See you later?” he called after you as you turned to leave.
“Yeah.” you replied, already making your way back toward the stairs.
“Yours?” he asked, his voice louder now, echoing slightly off the concrete walls of the parking lot.
“Sure!” you called over your shoulder without turning around, a smile pulling at your lips as you jogged back up the stairs, the cigarette smoke still lingering in the air behind you.
Tumblr media
You were already in bed, the soft sheets pulled up around your waist, your skin still warm from the shower, the faint scent of your body lotion mingling with the cool air. The room was dim, the only light coming from the small lamp on the bedside table. You’d changed into one of his old t-shirts, the familiar fabric loose and worn in a way that made it impossible to part with, no matter how many times he teased you for stealing it. The quiet stretched on as you waited for Alex to come home. You’d been waiting, listening for the door creaking open, the soft shuffle of his footsteps.
When you heard the soft click of the door, your ears perked up. You didn’t move, but you could feel the shift in the air. Alex came in quietly, much more than usual. Normally, he’d throw his jacket over a chair or kick off his shoes with a heavy thud, but tonight there was a certain stillness about him. 
He looked worn out. His shirt, which had been crisp and neat this morning, was now wrinkled and untucked, the first few buttons already undone. The lines of his face seemed deeper in the dim light, shadows catching in the angles of his cheekbones and jaw. 
You told yourself it was because he had a long day. Maybe the case had drained him, maybe he was exhausted. But deep down, you knew that wasn’t it. He looked tired, sure, but there was something else lingering in his expression. Something unsettled.
He dropped his keys on the dresser and made his way over to the drawer he kept here, the one where he’d stashed a few pairs of pyjamas, toothbrush, the essentials that had come to live at your place over time. You watched him from your side of the bed. His fingers moved lazily, tugging off his tie and tossing it aside before unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, peeling it off with slow, almost mechanical movements, revealing the familiar lines of his arms and the muscles in his back tensing as he stretched briefly.
He slipped into his pyjama bottoms and pulled on a t-shirt, the one that clung a little too tight to his chest but he refused to replace. You caught yourself staring, something about watching him shed the day’s uniform, the shield he wore out in the world, felt strangely intimate. His head tilted slightly as if he were trying to shake off the day before climbing into bed beside you. 
He leaned back against the headboard, pulling his legs up under the covers. He didn’t look at you, though. Not right away. Instead, he reached for the book that had been sitting on your nightstand for weeks, long forgotten since the last time he’d stayed over. 
He opened it, the pages rustling softly, but you knew he wasn’t really reading. He wasn’t even pretending to be interested. His eyes didn’t track the words, his fingers didn’t move to turn the page. He was just holding it, an anchor for his hands, something to focus on other than you. You knew he wasn’t reading. He knew you knew. You watched him. His brow furrowed slightly, the subtle tension in his jaw telling you he wasn’t as relaxed as he wanted to seem. After a few minutes, you broke the silence.
You cleared your throat softly, turning slightly to face him, resting your head on your hand as you studied his profile. “How did that case go today?”
“Huh?” he asked, glancing up at you for a second, almost like he hadn’t heard you. He had.
You repeated the question, trying to keep your voice light. “The case. How’d it go?”
“Oh.” He shifted slightly, closing the book halfway, letting it rest in his lap as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It was good, yeah.”
There was a beat of silence, and you raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, you pressed, “Is that all?”
He hesitated, and you could see the gears turning in his head, like he was debating how much to tell you or how much to leave unsaid. Finally, he shrugged. “It went really well. Best outcome possible. But...I wasn’t expecting anything else, really.” His voice was flat, like the words were rehearsed, like he was brushing off a win that didn’t excite him anymore. 
You studied him for a second, taking in the way his lips pressed together in that subtle frown, how his fingers tightened slightly around the spine of the book. He wasn’t tense exactly, just…off. 
“Then why are you acting like it wasn’t?”
He sighed, staring at some distant point on the wall. His fingers tapped against the book cover in a slow, steady rhythm.
“Alex, what’s going on?”
He sighed, again, setting the book back on the nightstand with a soft thud. He just sat there, staring down at his hands, rubbing his thumb across the palm of his hand as if the answer was written there. His lips parted, like he was going to say something, but then he stopped himself, exhaling slowly. For a moment, you thought he might brush you off, tell you everything was fine and leave it at that. 
“It’s not the case.” he finally muttered, his voice quieter now. “It’s everything else. Work, this…” He gestured vaguely, not quite looking at you. “I can handle it, but lately, it’s been…I don’t know. It’s just...I’ve been thinking ‘bout earlier. What I said.”
You nodded, not breaking eye contact, waiting for him to continue.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be so…against it.” he admitted, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt now, that old nervous habit of his resurfacing. “I thought you’d at least consider it.”
You let out a small breath, sitting up a bit straighter. “It’s not that I’m against it, Alex.” you explained. “It’s just...complicated.”
“I don’t see why it has to be.” he muttered, his brows furrowing slightly, his hand reaching for yours almost instinctively, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. 
You looked down at your intertwined hands, feeling the warmth of his skin against yours, the quiet sincerity in his touch. 
“Everything feels like it’s building up, and I can’t figure out why it’s getting to me like this.” he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. “Us...I don't know. It’s like…” He stopped himself, letting out a low, frustrated sigh. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s not nothing if it’s making you feel like this. Talk to me.”
He looked down at your hand in his, his jaw tightening slightly as he processed your words. After a long moment, he gave a small nod, but he still didn’t speak. Instead, he turned his hand over, threading his fingers more tightly with yours. 
“It’s just hard.” he finally admitted. “I thought we would be on the same page.”
You squeezed his hand gently. “We are. I just need time to sort through it.”
His gaze flickered to yours, a mix of frustration and hurt. “Time? That’s what you need? I’m tired of waiting.”
“Alex, please-”
“Just cut it out!” he snapped, his frustration boiling over. “I’m not doing this now.”
He picked up his book again, but the tension in the air was palpable. You watched him for a moment, feeling a flash of irritation, but you bit it back. It wasn’t worth pushing him further, not when you could tell he was already on edge. So instead, you slipped your hand under the covers, over his stomach, feeling the muscles tense slightly under your touch.
You knew this was a distraction, but maybe it was what you both needed. Sex was great between you two. Sex was a distraction. A good one at that. At least temporarily. 
He made a small sound, a mix of surprise and something else as your hand moved lower. You felt his hands tremble slightly on the book, and he turned to look at you, his expression shifting.
“You promised you’d pay me back this morning.” you reminded him softly.
“Fine.” he replied, shifting closer. 
His hand slipped inside your underwear, a rush of heat igniting between you. You stroked him gently, feeling the tension begin to ease. His breath quickened as he rubbed you in return, his fingers moving in sync with your hand, both of you seeking that familiar distraction, that physical release. His touch was firm but not rushed, the way it always was when you needed to feel close but couldn’t find the words to say it. It felt good, but not quite enough.
“Are you going to drop the mad act already?” you asked, teasing him gently.
Alex gave a small, breathy laugh, pulling his hand from you and rolling over, hovering above you now. He looked down at you, his eyes soft but still clouded with something unsaid. “I’m only doing this,” he murmured, leaning in closer, his lips barely an inch from yours, “because I’m a man of my word.”
His lips brushed against yours, and in that moment, it felt like everything else faded away. You smiled faintly, your hands slipping around his waist as he kissed you, his weight settling over you just enough to feel his warmth, his presence. 
His hands found their way to your hips, slipping under the fabric of your shirt, fingers tracing lazy patterns along your skin. There was something unhurried in the way he touched you, as if he wasn’t in any rush to push things further, just savouring the closeness, the feel of you beneath him.
But you could sense the restlessness in him. That quiet frustration still hummed beneath the surface, barely contained. You broke the kiss, leaning your forehead against his for a moment, catching your breath.
“You’re still pissed.” you said softly, your fingers brushing through his hair. He didn’t respond immediately, just exhaled heavily, his eyes fluttering closed for a second.
“I’m not-” he started, but you cut him off with a gentle nudge.
“Don’t lie. I know you.”
He opened his eyes again, staring down at you, his expression caught somewhere between frustration and affection. “I’m not pissed.” he said, though there was an edge of stubbornness in his voice. “I just...I wasn’t expecting you to shut it down. It made sense to me.”
“I didn’t shut it down.” you countered, brushing your thumb across his jawline. “I just-”
“Shut up.” he said, slamming his mouth back onto yours, giving you no choice but to do as he said. 
As the kiss deepened, the conversation slipped away, replaced by the familiar rhythm of your bodies moving together. His hand found your waist again, tugging you closer, and for a while, you let yourselves get lost in each other. 
He pulled your shorts down, and you tugged his boxers down. You chuckled, glancing down at him. “See? You’re already hard. And to think you wanted to pretend you didn’t want this.” you remarked, a playful edge to your tone.
“Yeah, because you were just jerking me off, of course I’m-” he began, but you cut him off.
“Just fuck me.” you demanded. 
“You sure?” he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear, his breath warm, teasing.
“Shut up.” Your words came out in a breathless rush, your pulse racing as his lips moved down your neck, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. “More cock, less talk.”
A low chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, the vibration of it spreading through you, and despite yourself, you laughed softly, the sound mingling with his. His forehead pressed against yours for a moment, his breath mingling with your own. 
“You’re impossible.” he said, though a smile pulled at the corner of his lips, the playful tone lingering between you both.
“Yeah,” you replied with a smirk, “but you love it.”
His grin widened as he closed the space between you, his mouth claiming yours. “Guess I’ll just have to show you.”
His hands gripped your hips firmly, rough fingers digging into your skin with just the right amount of pressure, pulling you against him. Your bodies pressed together, heat radiating between you, every inch of him solid. 
With a slow thrust, he pushed inside you, his body filling yours completely, drawing a sharp gasp from your lips as your body arched beneath him. His own groan followed, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as the playful edge disappeared. 
His hips withdrew slightly, only to drive forward again, deeper this time, his movements slow but intense. One of his hands slid down to your thigh, gripping it firmly as he hooked your leg around his waist, the angle changing, every thrust hitting deeper. 
“God, you feel fucking amazing.” he gasped, his breath hot against your skin, his forehead pressing to yours once more, eyes locking onto you. Your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, urging him on, and he responded without hesitation, his hips driving forward again and again and again. “Tell me what you want.” he rasped. 
“I want you.” you answered, your eyes locking onto his, your body tightening around him with every thrust. “I want all of you.”
“You have me.” he breathed. “Completely.”
“Then don't hold back.” you pleaded, the urgency of your words sending a thrill through him.
His pace quickened, his thrusts growing harder, faster, the sound of your bodies moving together filling the room, skin against skin, the slap of it in sync with the pounding of your heartbeat. The air between you grew hotter, more charged, as his movements became more frenzied, less controlled. 
“That’s it…” he muttered through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched with the effort of holding on. “Fuck.”
“Alex.” you gasped, your body coiling tighter, that familiar warmth building low in your belly, spreading through your veins. He paused, just for a heartbeat. 
“Look at me.” he commanded. 
You met his gaze, your breath catching in your throat. “Just us.” you whispered, your voice barely audible over the thundering of your pulse. He nodded, his expression softening even as his body remained taut.
His movements resumed, but now, there was a new intensity to them, a rhythm that felt like it was made just for you, attuned to your every reaction. Your body moved instinctively in time with his, every nerve alive, your breath coming faster, your moans growing louder as pleasure surged through you.
You clung to him, fingers digging into the muscles of his back as his thrusts became more urgent, more relentless. His name escaped your lips in a breathless, needy whisper, and the sound seemed to spur him on. His hips snapped against yours desperately. 
“God…” he muttered, his breath ragged, “so fucking good.”
The words barely sank in, your mind clouded by the pressure coiling tighter and tighter inside you. His hand slid between your bodies, fingers skillfully finding that swollen spot. He rubbed in perfect sync with his thrusts. The slick warmth of his touch, each movement, each stroke, pushed you closer to breaking.
“Together…” you breathed, barely able to get the words out, your voice tight with need.
His eyes met yours, dark and filled with a feral intensity. He quickened his pace, his hips driving into you with a frantic intensity that left no space between pleasure and pain, each thrust harder and deeper than the last. The tension in your body spiralled, every nerve set alight as his body slammed into yours. There was only him and his body moving inside you. 
“Fuck, it feels so good.” he groaned, his voice strained.
“Alex-” His name was barely a whisper, lost in the sounds of skin meeting skin. 
“I’m close.” he gasped, his breath ragged, his grip on your thigh tightening as he thrust into you harder. His eyes were wild now, half-lidded and filled with raw need. His body moved over you like he couldn’t get enough, couldn’t push deep enough, fast enough. His cock drove into you with desperate force, the angle hitting just right, over and over, until your head fell back. 
“Fuck- please-” you cried out, your body trembling beneath him, your nails digging into his back as you held on, the tension inside you about to snap. “Now. Now.” you choked out, your body trembling uncontrollably. 
He grunted in response, his face contorted with the strain of holding back. His hips slammed into you harder, faster, every movement rough, relentless. He was close, so close, and you could feel it in the way his breath came out. 
“Jesus- fuck-” He groaned deeply, his head falling forward, forehead pressed to yours, eyes squeezing shut as his hips jerked forward.
“Gonna come-” your voice was low, just as wrecked as his.
You cried out as your orgasm hit, your entire body seizing, muscles clenching hard around him. You could feel him inside you, still moving, his cock twitching as your body squeezed tight around him.
He wasn’t far behind. You could feel his body tighten, his rhythm faltering as he swore under his breath. “Fuck...so tight, I’m gonna-” His words broke off in a guttural groan as his hips jerked erratically, a deep groan tearing from his throat as he came hard, spilling into you with a few final, messy thrusts. His whole body shuddered, hips bucking involuntarily as the pleasure wracked through him, each pulse drawing another breathless curse from his lips.
“Fuck…” he swore again, voice strangled and hoarse, his movements growing more sluggish and sensitive. His body shivered against yours, the intensity of his release leaving him trembling, breathless, each small movement sending a jolt through him that made him gasp, his eyes squeezing shut as he fought the overstimulation.
“Shit.” he groaned, his face buried against your neck, his breath hot and heavy against your skin. He gave one last shallow thrust, his body shaking as he finally stilled, collapsing against you.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of your mingled breaths. His weight pressed down on you, heavy but in a good way, his chest rising and falling against yours. His lips brushed against your neck, still hot with exertion, and you could feel his heart hammering against your skin, the rhythm slowing as the last waves of pleasure ebbed away. His arms stayed wrapped tightly around you, as if he couldn’t bear to let go just yet.
His breath came out in a long, shaky exhale as he slowly started to come down, body still twitching in the aftermath. His forehead rested against yours again, his eyes fluttering open, heavy-lidded and glazed with exhaustion. He gave you a weak, satisfied smile.
“Well,” you muttered, still catching your breath, a lazy smile tugging at your lips, “that’s one way to shut you up.”
He let out a soft chuckle, his breath warm against your skin. “Yeah...but I think I’ll need a minute to recover.” His body slumped against yours, spent, his weight heavy but familiar. He pressed a gentle kiss to your shoulder, lingering like he didn’t want to move just yet. “Honestly, I think I’ll let you do the talking from now on…we should’ve just done this from the start.”
He shifted slightly, his hips still flush against you, his cock twitching inside, even as he softened. His breath hitched, and he groaned quietly. “I’m still too sensitive...you’ve ruined me.”
You laughed, brushing a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “That’s your problem now.”
“Yeah, it’s a good problem to have.” he murmured, his arms winding tighter around you. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his lips brushing lightly against your skinz He needed the closeness, even a millimetre of distance would be too much. “Can we just stay like this for a bit? I like being close to you.”
He always got clingy after sex. It was sweet, endearing, really, but there was a softness in the way he did it that never failed to make you smile. You nodded, tightening your arms around him in response.
“Yeah, we can stay like this.”
Eventually, the heat between your bodies became too much, and he rolled off you, but not far. With a content sigh, he shifted onto his back, pulling you against his chest, his arm draping protectively over your waist. His fingers traced lazy circles on your shoulder, the soothing rhythm of his touch lulling you into a peaceful calm.
He was quiet for a few minutes, his hand still absentmindedly stroking your skin, until he broke the silence with a quiet, “Hey.”
You tilted your head up, meeting his gaze. “Hey. What’s on your mind?” you asked.
“I want a cocobolo desk.” he blurted out, completely serious.
You blinked, not sure if you’d heard him right. “What?”
“Yeah, I know…we were just- uh, you know- and I’m thinking about furniture.”
“You were just inside me, Alex.” you said, still catching your breath, a laugh bubbling up. “And you’re thinking about a cocobolo desk?”
“I was thinking about it then too.” he admitted sheepishly, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.
You playfully shoved his shoulder, shaking your head. “You’re such a bastard.”
“I’m a multi-tasker,” he said, “I can focus on more than one important thing at a time.”
You snorted, rolling your eyes. “Oh, yeah? So I’m just as important as a desk?”
He raised an eyebrow, feigning deep thought. “You know I love you.”
“More than a cocobolo desk?” you teased, smirking.
“Comme ci, comme ça.” You could tell he was only half-joking, and that made it all the funnier.
“Fuck your desk.” you shot back, still grinning. “We’re not talking about desks right now.”
“It’s a beautiful desk.” he insisted, his voice dropping in mock seriousness. “Elegant. Sleek. Very functional.” He gestured with his hands like he was painting a picture of it in the air.
You fought the smile threatening to break through but couldn’t hold back. “What are we even doing here?”
He shifted, leaning closer so that his forehead rested against yours. “Just dreaming about the future, I guess.” he said softly, his voice a little more vulnerable now. “You’re dripping out what could’ve been my future, you know. All that cum? Just wasted potential. Those could’ve been great kids.”
You snorted, shaking your head. “Oh my god, you’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously right.” he teased, giving you a lopsided grin. “I’m talking little prodigies, world-changers. And now…we’ll never know.”
You rolled your eyes, laughing. “You’re really out here mourning imaginary kids?”
“I’m just saying.” he shrugged, still smirking. “Lost potential…but seriously,” he said, lowering his voice, “a cocobolo desk would be perfect for the office.”
You raised a brow. “What office?”
“Ours. You know, when you change your mind and we start our own firm.”
You sighed dramatically, though you couldn’t keep the warmth from your tone. “Okay, fine. Maybe. But can we remember that we’re naked and we just fucked raw for now, baby?”
His grin softened as he scooted closer, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you back into his chest. “Oh, I remember.” 
You chuckled, shaking your head. “You’re very touchy tonight.”
He nuzzled into your neck, his breath hot against your skin. “I just think it’s important to reflect on our…accomplishments. I mean, look at us.” He gestured between the two of you, smirking. “That last round?” His hand settled on your hip, pulling you even closer. “That was top-tier teamwork.”
“You’re seriously calling this teamwork?”
He nodded solemnly, though his grin betrayed him. “Oh, definitely. Partnership at its finest. And just wait until you see this desk. You’ll understand. You’ll fall in love with it, I swear.”
“Jeez, Turner.” you laughed, “I hate that I love you sometimes.” 
He kissed the top of your head, lingering for a moment like he was trying to soak it all in. “I love you too.” he murmured, his voice softer now, more serious, like he needed you to really hear it. “And not just because you put up with me.”
You smiled into his chest, feeling his arms tighten around you just a bit more. His breath slowed, growing deeper, more relaxed, but his grip on you never loosened. Even in his awkward, clingy way, you could feel how much he needed this, you.
Tumblr media
a/n: Like I said, heavily based on Kim & Jimmy from BCS. I mean, the cocobolo says it all. I would be down for a follow up part if anyone would like that.
tags: @st7rnioioss @theonlyoneswhoknowsblog @rentsturner @yourstartreatment @avxoxo1 @jqsvi @turnersfav @youresodarkbabe @psychedelicrocker @aacheinthejaw @zayndrider @humbuginmybones @tedioepica
43 notes · View notes
aeyumicore · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
your fragrance
Tumblr media
━ .ᐟ✧ PAIRING: rafayel x female reader (afab)
━ ✧.˖ GENRE: smut, porn with plot, porn with feelings
━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 10.4k (how?????)
━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, switch!raf (like he’s both sub and dom in this, if you don’t like that then this may not be for you), knee humping, standing sex, against the wall sex, sorta rough sex, references to rafayel’s lore (no more than what’s talked about the actual memory), dry humping, slightly aphrodisiac sex, dub con if you squint really really really hard, ejaculating in pants, panty ripping, pheromone kink, lots of teasing (calling raf a cat/kitty), cum play? kinda, nipple teasing, slight use of y/n, reader is mc, second person pov
━ .ᐟ✧ LINKS: video | ao3
━ ✧.˖ A/N: the raf fic is here!! based off the 5* rafayel memory ‘your fragrance.’ the build up is realllllllly long on this one since i wanted to stay as true to the memory as possible. you can def just skip to the smut if you’d like!
i struggled to write raf a lot but enjoyed it so much like he’s so fun to write. i’m def a sub girly so i love writing dom partners, thankfully i hc raf as a switch. if you do not like fics where raf is a switch, then this may not be for you! 
i can’t believe this fic ended up being 10k words too, i was thinking it would be a quick lil smut lol. i don’t even know how my zayne fic ended up being my shortest fic. enjoy my loves!
also this is dedicated to my bestie who is actually rafayel’s number one slut. follow her on x @/myusuchaa for so much good raf and other purple haired boy content. she is the master of rafayel lore, truly his wifey. a queen to us all.
THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL NEVER POST MY FICS ON OTHER TUMBLR BLOGS. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND ON AO3.
✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖ nsfw | minors dni | 18+ only | minors dni | nsfw ✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖
Tumblr media
You let out an exasperated sigh as your foot taps irritably against the protective painting tarp Rafayel always has laid out on the ground of his makeshift art studio, stray paint brushes strewn about. Impatiently, you waited for Rafayel to finish changing on the couch behind you, careful not to peek.  
Somehow, being Rafayel’s bodyguard also made you his keeper. And Rafayel was not easy to keep. Always dragging you with him on odd trips even if you had work, pestering you at all hours of the day and night, disappearing and unable to be contacted for days on end. This particular time it was the latter; Rafayel had gone mia three days before his important collab launch party with a high end perfume brand. Now, on the night of the party, Rafayel was still unable to be reached. 
Thomas had called you, in a sheer panic, as he always did when he needed help wrangling Rafayel. He knew you were the only one in this world that could level with Rafayel. And he’d never told you this before, but you were also the only one who could bend Rafayel’s unbreakable stubbornness; a perfect match for the purple-haired obstinate artist. And thus, Thomas had personally designated you as Rafayel’s keeper.  
And so, you found yourself at Rafayel’s massive house, in the most extravagant evening dress you owned, hauling him off to his own damn party. 
His annoyingly alluring voice cuts into the silence of the studio, "You can turn around now and give me a hand with something else.” You snap around to be met with the sight of Rafayel, irritatingly and devilishly handsome in his expensive white dress shirt and designer cardigan, leaning lazily against the sofa with the tie you’d previously used to tie his hands with, woven in between his fingers. He grins and holds it up to you expectantly, "Put this on for me.”
"Don’t you have hands?” You snap, but your feet have a mind of their own, and you’re already approaching him on the sofa.  
"My hands are numb from being tied up by you for so long.” You roll your eyes, knowing he’s being dramatic. While he waits deceptively patiently for you to give in, he leisurely takes a wristwatch out of his pocket to put on, as if he’s got all the time in the world. "Clock’s ticking, keep it up and we’ll be late at this rate.”
You gape at him. The sheer audacity of this man, as if you’re the reason he’d be late. He only smirks at you, and it just infuriates you all the more. How he could so easily annoy the hell out of you and look so beautiful doing it. But you keep your mouth shut, and exasperatedly lean down to put on his tie for him, doing your best not to strangle him with it. It feels strangely intimate, and the brief reprieve finally gives you an opportunity to speak to him. 
"Thomas said you have to be present for all parts of the event. There will be reporters at the entrance taking photos, and…” you rattle off, before you realize Rafayel is being uncharacteristically silent, "Are you even listening?” 
You look up from the tie in your fingers to glance at Rafayel’s face. He doesn’t look the least bit interested in your words, instead his eyes are fixated on your wrist. You tap his chest to get his attention but he remains still, eyes still on your hands atop his collarbones. You curiously wave your hand in front of his face, hoping to snap him out of his trance. Fortunately you do, but unfortunately Rafayel grabs your wrist suddenly and urgently. 
“...what’s the matter?” The bewilderment is unmistakable in your voice. You’re used to Rafayel’s erratic and quirky behavior, but this was alarming, even to you.
Finally his gaze breaks away from your wrist and he speaks, "I heard you talking about the event…” but just as quickly as you’d diverted his attention, it's back on your wrist. His voice is unusually clouded, deeper than usual. His eyes are back on your wrist that’s enclosed in his fingers, as a strange expression crosses his face. It almost feels as if he’s trying to hold himself back, but you’re unsure from what. 
"Your hand…” he trails off, inexplicable emotions caught in his hoarse voice. He suddenly tugs you towards him by your wrist, and you stumble forward.  
"Rafayel?! Wait!” As you fall forward, your feet run out of space and hit the bottom of the sofa, causing you to tumble on top of him. He catches you easily, sitting you on top of his lap while he brings your captured wrist right up to the side of his face. The awkward position forces you to settle your legs on either side of his thighs, straddling him against the designer couch. The half knotted tie comes undone and you’re left clutching the smooth material in your hands. If it weren’t for the compromising position you found you and Rafayel in, you'd be slightly disappointed at seeing your hard work unraveled.  
The grip on your wrist tightens impossibly, almost possessively, "Hold still.” His command is not totally unusual; Rafayel is always demanding things of you, his precious bodyguard. But his voice comes out in a strange and sensual husk, leaving you confused, nervous, and weirdly burning. His silky smooth dress pants shuffle under you, and you’re reminded of the expensive clothes you’re pressed up against, likely worth more than a month of your hunter salary.  
"Your suit! It’ll get wrinkled.” 
"I don’t care…let me smell this…” he trails off, his voice sounding impossibly far away. You can feel the tickle of his inhale against your wrist and it makes you shiver, goosebumps forming under his touch. 
"What is that?” He asks, mostly to himself, lost in his own little world, "It smells good. And smells familiar…” 
It wasn’t at all uncommon for Rafayel to be mysterious and even enigmatic, but this was a whole other level of confusion for you, "What…what’s wrong? Did something happen?”  
His behavior is starting to worry you. He’s unusually breathless, and you can see a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. The last thing you needed was him getting sick! You could already hear his needy whines in your head at the mere thought. Demanding to be taken care of and waited on. You almost want to smile at the thought of it; you act constantly annoyed with Rafayel but deep down you know you can’t live without his antics. 
 "No, I'm fine. Very well, in fact,” but despite his words, Rafayel sounds anything but. His voice, normally a bright and charming, albeit annoying, timbre, is now a hoarse and needy rasp. His ticklish touch on the inside of your wrist reminds you of where you got the perfume that he was so intoxicated by. 
"Come to think of it...I tried an unreleased fragrance in the back office of the exhibition hall. It was made with special ingredients,” you scratch your chin with your free hand, trying your best to recall the name of it.  
"Perfume? You spritzed the perfume sample on your wrist?” 
You glance at him, concern and confusion written all over your face. Isn’t that what you do with perfumes? Rafayel shifts his gaze to your eyes, but his breath remains on the inside of your wrist. It’s deafeningly silent and you realize the scent of the perfume gradually grows stronger as your body temperature rises at the proximity of your body to Rafayel’s. You’re suddenly reminded of the fact that you’re sitting on his lap, and his face is so very close to your own.  
He’s still lost in his own thoughts as he murmurs, more to himself than you, "It’s a bit bitter like fermented plants…but very fragrant.” 
"It could be a mixture of artificial chemical stuff. Now, unhand me please,” you’re desperate to detach yourself from him, unsure if you can trust your body when it’s pressed so readily upon Rafayel’s own hard and sturdy stature. 
"No.”  
Your jaw drops at his audacity. But before you can berate him, he’s reaching his free hand to undo the buttons of his collar, as if the clothing is restricting him and making it hard to breath. His purple eyes are glazed over, and a beautiful faint blush paints his cheeks. His exposed collar and chest have you biting back your words, completely losing your train of thought. You squirm at the sight, but Rafayel’s hand on your thighs grip you in place, not letting you move a single inch. 
"I could’ve sworn I've smelled this fragrance before,” he presses your hand against his cheek as he continues to slowly inhale the scent by the mouthful. It wouldn’t be completely out of the question, the unreleased scent had been developed for his artworks for the collaboration, so it’s very likely he could’ve sampled it during production. 
"We can worry about it later. Let’s go. Everyone is waiting” you urge, feeling yourself blush as he shifts slightly under you, brushing against your sensitive inner thighs. You pull your hand away from his cheek, only for Rafayel to yank it back, like a child unwilling to share his favorite toy.
"Let me smell it again,” his demand is meant to be gentle, but comes out rough and urgent. You sigh, letting him melt into your hand again. It’s almost endearing; you quite like being so intimate with Rafayel. 
"You know, for someone who hates cats, you sure are acting like one,” you tease, "A kitty that found some catnip to be exact. 
The mere mention of cats is usually enough to set Rafayel off, pouting like a little baby that’s been teased. But instead, he just distractedly responds, "So then are you a cat? I am not a cat. And also, you’re not allowed to say that. I just couldn’t resist…” 
You roll your eyes but can’t help but grin at his adorableness, tempted to just give in to his touch, savoring every moment you possibly can before the bubble bursts.
 "What is this weird perfume…” he’s talking to himself again, inspecting your hand carefully. His jumbled thoughts have you worried for him again. Although Rafayel did often have energy that bordered on adhd, this was much more intense than that. 
"Are you alright?” You repeat, softly. He doesn’t respond, but leans his cheek into your touch, his lips turning so they’re practically kissing your palm. Like this, he inhales the scent with his parted lips. His adam's apple bobs as he gulps, almost feverishly. His hand reaches to further loosen his collared shirt, pulling it open to let the cool air soothe his burning skin.  
"It must be an allergic reaction. This isn’t perfume. How dare they use such underhanded methods to trap me…” his words both confuse and scare you. You’re growing increasingly worried about his flushed and sweaty complexion, his collarbones shining under the faint glow of the city lights through the massive windows. His words fill you with a terror you do not understand.
Rafayel holds the area between the bridge of his nose and his forehead, like his head is pounding, before returning to grip the collar of his dress shirt. His hand that holds yours is shaky as he rocks slowly underneath you, inhaling as much of the perfume as he can. His lap brushes against yours and your brain short circuits at the feeling of him pressed against you. 
"H-huh?” Is the only thing you’re capable of getting out.
"Who gave you the perfume? Who sent it?” His questions are increasingly alarming you, but you do your best to keep calm. You can tell he’s nervous as well, and the sight makes your chest squeeze. Wanting to comfort him, you cup his cheek in your palm and he leans into the touch so contentedly and groaning in satisfaction. Truly like a cat.
You blushed despite yourself. It was so difficult to not be aroused in this compromising position. You’d long since had a crush on Rafayel, always craving his silly antics and theatrics. Missing him intensely when he’d disappear for days at a time. 
"No one. Um, why do you look like you’re drunk?” You try to deflect from the burning between your thighs, hoping he can’t notice how hot and bothered you’ve become. 
"I’m not drunk. I just don’t like the scent,” he pouts, but nuzzles your hand against his cheek like a cat getting cheek scratches. He turns his lips back into your palm, opening his mouth until you can feel his teeth graze your skin. He groans as he continues to inhale the scent, making you bite back a moan of your own at his gentle nibbles. 
"Rafayel…you…” but you find yourself at a loss for words as he continues to breathe in your scent like it's the oxygen he needs to survive. Your own breaths start to come out in shallow pants, and you squirm in his lap. Rafayel moans softly into your palm, biting down gently to get you to stop. 
"Are you trying to run away again?” He asks, almost painfully, his eyes piercing into yours, so intense and searching. The glassy look in them reminds you of how much you’re worried about his current well being.
"Rafayel, you don’t look so good. Shouldnt you go to the doctor?” You use the hand Rafayel isn’t gripping to take his face between your free fingers and inspect his beautiful and flushed features.  
Rafayel’s breath hitches at your touch, goose flesh littering the skin where your touch singes, "I’m not going anywhere.” And though he doesn’t say it, you can feel what’s left unsaid.
And neither are you.
But he continues, dazed, "You’re gonna lock me up again…you’re with them. I just know it. Don’t think I'm unaware of what you’re about to do.” He has both your wrists in his hands now, gripping them on either side of his neck. "Y/n, I won’t fall for it again. Not this time.”
Though his words scare the shit out of you, you’re unable to concentrate on anything but his eyes that are trained on your neck, where your pulse thrums erratically in anticipation. You’re suddenly hyper aware that your heart is beating so fast you can hardly hear him anymore, despite his face being mere inches from yours. Your breath is close enough to mingle with his. It seems he notices too, because he inhales deeply and throws his head back, gasping.
It's then you realize it's not just the scent of the perfume that's setting Rafayel off, but your own scent mingled with it. 
"Rafayel, snap out of it!” You beg. But Rafayel can’t seem to hear you as his cold hand grips the side of your neck, where you’d also dabbed the perfume along. Your breath catches in your throat at the icy touch, unsure of what to do. 
Rafayel senses your hesitation, "Don’t worry. I’m not gonna do anything to you.” His voice is a throaty groan, and you’re honestly unsure if that’s even what you want. His body is almost on top of yours now, his breath deafening in your ear. And all you can think about is how you’d wish he’d press into you harder, until you’re suffocating, only able to breathe him in. 
But you go with your better judgment, pushing him gently, putting some distance between the two of you. He glances up from your neck, eyes unfocused, and says nothing. He finds himself staring at your lips that are parted slightly to let out the short pants of breath you’re wheezing out. He leans in slowly so he can breathe in as much of you as he possibly can, just nearly closing the proximity between your lips.  
Suddenly, your phone buzzes, snapping you out of your little bubble with Rafayel, "Its Thomas! He probably wants to remind us of the time. Let's head out!” You shove your phone until Rafayel’s hands, forcing him to take Thomas’s call for you.  
While he’s distracted, you slip out from beneath him and bolt to the nearest bathroom. As you move your legs, you’re made acutely aware of the slick that has formed in your panties. But you focus first on furiously washing off the scent from your wrists and neck. As you scrub, you glance up at the mirror in front of you. You swear at the site of yourself, unbelievably disheveled and undeniably aroused.  
As you continue to adamantly scrub, you can faintly make out Rafayel on the phone with Thomas, just outside. 
"No, we’re not going to make it. I need to take care of something urgent. Don’t call again please, bye.” When you turn off the faucet, you go to lean against the wall adjacent to the sink, trying to steady yourself and collect your thoughts. You turn around and gently rest your forehead against the wall, sighing into the cool surface against your burning skin, willing the arousal between your legs to go away. You try to remind yourself of poor Thomas all alone at the exhibition right now. Your guilt is short lived as you hear the patter of Rafayel’s feet approaching the bathroom. 
"Where are you going?” Rafayel’s words are right behind you, and his hand presses against the bathroom wall that your forehead rests on. You whip around and find yourself trapped between Rafayel’s hard body and the solid wall behind you. You back up instinctively, but find yourself hitting the cold surface before you even take a single step back. 
"Gotcha,” Rafayel smirks softly, and you tremble at his proximity to you. His other hand grips a towel bar to your left, while his other hand leans against the wall to your right, so you’re utterly trapped against him. He’s so close, close enough that you can feel his rapid breaths fanning across your parted lips. As Rafayel’s eyes roam all over you, from your lips to your heaving chest, you feel very much like a lamb caught in a lion’s den. Except you don’t want to escape. 
"Rafayel…” you murmur using both your hands to gently push against his chest, unintentionally brushing against the exposed skin below his collar, under his unbuttoned dress shirt. You’re hoping he’ll have mercy and release you, afraid that the palpable sexual tension in the air would cloud your, and Rafayel’s, judgment.  
He shivers as your wet hands brush against his chest, knuckles turning white as they grip the towel bar next to you. His breath comes out in shallow pants, chest heaving up and down, with a light sheen of sweat painting his pale skin. The sight snaps you out of the moment, reminding you that Rafayel seems like he might have a fever. 
"Let’s go to the hospital...I’m worried about you,” your hands shift to grip his open shirt, bringing the fabric together to cover him up. Rafayel’s hand releases the towel bar to take both of your hands into his, trapping them against his chest.  
"What will it take for you to believe that I'm okay? I’m exactly where I want to be,” his gruff voice invades all your senses while his eyes burn holes through your own. He presses himself further into you, until his forearm is resting against the wall above you, only your joined hands pressed against his chest separating the two of you. He leans down, his face now impossibly close to yours, and for a second you find yourself lost in his purple and blue cosmic eyes.  
You take a deep breath, trying to ground yourself to reality, and remind yourself that Rafayel’s actions are only fueled by the strange effects the perfume has on him. He’s not in his right mind, and you need to think for him.  
You whisper, craning your neck up to look into his eyes, "You’re not yourself right now. Let me help you, I can take you to the doctor.”  
Rafayel leans down, resting his chin in the crook of your neck. He breathes you in, the smell of the perfume, still potent despite the scrubbing, mixed with your pheromones invading his very being. Slowly, almost like it pains him to do so, he lifts his head away from you. He releases your hands and uses that same hand that gripped them to lift your chin towards him. 
"Do you know the only thing you could do that would help me?” His hooded eyes lock yours in. His voice is the soft purr you know and love, slightly tinged with a rough and carnal desire that shakes you to your core. 
"Name it. I’ll do it for you.“ part of you knows that Rafayel isn’t going to ask you for anything regarding his health but you can’t stop the words from coming out of your mouth. You’re stepping into very dangerous territory and you can’t hold yourself back. 
"Kiss me,” his voice is low, but the assertive demand in it is undeniable. His command makes you shift in between his legs against the wall, becoming hyper aware of how deeply your bodies pressed into each other. You know you want to, you’ve wanted to for some time now. But you can’t shake the idea that the strange effects of the perfume are clouding Rafayel’s judgment and inhibitions. 
"R-Rafayel…” you stutter hesitantly. Trembling ever so slightly, you lean in to peck his flushed cheek. You watch, slightly amused, as Rafayel’s ears get even pinker.
"Why must you always make me beg?” He whines. His lips stick out in a signature Rafayel pout, one you’ve grown to absolutely adore, no matter how annoying it can be.  
You can’t help but laugh breathlessly, your chin still in his grip, "I don’t make you. You just love to beg.“ 
With your face still in his grip, he sighs dramatically, "Then I won’t beg anymore.” He brings his face to yours and captures your lips with his. He swallows your surprised squeak, which is quickly replaced by a throaty moan of longing and anticipation. Rafayel absolutely devours your noises, his lips so commanding against your own, bending them to his every will. They’re so soft, and you can’t help but think they fit so perfectly slotted against your own.  
Though you can taste the urgency on him, Rafayel takes his time with you, engraving the taste and feel of you in his mind forever. He takes it so tortuously and deliciously slow that you find yourself nibbling on his bottom lip, begging him to take you fully.  
You can just feel his maddening smirk against your lips. Instead of indulging you, Rafayel laces his practiced fingers under your dress’s skirt and onto your thighs. Only when you yelp in surprise does he finally slip his tongue into your mouth, always intentionally doing things to take you by surprise.  
The new sensation of your tongues on each other seems to have Rafayel equally feral, because you feel the unmistakable press of his erection into your stomach. Needing to do something with your hands, you trace the outlines of his chest muscles, enjoying the feel of them finally against your fingers. 
Rafayel’s hands venture to your back, expertly undoing the zipper of your dress, and then your bra. Gasping into his open mouth as his fingers return to the pebbling skin of your nipples. He gives a harsh flick to each, and your knees buckle against the sensitivity. You sink down against the wall, lips still attached to his for dear life, but Rafayel shifts so that he catches you with his knee instead. The mid length black dress your wore rides up and serves as a sheer layer of protection between your dampening panties and his knee. The friction of his leg against your crotch is unbearable, forcing you to throw your head back in pleasure. 
Your reaction only serves to spur Rafayel further, as he begins to knead his knee into your cunt slowly. Your body turns to mush at the ecstasy of his knee against your most sensitive region, but Rafayel holds you steady with his hands gripping you from the swell of your underboobs.  
Burying his face into the crook of your neck, he inhales again. Unbeknownst to you, he practically comes undone at the smell of you alone, "You say I'm always whining but look at you.”  
You whimper at his teasing words right against your ear, clutching the back of his neck for support as he continues to hump his knee into you.  
Suddenly, Rafayel stops, letting his knee still against your increasingly damp cunt. You can’t help but whine as you look up into his amused eyes. There’s mischief in them as he grins, "I’m getting tired. You’re going to have to do the work.” 
Despite your lust clouded brain, you can still think coherently enough to see through his brattiness. You narrow your eyes at him, "You’re tired? Let me take you to the hospital. I knew you weren’t feeling well.” You duck down to escape his arms that cage you in, but he only lowers them so that they now trap you at the waist instead. 
"You’re so mean to me Y/N,” he huffs, "Can’t you tell how vulnerable I am right now?” 
"Because of the perfume? Why does it affect you so much?” You murmur, squeezing his cheeks slightly.  
From Rafayel’s expression you can tell he’s unwilling to share too much information. And as annoying as that was, you trusted him wholeheartedly and knew better than to prod him too much. You would take what you could get. 
He rests his head on your shoulder, unwilling to meet your stare. Dusting your hair behind your ear, he sniffs you again, practically consuming the scent. You shiver at the slight breeze he creates at your exposed neck, "I-It’s not just the perfume. I’ve dealt with this scent before, and I've developed a tolerance to it.” 
You hold his neck against your shoulder, and gently knead his damp skin, letting him inhale the smell like his life depended on it, "Then why?”
Rafayel sighs, releasing the wall behind you but instead trapping you by wrapping his arms around your waist, pressing your bodies together. You sigh in satisfaction as his erection presses warmly against you again, your pussy craving his touch
Finally he speaks, but his voice is low and almost feels dangerous, "The marine plant the perfume is extracted from…on its own no longer does anything to me. But when it’s exposed to another scent that I cannot control myself around…the reaction it causes can be extremely potent.” 
The sensations of his body pressed tightly against yours makes your brain practically non-functional, so you’re not following his train of thought, so you ask dumbly, "Like the air?”
You can practically hear Rafayel rolling his eyes in his voice, "I need air to survive but do you think I can’t control myself at all times of the day?”
"Okay well I'm confused! And to be fair you do act like an idiot at all times of the day so how am I supposed to know?!” He ignores you, taking another lungfull of the scent on your skin into his body. This time, he growls through an intense shiver, his grip on your body tightening against him. As if the very smell of your skin drove him into a lust filled craze. 
And that’s when you realize what he meant.
"O-oh,” is all you can squeak out. Strangely enough, the idea that your scent is what is driving Rafayel to madness makes you leak further into the puddle that had formed in your panties. 
Rafayel groans again, one his fists releasing your body to gently pound into the wall behind you, "I-I can smell the arousal in your scent. It’s driving me insane.” 
Knowing he can smell the dampness between your thighs is both utterly embarrassing and completely erotic. Your heart lurches, wanting nothing but to take his discomfort away and make him feel good, "H-how can I help you?” 
Reluctantly, he removes his chin off your shoulder and turns to face you, gripping your biceps in his hands, almost to the point of pain, "Do you mean that? Because you can’t take it back.”
Shivering at the implications of his words, you nod slowly but more sure than ever, "Yes. Let me help you. I want to help you” 
"I-If you want to help me…” Rafayel’s voice is doubtful, like he’s scared you will deny him before he’s even gotten the chance to put his request out. Between your thighs, you feel his knee creeping its way back against your leaking cunt. The shock to your recovering clit causes you to clutch Rafayel’s firm shoulders and throw your head back with a breathy moan. Rafayel feeds off your pleasure, imagining what you would sound like when you were actually stuffed to the brim with him. 
"I want...I need to see you cum all over me,” Rafayels throaty plea makes you blush profusely. You almost want to smack him across the head for his shameless words, but the pout on his face reminds you that he’s absolutely serious that this will help him. That seeing you come undone for him will help take the edge off of the effect the perfume is having on him. 
"O-okay.” You gulp, nodding. The relief on his face is mixed with unbridled excitement that makes you squirm in anticipation of what's to come. Your feet shift, which causes you to grind down on his knee once more. Unable to withstand the unintentional teasing any further, you languidly moan and grind your leaking cunt against him to relieve some of the pulsing tension in your gut. 
Your broken groans grace Rafayel’s ears and you can actually see his eyes light up with pleasure while his ears burn an even deeper red. His breath is shaky as he dips his head back down, inhaling deeply and dusting a kiss to the pulse point on your neck. You shiver as he gently uses his tongue against your neck to soothe his raging desire. 
His reaction intrigues you, and you can’t help but want to tease him further, just a little. Peering at him through your eyelashes, you tip toe upwards so you can fan your bated breath across his face, letting him bask in your scent. Your tongue reaches out to gently swipe across his bottom lip, all the while you continue to pleasure yourself using his thigh. 
Rafayel is unable to contain his excitement as he watches you use his body for your own gratification. He pants desperately into the crook of your neck, high off your pheromones invading all his senses. Through both your whiny moans, you reach out to graze his cock through his dress pants. 
Rafayel hisses at the slightest contact, and his reaction ignites your confidence, provoking you further. You grip him through the silky smooth trousers, holding his throbbing erection in your hand, using your thumb to tease where you think his slit would be.
"Fuck–hah, be gentle please baby. M’sensitive,” he whines through gritted teeth. Your cunt clenches at his words, so teasing yet so endearing from Rafayel’s lips. You can feel the coil in your gut tightening as you continue to hump into Rafayel’s knee, using his body to chase your own high. Your black dress has ridden up, and now the only barrier between Rafayel’s knee and your sopping pussy is your equally soaked panties. You bite your lip and pray that Rafayel doesn’t notice the moist streaks that are starting to appear on his expensive pants. 
Through your hooded eyes, you can see Rafayel is enjoying this just as much, if not more, than you are. His eyes are thick with lust, and you can practically see the pulse of his neck pound against his delicate skin. He desperately gasps for air, or maybe he’s trying to breathe more of you in, as you near your earth shattering climax. 
"Touch yourself for me,” you purr at him, purposely jutting your bottom lip out in a pout. He obliges obediently, one hand quickly undoing his belt and slipping in to grab his unbelievably hard cock into his hands. 
As you watch his face contort in pleasure, you’re filled with the need to grab him into your own hands. "Can I touch you too?” You ask innocently with wide eyes, imagining just how smooth he will feel in your bare hands. 
Rafayel whines, still obediently pumping his cock in his hands, "Yes please, I need you to touch me.” At his plea, you let your hands find their way to his hands, still diligently pumping up and down. You wrap your smaller hand over his and mimic his motions. You gasp at the sheer size of him, your fingers just barely able to wrap around his girth. You can feel his veins throbbing against your fingers, begging you to continue further. The sheer amount of pre cum that already coats his fingers, and now yours, makes you wonder how delicious his spend would feel inside you instead.
"You’re so dam beautiful when you – fuck – use me like this. Dreamed about this for s’long,” he bites out, his hands finding your nipples once more. His long artist fingers tease you expertly, taking the peaks and rolling them gently.
His skilled hands and filthy words accelerate the intensity of your body’s peak quickly approaching you. His entire body is flushed and burns under the pumps of your fist, likely exacerbated by the effects of your scent. You respond to his endless stream of gasps and swears with breathless mewls of your own, whispering sweet words into his ear. 
"Let me cum Rafayel, please. Want to cum for you s’bad,” you beg against him, despite him having given you all the power already, knowing the begging will drive him insane. 
Rafayel drives his knee further into you as your core grinds into him like second nature. Your wrists vigorously pump his leaking cock, the thick heat of it feeling absolutely unreal against your palm. With your free hand you thread your fingers through his long soft hair, gripping gently. With a strangled groan Rafayel sinks his teeth into your neck, sucking at your pulse point as if he’s trying to devour your scent. Reluctantly he pulls away, throwing his head back in pure pleasure once more. 
 "F-fuck you drive me fucking crazy Y/N,” he pants, his thick length throbbing at your vigorous pumps along his shaft, almost as if his heart was beating inside it. The endless precum that falls from the tip coats your fingers, making a wet mess in Rafayel’s pants and your palm.
 He groans in disappointment when you release his erection, but his eyes are trained on your every movement. Overcome with your aching need for the gorgeous purple haired man before you, you bring your soaked fingers to your lips and slowly insert your index and middle finger into your parted mouth. You make a show of letting your tongue lap up his essence from your digits, never letting your eyes break contact with his as you devour him off your fingers. You can’t help but let out a muffled moan at the taste of him, sweeter than you could have ever fathomed, so deliciously Rafayel.
He nearly hyperventilates as you peer at him through the tears of pleasure that had beaded onto your eyelashes. "Look at you, hah, like a fucking masterpiece,” his thumb caresses your lip as his breathless praises make you squirm against his knee. The pre cum on his thumb swipes onto your tongue, and you itch to taste him again. You shift yourself so that you can take his thumb into your mouth, using your tongue to swipe all the slick off his slender fingers. 
Rafayel shivers at your touch, his mind a mush of lust and adoration as he watches your eyes roll back at the taste of his cum on your lips.  
"You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmurs, drunk off your pheromones invading his senses. You only smile at him and tip toe up to press your lips against his, wanting him to be able to taste himself on your tongue. He groans into your mouth at the odd sensation of being able to taste both himself and you all at once. Both his hands come up to thread in your hair, pulling you as deeply into him as he possibly can. You can feel his exposed chest against your own, his heart pounding rapidly against the swell of your dress covered breasts. The proximity lets him control every twitch of his quads against your cunt and you cry into his mouth at the stimulation. 
As you continue to fuck yourself onto his knee, you find yourself on the cusp of your orgasm, nearly blinded by the ecstasy of his leg wedged between your thighs and the salty taste of his slick on your tongue, "Raf-Rafayel, m’gonna cum.” 
Despite his furious blush, he smirks at you, as devilishly handsome as ever, "You gonna cum on my knee baby?” 
If it weren’t for the cloud of pleasure fogging your every nerve you’d surely have a snarky retort to throw back at him, but the need to have him is so great you can’t think of a single thing. Without even needing to enter you, Rafayel has rendered you utterly fucked out.  
So instead, you nod eagerly as your grinding against his knee becomes increasingly sloppy and erratic. Rafayel, entranced by the utterly fucked bliss in your eyes can’t stop himself from falling deeper into the abyss that is you: your voice, your eyes, your smell, your soul. He finds himself realizing that, though he’s seen millions of dollars in once in a lifetime artworks, even creating some of his own to add to this infinite world, the entire universe pales in comparison to you. The thick haze of emotions overwhelms him and he finds himself begging, once again. 
"P-please cum for me, my love. I need to see it,” Rafayel begs into your ear, his breath hot against your skin. The sensation makes your entire body shiver, causing your cunt to quiver further into his soaked knee. You’re not used to his voice, normally teasing and bratty voice, being this needy and adoring. It’s all enough to shove you viciously into your orgasm. You cling onto Rafayel as you release all over your panties and his leg, still languidly grinding into you.  
You can’t stop the screams that rip out of your mouth, pure ecstasy and satisfaction laced into your very breath. Rafayel holds you tightly against him, cooing into your ear, talking you through the waves of pleasure, as the excruciating ecstasy makes tears spill out of your eyes and onto your cheeks. 
Rafayel eyes widen in pure awe as he watches every shiver and twitch of your orgasm against his leg. He throws his head back, swearing as your scent becomes exponentially more potent. The smell of your spend is thick in the air, mixing with your pheromones and the perfume until it overloads every nerve in his body. The throbbing in his cock grows unbearable even with nothing touching it, physically twitching uncontrollably as he explodes inside his slacks. 
You cry out one last time when your thighs collapse from the intense climax, and Rafayel catches you by your waist, holding you steady against him and the wall behind you. The movements against your cunt slow as you ride out the final waves of your orgasm. With nothing separating his thigh from your cunt but your soaked panties, Rafayel can swear he feels your clit throb against him, the aftershocks of your climax wracking your body, just as the effects of his own orgasm sear through his. 
You’re a panting and sobbing mess against his flushed chest. Your legs are completely useless, supported solely by Rafayel’s strong and safe arms around your waist and his knee still wedged between you. He rests his face in the mess of your hair, breathing you into him. Unbeknownst to you, Rafayel is reeling from his own climax as he holds you protectively against him, almost for dear life.
Through the comfortable silence that has blanketed the bathroom, Rafayel’s voice vibrates on the top of your head, "You smell so fucking good baby.” 
You smile contentedly against Rafayel’s chest, your hands reaching up to smooth his curly hair away from his sweaty forehead, "Do you feel better?”
He smiles against your head, taking another deep breath of you into him. His voice is thick with satisfaction, but also unrelenting hunger, "Yes, but…” you wait for him to finish his thought, but there’s only silence.
"Rafayel?”
His reply comes out strangled and heavy against the top of your head, "I-I need more. I need you.”
You shift so you can look up at him. He doesn’t speak, but his hooded eyes tell you everything he’s thinking. Maybe it’s the post orgasm haze, but you find yourself being unable to deny Rafayel, wanting nothing more than to please him.
Getting on your toes so you can reach him, you let your bottom lip brush against his, relishing in the way his breath catches in his throat, and whisper, "Take me Rafayel.” 
 "Sh-shit,” he mumbles and presses his lips the rest of the short distance into yours. He tears into you with such torrid intensity that your knees buckle. As his palms hold your face in place, you cling onto his shoulders for support, the feeling of him enveloping you so overwhelmingly addicting. As your legs give out under the excruciating anticipation of what’s to come, you hook your knee into Rafayel’s waist. He grips your thigh, lifting it to hook around his back. His hand kneads into your bare skin as he reluctantly tears his lips from yours. 
"You can’t stand anymore?” His cocky grin contrasts the deep blush on his cheeks. Before you can snap back at him, he hoists you up against the wall. Instinctively you yelp, wrapping your other leg against his waist as he holds you securely against the cool tiles behind you and his solid abdomen.  
His lips simultaneously find yours again, locking deeply with an unrelenting passion that quite literally takes your breath away. As your breath becomes his, your thighs clench at the crushing intensity of his lips, wanting him deeper, harder. His tongue explores every inch of you, and you whimper into him at the pure need that was manifesting in your gut once more. 
Feverishly, Rafayel breaks away, like he cannot possibly wait another second. He doesn’t even break a sweat as he balances your squirming body with one hand, his other hand reaching down to pull off his belt that he’d undone earlier.
You want to ask Rafayel if it’d be more comfortable to go to his bed or even the studio sofa, but you’re rendered speechless as he pulls his cock out of his slacks. You’d felt it in your hands earlier, but seeing it in all its glory under the light was a whole different story. 
Rafayel definitely took pride in how he presented himself, his hair, his clothes; everything about him was pristine and curated just how he wanted others to see him. And his manhood was no different. He stood absolutely proud against his naval, his impressive length erect enough to touch just below his belly button, curving straight up. He’s unsurprisinglt well groomed, but with a dusting of pubic hair along his happy trail to his glorious cock. Like Rafayel himself, it was nothing short of art.
But then you noticed that he has trails of white cream smeared all over his delicious length, matted into the hair along his pelvis. Far too much to be just pre cum. 
"D-did you cum earlier?” You can’t stop the grin that forms on your face as you realize Rafayel had finished earlier just watching you pleasure yourself against him. Literally came undone at the mere thought and sight of your pleasure.
Rafayel averts his eyes, hiding under his tousled bangs, his face tomato red, "Sh-shut up!” His reaction only makes you laugh and want to provoke him more.
"You’re such a bad boy Rafayel, cumming without me touching you,” you coo, using one hand to scratch his hair soothingly, "Just an eager little kitty for me.”
Rafayel’s eyes narrow as his lips form his signature pouty grimace, "I am not a cat.”
You open your mouth to tease him more, but Rafayel pushes you harder into the wall so he can free one hand to rub his thumb against your lips. You yelp at the feel of the stone cold wall being pressed further into your burning skin. With his finger on your mouth, his eyebrow raise at you pointedly.  His eyes light up with an intense and burning warning, "I’m about to fucking ravage you. Are you sure you want to keep teasing me?”
His words shut you up instantly. You shake your head vehemently and obediently, your cunt aching at his promises, needing nothing more than to be filled with him.
"Good girl,” he murmurs, his hand moving off your lips to reach under your dress, hooking his finger into the waistband of your panties. You shiver at the feel of his palm on your waist, as he attempts to pull them off of you. But he quickly grows impatiently frustrated at the tangle of your bodies. 
"I'll buy you another pair, ‘kay?” You’re about to protest but Rafayel wastes absolutely no time, bunching the delicate material in his fist and tearing it off you. You gape as the sound of fabric ripping sounds in the air and watch the lace material fall to the ground. 
"R-Rafayel! I liked that pair!” You scold, hitting his shoulder in a mixture of disbelief but also arousal at his primal urge. You know you should be more upset but you find yourself just melting into a puddle at his unabashed behavior. I mean honestly you wore those in hopes that he might see them anyways.  
"I'll buy you as many as you want, if you let me rip them off of you,” he grins in feigned apologeticness. At your expression he continues, this time earnestly, "M’sorry, just can’t wait anymore.” And with those words, Rafayel sheaths himself into you. You yelp at the alarming stretch, his girth much more than you’re used to. Even with the thick slick of your combined orgasms, it’s slightly painful to accommodate him.
Simultaneously, Rafayel cries out huskily as he enters you, your grip down there absolutely strangling his erection. The finish of your first climax thickly coats his cock, but it’s just barely enough to offset the stretch from how thick he is. His strong arms hold you securely in place as his pelvis slowly begins thrusting up into you, pushing you up the wall at every stroke. 
The angle he has you in meant every single thrust hits your cervix, his cock unbelievably lengthy. The curvature causes every stroke to drag deliciously against your g spot which makes you cream uncontrollably at each thrust, a ring of white forming at the base of his cock that splashes into you with every vigorous stroke. Your clit rubs roughly against his pelvis, his coarse happy trail rubbing against it with every movement, stimulating your body beyond belief.
"Fuck you’re taking me so well baby,” Rafayel moans into your ear, swallowing another mouthful of your aroma. You whimper as you feel him getting unbelievably harder at your scent alone, his solid flesh brushing against every single corner of your gummy walls. His veins throb inside of you as he twitches in pleasure. "So fucking tight, all for me yeah?” 
"Raf, s’big. Feel s’good,” you slur, the haze of ecstasy starting to cloud your consciousness. His thrusts go harder, deeper, at your praises, and you cry out, unable to stop your thighs, and simultaneously your cunt, from tightening around him. 
A strangled moan leaves his lips at your movements, his damp forehead pressing against yours as one of his hands leave your thighs to grip the wall next to you. "Sh-shit are you always this tight or is this jus’ for me?”
Before you can respond, Rafayel is babbling huskily into your ear again, "Wish you could see yourself right now. You look so beautiful, so fucked out, all for me huh?” 
Your eyes squeeze shut at his filthy words, and you can’t help but clench down on him again. Your profuse arousal coats the hair along his pelvis, creating the most filthy and lewd noises as Rafayel continues to bounce you onto his cock, his stamina absolutely unreal. Your lips chant his name, over and over, your brain only filled with him. 
"Look at me Y/N, need to see you,” Rafayel begs into your neck, still absolutely inhaling your pheromones, getting harder at every intake, "Jesus you smell so fucking good.”
You force your eyes open, fighting the ecstasy from taking over completely. As he shifts to stare into your eyes, he gives you the most gorgeous Rafayel smile that threatens to short circuit your brain and stop your heart. There’s an overwhelming swirl of emotions in his purple-blue eyes: lust, mischief, adoration, respect, longing, and…so much love. 
It’s all enough to make you want to confess the feelings you yourself had forced deep down, trying desperately to forget them for the sake of your friendship and working relationship. Rafayel keeps staring into your eyes, straight into your soul, and you finally open your mouth to try and find the words, "I–”
But instead, he cuts you off, bending down so your lips brush against each other again, "I know.” With those words, he presses himself needily into your waiting mouth
Grateful that he doesn’t need you to say the words, you return his kiss with equal fervor, doing your best to convey all the things you had wanted to say.
The bruisingly passionate kiss pushes you towards the edge as Rafayel continues to bounce you ruthlessly onto his cock. You’re forced to pull away from his lips to let out a strangled cry of pleasure. Through the overwhelming ecstasy, Rafayel takes the opportunity to shove his hand in between your bodies, easily finding your clit. The stimulation forces you to scream out uncontrollably, your eyes and head rolling back into the wall. 
"Jesus look at how soaked you are Y/N,” he mumbles in awe, eyes glued to where your bodies connected, "Look, baby.”
At his urging, you force yourself to lift your head off the wall and glance down at his fervent ministrations. The sight you’re met is enough to make you finish all over him right then and there. 
The veins in Rafayel’s thick forearm bulge as he paws at your clit furiously, the slick glistening on his thick length and splatters as the force of his thrusts rattle you deliciously against the cold wall. As he pulls out of you entirely with each thrust, you can see the throb of each vein of his cock, aching to be thrust back inside you. 
"Raf-Rafayel,” you gasp out, "I–”
"I-I know baby, I can feel it. Squeezing the life out of me,” he groans, shifting your entire weight onto his right arm while his left forearm slams into the wall above your head, anchoring him and allowing him to fuck into you with a new mind numbing intensity. 
His chin digs into your shoulder as he hammers into you relentlessly, "Ffuuck baby, gonna make me cum all – shit – over you huh?”
The force of the orgasm that chases you is utterly blinding, and against your better judgment you plead with him, "P-please cum inside Raf, I want to feel you.”
You can feel his panting breath hitch by your ear, and he whispers, "Are you sure? Don’t tease me Y/N. Y-you can’t take it back. Please.”
"Won’t take it b-back,” you wail as his thrusts bruise your walls, the painful pleasure edging you closer and closer to your undoing. "Please Rafayel, need you inside me s’badly.”
At your begging, Rafayel goes absolutely insane. He slams you so vigorously against the wall that you can practically feel the entire house shake. Every throbbing thrust pushes against your more sensitive spots, bullying right into your cervix. His breath becomes increasingly erratic and he sinks his teeth into your neck to contain his throaty moans. 
The sudden sensation of his teeth against your pulse, so dangerously aggressive yet gently teasing, sends you barreling into your orgasm. "Cumming, cumming, m’cumming Raf,” you wail repeatedly, unable to form any other words as tears stream down your face and onto his ruined dress shirt. 
Your hand roughly tears at Rafayel’s hair as he continues to ravage both your clit and your aching hole, finally sending your body into the mind numbing explosion of your climax. Your cunt grips onto him for dear life, throbbing uncontrollably to the sloppy rhythm of his thrusts. You ride the endless waves of your orgasm, vision blurring as tears continue to spill from your eyes. 
"Raf, s’too much,” you whimper, fingers releasing his hair and reaching down to scratch at his back, trying to relieve any of the overwhelming pleasure that threatened to make you lose consciousness. You couldn’t bring yourself to care about how you were destroying Rafayel’s expensive shirt under your nails. Your legs tighten around his waist as he continues to pound you into the wall. You’re almost sure your body will be battered and bruise tomorrow, not that you’d complain. 
"M’sorry,” he pants, but only thrusts harder and faster, "Jus’ hold onto me love. M’so – ffuuck – so fucking close.” You nod obediently, still riding the last receeding waves of your own orgasm, pussy quivering around every ridge and vein on his shaft. 
"Jesus if you could feel how tight you’re squeezing me right now,” Rafayel grits through clenched teeth, "You want me to cum inside you that bad? That you’re gonna force it out of me?”
Your lids feel so heavy as the pleasure of your orgasm ebbs into exhausted satisfaction, and you murmur, "M’not doing anything Raf, you jus’ feel so good. So deep.”
At your praises, Rafayel lets out a strangled groan and comes undone inside of you. You cry out as the warmth of his spend fills you, soothing the ache from the ravaging your poor cunt just took. He shoots rope after rope of it into you, a never ending stream of him emptying inside of you.
Rafayel rests his forehead against yours, his forearm still using the wall above your head to support him. You both pant into each other as the quivering of your cunt squeezes every last drop of him inside you. He shivers at the feeling of your womanhood throbbing around his softening member, completely spent.
Rafayel does his best to keep himself, and you, upright. His arms shake slightly, the aftershocks of his own orgasm devastating every muscle in his body. You can feel his biceps trembling, you fight to keep your eyes open, "S’okay Raf I can stand.”
"Okay love,” he murmurs into your hair, taking in one last whiff of your scent, before pressing a gentle kiss onto your forehead. You whimper as he slips out of you, your sore hole still wanting nothing more to be filled by Rafayel. You do your best to ignore the thick streaks of your collective spend dripping down your legs. As you unhook your thighs and let your feet touch the floor, your body gives out.
Rafayel catches you before your knees can crash into the tiled bathroom floor. You don’t have to look at his face to know he’s smirking at you.
"Need me to carry you baby?”
As you hold yourself up clutching his arm, you narrow your eyes at him, "No. Shut up.”
Rafayel chuckles, the smile in his eyes glowing brightly at you, "Come on Y/N, let me take care of you.”
Your snappy refusal is cut off by your squeal as Rafayel scoops you into his arms, like a princess. You wince at the feeling of the smearing of dampness between your thighs as Rafayel hooks his arms under your thighs. You hadn't even noticed that he’d put his belt back on. 
"Always with the theatrics Rafayel,” you grin, unable to stop yourself from burying your face into his chest. He smiles in response as he carries you through his home. You breathe in Rafayel’s scent, an intoxicating blend of sea salt, cardamom, and arousal. 
"You love me.” 
You sigh to yourself, love him you absolutely did. But that was a conversation you two would need to have another day. 
Looking up, you find yourself in Rafayel’s room, his white curtains billowing as the night time breeze cascades through them. As Rafayel sets you down on his plush king sized bed, your phone rings from the inside of his pocket. You’d almost forgotten you’d given him your phone when Thomas had called earlier. 
The phone keeps ringing as Rafayel sits besides where you lay, attention focused solely on you. You pat his thigh, "Raf? Can you pick up my phone?”
Rafayel grimaces as he grabs your cell phone from his slack pockets. "It’s just Thomas,” he grumbles like a child, "I told him not to call again.”
He takes one look at your unamused expression and sighs in defeat, "Fine fine.” 
Rafayel picks up the phone, snapping, "What Thomas?” 
"Speaker phone,” you mouth at him, only able to hear Thomas’s erratic mumbles through the phone. He rolls his eyes, but puts the call on speaker, holding it up between you two.
"You guys better be half dead in a ditch or actually dead,” he threatens sulkily, "How could you guys not show up?”
"Didn’t I say not to call again?” Rafayel fires back, but his tone is teasing. You know Rafayel cares about Thomas a lot, even if he makes the agent’s life hell. 
"Thomas, I'm so sorry! I’ll make it up to you I swear,” you apologize, feeling horribly guilty. You could only imagine how many angry sponsors and reporters he had to deal with. 
As Rafayel holds the phone with one hand for you to speak into, he notices your black dress had ridden up to reveal glistening streaks pooling down your legs. He uses the index finger of his free hand to scoop up the spend that continues to drip down your thighs. Your breath hitches as he smirks at you, his hand creeping up further, into your inner thigh. 
"You owe me so many dinners,” Thomas grumbles, but you have a difficult time paying attention to the rest of his words as Rafayel’s hands venture further up, dangerously. You give him a warning look, but his fingers only trail up further to tease you, grazing against your bare slit. 
"Are you guys even listening to me?” Thomas demands through the phone, his tone is as pouty as Rafayel normally is.
"Y-yes, I'm sorry,” you try to keep your voice as steady as possible, "I'll uh, I'll get you take out tomorrow!” You swat at Rafayel’s lingering hands but he doesn’t budge. His ears are pink and you notice his breaths are coming out in short pants as he quietly climbs onto the bed at your feet. You do your best to keep your own moans from bursting uncontrollably out of your lips as his fingers relentlessly tease you.
"Yes, and I want boba too. With extra – wait. What are you guys doing?” Rafayel and your eyes snap to each other and then to the phone. You’re about to speak when Thomas’s shrill voice cuts in again.
"You guys better not be doing what I think you’re doing! I swear to g–”
“‘Kay gotta go bye bye Thomas love you!” Rafayel interrupts sheepishly, ending the call with his thumb. There’s a brief moment of disbelief and silence before you both burst out into laughter. 
You clutch your stomach, trying to catch your breath as the uncontrollable giggles keep coming. But the thought of Thomas makes you feel guilty again, "Rafayel maybe we can still make it to the party if we hurry. We can’t just leave Thomas –”
Rafayel shushes you with his finger, his hair falling into his eyes as he leans over you, "I just got an idea for a painting and I have to start right now.” 
You’re no stranger to Rafayel’s spontaneous bouts of inspiration. In the past, he’d literally drag you to the oceanside and not ten minutes into the excursion, he’d race home needing to get started on an idea he had right then and there. And sometimes he’d forget you at the beach.
"Right now? But we’re not in the studio,” you squirm as Rafayel leans closer to your face, shifting his body so that he’s kneeling at your feet, in between your legs. 
"Oh. I meant a different kind of painting. Maybe on your stomach,” your brows furrow in confusion at his words as he smirks mischievously at you. You squeak as he climbs to hover over you, his body pressed against your still sensitive areas. Your body heats up again as the feel of his hardening cock against you. 
His thumb presses against your bottom lip, the salty taste of him invading your senses once more, "Or maybe…on your beautiful face.”
The implications of his words finally hits you all at once, and your face burns like a wildfire. You hit his shoulder weakly and unconvincingly, already succumbing to the arousal pooling back in your thighs as you watch the desperate need return to his eyes. 
"R-Rafayel!” 
"Then again you’re already a piece of art,” he murmurs, his voice groggy with desire. He presses a kiss to your parted lips, then to your exposed collarbone, and then to your covered breasts, "But you know me. I like to take my time with my art.”  Oh you were utterly fucked.
Tumblr media
© aeyumicore 2024.
.ᐟ✧ THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND AO3. i am not @/aeyumicores or @/aeyumiicore or any variations of my blog name.
✧.˖ i do not permit translations or reposts of my work on tumblr, ao3, or others. please do not reuse my blogpost headers, dividers, or layouts. these are original designs of my own.
3K notes · View notes
gyuuberryy · 6 days
Text
prince charming's mismatch
Tumblr media
pairing: prince!heeseung x princess!reader
synopsis: you and prince heeseung have been rivals for as long as you can remember. what began as childhood clashes has grown into a deep-seated animosity over the years. but when your sister runs away on her wedding day, you're forced to take her place and marry heeseung—the last person you ever wanted to call your husband.
now bound in an unwanted marriage, you’re faced with navigating the tension between your unresolved hatred and an unexpected attraction. as palace intrigue and looming threats surround you both, you must confront the truth of your feelings. will the bitterness between you tear you apart, or will it ignite something far more powerful?
genre: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, arranged marriage au
warnings: highly suggestive content!!! kissing, hee and reader are mean at first, insecurities, jealous!hee
note: i've been meaning to write this plot for an year now, im happy with how it turned out! e2l with hee is always soo fun to write. enjoyy
word count: 11.5k
royally yours masterlist | next: jay
if you liked it please reblog or comment to give me your feedback! <3
Tumblr media
the first time you met prince heeseung, it was at a grand summer garden party hosted by your parents in the palace’s sprawling grounds. you were barely six years old, and he wasn’t much older, yet even then, the air between you crackled with something akin to competition. your governess had dressed you in your finest lace frock, with your hair tied in perfect ribbons, but none of that mattered. you were too busy building a grand sandcastle near the fountain, your little fingers carefully patting the turrets into shape.
that was when heeseung appeared, his shadow falling over your castle like a storm cloud. he crouched beside you without so much as a polite greeting, his royal title apparently excusing his lack of manners. his eyes, sharp for a child, surveyed your handiwork critically.
“that’s not right,” he declared, reaching out to touch one of your towers. “the walls need to be thicker, or it’ll fall.”
you frowned, already bristling at the unsolicited advice. “it’s my castle. i know what i’m doing.”
he smirked, a small, superior thing that made your blood simmer even at that tender age. without asking, he began "fixing" it, his hands too rough as he demolished what you had so carefully crafted.
“stop!” you cried, shoving him back with all the strength your little body could muster. heeseung stumbled, landing awkwardly on the grass, but instead of being chastened, he merely laughed.
“see?” he said, gesturing at the collapsed sandcastle. “i told you it would fall.”
tears of frustration welled in your eyes as you glared at him. “you ruined it! i didn’t ask for your help!”
heeseung stood, dusting off his fine clothes, a boyish smirk still plastered on his face. “you should thank me. i was doing you a favour.”
from that day forward, any time your families met, it was as if an unspoken rule had been established—whenever you were in the same room, you and heeseung would find something to argue about. it didn’t matter if it was who deserved the biggest slice of cake or who could recite their latin conjugations faster; the two of you were constantly at odds.
as the years passed, your mutual disdain only deepened. by the time you were ten, heeseung had already earned a reputation as the golden boy of his kingdom, a future king who excelled in everything he touched. your own accomplishments were always impressive—your parents had ensured you were well-versed in languages, history, and the fine arts—but whenever heeseung was around, it felt as though all your achievements paled in comparison.
“did you hear?” one of your tutors asked one morning as you sat in the drawing room, diligently practising your embroidery. “prince heeseung has been awarded top marks in his studies again. he’s to receive a commendation from the royal academy.”
you didn’t look up, but your needle paused for the briefest of moments. “how wonderful for him,” you muttered, the words heavy with sarcasm.
that evening, at another royal banquet, you couldn’t help but bring up your own accomplishments, eager for even a crumb of recognition.
“i’ve been practising my archery,” you said proudly to the gathered guests, though your eyes couldn’t help but flick toward heeseung, who lounged nearby, looking as regal and aloof as ever. “i managed to hit the bullseye several times this week.”
heeseung glanced up lazily, catching your eye with that familiar, insufferable smirk. “impressive,” he said in a bored tone, “though archery isn’t quite the same as, say, fencing. that requires real skill.”
your fists clenched under the table, your pride wounded by his casual dismissal. but this was the way it always went. no matter what you did, heeseung always found a way to make it seem insignificant, as though he were the sun and you were merely a star dimmed by his brilliance.
by the time you were both teenagers, the animosity between you had grown more complicated, though no less intense. you found yourselves at the same royal gatherings, balls, and court functions, and each time, it was as if the entire room held its breath, waiting to see what you and heeseung would clash over next.
at one particularly grand ball, you had been feeling proud of your debut. you wore a gown of the finest silk, and you’d received more than a few admiring glances from the eligible noblemen in attendance. you were certain this was your night to shine—until heeseung approached.
“you look well enough,” he said, his voice smooth but with an edge that set your teeth on edge. “though i hope you don’t trip during the quadrille like last time.”
your cheeks flushed, remembering all too well the minor misstep you’d taken at a previous ball. “i won’t,” you snapped, glaring at him. “and even if i did, it’s better than fencing yourself into a corner like you did at the tournament last month.”
his smile faltered for just a second, but that was enough to make you feel victorious.
yet, despite the constant barbs, there was something else simmering beneath the surface now—a tension you refused to name. you hated the way your heart raced whenever heeseung was near, the way his presence seemed to fill every corner of a room. and, though you’d never admit it, you hated even more that part of you missed the old days when your squabbles were simple, childish things.
it all changed the day your sister’s engagement to heeseung was announced. the prince who had been your lifelong nemesis was now to become your sister’s husband, the future king of your kingdom. it was a match made for political alliance, but it felt like a betrayal. you had expected more from him—well, not more kindness, but certainly more rebellion. yet, heeseung accepted the engagement with the same cool composure he did everything else.
for the first time in years, he stopped seeking you out, stopped picking those fights you had come to expect. he no longer bothered with sharp remarks or smug smiles. instead, he kept his distance, as though you were beneath his notice.
you told yourself it didn’t matter. after all, what did you care if heeseung ignored you now? he was going to be your brother-in-law, and that was enough reason to keep things civil. and yet, a strange, hollow feeling settled in your chest whenever you saw him and your sister together. he was colder now, more mature, but somehow more distant than ever.
little did you know, your rivalry with prince heeseung was far from over. if anything, it was only just beginning.
Tumblr media
the night your world fell apart, it started with a simple knock on your chamber door. the palace had been abuzz with preparations—florists arranging garlands, tailors hemming gowns, and courtiers whispering about the grand union that would strengthen two kingdoms. you had spent the evening rehearsing your duties as maid of honour, biting back any remnants of bitterness that still clung to your feelings about the match. it didn’t matter that you had spent your entire life despising heeseung; your sister loved him, or at least, she was supposed to.
you were preparing to retire, brushing your hair by the dim glow of candlelight, when your sister slipped into the room, her face pale and eyes wide with fear. you’d never seen her look so frantic. your heart sank before she even said a word.
“i’m not going to marry him,” she whispered, wringing her hands in the folds of her silk nightgown. her voice trembled, but it was steady enough for you to know she wasn’t joking.
your heart lurched. “what are you talking about? the wedding is tomorrow!”
her wide eyes darted to the door as if she feared someone might overhear. she leaned in closer, gripping your wrist with trembling fingers. “i can’t marry heeseung,” she said urgently. “i don’t love him. i’m leaving tonight.”
the words hit you like a physical blow. “you’re what?”
“i’m eloping,” she said, her voice firmer now, as if saying it out loud gave her courage. “with lucien.”
lucien. you barely knew the man, a minor noble from another court, but he had charmed your sister quickly. he was handsome and witty, but far beneath her station. you stared at her, disbelief mixing with fury.
“lucien? are you mad? you can’t just abandon your duty for—”
“for love?” she interrupted, her voice rising in defiance. “yes, i can. i won’t be trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who cares nothing for me.”
you swallowed hard, your mind racing. heeseung, distant and cold as he had been with you, had shown no signs of affection for your sister either, but this was bigger than personal feelings. the marriage was political, a union meant to secure alliances, peace, and power. your sister fleeing would bring nothing but chaos.
“you’ll ruin everything,” you whispered, your voice thick with the weight of the consequences. “our families, the kingdoms—this is bigger than you.”
her eyes softened with a mix of guilt and determination. “i know. but i can’t live my life for duty, not like this.” she stood, gathering a small satchel you hadn’t noticed before, already packed and ready for her escape.
“you won’t stop me, will you?” she asked, her gaze pleading.
you wanted to scream, to shake her out of this madness, but your throat tightened. she was your sister. you loved her. and you knew, deep down, that nothing you said would change her mind.
“i should,” you said, your voice quiet, brittle. “but no. i won’t.”
your sister smiled, a fragile, relieved thing, before pulling you into a tight embrace. the hug felt final, like the end of something neither of you could come back from. when she finally let go, you stood frozen in the middle of her room as she slipped out the window and into the night, her footsteps fading into the shadows.
the palace remained blissfully unaware of the catastrophe until morning, when your mother’s scream shattered the early dawn peace.
Tumblr media
the palace was in chaos the next morning. servants rushed through the halls, panic etched on their faces as whispers spread like wildfire—the bride had run away. you stayed in your chambers as long as possible, trying to gather your thoughts, your emotions, trying to prepare for the inevitable fallout.
when the summons came from your father, it felt like a death knell. the walk to the throne room felt endless, each step heavier than the last. the moment you stepped through the grand doors, you saw heeseung standing beside your parents. his face was a mask of icy calm, but his eyes…his eyes were darker than you’d ever seen them, cold and unforgiving.
he didn’t even glance at you as your father spoke.
“your sister has disgraced this family,” your father’s voice boomed, his tone laced with anger and disappointment. “but the marriage cannot be abandoned. the alliance with heeseung’s kingdom is too important.”
you stood still, your stomach churning as you braced for what was coming.
“therefore,” your father continued, his gaze hard as stone, “you will take her place.”
for a moment, the words didn’t register. you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. you? marry heeseung? no, it wasn’t possible. you had spent your entire life in a silent war with him. the idea of marrying the man who had been your nemesis since childhood was unthinkable.
your mother’s voice, soft but firm, broke the silence. “the arrangements have already been made. the wedding will proceed as planned. you will become heeseung’s bride.”
“no.” the word slipped from your lips before you could stop it, your heart racing. “i can’t.”
your father’s eyes narrowed, and your mother’s expression hardened with disappointment. “you will do your duty,” your father said coldly. “this is not up for discussion.”
duty. it always came down to that. your entire life, you had been prepared for moments like this, but not this moment. not like this.
finally, you turned to heeseung, desperate for any sign of protest, for him to say something—anything—that would stop this madness. but he was silent. his face remained expressionless, as though none of this affected him. he looked at you as if you were just a piece of the puzzle, another part of the kingdom’s grand design.
“is that all i am to you?” you asked, your voice shaking. “just a replacement? a stand-in for the bride who ran away?”
for the first time, heeseung’s gaze met yours, and for a brief moment, something flickered in his eyes—something unreadable, buried deep beneath the coldness. but his words cut through you like ice.
“you’re a princess,” he said, his voice quiet but sharp. “your role is to serve your kingdom. that’s all that matters.”
a bitter laugh escaped your throat. “you’ve hated me for years, heeseung. and now you expect me to just—what? pretend none of that matters?”
his jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond. instead, he turned away, his indifference stinging more than any of the insults you had traded over the years.
your father spoke again, his tone final. “the marriage will happen. prepare yourself.”
the grand hall was suffused with the glow of flickering candles and soft sunlight filtering through stained glass windows. the scent of fresh roses—your sister’s favourite, not yours—hung heavily in the air, mocking the gravity of the moment. you stood at the entrance of the hall, your hands clenched so tightly around the bouquet that your knuckles were white. the murmurs of the courtiers echoed around you, a constant hum of speculation and judgement. no matter how well you carried yourself today, the whispers wouldn’t stop.
the switch of the bride was the scandal of the century, and you were at the centre of it.
ahead of you, heeseung stood tall, his face as unreadable as stone. the same detachment was in his eyes, his expression cool and composed as if this marriage was merely another political manoeuvre for him, another step toward the throne. he didn’t look at you with warmth, or even a hint of care. to him, you weren’t his wife—you were the replacement for the woman who had run away.
you walked down the aisle, every step heavier than the last, the reality of your situation crushing you. heeseung’s gaze was steady as you approached, but it wasn’t the gaze of a man looking at his bride. it was a look of cold calculation, a man who had resigned himself to duty.
when you finally reached him, your heart thudding loudly in your chest, you barely registered the priest's words. the vows—sacred, binding—felt hollow, like a cruel twist of fate. how could you stand here, repeating the words meant for your sister? they weren't meant for you. you were never supposed to be the bride.
heeseung took your hand, and the warmth of his skin was a sharp contrast to the chill that ran down your spine. his grip was firm, not gentle, but not cruel either—just dutiful. he spoke his vows with a steady voice, each word sounding rehearsed, as though they meant nothing to him beyond their formality.
and then it was your turn. you hesitated, the weight of the kingdom on your shoulders, your pulse quickening. your voice trembled slightly as you repeated the vows, feeling the eyes of everyone in the hall on you—expecting you to fulfil your role, to be the perfect princess. you could barely choke out the words, but somehow, you managed. and with every word, you felt the invisible chains of your new life tightening around you.
when the priest finally pronounced you husband and wife, heeseung’s lips brushed yours in the briefest of kisses—so cold and devoid of feeling that it felt more like a business transaction than the union of two people. the cheers of the court erupted around you, but in that moment, the applause sounded like the closing of a cage. you were trapped, bound to him, to this life.
as you turned to leave the altar, heeseung offered his arm, the tension between you palpable. his eyes flickered to yours for a brief moment, but there was no warmth there. just that cold, resigned look you had grown accustomed to. you were both playing your roles, just as you had been trained to do your whole lives.
but this wasn’t a game. this was your future, and it felt like a noose tightening around your neck.
the wedding feast had been a blur—a cacophony of forced smiles, hollow congratulations, and polite toasts that masked the underlying tension. you had barely spoken a word to heeseung throughout the entire affair. he hadn’t made any attempt to speak to you either, remaining as distant and composed as ever.
now, as you stood alone in the chambers that were to be yours and heeseung’s, the reality of your new life settled heavily on your chest. the palace chambers were far too quiet, the air thick with the tension that had been building between you and heeseung for years. as you stood in the centre of the room, staring at the enormous bed draped in rich fabrics, it felt like the walls were closing in. the room was elegantly decorated—ornate tapestries hung on the walls, and the grand four-poster bed was fit for a queen. but none of it mattered. the splendour felt like a mockery of the situation you found yourself in. tonight, this room was not a sanctuary but a gilded cage.
your breath caught in your throat as the door creaked open. heeseung entered, his presence commanding even in the subdued candlelight. the tension between you was palpable, stretching like a thin, fragile thread that could snap at any moment. his gaze flicked toward you briefly, but he didn’t speak, and the silence that followed was suffocating.
heeseung moved with practised grace, his movements calm and deliberate. he began undoing the buttons on his ceremonial jacket, the fine fabric sliding off his shoulders and landing in a careless heap on the chair by the vanity. you stood frozen, unsure of what to say, what to do. this wasn’t how you had imagined a wedding night would feel—though you had never dreamed this night would be with heeseung, of all people.
his back was to you now, his broad shoulders tense, though he did nothing to betray any emotion. you could feel the distance between you both, even though he was just across the room. heeseung had always been composed, guarded, but tonight, his coldness cut even deeper than usual.
he finally broke the silence, his voice low but steady. “it’s late. you should rest.” there was no affection in his tone, just the same sense of duty that had hung over the entire day. you weren’t his bride by choice, and he wasn’t your husband by desire.
you bit back a bitter laugh. rest? as if you could simply close your eyes and pretend this was normal. pretend that this marriage was something other than a trap. “is that it, then?” you asked, your voice sharper than intended. “we go to bed and pretend everything is fine?”
heeseung turned to face you, his expression as unreadable as ever. he didn’t answer right away, as if weighing his response carefully. “what do you want me to say?” his tone was measured, but there was an edge to it, a hint of frustration that matched your own.
“i don’t know,” you admitted, your voice trembling with the weight of your emotions. “this wasn’t supposed to happen. i wasn’t supposed to marry you.”
something flickered in heeseung’s eyes, though it disappeared as quickly as it came. he regarded you for a moment, his gaze unreadable, before he spoke again. “do you think i wanted this?” his words were quiet but laced with a bitterness that surprised you. “i didn’t ask for this any more than you did.”
you swallowed, feeling a lump rise in your throat. you hadn’t expected this admission from him, hadn’t expected him to show any vulnerability. “then what are we supposed to do?” your voice was softer now, the anger ebbing away, replaced by uncertainty. “how are we supposed to live like this?”
heeseung sighed, running a hand through his hair, a rare moment of frustration breaking through his calm facade. “we do what’s expected of us,” he said, though there was a heaviness to his words, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as you. “we fulfill our duties. that’s all we can do.”
“duties.” the word tasted bitter on your tongue. it had always come down to that, hadn’t it? duty to the crown, to the kingdom, to your family. and now, duty to heeseung.
the silence stretched on, thick and uncomfortable. heeseung turned away, moving toward the window where the heavy drapes framed the view of the darkened palace gardens. his silhouette was stark against the faint glow of moonlight, his posture stiff, almost defensive.
after a long moment, he spoke again, his voice softer this time. “i’ll sleep over there.” he gestured to the chaise near the window, a fine piece of furniture that now seemed woefully out of place in this awkward, tension-filled room. “you can have the bed.”
you blinked, surprised by his offer. it was the last thing you expected from him, but it was a relief nonetheless. “you don’t have to—”
“i’m not doing this for you,” he interrupted, his voice firm, but not unkind. “i just don’t want to make this any more difficult than it already is.”
with that, he moved toward the chaise, gathering a pillow and blanket from the wardrobe. his actions were efficient, almost mechanical, as if he had already resigned himself to this fate. he didn’t look at you as he arranged the blanket over the chaise.
you stood there, feeling a strange mix of emotions—relief, awkwardness, and something else, something heavier that you couldn’t quite place. this was your wedding night, but it was nothing like you had ever imagined. there was no closeness, no warmth—just two people bound together by obligation and circumstance.
finally, you moved toward the bed, the thick carpets muffling your steps. the soft fabric of your gown felt heavy as you climbed beneath the covers, though they provided no comfort. you lay there, staring up at the intricate canopy above, your mind racing. this bed, this room—none of it felt like yours.
heeseung settled on the chaise, his back to you, the distance between you both feeling vast despite the small room. the silence was oppressive, each second dragging on longer than the last. you wondered if he was as uneasy as you were, or if he had already steeled himself to this new reality.
for a long while, neither of you spoke, the only sound in the room the faint rustling of fabric as you shifted beneath the covers. the weight of the day, of the vows, of your new title, pressed down on you, making it hard to breathe.
finally, you couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “heeseung,” you whispered, unsure if you even wanted him to respond.
he didn’t turn, but his voice was low and steady when he answered. “what?”
you hesitated, searching for the right words. “do you think... do you think this will ever get easier?”
there was a long pause before he responded, his voice quiet, almost resigned. “i don’t know.”
and with that, the conversation ended. heeseung remained silent, his back still turned to you, and you knew there was nothing more to say. you turned onto your side, pulling the blankets tighter around you, though they offered little warmth. the room felt too big, too empty, despite his presence.
eventually, exhaustion crept in, dulling the sharp edges of your thoughts. but even as sleep began to claim you, a cold, sinking feeling settled in your chest. this was your life now—bound to a man you barely knew, a man who had been your enemy for years, and yet, somehow, your husband.
and as you drifted off into uneasy sleep, the last thought that crossed your mind was how strange it felt to be lying just feet away from heeseung, yet feeling as though he was a world away.
Tumblr media
the morning after the wedding dawned cold and gray, mirroring the lingering tension between you and heeseung. you woke up in the large, empty bed, the space next to you untouched, a stark reminder of the distance that had been established on your wedding night. the air in the room felt thick, suffocating, as if the very walls were pressing in on you, reminding you of your new reality.
as you sat up, the unfamiliarity of your surroundings only worsened the tightness in your chest. this was your new life. not just this bed, but this room, this palace—heeseung’s palace—and you would share it with a man who barely spoke to you, who looked at you with that same cold distance he had always shown.
you dressed quickly, your movements mechanical, trying not to think too much. the maids moved around you silently, well-trained and efficient, but you could feel their eyes on you. it was impossible to escape the fact that everyone knew. the entire kingdom knew the story—the princess who had run away, and her sister forced to take her place. the whispers would never stop.
when you finally made your way downstairs to the grand dining room, heeseung was already seated at the long table, a plate of food in front of him. he didn’t look up when you entered, simply continued cutting into his meal with precise, practised movements. you hesitated for a moment, then took your seat across from him.
the silence was unbearable.
you picked at your food, barely tasting it, glancing at heeseung from time to time. his expression was as unreadable as ever, his attention focused on the papers beside his plate—likely matters of the kingdom that required his attention. he was already immersed in his duties, the weight of his impending kingship pressing down on him just as heavily as your new role as his wife weighed on you.
finally, you couldn’t stand it any longer. “do you plan to ignore me for the rest of our lives?” you asked, your voice sharper than you intended.
heeseung didn’t look up immediately, taking his time to finish his bite and set down his utensils with deliberate care. when he finally met your gaze, his expression was cool, detached. “i’m not ignoring you.”
you scoffed, unable to hide your frustration. “you’ve barely spoken to me since the wedding.”
he raised an eyebrow, his tone as calm as ever. “what would you like me to say?”
the question took you off guard. you hadn’t expected him to be so blunt. you opened your mouth, then closed it again, unsure of how to respond. what did you want him to say? that he regretted everything as much as you did? that he hated this arrangement, too? or perhaps you wanted him to acknowledge the years of bitterness between you, to admit that this marriage was a farce.
instead, you said, “we’re married now, heeseung. we have to live together. we can’t keep pretending the other doesn’t exist.”
his jaw tightened ever so slightly, but his voice remained calm. “i’m aware of that.”
you waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. the silence stretched on once again, thicker than before, suffocating in its awkwardness. you pushed your plate away, no longer interested in eating. “fine,” you muttered under your breath, standing abruptly. “i suppose i’ll just get used to it, then.”
you turned to leave, but his voice stopped you. “you don’t have to like this any more than i do, but we have responsibilities now.”
you paused, your back to him, your hands clenched at your sides. “responsibilities,” you repeated, your voice barely above a whisper. it seemed like that was all your life had ever been reduced to—duty, obligation, and responsibilities.
without another word, you left the dining room, the heavy doors closing behind you with a soft thud. you could feel the weight of the situation bearing down on you even more as you walked through the halls of the palace, each step echoing in the vast emptiness. you weren’t just trapped in this marriage—you were trapped in this life.
days passed, and though you and heeseung were forced to share the same space, your interactions remained minimal, stilted. in the mornings, you would find him already at the breakfast table, poring over documents and barely acknowledging your presence. he would spend his days attending council meetings and handling matters of state, leaving you to navigate the palace on your own, feeling more like a guest in your own home than its mistress.
at night, he would retire to the chambers late, often when you were already lying in bed, pretending to sleep. he would quietly take his place on the chaise near the window, far enough away to avoid any awkwardness, but close enough that his presence was a constant reminder of the divide between you.
it was during these nights that the loneliness settled in most heavily. the silence of the room, broken only by the occasional rustling of fabric or the soft crackle of the fireplace, was suffocating. you had grown accustomed to sleeping alone, but now, knowing heeseung was just a few feet away, the distance between you felt almost unbearable. there was an unspoken understanding that neither of you wanted to bridge the gap.
one evening, after yet another day of awkward meals and tense silences, you found yourself in the library, one of the few places in the palace where you felt at peace. the vast room was filled with shelves upon shelves of books, their spines worn and familiar. you had always loved to read, finding solace in the stories and histories of others when your own life felt too overwhelming.
you were seated by the window, the late afternoon sun casting a soft glow over the pages of your book, when the door creaked open. you looked up, surprised to see heeseung standing in the doorway. he paused for a moment, as if uncertain whether to enter or leave, his eyes scanning the room before they settled on you.
“may i join you?” he asked, his voice unusually soft.
you blinked, caught off guard by his request. this was the first time he had sought you out since the wedding, and the suddenness of it left you momentarily speechless. you nodded, unsure of what else to do. “of course.”
heeseung crossed the room, moving with his usual grace, and took a seat in the armchair opposite you. for a moment, neither of you spoke, the quiet of the library enveloping you both. he seemed content to sit in silence, his gaze wandering to the bookshelves that lined the walls.
finally, after what felt like an eternity, he spoke. “this is... one of the quieter rooms.”
you raised an eyebrow, a small, incredulous smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “it’s a library, heeseung. of course it’s quiet.”
to your surprise, he chuckled softly, though it was a dry, humourless sound. “fair enough.”
silence fell again, but this time it wasn’t as suffocating. there was something almost... peaceful about it, the weight of your shared presence not as unbearable as it had been before. you watched him out of the corner of your eye, noticing how tired he looked. the weight of his responsibilities was evident in the slight furrow of his brow, the way his shoulders sagged ever so slightly.
after a while, you set your book down on your lap, deciding to break the silence. “it must be difficult,” you said quietly. “taking on so much.”
heeseung didn’t answer right away, his gaze still focused on the shelves, but eventually, he nodded. “it is.”
you hesitated for a moment, then spoke again, softer this time. “you don’t have to carry it all alone, you know.”
he turned to look at you then, his expression unreadable, but there was something in his eyes—something softer than the cold indifference you had grown accustomed to.
“and what would you suggest?” he asked, his voice quiet but not unkind.
“i don’t know,” you admitted. “but we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.”
heeseung’s gaze lingered on you for a moment longer, and then he nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement. it wasn’t much, but it was the first step—however small—toward something more than just forced cohabitation.
Tumblr media
the shift in your relationship came faster than you expected. it started with a challenge—a reckless, unspoken dare that neither of you could resist.
it had been a clear, crisp day, the first after several weeks of rain. you were restless, tired of the palace walls and the constant burden of your new role. you had gone to the stables, hoping to take one of the horses out for a ride, needing to feel the wind in your hair and the ground beneath you. but when you arrived, heeseung was already there, adjusting the reins of his own horse.
you paused in the doorway, surprised to see him. “you ride?”
he glanced up, one eyebrow raised. “you sound surprised.”
“i am,” you admitted. “i’ve never seen you ride before.”
he chuckled softly, his eyes glinting with amusement. “there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
the challenge in his voice was unmistakable, and you couldn’t resist rising to it. “care to prove it?” you asked, moving toward your own horse.
heeseung’s smirk widened. “what do you have in mind?”
you mounted your horse swiftly, the thrill of the challenge already coursing through your veins. “a race.”
heeseung raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “you think you can beat me?”
“i know i can,” you shot back, turning your horse toward the open field beyond the stables.
without another word, you spurred your horse into motion, not waiting for his response. behind you, you heard heeseung’s laughter, low and rich, before the sound of hooves thundering against the ground told you he had accepted the challenge.
you raced through the fields, the wind whipping through your hair, the thrill of the chase making your heart race. heeseung was right behind you, and you could feel the tension building, the competitive edge between you sparking like fire. it was like being children again, challenging each other at every turn, pushing each other to the limit.
but this time, it was different. the stakes were higher, the tension thicker, and the way heeseung looked at you when he finally caught up to you sent a shiver down your spine.
when he finally pulled his horse beside yours, you were both breathless, your faces flushed with adrenaline. you glanced over at him, and the look in his eyes—intense, dark, heated—made your pulse quicken.
“not bad,” he said, his voice low, rough around the edges.
you smirked, trying to ignore the way your heart was pounding. “you almost kept up.”
heeseung leaned in just slightly, his gaze locking with yours. “almost?” he murmured, his voice sending a jolt through you.
you swallowed hard, your throat suddenly dry. the space between you was too close, the air charged with something you weren’t quite ready to name. his eyes lingered on your lips for just a moment too long, and you could feel the heat of his presence, the tension that had always existed between you now manifesting in a way that was far more dangerous.
before either of you could say anything, heeseung pulled back, his smirk returning as if nothing had happened. “we’ll call it a draw,” he said, though there was a teasing edge to his voice.
you let out a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding, shaking your head with a laugh. “you wish.”
but as you rode back to the palace, the tension between you remained, simmering beneath the surface. it was no longer the resentment of old enemies, but something far more complex, far more dangerous. and for the first time, you found yourself wondering what would happen if that tension ever boiled over.
later that night, the air was thick with the remnants of the day’s energy. you couldn’t sleep, your mind still racing from the ride and the way heeseung had looked at you—how close he had come, how your heart had nearly betrayed you in that moment of suspended anticipation.
you wandered the halls of the palace aimlessly, your footsteps soft against the marble floors. the palace at night was a different place, quiet and still, the shadows long and heavy. it felt like a place where secrets lingered in every corner, where the walls whispered of things that could never be said aloud.
as you passed by the study, you noticed the faint glow of light beneath the door. curiosity piqued, you pushed the door open just enough to peek inside. heeseung was there, seated at the desk, bathed in the warm glow of candlelight. he was reading, his brow furrowed in concentration, his lips slightly parted as he focused on the page in front of him.
you hesitated, but before you could turn away, he looked up, catching sight of you. for a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence between you heavy with unspoken words. then, without breaking eye contact, heeseung set the book aside.
“couldn’t sleep?” he asked, his voice low, intimate in the quiet of the room.
you shook your head, stepping into the room. “no. you?”
heeseung’s gaze flicked over you, his eyes lingering on you in a way that made your skin heat under his scrutiny. “i’ve been thinking,” he said, his tone soft but laced with that same dangerous tension that had been building all day.
“about what?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper as you moved closer, drawn to him in a way you couldn’t quite explain.
heeseung’s eyes met yours, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop. “about you,” he said quietly. “about us.”
the weight of his words settled in the space between you, thick and intoxicating. about you. about us. it echoed in your mind, stirring something deep within you that you had tried to ignore for far too long. you weren’t sure if it was the late hour, the dim candlelight, or the fact that you had been dancing around each other for weeks now, but something inside you snapped.
your breath hitched as you looked at him, his eyes dark and full of something you couldn’t quite name. but it was there—undeniable, pulsing in the space between you. and now that it had been spoken into existence, you couldn’t unsee it.
“what about us?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. it wasn’t just curiosity anymore. it was a challenge.
heeseung’s gaze flicked to your lips, and the tension in the room intensified, coiling tighter and tighter until it felt like the air itself might shatter from the pressure. he stood slowly, his movements deliberate, and took a step toward you, closing the already-small distance between you.
“there’s always been something between us,” he said, his voice low, rough. his eyes never left yours, burning with intensity. “even when we hated each other.”
your heart was pounding now, so loud you were sure he could hear it. you wanted to deny it, to tell him that he was wrong, that it had always been pure hatred. but that would’ve been a lie. you knew it as well as he did—whatever had always been there between you, it had never been simple.
“and what is it now?” you asked, forcing yourself to meet his gaze even though every instinct told you to look away. to run.
heeseung took another step closer, his hand reaching up slowly, as though giving you the chance to pull away. but you didn’t. you couldn’t. his fingers brushed against your cheek, the touch so light it sent a shiver down your spine. his hand lingered there, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw.
“maybe we’ve been fighting the wrong battle,” he murmured, his voice softer now, almost tender. the warmth of his breath ghosted over your skin, and you felt your pulse quicken.
your throat tightened. every word he said felt like a dangerous line, one that you were teetering on the edge of crossing. the tension between you had always been a fire—burning too hot, too fast. and now, it felt like it was about to consume you both.
heeseung’s thumb brushed over your bottom lip, and your breath caught in your throat. his touch was tentative, as though he wasn’t quite sure if this was real or if you would pull away at any moment.
but you didn’t.
instead, you took a step closer, closing the gap completely. the air between you was charged, thick with unspoken desire and the weight of all the years you had spent fighting against each other. your body was betraying you, leaning into him, drawn by a force you had denied for too long.
heeseung’s eyes darkened as he leaned in, his lips barely an inch from yours, the heat between you almost unbearable now. you could feel the tension in every muscle, the way his hand trembled slightly as it cupped your cheek, the way your own body was responding without your permission.
then, in a breathless moment that felt like it stretched on forever, he closed the distance.
his lips pressed against yours—soft at first, testing, as though he wasn’t sure you would let him. but the moment your lips met his, something ignited between you. the kiss deepened, filled with all the pent-up frustration and longing that had been building for so long. it was a clash of emotions—anger, desire, need—all colliding in that single moment.
you responded instantly, your hands reaching up to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, needing more. the kiss was rough, almost desperate, as though you were both trying to make up for years of missed chances in that single moment.
his hands slid down to your waist, pulling you flush against him, and you gasped against his lips at the feeling of his body pressed so close to yours. the intensity of it was overwhelming, but you didn’t want it to stop. you didn’t want to think. you just wanted to feel.
but then, as quickly as it started, heeseung pulled back, his breathing ragged, his forehead resting against yours. his hands still gripped your waist, holding you in place as though he couldn’t quite let go yet.
“this isn’t... what i expected,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. his breath was warm against your skin, and his eyes searched yours, as though he was looking for an answer in your gaze.
you swallowed hard, trying to steady your breathing, trying to make sense of what had just happened. “what did you expect?” you asked softly, your fingers still tangled in his hair.
heeseung’s grip on your waist tightened for a moment, his eyes darkening once again. “i didn’t expect you to feel this way.” his voice was low, almost a growl, filled with the same intensity that had been building between you all night.
you opened your mouth to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. you had no idea what to say, no idea how to explain the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside you. all you knew was that everything had changed in that kiss.
“i don’t know what i feel,” you admitted quietly, your voice barely audible in the heavy silence of the room.
heeseung’s lips twitched into a small, almost sad smile. “neither do i.” he stepped back, finally breaking the physical contact between you, and you immediately missed the warmth of his body against yours.
“but whatever this is... it’s dangerous,” he continued, his eyes locked on yours, as though warning you. “we’ve always been enemies. we don’t know how to be anything else.”
you felt a lump form in your throat at his words, because deep down, you knew he was right. but that didn’t stop the ache in your chest, the desire for something more—for the possibility of what could be.
“i don’t want to be your enemy anymore,” you said softly, the confession surprising even you.
heeseung’s eyes widened slightly at your words, his expression unreadable. for a moment, you thought he might say something—might admit that he didn’t want to be your enemy either. but then, he shook his head, the walls between you coming back up, brick by brick.
“this doesn’t change anything,” he said quietly, but the look in his eyes said otherwise.
and with that, he turned and left the room, leaving you standing there in the soft glow of candlelight, your heart pounding and your mind reeling from the kiss that had shifted the entire balance between you.
as the door closed softly behind him, you exhaled a shaky breath, your fingers brushing your lips where his had been moments before.
everything had changed.
Tumblr media
the royal court was buzzing with tension, and for once, the tension wasn’t between you and heeseung. the kingdom was on edge, not from war or rebellion, but from something far more insidious—political manoeuvring. rival noble houses were plotting against heeseung’s rule, questioning his right to ascend to the throne, especially after the sudden marriage to you. the whispers had grown louder over the past few weeks, the courtiers’ gazes sharper, waiting for the first misstep.
you had known court life would be full of power plays and alliances, but this was different. it was personal. every snide comment, every hushed conversation behind closed doors, felt like an attack on your marriage, on your family’s legacy. and worst of all, it felt like an attack on you.
one afternoon, as you made your way through the palace corridors, you overheard a group of nobles—close to your family—voicing their displeasure over your sudden marriage to heeseung. it was the same old song—how your sister should have been the bride, how you were never meant for this role, how heeseung marrying you was a strategic disaster.
you felt your blood run cold, but you kept walking, your head held high. you had grown used to these remarks, but today, they stung deeper. not because they questioned your worth, but because they reflected the deep-seated insecurity you had always carried.
that night, you found yourself alone in the study, staring out the window at the darkening sky. the weight of the court’s judgement, the impossible standards, the constant comparisons to your sister—they were suffocating. and then there was heeseung, whose coldness had thawed just enough to show you glimpses of something deeper, something real. but he was still heeseung—your husband, your childhood rival, and now the man who held your future in his hands.
the door creaked open behind you, and you didn’t need to turn to know it was him. you had grown attuned to his presence, the way the air shifted whenever he entered a room.
“what’s wrong?” his voice was quieter than usual, but still carrying that edge of command. he always knew when something was off, as if he could sense the turmoil swirling inside you.
you didn’t answer immediately, your gaze fixed on the stars outside. “they’re saying we’re not suited for each other,” you murmured, finally turning to face him. “that i’m not fit to be queen. that you made a mistake.”
heeseung’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticking in his cheek. he stepped closer, his eyes narrowing in that familiar way, but this time, it wasn’t directed at you.
“let them talk,” he said flatly. “they’re just waiting for us to fail.”
“and what if they’re right?” the words slipped out before you could stop them, the fear and doubt bubbling to the surface. “i was never meant to marry you. this isn’t the life i was prepared for.”
heeseung stared at you for a moment, his expression unreadable. then, to your surprise, he closed the distance between you, his hands gripping your shoulders firmly, forcing you to meet his gaze.
“i didn’t choose you because you were an easy choice,” he said, his voice low but intense. “i chose you because you’re stronger than you realise.”
you blinked, taken aback by the conviction in his words. heeseung wasn’t one to offer praise lightly, and hearing it now, in this moment, felt more intimate than anything he had ever said to you before.
“there are plenty of people who want to see us fail,” he continued, his grip tightening slightly. “but they don’t matter. what matters is that we don’t give them the satisfaction. we fight together.”
the intensity in his eyes sent a shiver down your spine, and for the first time, you saw beyond the cold exterior he had always shown you. there was something deeper there, something raw and unspoken. a partnership.
but the closeness also brought something else—a heat that had always been there between you, simmering beneath the surface. his hands lingered on your shoulders, his thumbs brushing the bare skin just above your collarbone, and suddenly the room felt smaller, the air thicker.
“you think i’m strong?” you asked, your voice quieter now, tinged with something more vulnerable. something real.
heeseung’s gaze flicked down to your lips, just for a moment, before returning to your eyes. his voice was rough when he spoke, low and filled with an unspoken promise. “i’ve always known.”
the charged air between you was impossible to ignore now. his fingers slid from your shoulders to your arms, the touch sending a jolt of warmth through you. it wasn’t just the weight of responsibility pressing down on you—it was him, his closeness, the undeniable pull you had both been dancing around for weeks.
you could feel the tension in every inch of your body, your heart racing as heeseung’s hands rested on your waist, pulling you closer, but still leaving just enough space for doubt. he hesitated, as if waiting for you to push him away, to remind him of the enmity that had defined your relationship for so long.
but you didn’t. instead, you leaned into him, your hands tentatively reaching up to rest on his chest. the fabric of his shirt was soft under your fingers, but beneath it, you could feel the steady beat of his heart, as rapid as your own.
“maybe i’ve been wrong about you,” you whispered, your breath hitching as the tension between you reached a breaking point.
heeseung’s eyes darkened at your words, his lips hovering just inches from yours. “maybe you have,” he murmured, his voice low and dangerous. but there was something softer there too, something almost tender.
before you could talk yourself out of it, you closed the distance between you and kissed him.
the kiss was like nothing you had ever experienced—fierce, desperate, and full of the years of unresolved tension between you. it was as if all the walls you had built around yourselves were crumbling in an instant, leaving nothing but the raw, undeniable attraction that had always simmered beneath the surface.
heeseung responded instantly, his hands tightening on your waist, pulling you closer as the kiss deepened. his lips moved against yours with a hunger that matched your own, and you could feel the heat radiating off him, his body pressing against yours as if he couldn’t bear to let you go.
it was overwhelming, the intensity of the moment, the way your bodies seemed to fit perfectly together, the way every touch sent a shockwave of desire coursing through you. you had spent so long fighting him, fighting this, and now, as his hands slid up your back, holding you close, you wondered why you had ever resisted.
when you finally pulled back, both of you were breathless, your foreheads resting against each other. heeseung’s grip on your waist didn’t loosen, and you could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat as wild as your own.
“we can’t keep pretending,” you whispered, your voice shaky, your lips still tingling from the kiss.
heeseung’s eyes met yours, the vulnerability and uncertainty in his gaze mirroring your own. “no, we can’t,” he agreed, his voice rough with emotion.
for a moment, the world hung in the balance. you had crossed a line, and there was no going back. everything between you had shifted, and the question now wasn’t whether you would move forward—it was how.
heeseung’s thumb brushed gently against your cheek, his touch so tender it nearly broke you. “we’re in this together,” he said softly, the weight of his words heavy with meaning.
this time, there was no need to say anything more. you both understood what had changed between you, even if neither of you was ready to fully admit it. and though the path ahead was uncertain, you knew one thing for sure: you weren’t facing it alone anymore.
Tumblr media
weeks passed, and with each passing day, things between you and heeseung slowly shifted. the cold, sharp walls that had once kept you apart were crumbling, revealing a warmth and understanding that neither of you had anticipated. where there had once been biting words and icy glares, there was now laughter, quiet conversations, and small gestures of affection.
the palace felt different. it was lighter now, with the growing sense of partnership between you and heeseung. your bickering had been replaced with genuine care, and though the wounds of the past hadn't fully healed, you were both learning to forgive. but it wasn’t just the emotional connection that was shifting—there was something deeper brewing beneath the surface. unspoken feelings, simmering tension.
it wasn’t until a grand banquet in honour of a visiting prince from a neighbouring kingdom that these feelings came to a head. you stood at the centre of the ballroom, dressed in a gown that glimmered under the candlelight. it hugged your figure perfectly, catching the attention of more than just heeseung. the prince—prince seojun—had been particularly charming throughout the evening, his eyes lingering on you a little too long, his compliments a little too bold.
“you are by far the most captivating presence in this room, your highness,” seojun murmured, his voice low as he leaned in slightly, a smirk playing on his lips. “if i had known such beauty awaited me here, i would have visited sooner.”
you laughed politely, glancing over your shoulder, searching for heeseung in the crowd. he was across the room, deep in conversation with some nobles, but even from the distance, you could feel his gaze on you, sharp and intense.
seojun continued, his hand brushing lightly against your arm as he leaned closer. “perhaps we could steal a moment away from the crowd? i would love to know more about the woman behind such an enchanting smile.”
before you could respond, a sudden shift in the air caught your attention. heeseung appeared at your side, his posture tense, his expression a mix of barely contained irritation and something else—something more possessive.
“princess,” heeseung’s voice was smooth, but there was a dangerous edge to it. his hand slid around your waist, pulling you firmly against his side. the claim was unmistakable. “i believe your dance card is full for the evening.”
seojun’s smirk faltered slightly as he glanced between the two of you, sensing the tension. heeseung’s eyes never left the prince, cold and unyielding.
“of course,” seojun replied, raising his hands in mock surrender. “i wouldn’t dream of overstepping. after all,” his gaze flickered to you, then back to heeseung, “she’s your wife.”
the words hung in the air for a moment, charged with unspoken meaning. seojun bowed slightly, a smirk still playing on his lips, before taking his leave. but even as he walked away, you could feel the lingering weight of his gaze.
you turned to heeseung, about to make a light-hearted remark about the interaction, but the look on his face stopped you. his eyes were dark, his jaw clenched, and his grip on your waist was firm—almost possessive.
“did he touch you?” heeseung asked, his voice low and tight.
you raised an eyebrow, surprised by his tone. “barely,” you replied, trying to play it off with a soft laugh. “why? are you jealous?”
his eyes flickered with something dangerous as he leaned down, his breath warm against your ear. “you’re my wife. i don’t like other men thinking they can take what’s mine.”
your heart skipped a beat at his words. the possessiveness in his tone, the way his body pressed protectively against yours—it was unlike anything you had ever experienced with heeseung. you had always seen him as cold, distant, but this... this was different. there was fire in his eyes, and you could feel it burning between you, a tension that neither of you had acknowledged until now.
“and what if i enjoy a little attention now and then?” you teased, testing the boundaries, wanting to see how far he would go.
heeseung’s eyes darkened even more, and in one swift motion, he pulled you even closer, his hand cupping the back of your neck as he leaned in, his lips barely grazing the shell of your ear. “i don’t care how many men look at you, but remember this—” his voice dropped, sending shivers down your spine, “you belong to me and i belong to you.”
a thrill ran through you at his words, and for a moment, you were speechless, your mind spinning from the intensity of his claim. the ballroom, the crowd, even prince seojun—all of it faded away as heeseung’s gaze held you captive. you could feel the heat of his body against yours, the possessiveness in his touch, and for the first time, you realised that this wasn’t just some marriage of convenience anymore.
heeseung cared—more than he was willing to admit.
your breath hitched as you looked up at him, your eyes searching his, trying to read the emotions flickering behind them. “and what about you, heeseung?” you asked softly, your voice barely above a whisper. “do you want me to be yours?”
his eyes softened for just a moment, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features before he leaned in, his lips brushing lightly against your temple. “you already are,” he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. “and i’m not letting you forget it.”
the banquet had left the air between you and heeseung charged with an intensity that neither of you could ignore. his possessiveness, the fierce look in his eyes when he claimed you as his wife in front of prince seojun, had stirred something inside you—something that had been simmering for far too long.
as the last of the guests departed and the palace quieted down for the night, the tension remained, lingering like an unspoken promise. heeseung walked beside you in silence as you both made your way through the dimly lit corridors toward your chambers. though no words passed between you, the air was thick with anticipation, the unspoken pull between you stronger than ever.
when you reached your shared chambers, heeseung opened the door for you, his gaze never leaving you as you stepped inside. you could feel his eyes on you, burning with a need that matched your own. the soft glow of the candlelight cast long shadows across the room, but all you could focus on was the man standing behind you, his presence overwhelming.
you moved toward the vanity, fingers trembling slightly as you began to remove your jewellery. you were acutely aware of heeseung standing behind you, the weight of his gaze almost tangible as he watched your every movement. his silence spoke volumes, filled with desire and unspoken emotions that neither of you had fully confronted until now.
the tension was unbearable. finally, unable to stand the silence any longer, you glanced at him through the reflection in the mirror, your voice soft but steady. “you’ve been quiet,” you murmured, meeting his intense gaze. “what’s on your mind?”
he didn’t answer immediately. instead, he stepped closer, his hand reaching out to brush against the bare skin of your shoulder. the touch was light, tentative, but it sent a shiver down your spine. his fingers lingered, tracing the delicate curve of your shoulder before he leaned in, his breath warm against your neck.
“i didn’t like how he looked at you,” heeseung finally admitted, his voice low and rough with suppressed emotion. his eyes met yours in the mirror, dark with jealousy and something more—something deeper. “or the way he made you laugh.”
your heart raced at the possessiveness in his tone. you turned to face him, taking in the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes blazed with something primal. his emotions were raw, laid bare before you in a way that heeseung had never allowed himself to show before.
“it was harmless,” you replied, stepping closer to him, your voice softening. “but i can’t say i minded the way you stepped in.”
his gaze darkened, his hand moving to your waist, pulling you flush against him. you could feel the heat of his body seeping into yours, the hard lines of his frame pressing against your softness. his eyes locked onto yours, filled with unspoken desire, but also with something more—something tender.
“i’m not the kind of man who likes to share,” he said, his voice a low growl as he leaned in, his lips hovering just above yours. “especially not when it comes to you.”
your breath hitched at his words, your pulse quickening as the fire between you flared even hotter. you couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through you at his possessive tone, the way his hands gripped you as though he couldn’t bear to let you go.
“and what are you going to do about it?” you whispered, your voice daring, testing the boundaries as your lips brushed his, teasingly close but not quite touching.
heeseung’s response was immediate. his lips crashed against yours, fierce and hungry, as if he had been holding back for far too long. the kiss was searing, filled with all the emotions you had both kept hidden. his hands roamed over your body, possessive yet tender, as though he was staking his claim but also worshipping every inch of you.
you responded just as fiercely, your hands tangling in his hair as you pulled him closer, needing to feel every part of him against you. the tension between you, the unspoken desire, it all poured out in that kiss, in the way his body pressed against yours with a need that matched your own.
heeseung’s hands slid down to your thighs, lifting you effortlessly as he carried you toward the bed. the air between you was electric, charged with desire and the intensity of emotions that neither of you had allowed to surface until now. he laid you down gently, his eyes never leaving yours, his gaze dark and filled with a hunger that made your heart race.
for a moment, he paused, his fingers brushing over your cheek with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the intensity of what had just passed between you. his eyes softened, and for the first time, you saw the vulnerability behind them—the raw emotion that he had been hiding behind his cold exterior for so long.
“are you sure?” he asked, his voice husky but laced with care, as if he was giving you one last chance to pull away, to stop this before it went too far.
you gazed up at him, your heart swelling with the overwhelming emotions coursing through you. heeseung, the man you had once considered your rival, your enemy, was now looking at you with a tenderness that took your breath away. you reached up, cupping his face in your hands, your thumb brushing softly over his cheek.
“i’m sure,” you whispered, pulling him down into another kiss, softer this time, but no less filled with the emotions swirling between you.
what followed was slow, deliberate, and filled with a tenderness that you had never expected from heeseung. his hands moved over your body with care, as though he was savouring every touch, every breath. the fierceness from earlier softened into something more intimate, more meaningful, as he explored you with reverence, his lips following the path of his hands.
your name fell from his lips like a prayer, whispered against your skin in the quiet moments between kisses. heeseung’s touch was both possessive and gentle, as though he was claiming you but also offering himself to you in return. the intensity of the moment was overwhelming, but it was the tenderness in his gaze, the softness of his touch, that made your heart ache with something deeper than mere desire.
and as the night stretched on, your bodies moving together in perfect harmony, you realised that this wasn’t just about passion—it was about the connection you had been fighting against for so long. the rivalry, the bickering, the walls you had both built between you—it all crumbled away, leaving only the raw truth of what you felt for one another.
when it was over, you lay beside each other, your breathing heavy, your bodies tangled in the sheets. the room was quiet now, the only sound was the soft rustle of the fabric and the faint crackle of the dying fire in the hearth.
heeseung turned to you, his hand reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair from your face. his eyes, once so cold and guarded, were warm now, filled with an emotion that made your heart skip a beat. he pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around you and holding you against his chest as though he couldn’t bear to let you go.
you rested your head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. it was comforting, grounding you in the quiet aftermath of everything that had just passed between you. his fingers traced lazy patterns on your back, soothing and gentle, as he pressed a soft kiss to the top of your head.
neither of you spoke, but words weren’t necessary. the silence was filled with a sense of peace, of contentment that neither of you had known before. heeseung’s touch was soft now, filled with care as he held you close, his body warm and protective against yours.
and in that quiet, intimate moment, you realised something: this was more than just passion, more than just desire. it was something real, something lasting.
heeseung’s hand continued to trace gentle patterns on your back, his lips brushing your temple as he whispered softly, “are you alright?”
you smiled against his chest, your heart swelling with warmth at the tenderness in his voice. “more than alright,” you murmured, snuggling closer to him.
heeseung let out a soft sigh, his arms tightening around you as if he never wanted to let go. and as you drifted off to sleep in his arms, the weight of the past finally lifted, leaving only the warmth of the present and the promise of a future you were both ready to embrace.
the next morning, you woke to find heeseung already up, standing by the window of your shared chambers, his silhouette framed by the soft glow of the early morning light. he looked deep in thought, his expression pensive as he gazed out over the kingdom.
quietly, you approached him, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind. he stiffened for a moment at the contact but quickly relaxed, his hands covering yours as he let out a soft sigh.
“you’re up early,” you murmured, resting your cheek against his back.
“i couldn’t sleep,” he replied, his voice thoughtful. “i was thinking about everything that’s changed.”
you smiled, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder. “a lot has changed, hasn’t it?”
heeseung turned in your arms, his expression soft as he looked down at you. “i never thought this would work,” he admitted, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “but i’m glad i was wrong.”
you gazed up at him, your heart swelling with warmth. the man standing before you was the same heeseung you had known all your life, but now, you saw him for who he truly was—not your enemy, not your rival, but your partner. your husband.
“i’m glad too,” you whispered, reaching up to cup his cheek. he leaned into your touch, his eyes closing for a moment, a small smile playing on his lips.
and in that moment, you knew that this was your new beginning. the past, with all its bitterness and tension, was behind you. what lay ahead was a future you hadn’t expected but one you were ready to embrace—together.
as heeseung pulled you into a gentle kiss, the warmth of the morning sun streaming through the window, you knew that this was the start of something beautiful. your marriage, once forged out of obligation and resentment, had grown into something real, something lasting.
and as you stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, you realised that sometimes, the best love stories were the ones you never saw coming.
Tumblr media
𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 ©𝗴𝘆𝘂𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆𝘆 on Tumblr
˚ · .𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱
taglist: @punchbug9-blog @firstclassjaylee @capri-cuntz @addictedtohobi @jaysfavoritegirl
1K notes · View notes
guiltyasdave · 1 month
Text
help me hold onto you
Tumblr media
pairing: Logan Howlett/Wolverine x mutant! f!reader
word count: ~3.5k
summary: Logan deals with feeling guilty after he's accidentally cut you with his claws in his sleep.
warnings/tags: explicit smut (-> 18+ only!), able-bodied reader, reader has hair that can be pulled, no use of y/n, Logan lifts reader up but he's superhumanly strong, so-, graphic description of an injury, graphic description of violence, angst, nightmares, Logan's pov, fighting as foreplay, unprotected p in v, rough sex, biting, praise kink, a lot of animalistic behavior due to their mutations, like they're just a little... primal, it's cute i swear, also reader looks like a human being it's just the mannerisms, fluff
a/n: guess i'm a multi fandom writer now? this literally came to me in a fever dream, very much like the logan brainrot itself lol. this is my first time writing for the man, after watching the movies - also for the first time - last week, so please be gentle with me <3 something very similar happens in the origins movie and i wanted them to explore that more, but alas, i had to do it myself.
massive thanks to @kiwisbell for assuring me that this idea isn't terrible and for freaking out about logan with me in general, to @catchallfangirl for coming up with the whole cat theme and for being so supportive, to @sizzlingcloudmentality for matching my freak and taking the cat theme to the next level, for helping me plot and for being an amazing beta reader, and to @javier-pena for listening to me rant about this idea and being so lovely and supportive <3
dividers by @saradika-graphics who is a queen <3
notifications blog -> @guiltyasdavenotifs & full masterlist -> here
Tumblr media
Most nights, Logan sleeps easier when you’re in bed with him. Your body pressed against his, your skin soft and warm against his bare chest. One of his thighs between your legs where you’ve wrapped yourself around him, your touch moving over his torso aimlessly, fingers curling into his chest hair, your hands kneading his flesh in your sleep. The soothing little purrs that emit from your chest when you’re sound asleep. None of it bothers him, no matter how many times it disturbs his own rest. 
It keeps him grounded, feeling you next to him. He’d rather spend the whole night somewhere in that haze between waking and sleeping, listening to your sounds, your breath fanning against his skin, than being pulled under into the depths of his subconsciousness. 
He’d rather open his eyes to see you disentangling your limbs from his, stretching your whole body, arching against him as you yawn. 
He’d rather greet you with a smiling “Good morning, kitten,” waiting for that adorable little crease to appear between your brows when you pout up at him. 
“Did I do it again?” 
He doesn’t hide his grin as he nods, growing wider when you flop back against the cushions with a groan. 
“What exactly?”
“All of it.” 
Your sorry comes out muffled as you hide your face behind your hands. 
“It’s okay,” he says, leaning over you to pull your hands away and kiss the pout off your lips. Caressing that spot under your chin with two fingers, watching you go all soft, baring your throat to him. “I like it.” 
He would much rather wake up like this. 
But it’s been a long week and he’s exhausted. Exhausted enough to get lulled into a deep sleep, encased in the safe cloud of your warm body against his and your touch on his skin. Exhausted enough to dream. And his dreams are not a safe place. 
Tumblr media
His eyes fly open with a shout, his whole body jolting upwards, every muscle pulled taut. He doesn’t even register the claws shooting out between his knuckles, all of his instincts screaming at him to fight. 
He’s only faintly aware of the sudden yelp of pain from beside him, the movement of something jerking away from him. 
“Logan,” your voice rings through the buzzing in his ears. Smaller hands landing on his shoulders, fighting to hold him steady. 
It takes a few disoriented blinks before he recognizes the familiar bedroom, a few more deep breaths to stop his body from shaking. To clear the fog in his head enough to understand what you’re saying.
“It’s me, Logan. You’re safe, everyone’s safe, it’s okay.” 
His eyes find yours in the semi-darkness. Wide with worry, but firmly trained on his face, repeating that everything’s okay. He finally registers the familiar weight of you straddling him, understands that it’s your fingers digging into his shoulders. 
He’s still panting, not daring to look away from your face again. The one tether that keeps him from getting lost in his mind again. 
“Are you with me?” you ask, your voice softer now. 
He manages a nod, tries to smile, to wipe the deep worry of your face, but he’s not sure if his mouth even twitches. 
As the feeling slowly returns to his body, he notices something else. A kind of wetness, warm and sticky where your right hand is connected to his skin. The unmistakable tang of iron in the air. He stretches to turn on a bedside lamp, jostling you along with his movement. A quiet whimper hits his ears, so low that he’s sure you tried to suppress it. 
With a new kind of panic surging through him, he grabs hold of your arm, bringing it to his eye level. 
Three scratches ooze in deep red, just beneath your wrist. It forces a gasp from him, eyes dancing frantically between the wounds on your arm and your face. How much blood did you lose already while you were busy helping him? As if he deserved it. 
“Fuck, I’m— I’m so sorry baby, we gotta—” He stumbles over his own words, grasping at you almost blindly, panicked tears blurring his vision. He did this. 
“Logan,” you say, still so inexplicably calm. “It’s fine. Look. It’s fine.” 
You gently pry his fingers off your arm and bring your wrist up to your mouth. Your tongue darts out, drawing long licks against your marred skin, collecting the blood and gliding over the cuts in your flesh. 
It pains him to watch, but it’s the least he can do. The least he owes you. He watches you clean the blood off, watches as the wounds start shrinking at the touch of your saliva, as the skin smoothes over before his very eyes until there’s only three thin marks left, a shade lighter than the rest of your skin. 
“Look,” you tell him again, extending your arm towards him. “I told you it’s okay.” 
He knows you can do this, of course he does. Has watched you multiple times, his fascination with your powers never wavering. How fluidly you move, how quick you attack, how skilled you are at surviving. You just never had to survive him. 
You lean down on top of him until your whole torso rests on his, your thighs still on either side of him, burrowing your head into his chest. “Which war did you dream about?” you ask quietly.
Most of the time, the dreams don’t grant him the mercy to zero in on one single memory. It’s a constant stream, one fight after the other, until all he knows is shouting, fighting, blood and death.
“All of them.” 
You sigh deeply, your breath cool against his sweat-dampened skin. Raising your head a little, you start placing kisses on his chest, pressing your lips into his skin where you can feel the faint beating of his heart.
“I wish I could kiss this better, too,” you mumble. 
He chuckles humorlessly, one hand reaching into your hair to scratch at your scalp. You shudder at the touch, an approving little purr traveling up your throat. 
“It’s okay now,” he mutters, leaning in to inhale the scent of your hair. “Just— I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be.” 
It sounds so simple, falling from your lips like this. But it’s no match for the aching guilt that’s already eating at him, the questions of what if that start swirling through his mind. 
Your body is growing heavier on top of him as you relax, your breaths evening out and your eyelids fluttering shut. It soothes him, has his own breathing slowing down, but he can’t risk falling asleep again. Not like this, not with your body so close to his.
“What are you— Logan?” comes your instant protest when he moves you to your side of the mattress, your eyes flying back open, wide and mildly confused.
“I could’ve killed you,” he mutters. It could have happened so easily. Just a little deeper, just a slightly different spot. 
“No, you couldn’t,” you quip, arching an eyebrow at him. “Cats have nine lives, remember?” You sneak another quick kiss on his chest before finding his gaze again, a teasing smile on your lips. “Even kittens.” 
It’s an attempt to lighten the mood, to make him laugh. He knows that. You hate the pet name he’s given you. 
“And you’re not gonna waste one on me,” he grits out. 
Hurt flashes over your face, more pain in your eyes than when there was an actual wound on your arm. 
“It wouldn’t be—”
“Don’t you dare say it wouldn’t be a waste.” 
The words come out as a low growl, aggressive enough to send most anyone running. You don’t run. 
Your animal doesn’t like it when he growls at you. He can feel the tension rolling off of you, your hair probably standing on end. Gritting your teeth, you take a deep breath, release your fingers’ grip from digging into the sheets.
“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” you tell him, resignation in your voice. 
Your eyes fall shut again, your head for once resting on your own pillow instead of his chest. He misses the weight of it instantly. You doze off quickly, your hands still pawing weakly at his side, like your body can’t help it. He almost pulls you closer himself. 
While you sleep, Logan forces his own eyes to stay wide open, staring unseeingly into the darkness. 
Tumblr media
It’s a quiet day. You had tried talking to him, tried to convince him that it’s okay, that it’s fine. He can’t keep listening to you insisting that him almost killing you is no big deal. He should have known, should have been more aware of the risk instead of letting himself get lost in the blissful sensation of your body curled around his every night. You’ve trusted him so completely, only for him to let you down. 
Just like he always does, the voice in his head whispers.
No matter how many times you swear that you can take care of yourself, he should still be protecting you, not actively putting you in danger while you’re fucking asleep. It’s happened once now, so it can happen again, and he knows that he could never forgive himself. 
He knows that he’s hurting your feelings. Sees how your brows knit together when he barely kisses you back throughout the day. How you bite your lip when the way you’re butting your head against his doesn’t make him chuckle like it usually does. 
He should be angry at himself. He is. But you shouldn’t be the one to catch the brunt of it, and it makes him feel even worse. You always say that he should talk about his feelings more, that it would help to let them out. He suspects that you’re right. He just doesn’t know how.
By evening, you’ve grown uncharacteristically quiet, but he keeps catching your burning glares at him when you think he isn’t looking. Finally, after you’ve stared at him for what felt like an eternity and he’s pointedly ignored you, you seem to snap.
“Can you stop it?!” It leaves your mouth in a hiss, triggering his instincts before the words even register in his brain. 
“Stop what?” he growls back. 
Your fingers curl as a low snarl escapes you. Normally, neither of you lets your animalistic side take over like that. Normally, you’re good at soothing each other. 
But tonight, he can feel the energy crackle between you, the tension begging to be released. 
“You know what! This fucking— sulking or whatever it is you think you’re doing!” 
He rises to his feet, pulling up to his full height. One of your hands twitches. 
“I’m not—” 
You charge at him with an angry shout before another word can leave his mouth. You’re on him in a flash, grabbing onto his arm and letting your momentum carry you until you’re behind him, your nails digging into his shoulders until you’re perched on his backside. 
Whipping his head around, he bares his teeth at you, growls rumbling in his chest. You angrily hiss in his face and swing a hand at him in return, leaving angry red scratches down his cheek. They heal and fade as quickly as they came, but a triumphant grin flashes over your features regardless. 
“Come on, Logan,” you breathe into his ear. The edge in your voice sends fire straight through him. “Fight. You’re not gonna break me.” Your canines nip at his earlobe, somewhere between affectionate and challenging.
He tries shaking you off, but your grip on him only tightens. He collects a fist of your hair instead, pulling harshly to keep your teeth away from his throat. 
“Enough,” he grits, trying desperately to regain control, to become more human again, to smother the primal need to match your aggression. 
He finally grabs hold of one of your hands as well and manages to rip you off his back and in front of him, holding on tight to your upper arms to keep you in place. You’re snarling and twisting in his hold, but he doesn’t let up. 
“Enough,” he repeats, searching your wild eyes. Your movements slow down a fraction, giving him a moment of hope, before you surge forward and bury your teeth in his lower lip. It hurts like hell and he can taste blood on his tongue instantly. 
“Fight me,” you demand again, baring your teeth at him.
He pulls you back by your hair with a roar, gathers both your wrists in one large hand and holds you steady. You could still break free if you wanted to, he thinks. He might be stronger than you, but your movements turn almost liquid when you want to escape, he’s watched it more than once. 
The pain in his lip has already subsided, but his blood is still coating your mouth, a stark contrast against the white shimmer of your teeth. 
“Are you done?” His voice is harsh, his jaw clenched, carefully keeping the desire to strike back at bay. 
You deflate a little, some of the wildness draining from you before his eyes. 
“I just— I’m not fragile, I don’t want you to be scared of— of touching me.” Your voice grows small at the end and he’s horrified to see wetness glistening in your eyes. 
The fight mode leaves him as fast as it came, replaced with the overwhelming urge to care, to protect what’s his. His pack, in a way.  
He gathers you into his arms, curling himself around you. It feels good to hold you close again. Breathing you in deeply, he smells the adrenaline still oozing from you, hears the rapid beating of your heart. But mostly, it’s your unique scent, one that he thinks he could recognize anywhere. His tether to this world. 
“I’m sorry, kitten. I’m not scared of touching you,” he mumbles into your hair. 
You sniffle against his chest, but when you finally raise your head to look at him, new determination is glinting in your eyes. 
“Prove it,” you coo, tracing the shape of his lips with one fingertip. “Please.” 
That he can do. He nips at your finger playfully, your responding giggle the best sound he’s heard all day, before he shoves it out of the way to connect his lips with yours. It’s rough, a clashing of teeth and tongues, the tension that has been building and warping all day finally finding a release. 
You gasp into his mouth when his tongue moves against yours, your hands pulling at his hair, needing him closer and closer still, never close enough. His groan at the taste of you travels through you both as he’s grasping at your clothes. 
He longs for your warm skin under his palms, longs for how you lean into his touch so needy all the damn time. You pull away with a moan, helping him to pull your sweater over your head and stepping out of your jeans as he sheds his flannel. 
You bring both hands up to cup his face, to search his eyes. “Don’t be gentle,” you plead, “please, I need—” 
You don’t have to keep talking for him to understand what you need. I’m not scared of touching you. 
With a growl, his hands find your hips, holding you tight as he’s walking you backwards until your ass connects with the backside of the couch. He crowds you in, paws at every inch of bare skin he can reach, his cock already hard and aching at your soft warmth and the sweet mewls that tumble from your lips. 
Hitching one of your legs up to open you for him, he grinds himself against your barely covered center. A keening sound escapes you at the friction from his jeans against your sensitive flesh and he allows himself a grin. 
“Feels good, kitten?” 
You nod mindlessly, holding onto him and rocking your hips against his while you’re letting him move you however he sees fit. 
“Do you want more?”
“Please, Logan.”
You sound so sweet when you’re like this, when you put your body into his hands. I’m not scared of touching you.
Setting your leg back down, he watches with hunger as you hastily take off your underwear while he pulls the white tank top over his head and opens his belt buckle. He could swear that your pupils dilate a fraction at the sound of it, filling him with a possessive sense of pride. 
As soon as his jeans hit the floor, he’s all over you again, palming the weight of your breasts, tugging and pinching at your nipples as he swallows down your mewls. You’re soaking wet already, covering his cock in your slick as he nudges against your folds. He’s impatient to feel you all around him, to sink into you, to stake his claim again and again and again. 
He normally works you open longer, gives you more time to prepare, but your impatience is just as apparent as his own, with the way you whine and plead for him, your fingers digging into his flesh, trying to pull him nearer. 
He follows your pull, pressing your backside into the couch once more as he crowds your space. Leaning in, he kisses you deeply, licking into your mouth, one hand buried in your hair and holding you close. 
“I love you,” he breathes against your lips as he lets go of you. I’m not scared of touching you.
You smile softly, echoing the sentiment back at him. 
A surprised squeak escapes you when he turns you around suddenly, bending you over the back of the couch. He lines himself up at your dripping entrance, desperate to fill you up, to give you what you’re craving. 
“Not gentle?” he rasps once more, one hand curling around your neck from behind, both in reassurance and dominance. 
“Not gentle,” comes your breathy answer. It breaks off into a shriek of a moan when he slams into you with one long thrust, stretching your tight walls around his length. The sting of his sudden intrusion has to hurt at least a little, but you push back against him eagerly, his name falling from your lips like a prayer. 
Logan holds himself still for a moment, mesmerized by the sight of your squirming body and your needy little sounds, before he pulls out almost entirely, only to push back in forcefully. Your toes barely reach the floor with how far he’s bent you over, lifting you into the air with every harsh thrust, but he’s holding you steady with ease, both hands possessively spanning over your waist, positioning you exactly where he wants you. 
“Taking me so fucking well, like you were made for me,” he growls, gently scratching over your back with his nails. You arch up to chase his touch, tightening around him, almost purring with pleasure. Wetness pours out of you, coating his cock. I’m not scared of touching you. Not when it feels this good. 
“M–more, please,” you whine, blindly reaching backwards to him. 
He leans over you, cages you in, his arms on either side of you, his breath hot against your skin. His teeth sink into the back of your neck, not so deep as to draw blood, but enough that he knows the indents will stay there for quite some time. 
Your whole body goes limp at the sensation, a surprised mewl escaping you as you clench around him wildly. 
“Fuck,” he breathes, his own hips stuttering, “give it to me kitten, come on—” 
He reaches around your hip, fingers teasing through your slick folds and up to your clit, rubbing with slight pressure as he keeps pistoning into your heat. 
“Logan—” you gasp, getting almost impossibly tight, before you shatter around him. He keeps thrusting into you, keeps up his ministrations on your clit, until the pulsing of your cunt around him sends him over the edge as well. He spills his release deep inside of you, the thought of leaving a part of him with you always filling him with a primal satisfaction. 
Pulling you up instantly, he gathers you in his arms, your body soft and pliant against his chest. Walking around the couch and sinking into the cushions to lie down, he gently moves you until your weight is resting on top of him, his embrace wrapping around you.
You stir a little, needing a moment to take in your position. The look of uncertainty that you give him damn near breaks his heart. “Is this okay?” You sound uncertain, too.
God, he’s such an idiot. 
“Yeah, kitten. It’s— fuck, of course it’s okay.”
Tumblr media
thank you so so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed, and if you did, a comment or a reblog would absolutely make my day :)
2K notes · View notes
yandere-daydreams · 10 months
Text
Not-So-Scary Moments With The Yan. Genshin Boys (Sumeru + Fontaine Edition).
Characters: Alhaitham, Neuvillette, Kaveh, Tighnari, Cyno, and Wriothesley.
Word Count: 2.7k.
TW: Borderline Shitposting, Prolonged Imprisonment, Varying Levels of Emotional and Physical Abuse, Codependency, Mentions of Stalking, and Unhealthy Relationships.
Tumblr media
Alhaitham
It took Alhaitham about ten minutes to drag himself out of bed, his staggered footsteps audible through the thin walls of his apartment.
It took twenty for him to haul himself through his morning routine – water running somewhere in the distance and porcelain clattering against marble countertops as he washed his face and tried to work some life into himself. Alhaitham usually wasn’t so lethargic, but he’d had a rough week. There’d been a sudden influx of paperwork for the Akademiya’s sole scribe, and every second he didn’t spend buried under new legislation and requests for increased budging was, instead, dedicated to one of his many personal research projects. By the time he’d gotten home last night, it’d been all he could do to make sure you hadn’t starved to death and drag himself to bed.
He usually would’ve kept you waiting for a few more minutes, but an agitated grunt marked an end to his normal patterns. In a moment, he was braced against the doorway to his own study, his eyes narrowed half-hearted towards where you sat in his leather-padded chair, your feet propped on his desk. There was an book open in your lap – one of his, something about metaphysics and ley line abnormalities and how both tied into the Inazuman politics. He eyed it wearily before speaking, his voice still deep with exhaustion. “Where did you put my hearing aids?”
His tone was accusatory, his irritation visible. You put on your sweetest smile. “Where did you put my novellas?” you signed, thinking for a moment before adding, “Bitch?”
“They aren’t ‘novellas’, they’re—” He cut himself off with a scoff. “They’re filth. I don’t want you rotting your brain with smut.”
“The plots are very—”
“The plots are half-baked excuses for paper-thin characters to fondle each other in locations you can tell the author didn’t take the time to properly research and—” His gaze flickered to you, his frown deepening. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“You’ve read them?”
There was a long beat of silence.
Finally, he let out a labored sigh. “The dozen or so I couldn’t be bothered to throw away are in a cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. It’s locked – the code is your birthday. Now, where are my aids?”
“You fell asleep with them on last night,” you said aloud, abandoning his glorified textbook and pushing yourself to your feet. His hand shot to the side of his head, finding the metallic cuff only slightly displaced by having spent the better half of the night on his head. As you passed him, you paused, pressing a kiss into the corner of his scowl and pretending to ignore the muffled groan he let out in response.
Neuvillette
Of all the sights you thought you might see after arriving in your wonderous new nation, the Iudex of Fontaine standing over your drained bathtub with a look of potent remorse written across his expression was not one of them.
You’d imagined yourself strolling through the walls of the Opera Epiclese in vivid detail, been able to picture exactly what you might’ve seen standing below the Tower of Ipsissimus or above the bottomless pit that was the entrance to the Fortress of Meropide, but even after you’d found yourself in the smothering care of Monsieur Neuvillette, you never would’ve been able to conjure this sight. He usually insisted that you bathe together, going so far as to have an in-ground tub that could’ve easily been mistaken for a hot spring installed in his (until recently neglected) personal residence to better indulge the habit. Thankfully, the trial he’d been presiding over had run long today, and you’d been able to save yourself an hour of his calloused hands running over your body, of his eyes burning into your skin with a nearly inhuman focus. You knew he’d be disappointed. Irate, even, depending on how his trial swung.
You hadn’t expected him to be so… sulky about it.
Half-lidded eyes, a slight pout tugging at the corner of his lips as he lingered idly in the doorway between your shared bedroom and the in-suite bathroom. Steam and silence laid heavy in the air – the latter you were eventually forced to break as you fiddled with the hem of your robe. “I’m sorry,” you muttered, hoping more to break the tension than to make him think you were genuinely apologetic. “It was getting late, and I didn’t know when you were coming home. I didn’t think you’d take it so personally.” When he didn’t respond, you braced yourself for the worst. “If you’re angry, please say so. I… I’d rather get this over with now, if it’s all the same to you.”
His expression softened. He let out an airy sigh and, with only a moment of hesitation, closed the space between you. “I’m not angry.” A pair of lean arms wrapped around your waist, his face soon buried in the crook of your neck. You heard him inhale, and did what you could to suppress the shudder that ran up your spine at the thought of him basking in your scent. “I’ve just been… looking forward to it, I suppose. Your taste relaxes me.”
Immediately, you went rigid. “My… taste?”
“Mhm.”
“Neuvillette,” you started, very slowly, giving your own mind time to catch up to the dread slowly building in the pit of your stomach. “Have you been drinking my bathwater?”
He was quiet for a not inconsiderable amount of time.
Finally, he pulled away from you just far enough to speak. “…no?”
For your own sake, you decided to believe him.
Kaveh
“Kaveh.”
“Not now, treasure.”
“Go to bed.”
“I will, in another hour.”
“You need to get some sleep.”
“I’ve already told you – I’m fine.” He narrowed his eyes, expression contorted by concentration. “Knight to B4.”
“Kaveh,” you repeated, leaning across the table. “You were showing me your blueprints.”
“Oh.” He blinked several times, looking over the sheet of blue paper marked with chalk drawings and near indecipherable hand-writing. “Were you impressed?”
Your frown irked, but you swallowed back your exasperation and pushed yourself to your feet. Slowly, you took him by the hand and, when he failed to protest, guided him out of his own seat and towards the room you were usually restrained to, when he wasn’t home. He’d kept himself awake for the past two nights, every moment of the past forty-eight hours devoted to finishing his proposal for a wealthy commissioner’s summer mansion before its upcoming deadline and, now that the coffee had been drained from his system and his adrenaline had been given time to fade, he was practically a shell of a man – all dark circles and hunched posture and disheveled blonde hair.
Sleep deprivation was, by far, the worst thing he could inflict on himself. At least he was happy after he drunk himself into oblivion. This was just depressing; as miserable for him as it was for you.
With a dutifulness you shouldn’t have had to show to your lover-turned-stalker-turned-captor, you brought him to his bed and watched as he collapsed onto it, what little strength he had to hold himself up immediately dissolving. With a sigh, a roll of your eyes, you turned to leave, but a hand lashed out from the crumpled heap and caught you by the wrist. “Stay with me?” His voice was muffled by layers of sheets and blankets, but clear enough. “Please?”
Usually, his bids for affection were met with bitter neutrality or, on your worse days, spiteful condensation. Usually, you would’ve torn yourself out of his hold and made sure he knew that he’d ruined any chance of living out his little domestic fantasy the second he decided his obsession was worth more than your happiness. Usually, you would’ve hated him that much more for daring to ask.
But, he could barely hold his eyes open and when you failed to immediately recoil, the sloppiest, most lovesick smile you’d ever seen plastered itself across his lips. It was his turn to pull you forward, this time; to drag you onto his bed and into his chest. With a satisfied sigh, he slotted his chin against the dip of your shoulder and draped his arms around your waist – an old position. A relic of better times you’d never been strong enough to completely dicard. “When it’s time to draw up the plans for our home,” he mumbled, only half-audible. “I won’t so much as breathe until its perfect.”
You opened your mouth, but didn’t say anything.
He’d already fallen asleep.
Tighnari
He glanced once at the thick packet of ink-marked parchment you’d slammed in front of him before looking back to you, his expression disparaging. “And this is supposed to be…?”
“A custody agreement,” you answered, grinning. “Alhaitham put it together during his last visit.”
“We don’t have any kids.”
“It’s for Collei. If I ever leave you,” and, to be clear, you would be leaving him, as soon as you figured out how to get away from a man who poisoned your tea whenever you so much as suggested entertaining a future that didn’t include him, “I want weekends and summers.”
“She’s nineteen.”
“Which is why we’re letting her pick who she wants to spend holidays with.” You tapped the front page with your knuckles. “Honestly, dear, if you weren’t going to so much as read the documents, we could’ve scheduled this for another day.”
His ears twitched, his tail sweeping across the floor in irritation. “Even if this was legally binding – which, by the way, something assembled by a scribe would not be – I would never give you weekends. That’d be too much travelling for a girl in her condition, and I don’t want her to feel like she comes from a broken home. Moreover, according to Regulation #531 as passed by the Grand Sage last year, you would have to get Collei’s signature before—”
“Check page twenty-seven.”
You watched him scowl as he thumbed through the pages. A second later, his ears flattened against his scalp, and he took to muttering under his breath. “Traitor.”
“If you don’t want your aggression towards the dependent party used against you in court, I’d suggest you sign on page four, seventeen, and thirty-two.”
You left his villa half an hour later with a with a new imprint of his fangs on the side of your throat and a signed document in-hand.
Cyno
“You have kidnapped me.”
“Technically, I was only—”
“You’ve blackmailed me, imprisoned me, and tortured me.”
“You can’t still be hung up on—”
“You’ve branded me with your name, forced me into your bed, and made me play out all your delusional, fucked-up fantasies—” You took a deep breath, pursed your lips. “—but if you show up to a black-tie event wearing that, it will be the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”
He looked down, as if considering his attire for the first time. He was in his usual uniform – which was to say, shirtless and barefoot, his hair windblown and a fine layer of sand still coating what little he was wearing. You could only be thankful his polearm wasn’t slung across his back, but you knew he’d make it past the door without it. “The way I dress has never been a problem before.”
“There’s a difference between hunting down rouge scholars and going to a banquet being held by a literal god. Archons, Lesser Lord Kusanali herself might be there.” You gasped, dragged your hands over your face. “Everyone who’s ever gone to the Akademiya will absolutely be there.”
For all his many faults, he could never stand to see you in pain. There was a brief delay, a moment of unsure shuffling, then his arms were wrapping around you, his chest slotting against your back has he pulled you against him. “It’ll be alright,” he muttered, speaking into your shoulder. “If anyone so much as attempts to insult you—no, if anyone tries to talk to you at all, I’ll strike them down in the blink of an eyes.”
His comfort was stale, but you forced yourself to relax. At least enough to speak. “You know,” you mumbled, letting your hands drift to your temples. “Dehya was hired by an up-and-coming scholar, a few weeks ago. I’m not sure how long her contract was, but there’s a chance we’ll see her tonight.”
There was a beat of silence, then another.
“Cyno?”
“I’ll change.”
Wriothesley
You could hear him trudging up the metallic stairs to his office; his footsteps heavy enough to drown out the soft music flowing out of his century-old gramophone. His head emerged from the curving staircase, first – his hair somehow more disheveled than its usual state of barely-tamed chaos – then his chest, his tie undone and his collar terribly mangled, as if he’d spent all day indulging the worst of his nervous habits. He was baring his teeth, his pale cheeks flushed with anger and his eyes narrowed into a pointed glare. It wasn’t quite the reaction you’d hoped for (in your wildest dreams, he would’ve managed to sink his beloved fortress before he ever reached you), but it was close enough.
You moved to stand, to greet him with the warm embrace he usually demanded, but he was already in front of you, already pinning you to the back of the lounge you’d been splayed across with a single fist planted less than a hair’s width above your shoulder. “You,” he growled, leaning in close enough for his breath to fan over your skin. “Do you know how many journalistsI had to deal with today? They were everywhere. I couldn’t go a step without tripping over some— over some glorified tabloid.”
“So, your meeting with Monsieur Neuvillette went well?” His scowl deepened, and you let out your most faux innocent laugh – a chiming, bubbling thing he’d never been able to stand. “You shouldn’t scowl like that, love. All those photographers will have to find a new model if you manage to give yourself frown lines.”
He jolted, but forced himself to shut his eyes, to let out a long, ragged breath. When he did face you again, he’d regained a degree of his composure – just enough to meet your smile with his own tight-lipped grin, more teeth than anything. “I’ll let you off easy if you tell me how you did it now. Before I decide it’d be faster to strangle an explanation out of you.”
“I didn’t break any rules, if that’s what you’re worried about.” You paused, folded your hands over your lap. “It was all thanks to our great and benevolent duke. Contacting people outside of the fortress has gotten so much more efficient ever since you decided prisoners should be able to send letters without administrative vetting.”
He buckled visibly, his shoulders falling as he lean towards you, his face soon buried in the dip of your shoulder. “You’re gonna be the death of me, sweetheart.” There was a raspy chuckle, a hand on your thigh, squeezing just hard enough for his anger to shine through the playfulness of the gesture. “I think I’ve earned the rest of the day off, and I think you’ve earned—”
The door to his office swung open before he could finish, a masculine voice calling up from the voice below only a moment later. “Your grace, t-there’s a reporter here to see you! She says she’s been told not to leave until she speaks to your partner!”
“That’ll be Charlotte,” you half-sung. “She seemed like such a nice girl in her letters. It’d be a shame to keep her waiting.”
When he failed to answer, you brought up both hands and cupped his face, cooing as you used your thumbs to quirk the corners of his mouth upward.
“Just remember to smile for the camera this time, alright?”
4K notes · View notes
shawtuzi · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
HIDE N’ SEEK FT. GOJO SATORU
summary- you and your boyfriend decide to play a little game of hide and seek at a halloween party
content warnings include- modern au, a little plot but mostly smut lmao, oral m!receiving, throat fucking, shoe humping, fingering, a little groping from gojo, sorta needy!gojo but he’s also pretty mean, unprotected sex, rough sex, tongue sucking bc i’m obsessed w it rn, squirting, creampie, geto is a perv, rushed ending, not proofread /// wc: 3.1k
a/n- hi!!! i’m back kinda from my hiatus so pls enjoy this bc idk when the next time i post will be lmao
⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖
gojo <3: i see you.
your heart rate began to pick up as you read the ominous text from your boyfriend. your eyes looked in every direction hoping to see someone in a ghost face mask on their phone, but unfortunately no such luck.
“why did i agree to do this . . . so stupid,” you grumbled to yourself as you shoved your phone in the back pocket of your sexy nurse costume. to add a little context you and your darling boyfriend, gojo satoru, thought it would be fun to play a little game of hide and seek at the costume party/bonfire one of his friends was throwing. you hide he seeks. the only catch was neither of you could have your location on and you weren’t allowed to tell anyone about the game. all you had to do was make sure gojo didn’t “tag” you before midnight. simple right? not.
you had thought nothing of it when he said he was going to be ghostface come to find out more than half the people at the party were dressed as the masked killer. it was easy to spot you of course—with your skin tight red and white dress and red stockings but trying to decipher which one of these people were gojo was simply impossible.
gojo was standing a few feet away from you, a sinister smile on his lips. he could see how frustrated you were becoming and boy was it a cute sight to see. your brows were furrowed and your red, glossed up lips were pulled into an adorable pout. you had the slightest tinge of fear in your eyes—between that and your costume he was becoming more riled up as the minutes ticked by.
you glanced at your phone—
11:42 PM
only eighteen more minutes and you were golden! you glanced at the part of the woods where it was dark and unoccupied with any party goers, without a second thought began to walk over to finish up the rest of the time. little did you know gojo was trailing behind you, quietly giggling at how silly you were for making this so easy for him.
“s’freezing out here,” your hands rubbed up and down your arms that were now covered in goosebumps. the only sounds that could be heard was the bass of the music from the party and your feet crunching against the dead leaves and twigs on the ground along with—another pair of footsteps???
you whipped around and were met with nothing but the party goers in the distance. you knew it was just a fun little game but you couldn’t help the feeling of dread that overcame you. you had half a mind to text gojo and call off the game but with only ten minutes left you decided to stick it out.
after a minute your phone buzzed in your pocket.
gojo <3- found you :)
“wha-?” all a sudden your front was pushed into a tree, you felt someone’s weight press against you along with something plastic poking against your throat. “i found youuu,” gojo giggled, pressing the plastic knife more into your neck. you pushed your backside into his hard on making him groan right into your ear. “no fair ‘toru…couldn’t find you anywhere with all those people wearing the same costume,” you whined, slick beginning to stain your lacy white panties.
gojo hummed and without a second thought shoved his free glove covered hand into your panties, cupping your sensitive pussy. “c’mon baby you know i don’t like to play fair let’s not act dumb hm?” you couldn’t see his face but you knew just from the tone of his voice he was grinning from ear to ear. gojo used his middle finger to rub at your clit, giving you minor relief while he humped your ass. you both stayed like that for a moment before he began to grow bored.
“suck my dick,” was all he said, removing his hand from your panties much to your dismay. “but—but ‘toru—” you were cut off by gojo squishing your cheeks together roughly. he pushed you down by your shoulders, not caring that the twigs were scraping and poking against your soft skin. (don’t worry he’ll bandage you up later if need be <3)
“now if you recall from earlier..” be began to unbuckle his belt, “we agreed that whoever won got to do whatever they wanted with the loser right?” he waited for you to nod your head before continuing. he slowly unzipped his pants, pulling them and his briefs halfway down his toned thighs. “and who’s the winner?” he giggled, tracing his almost painfully hard dick against your lips. you darted your tongue out to get just a little taste of him, making satoru visibly shudder. “you, you’re the winner,” you mumbled, setting your hands in your lap.
gojo cradled your face his hands, fighting the overwhelming urge to rip off the ghostface mask and kiss you till you were breathless. “don’t look so sad babydoll, i’m about to fuck your throat and your little pussy so good let’s look alive yeah?” he gave your cheek a rough couple of pats. he brought his index and middle finger to your lips, “open your mouth.” you parted your lips and with little to no warning gojo shoved the digits down your throat, impressed that you had kept your gags to a minimum. he rubbed your saliva around the length of his dick and gave himself a few quick strokes before pushing the tip against your lips.
you wrapped your lips around his dick and gojo’s hand immediately found purchase on the back of your head. “yeah . . . jus’ like—fuck, l-like that,” although he was putting on a tough façade for the sake of the situation it was fading away quicker than he had anticipated. you were just so good with your mouth :(
you didn’t even care that you lost, now too enamored in the pretty sounds that were slipping past gojo’s lips. and you both certainly didn’t care that anyone could possibly catch you in the act. “i need to record this shit goddamn,” with shaky hands gojo held up his phone and started to record you, quietly apologizing for the sudden flash of light in your face. you played it out a little for the camera knowing gojo was definitely going to use this vid for times when he’s by himself. you wrapped both of your hands around his dick and worked quick pumps around the tip while your other hand moved slowly up and down the base.
satoru felt his knees buckle a little when you started sucking on his balls, nearly dropping his phone in the process. “you’re s-so fuckin’ hot, so hot n’ a-all mine yeah? please say it,” he didn’t give the slightest fuck how pathetic he sounded. all needed in this moment was for you to tell him his dick belonged to you and you only and vice versa. “yes toru all yours,” you hummed leaving kisses around the base of his dick. that was all he needed to hear before he tossed his phone to the side and began to brutally fuck your poor little throat.
each time your nose pressed against his pelvis from deep throating him it just gave him more incentive to put a fat rock on your finger and never let you go. your dress had ridden up and without even thinking gojo pressed the top of his shoe against your cunt making your hips jerk forward. “hump it, hump my fuckin’ shoe and cum from it,” his ‘demand’ was shaky and breathless but nonetheless you listened to your boyfriend and started humping his shoe.
between gojo still ruthlessly fucking your throat and the laces of his shoe rubbing deliciously against your clit you were overstimulated beyond belief—and it felt incredible. he loved when he could turn your brain into a pile of mush and you enjoyed it just as much. after holding your head firmly against his pelvic area for god knows how long gojo removed your mouth from his dick, finally letting you get some air. you didn’t know if it was alcohol, the blunt you took a few hits of, or just horniness in its purest form but you were feeling insatiable.
you wrapped your arms around his thick thigh and planted your knees firmly into the ground before moving your hips with quickness. gojo was surprised at your actions, his dick visibly twitching at you getting off on his fucking shoe of all things. “i’m—i’m close, can feel it toru i’m—o-oh my!” a sharp gasp left your lips when gojo began tapping his foot just the slightest. “jerk me off n’ let’s cum together,” you didn’t need to be told twice as you wrapped your hand around the base of his dick, suckling on the tip as well to bring him even closer to his peak (and to avoid getting cum in your face/hair heh).
you both came in unison a chorus of moans and groans leaving both of your mouths. “that—that was good, you’re so good y/n c’mere,” gojo was quick to pull you to your feet and pushed your back right against the tree that was shielding you both from any potential spectators. “i wanna kiss you so bad,” he spoke softly, cupping and massaging your breasts over your thin dress. “but i really wanna fuck you with this stupid mask on,” gojo gripped your plush thighs and lifted you up with ease, you weren’t even the littlest but surprised when his impatient ass practically ripped your panties in half trying to get them off.
“put it in for me,” gojo muttered, blindly shoving your tattered panties in his back pocket. you complied whispering out a little ‘anything for you toru’ before slowly swiping his sensitive tip between your pillowy soft folds. just as you were about to slide him in you heard voices and footsteps that sounded like they were getting closer and closer. “w-wait someone’s coming!” you whisper-shouted but that didn’t stop gojo from pushing his dick into you with one swift thrust. a broken moan emerged from your throat and you were quick your cover your mouth with both hands.
“put your fuckin’ hands down no one’s gonna see us,” gojo hissed, his toes curling from how tight and hot you felt. you hastily removed your hands making gojo smile behind the mask. “they might not s-see but they’ll—hah! hear us toruuu,” you whined burying your face in his neck.
gojo made sure your legs were securely wrapped around his waist before yanking the ghostface mask off, he pressed his lips against yours without missing a beat. “guess i’ll just have to keep kissin’ ya to make sure you don’t make to much noise yeah?”
“yeah . . . . you’re right.”
⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⊹˚. ♡.𖥔 ݁ ˖
“do—do you guys *hiccup* here that?” a drunk, poor unknowing geto slurred out, his brows furrowing at the sound of grunts coming from the darker part of the woods. of course no one responded, too invested in literally anything else besides geto’s drunk ramblings—plus his jason mask muffled anything he had to say.
geto pushed himself up from the log he was sitting on, nearly falling over in process. “guess i’ll go look myself…dickheads,” he muttered to himself, making his way over to the suspicious noises. he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a particularly loud groan and that’s when it started to click. “holy shit . . . h-holy sh—”
“satoruuu!”
if geto was in his right state of mind he would’ve turned around with a quickness and forget this ever happened—but he’s not. his feet stayed planted, not daring move an inch closer. he hadn’t even realized be was starting to palm himself over his pants—already half hard. he could feel his heart in his throat as he took one step forward . . . and then another . . . anddd another.
he stopped once he could clearly hear the schlick schlick schlick noise of gojo pounding mercilessly into your poor pussy. he couldn’t see much but he could hear everything. he could hear your cute little pants and whines as you tried to poorly keep quiet, he could hear gojo muttering what must have been dirty promises into your ear, but in his opinion the best thing he heard was how sloppily you and gojo were kissing.
anytime your moans were becoming louder and more high pitched gojo would smash his lips into yours, shoving his tongue into your mouth without warning. gojo sucked your tongue into his mouth, a groan rumbling in his chest when he felt you tighten around him. “you taste like alcohol . . . you been drinking tonight love? is t-that why you’re being so—hah! fuckin’ loud? hm?” his ring and middle finger began toying with your clit and your lips started to tremble. hot, salty tears began to run down your cheeks making gojo giggle. “you’re s’cute when you cry, please cry more for me,” he cooed licking at the never ending stream of tears flowing from soon to be bloodshot eyes.
“you’re—you’re such a *sniffle* p-perv ‘toru,” you whined, tangling your fingers in his snow white locks. when you have a particularly harsh tug gojo’s knees buckled the tiniest bit, nearly making him lose his balance. “i see you’re feeling pretty mean huh? lets fix that . . . only thing i need you to feel is numb.” gojo removed his fingers from your clit and without warning shoved the digits between your lips. man oh man did you wish he would’ve taken those stupid gloves off, what you really needed in this moment was the feeling of gojo’s soft fingertips prodding at the back of your throat.
gojo slowed the pace of his thrusts, more focused on fucking your throat with his fingers. once he had his fix he removed his fingers from your mouth, smearing any excess saliva on your lips and chin. he slowly pulled his dick out, the moonlight mixed with the dim light from the bonfire making him glisten with your slick.
“n-no! no no don’t do that here someone will definitely hear me ‘toru,” you pouted, knowing good and well what gojo’s intentions were. gojo hummed as he rubbed his fingers between your soaked folds, pretending to to thinking about the consequences of his actions before giggling once more. “oh well!” he smiled, inserting his fingers into your pussy, immediately finding that spot that had your eyes rolling into the back of your head.
“god do you hear how wet you are? such a slutty fuckin’ pussy goddamn,” gojo growled, adding his thumb to the mix by rubbing your almost painfully sensitive clit. you didn’t know how the fuck he was holding you so steady with one arm but you couldn’t even bother to care, too focused on your upcoming orgasm. “p-please . . . please add ‘nother finger ‘toru i need it,” you gasped loudly, back arching against the tree when you felt gojo begin to suck at your breasts over the thin material of your dress. gojo added another finger, increasing his pace until he felt your legs begin to shake.
he brought his lips close to your ear, nibbling and sucking at the lobe. “you’re so lucky we have to walk in front of everyone once we’re done or i would’ve torn this dress to pieces,” his words had your toes curling, and your eyes rolling back for the umpteenth time as your pussy squeezed around his fingers.
while you were quickly chasing your peak geto was trying his absolute hardest not to reach his just yet. his pants were pulled down just enough to let his aching dick out and he wasted no time stroking himself to your pretty moans.
it was no secret to the three of you that geto had found you attractive—shit with the way gojo boasts about your guys’ sex life how could he not be curious??? yes curiosity. that’s all that this was. once he got off he would walk away and never think or speak of it ever. but he couldn’t help but think of the next time he sees you walking around with a limp and accidentally starts to wonder what positions gojo could’ve possible put you in . . . or wonder how brutally he had fucked your throat when he hears how hoarse your voice sounds.
his thoughts were interrupted by a high pitched moan that was quickly cut off by what he assumed was gojo’s lips on yours. he heard gojo say in a teasing tone ‘you tryin’ to baptize me over here?’ and he nearly cummed imagining your fucked out face and trembling legs.
a spurt of cum landed on your thigh and gojo tsked, shaking his head. “that won’t do, gotta be inside you now so i can finish inside,” he hummed, realigning his dick with your entrance. he pushed in with one swift thrust and that’s when your finally felt your brain turn into a muddled pile of nothing but lust and want. although it was dark gojo could still see the dazed look in your eyes and it brought a blissed out smile to his lips, which were now stained red from your lip gloss.
“c’mon baby talk to me, how do you feel?” gojo purred, pressing his forehead against yours. your words kept getting caught in your throat and all you could mutter out was a pathetic ‘feels s’gooood’. gojo could slowly feel himself begin to crumble, mumbling out incoherent sentences along with you. “i know baby i—shit, i know. feel so good ‘round me, so perfect you’re so perfect gimme a kiss,” he smushed his lips against yours with a clash of tongue and teeth—his fav kinda kisses.
“gotta big load for you baby, c’mon cum with me i know you can do it,” gojo’s words of encouragement finally brought you to your peak and this time you both just let it out. every pushed down moan and groan could be heard from anywhere if anyone paid close enough attention but neither of you could find it in you to care. gojo’s hips stilled as he emptied himself inside you, his tongue lolling out in the process. you were quick to bring your hands to his soft locks, gently scratching his scalp. “don’t do that, gonna make me too tired for the drive home,” he chuckled, giving your sweaty neck a sloppy kiss.
“speaking of, how am i supposed to walk with all this in me it’s a lot satoruuu,” you whined, feeling the urge to smack gojo on the back of the head for tearing your panties in two. gojo sighed, stroking your bare thigh gently with his thumb muttering something along the lines of ‘i’ll handle it’.
while you and gojo took a minute to regroup from your intense fuck session, geto was regrouping himself from possibly the most intense orgasm he’s ever had. of course he felt disgusted with himself for spying on his best friend fucking his girlfriend but he also wanted more???
this was definitely going to be a problem.
4K notes · View notes
softspiderling · 5 months
Text
so obsessed with your ex | r.c.
Tumblr media
summary: “Hey,” you smiled at her, alarmingly genuine. “Rebecca, right?”
“Yeah.”
You nodded, your eyes warm. “We haven’t met. I’m-”
“I know who you are,” Rebecca interrupted you, her cheeks warming when she realized what she was alluding to. You exchanged a discreet look with Sarah and Rebecca willed the ground to open up and swallow her with the way the conversation was going.
OR If Rebecca had known that her obsession with you would lead to you and Rafe getting back together, she would've done a whole lot different.
pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader / Rafe Cameron x OC
warnings: during most of this fic, Rafe is dating someone else. Sorry, it's part of the plot, but they don't do a lot of couple-y things, if that's any consolation! Rebecca is kind of delulu (actually, she is very delulu), but i'm hoping that most of you can relate to it, NO cheating!
word count: 4,1k
author's note: something very different, i'm aware, but i was like a woman cursed when i listened to olivia rodrigo's song sorry and this was what i envisioned. I HOPE YOU LOVE IT!!!! Also, I want to @ my loveys @rafesmuse and @rafetopia bc ily guys, thanks for the support and my wife @ghostofwriting mwah mwah mwah, happy reading!!!
✦ .  ⁺   . ✦ .  ⁺   . ✦
Rebecca had always felt secure in her relationship with Rafe.
Until she found out about you.
It all started when she was looking for a hair tie, knowing she had left a couple of them in Rafe’s bedroom whenever she stayed over.
“Baby, have you seen my hair ties? I swear I could’ve sworn I put them in the bedside drawer…” Rebecca muttered to herself, pulling open the drawers, rummaging through them. She froze when brushed a pack of condoms aside to reveal a picture she had never seen before. Rafe was talking to her from the bathroom, but Rebecca couldn’t hear a thing as she picked up the picture, looking at it with a funny feeling.
The picture looked like it was taken mid-conversation as you and Rafe were standing closely together, having eyes for no one but each other. Even thought you were barely touching, it felt weirdly intimate. More intimate than a close friend. And Rebecca had seen you around Kildare before, but you never had made an active move to talk to Rafe when they were at a party, so if you were friends, he definitely would’ve introduced her to you, right?
“Bex, hey. Did you find one?”
“What?”
Flustered, Rebecca looked up from the picture, her cheeks red and Rafe raised an eyebrow at her, a hair tie on his open palm.
“I asked if you found a hair tie. I put them in the bathroom,” he said, rounding the bed to hand it to her. “What d’ya got there?”
“Oh, just a picture I found,” Rebecca said quickly, taking the hair tie out of his hand, moving to put the picture back in the drawer, but Rafe was quicker, snatching it out of her grip with a laugh.
“Are we starting to lie each other now?”
Rebecca watched him closely as he took a look at the picture, pressing her lips together as he paused, taking it in.
“That’s-” she broke off, clearing her throat, before she said your name. “… Right?”
“Yeah, yeah…”
Rafe frowned, before he lifted his head to look at her. Rebecca couldn’t quite decipher the look on his face. She had never seen him like this before.
“I didn’t know you dated her,” she said, nonchalantly, hoping he would deny it. But Rafe only shrugged, glancing at the picture one more time before he put it back in the drawer, shutting it close.
“We broke up before you came on the island, how were you supposed to know?”
Rafe pressed a kiss to her temple, but Rebecca was still fixated on the picture, staring at where she knew it laid inside the drawer.
“Are you ready? Top’s gonna come pick us up in a few.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rebecca replied, distracted. “Uh, you can go downstairs, I’ll be down asap.”
“A’ight.”
Rebecca smiled at him, waiting until he left the room, before she slid open the drawer again, reaching for the picture to stare at it, her thumb rubbing circles into the corner, wondering who was still printing pictures in this day and age. She wasn’t sure how long she was standing there, jumping when she heard Rafe yelling for her.
“Bex, Top is here!”
“Coming!” Rebecca called back and without thinking, she slipped the picture into her purse before heading downstairs.
To say that Rebecca grew infatuated with you after finding that picture was an understatement. She was obsessed.
Okay, maybe not obsessed, that had a weird tone to it. Fixated.
She was pretty fixated on you.
Rebecca immediately had followed you on instagram when she got home later that night. Scrolling through your profile, she noticed that while you weren’t following Rafe and vice versa, you still followed all of his friends and his family. Rafe’s younger sister Wheezie seemed to be a constant in your life still, judging by her comments under all of your pictures. Apparently you were still well-liked by his family friends, and Rebecca started to wonder why you and Rafe broke up. But it wasn’t like she could ask Rafe why you broke up, right?
“What?” Topper stared at her, as if Rebecca had just asked him to give her 1k. His look made her nervous though, and she glanced over her shoulder, making sure that Rafe was still out of earshot.
“You’re his best friend,” she stated, albeit unnecessarily. “You have to know.”
Topper rubbed his jaw, like he was conflicted, which Rebecca really didn’t understand. What was the big deal? She had intentionally waited until Topper was a little tipsy, and now she was wondering if that was a mistake, since he seemed strangely paranoid.
“You’re his girlfriend. Shouldn’t you be asking him that question?”
“I don’t want to stir up trouble! Why can’t you just tell me?” Rebecca raised her voice, her cheeks flushing when she realized that people were starting to stare, so she burrowed deeper into the couch, waiting until everyone went back to their business. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked this at a party.
“It was a mutual break up,” Topper then answered, speaking slowly like every single word was gravel in his mouth. “Rafe never really told me why, but they just disappeared out of each other’s lives from one day to the next, as if they haven’t been dating for the last four years. But she never said anything bad about him in the aftermath… Neither did he.”
That just created more questions than it answered, but before Rebecca could get her thoughts sorted to prod Topper again, Rafe returned, his shoulders lose.
“Your drink,” he said, handing Rebecca a cup, settling down on the couch next to her, throwing his arm over the back. He hadn’t even been sitting for a minute, when Topper got to his feet, muttering something about finding the pong table for a game.
“What’s with him?”
Rebecca only shrugged, choosing to sip on her drink instead of giving an answer, her mind still reeling from the information she got from Topper. The more she learned about you, the more she was intrigued and filled with questions, that she felt like would never be answered.
“You good?”
Rebecca barely lifted her head from the window she was leaning it, her reaction a little slow. She had been… Drinking a little more than she liked. Every time she wanted to ask Rafe about you, she stopped herself and went for another drink, and that process had repeated itself over and over again until Rafe cut her off, deciding to take her home. Rebecca was more than tipsy, her inhibitions slightly out of control.
“Fine,” she replied with a little sigh, rubbing her temple. She could feel Rafe’s eyes on her and she could feel her resolve crumbling. “Why did you guys break up?”
The car swerved off the road for a second, making Rebecca grab onto the arm rest to keep steady while Rafe cursed.
“The fuck?” he said, glancing over at her with a frown. “Where the hell did that come from?”
Rebecca exhaled deeply through her lips before she looked over to him, her brows furrowed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Topper told me you were dating for four years, Rafe. Four years! But he couldn’t even tell me why. Isn’t he your best friend? He should know that, right?”
Rafe stared at her, as if trying to gauge her reaction. Rebecca hadn’t even noticed that he had pulled the car to the side, the motor long off.
“Is this like a test or somethin’?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “No. I’m just genuinely curious. She seems-”
Nice? Super pretty? Like his perfect match?
She didn’t finish her sentence.
“What?” Rafe muttered under his breath, and Rebecca only scoffed in annoyance.
“Whatever,” she huffed, leaning her head against the window again. “Just forget it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rafe just sitting there, turning the ring on his finger, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“We got into a lot of fights near the end,” he started, his tone defeated. “She’s pretty headstrong, likes being right. I like sticking to my opinion… It wasn’t healthy anymore, so we both knew that something had to change, even though I still…. There was still love.”
Rafe stopped, but Rebecca held herself back with saying anything, wanting to soak up every bit of information he was willing to give her.
“We figured a clean cut would be best for both of us, have no contact. Give us a chance to start fresh, see new people.”
Rebecca could tell that he was holding something back, probably something along the line of how he was struggling with the no contact rule, but didn’t want to seem like he was still holding onto you.
“She’s really pretty,” she only said.
“Yeah.”
Do you still love her?
Rebecca was glad that she was still able to hold herself back enough to not ask that. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t like the answer that much.
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Yeah. You done throwing tantrums?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes with a small smile and settled back into her seat while Rafe started the car to continue their way home. Most girlfriends would probably feel angry that their boyfriend seemed to be so sentimental still when it came to their ex, but all that Rebecca could think about was how you clearly were someone he held dearly, and that she wished to be that reach that point soon.
And when she was about fall asleep after they got home to his place, she wondered how often you had fallen asleep on her side of Rafe’s bed like this. She thought finding out more about your relationship with Rafe, she would stop obsessing you.
But she didn’t.
She kept it to herself, however, not mentioning you again after that one talk in the car she had with Rafe.
Rafe, who had been lighter ever since he talked about you, ever since she pushed him to talk about, which showed her that it was the right thing to do. Her fixation on you helped her relationship with Rafe and to her, that justified the amount of times she was checking out your social media, but Rafe wouldn’t understand. She admired you. Honestly, Rebecca felt like she could become pretty good friends with you, but what excuse did she have to talk to you besides dating your ex boyfriend? Worst case, she’d curse you out, best case she’d give you a fake smile. No thank you. Rebecca would much rather stick to admiring you from afar.
… Which was the reason why she was so nervous, when she met you for the first time. In her defense, this was the last place she had expected to see you. The place being Kelce’s house.
It was his birthday, and to celebrate it, he decided to throw a huge rager at his house. While Rebecca did arrive with Rafe, they quickly separated, with Rafe trying to find Kelce - this was his birthday after all - and her going to see her friends. After about two hours, and Rafe not replying to her texts, Rebecca started to walk around to see if she could find him. Which was easier said than done, the house was packed. When it took her nearly half an hour to get through the kitchen, Rebecca almost gave up until she saw Sarah sitting in the corner of the couch talking to someone.
“Sarah!”
Although Rebecca wasn’t the closest with her, she was about the only person she knew right now, and she could use a familiar face. Slipping between a kissing couple, she made her way straight to the couch, touching Sarah’s shoulder gingerly.
“Hey, I’m so glad I saw you. Have you seen Rafe anywhere? He hasn’t been answering his texts and I-”
Rebecca trailed off when she noticed Sarah glancing to her friend, only to realize that it was you who Sarah had been sitting with, and her words get stuck in her throat.
Oh.
“Hey,” you smiled at her, alarmingly genuine. “Rebecca, right?”
“Yeah.”
You nodded, your eyes warm. “We haven’t met. I’m-”
“I know who you are,” Rebecca interrupted you, her cheeks warming when she realized what she was alluding to. You exchanged a discreet look with Sarah and Rebecca willed the ground to open up and swallow her with the way the conversation was going.
“They’re probably in the basement,” you offered, maybe as some sort of olive branch. “Kelce likes to hide away down there to play pool during his parties.”
“Oh yeah yeah, Rafe probably doesn’t even have any bars down there,” Sarah chimed in.
“Right, okay, thanks,” Rebecca said, awkwardly. She stood behind the couch like a deer in headlights. You must have noticed, because you grabbed Sarah’s arm, scooting back on the couch to make more space.
“You can join us, if you want.”
“… Really?” Rebecca asked skeptically, not quite sure if the invitation was genuine or not.
“Yeah, ‘course.”
Hesitantly, she sat down next to Sarah, trying to get comfortable but she was far too aware of your presence, placing her purse in her lap.
“So have you already settled into Kildare?”
Your eyes were inquisitive and Rebecca was trying to see if there was any sign of malice or distrust in them, but all she could see was genuine interest.
“I mean, I guess so… Life down here is pretty chill. Like it’s its own world…?” Rebecca winces at her own words. “Sorry, that’s stupid.”
“No, no!” You insisted, waving your hands at her quickly. “I know exactly what you mean. We went to Charleston once to tour the college campus there and it was like we were on another planet, remember Sar?”
Sarah’s eyes widened and she nodded quickly, slapping your arm in excitement. It looked like it hurt, but by the way you were laughing, Rebecca assumed it was a regular thing. She wouldn’t know, she barely ever spent over twenty minutes with Rafe’s sister.
“Remember when we were auditing that one sociology class and Rafe fell asleep during the lecture?”
“Oh my god, yes. Because he and Top were playing that stupid video game that came out two days earlier all night long.”
You and Sarah giggled as you reminisced about the past, like two best friends and Rebecca grew envious of your friendship, wondering if she was ever going to have that kind of relationship with Sarah, though you did have running start with building a friendship with her outside of being Rafe’s girlfriend. Or ex, rather. Rebecca started rummaging in her bag, acting like she was looking for something, doing anything to seem less excluded, really.
Your laughter subsided and you smiled at Rebecca, stilling her hands in her purse when she realized the attention was back on her.
“How is Rafe?”
“Oh you know him,” Rebecca replied, a little less nervous now that she was talking about a topic where she wouldn’t feel left out, taking her purse off her lap, placing it on the couch between her and Sarah. “The usual. He’s more focused on keeping up the company than ever, been away a lot.”
You nodded, tucking your hair back, and for a second, you looked incredibly sad. Rebecca wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, because a second later, you were smiling again.
“I’m really glad he has you,” you then said, completely surprising Rebecca. “I think you’re really good for him. Rafe has been really hard on himself, taking everything a little too seriously, and I think you’re really balancing it all out.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows have almost disappeared into her hairline by now, she was so shell-shocked she didn’t even notice Sarah clinking herself out of the conversation, crossing her arms as she sat back.
“Isn’t it weird for you?”
“You mean because he’s my ex and you’re his new girlfriend?” You smiled wryly at her. “I guess it’s a little weird. But it’s not like there’s any bad blood between Rafe and I… In the end, I just want him to be happy, and it seems like you’re making him happy.”
Ducking her head, Rebecca hoped that it was dark enough to conceal her red cheeks. To her, this felt like an insanely gracious statement and suddenly, Rebecca felt validated for obsessing over you so much. You were great and she wasn’t being parasocial.
“I- Thank you. That really means a lot.”
“Of course, don’t worry about it,” you said with a smile, glancing at Sarah when she tugged on the ends of your hair gently. “What, do you want to leave?”
“I promised John B I’d meet him on the beach at sunrise.”
“Fine,” you sighed, you and Sarah standing up. Rebecca stayed seated, though she couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the conversation was cut short.
“It was really nice to talk to, Rebecca. Don’t be a stranger, alright?”
Rebecca waved good bye to you and Sarah, watching as you left with Sarah whispering into your ear insistently. She sat there by herself for a while, replaying the conversation in her head, before she realized she was being weird. Clearing her throat, Rebecca grabbed her purse, that still sat open next to her, her smile dropping when she saw that the picture she had snuck from Rafe’s drawer was peaking out of it.
“Shit,” she muttered to herself, pushing the picture deeper into her purse, before looking up into the crowd, wondering if you had seen it, and if you did, what you thought of her.
“Do you want to do something today?”
After discovering the picture had been sitting in the open like that, Rebecca started worrying if she just ruined her impression you had of her. But seriously, how stupid could she be? She completely forgot that the picture was in that purse. Rebecca had spent the remaining time at the party worrying what you thought of her.
“Like what?”
Rebecca rolled over in bed, looking up at Rafe as he got dressed. It was late in the morning, but still early enough for her to be tired after getting back from Kelce’s so late.
“I don’t know, something fun.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, his face disappearing momentarily while he put his shirt on.
“I have a meeting with Mr. Harris this afternoon and I’m meeting Dennis for an early lunch.”
“But it’s Sunday,” Rebecca pointed out, sitting up, a frown on her face.
“Work is work, no matter what kind of day it is.”
“Sorry, I just thought it’d be nice to do something fun for once,” she said, knowing she would spent the entire day worrying about what you thought of her if she wasn’t distracted, not noticing how Rafe was looking at her through the mirror.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked, his brows furrowed. “You never cared about that before.” Rafe paused, realization washing over his face. “You talked to-” His voice cracked, and Rebecca raised an eyebrow at him.
“… You talked to her, didn’t you?”
Rebecca could hear the accusatory tone in his voice and she leaned against the headboard, drawing her legs close.
“I did, at the party last night… She said she’s happy that you have me, that she was worried about how you work too much.”
Rafe was quiet for a while and Rebecca could feel a knot forming in her stomach. She couldn’t have two people be mad at her.
“That’s what she said?”
Nodding quickly, Rebecca smiled at him brightly. “Yeah. She was really nice. I like her.”
He let out a quiet huff, followed by a headshake, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do, nervously playing with the hem of her shirt.
“Alright. Maybe I can cut my lunch meeting short and we can do something after,” Rafe relented, and Rebecca looked up at him in surprise.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ll text you later, alright?”
With a wave, Rafe left the bedroom, and Rebecca laid back down, letting out a happy sigh. Everything is working out in her favor!
A couple of hours later, Rebecca was standing in front of her closet, scanning the different clothes that hung in there, trying to decide on what to wear. She wasn’t sure what Rafe had planned, so she didn’t want to be completely inappropriately dressed. Letting out a annoyed sigh, Rebecca picked up her phone to text her friend for some fashion advice, stilling when she saw the new notification.
“Oh my god.”
You followed her back on insta! You must have not seen the picture after all and think she was weird!!!
Rebecca’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, wondering if she should dm you, maybe ask if you wanted to hang out, before she decided against it, putting her phone back on the dresser, face down. She didn’t want to seem to eager, she could wait a week.
Okay, maybe not a week, Rebecca thought, picking out some shorts and a red top, but a few days at least.
When she was all done, Rebecca grabbed the keys to her car, making her way over to Rafe’s place after he said he was done. It was a beautiful day out and she was so excited to see what he had planned for their date. Parking her car behind Rafe’s truck, she got out, heading inside.
“Baby, it’s me!” she called, shutting the door behind her. She didn’t have to wait long, until she could Rafe coming down the stairs, a box in his hand.
“What’s that?”
Rafe looked at her, his face unreadable.
“… What’s wrong?”
He let out a sigh, before stopping in front of her, and as Rebecca looked into the box, she realized it was full of her stuff.
“We need to talk,” he said, and her jaw dropped.
“What?”
“I just don’t think I’m in this relationship as I thought I was, and I don’t want to string you along, Bex,” Rafe explained, pushing the box into her arms. She just accepted the box, too shocked to do anything else.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. You did the opposite, actually. Helped me see what I was really feeling. And I thought I’d get this over with, before anyone else gets hurt,” Rafe told her. “You understand, right?”
She only blinked at him, nodding dumbly.
A grin grew on Rafe’s face, and he stuffed his hands in his pocket. “Great. I knew you would understand.”
With an arm on her back, he lead Rebecca outside, and she just let him, moving on autopilot.
“I’ll see you around Bex,” he said, standing in the doorway, his hand on the door. “Don’t be a stranger.”
With those words, Rafe shut the door in her face, and Rebecca just blinked, still not having processed the situation.
“And he said he doesn’t want to string you along?”
“Yes.”
The words were muffled.
Rebecca was facedown in her pillow, hoping to die of embarassment, even if Jane was her best friend in Kildare. It had taken her a week to recuperate before she could tell her friends what happened, mostly because she still wasn’t sure what had happened.
“Are you okay?”
She lifted her head, giving Jane a look.
“I just don’t understand why he broke up with me.”
Jane waved her off, picking up her phone. “Oh don’t worry about it, I’m sure he’ll come crawling back tom- Never mind.”
“What?”
Having stopped mid-sentence, Jane was staring at her phone, eyebrows raised so high and Rebecca groaned, taking the phone out of her hand.
“You can’t just stop talking in the middle of the-”
Her eyes widened when she saw what had rendered Jane speechless: Sarah had posted an instagram story, a picture of a couple walking hand in hand in front of her. It was dark and a little blurry, but Rebecca could tell exactly who it was: You and Rafe.
“He’s such an asshole!” Jane screeched, snatching her phone out of Rebecca’s hand. “Let’s egg his house!”
Rebecca only snorted, rubbing her hands over her face with a groan. “J, no. Believe it or not, but I feel like this one’s on me.”
✦ .  ⁺   . ✦ .  ⁺   . ✦
author's note: tell me what you think :)
1K notes · View notes
jakedoxxenvasion · 5 months
Text
dr.lee
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
fellow doctor heeseung! × resident doctor y/n!
warning: MDNI!, unprotective sex (whops) kissing and more?
Tumblr media
not in a million years you would think you will do something like this, with someone that you adore so much.. someone that you look up to as a senior to you, someone that you met everyday and formally call him by his surname instead of..
"h-heeseung!"your sinful lips moaning for his name, "sshhh, you want them to hear you?"immediately you bite your bottom lips once getting that warn from him, he peck your lips and smile. "didn't expect you to be so obedient to me, love. such a good girl."you humming to everything he said to you, trying to not moan out his name.
you know what you did is wrong because you're just a doctor resident and he's your senior doctor, it's totally wrong but you couldn't stop him. not that you can't but you don't want to, having him pounding his cock so deep into you in the small store room in the middle of your night shift, the clock strike 3 in the morning as much as you remember when he call for you to help him earlier.
it's all start with you helping him with sorting out papers, and files of patients records and ending up finding yourself here in this room with him doing things that you could ever imagine in your right mind. "just a little more, does it hurt you, hm?"you shake your head, no he doesn't hurt you but the pleasure is too much.
heeseung smile when he kiss your lips, hips still rutting into you. he could feel your wall hugging him tight at each thrust he make, sending him over the cloud but he know that he cannot be loud. "s-shit, you're so fucking tight, love."he let out a low groan, watching how you try to control your own voices and somehow he like the way you did.
liking the idea of doing this in secret, liking the idea that there's an outside world that you try so hard it keep it out, not wanting people to find out about what the two of you did in this room. "fuck- heeseung i'm close ah-"he shut you up with his lips, kissing you so deep, cock still pounding in and out of you.
your fingers tangle with his hair, he push you against the wall, "cum for me, love."he whisper those once he pull away from the kiss, like a cue you could feel the feeling at the pit of your stomach rushing down. heeseung smile, letting you rode out all your orgasm with you weakly leaning on his shoulder, doesn't have much energy left in you.
he thrust into you once.. twice then he pull out from you, only to shot his loads on your stomach. "oh fuck."you watch those thick white liquid spurting out from his cock, messily on your skin. somehow, heeseung has those proud smile after everything that he had done with you. you look at him and he smirk, he peck your lips before he slowly put you down to make you stand on the ground.
"so fucking perfect, love."he caressed your cheek softly then continue to kiss your lips again. when he pull away, he stare into your eyes, "doctor.."your soft voice call for him, which make him chuckle. "that was not what you called me earlier, ms.y/n."your cheeks immediately turn red as his remarks, he continue to caressed your cheek as he stare into your eyes.
but then heeseung take a few step back, you watch him grab a box of tissue at the top shelf behind him and he rip it open before he help you clean up and get dress again. "so.. do i pretend like nothing happen earlier or-" "unless you want more, you can always come to my office, love."he interrupt your words then wink at you, blush immediately creep up your face.
you slowly nod your head, he pat your head then he open the door after grabbing a random file on the shelf. "later, make sure you keep everything in place again, okay? ms.y/n."he said, know it very well he did that on purpose, you follow him from behind after you fix your white coat. "sure, dr."
heeseung turn to look at you just to give you a wink before he walk away.
Tumblr media
should i write a longer version of this? cause i kind of like the plot lol
1K notes · View notes
calcifiedunderland · 1 year
Text
Shrimply Yours~
Tumblr media
In which you invoke your shrimp privileges to cheer Floyd up.
Floyd x GN Reader! Enjoy, shrimpies!!~
—————
“Y’know Floyd, I’d say you’re the shrimp, not me.”
Maybe you really did have a death-by-squeezing wish. Or maybe your plot-armor protection had finally worn off. The eel in question lifted his head slowly at your words and side-eyed you, his golden eye glinting ominously in the Mostro Lounge kitchen’s light.
You’d been washing the dishes after asking Azul for a job in exchange for a little extra madol on the side. For the most part, your day had been as peaceful as it could’ve (the life of a magicless prefect was always maniacal), until you heard arguing from outside the kitchen. You all but jumped when Floyd slammed the door open and wordlessly stalked to the stove, and you spotted Azul walking off shaking his head to himself. Floyd shoved pan on the heat and began frying something, completely ignoring your presence. Was it even possible to fry chicken so aggressively?
In any case, Floyd seemed a little more volatile than usual at the moment, even considering it was him. The other students who’d been in the kitchen with you before had scuttled out before Floyd could snap at them too. But in any case, you knew that Floyd’s mood flipped faster than Crowley leaving all his work to you. So, you thought you’d try to lighten the mood.
At your words, Floyd slowly brought his head up from his deep-frying, golden-and-olive colored eyes zeroing in on you, baring his sharp, shiny teeth at you in a scowl. And in that split second, you suddenly remembered that Floyd was, in fact, a mer-eel. Moray, specifically. A predator. A predator that probably ate shrimpies like you. Who was now looking at you predatorily.
“What did ya just say, shrimpy?” His pupils were practically pin-pricks, and for a moment you swore you could hear the Jaws theme song in your head. You could remember, time and time again, your friends and upperclassmen telling you not to engage Floyd when he was in one of his moods. Even up until now, you’d never been on the awful end of his anger, especially alone. But you weren’t called beast-tamer for nothing, damn it, and maybe that title could extend to taming angry Floyd’s too. An angry Floyd that was still your friend.
“I said, you’re the shrimp, not me.” You maintained eye-contact with him, almost challenging him, ‘come at me, bro.’ You tried to keep a straight face, although you were deflating rapidly by the second because by Sevens this was so stupid but-
“Because you’re shrimply amazing.”
One second passed. Two. Three.
Then Floyd broke into a wide, sharp-toothed grin. He surged towards you, completely forgetting the frying food. “D’awww, SHRIMPY!!!”
He swooped behind you, wrapping his arms around you and picking you up. Your legs flailed around and now your arms were locked in as Floyd spun around the kitchen haphazardly with you in his arms. “Shrimpy knows just how to cheer me up! I knew this is why I kept you around!” He laughed cheerily, bobbing you up and down.
“FLOYD!” You cried, “PUT ME DOWN-“ the kitchen swirled crazily around you, as Floyd babbled some song or other cheerfully. Thankfully he’d stopped spinning, but began shaking you side to side while humming, “Shrimpy’s so brave n’ nice, all the other guppies left when they saw me but only Shrimpy stayed!”
He started pouting, and squished his cheek into yours. “Azul was bein’ mean to me, making me work now. Just ‘cause I roughed up a few customers doesn’t mean it was my fault! They shoulda been nice to me~”
Even though you were basically suspended in the air by him, you smiled at Floyd’s words. “Glad I could help Floyd, that was so mean of Azul,” you consoled him, hoping he’d put you down. He bent over until your feet were safely on the sweet, sweet ground, but didn’t let you go from his arms. The two of you swayed together, basking in each other’s company in the subpar lighting of the kitchen, until you frowned.
“…Hey, is something burning?”
“Ah shit, I burned the chicken.”
———
4K notes · View notes
lokigodofmyheart · 6 months
Text
The stars look beautiful tonight
MASTERLIST
Pairing: Zuko x Female Reader.
Summary: Gazing at the stars at night leads them to some fun events.
Warning/Content: smut (porn without a plot).
A/N: Zuko and reader are both 18.
Tumblr media
The day was exhausting, they had trained with Aang all day long, and Y/N hoped to sleep as soon as she lay down. But sleep never came to her. After almost an hour of tossing and turning, she decided to take some air. She noticed she wasn’t the only one that couldn't sleep, seeing Zuko sitting on the ground with his back against a tree closer to the camp. Y/N walked to him, sitting by his side. 
“The stars are beautiful tonight.” He says without looking at her. 
“They are.” She smiles looking up at the sky too. 
Zuko took a deep breath of the cool night air “I have always loved the quietness of the night. It’s so calm.” 
Y/N chuckled “You’re being quite philosophical tonight.”  
“Maybe I am.” He chuckles too “But it’s true, isn’t it? When you’re outside at night, everything seems different.” 
“Yeah.” She looks at him with a small smile. 
Zuko glances over at her “You’re different too.” 
“How so?” She asked him 
He leans in slightly, his voice lowering “You’re not afraid of me anymore. You used to tense up whenever I came near, but now you can just sit here and talk with me like this.” 
Y/N laughed softly. He was right. She used to be tense around him when he joined them because of his past actions, but soon she warmed up to him...maybe too much “Well, you’re not trying to kill us anymore, so...” 
“I guess not. Things change, huh?” He smiles slightly at her. 
“Sometimes for the better.” Y/N returns his smile. 
“Speaking of changes...I have been meaning to ask you something. How long have you been in love with him?” Zuko asked leaning back against the tree. 
Y/N looked at him with confusion...did he noticed? “With whom?” 
“You know who. Sokka.” He says watching her carefully. 
“Sokka?” She asks laughing. “I’m not in love or anything like that with him, he’s like a brother to me.”  
Zuko leans in again “Really? Because you always look at him with such longing in your eyes.” Of course he would think that. He probably noticed that when he was with Sokka, so he mistakes the person she was actually looking at. 
“He loves Suki, Zuko. Believe me, I feel nothing like that for him” Y/N laughs softly again. 
“If you say so.” He says, looking back at the sky. They kept in a comfortable silence, until her hands reached to brush his hair out of his face that was already falling in his eyes. 
Zuko closed his eyes slightly, enjoying the feeling of her gently touch on him “So... you’re really not in love with him?” 
“No.” She replied softly, with a small smile in the conner of her mouth. 
He leans in closer to her, their faces just inches apart “I’m glad to hear that.” Zuko leans in even further, his lips brushing against her in a soft, slow kiss. She immediately kissed him back. Zuko deepened the kiss, his hand moving gently to her face. He can feel his heart racing against his chest as he pulls her closer while their tongues dance together.  
As the kiss breaks, Zuko looks into her eyes. He can see the desire and need in them. Slowly, he begins to trail kisses down her neck, his hands moving to untie her top. Y/N gives more access to him and soon she’s without her top. She moves to straddles his lap, taking his top off too, making Zuko groans as their skin touches. His hands travel up her side towards her bra, pulling it off slowly and revealing her breast to his gaze. Y/N could feel him growing harder and his erection brushing against her thigh. 
Zuko’s lips move to her neck again, leaving soft kisses as he makes his way to her breasts. He looks at her with his eyes dark with lust, before he takes one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking gently. That made Y/N bit her lip to hold back a moan since they’re so close to where the other are sleeping, rolling her hips against him. 
Feeling her movement, Zuko groans, his hands moving to grip her hips. He continues his work in her breath, teasing her nipple with his tongue as he begins to grind against her. Y/N’s hands work quickly to open his pants, making Zuko groans again. He reaches to help her pull his pants and underwear off and she does the same with her own pants. His cock springs free, throbbing with need. Feeling her wetness against his erections, Zuko let out a moan. 
Y/N positioned herself on him as she lowers herself slowly. Zuko growls softly as she rides him, his hips also moving meeting her movements, making her moan softly too as she rocks back and forth. Each second was getting harder for her to hold back her moans. Zuko bites his lips too, trying to hold back his own moans. They increase the speed, his cock thrusting deeper and harder into her as his fingers slide between them, finding her clit and rubbing softly. 
This time she couldn’t hold back, she let out a loud moan escape her lips. Zuko flips them so she was laying on the ground. He continues to thrust into her, his hips slamming against hers as he takes her harder and faster. His fingers also move faster on her clit. 
“Gods...” She moans again. 
Zuko’s teeth graze her shoulder as he feels himself getting closer to the edge, his cock throbbing inside her as he picks up even more his pace, slamming hard into her over and over again.  
“Zuko.” Y/N moans his name “I’m close...” 
He was also feeling himself getting closer as well. His hips slamming against her in a brutal rhythm “Cum for me, Y/N. Let go and let me feel you come around my cock.” 
With a few more thrusts, she came. Feeling her walls tighten around him, Zuko’s entire body shudders. He thrust into her one last time before his cock pulsing as he cum deep inside her. His hand gripped her hips tightly as he releases his seed into her warmth. He pulled her back as he sits against the tree against, still inside her. Y/N was panting heavily, trying to catch her breath. Zuko’s breath was ragged as well. Slowly, he pulls out of her, his softening cock sliding out of her wet fold, and she smiles as she could feel his cum dripping for her. 
Zuko smiles softly at her, running his hand gently down her sides. His erection had subsided, but he still wants her. Looking into her eyes, he leans and kisses her softly again, making her respond. He runs his hand through her hair, brushing away from her face “I’m not done with you yet.” 
Y/N smirks “Oh, really?” 
Zuko just grins back at her, his hands sliding down her back, cupping her ass cheeks. With a groan, he stands up, lifting her with him and walking over his tent, closing it behind them. He gently lowers her onto his bedroll and crawls on tip of her, their naked bodies pressing against each other. His lips find her in a deep and passionate kiss. His hands travel down her body, exploring her curves before he slips his finger into her wetness, rubbing circles around her entrance.  
Y/N moans again, still sensitive from orgasm. Zuko smirks against her lips, his fingers slipping inside her, finding her entrance still slick with their combined fluids. He begins to slowly thrust in and out her. 
“Zuko...” She moans his name, her back arching. He groans, loving the way she was responding to his touch. His thumb finds her clit and begins to rub circles around it while his fingers continue to thrust in and out of her. 
“Zuko...” she says again “I’m close.” 
Feeling her orgasm close, Zuko picks up the pace of his fingers thrusting deeper and faster inside of her. He continues to rub her clit, knowing it will send her over the edge. She was hit by her orgasm, leaving her legs trembling. He slowly pulled his fingers out of her, watching the last of his seed slide out with a pleased smirk.  
Zuko leans down and capture her lips once again. His tongue danced with hers before he begins to trail kisses down her neck and chest. He gently nips at her nipple. 
“Zuko...” Y/N was still trying to recover herself. 
He just chuckles softly against her skin, his hands slipping down her hips, holding her close to him as he continues to kiss his way down her body. When he reaches her stomach, he stops and looks up at her, his eyes still full of desire. 
“You just gave me an orgasm.”  
That made him smirk “And I plan on giving you many more”. Zuko captures one of her nipples between his lips again, gently sucking, making Y/N closes her eyes with the feeling. As he continues, his free hand slip down to rub her clit once more.  
“Zuko...” 
Hearing her moan his name, Zuko push his finger inside her once again, pumping in and out of her, hitting her G-spot with every thrust. His lips move back to her neck and before she knew, she was tightening around his finger again, making Zuko increase his speed and pushing another finger as she cries out his name. He didn’t stop, as he keep thrusting her. 
“Zuko, please, too much.” She cried out with her legs trembling, feeling her forth orgasm hit her that night. 
Zuko hears her plea, yet he doesn’t stop. He increases the pace of his fingers, his thumb once again finding her clit and his lips on her neck marking her. In seconds she was hit with her last orgasm of the night. He slowly withdraws his fingers, licking them cleans while he looks at her. 
“Damn!” Y/N says, trying to catch her breath, her whole body still trembling. “You ruined me.” 
He chuckles “I’m glad you enjoyed.” 
Zuko lay down by her side, pulling a blanket on top of them and cuddling closer to her, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her body against his chest. They both fell asleep after the exhaustive activities. The next morning, they were wake by voices outside. 
“Why are these clothes here?” They could hear Aang asking. Zuko wakes up, rubbing his eyes. 
“Zuko?” She whispered. 
“Yes?” Zuko looks at her. 
“That’s our clothes...” She says looking worried at him. He sits up, blushing slightly as he realizes they had forgotten their clothes outside. “Please, tell me you have something here for us to wear.” 
He looks around the tent, noticing some spare clothes lying around “Yes, I think there’s something here you can wear.” 
“Good. Just give me something and I’ll get our clothes.” Zuko hands her a robe that reached her mid-thigh. “Okay, that will do.” He also slips on a loose shirt and some pants. 
They didn’t hear anyone outside talking anymore, so they assumed it was safe. Y/N opened the tent, but as soon as she left, she was meet with the whole gaang there. 
“Why were you in Zuko’s tent?” Sokka asked looking at her “...and why are you wearing his clothes?” 
Y/N blushes. She didn’t had time to answer when Zuko follows her out and blushes too seeing everyone gathered around. Sokka slowly realized what had happening. 
“Oh, no worries, Aang. We already found the owner of the clothes.” Sokka says teasing them. Katara and Toph soon realized too what had happened, making Toph laughs. 
Zuko clear his throat awkwardly, trying to his embarrassment “Uh, well, we were just.... resting. There’s nothing more to it.” 
Aang had a confused face to everyone until he realized what had happened and looks shocked at Zuko and Y/N. 
“Who would’ve guessed, you and hot head here...” Sokka smirks. 
Zuko groans, rolling his eyes at Sokka’s teasing “It’s not like that, Sokka. We were just relaxing, okay? Jeez.” 
“I bet it was quite relaxing.” Katara says pointing at the marks of Y/N’s neck, making her blush. 
Zuko glares at Katara, his cheeks also flushing even more “I swear, if you keep making comments like that...” 
Y/N had quicky got their clothes back and pulled Zuko with her to his tend “Not a word.” She says to them. He quickly follows her. Everyone outside laughed at their reaction. Needless to say, they would be teased by this for weeks. 
1K notes · View notes
velvrei · 1 month
Note
Oh, so glad that your requests are open again! You're doing a great job and your writing is so good so take the time you need and stay hydrated!
Maybe could I request Logan with a strong/buff reader? Maybe she lifts him up and logan kinda likes that and being pampered by reader? So yeah I'm a sucker of sub Logan..
you guys r so sweet :)
please me (18+)
Tumblr media
pairing: logan howlett x fem!strong!reader
summary: logan meets you, who is very strong, and has the power to control people if she has enough energy. you control him for the first time and it brings out a subby side in him.
warnings: absolute filth, smut, sub!logan, he gets a bit dominant at times but remains sub mostly, porn with small plot, lots of pet names, logan is obsessed with you it’s attractive, logan jerks off in the beginning to the thought of you
word count: 4k
you were sparring. sparring.
logan first met you through a fight. you were new, and he was your opponent.
it was no secret that you were strong as hell, especially to logan. during that first fight, logan couldn’t help but find himself cocky in the beginning, sure he would win.
but when you brought out your hidden strength, and picked him up, and threw him to the ground, he excepted his loss. and excepted the fact his pants were tightening.
he looked up at you, so desperate, and you could see it in his eyes, but you chose to use that against him another day.
ever sense that day, he’s been making up excuses to see you. hoping that somehow, you’d handle him like that again.
it was pathetic, he knew that. he was ashamed, but he couldn’t hold in his sexual urges.
so one night, he got off to the thought of you controlling him. fuck, it was dirty, but he loved it.
he pumped his hard, aching cock, imagining you talking him through it. he was creepy for this, he knew, but he didn’t fucking care.
his hips rut into his messy comforter, hoping for any sort of friction as he became truly desperate. his hand worked up and down on his dick, precum leaking out.
he moaned into his hand as the other moved up and down. he bit down onto his palm, trying to silence himself, knowing your room was only a few doors down, part of him hoped you’d hear, come in and take care of him.
the next day, he was forced to train with you again, hiding his hard on, trying to forget the fact that the night before he was stroking his cock to the thought of you.
you weren’t one to say anything this early, but you could tell by how he acted around you. he was not the normal wolverine.
he acted so differently around others than he did with you. around you, he found himself shyer than usual, letting you take the reigns, especially during training.
this time, it was different. the day after he got himself to the thought of you. he was whiny, too whiny, and you knew something was up, and decided to tease him about it.
you two were sparring, as usual. you were winning, also as usual. you were sparring, minutes before he had you in a headlock, then let you go, now, you got him, threw him down, and straddled his body.
he felt his throat run dry, unable to form words as your body pressed against his. you smiled down at him, feeling his dick grow in his pants under you.
“something, wrong, bub?” you always knew just what to say, and fuck, it always got to him. he swallowed, looking as more of a gulp to you, causing your smile to grow.
he didn’t answer, and you decided to speak again.
“cat got your tongue?” you teased, watching as his body shifted under you.
you watched the look in his eyes change from desperate to another emotion, that you couldn’t quite find the word for.
“no.” is all he cracked out, eyes never leaving yours.
at this point, it was almost night time, all the others heading to bed for another day of training and teaching. you two, however, were still in the ring, all over each other.
“got anything else to say?” your cocky words almost made him whine, he tried his hardest not to adjust his hips, so his clothed dick was closer to your clothed pussy. he was aching for it.
he finally adjusted his hips, rubbing you in just the right spot. you decided to tease him a little, so you moaned at the feeling.
he heard it loud and clear, eyes shooting to your face, catching a glimpse of your face as you made such sound. he almost whimpered. what the fuck was happening?
he studies your face for a moment. “oh.” is all he says, feeling his dick harden in his pants.
you let your tongue run along your teeth before smiling. “what? that get you hard?”
your words almost sent him to cardiac arrest, eyes widening. “wha?” his attempt at acting clueless made you giggle.
“don’t play dumb, bub.” is all you say, before standing up, offering him a hand to help him up.
as he takes your offer and stands, your eyes trail down to his jeans, seeing the incredibly large bulge in his pants.
you bit your lip, eyes trailing up and down his body. his little cunty leather jacket he was wearing hugged him so well, and his tight training joggers left nothing to your imagination.
he was fucking huge.
“follow me.” you didn’t have to tell him twice.
you grabbed him by his jacket, taking him out of the training room.
he didn’t even have the thought to ask where, he just was hoping he could get his hands on you.
you went to your room, a few rooms down from his. you opened the door, allowing both of you in then locking it behind you. you turned to him, pressing your back into the door.
your smile never faded, watching his nervous figure fidget with his fingers.
“you dirty boy. all we were doing was training, and you were hard..” he sighs at your words, eyes scrunching shut as his head falls slightly lower.
you smile, before imagining him on the bed, using your powers and he teleports onto the bed. he’s sat on his knees, looking like a lost dog, his eyes reminding you of a deer in headlights.
“what…?” he’s so confused at how he ended up on the bed, however his eyes are still glued to you.
“you haven’t seen all my powers, yet, bub. i can control people. just takes a lot of energy so i don’t do it often. but i don’t care i’m having my fun tonight.”
he shivers at your words, watching as you stride toward him. your hand finds his chin, forcing you to look up at him.
“look at me when i speak to you, baby.”
he moans, almost forgetting your words but he keeps his eyes on yours. “yes ma’am. okay.”
you smile, leaning down and kissing his face. he moans immediately, knowing he’d been imagining this moment sense the minute he met you.
you slowly push his body back, straddling him once again, you watch his body tremble.
you slowly continue to kiss him, gently biting his lip and enjoying hud moan that comes after. your hips start to move against his, feeling him twitch under you.
“yeah? that feel good?” he moaned, hands grasping to touch any part of your body he could.
“yes, fuck yes, please, touch me.” your hands move in between your bodies, slowly palming him through his pants. he whined as you touched him, hands squeezing your thighs as his head fell against the pillows behind him.
you just watched him tremble under your touch with a satisfied smile, slowly starting to unzip your training jacket that hugged your figure.
when his eyes opened, he was met with you, taking off your jacket, leaving you in nothing but your pants and skimpy bra.
he groaned at the sighed, hands roaming up to touch your chest. “so pretty,” he whispered. “can i touch?”
you smiled at his question and nodded. you unclipped your bra, letting it fall, watching his eyebrows raise. you grabbed his hands and placed them onto your breasts.
he squeezed, moaning as he did so, his hips rutting against you. “you like that?” your question wasn’t meant to be a tease, but it sounded more taunting than you meant.
you smiled and started to fuck back his hips, watching as he moaned, overstimulated.
you slowly sat him up. “strip.” he wastes no time once you get off and lay on the bed next to him. he stands, stripping completely naked, making you smile.
“you can take mine off for me.” for most guys that would seem like a chore, but for logan, it was a reward.
he’d been waiting so fucking long and he was finally able to touch you.
he crawls back onto the bed, toward you, kissing your thigh before lifting you up and taking off your bottoms and panties, moaning at the sight of your soaked pussy.
you smile. “been so wet at the thought of you finally touching me.”
he moaned at your words, feeling his body tremble. “you’ve been thinking of me?” his voice is soft, as he slowly grabs his dick, and rubs against your folds.
you turn him over, getting on top of him with a smile. his dick is aching in front of you, as he presses against your stomach. he moans as the slight contact, almost bucking his hips up.
“yeah, been thinking about you, bout all the naughty things i could do to you,” and with that logan’s body trembles, precum leaking from his tip.
you smile and touch his cheek before taking him into your hand. you stroke him a few times before lining him up and slowly sinking down.
both of you moaned in unison, as you went all the way down. “so fucking big, filling me so good,” your words of praise cause his lips to quiver and a whimper to fall out.
he whined again before speaking, “so tight..” his voice was just above a whisper, sending shivers down your spine.
you sat there with his dick fully inside of you, to give yourself a minute to adjust, before slowly letting up, and sinking back down.
your back arched as you did so, watching as logan’s hands came to your thighs. you started to make a rhythm making your legs already shake.
“fuck!” you shouted, trying to contain your yelling so the team didn’t hear, so you moan into your hand, trying to bite on it to stop yourself from screaming.
logan watched as you struggled, ultimately making it even harder for him to focus, his dick twitching inside of you.
you started to bounce on him, his dick hitting a spot so deep inside of you, your eyes rolled back on their own.
“fuck, taking me so good,” logan grunted, starting to get some of his dominance back but still willing to let you take the reigns.
he smiled up at you, watching as you bounced, smacking your ass and loving how your trembled as he did so.
you bit your lip to try and silence yourself, before letting some of your filthy words spill out for him to hear.
“feels so good, lo,” you whine, hands now on his chest as you bit your lip, almost drawing blood.
the sound was filthy. your ass slapping against him, the wet sound of his dick sliding in and out of you, and the gentle sounds the two of you let out in attempt to remain quiet.
your eyes fluttered back, and when you came back to look at him, you were met with logan’s blissed out face.
his mouth hung open, as his shirtless body glistened in sweat, his eyes looking at the ceiling, trying to compose himself from how good you felt around him.
you smiled and leaned down, kissing his face, feeling him twitch inside you as you did so.
when you pulled away, logan growled, like a hungry animal. he wanted to devour you, but right now, he was truly getting off to the fact you were in control of him. he felt helpless, and he fucking loved it.
you smiled down at him, some of your hair sticking to your face, logan smiled at the sight of you, boobs bouncing, your fucked our face and how good your body looked as you rode him.
his hand trailed up to your lower stomach, pressing and feeling him as he moved in and out of you.
“so big i can feel you in my stomach, fuck,” even if that wasn’t true, you were just saying shit at this point. logan moaned out, loud.
you smiled down at him, and brought a hand down to his face, covering his mouth. your eyes shot into his, practically daring him to make another noise.
your sudden act of dominance made him whine into your hand, feeling his dick twitch inside of you.
he must’ve really liked the control you had over him, because right after you covered his lips he spilled his loud into you.
his face went slightly red as he realized what happened, and you moaned as you felt his load spill inside of you.
“was that good, huh?” you say teasing him, and he whines, feeling guilty that he came before you.
not even a minute later, he flipped you both around, and started drilling into you. your back arched and your chest pressed up against him, causing him to smile.
“sorry bub, couldn’t help myself when you were squeezing me like that.” logan’s whiny words almost made you giggle, because you knew you were doing it on purpose, so his words were just confirmation for him.
you moaned as he drilled into you, the urge to scream making you get close to your climax. your eyes fluttered shut, and logan’s hand came up to your chin.
“look at me when you cum for me,” he says, watching as you moaned, then deciding to stay decently submissive because he knew how much it turned you on, “please,” he added at the end.
you moaned as his hand came down and messed with your clit, rubbing it in aggressive circles, before watching you cum on his cock.
your body shook, and you moaned, louder than he expected, so he covered your mouth, slowing his thrusts to let you ride out your high. his lips were on your neck, talking you through your high.
“love when you clench around me like that. you’re an angel, you know that? so good. made me feel so good. so fucking pretty.” his words of praise left you moaning in his hand, and when you both finally caught your breath, you smiled at each other.
“hi.” you said, making him giggle.
“hi, bub.” he says sweetly.
the sweet moment is ruined when he looks down and notices the mixed cum spilling out of your pussy and onto the bedsheets.
both of you moaned at the sight.
when you two finally came back to your senses, and after you cleaned him up, and he cleaned you up, you were laying in bed together, just enjoying the peaceful company of each other.
589 notes · View notes
luvjunie · 1 year
Text
— trust who?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
pairing: e-42!miles x 1610!fem!reader
contains: angst, mentions of death, yandere?miles
summary: you were taken from him a year ago, and now it seems the universe has given him a chance to do things differently— and this time, he’s not letting you go. no matter what. wc: 1,648
a/n: i got a lil carried away w this one won’t lie, lol. i love this song, and i put a little twist on it to match the plot. song lyrics are in small, bold italics
🎧: Not You Too - drake (ft. chris brown)
Tumblr media
“trust- trust who? trust me and i can set you free. left your man came straight to me you the real mvp, my love.“
dimmed hues of red lights spotted your vision as you came to, eyelids heavy as they peeled apart to reveal the room you assumed would be the setting of your demise. your head snapped up when you finally regained consciousness completely, fright-riddled eyes darting around to scout out an escape plan. but just as you went to move, you heard chains clink from above as your body swayed, and realized you couldn’t. you looked down to find your legs bound by rope, as well as your hands, as well as the rest of your body to a firm, stuffed sack.
feet dangling from the ground, you let your head fall back against the punching bag, defeated, and settled for your only remaining option. “help!” you yelled, voice rasped and weak. “help!” you tried again.
“don’t bother, can’t hear a thing down here.”
an artificial, robotic voice sounded from above, warranting your eyes to meet a masked man who resided on a high beam, crouched in place, watching you. how long had he been there?
he jumped down, catching himself and effortlessly hanging from one arm before his sneakers met the steel floor. they were untied, you noticed.
fear permeated your entire being as he strolled over to you, a semblance of uneasiness coursing through your veins, pumping into your blood and rendering your spine straight as the ominous figure stopped just in front of you.
“ple—please, i don’t know why i’m here,” the words tumbled out in a broken heap of suffocated, stifled sobs as tears welled in your eyes.
“shh, it’s okay,” he shushed you, a hand reaching out to gently pinch your chin, lifting your head back up after it’d fallen. his touch was delicate, like he was scared he’d break you.
“i’m not gonna hurt you, mi vida. i’d never hurt you… you know that.” the voice distorter cut out, your breath catching in your throat and your eyes fluttering over every inch of this strange mask. it reminded you of a ventilation mask you’d seen in miles’ room once, a mask used to protect your lungs from the fumes of spray paint.
as if your mind were working against you, you found yourself… calmer than you were just a few seconds ago, and even more confused. why did the voice sound so familiar?
something wasn’t right.
“who— who are you?” you gulped.
“you don’t remember me?” the shield over his face pulled back, the quiet sound of mechanical whirring as it revealed his face drowned out by the heavy thrumming of your heart in your ear drums.
here stood your boyfriend in front of you, the same features, but… different. his entire demeanor had shifted since you had last seen him just prior to whatever time it was now, to something sinister. his hair was longer, pulled back and braided. an accent, almost resemblant of his mother’s lingered on the tip of his tongue, dripping within the words he spoke. his face was harder, etched and carved like the weight of the world had chipped at it piece by piece, only to settle on his shoulders, leaving him with no time for himself.
this couldn’t be right.
“miles?” you choked out, mouth gaping to find your voice. “w-why… what am I—you’re, you… but different? what is this? where am i?”
a puff of air shot through his nostrils, his best effort at a laugh as a small, smile lifted the corner of his lips, braids gliding over his shoulders when his head tilted to the side.
“you came back to me, mi amor. and god…you’re even more beautiful than i remembered.” he breathed, eyes flickering with sorrow for just a moment as they studied your face, a moment that was almost too brief for you to catch.
when he’d encountered you and his counterpart on the roof with his uncle, he swore his prayers had been answered. somehow, someway you’d been brought back to him— the pain of witnessing the bullet that pierced through your chest that fateful night just a year ago drifted from his mind, and replaced itself with the all consuming, peaceful, sleeping image of you the minute he’d picked you up and cradled you in his arms. it pained him to inject you with the needle to sedate you, but he had no other choice, he could never truly hurt you. no, he would never do that.
“i missed you so much.”
“first time in a long time hurtin' deeply inside”
the hand sporting his mechanical gauntlet lifted towards you, fingers bending so the claws wouldn’t scrape your skin as he let the cold metal brush against the swell of your cheek. the sound of the steel joints ticking made you flinch, chest stuttering for breaths you couldn’t keep within your overworked lungs as you turned away from him.
you looked at him with so much fear in your eyes, when all he’s ever wanted to do was keep you safe, to protect you, to make you feel comforted and secure. and he failed at that before, he knows that, but he’s ready this time. he’d been given a second chance, and he’d be damned if he let you slip through his fingers again.
“it’s me, hermosa… it’s okay, you know me. just trust me, and i can set you free, and then we can be together. just like old times.” his brows furrowed, his tone one of sincerity as he assured you, but it did nothing for your racing heart.
“trust—“ you sputtered, voice wavering when you spoke. “trust who? you? how can i when you have me tied up like this?!” you balked, your bewilderment such a stark contrast from his bleak, seemingly unmoving disposition.
“yeah… i’m real sorry ‘bout that. uncle aaron made me, so i tried not to make ‘em too tight. you know something like this would never, ever be my idea.”
you shook your head, was this some kind of sick joke? why wasn’t he understanding a single word that was coming from your mouth?
you grew frustrated, time was not on your side, and honestly you were getting tired of this game.
“i don’t know anything about you, i don’t even know who you are. you might have his face, and—and his body,” you looked him up and down. “but you… you are not my miles.”
he felt a pang in his chest, the words you uttered, the way you said ‘my miles’, as if he wasn’t right here, as if he wasn’t right in front of you. the version of himself he’d buried in the ground with you just last year wanted to jump out and yell at you, plead with you, anything to make you see he could be just like your miles, because he was your miles.
“oh,” he pulled the skin of his cheek between his teeth as he turned away with an agitated nod, extending his arm out to point towards your miles, who was still unconscious, chin dropped to his chest as he hung from another punching bag.
“him?” his voice raised in volume and broke apart with desperation, a humorless chuckle unintentionally escaping his trembling lips. “what’s the difference? huh? tell me.” he demanded, nostrils flaring as he tried to maintain his composure, staring deep into the eyes of the girl who would’ve burned the whole world down with him if he asked. the girl who was in his grasp, right in this moment, yet still so far from his reach— reserved for the one who had everything that belonged to him.
your head whipped to where he pointed, and the moment your eyes landed on your boyfriend your blood ran cold, a pained gasp rippling your chest. “miles! oh god, please!” you called out for him as you struggled against your restraints, his counterpart interrupting you by blocking your line of your view with his body.
“cálmate,” he hummed, “he’s fine, just unconscious. i’m not cruel. is that how you remember me, mamí?” he questioned, voice bleeding with hurt.
your gaze drifted over to your miles again, hope swelling within you when you heard him groan.
“no, no, princesa. don’t look at him, look at me.” he urged.
he didn’t understand. you always used to say you would love him in every universe, that you’d find him in every lifetime, what happened to that?
“please, we need to get home, if we don’t… he won’t be able to save his father, he—he’ll die. you have to understand.” you pleaded, the tears finally bubbling over your waterline, streamlining down your cheeks.
“you are home! it’s me, mi amor, i’m right here. what about everything we went through?” he asked tenderly, voice full of hurt and eyes still soaking in the slight difference in your features. he was too distracted by the fact that the girl he thought he’d never see again, was right here in front of him to even try and comprehend what you were trying to say. “please, don’t cry. you know i hate seeing you cry.”
nothing else seemed to be working, so you settled for empathizing with him. he was still miles, after all, different universe or not, he was still the same person deep down. and from the way he was looking at you, love flowing from the eyes that held so much anguish within them, you knew some version of you had loved him, too. in the same way you loved your own.
“look, i’m sure i-“ you stopped to correct yourself, “she, loved you, but i’m not her. i’m not from here, and i’m sorry she’s gone, and i’m sorry you have to live with this pain, but, please… you have to let me go.” your tone was forbearing, words teetering off into a hushed plea, your lingering apprehension threatening to tear through the seam of your heartfelt spiel.
“let you go?”
you nodded tentatively.
he moved closer to you, to unbound you from this elevated prison, you assumed. because maybe, just maybe you’d managed to get through to him.
but this wasn’t your universe, and this… this was not your miles.
for the first time in your entirety of knowing miles morales, you felt your heart stop— and not in the way that brought a flurry of warmed, passioned butterflies to flutter within you— but in a way that invited his words to settle like ice in your bones, allowed panic and dread to inhabit your senses, clutching you in a selfish grasp of resentment that had no intentions of letting you go— you realized, as this time, his gloveless hand swiped away yet another tear you hadn’t even noticed you’d shed.
“why would i do that?”
“I've given you enough time. hurtin' deeply inside.“
Tumblr media
- please do not plagiarize, copy, or repost my works to other platforms!
likes, comments, and reblogs are very appreciated 💗
©luvjunie 2023
5K notes · View notes
daechwitatamic · 25 days
Text
cherrybomb || csc
Tumblr media
(banner by @sailorrhansol)
cherrybomb seungcheol x afab reader || angst smut fluff || exes2lovers, pacific rim universe NSFW - minors DNI
Summary: Piloting a jaeger requires a rare ability called drifting - a neural connection with your co-pilot. You and Seungcheol are masters of the drift... until you have something in your head that you don't want him to see.
wc: 19.5k
warnings: language, heavy angst with happy ending, fight scenes, fight scenes written by an author with zero fighting or martial arts knowledge lmfao thus they are vague as possible, feelings heavy plot light and smut light, kissing and pretty generic (and brief) p in v smut
Author's note: thank you for @sailorrhansol for 1) accidentally sparking this idea, 2) agreeing to collab with me, 3) reading this along the way and hyping me up, and 4) beta-ing my mistakes, a million smooches for you ily
This fic takes place in the Pacific Rim universe but I honestly don't think you need to know the lore, everything you need to know should be explained. If you think something is unclear without prior pacific rim knowledge, shoot me a message privately and I'll make some edits and credit you for the insight!
Also in this universe: storm breaker by @/sailorhansol
Tumblr media
Teaser:
“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “You were there. You saw what happened. Seungcheol and I can’t drift anymore.”
“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”
He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing has mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did then.
“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 
The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”
“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 
“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”
Tumblr media
Playlist: you're the smoke in my gun, blowin' like cherry bombs...
Tumblr media
The first time you ever saw Choi Seungcheol, he was flipping a man four years his senior over his shoulder and slamming him into the ground. Satisfied, he staggered backwards, chest heaving from exertion, eyes narrowed in preparation for the next move.
That’s what Seungcheol did - he leveled whatever was in front of him, and he started watching for what was coming next before the body could even hit the ground.
That’s what made him a great jaeger pilot. Not the brute strength - strong men are dime a dozen, always have been - but the watching.
You’d marked him as your first choice.
You were both nineteen. You’d grown up in the Shatterdome, the only child to a couple who piloted a neon green jaeger named Charron’s Revenge. You knew everything about how jaegers and their teams worked by the time you were nine. You started training to fight years before that. There was never a question that you would follow in your parents’ giant, mechanical footsteps one day. You just needed the right partner.
You needed Seungcheol.
The jaeger program didn’t turn away recruits - everyone could do something - but there was an organized process to match up compatible pilots. Applying recruits would fight before an audience of previously-accepted but currently-unmatched potential pilots. The pilots would rank the fighters, choosing their top five based on perceived potential for compatibility.
Then, the roles would switch. The applicants became the audience. The audience became the show.
When it was your turn to fight, you silently pleaded with the universe that Seungcheol would mark you high as well. This was the only guarantee that you’d get a chance to spar with him, to test it out before the Marshall, who would make the final call.
Let him see, you begged. Let him see how perfectly we’d work together.
And, by some miracle, he did. In fact, he rated you first, as well.
Your sparring match went exactly how you expected - he barreled at you, and you dodged every move. He could easily take you out with a single blow, but he couldn’t get his hands on you, not when you used his own inertia against him at every turn. What you didn’t expect was your own inability to land a shot. For the whole fight, you were unable to move out of the defensive - keeping out of his reach took all of your effort.
It was a draw - the first sign of strong compatibility.
You didn’t talk after the match - your father whisked you away to recover before your second-rated match, and you didn’t see Seungcheol for the rest of the day.
The second-rated match was a dud. But you already knew, even then, that it didn’t matter.
You’d met your co-pilot. You’d found your partner.
He found you in the mess hall that night, dropping into an empty spot on the other side of the table, his tray in his hands. His black hair was loose and wavy, and his right arm sported a sizeable bruise that he definitely didn’t get from you.
“I know who you are,” he said by way of greeting. You raised a brow at him, waiting. “Your parents piloted Charron’s Revenge.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “That better not be why you picked me.”
He gave his head an annoyed little flick. “Of course not. I picked you because you’re fluid - and I’m not.”
Appeased, you felt your hackles settle back down. “That’s true,” you allowed. “You’re not fluid. But you’re purposeful, and-”
You were interrupted when Yoon Jeonghan dropped into the seat to your left, chuckling under his breath as he fixed his long, dark hair into a spiky ponytail at the back of his head.
“Cherry, did you hear?” he asked you, ignoring the new-comer. “The crew for Fatal Rapids got called back in for misconduct.”
“Choi Seungcheol, Yoon Jeonghan,” you said, introducing the two young men. “Hannie does more than gossip, I promise. He’s one of the pilots for Devil’s Advocates. Their drop stats are insane.”
“In practice only,” Jeonghan demurred. “For now.”
“Cherry?” Seungcheol parroted, raising a dark brow. “That’s not what I wrote on my paper earlier.”
“Just a nickname,” you explained. When you were very small, you’d struggled with the name of your parents’ jaeger, calling it Cherry’s Revenge instead of Charron’s, and the crew - who doted on you like their own - started the habit of calling you Cherry. Somehow, it had spread, and stuck. “Only my parents use my real name. But you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”
“No,” he said, frowning as if deeply considering his options. “I like it.”
You folded your arms on the table, leaning in to peer at Seungcheol. “So, what’s your story? You’ve heard of me. I haven’t heard of you.”
He shrugged, glanced around, then decided he could talk freely. There’s something about being in a room that’s positively teeming with people and conversation - it gives you privacy without feeling too intimate. You’re not alone.
“Not much of a story, not like you,” he admitted. “I grew up thinking I’d take over my dad’s business. We lost my dad… then, we lost the business. I have no marketable skillset, and university was out of the question. But…” He trailed off, then met your gaze firmly. Something in his look demanded you forgo any pity or sympathy, demanded you take him seriously. “I’m strong. So I came here. I came to fight.”
You sidestepped the bruises he’d bared. “Not like me,” you repeated with a bit of a scoff. “I hate to disappoint you, but my parents are the pilots - the story is theirs. I don’t have one, not yet.”
Something playful glinted in his eyes, the first true sign of personality you’d seen. “So all the rumors about the Princess of the Shatterdome aren’t true?”
Your jaw dropped. You’d heard the nickname before - it was never meant nicely. You tried to ignore it as best you could - people could think what they wanted. When you had a crew, when you had a jaeger, you’d be able to prove them wrong. “What rumors?”
“You’re spoiled,” Jeonghan supplied, having decided he was part of the conversation after all. “Entitled.”
You spluttered as Jeonghan stood, giving you a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “And bitchy! That’s just what I’ve heard. Of course I know better. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Love ya!”
You stared incredulously after him as he disappeared, your face burning with embarrassment and your heart hammering with adrenaline. Fight, your systems told you.
If only you could.
Seungcheol bit back a smile, reaching out to pat your arm placatingly.
“I don’t…” you started to say, but your voice caught in your throat. You cleared it, tried again. “I don’t think I really deserve all that.”
He nodded, lips pushed into a semblance of a thoughtful pout. “What I’d heard,” he said calmly, “is that you’re a hell of a fighter, scary smart, and that you take no shit. Unless it’s from your friends, apparently.”
This made a bitter little laugh bubble from you. You still simmered with humiliation, feared that maybe he’d decide he didn’t want to co-pilot with you after all.
“I think it’s up to you which story gets told,” he said finally.
“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “That’s what I always said. So… let’s get started.”
You and Seungcheol lucked out - the team that had been recalled for misconduct were terminated from their posts in the weeks following the sparring trials, and their jaeger Fatal Rapids had been disassembled, the parts up for grabs.
You and Seungcheol repurposed Rapids’s main frame, your crew working to individualize the bot to your needs as best they could. You splurged on quad-processors for her legs to allow your jaeger to keep up with how you move - quick and lithe. Seungcheol lobbied for (and won) some extra power in the top half, and you compromised and chose a mix of red and blue sections for her paintjob.
Duellona Fury, you named her. Duellona for you, the destroyer. Fury for Seungcheol, because that was where his fight came from.
You got to know Seungcheol’s fury very well. Especially when you started trying to drift.
None of it happened fast - not the building of your machine, nor your neural handshake. In fact, you didn’t pilot Duellona Fury together for a whole calendar year.
You started with physical compatibility - you sparred almost all day, every day. You fought - with each other and against each other - until all you could do was lay on the ground and pant, blinking to make the ceiling stay in focus.
Seungcheol may not have grown up training in the Shatterdome the way you did, but he kept up without complaint. You learned his way - force and strength - and he learned the way you favored - to weave and dodge.
The fighting was the easy part.
You had never drifted with someone you had true drift compatibility with. Seungcheol had never drifted at all. The Marshall wouldn’t even consider hooking the two of you up to the machine until you went through the proper training.
On the day you and Seungcheol were officially declared as co-pilots-in-training, you both stood below the half-built shell of your towering jaeger, sparks flying and drills screaming as the crew worked on her.
Your Marshall looked seriously at his new team-in-training. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll meditate together. Talk to each other. Get deep about it. If you’ve talked about it out here-” he swept an arm across the deck, “-it won’t take hold so strongly in there.” He’d jabbed a finger in the upward direction of Duellona Fury.
Seungcheol didn’t look at you, nor the Marshall. Instead, he kept his eyes on Duellona's unfinished frame, stories above you. “Yes, Sir,” he said steadily.
Your parents weren’t technically retired yet, the year you and Seungcheol started training together. Charron’s Revenge still sat in the well below the Shatterdome. They still lived on the base, still took part in daily training. They hadn’t been called into a fight in years, though; the assignments went to the younger crews.
You took dinner in their quarters instead of the mess hall, that night.
“Congratulations,” your father said warmly from across the table. “You worked hard to get here.”
“Thank you,” you said, feeling shy beneath the praise. “I hope the drift will work for me and Choi Seungcheol.”
“What do you think of him?” your mother had asked, her sharp eyes honing in on you, watching your reactions.
“I think he’s a great fighter,” you said. “The rest… I guess I’ll have to learn.”
“Do you trust him? Can you trust him out there, when the sea and the wind are trying to knock you down, and hell itself rises up from the depths?”
You swallowed. She’s right for her intensity - they will be putting their daughter’s life in her co-pilot’s hands, every time there’s a fight. You knew firsthand how terrifying it was to stand in the tech bay and wait, not knowing if your loved ones will make it back.
You thought about how you and Seungcheol fight together in the sparring rooms. You thought about how you weaved and your opponent followed your movement, only to be knocked sideways. You thought of how Seungcheol followed your motion backwards, ducked in tandem with you to avoid a hit, and how you followed his momentum forward and up to attack. Your bodies followed each other like they were magnetized. And Seungcheol was always watching for the next hit.
“Yes,” you said, so quietly that you cleared your throat and said it again. “Yes, I trust him.”
“Then we wish you luck,” your father said, and raised his glass. “To Duellona Fury.”
“To Duellona Fury,” you echoed.
On your way out of the quarters, later, you slowed as you passed the wall where they hung their accolades and awards, the newspaper clippings, photos, and medals. Before your eyes they aged - the photographs changing through the years, no longer showing a bright, fiery couple, instead displaying proof of passing time: a baby bump, then a toddler, then a child beaming alongside them as if she’d done what they had done; greying hairs, softening bodies, deepening of wrinkles. Then the pictures stopped.
You never asked them if they missed it.
You and Seungcheol started meditating together the next morning; it seemed logical to begin at the easiest step. In an empty sparring room, you sat facing each other, knees touching.
“Have you done this before?” you asked, as you both settled in, shifting weight and adjusting ankles.
“Not with someone else,” he admitted, lips protruding in a bit of a pout. “Only alone.”
You nodded. You’d grown up learning all of this - the right way to fight as a team member, how to be in tune for a neural connection. It led to you teaching Seungcheol often - yet when you fought together, any leadership fell away.
“Normally,” you explained, “you focus on your breath, keeping your mind clear. But for our practice, you want to focus on our breath. We breathe together. And when your mind wanders, your awareness should be coming to peace with my presence there. Like, making a path for the neural connection - for later. So there’s no resistance.”
“Have you done this before?” Seungcheol asked.
You wobbled your head around - not yes, but not no. “I’ve practiced it - I’ve done the meditation with partners. But I’ve never moved forward to an actual drift with anyone.”
This seemed to appease him, and he settled his weight backwards, letting his hands rest near his knees.
You let your eyes float closed and inhaled, listening and feeling for Seungcheol’s inhale to end, letting your breath out when he did. It took no time to match your breaths, to let your mind go blissfully quiet. You focused on feeling open, readable - any thought that floated through your mind, you pretended he could hear, too. You tried to feel and release any defensiveness, any urge to close off.
When the timer went off, it surprised you. You opened your eyes, and the feeling that struck you was this -
It was surprising to see Seungcheol before you. It hadn’t felt like he was beside you. It had felt like he was you.
You meditated, you fought, and finally, you talked.
Laying on the sparring room floor, your head somewhere near Seungcheol’s shins, he asked you, “Where do you wish you were right now? If you weren’t here.”
You laughed at yourself before answering, knowing how silly you would sound. “In a tree.”
A disbelieving smile played on his lips, almost as if he wasn’t sure you weren’t making fun of him somehow. “A tree?”
“No, really,” you insisted, still smiling a little. “There’s not a lot of nature here, in case you didn’t notice. I grew up in the Dome - never got to leave, much.”
Seungcheol didn’t respond to this, just nodded like he understood, his small smile going a bit tight around the edges.
You frowned, reading him exactly. “You think I’m sheltered,” you observed. It wasn’t a question. He couldn’t say no.
He looked at you, then. “You were sheltered,” he said, voice low. “But when I say it, I don’t mean naive. I just think… there’s a lot of world out there. A lot of things to see. You won’t see any of it if you spend your entire life under the Dome.”
You nod, accepting this. “I won’t see any of it if it gets destroyed, either. There’s a lot of world out there - that we’re trying to keep safe.”
Seungcheol watched you intently for a moment, lips downturned and gaze heavy. Then, he asked, “Have you ever seen a kaiju? I mean - in person?”
“Sort of,” you mumbled.
He’d rolled from his back to his front, closer to you, putting you shoulder to shoulder. “Kind of seems like a yes-or-no question.”
Your lips twisted. “Then, no. But I’ve stood in the bay and listened to Mission Control talk my mom and dad through a fight dozens of times, watched Charron’s Revenge on the screens and prayed I wouldn’t see her get sawed in half.”
You stopped, trailed a finger through the thin layer of dirt on the floor. “I know it’s not the same as looking one in the face myself,” you whispered. “But the fear… shouldn’t that fear count, shouldn’t it feel the same?”
Seungcheol swallowed, trailed his own finger through the dirt until his fingertip just barely touched yours. It felt like energy sizzled in the centimeter between your pointer and his.
“When Menaceclaw attacked,” he said, “he missed my home by one block. We watched him go by from the sidewalk. I wasn’t even as tall as his foot. But even with him towering over the buildings, taking them down without even trying, I don’t think what I felt was afraid. I think I just felt resigned. Like I knew, at seven, that even though we survived this one… nothing was going to be… the same, or okay. I don’t know.”
“You knew what you lost,” you said quietly. “Part of you did.”
He looked up at you, nudged his finger into yours. “You never knew anything different. It wasn’t a loss. The fear was just always part of the deal.”
You rolled sideways, laying your head on your bicep for a pillow, regarding the dark-eyed, dark-haired young man across from you. His face scrunched in a laugh, brows furrowing and lips pouting.
“What?” he asked through the quiet laugh. “Why are you looking at me?”
“What else?” you mused. “What else am I going to find when we go tiptoeing through your memories?”
He smiled faintly and then mirrored you, laying his head on his arm, his eyes swimming as he thought.
“A lot of my family, probably,” he said. “A lot of fighting. Menaceclaw. Probably some very mid sex.”
You laughed without meaning to. “My condolences?”
He grinned at you, pleased. “Eh, what can you do? I try to treat everything like a learning experience.”
You laughed again, and his smile grew, gums showing. “What about you?” he asked off-handedly.
“Mid sex?” you asked, eyebrows raising. “I hate to inform you, Choi Seungcheol, but I don’t do anything mid.”
“No,” he protested, laughing, reaching out to gently shake your shoulder. “I meant - what will we see when it’s your turn?”
“The Dome,” you said, half-joking - but it was true. “Training. My parents. Their fights, their accomplishments.”
And, as a true drift partner should, he understood what you weren’t saying.
“We’ll have our turn,” he promised, pushing himself to sit up, then stand, reaching down to help you up. “We’re gonna be fucking unstoppable. Let’s go again.”
Fire sparking behind your ribs, you nodded seriously, then reached up to take his hand.
Weeks of sparring melded into months of meditation and talking. The next phase of training co-pilots was learning to drift in one of the simulators - but not in a jaeger. Not yet.
You and Seungcheol finished training in one of the sparring rooms shortly before dinner would be served in the mess hall.
“Meet you there?” you asked, still half-breathless, your body starting to ache as the adrenaline from a fight melted away.
“Sure,” he agreed, and you disappeared into the changing rooms, scrubbing the sweat and dirt away as quickly as you could. You changed into something clean and made your way to the mess hall.
You scanned for familiar faces, frowning when your normal table seemed to be occupied by a team of new recruits that you didn’t know.
Seungcheol appeared at your elbow, frowning dramatically. “Our table,” he whined.
“There’s Chan and Wylie,” you said, nodding to another corner where your friends sat practically on top of each other. Chan and Wylie had never understood personal space, not when it came to one another. They barely noticed when you and Seungcheol plopped onto the benches next to them, but Seungkwan did.
“You’re bleeding, Cherry,” he said, before inhaling an entire mouthful of rice.
You started to scan your arms - you didn’t feel pain anywhere - but Seungcheol found it first, gingerly swiping his thumb along your cheekbone.
“Sorry, Cherry,” he murmured. “I should’ve pulled that punch.”
“No you shouldn’t have,” you grumbled, swatting at his hand and wiping roughly at the spot, your hand coming away with a small smear of red - nothing to be alarmed about. It would stop on its own. “You pull shots in practice, you’ll hesitate in the field.”
“She’s right,” Chan said from his physical tangle with Wylie. “What you practice will show up in your muscle memory. You’ve got to mean it, every time.”
Wylie reached across his arms and took a bite from his plate, then asked, “Did you guys see the new jaeger?”
“I did,” Seungkwan said eagerly. “Chaser Supernova, or something like that? She’s smaller, but she’s supposed to be fast.”
“Is that her team at our normal table?” you asked dryly, shooting the rookies a dark look over your shoulder. Seungcheol jostled you playfully, sending you a smile that brought you back.
The bench dipped to your left, and you turned to see Soonyoung - one of Seungkwan’s two co-pilots - settle in.
“Talking about Supernova?” he asked, hands busy opening his drink. “They seem okay - they’re a trio, like us.”
“Where is Seokmin?” Seungkwan asked, scanning the room. “I haven’t seen him in like two hours.”
“Talking to Jihoon, I think,” Soonyoung answered absently, focused on his meal. “He lost another co-pilot today.”
“Not again,” you and Seungcheol both blurted, matching levels of exasperation.
“That was freaky,” Wylie said, just as Chan told you, “You two are acting like us, now.”
“We do not need another Chan-and-Wylie,” Seungkwan said seriously, shaking his head.
Seungcheol sent you a sideways, sheepish grin.
“We won’t be,” he promised the group, but his eyes were still on you.
The simulators were built to be exact replicas of the conn-pod, so that trainees could get used to the feeling of being strapped in, of moving with the gear. But the real purpose was to practice the neural handshake without risking damage - to the jaeger, to the tech bay, to each other.
“Don’t be nervous,” you told Seungcheol as the tech team worked around you both like a choreographed dance.
“I’m never nervous,” he said, suddenly cocky.
If you could reach his hand from where you were strapped in, you would have. If you understood anything about Seungcheol - if any part of him mirrored you - it was the way he showcased bravado, the way he used it as his most-familiar mask.
“It’s only practice,” you reminded him. “And it’s only me.”
He licked his lips quickly, eyes darting to the side and then back to you. Then, he gave you a small nod.
“Normally,” your chief tech - a beautiful woman with jet-black hair named Nainsi - told you, “right now, you would be ready for the drop. In the simulator, we skip that step because we aren’t dropping onto a jaeger. Instead, we’ll engage the pilot to pilot connection protocol sequence.”
You and Seungcheol nod in tandem.
“You’re all good?” Nainsi checks. “Then I’m going back into the tech bay - you’ll hear me through the intercom.”
Alone in the simulator, you met Seungcheol’s gaze and couldn’t help the excited grin that spread across your face. Finally, finally you were here. Once you could do this successfully, the next step was to fight in your own jaeger - to drop into Duellona Fury and walk into the sea.
He didn’t return your smile, instead giving you a tight nod, expression serious.
Over the intercom, you said clearly, “Ready and aligned.”
Nainsi answered, “Prepare for neural handshake.”
You took a deep breath and steeled yourself as the artificial voice of the simulator’s tech system spoke around you, 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…
At first, you thought something went wrong. Everything went red behind your eyelids, and you blinked, instinctively trying to clear it away.
The red faded, and you found yourself in Seungcheol’s childhood home. You didn’t know how you knew that - you just knew. It was as familiar to you, inside the drift, as your own. You knew that to your left was a small kitchen with two broken floor tiles; you knew - without having ever seen it - that to your right was a narrow hallway that led to a bathroom and two small bedrooms.
Two small boys played on the carpet; rather, the smaller one played with some toy cars while the other watched the television with rapture. Behind them, at the kitchen table, a woman typed busily on an outdated laptop, bags heavy under her eyes.
Somewhere around you, a voice floated by, telling you, neural handshake strong and holding.
You could see Seungcheol in your periphery - the adult Seungcheol, the Seungcheol of now - as he looked at his mother, his brother, himself.
“It’s not real,” you reminded him gently. “It’s just a memory.”
“I know,” he said back, voice hushed, as if he might scare them away. “It’s just… good to see them.”
The house evaporated as gently as morning dew under a mid-morning sun; you stood in a schoolyard. Seungcheol, the small one, had a bloody lip and a mean swing.
You felt a rush of affection for him - him, the child, face contorting with misplaced anger, using strength as a bandage. You wanted to stand in front of him, between him and the anger, him and the other kids, and let him take a breath. You wanted to tell him to step with his punch to get more power. You wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him, you’re going to be fine.
And he knew all of it, because he was in your mind.
Seungcheol - your Seungcheol - walked away from the swarm of children egging on the fight and opened a door. You followed.
Inside was not the school, but a hospital room. Your body jolted forward, distracting and alarming. You heard, faintly, a series of beeps, that robotic voice needling in your ears, saying, calibration failure… recalibrating in 3… 2… 1…
“It’s only a memory,” you said again, but the warning beeps were coming stronger, louder, more clearly. The hospital room looked opaque, and Seungcheol walked backwards towards you, away from it, herding you both out of the room. The room - a bed, a pulled curtain, a lot of white - flickered, like a glitch, and then vanished, leaving you standing in the simulator.
Neural handshake disengaged…
“Seungcheol!” you yelled, pulling your helmet off and wheeling on him as best you could with most of your body still strapped in. “What the hell was that? You pushed me out!”
He was breathing hard, eyes a little wild. “Not that,” he said, a little ragged. “I’ll let you in but - not that.”
“You don’t get to choose!” you snapped. Part of you knew this was just growing pains, he’d never drifted before, he was learning. But the rest of you smarted and stung - both from his rejection and from your failure to train, to succeed, to check off this final step before you could get inside your jaeger. “It’s kind of an all-or-nothing thing!”
He let out a billow of air, reaching a hand up to rub at his face. “Sorry. I’ll… let’s try again.”
You didn’t answer, fuming silently instead.
“I’m sorry, Cherry,” he said. “The stuff with my dad…”
“You can’t cherry-pick what we see and what we don’t,” you fired back. His eyes shot to yours and his mouth quirked and you read the joke all over his face. “Don’t you laugh, Seungcheol, it’s not funny!”
But you were laughing through the scolding.
“Stop,” you whined.
Your anger defused, he looked at you again, taking a bracing breath. “It’s not about you,” he tried to explain. “I’m not keeping you out. I’m keeping me out.”
“Don’t chase the rabbit,” you told him, shaking your head. “See what it wants you to see and move on. Find the next door. If you stand there and let your hurt - or your, I don’t know… grief - rise up… that’s when we’re going to have trouble.”
“Find the next door,” he repeated, eyes on the floor. “Got it.”
“You can’t push it away,” you reminded him, “but you don’t have to stay in it, either.”
He nodded, eyes already lighting up, ready to go again.
The second time, you saw him steel himself before opening that same door, watching carefully as he shuffled inside, only looking sideways at the hospital room that materialized around you.
“Seungcheol.”
He turned to look at you, wide-eyed, but you hadn’t called him. The voice, weak and hoarse, had come from the other side of the fluttering curtain.
The glitching started almost immediately - the image around you flickering like a bad wall projection. Something rocked beneath your feet, an earthquake only inside your minds.
You opened your mouth, started to tell him, you don’t have to stay, to remind him that he could move forward. Instead, you heard yourself say, “I’m here.”
The tremors under your feet quivered to a stop. You watched with trepidation and Seungcheol closed his eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Then, he held his hand out, waiting.
You slipped your hand into his, and then he turned and continued walking, ignoring his father’s memory calling out to him. The flickering stopped, the picture you were part of brightening again as you found the next door, stepped through, left his pain behind.
It got easier quickly. Seungcheol’s ability to press on, to maintain focus, strengthened.
The strolls through your mind went easier - you’d had years to practice maintaining focus, waiting until after to let the emotions hit you.
Seungcheol learned to be ready for you, after. He’d sit with you, silent, and breathe in tandem as you worked to let go, to release the images of Charron’s Revenge on the tech bay screen, the sounds of your parents’ frantic communication as they fought together, the fear crawling its way up your legs every time until someone in the bay said, “Charron’s Revenge, cleared to return.” The loneliness of being the only kid in the Dome, having no outlet except fighting. Everything that threatened your mind while you piloted, everything that you had to save for later - save for him.
You were both freshly turned twenty when you got green-lit to drive.
“Seungcheol!” you called across the mess hall, practically racing to your table. He turned, eyebrows raised, as you crossed the large room.
“We’re approved to drop!” you told him excitedly. It churned in you - finally, finally you could fight, you could prove what you could do, you could help. “We’re on the drop schedule for tomorrow!”
His grin was unfettered, unfiltered, just for you. He reached up a fist and you bumped it enthusiastically. You were too excited to eat, too excited to sleep. You tossed and turned, imagining experiencing a drop for the first time, imagining striding through the mighty sea like it was nothing, imagining staring down hell itself and bringing it to its knees.
You were still awake when you heard the alarms down the hall. Yours didn’t go off, because you weren’t on duty, weren’t approved to fight.
Down the hall, there was a flurry of commotion - shouting, rushing, people pushing past you as they pulled on boots and jackets.
“Cat-3 in the west bay,” someone shouted.
“Deploying Devil’s Advocate!”
You reached the tech bay, trying to stay out of the way but not unseen. When the Marshall strode by, you stepped sideways.
“Let us drop,” you said quickly, knowing time was precious. “It’ll be like practice. We can be back-up. We’ll hang back.”
“Absolutely not,” the Marshall said, already moving to work past you. “You’re not approved yet. We don’t need a liability right now.”
“We’re scheduled for tomorrow!” you protested, and then you felt a hand on your shoulder.
“We’ll get our turn,” Seungcheol told you quietly. Of course he’d come out, of course he found you.
You deflated. “It could have been us. We are hours from approval.”
He gave your shoulder a tiny shake. “We’ll get our turn,” he repeated. “Don’t make trouble.”
You glowered, but you knew he was right. “Fine,” you grumbled as Joshua and Jeonghan slinked past you in matching jackets and matching shit-eating grins. You stayed out of the way as they prepared to drop.
You stayed through the fight, listened to the control room buzz and chatter, until you heard, “Devil’s Advocate, cleared to return.”
Only then did you try to go back to sleep. Seungcheol gave your shoulder one more squeeze.
“Tomorrow,” he promised.
“Tomorrow,” you repeated.
Some people feel God at church. The history of tradition and the sanctity of ritual speak to them, help them feel part of something, help them feel that unnameable swell of something spiritual.
Some people feel God in nature. The patterns of the universe, the way math exists without human touch, the harmonies and patterns that seem too intricate for coincidence help them believe in a planner’s touch. The beauty of the outdoors allows them to wonder, to feel like they belong as a piece of this clockwork.
But you - you felt God when you stood before your jaeger, marveling at the power, the beauty, how it feels like yours, how it feels like Seungcheol before you’re even inside it. Duellona Fury promises you power, promises you purpose.
That hand was on your shoulder again, and it slid down to the center of your back before removing itself.
Beside you, Seungcheol stared up at your glorious machine.
“She looks sick,” he said, the grin taking over his face.
“I can’t wait to fuck shit up,” you murmured, your reverent tone at odds with the flippancy of your words.
“Ready?” the Marshall asked you, coming up to your left. “We’ll get you calibrated and dropped, and then you’ll do a lap of the bay. We’re sending out Pretty Savage just in case you run into trouble.”
The defensiveness rose in you quick, like a snakebite.
“We don’t need a babysitter,” Seungcheol said, voice hard. You reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze - a reminder to watch it, just as his hand on your shoulder frequently did for you.
“It’s just safety protocol.” The Marshall was unphased by the outburst. “Have fun, you two. Enjoy your first joy-ride.”
You screamed when you dropped, the exhilaration rushing out of you as Duellona Fury fell story after story before slowing and attaching to your jaeger’s mainframe.
Goosebumps raised along your arms when the Shatterdome’s sea-doors slid open, shudders traveling your body as you and Seungcheol stepped together, Duellona Fury stepping with you, her gigantic, metal form following every movement.
For the first time in your whole, careful life, you felt powerful. Your jaeger cut through the ocean waves like they were nothing, making an easy perimeter of the bay. In your head, you could somehow both hear and feel Seungcheol’s delight, his low-simmering desire to fight, to do something a perfect mirror of your own.
“How is it?” Soonyoung’s voice crackled in your ears, reminding you that Pretty Savage wasn’t far behind you.
“Incredible,” Seungcheol answered him, at the same time that you said, “It’s everything.”
It didn’t matter that you came from a family of pilots. It didn’t matter that you were raised in the Dome, training since you were young. None of that mattered. You were born for this - born to fight for your planet, born for Duellona Fury, born for Choi Seungcheol.
The west bay became Duellona’s playground; you and Seungcheol were often assigned to patrol there.
It was only a few months in that you faced a kaiju for the first time.
“Come in, Duellona Fury,” Nainsi’s voice came through. “We have a reading just a few miles north of you. Cat-2. Approaching at -”
Duellona Fury was turning due north before the command was even given.
“Are you ready for this?” you shouted to Seungcheol as Duellona slid through the water, the adrenaline singing in your system already.
“You know I am,” he answered, something hard in it, and the thrill in your stomach sparked.
When the sea split in half, the kaiju rising from the depths with an unearthly roar, you sank into a defensive stance, feeling Seungcheol move beside you, doing the same.
“Let’s fucking go,” Seungcheol said darkly, and launched forward, your arms rearing back for momentum before the first swing. The punch landed solidly, your whole body shaking once as the kaiju faltered backwards a few steps.
It opened its mouth and you glimpsed three rows of teeth bigger than a cow before it was lunging at you; Duellona Fury lurched. You tried to duck sideways as Seungcheol tried to move towards your opponent.
The moment of indecision cost you - the kaiju got its teeth on Duellona’s shoulder, knocking you back several steps. Beside you, Seungcheol roared as sparks flew near the bite.
“Are we breached?” you yelled, trying to steady your balance again.
“Not yet!” he yelled back, and you swung again, a hit landing hard enough to knock the kaiju loose, spitting it back into the sea.
You tried to move into a defensive crouch again; again, the jaeger faltered.
“Cherry!” Seungcheol yelled, desperation laced in his voice. “Cherry, don’t fight me!”
“Move with me!” you answered, and he did, miraculously, Duellona dodging left before an incoming attack.
Don’t fight me.
You rocked forward with Seungcheol as soon as you were clear of the kaiju’s trajectory, just as you’d done in practice thousands of times. Back in sync, Duellona Fury landed a kick to the kaiju’s middle that sent it stumbling.
“We’ve got him,” you said, feeling a win.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Seungcheol warned you. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the kaiju exploded from the dark ocean, limbs flailing as it flew towards you.
Duellona’s arms came up and locked it in battle, the impact shaking you so hard that your teeth chattered against each other. You groaned with exertion as you tried to match its strength.
“I don’t think we can hold it,” you managed through grit teeth.
“We’ve got this,” your partner promised, and with a mighty shove, you managed to flip the beast over your shoulder and beneath the waves.
“Drop the bombs and head for the east side,” you said quickly, already moving. Duellona Fury followed your command, turning and starting an easy run through the bay’s churning waters, away from where the kaiju was struggling to its feet, furious and vengeful. As she ran, she dropped three small explosives, about sixty feet apart. The explosives slipped into the ocean depths.
“Ready?” Seungcheol asked, a little breathless. “Are we far enough away?”
“Light him up,” you replied. Seungcheol reached up and tapped the button; somewhere behind you, the ocean exploded.
“How’s your shoulder?” you asked, later, in the med bay.
“Not that bad,” Seungcheol said, but you could see the blood-stains on the bandaging.
“It won’t happen again,” you promised. “I think I just… practiced alone for so long. I forgot to listen. I’m sorry.”
Seungcheol shook his hand, eyes finding yours. “There’s nothing to forgive, Cherry. Forget about it.” Then, he brightened. “You know what I want to do?”
“What?” you asked, not entirely past feeling guilty.
His smile was devilish. “I want to go celebrate our first fucking kill.”
– 
You marked the passing of two years in statistics.
Three hundred and forty-six explosives detonated.
Two hundred and eighty-three drops. Two hundred and eight-three kills. 
Seventy-two mainframe repairs.
Twenty-eight achievement awards.
Nine television interviews.
Six upgrades.
One ill-informed “vacation” during which you both itched with anxiety, spending the whole time messaging your friends back in the Shatterdome desperately, praying you wouldn’t miss a fight in which you were needed.
Seven hundred and thirty days of living in and around Seungcheol’s mind and heart. But that stat should’ve gone first.
It was a good high. Your team had a good run.
It wasn’t a kaiju that reduced it to ash, not an attack that took your team out of the rotation of main fighters and sent your jaeger to gather rust and dust below the Dome. It was your own stupid heart.
There were a lot of moments that could have been it. Each time you walked into a fight knowing the danger, each time he ended up in the med bay reeking of antibacterial ointment and resentment. Each time you slid into your place beside him - space he saved only for you. Each time his voice bidding you goodnight from the bottom bunk was the last thing you heard at the end of the day. Any of these moments might have been the one to make you stop, gasp, suddenly slammed with understanding. That you loved him, that he was everything you couldn’t bear to be without, that he was part of you. But they weren’t.
There was no moment of realization at all.
Instead, it slowly seeped into your consciousness, as gently and naturally as morning dew collecting on pre-dawn petals. The knowledge clung to you, as impossible to ignore as damp feet after running barefoot through the yard just after sunrise.
If you knew something, that meant your co-pilot would know it, too.
Unless you tucked it away, pushed it down deep and cast his attention elsewhere, a mental sleight-of-hand. Look here instead. 
You were twenty-three, on a routine patrol, when Mission Control radioed Duellona that there was a reading in the bay.
“Looks like it’s only a Cat-1,” Mission Control told you.
“On it,” you told them, feeling your body already mirroring Seungcheol’s as Duellona picked up her pace, striding through the waves. 
You glanced sideways at him, and immediately wished you hadn’t. He was already zoned in, eyes focused and jaw sharp as he concentrated. 
He caught your gaze for only a second. “Focus, Cherry,” he cautioned. “Don’t get cocky.”
“I would never,” you retorted, and he laughed. You were both cocky; you both knew it.
For a second, things felt better. 
The fight was almost easy, when the ocean seemed to split in two and the waves fell away like wrapping paper to reveal the kaiju you’d been sent for. 
You swung and ducked, dropping explosives strategically, Seungcheol moving in unison with you. There was something graceful about it - something beautiful in the sync, something holy in the way your muscles mimicked each other’s. 
This is what happens when sunlight hits morning dew: it warms, lifts, makes the air humid and sticky until it burns away. 
It rose up in you, your love for him, infusing the air around you, infusing the neural handshake that he was deeply imbedded in.
No. 
You panicked, tried to do several things at once - tried to shove the feeling down, tried to think of something else, tried to push Seungcheol’s consciousness out of yours.
Duellona Fury lurched around you, shuddering. 
“Cherry!” Seungcheol screamed to your left, and then the kaiju hit, its full weight slamming into Duellona’s mainframe.
You both staggered, trying to right yourselves, as the machines around you blinked and beeped and rebooted. 
Seungcheol grunted under the neural weight of driving alone as you gasped and closed your eyes, trying desperately to fix it. Around you, you heard the floating words - recalibrating.
“Recalibrate faster!” you shouted, glancing sideways to see your co-pilot struggling to hold the monster in place, his face contorting with effort, arms straining against the machinery. He bared his gritted teeth, exhaling in a hiss between them. 
You gave yourself a shake, bouncing on the balls of your feet, desperate for the connection to take again so you could pick up your half, take the literal weight from him. As soon as you felt the neural handshake, you gave a mighty shove and Duellona flipped the monster backwards, the ocean receding and then coming back to slam her shins, swallowing the monster whole.
You both sank into a defensive stance, ready for the beast to rise again.
“What was that?” Seungcheol demanded, later, as he sat in the med bay, waiting for his nosebleed to stop. The nosebleed you’d caused by letting him carry a neural load meant for two.
“I don’t know,” you lied, still panicked and desperate. 
“Bullshit,” Seungcheol countered, eyes narrowed. He reached up and pulled the cotton away from his face, examining it. “I’m fine now,” he announced, and tossed the wad into a nearby trash bin, standing.
You fought the urge to cower, knowing he’d never let it go if you did. You followed him silently out of the med bay and back towards your dormitories. Halfway there, he slowed, then stopped.
Then, more calmly this time, he asked, “What happened, Cherry? You pushed me out.”
There was a slight pout to it, a sliver of hurt, and it sliced through you like something tangible, like you were actually wounded from it, like it might actually bleed.
“I don’t know,” you repeated. Guilt poked at you until you relented, gave him something that was at least partly true.  “I got scared.” 
“That can’t happen, and you know it,” he said seriously, his large frame casting a long shadow to your left as he leaned into your space. “You can’t keep secrets - that’s piloting 101. We’ve got to handle it. You know what’s at stake here.”
You did; you did, and that was entirely the problem. It wasn’t just feelings, it wasn’t just your relationship with Seungcheol at stake. It was your relationship with your co-pilot - your ability to fight was at stake, your ability to keep others safe. Your legacy.
Your parents’ wall of pictures flashed in your mind.
“I’m going to my mom and dad’s for a while,” you said quietly. 
He nodded, let you run away - trusted you to come back to him when you were ready, trusted you to let him in.
You weren’t sure if he was right or wrong, as you walked away and left him behind.
You didn’t go to your parents’, though. Instead, you went to the tech bay and sat, watching Duellona undergo simple repairs from her fight. You stayed there, the metal cold beneath your thighs, watching the tech team buff over a scratch on your jaeger’s torso, until someone dropped into the spot next to you, bumping their shoulder roughly into yours.
“Where’s Seungcheol?” Wylie, who co-piloted Fury Striker with Chan, was your closest friend in the Dome besides Seungcheol. 
“He’s pissed at me,” you answered, looking sideways, because the question had really meant, why isn’t Seungcheol with you? 
You weren’t sure she’d understand what you were going through - she and Chan had been obsessed with each other since they were kids. Neither of them had ever had to fear that their love for each other would mess anything up. It had been part of their deal from the start.
“What’d you do?” Wylie demanded, turning her full, unfettered attention on you. You wanted to shrink from the intensity of it - but that was always how Wylie worked: full wattage, all the time.
“Almost got us killed by a fucking Cat-1 tonight,” you muttered, angry at yourself, angry at your heart.
Wylie smacked your arm hard enough to send you sideways. “Cherry!” she scolded. 
“There was something I didn’t want him to see.” You said it in your head first, weighed the words, then forced them through your teeth. You hoped she’d just know what it was, hoped you wouldn’t have to force those words past muscle and bone, too.
Wylie’s face dropped into irritation. “Cherry,” she repeated, disappointment dripping from the two syllables.
You looked up at Duellona Fury again. 
“You can’t do that,” she told you, giving your ankle a little kick for emphasis. “You know you can’t do that.”
You can’t love him? Or, you can’t keep secrets from him?
You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know the answer.
Seungcheol was waiting up for you when you finally returned to the dorm. You opened the door to find the first room - an entryway and kitchen, both - dimly lit. Beyond it, in the small sitting space, Seungcheol sat facing the door, his chin in his hand.
You knew the look on his face. You knew it so well that you almost ran from it, almost turned right around and went back out to the hallway.
Brows slightly furrowed, mouth a straight line, jaw tight. Eyes focused, locked in. It was the face he made in training before he bodied someone. It was the face he made in the field before an offensive strike. It meant he had his sights on a target, a problem, and he was about to throw everything he had at it.
And right now, you were the problem.
“Hey?” you tried meekly.
He nodded. Licked his lips. Stood. 
He’s pissed at me, you’d told Wylie. The energy radiating from your co-pilot was much more complex than that, the air around you palpably tense and teetering.
“How was it at your parents’?” he asked, voice low. 
You took one tentative step closer. “I didn’t go,” you admitted. One lie between you was already more than you wanted. “I watched them patch up Duellona instead. Talked to Wylie a little.”
He nodded, eyes still on you. Nervousness coursed through you, but it would be a lie - another one - to say it wasn’t laced with a little excitement. He was stunning, always, but like this - it almost took your breath away.
If he was in your mind right now, there’d be no question. He’d know all of it. The attraction, the desire, the fear, the affection, the love, the need. All of it. 
His eyes caught on a bruise peeking out from the short sleeve of your top. “You should’ve had them look at that,” he said, reaching out like he wanted to run his fingers over the dark splotch, but he was just too far away, fingertips closing around the air just an inch or two away. 
You shook your head. “You needed attention first. You carried the neural load alone.” Because of me.
“Only for a minute.”
“A minute too long. I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
It hung between you. You don’t know if you’d inched forward or he had, or both, but you were close enough to touch now when you hadn’t been just seconds ago.
He lifted his eyes, his gaze locking on yours. In the dim room, his eyes shone black. “You pushed me out.”
It was an accusation, but it was also a question.
“I’m sorry,” you repeated, barely able to say it, your voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Seungcheol, I was scared.”
Maybe he was in your head. Maybe he did know all of it.
“Don’t be,” he told you. “Don’t be scared.”
His arms were around you though you didn’t see him move. It wasn’t the first time you’d let him embrace you - after a fight, in relief, or in victorious delight, or sometimes just in sleepy affection at the end of a long day. It was far from the first time that you’d found comfort in the space between his arms, strong and capable around your frame, your forehead pressed against his sternum as his heart beat directly into your bones. 
But it was the first time that his fingers, confident and sure, tipped under your chin, guiding you to look up at him, guiding your mouth to meet his.
You don’t know if you melted or exploded - it was somehow both at once. You gripped his back, feeling the muscles move beneath his t-shirt, relaxing into his hold and focusing on the feel of his full lips firm and hungry against your own. This was everything - everything you’d wanted, everything you were afraid of, everything you needed, everything that could rip your life apart.
You didn’t mean to whine, but it slipped up your throat and into the gasped space between your lips and his as you tried to pull in a desperate breath. He responded with a grunt, walking you backwards until the edge of the kitchen counter jutted into your lower back. His hands traveled, up to the back of your neck, back down to the slight curve of your waist, around to the back of your ass. He tugged your hips against his roughly, and you let your head fall back, panting, head spinning.
“Cherry,” he breathed against the newly bared stretch of your neck, his lips close enough to drag against your skin as he spoke.
Your hands found the back of his neck, gave the slightest tug upwards, and he followed, bringing his mouth back to yours. His tongue pressed yours briefly, your moan muffled entirely by his mouth as you tried to press him closer, closer, as if you wanted your rib-cages to meld, to slip together like fitting puzzle pieces. 
His hand slipped lower from your ass and wrapped around your thighs, taking only a second to lift you onto the counter behind you. You wrapped yourself around him immediately, pulling him into the space between your legs, arms around his neck, pulling him in, wanting to feel every bit of him against you. 
His hands found the hem of your shirt and lifted; you raised your arms in compliance and felt the cotton slip over your head and your hands.
“Yours,” you murmured, but he had already reached back between his shoulder blades, his own top joining yours on the floor.
Your hands found him on their own, sliding over his skin, fingers dipping between muscles, thumbs sweeping over shadows.
You kissed until you turned liquid, molten, your fingers wrapped in his hair. His fingers mapped every inch of your skin, as if his job was to report back on every previously unknown dip, every rough circle, every beauty mark or blemish. His fingers traced them all, his hands passing over you reverently.
The brush of his bare chest against your own was torturous; delicious until you were full, until you couldn’t take it anymore, until the electric-sharp thrill became uncomfortable. You tilted backwards, creating more space between your torsos but pushing your hips firmly into his.
You both groaned at the contact. You could feel the heat and weight of him now, and everything instinctual within you urged you to shift further, to bring that heat and heaviness closer to the part of you that ached for it. 
He pressed his hips into you without reservation, your core clenching in response to the movement and the friction. 
Then he leaned back, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, his arms bracketing you on either side, his chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. He drank you in, his eyes as molten as you felt. You leaned back on your elbows and met his gaze.
The moment expanded; nothing existed but his eyes and the pant of his breath and the way he smelled like he’d just finished a fight and the way he felt between your thighs, unmovable and steady.
Neither of you was connected to jaeger machinery, but you may as well have been, because you knew without a shadow of a doubt that your minds were connected, the drift be damned. Your eyes locked, you knew he felt everything you felt - the gravity of what you were doing, the love that drove you, the fire coursing through you. If there was going to be hesitation or questioning, this was the moment, this was the pause. But you were one, your minds were one, and there was none of that. 
His unvoiced question definitively answered by the certainty that flowed between you, Seungcheol moved to lift you again, taking you easily from the countertop into the dark of the room you share, settling you on your back on his bottom bunk.
Above you, mostly shadowed, was your other half, the only person who knew and understood every cobwebbed corner of your consciousness, the only person who had walked through your mind and found himself mirrored in every way that mattered. He was beautiful in the fractured light, his expression serious and gaze intense. 
You reached up to slide your thumb along his jaw and his eyes fluttered closed, his breath leaving him as in relief, as if you’d made some kind of admission. 
Making love to Seungcheol felt like drifting. His eyes on you as his fingers pulled you apart felt the same as the careful way he’d watch you when your memories got emotional, like he was watching for any sign that you weren’t okay, that you needed more or less or him. 
The way his breath and shoulders shuddered when he pressed into you for the first time felt the same as when he faltered in face of his father’s memory; both times, his fingers laced through yours and held tight until you could both breathe again.
He felt how you’d always known he would. Perfect - a perfect fit for you, a physical compatibility you had never tested but had always trusted would be there. He took you apart without even trying, and all you could do was hold onto him, feel all of him, feel all of it, and try to remember to breathe.
You didn’t speak as you moved together in the dark; the only sounds in the tight room were muted gasps, tiny moans muffled against necks, skin on skin, the obscene squelching sounds that accompanied each snap of his hips. You didn’t say the words that your lips tried to form - it’s so much, go slow for a little, Seungcheol, I love you, more - please, don’t stop. Maybe he heard them. Maybe this was a different way to drift, one that didn’t need wires.
You did your best to hold his gaze, losing sight of him only when you strained up to kiss him, when you nuzzled your face into the warmth between his neck and shoulder and gasped against a wave of sensation, when you couldn’t help but close them as they rolled back, your toes curling. 
He pressed his forehead to yours when he finished, your name slipping out of him, as if it had been literally squeezed from his lungs. “Cherry… Cherry…”
You lay together in silence for a long time, feeling your hearts slow, your skin cool. Your thumb traced his jaw again and again, slow, worshipful. “Cheol,” you whispered. My Cheol. My everything. You didn’t say the rest as you lay together in the quiet, in the dark, your heartbeats competing. 
You didn’t know that you’d drifted together for the last time. You didn’t know that your ability to neural connect could be broken.
The wind whips around you, stinging your face. You barely flinch. When you’d first relocated here, three years ago, the cold had made you literally cry during your first month. Just from having to walk from the door of the dormitory across the yard to the mess hall dorm, the intensity of it had sent you spiraling into misery - damning the circumstances that had sent you here, away from everyone and everything you knew and loved, to a place where the air hurt. 
You were sure it would hurt, this intensely, forever.
But time eased the sting, and despite your doubts you did adjust. Now the early morning wind feels bracing and refreshing rather than painful. You’ve adjusted to a lot of things since relocating to a small training center in Alakanuk, Alaska: the climate, the food, the no-frills campus you lived and worked on. Being away from your parents, from Wylie and Chan and Seungkwan and Jeonghan and all the other pilots you were friends with at the Shatterdome.
Being away from Seungcheol. Being partnerless, a half instead of a whole. 
Being unable to pilot, unable to fight. 
Being brokenhearted.
Just like the cold, the pain of your losses was the same - the sting of heartbreak and loneliness and homesickness faded to something ignorable, something you could keep tucked tight in the back of your mind. 
You can hear the noise from inside the mess hall before you even cross the courtyard. There are short of fifty girls ranging from ages seven to eighteen being housed here, but from the noise you’d swear it was at least a hundred. 
The buildings are single-storied, painted with a heavily-chipping grey-blue that sometimes seems to belong to the mist you often get rolling in from the ocean. When you’d first come, you’d legitimately thought they were painted that way as camouflage, meant to blend in with the sea. The other trainers had a good laugh about that. 
As you cross the courtyard between the trainers’ dorms and the mess hall, you breathe deeply, eyes on the birds alight above you. After a lifetime in the Shatterdome, you don’t take for granted the fresh air you’re afforded as you pass between buildings, outside, the sky open and changing above. You don’t take for granted the rhythm of the ocean, the cries of the gulls, nor the distant treeline.
It was Seungcheol who had noted that you were sheltered, having never lived outside of the Dome. 
It was Seungcheol you could blame - at least halfway - for your relocation here, where there wasn’t a jaeger or even a city for hundreds of miles. 
When you pull open the flimsy door to the mess hall, the noise triples. Several of the girls call out to greet you, and you give them a quick wave as you head to the table where the staff eats.
“You’re later than normal,” one of the other instructors notes as you reach for a piece of bread.
You shrug lightly, unbothered. “Still have plenty of time before the first class. What day is today, Thursday? I’ve got the little ones first, right?”
The all-girls training center is meant to teach fighting and the groundworks for drifting, but no jaegers are housed here, no teams launch into the icy bay. The girls here will grow up to pilot - if they get selected, if they get paired with a partner. 
You’re mostly here to teach them to fight, the way you trained in the Dome, but you do plenty more. Help brush hair in the mornings, console tearful faces, teach games and sports, mediate arguments. You also got sucked into running one literacy class a week, though you still haven’t figured out how that happened. 
It would be a lie to say this wasn’t fulfilling, that you didn’t love the girls you cared for, that you weren’t happy here with the ocean and birds and trees and laughter. In many ways, the seclusion of this training center is exactly what you needed to get back on your feet, to find strength in yourself, to heal with distance and time.
But, god, what you would give for a real fight. What you would give to feel both loved and threatened by Wylie, to rib at the guys, to hug your mom. What you would give to hear Seungcheol’s teasing pout, to catch his gaze across the span of your jaeger and know what his body and yours will do, to feel his fingers just barely graze your back when he knows you need to be reminded to focus.
The final time you’d tried, the neural connection never took. It was like trying to connect with a stranger. It had simply been still, a thing that was never alive.
“Don’t do this,” Seungcheol had begged, and that had been the nail in the coffin.
Don’t do this, he’d said. It had landed like blame. Like everything was your fault, and only yours. Like you had broken the connection on purpose, were keeping him out, barricading your mind from his when you desperately wanted everything to go right back to normal.
After that failure, you didn’t tell him you were asking to be reassigned. You didn’t want to give him the chance to say don’t do this a second time.
You’ve just ended a class, the girls starting to filter out through the training room’s side door towards the mess hall for lunch, when the center’s Administrator calls your name from the door.
“There’s a call for you on my line. I have them holding.”
A call? 
Adrenaline races through you; it has to be an emergency. Your parents and friends can reach you on your own device, which is tucked into your back pocket. To call the mainline here at the center means this is a base-to-base call, not a personal one.
You’ve only been in this office a handful of times in your few years here, and you shuffle awkwardly around the desk and pick up the receiver that sits abandoned on the chipped, wooden desktop. 
You greet the person on the line with your real name. 
“Cherry?”
Your Marshall - your old Marshall, from the Dome - sounds unsure if he has the right person on the line. No one has called you Cherry in three years. Even your parents have used your given name the few times they’ve said it on your weekly calls home.
“It’s me,” you affirm. “Is everything okay? My parents?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, and you heave a relieved breath. “Everyone is fine. This is official business. I want to call you in.”
You shake your head, frowning, well aware that he can’t see your reaction. Your body has said no, but you force yourself to ask, “Me? Why?”
“We’re down a few teams,” the Marshall says. “And -”
“You’ve got more recruits than places to put them,” you counter before he can finish. “Call one of the new teams up. Call three new teams up. You don’t need me.”
“We do - we need teams with experience, teams that are ready. Not rookies bumbling around looking for mistakes. We need precision. We need Duellona Fury.”
Your Marshall lays out the situation: the teams that are out, the problems they’re having at the breach - less time between attacks, more monsters at once. You’ve seen this before, you all have, and there’s protocol in place - protocol that starts with all hands on deck. 
You shake your head again. From the door, the Administrator of the center watches you seriously, like she knows you’re being taken away. 
“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “What can I give you? I can’t pilot Duellona.”
Not anymore. 
The Marshall sighs, like he knew this argument was coming and didn’t have a good response. 
“I think you can,” he says finally. “I’m not saying it will be easy, and I’m not saying it will happen quickly or without effort. But I think you can.”
“No,” you say, the first time you’ve voiced it. “You were there. You saw what happened. We can’t drift anymore.”
“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. You’ve both had a lot of time to…. You’ve both had a lot of time since then. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”
This blow knocks you into silence. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, eyes steadfastly on the warped wood of the desk, fingers toying absently with the Administrator’s pen. 
He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing had mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did three years ago. The splitting ache in your chest that you’ve felt every day since you became aware of loving him has only worked its way deeper with time. 
And Seungcheol’s anger? The anger and betrayal he’d leveled at you, when he was sure you were keeping him out of your head on purpose? You couldn’t speak for him, but if you had to guess, there weren’t enough years in a human life to let that hurt mellow into something safe enough to drift with.
“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 
The Marshall hesitates. “Not yet.”
“You might want to do that first,” you point out. “Before flying me back only to have him refuse.” 
The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”
“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 
“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”
The girls cry when you tell them you’re leaving, and it makes you want to cry, too. You hold it together as you give them hugs, hold it together as you pack your single bag of belongings. You hold it together in the passenger seat of the center’s only beat-up van, waving out the back window as the training center fades away.
It’s standing on the deck of the ferry, the coast receding and the sea wind clawing at your face, that you let it go. You bury your face behind your hands and feel it release behind your ribs. You cry for all of it - for leaving the girls behind, for leaving a place that had sheltered you like a sanctuary. For the time you’d lost at the Dome, for the fights you’d sat out, for the years with your parents and friends that had slipped away like sand between your fingers. For your fear that Seungcheol will turn you away, just as hurt and angry as he was one thousand and ninety-five days ago. 
You’d been so determined to keep him from walking through the depths of your love for him, in the drift. You were so scared it would be too much, too intense, too much emotion for the drift. You’d been scared it would be too much for him - that the weight of it would inherently ask for more than he could give you in return. You’d been scared it would ruin your partnership, your compatibility, your capability to co-pilot.
But that had happened anyway. You almost have to laugh. 
As furiously as your tears begin, they peter out quickly. You take a few deep gulps of salty air, use the backs of your hands to wipe at your cheeks and beneath your nose. As you calm down, you keep your eyes on the horizon, your hands tight on the ship’s railing, and you let your mind wander back to Seungcheol. Here, thousands of miles away, you let yourself think back to those last weeks before you left the Shatterdome. You let yourself wonder, for the first time, what exactly caused everything to crumble.
You’d been so afraid to let Seungcheol into your head once the loving him had taken over. Why had it scared you so badly? As you keep your eyes on the grey of the horizon, you puzzle it out in your mind.
Had it been the uncertainty? That had certainly played a part. Did Seungcheol love you, back then? If he didn’t, everything between you could have changed - your friendship, your partnership, your ability to drift. It hadn’t seemed worth the risk to lose it all - his presence in your life, your ability to fight together. 
But maybe he had. If he did love you, back then… that would have changed things, too. What if starting something romantic affected your drift? There were too many maybes, too many variables. It had seemed safe to push it all down, to try and keep him away from it. To try and keep things the same.
Of course, you’d lost it all anyway.
Even if he did love you three years ago, you think as the sea air whips around you, did he love you the way you loved him? What if it had been too much - the way you could breathe once he was with you, the way you kept each other in check - what if he had loved you, but not that much?
Had it been a mistake to keep him out? Maybe. But it could have been just as catastrophic to let him in. There was no way to know, now.
You turn away from the ship’s railing, away from the horizon and the sea, away from your mistakes. There’s no use looking back like this. You can’t change it. You aren’t even sure you can fix it.
You were hoping to sleep on the plane, but you’re woefully awake well after take-off. Determined not to keep ruminating on what had happened before you left, instead you wonder what awaits you now.
The most-likely scenario, you think, professional and polite - but cold. Like you, he takes duty and responsibility seriously. The airplane bumps, a pocket of air jostling the small craft, and your hands find the armrests and cling tight until it stops.
The best case scenario, of course, would be that enough time has passed that Seungcheol’s hurt has faded. Maybe, you think, maybe he’s moved on from harboring that anger. Maybe he’ll greet you warmly, maybe you’ll pick up right where you left off.
This hope, this day-dream, aches, so much that you blink it away and turn to watch the clouds through the window, a desperate distraction. You crave Seungcheol - you crave feeling safe with his arms around you, you crave the elation you’d feel when he entered the room you were in, you crave the peace that comes with two minds engaged in neural handshake - the peace of someone’s mind interlaced with your own, understanding you, operating with you, picking up half of your mental lift.
You crave his giggle when you say something stupid in the dark of the dorm before bed, his pout when he feels like he isn’t getting enough attention, you crave his voice echoing in your head long after he’s gone asleep because you heard him talk to you all day long. 
You crave his lips on yours, his teeth on your neck, his hands on your body, even if you only had it once. You’ve craved it ever since.
You crave closing your eyes and pressing your forehead to his sternum, feeling safe and quiet and like you belong. You miss the sanctuary of that space, chest to chest with him, something sacred in the way it exists only for you.
You know you can’t have it - any of it. The daydream isn’t real. Your curse will be to crave it forever, alone.
When you arrive at the Shatterdome, it’s your parents who greet you just inside. For a moment, you’re happy to be back, overcome with emotion as you hug them tight. They’ve aged in these three years. You’ve missed them awfully. You only tell them the latter. 
They walk with you to the Marshall’s office, where you’re meant to report upon arrival. 
You hesitate, covering the moment by tugging your duffle’s strap higher on your shoulder. Your mother reads you anyway, reaching out and giving your shoulder a squeeze. 
“It will be okay,” she whispers. 
Your father catches on. “You’ve faced down worse,” he reasons. 
You disagree. There’s no monster in the sea bigger than your love for Seungcheol, no wounding possible that could hurt more than losing him has. But you appreciate the sentiment, so you give them each a grateful nod, tell them you’ll visit after dinner, and turn to knock on the door.
“Come in,” the Marshall’s voice carries through the door, and you turn the knob and step inside. 
All you see is Seungcheol; the Marshall, the office furniture, the flickering screens on the walls all snap into nonexistence in the presence of your former lover. He’s the only thing in the room that comes into focus. Everything else is just fuzzy noise.
His face wavers for a moment when your eyes meet his, the muscles rippling as he fights to get them under control. 
You don’t know what reaction he’s fighting. You don’t know if he’s feeling happiness or hatred. You don’t know if he’s fighting a smile or a scowl.
You give him a quick bow in greeting, and he returns it. His face is stone, now, his mouth tight and eyes flat. 
He turns to face the Marshall, to receive orders, so you do the same.
“I trust your travel went well?” the Marshall begins.
You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Even the single syllable of yes will come out of your mouth like gravel and dirt and sand, getting everywhere, leaving a trail.
“Your orders,” he says then, a bit of a sigh on his tone - as if he knows the uphill battle this will be, “are to reconnect as best you can. You’ll follow your old schedule. You’ll spar, you’ll meditate, and you’ll talk. After some time, we’ll try the drift again, see if the connection has recovered any.”
Seungcheol’s voice startles you when he speaks. “How long do you imagine it will be before we try?” he asks, just cold enough to have a sliver of sarcasm in it. 
The Marshall’s eyes narrow, just slightly, as if he’d caught it. “That’s entirely up to you two,” he says evenly. “When you were young and hungry to fight, you trained yourselves into exhaustion. You spent every waking second trying to cultivate the bond that would carry you into your jaeger. With the same intention and drive, I imagine you could be piloting Duellona within the week.”
You fight to keep your chin up, your eyes on the Marshall, instead of ducking your head and watching the floor. The Marshall lifts his arm and glances at his watch. 
“Your allotted time in Sparring Room 7 begins on the hour,” he says. This is his way of dismissing you.
In the hallway, you pause. “I’m just going to drop my bag in the dorm,” you say quietly, not looking at Seungcheol. 
He gives a tight nod. “Fine,” he says, and turns to go the other way, towards the sparring and training rooms. Clearly he intends to meet you there. You heave a deep breath, and turn back towards the wing with the dorms.
Stepping into the dorm you used to share with Seungcheol hits you harder than you thought it would. You’re not sure what you expected - to feel like coming home, maybe, or perhaps to be slapped with the memories of you and Seungcheol together, dancing around each other as you hurried to get dressed for a drop, lazing around in the sitting area after a full day of training. And, of course, the single night you’d spent together.
Neither thing happens. You aren’t overcome by a feeling of nostalgia and love, nor are you inundated by memories of what you’ve lost. Instead, the room feels exactly as it is: empty and still.
Your footsteps’ echoes taunt you as you walk through the kitchen, the sitting area, and into the bedroom. It’s pristine to the point of detriment; it feels like no one lives there. You set your bag on the floor near the foot of the bed - you can unpack later, after training - and turn to go.
Strangely, it’s stepping into the training room that slams you with memory and nostalgia. The wood cool beneath your feet, the vague smell of sweat and citrus-y cleaner, the sounds of punches landing and grunts of effort from the training rooms on either side - they all cocoon you in history, making goosebumps rise on your arms as the emotions surround you.
It makes sense, you think, as Seungcheol glances over his shoulder at the sound of your arrival. He doesn’t speak to you, just swaggers to the center of the room and takes a stance you recognize from Form One. Your body leads you opposite him, muscle memory guiding you into the first form you ever learned with him. It makes sense that this would be what felt like home - your minds going empty together, your bodies following the steps in unison. The sparring forms are the closest you can get to drifting without an actual neural connection.
Well, that and sleeping together, but you don’t see that on your agenda.
You stare at him across the invisible circle between you and try to read him. His face is cold and empty, but that already tells you so much about what he’s feeling. Seungcheol was never cold with you. When you fought together he slipped into that mode you loved so much - ready to level anything, chin lifted, eyes narrowed, confident and so very strong. But it was when you were together outside the fights that you had loved him best - often pouting, lips protruding, voice lifting into a whine. And the best of all - that smile, dimples creating shadows that beg for your thumb to press them, eyes squeezing shut with happiness or laughter.
Something must show on your face, because you watch the muscles in Seungcheol’s upper body untense, as if he’d been ready to fight and recognized that you weren’t.
“I’m good,” you mutter quickly, before he can ask. It feels better to lie to him before he actually asks you, like that’s somehow less dishonest. “Let’s go.”
Form One is basic - no hits, no fancy moves. At the training center, you’d teach it to the littlest ones until they had it memorized. It was really about control and communication - precision and alignment with your partner. You had to breathe together as your feet traced opposite circles across the knots in the wooden floor. You had to rise and bend in unison. It was about watching and listening.
You and Seungcheol could - literally, you’d tried more than once - do it blindfolded in perfect step with one another. Before. You don’t know if you still can. But, now, unblindfolded, it’s too easy.
You move through forms one through six without incident - both of you flowing as easily as water.
Form Seven is the first form that incorporates actual hits and blocks. You’ll have to touch for the first time, even if it’s forearm to forearm or ankle to shoulder. You move right as he moves left, crouch and circle as his right foot flies over your head, stand and punch where you know his open hand will be waiting to stop you.
It is, and you press your fist against it for just a second before spinning away to continue the form. You ache, even as your body continues following the steps, to have him entirely again - to meet his eyes and smile the way you both used to, because you were pleased with what your bodies could do. Because you had each other, completely.
After the tenth form, you bow, turn, and walk out of the ring. You drink some water, your back to him. Years ago you’d have used this break to chat, but you don’t know what to say to him. You’re scared that he’ll shut down anything you say, whether you choose small talk or go straight for the heart of the problem, and you honestly don’t think you can shoulder his rejection right now. So you stay quiet.
After a few short minutes of rest, you return to the center of the room. This is when you’ll spar for real.
You and Seungcheol had done this for years before things went wrong. You’d long ago adjusted to how hard you should hit, how to dodge his moves, how to make this a dance as much as a fight. Now, you feel like it’s your first time again.
Seungcheol attacks as you’d expect - all offensive, pushy, succeeding in herding you backwards even as you dodge each blow. You know his goal is to flip you, and normally you can avoid that by forcing him to go on the defensive as he avoids your own hits. Simply dodging won’t be enough - eventually he’ll cage you in unless you distract him.
You throw yourself into a summersault and manage to get behind him - an opportune moment to strike. You shift your weight to follow the blow as you twist your hips to send a kick towards his unprotected head. He turns just too late - the blow will land.
You can’t do it. You freeze, your core working to keep you upright as you fight your own momentum, halting the kick inches from his temple.
You know immediately that pulling the hit was a mistake. His eyes narrow, and he sweeps his foot at the ankle you’re balancing on. You crash to the ground, heaving a breath and taking quick inventory.
You aren’t hurt. Not this time.
“Get up, Cherry,” he says darkly, moving back to the center to start again. “And don’t do that shit again.”
He comes at you full force in the next match, too. You dodge and weave, but you don’t try to strike. You know he knows it; this isn’t how it used to work. You can almost feel him get angrier as you fight, but you can’t make yourself hit back. You want him to knock you down, you deserve to take some shots.
You take two blows to the back and one to a shoulder; you fall back unsteadily but manage to find your footing and roll away from his next kick.
The match continues - you taking a handful of blows, though none with the force to level you, and Seungcheol with his lip curled in fury.
“If you’re not going to fight, then leave,” he spits.
“Would if I could,” you retort without thinking. You mean that you don’t want to be here like this - not talking, cold, at odds. But you know it reads as not wanting to be here at all.
It seems like everything you say and do only hurts him more.
“I didn’t mean -” you start, and Seungcheol takes your arms and flips you over his shoulders.
“Don’t waste my fucking time,” he says, brushing his hands together and stepping back to give you room to pick yourself up.
“Don’t curse at me,” you answer, pushing yourself to your hands and knees, pausing to catch your breath before rising fully again.
He shakes his head, rolls his eyes a little.
You hate this side of him.
You know you deserve it. For pushing him out. For leaving him here. For loving him, messing everything up, when he never asked for that.
“Seungcheol,” you say, but he ignores you, pacing a few steps and then turning to face you, lowering himself into a defensive stance, ready to spar again.
“Cheol,” you try again. “Listen to me.”
“Marshall scheduled us time to talk later,” he says flatly. “Right now we’re scheduled to fight. So fight me, Cherry. Let’s go.”
The rest of the hour continues the same. By the time it’s over, Seungcheol storms out without speaking to you, furious over every single pulled punch.
You don’t know what to do to make it all better.
You shower quickly, dressing in dry linens, and then re-emerge for the hours you’re scheduled to meditate together. You hope that maybe this will help the situation - maybe not talking will be good for you, give you a chance to feel your connection without the chance to fuck it up with words.
You’re wrong; trying to meditate together is just as desperately fruitless as sparring had been.
You can’t focus at all - can’t shift your attention to your breath, to your body, to the earth beneath you, to the energy of your partner.
Your partner is the distraction, though he sits perfectly still, eyes closed. He might as well be yelling. His shoulders are tight, his jaw still clenched. Anger radiates off him so strongly that it makes your stomach hurt, makes you want to cower from it. You can’t stop watching him, hoping you’ll see him relax, hoping you’ll see the moment that he lets go.
He doesn’t.
“Your eyes are supposed to be closed,” he murmurs, and you feel your face heat, embarrassed that he knew you were watching him.
“I can’t,” you admit. Maybe, you think, you should just be brutally honest, starting now. It’s not like you could make this worse. “I can’t stop noticing how angry -”
“Then stop pissing me off,” he snaps, eyes opening. “Just a suggestion.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” you cry, and push yourself to stand. You’re not sure why - maybe just to pace. “You never used to talk to me like this. Who are you?”
He looks at the floor, the first sign of guilt you’ve seen since you came home.
“Fine,” he finally bites back, and you know it’s as close to sorry as you’ll get. “I’ll reign it in. Sit back down.”
You shift your weight, arms crossed defensively across your chest, and close your eyes, deciding.
“Sit down, Cherry,” he repeats, and it’s gentler now. That’s what makes you cave, and you settle back across from him.
He’s less tense this time, so you eventually manage to close your eyes and count your breaths. But you’re still feeling for him, reaching for him in your mind, and coming up with nothing between you fingers. Touching him is as possible as touching the fog that used to blanket the training center, thick enough to blind you but impossible to grasp.
The pain feels like a cramp, except it’s behind your ribs instead of in your muscles. The pain grips and tightens, takes over. You want him, you want to be his again, you want to be inside these walls - where you used to fit comfortably. The fact that you’re out here, without him, aches so badly it makes you nauseated.
You want to beg him - let me in again, let me back in, let me be close to you again.
It won’t do any good, and you know it.
He was yours - you had him, you knew him, you could reach out to him and he’d pick you up. You’d taken it for granted, and you’d run away from it. You’d chosen to let it go, and now all you get is this: Seungcheol, cold and closed. Seungcheol, hating you for everything that happened.
Dinner is just as bad.
You go to the mess hall eager to see Wylie and Jeonghan and Seungkwan and all the other friends you haven’t seen in years. Wylie screeches like a banshee when she spots you, crossing the mess hall in a blur and hugging you so tightly that you both stagger, off balance, until Seungkwan joins the hug and rights you again.
“I missed you both so much,” you whisper, the only vulnerability anyone’s going to get out of you today.
“Then don’t leave again!” Wylie snaps, but you know the admonishment is full of love.
“I can’t promise,” you admit. Honestly, you’ve already made up your mind - you want to go back to Alaska. You’re not wanted here, not by the person who matters. What good are you, taking up a bed, if you can’t drift?
You’ve already given up hope that he’ll come around.
Seated at the table, you listen while your friends fill you in on what you’ve missed in three years - the fights in the bay, the new teams of pilots, the illnesses and injuries. You almost don’t notice Seungcheol silently takes a seat on Jeonghan’s other side, but something in you prickles, like you’ve sensed him.
The tension around the table heightens; the conversation goes a little stilted. When it’s apparent that he’s going to ignore you two seats down from him, Wylie slaps her hand flat on the tabletop.
“Come on, Seungcheol,” she scolds, and you’re sure no one wonders what she means.
His face goes dark so quickly it’s alarming. “Don’t,” he tells her darkly, one finger coming up to point at her in warning.
Her own eyes narrow and dart to her fork. Beside her, Chan’s eyes pingpong between them. He’s probably wondering if he should hold her back or join her.
“It’s fine,” you mutter, grabbing your tray and making to rise. “I’ll go.”
“Cherry, no,” Wylie protests, and then turns a glower onto your ex-co-pilot as if to say see what you did?
“It’s fine,” you repeat, standing. “I told my mom and dad I’d come by.”
You slink out before anyone else can argue.
You can’t even be mad at him - you did this by pushing him away. You hammered every last nail in the coffin by requesting to transfer. You pushed him out and you left him behind and now you have to face the reality that you can’t have him anymore. He isn’t yours, not anymore.
When you return to your dorm, he’s already in bed, the lights out. He’s facing the wall so you can only see his back, can only see the angry, tight shoulder poking out the top of the sheets. It tells you everything you need to know.
You don’t try to talk to him. You just go to bed.
You spend four days identically - fighting while sparring, not meditating, and avoiding Seungcheol’s ice-out. On the fifth day, your Marshall loses patience and changes your schedule. Your entire day is blocked to working on Duellona’s mainframe - buffing, repainting, greasing, and anything else you’re able to handle on your own.
“Since you can’t do anything else useful,” he adds, and you avoid Seungcheol’s eyes, ashamed.
Standing under Duellona’s unlit frame fills you with guilt. It feels like you’re letting her down, disappointing her by letting her rust here, failing your half of the bargain. You run your hands gently over the metal, finding the rough spots that need attention. Somewhere to your left, you can hear the telltale sounds of Seungcheol tightening bolts.
You work in silence for hours.
Eventually, you crack. You’re not sure if it’s the monotony of the task, the tension woven into the silence between you too, or being so close to your jaeger but unable to fight in it - maybe a combination. Something pushes at you from the inside, like a balloon trying to inflate under your skin and running out of room.
You flop backwards on the metal walkway, the grooves digging into your back. “What are we doing?” you ask, and you hear the tool Seungcheol had been using cling loudly as he sets it down.
“Following orders?” he says, stepping around Duellona’s side to look at you. “Fixing up the jaeger?”
“Fixing up the jaeger we don’t get to pilot?” you ask, sitting back up to look at him better.
“Is that what you’re here for?” he asks, the sudden ferocity of it surprising you. “To fight? Is that why you came back?”
You reach up to the walkway’s railing and pull yourself up. You feel yourself frowning at his question, at the heat behind it. 
“I’m back because the Marshall gave me an order,” you say slowly. 
“And that’s it?” he demands. 
You stare at him. You feel sure there’s more to the question, more that he’s asking. You feel sure, after knowing Choi Seungcheol down to the last molecule, that he’s really asking, you didn’t come back for me?
And it confuses you. You try to think about your split from his perspective: you’d shut him out, then slept with him, and then vanished. You’d made a lot of assumptions about his anger since then. You assumed he was angry at you for pushing him out of your head. You assumed he was angry at you for sleeping with him and then leaving. You assumed he was angry with you for ruining your drift, for ripping him away from the ability to fight. You assumed he was angry because he never knew why - never knew what it was that you were so desperate to hide, never knew why sleeping together had made things so much worse that the neural connection had fizzled into nothing altogether.
Is there more to it, his anger?
Should you call him on it, should you ask?
You take too long deciding. Seungcheol scoffs, like he’s disgusted with you. “I should have known,” he says coldly. “Princess of the Shatterdome, I should have known you only cared about piloting - about your legacy.”
This is something you’ve never said to him - that your desire to shine as brightly as your parents has weighed on you. This is something he’d pulled from the drift, something he only knew from tiptoeing around your mind before a fight. 
“That isn’t fair,” you say, your voice hard. “Is there another reason I should have come back? I’d love to hear it.”
He hears the challenge as it is - you didn’t ask me to come back, the Marshall did. You let me go.
He has nothing to say for himself, just stares back at you, eyes narrowed in anger, chest moving too quickly as he battles with his temper.
“Exactly,” you say curtly. The victory stings. It doesn’t feel like a win at all. “The bottom line is I’m here now, and we can pilot again if we can get our shit together.”
He shakes his head. “You left,” he says finally. “That’s the bottom line. You decided you were out, you decided you didn’t want me in your head, and then you left.”
He watches you, waits for you to say something. When you don’t, he lets out a derisive little laugh. “We’re both wasting our time here. The drift won’t work. We aren’t going to fix it.”
For the first time, fear slices through you like steel. “You can’t know that,” you say. You hear the fear in the way your voice comes out low and rounded, barely sounding like you at all.
“I can,” he retorts. “You know how I know? Because I don’t want to. You wanted me out of your head so badly? You got it. Can’t turn back now.”
He heads for the ladder, swings around and finds the third rung down with ease.
“So that’s it?” you ask his retreating form. Your heart is hammering and you’re starting to get tunnel vision. 
The only answer he gives you are his feet hitting each new rung with a clunk and a vibration that rattles up your legs.
You go to the training rooms alone and run through the forms just to do something; your mind turns the problem over and over as your body goes through the motions. After, you take a longer shower than normal, letting the water run hotter than you normally would.
After, you go to the Marshall’s office, determined. Or maybe resigned.
When he opens the door, he already looks irritated, like he knew exactly who would be on the other side.
“Requesting an audience,” you say flatly, fighting the instinct to cross your arms defensively.
He glances at his watch. “Five minutes.”
You step inside but leave the door open.
“I’m requesting transfer back to Alakanuk,” you tell him as evenly as you can manage. You’re sure he’s not surprised. “Seungcheol has made it very clear that we won’t be fighting together again. If that’s the case, then I can’t do anything useful here. But in Alakanuk I can.”
You pause, looking to see if you can read anything on the Marshall’s face - any hint that he’s considering what you’re saying, or that it’s a lost cause. He gives you nothing.
“Please,” you say. “Those girls need me. If I can’t help here, I can help them.”
The Marshall tilts his head just slightly. “Surely anyone can teach little girls the forms.”
You shake your head. “It’s more than that, and you know it. It’s not about the forms. I love those girls. I came back here to follow orders, and I tried. But if it isn’t going to happen… Please, don’t make me waste time here if I can be with them instead.”
The silence when you stop speaking seems to last for hours. Your heart pounds, and you work on keeping your breathing even. If he tells you no, you might just lose it, just give up entirely.
Finally, he takes a breath and seems to consider you. “If,” he says, and your eyes widen with hope, “your co-pilot agrees, then I will reassign you back to Alaska. But only if he will agree.”
“No problem,” you say quickly. Seungcheol was the one who said it was over. He should have no problem letting you leave.
When you step out of the Marshall’s office, Seungcheol steps out of the shadows. You should be surprised to see him, but in the Shatterdome it feels right that he just is wherever you are. That’s always how it was, before.
You look at him disdainfully. “I assume you heard that conversation?”
He nods, once.
“So?” you ask. “Will you tell him you approve, so I can go?”
For the first time since you returned, Seungcheol smiles, tight and sarcastic.
“No,” he says easily, like it’s kind of funny.
Fury erupts inside you; you can’t even pinpoint where in your body it stems from. “Why?” you demand. “Because you feel like I took something from you, so you want to take something from me?”
He doesn’t respond to this. You know you’re right. You know him. You know his mind.
“I hate to fuck up your narrative,” you spit at him, “but I’ve lost out here just as much as you have. You’re not the only one who lost the ability to fight. You’re not the only one who lost their partner.”
You wish you could tell him the rest - you’re not the one who spent three years with a broken heart on top of it. He had lost you as a partner and a friend - you had lost him in the same ways, and you’d had to harbor your broken heart.
He shakes his head. “Poor baby,” he bites sarcastically, and then takes off down the hallway, into the dark.
You stop sleeping at the dorm. Sometimes you sleep at your parents’, sometimes on Wylie and Chan’s tiny couch, sometimes in bed with Seungkwan, who kicks at you and whines that you take up too much space. Sometimes you sleep inside Duellona Fury, sitting up, your back against her metal frame.
The Marshall seems to have taken some pity on you. He schedules your mornings training the Dome’s recruits, and lets Seungcheol get back to what he was doing in your absence - which seems to be on track to move up in rank, to maybe become a Marshall himself, someday. It isn’t quite the same as being back with your girls, but training recruits feels at least somewhat fulfilling. And it keeps you and Seungcheol busy - separately - until afternoon.
Then, he schedules you to spar.
In your first week, you’d been unwilling to hit Seungcheol. You’d been feeling guilty for hurting him, sad for your time apart, hopeful that if you were soft to him, then he’d be soft back to you.
Now, you’re fucking furious.
For the first time, when the match begins, you hit him first. He’s surprised for only a second, eyebrows shooting up as he stumbles for balance, and then you watch something delighted and devilish fall over his face. Like he knows exactly what dance this is, and he’s been learning the steps in secret.
The match is brutal, reminiscent of your very first one, when you were both nineteen. You throw hit after hit his way; he blocks or dodges all of them. But he can’t get a hit on you either - you’re too quick, spurred on by fury. You’ve been angry in a fight before. But you’ve never been angry at him.
You spin and throw up a kick, expecting his forearm to rise and block it. Instead, you knock him in the jaw.
He grunts, hand flying up to cover his mouth, and you drop your stance with a gasp.
“Shit!” you cry, hurrying closer. “I’m so sorry! Are you bleeding? Let me look.”
“‘M fine,” he mutters thickly from behind his hand, but you ignore him. For a second, things are how they used to be between you. He lets you peel his hand away, lets you gingerly turn his head this way and that, even opens up so you can check his teeth.
“You’re gonna have a fat lip,” you tell him regretfully. “But nothing’s bleeding. Teeth look okay. Anything loose in there?”
He pokes around his teeth with his pinky. “Nope.”
You take a step back, cowed. “I’m really sorry.”
He laughs a little, wryly. “I bet you feel better, though.”
You bite back a smile. “Actually…” you say, and he laughs again. You both do.
Somehow, this seems to be the thing that cracks the anger you’ve both been encased in, unable to move forward or backward. You feel melted, and you wonder if he feels freer now, too.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you say. You mean the kick, but the words land heavy.
He avoids your gaze. “I need some water,” he says, turning and heading to the side of the room.
You do the same, sitting heavily on the bench where your water waits for you.
“Hey,” he says, and you look over, brows raised in anticipation. “Tell me about Alaska.”
You can’t help but smile.
“It’s so beautiful,” you tell him. “God, Cheol, the ocean there. And the birds, and the snow…”
He’s watching you, listening, but while he listens he stands and heads to the center of the ring, settling into a starting form. With a small smile, you follow, standing opposite him. He starts an easy match that’s mostly just following the eighth form. It includes some hits and blocks, but you both do them gently, easily, circling each other slowly.
“So you liked it?” he asks. You can hear how hard he’s working to make it sound casual.
“It was so beautiful,” you admit before ducking below a kick. “But it was also… really hard.”
“What was the best part?” he asks.
You smile, block a hit. He almost gets his hands on you for a flip, but you dodge around behind him. He turns to follow you. “Weirdly, it was taking care of them outside of class. We - the instructors - we kind of their moms, away from home, you know? I’m the one who knew Yejin won’t sleep unless someone sits by her bed for a while. I’m the one that knew that Farrah and Salome only argue because they’re competitive. I’m the one that knew that Maria and Anjali don’t know their times-tables, that Ximena can’t brush her own hair, or that Iseul is allergic to fish. I loved them. I loved knowing them.”
He looks at you for a long time. “Maybe you should go back,” he says finally.
It feels like a trap. 
You look at the floor, at the wall, then finally back at him. “If you’ll do this for real,” you say carefully, “then I’d rather be here. If we’re actually trying, then I don’t want to go.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he swallows hard, not looking at you.
“What was the worst part?”
There’s only one answer.
“Missing you,” you say. “Losing you.”
He manages to get both of your arms and hauls you over his shoulders. You land on your back so hard that the air is knocked out of your lungs and your eyes close protectively. For a second, you lay there panting, waiting for the pain in your back to settle down, waiting for the stars behind your eyelids to calm.
When you open them again, the ceiling coming into focus above you, the room is empty.
You have a hunch on where you can find him, and you head to the jaeger bay. Sure enough, he’s sitting below Duellona, knees to his chest, staring up at her.
You sit next to him and he doesn’t get up and leave, which you take as a good sign.
“I can’t do this if you’re not all in,” he tells you without looking at you. “You walked away from me once. I can’t let you back in my head if there’s any possibility you’ll walk away again. If you’re with me, I need you to be with me.”
Something prickles in the back of your head. You feel like you’re starting to realize something - the seed of an understanding is pushing delicately through the dirt, but hasn’t yet spread out its leaves under the warmth of the sun yet.
Something about his hurt. Something about why.
“I think we should try to drift,” you tell him.
This seems to startle him - he forgets to be cold, turns to look at you, eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I can tell you how much I missed you,” you reason, “and tell you about how I spent every minute just… steeped in regret. Or we can walk through it - you can see for yourself.”
You know what you’re risking. If he gets into your head now, he’ll see it all - he’ll know everything, he’ll be able to feel for himself the depth of your loss, the height of your love. 
But what’s the harm, now? You can’t lose him twice. Maybe it’ll be enough for him to realize you hadn’t left him because you didn’t care about him. Maybe it’ll be enough for his forgiveness. 
Maybe then, he’ll tell the Marshall to let you go back to Alakanuk. 
It’s Seungkwan you bother, since he’d been in mission control before finding his team of co-pilots. The sideways look he gives you as he walks to your conn pod is withering, but you know better than to take it personally.
You buzz with nerves. The last time you’d tried this, the neural handshake hadn’t even connected. There had just been nothing.
The second you hear neural handshake initiating, you almost sob with relief. You can’t even pay attention to the memories - Seungcheol’s memories - floating around you; you want to collapse, to press your palms to the ground and thank the universe for letting you back in.
His first memories are a breeze - the ones you’ve jogged through together hundreds of times: his first home, his school, his father’s hospital room, the Dome. Then you slow your pace, because this is new.
You’re facing the landing dock on the Shatterdome’s roof. Seungcheol stands with his back to you, watching through the glass walls as a helicopter waits, the pilot talking into his headset.
You watch yourself walk towards the chopper’s open door. You watch yourself leave, remember how hard it was to not look back.
You hadn’t known that Seungcheol had been there, that he had seen you go.
The pain that accompanies the memory hits you like you’re drowning, like it’s too deep and you can’t feel the bottom, and you feel the machinery falter around you.
“Hey,” you say quietly. “I’m with you.”
He nods, still doesn’t look at you. But the beeping stops, the connection holding. 
There’s knowledge in this memory, knowledge in this pain. Seungcheol’s thoughts in this moment read in your head as clearly as if he said them aloud - I did this. I pushed her too far; I made her run.
You can’t stay here, can’t let him wallow in the memory of pain. You had to move forward - that’s how the drift works. Reluctantly you step towards the door, glancing over your shoulder to see if he’s following. 
He is. His jaw is tight and fists are clenched, but he is.
When the next memory - not in order of chronology, clearly - appears before you, you want to vanish into the floor. You’re watching yourselves in Seungcheol’s bed. Thankfully, you’re sleeping - this was after. But in the memory, Seungcheol is awake, laying on his side, his eyes drinking in your sleeping form.
The emotions and the knowledge come with it in an instant. The tenderness and the love he felt in that moment surround you now in the memory, unignorable, impossible to mistake. 
He had loved you. He had known you loved him, and he was showing you how he felt. The understanding slams you so hard that you think you stop breathing.
“Seungcheol,” you whisper. Around you, the scene begins to flicker, the connection starting to react to the oversaturation of emotion.
“We can talk about it after,” he says, voice hard. “Don’t stay in it. Find the next door.”
Your eyes find the door, but you feel frozen. You want the connection to drop, you want to unlock yourself from the stupid drive-suit and throw yourself into his arms, you want to apologize for leaving him thinking he’d pushed you away, thinking that he scared you into running.
“Cherry,” he warns. “The drift can’t -”
You know. 
And you owe him your side of the story.
You take a steeling breath and head for the door. You don’t take his hand. You don’t know if you deserve to, if he’d want you to.
When you step through the doors, you’re confused - you’re still in your dorm. Your bodies are both in the bed.
Now, though, Seungcheol sleeps, and you - the memory of you - sits on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands. 
You feel the emotion the memory holds, which means Seungcheol does, too.
Fear. It’s still fear - fear that he’ll know, fear that what you just did together will make it worse, make it harder to hide. 
Beside you, Seungcheol’s eyes go wide. 
“We have to move on,” you tell him. He looks at you, then back at the memory. 
“You -?” he starts to ask.
“After,” you tell him firmly. “We’ll talk after.”
You open the door, and you’re suddenly outside, surrounded by white.
Alaska.
The emotion knocks you over with the fury of an ocean wave - even though you know you’re not supposed to let it. This was how you had felt every day that you were gone, and it screams at you now, determined to be heart, determined to be felt. The loneliness, the regret, the despair and heartbreak all rise up in you, overtaking you, as snow falls gently and silently around you.
And the love. That never went away. That never mellowed, as the Marshall had put it.
If he didn’t know before, he has to know now. There’s no way he couldn’t.
Seungcheol squeezes your hand, and you almost jump. You look down at your linked fingers in shock, then up at him, eyes wide.
“We should go back and talk about this,” he tells you, but his grip on you is firm, assuring.
“Okay. It’s this way,” you tell him, trying to breathe, and you lead him by the hand through the snow. The fog strengthens as you walk, until you can’t see anything but grey, can’t see anything but Seungcheol’s hand in yours.
You continue on. You know where to go. When you step through, the fog vanishes as if it was never there, nothing gradual about it. With the fog gone, you can see clearly where you are - inside Duellona Fury’s conn-pod.
As you begin to work on the straps, you call through the intercom, “Kwan? We… need some privacy. We’ve got to talk - alone.”
His voice crackles back at you. “Yes, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. If you hear popcorn crunching, no you don’t.”
Seungcheol gives you a flat look. “Let’s go home and talk,” he suggests.
Home.
You are so afraid and so hopeful. You don’t know how to juggle both.
Back in your small living space, you sit like you’re meditating.
“Let’s figure this out,” he says. “No lies.”
“No lies,” you agree. Your knees touch, and you reach to take his hands. He lets you, giving your fingers a squeeze.
“You knew,” you say first, bordering on accusation. “I was trying so hard to hide how I felt about you… but you knew.”
He nods, his eyes on you. “And you,” he says slowly, “didn’t… know? That I knew?”
You shake your head, confirming. “I didn’t know. I thought I hid it.”
He smiles at you, a little placating. “Not as well as you would have liked.”
“And you…” You chicken out, swallow, force yourself to be brave. “You… loved me, too?”
He nods. “I did.” 
The air leaves your lungs so forcefully that you bend over, pressing your forehead to the tops of your hands. He pulls his hands from yours and you feel his touch, firm and reassuring, cupping your shoulders and rubbing his thumbs along them.
“We felt the same,” you echo into your shins. “You loved me.”
“Cherry,” he says above you, his voice like a plea. “I don’t understand why - when we… when I… I felt like once I forced you to look at it, it was too much. You ran.”
You sit with this for a minute, stunned and processing. His hands are back in yours, which you take as a good sign. 
“You thought… wait. You thought, after that night, that I knew how you felt, too?”
He nods. “I thought you knew,” he says, confusion still present in his tone. “I thought we both knew. I thought if it was out in the open, the glitch in the drift would be fixed.”
You wipe at your face, trying to breathe. “And instead,” you realize, “we couldn’t even connect, because I was still trying to hide it from you, and then you were hurt. I thought it was broken. I thought we really broke it forever.”
He looks at you in wonder. “That’s why you left,” he breathes, and you know he’s understanding this for the first time. “You thought we made the problem worse.”
It’s your turn to nod. “After we…I mean, I knew if I couldn’t hide it from you before that night, there was no chance I’d be able to hide it after. I kept you out in the first place because I… was afraid. I was afraid for you to see how much I loved you. It seemed… hopeless to keep trying.”
The words lay bloody between you, but his grip on your hands is strong, and you take another breath.
You push on, adding, “I was afraid it would be too much. I was afraid everything would change.”
Which it did, you think. He nods, like he hears this, like he agrees.
He releases you and leans back, blowing out a loud breath. “We’re so fucking stupid,” he says, and you splutter out a laugh.
“We really are.”
“I can’t believe we lost three years over that,” he says.
“I can’t believe you thought it was your fault that I left.”
“I can’t believe you left in the first place.”
This makes you smile, guilty. “That’s fair.”
You push yourself to stand; Seungcheol mirrors you, as if you’re already in the neural handshake, bodies working in tandem. 
“Cherry,” he says quietly, stepping closer. “It could never be too much. I love you. I’m crazy about you. I’m only me when I’m with you.”
You remember him, the night you’d slept together, telling you, don’t be afraid. He’d told you, after all, and you’d missed it entirely.
You close the distance between your bodies and kiss him hard. His arms circle your waist immediately, like they were waiting for you. He kisses you back hungrily. His mouth meets yours eagerly, his tongue stroking yours confidently before he shifts his attention to your jaw, your neck, then your mouth again. His hands don’t wander this time - instead he holds you so firmly it almost hurts, like he won’t let you move an inch, won’t let you out of his grasp ever again.
You cradle his face between your hands, let your teeth gently scrape along his bottom lip. “Cheol,” you whisper, then kiss him again. “You’re everything.” It’s what you should have said aloud the night you’d slept with him.
When the kiss breaks, he presses his lips to the top of your head and holds them there, melting around you a little. You give his middle a squeeze, revel in his heartbeat surrounding you like music.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t just say it.”
“Me too,” you tell him, holding him just a little tighter. “I should never have tried to hide it from you in the first place.”
He kisses your temple, and you hold each other, silently, each grappling with the time you’d wasted apart. 
You’re interrupted by a knock. You break apart, puzzled. You’re even more puzzled to see your Marshall at the door, and Seungkwan literally bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.
“I’ve heard your drift is working again,” the Marshall says dryly. 
You look over your shoulder at Seungcheol, grinning. “Seems like it.”
“There’s a Cat-1 reading in the bay. I was about to alarm for Pretty Savage to drop, but Savage’s team insisted I give you the opportunity first. They can follow as backup. How do you feel?”
Seungcheol is at your side. He looks at you, his face open and raw. “Well?” he asks you. “Are you in, or are you out?”
“I’m in,” you tell him seriously. “I’m with you.”
You thrum with excitement as a tech team helps strap you into the drive-suits, and you can’t help but shoot Seungcheol a wild grin, your happiness alive and unbounded. 
You tell mission control - Nainsi, probably, just like the old days - “Ready and aligned.”
Mission Control - definitely Nainsi - responds, “Prepare for neural handshake.”
The artificial voice bounces around you - 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…
Around you, the machines flicker busily. Neural handshake strong and holding. Now calibrating…
You’re crying, but you ignore it. You beam through tears, looking sideways at your co-pilot. His eyes dance as he smiles back at you. You want to unstrap yourself to the drivesuit and go kiss his dimples, the dimples you hadn’t seen in years. You resist the urge.
“Ready to drop?”  He looks sideways at you, sly. 
You scoff at him, your own grin cocky and sure, like you’re twenty again, like nothing had ever been broken between you. “Been ready. Let’s light ‘em up.”
– end
Tumblr media Tumblr media
thank you so much for reading!!!!
stay tuned for more fics in this universe! Wylie and Chan will get their own fic written by @sailorrhansol, as will Woozi! I'm also planning a Vernon x Reader in this universe, too! Should be a fun time!!
806 notes · View notes
elizabebabe · 21 days
Text
𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐠𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ꕤ 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨
Tumblr media
𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡: yoga teacher y/n’s student has her thinking unprofessional thoughts.
minors dni!
Tumblr media
| “you got so wet so quickly…been a while since someone touched you baby?”
| “damn — spread open for me, on your mat?”
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: use of y/n, pet name, smut with little plot, fingering, f!masturbation, fantasies, horny!y/n, lowk lonely!y/n.
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.1k!
𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: kicking off the remodel with a one-shot !! zabe loves yoga, zabe loves chris, mix em together?
Tumblr media
“today we’ll be doing a few more advanced stretches, stretching out your backs, calves and any other tight muscles.” your voice echoed through the studio, your students crisscrossed on their mats awaiting instruction.
you had early morning classes every day of the week but wednesday was particularly your favorite since you got to see a certain student, his name was chris and yes he was handsome but he also cared about your profession or…maybe less about your profession and more about yoga itself.
he wanted you to help him fix his bad back, asking questions, asking for advice, you needed to be professional which is why all your attempts of asking for his number ended in failure.
you turned on your speakers, the usual calm, lyricless music waving through the room, also not forgetting to turn off the lights to give a more relaxed feel you always wanted to share with your students.
“we’re gonna start how we always start, savasana.” you scrambled around the room, stepping between bodies laying atop their personal mats ensuring everyone knew what they were doing.
you took 3-4 minutes to correct anyone making mistakes and marking who could use a bit of help, some days of the week you had kids joining in with their guardian, on wednesdays you have a pretty mixed group of ages so it can be hard to “grade”.
“alright, that’s savasana.” 
“come up to ‘mountain’ pose.” you continue, stepping on your mat to follow along to your own instructions, trying to ignore your eyes telling you to gaze at the brunette man in the front row.
⋆˚。⋆୨୧˚
after an hour of tough stretches, your class huffed and puffed on their way out but one man stayed behind.
“hey.” he nudged at your turned back.
“oh! hi.” the interaction taking you by surprise as you never really interacted, “what can i do for you.” you smiled awkwardly.
“well, with the ‘cobra’ pose.” he hiked his yoga mats strap over his shoulder, “i’m struggling with getting my back that low, it kinda hurts.” he says with a cute, loose smile maybe embarrassed by what he’s saying.
“oh no! if it hurts, find a way to make it more comfortable for you.” you gestured with your hands.
“it shouldn’t hurt, maybe uncomfortable but it shouldn’t hurt—“ the rambling of yours continued.
he snickered which interrupted your words, “thanks.” he gently patted your shoulder before turning towards and out the glass door.
the embarrassment he felt now flipped on you as you wanted to crawl into a hole from the exchange.
⋆˚。⋆୨୧˚
your drive home was silent as you sat overthinking about what played on your mind, ‘he just wanted advice, he doesn’t like you.’
‘why did he touch you then?’
‘it was a pat on the damn shoulder, did you see how fast he got out of there?’
you felt crazy as voices in your head fought over something so small, your key turned into the knob of your apartment door, remembering the exam you promised yourself to study for.
you were in community college, typically only having one class a day left lots of time to work on your yoga studio your parents helped pay for.
you threw your tote and mat to the ground, ignoring the thought to change into some of your loose pajamas and sitting at your small dining table for one.
the first few minutes of studying were fine, even taking off your fitted white jacket as you got in the zone. you were able to focus and concentrate on the work ahead of you but that didn’t stop the little voice in your head nagging about him.
you knew his name was chris or at least that’s what he filled out on the forms you had tucked in a random cabinet—
‘this is crazy.’ you huffed before averting your attention back to your notebook.
you scrolled through your phone immediately contradicting yourself by looking for different chris’s throughout social media — ‘doesn't he follow the studio's instagram?’
you scrolled through the following list before finding him, his handsome face adorning his profile picture and only a few photos on his feed, but you loved every second of scrolling through them..
adjusting yourself in your chair every so often at the sight of his beautifully crafted face, you couldn't help your fingers sliding past the waistband of your tight leggings that matched that thrown fitted jacket and quickly underneath your light blue panties that you could only hope chris would see one day.
your fingers quickly found your wet folds slipping through the slick and imagining it was the man from your front row, “you got so wet so quickly…been a while since someone touched you baby?” his voice echoed through your head.
the guilt you felt from thinking about him almost warranted you to stop but when your finger accidentally grazed over your clit you couldn’t stop yourself.
the actions continued, one of your fingers dipping into your soppy hole, another leaving airy touches on your clit.
it wasn’t enough, even with his face and his veiny hands you remember pressing firmly into the mat beneath him you couldn’t hit the right spots you knew those long fingers of his could.
but it didn’t stop you from trying, you pushed deeper into yourself once you slid down the wooden chair you uncomfortably sat in the position of your hips reminding you of when you instructed him through a certain pose even showing him a private demonstration, your fingers curling and grazing that spongy spot you aimed for, you remember that day, silently begging him to make a move, touch you in a any way but he never did.
trying to focus on your fantasy as you pumped into yourself made you wetter, “damn — spread open for me, on your mat?” you imagined him laying you down, taking his time while he undressed you, your drippy hole dripping onto the mat beneath you both.
“you’re gonna have to clean this later.” he says, scissoring his fingers inside you, eliciting a moan from your throat.
“gonna think about me when you do it?” 
“how wet i get you?” he continued.
“chris..” you grunted as your body buzzed and legs shook, you were close and all because you “stumbled” upon his instagram, your fingers picked up speed, vigorous motion ensued on your sensitive bud.
the rope snapping in your stomach halting your movements, your mouth agape and sweat dotting your skin.
a certain ’ding’ brought your attention back to your phone.
an instagram dm, a unexpected “can we talk?” from the man you finished all over your fingers for.
Tumblr media
second smut baby !! and it’s about my man..
i hate this :( that’s why it took me so long to post bc i was debating whether it was too lackluster but i wanted to post something while i work on longer things, again thank you for the support on ‘southern belle’ and i love you. 🕰️
🏷️ @fratbrochrisgf @3lizaluvs @lily-strnlo @i-love-ptv @venusjaynie @jetaimevous @lizzysmith110 @firexovni @bagsbyclair0
i hope you’re satisfied with your purchase!
© elizabebabe
458 notes · View notes