#*posts this and leaves without saying anything*

[les4elliewilliams]

warning: reblogging this post summons her at 3am.

18+ ⋮ desperately need a feralwife!ellie who:

౨ৎ records you riding her without asking, saves it in a folder on her desktop named taxes and watches it every time she’s left alone with nothing but her hand to keep her pussy company, the filthy video reflecting on her too-big, nerdy glasses.

౨ৎ pulls you into her lap during dinner just so she can innocently grind her thigh up into you and call you dramatic when a soft mhph slips out.

౨ৎ asks if you’re ovulating just to get on her knees and say she can “smell it,” and she can—this fuckin’ horndog swears she can taste it in your sweat, savour it in the air, and see it in the sway of your hips.

౨ৎ moans your name into your pillow when she humps it on days you’re too tired to fuck—cause she’d never dare push you into anything you don’t feel like doing. she’ll even give you a five-star massage and put you to sleep. either way, she always leaves a sticky patch on your side of the bed like a dog in heat marking territory.

౨ৎ gets a rush from public stuff. like letting her fingers brush the inside of your thigh under the dinner table at family events, then gaslighting you right after. “what a snowflake, i wasn’t even doin’ anything.”

౨ৎ manifests sex by walking around the house with a white, see-through tank top and Calvin Klein boxers. ngghhh.

౨ৎ masturbates to your voice notes when you’re at work—casual, boring updates about what you’ve eaten or done—and she’s fingering herself to your laugh like it’s the best porn she’s ever witnessed. obsessed much? nah. she calls it devotion. same goes for the sound of your voice during arguments, she replays voice memos where you’re yelling at her and imagining you doing it naked. she needs you mean. it’s a necessity, not a want.

౨ৎ presses her strap into your ass while folding laundry together, completely deadpan, like she’s not wearing that thing just to get you dripping. “oops. my bad.”

౨ৎ fucks you in front of the huge mirror hanging in your bedroom so she can see your face falling apart in real time, pulling your hair while hissing, “look at you, look at what i do to you,” and she pounds you like she’s trying to milk your womb and get you pregnant. she cruelly slows down when you’re about to cum, “i know, i know baby—it’s too much, but you’re takin’ it so good,” and won’t stop until your legs shake. keeps going even when you sob, pressing apologetic kisses to your neck and the blade of your shoulder. “one more, i know you’ve got one more in you, for me, c’mon.”

౨ৎ moans your name while she comes in her boxers from dry humping your soaked pussy, shaking like an electrocuted virgin, “fuckfuckfuck baby, i’m gonna cum.” #bringdryhumpingback

౨ৎ gets emotionally and spiritually hard off watching you sleep. not in a romantic way either. she just stares at your parted lips, your shirt riding up, and whispers filthy things under her breath like a creep. and when you do catch her, she doesn’t even look ashamed.

౨ৎ slips her thigh between yours while you’re sleeping, just to keep you open. not even trying anything… unless you move in your sleep.

౨ৎ plays with the hem of your panties when you’re knocked out, fingertips ghosting the lacy edges. sometimes even tucks her hand under your waistband and falls asleep like that.

౨ৎ sleeptalks filth, whimpering your name. “just a taste, babe, please…” then wakes up with her boxers wet and pretends not to remember what the dream was about... even after orgasming three times in her sleep.

౨ৎ grinds in her sleep, needy little humps against the fat of your ass with her arm locked around your waist.

౨ৎ asks if she can nap between your legs, then accidentally falls asleep face-first against your pussy, arms slung around your thighs like you’re some kind of personal mattress.

౨ৎ cries if you don’t let her eat you out when you’re on your period, tells you she’s just spiritually cleansing you from the inside out and that “real love is messy.”

౨ৎ watches old videos of you gagging around her strap when you’re not home, whispering “that’s my fuckin’ wife” while she jerks herself to tears. in her defence, she’s a proud wife.

౨ৎ offers to shave your pussy for you but keeps “accidentally” bumping her knuckles against your clit between passes. “oops,” she drawls, fingers already prying your lips open.

౨ৎ tucks her strap into her boxers before bed, praying you’ll climb on and use her while she’s still asleep.

౨ৎ gets lowkey jealous of your vibrator, calls it names under her breath, and once threw it across the room because it made you come faster than she did (she set a timer). later apologized. to you, not the vibrator.

౨ৎ refuses to wash her face after you sit on it.

౨ৎ makes you sign odd contracts before sex as a joke, but they’re full of “i allow ellie to smell my armpits as much as she wants” and “ellie owns my socks now.”

౨ৎ remembers what you wore on your first date, and gets genuinely mad if you ever try to throw it away.

౨ৎ has an entire notes app filled with your old texts. every compliment you’ve ever given her, she’s written down and reads them back when her brain starts lying again. she even keeps little stolen moments trapped in polaroids of you, tucked in corners of the house.

౨ৎ makes sims of the two of you, builds fake lives, and gets jealous if sim-you flirts with npcs.

౨ৎ gets genuinely upset when you don’t tag her in italian brainrot reels or spam her with random tiktoks. “so you got a side chick, huh?”

౨ৎ says “i would’ve loved you in every lifetime,” with such passion it feels like a threat. “if your soul was reincarnated into a cockroach, i’d still marry you.”

౨ৎ shuts down for ten full minutes when you say someone else is funny, then tries to make you laugh harder just to “win” you back. when it doesn’t work, she sits there questioning everything she’s ever said to you.

౨ৎ claims she wants to be buried next to you when the day comes, and already has a google doc planning it. she showed it to you once at 2am and cried when you laughed.

౨ৎ keeps the tag from the first hoodie you ever bought her, tucked in her wallet like a family heirloom.

౨ৎ snoops through your childhood photo albums not to judge you, but to fall deeper in love with the little version of you she never got to meet :( 

౨ৎ refuses to delete your old voicemails, even if they’re just about picking up milk. she has them backed up on a usb, just in case.

౨ৎ stalks your spotify activity. you listen to one breakup song and she’s immediately texting, “you okay?” all concerned like she didn’t just have a mini mental breakdown five minutes before sending that.

౨ৎ laminated screenshots of your first convo and hid them in her guitar case. when you laughed, she deadass called you toxic and didn’t speak to you until you apologized.

౨ৎ has a secret scrapbook of you, but is too shy to show you because it’s full of stolen receipts, screenshots, and the wrapper from the first snack you shared.

౨ৎ gets real quiet real fast every time you say “i need space.” (even if you just mean the couch.) her poor brain goes straight to divorce → abandonment → enemy arc unlocked.

౨ৎ asks every six months if you’d still love her if she lost all her limbs, and takes your answer very seriously.

౨ৎ tugs on your necklace while you’re talking, dragging you closer mid-sentence just to kiss you quiet, “you talk too pretty to ignore.”

౨ৎ cups your tits from under your shirt while you’re watching tv, just to keep her palms full and use them as stress balls.

౨ৎ gets pouty if you roll away from her mid-sleep, grumbling “rude” under her breath and spoons you aggressively out of spite. 

౨ৎ pretends to be asleep just to see if you’ll touch her, and if you do brush her hair or stroke her side, she’s smiling into the pillow like a pathetic loser.

౨ৎ starts overthinking the moment you seem distant, even if it’s just work stress. she spirals in silence, convinced she’s done something wrong, and won’t say anything until you pry it out of her. “you’re not bored of me, right?”

౨ৎ compares herself to every girl you follow, scrolling through their pages late at night with a pit in her stomach, wondering if they’re more your type than she is. spoiler: they’re not.

౨ৎ pulls away when she’s insecure, even though she craves your touch more than anything. she goes cold, starts sleeping on the edge of the bed until you notice (you always notice). she doesn’t ask for reassurance right away, but instead she drops weird hints “you don’t have to stay with me, you know,” or “if you ever wanted someone else, i’d get it.”

౨ৎ packs your lunch with dumb sticky notes saying “eat this or i’ll cry.”

౨ৎ used to call you her wife even before she proposed, and even now, years later, she still asks if you wanna grow old together, adding a little scared “if that’s okay” at the end that breaks your heart all over again.

[blueberrisdove-sideblog]

Hello lovely!! I saw your post that you're open to request, can I request a male reader x phainon with breeding kink, you can also add any kinks you want! I adore your writing sm (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠) (🤍)

ALL MINE

★ tws : nsfw / smut, breeding kink, male!reader, orgasm denial/edging, cockwarming, a lil praise, multiple of rounds, degradation, slight dumbfied reader at the end and lots of cum. mdni : 18+ only.

★ sum : you’re are phainon’s precious boy. And he’s gonna fill you up until you’re leaking and begging for more.

★ note : not proofread, I’m too lazy to correct my mistakes.

You don’t know what you said.

Maybe you called him pretty. Maybe you teased him in that little smug voice you always do, saying something about how he couldn’t last without touching you. Maybe you just looked at him for too long.

Whatever it was, it broke something in Phainon.

His clothes hit the floor. His pants tossed aside with trembling fingers. And now?

You’re on your back, legs trembling around his hips, clawing at the sheets while his cock pulses deep inside you—raw, hot, unrelenting.

“Haaah… ngh—Phainon…”

“Shh. Take it. You can take it.” He growls into your neck, voice deeper, rougher than you’ve ever heard it. “You’re mine, aren’t you? My pretty boy. All fucking mine.”

He thrusts in, hard, like he’s trying to plant his whole soul inside you. You jolt, a broken moan spilling from your lips as he grinds his hips down, refusing to pull out.

“P-Phai—fuck, baby, you’re s-so deep, you’re—”

“Say it,” he snaps. “Say you want me to breed you.”

You whine. He grabs your hips and slams in again, dizzying you with the weight of his cock, his heat, the thick length dragging along all your spots like he knows them by instinct.

“Phainon, I—I want it,” you gasp, arching up against his chest. “Fuck, I want your cum, I want you to fill me, please—”

“There it is.” He kisses you, messy, almost angry with how much he wants you. “You don’t even know how many times I’ve dreamed of this. Of stuffing you full, making sure it takes. Again. And again. Until you can’t think about anything except how full I got you.”

He fucks you with purpose. Long, deliberate thrusts, then a sharp grind that leaves you gasping. You’re clenching around him so tight he groans, head dropping to your shoulder.

“Feel that?” he huffs. “That’s my cock. That’s your lover—ruining you.”

You nod, tears pricking your eyes from the pressure of it all. “Y-Yeah… yeah, ruin me…”

Phainon growls, lips brushing your ear. “Don’t tempt me. I’ll keep you like this. Warm, dripping, so full you forget what it’s like to be empty. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You can’t even speak. Just a nod. Just a wrecked moan.

He reaches down and grips your cock, already leaking. “You’re not allowed to cum yet,” he says sweetly, cruelly. “Not until I’m sure my seed’s in you. Not until you’re bred.”

You cry out, hips bucking—and he pins you down with a firm hand on your stomach.

“Don’t move.”

He starts thrusting harder. Faster. His balls slap your ass with every thrust, lewd, wet, devastating. His cock pulses and you know it’s coming.

Then—

“Fuck—fuck—take it—” he snarls, slamming in and staying there as his cock throbs. And pulses. And pulses.

Hot, thick cum floods into you. Rope after rope. So much it aches. So much it leaks out around the base of his cock, dripping down your thighs, soaking the sheets.

He doesn’t move. Just keeps himself buried to the hilt, panting over your shoulder, muttering how perfect you are, how tight you are, how he’s not done.

You’re still shaking when he pulls your hips up and says with a hungry smirk,

“Let’s make sure it takes.”

Your legs are already shaking—and he hasn’t even let you cum yet.

Phainon’s voice is low, his breath hot against your ear, and his cock is buried deep inside you, pulsing with each heavy grind of his hips.

“Still holding back for me?” he murmurs, smirking against your neck. “Good boy. That’s it. Stay just like that for me, yeah?”

You whimper, your arms trembling from where they’re locked around his shoulders. “P-Phainon, I—please—”

“Please what?” he coos, slowly thrusting in again, so slow it’s maddening. “Please ruin you? Please fill this tight hole up with my cum until you’re leaking all over my cock?”

You gasp—he laughs.

“You like this. You like being stretched and used and stuffed full, don’t you?”

You nod fast, clinging to him as he starts to thrust—real thrusts now, brutal and deep. Every time his hips slam into yours, you feel the slap of his skin, the obscene slick of his cock grinding inside you.

And every time you get close?

He stops.

He fucking stops.

“You’re gonna cum when I say,” he growls, dragging his teeth along your throat. “You wanna be my perfect boy? Then act like it.”

He grips your thighs, pushing them up, folding you until you’re fully exposed under him. His cock hits that spot that makes you sob, and he doesn’t let up—not this time.

You’re panting, leaking, your own cock untouched and twitching.

He leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips.

“Beg for it.”

“I—I wanna cum,” you cry. “Please, baby, please, I’ve been good—!”

“Say what you’re begging for,” he snarls. “Say it.”

“Please fill me up, make me yours—!”

That breaks him.

He thrusts hard, fast, his breath hitching as he pants, “Yeah? You want it? Wanna be stuffed full with all my cum, huh? Wanna walk around dripping, knowing I used you?”

You’re barely able to respond—just moaning, shaking, stars in your eyes—and then he slams in one last time.

His whole body shudders.

“F—fuck—fuck, take it, take it all—” he snarls as he spills everything into you. It’s hot, thick, endless. You feel it flood inside, pooling deep, leaking out before he’s even done.

But he doesn’t pull out.

No.

He stays in.

Presses his hips flush to yours, his cock still twitching inside your soaked hole.

“Shhh… stay like this,” he whispers, kissing your sweaty cheek. “I’m not done yet. I want you cockwarming me while it sinks in.”

You whimper. He hums.

“Such a good boy,” he breathes, voice soft again. “Took me so well. Let me fuck you dumb and fill you up just like you deserve.”

You’re dazed, fucked-out, stuffed to the brim, barely able to hold a thought. Your own orgasm hit somewhere in the middle—maybe more than once—but it’s all a blur now.

Phainon strokes your cheek.

“Don’t worry,” he says, smug. “I’ll clean you up after. After I make sure you’re nice and full.”

And he smiles.

Because you’re his.

And he’s not letting a drop go to waste.

© 2024-2025 blueberrisdove-sideblog all rights reserved. pretty please, do not steal my dividers, translate and plagiarize any of my works, or either repost my works in any other platform without asking, thank you!

[infinitydivine]

Killing it Girl... 💅🏻🔥

I love this song by Jhope, and it inspired this Pick a Pile reading for you guys. This is not just for "girls or women", this post is for everyone and they are welcome to read it if they resonate with the title :)

PAP: How do others perceive me, even when I’m not saying much?

Warning- Long post ahead.

If this reading resonates with you, kindly share it to help your reader :)

Masterlist -Paid Readings-Paid Readings Reviews-PAC Readings

Choose your pile intuitively. Take what resonates and leave the other things. If you think this reading is not for you then choose another pile. If still it doesn't resonate then this might not be your reading. There are Three Piles.

Hello Pile 1~~~(the ones with purple aura)

High Priestess , Queen of Swords ,The Moon and 7 of Wands

There’s something in your silence that isn’t just peaceful because bro it’s powerful. People feel it the moment you walk in. Even if you're not trying to do anything, your presence naturally commands respect. You don't have to raise your voice or show off to be noticed as your energy does all the talking. You come off as someone who knows way more than they let on, and that's exactly why people are both fascinated and slightly intimidated by you. You could be sitting quietly in a corner, and still, people will wonder what you're thinking, what you’re observing, and how much you actually know??? You radiate a “don’t mess with me” elegance. Not loud... Not aggressive. Just this silent strength that says you’ve been through things and you came out sharper because of it. Even when you're keeping to yourself, people can still feel your inner authority. They see you as someone who carries deep emotional intelligence... someone who doesn't waste their energy on small talk or drama. You might not open up easily, and that just adds more to the your mysterious aura guys. It’s like you’re wrapped in velvet...soft on the outside, but inside, there is this fire. People may even assume that you're hard to approach or emotionally unavailable but that’s just because your energy doesn't beg for validation. You're not here to entertain. You’re here to exist deeply. And that alone makes people watch you a little longer than they meant to.( I also got people might stare you a lot but that's more of their curious gaze).Your silence makes people reflect on themselves. It’s wild how even without words, you have the power to make others question what they’re doing.You're not the type to trust easily, and people pick up on that. Some admire it, others are intimidated by it but no one can ignore it. Your emotional boundaries are strict, and your standards are clear without you needing to explain them. You could look someone in the eye and say nothing and still, they’d feel like they just had a full conversation with your soul.In relationships, friendships, even in public, people view you as the mysterious one the one who isn’t loud but is always watching, knowing, feeling. You might not realize just how many people notice you from afar. You don't show off your intelligence or depth and it just leaks (yeah, i got this specific word)out naturally in your energy.You don’t give away your presence easily, and that’s your power.

Bottom line guys? Even in your silence, you are unforgettable. People remember how you made them feel and that chill down their spine, that awe, that pull and they wonder, "Who are they really?" That mystery? That quiet confidence? That's what makes you the flame in a room full of flickers. (like a moth to flame...this song could resonate with you)

If you liked the reading, book a personal reading with me or you could leave a tip for the reader.

Pile 2~~~(the ones with blue aura)

Temperance ,The Star ,4 of Swords and Knight of Pentacles

Guys...You don’t need to say much for people to feel your presence and your aura ... it’s calm, collected, and oddly comforting. There’s this thing about you guys that says, “I’m not here to prove anything” kind of energy about you that just hits different. You don’t beg for attention, you don’t try to be the loudest or the flashiest and that’s exactly why people respect you. You're like that soft breeze on a hot day… soothing,and exactly what people didn’t know they needed. When you’re around, people feel like they can exhale. ( guys my AC just went crazy when I typing this lol) You give them peace without even meaning to.Even when you’re quiet, people can tell you’re emotionally stable. You have this quiet wisdom, like someone who knows how to move through life without losing their center. You don’t react to everything and that alone sets you apart. You come off as mature, unbothered, and deeply rooted in your own energy. People admire how you carry yourself ...there’s a patience and grace to your silence. You don’t rush to speak. You wait. You observe. You understand things on a deeper level. And that makes people trust you, even before they really know you.There’s this healer energy about you... like people may not realize it, but just being in your vicinity makes them feel better. You probably attract friends or strangers who open up to you randomly, even if you didn’t ask. That’s because your energy is safe. You don’t come with chaos or judgment. You just are...i don't know how to you but you.You also carry a subtle glow that people remember. It’s not in-your-face. It’s not too much for anyone to take in. But it's magnetic in its own way. You have a quiet confidence that doesn’t need attention to feel seen. People might see you as someone who minds their business, takes care of themself, and doesn’t get dragged into nonsense and they respect the hell out of that. You're not emotionally chaotic.

There’s also this slow-and-steady vibe in how you move. People might see you as someone who doesn’t rush into anything, someone who takes their time with life, decisions, people. That kind of energy makes others feel like you’re reliable, even if they don’t know you well. You don’t play games, you don’t fake vibes. What you see is what you get and what you get is someone solid.Even if you’re introverted or private, you still have a presence that lingers even after you are gone. People notice when you’re there. And they definitely notice when you’re gone. You might be the type who others think about at random... “I wonder what they are up to. They were nice to be around.” It’s not flashy or loud, but it’s deep. You leave a calm imprint on people’s souls.

So even when you're just sitting there, saying nothing… your energy speaks: “I’m here, I’m real, I’m enough.” And guys!!! that’s rare.

If you liked the reading, book a personal reading with me or you could leave a tip for the reader.

Pile 3~~~(the ones with yellow aura)

The Fool, Page of Wands ,The Sun and 6 of Cups

Okay so straightaway guys,There’s something about your presence that’s both soft and impossible to ignore. Even when you’re quiet, even when you’re not trying to stand out, people notice you. You have this naturally bright, radiant energy that doesn’t scream for attention, but it draws people in without even trying. It’s not just your face or how you dress …guys it’s something deeper. Something in your energy feels light, golden, and a little mysterious, like a moment from a dream you can’t quite place but can’t forget either. (i know it is too much to say lol).You give off a sense of freshness, like someone who brings a different perspective or vibe to a space. You might be playful, expressive in small ways, or simply have a unique way of existing that makes people feel intrigued. Your silence doesn’t create walls rather it creates curiosity. People feel like there’s a whole world inside you that they haven’t even had the glimpse of. They might try to figure you out, wonder what you’re thinking, or want to get closer just to feel more of you.

You give the main character energy without even trying. You could be walking down the street with your headphones on, lost in your own little world and someone across the road will remember your vibe. You don’t do anything for attention, and yet, somehow, you steal the show. You’re not mysterious in a cold or distant way but it’s more like… magical. You make people feel like they just witnessed something rare and beautiful, and they don’t even know why they felt the way they did. There’s also this innocent, nostalgic energy to you. People may find comfort in your presence, like you remind them of a happy memory or someone they once knew and loved. (oddly I got the vibes of gradma..like comforting especially in a good way)Even when you’re not speaking, you carry emotion people can feel you.You give that soft “golden hour” glow bro….beautiful, fleeting, and emotionally impactful.

People probably underestimate you at first, but then later they’re like, “Wait… they were actually the one.” Your presence grows on them. They might forget what anyone else said, but they’ll remember how you felt. That little smile, the way you carry yourself, the softness in your eyes …it stays with them. You leave traces of yourself in places you don’t even realize, just by being you. You’re the kind of person people want to know more about. Even if you’re quiet or reserved, you carry a dreamer’s energy… light, curious. You’re not afraid to be different, and that difference is your magic. You don’t fit into boxes yet you glide around them and create your own space.

Bottom line? You’re memorable in the most unexpected way. Even in silence, you shine. Not in a blinding spotlight kind of way but like a star in the corner of the sky where you know you just keep moving your eye back, again and again. You’re the plot twist,(i again gave you the main character energy you guys lol) the hidden gem, the soft glow people wish they hadn’t overlooked.

If you liked the reading, book a personal reading with me or you could leave a tip for the reader.

Thank you and Love,

Infinity

[elderwisp]

Alright! I wanted to address something!

I made this post a few days ago that I'm certain ruffled a few feathers! But the thing is, this sentiment isn't new. Throughout my years of being on simblr (and real life!), there is always a hard shove of speaking up or remaining silent.

I should start off by saying that making a "bold" (it isn't very bold of me) statement on my blog isn't done for brownie points or engagement. Especially when it is known that speaking up about politics leads to mass unfollowing. If I genuinely cared about my "engagement" I would absolutely shut the hell up. It is absolutely the most isolating thing I could do. Especially in a society that minimizes efforts to being SJW-y or performative. (Which is a conversation in it's own but I digress.)

The thing is, people oftentimes forget there are many levels to activism. There are people that cannot leave their homes due to disability or even safety reasons, and so their online presence does matter. Without people who post from the internet I wouldn't have learned the detail in which Palestine suffers, where/how to protest, a bill that passed in the senate that is meant for voter suppression, and more! Wild!

There are people who have no online presence yet stay involved through their communities. Valid. There are people who post stats online. Also valid. And then there are people who will do absolutely nothing and look for validation in that. That is the intended audience for statements like mine and many others. Because all it took was one post about how gfm's from Palestine are scams for traction to slow down. So when I say something like that, I mean it. Hell, I even took something from my own post because that was the point. I've seen what reblogging gfm's for fellow simblrs can do. I've seen what passing around info about some wcif or a game bug can do. I might as well apply it to vital information as well!

So I leave you guys with a few references:

Why your silence is no longer a currency you can afford

A therapist explains why unplugging does more harm than good (although it is good to take breaks! remember context)

How history does not remember the people who stayed neutral

Remember, a reblog is free. You don't even gotta say anything! Sharing information is free. You still have a voice and you might as well use it. Especially when censorship seems to be all the rage.

(also if you can please email or call your representatives about the SAVE act because damn it's gonna suppress a lot of disabled, trans and/or married people holy shit)

[askkaneethi]

౨ৎ What makes you unforgettable?

Pick a card reading

Masterlist Paid readings! Ko-fi

Pile 1- 🍵

Pile 2- 🐤

Pile 3- ☕️

Pile 🍵:

There’s something rare about your energy pile 1, your aura is magnetizing. You don’t overshare and you’re someone who has depth, people don’t come across that often. You have a spiritual solitude to you, the type of person who rarely shares their mind but when they do, it leaves people craving for more. You give people the sense that they will never find someone like you, the one that got away. A single conversation with you feels electric, people could become sapiosexuals when it comes to you lollll. They become obsessed with the way you carry yourself. People also sense how you’ve been through more than you let on, it makes you unforgettable. You’re the kind of person people compare others to pile 1. They chase the same emotional high you provide but they can never find something like it.

Confirmation: Chocolate chip cookies, mint chocolate ice cream, seeing pink vows, listening to frank ocean, doing a slick back ponytail or seeing the clean girl aesthetic, ballet shoes, eating pasta or eating seeing cranberries

Pile 🐤:

Pile 2 you walk into people’s lives and awaken something they didn’t even know was asleep. You spark people’s curiosity and interest because of your personality. You have a healing presence and energy, even in silence you say everything. Your face exudes calm and quiet confidence. You know pain and you don’t hide it, people know that when life hits you, you stand up 10 times stronger. People find you unforgettable because of how human you are, you teach them what heartbreak is, you don’t break their hearts but through your stories, you cause their heart to feel something and their mind to open. People can’t figure you out, they find you so complex yet so interesting. Everytime they think they’re closer to understanding you, they realize there’s way more to you. That mystery haunts them. Regardless of what you’ve been through, you don’t lead with sadness, your laugh echoes, your warm gaze stays with people, and your smile is one to die for pile 2.

Confirmation: Gold tennis necklace, or gold hoops, drinking milk or eating cereal, eating pineapple, recently went to the beach or saw something related to the sea, turtles, sunflowers, poster with glitter, got a new package, green shorts, nutellaaa, beabadoobie

Pile ☕️:

Pile 3, you’re unforgettable because you leave people wondering, chasing and replaying. You have a charm to you that not everyone can experience. You bring color into people’s worlds, you make people feel seen, admired and valued. You’re someone who makes people feel meaningful. You’re someone who inspires other people to be bold, and adventurous. Your presence is exciting and fiery, no one feels bored around you. You stir a lot of thoughts and you are someone who people find unreachable, like they can never predict you. You don’t play small and you’re very real. Your authenticity leaves people without no words. You make people feel free around your presence, like you’re not judging them in any way and by all means accepting. People admire the way you live your life, how you appreciate everything and find the beauty in anything. You’re artistic, free, and someone who finds meaning in everything. People find you unforgettable because of how uniquely you are and the way you live your life.

Confirmation: Hiking, seeing mountains, you have a fish? Seeing an orange fish, drinking coconut water, if you have curls then recently defining them, grey new balance shoes, smiley piercing, freckles, black wavy hair, highlighter on the corner of your eye, mole near your lips/mouth

Thank you for reading sweethearts, I hope you enjoyed this reading, don’t forget to check out my pinned post and paid readings for more personal content!!

Love, Kaneethi 💗

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

it's hard when you have a reputation for being independent/self-sufficient/reliable in a crisis, I think. like, not only do you need to train yourself into asking for help when you need it, but you need to train other people to think of you as someone who does need help.

when I donated a kidney (already a weird convoluted mess of a situation re: the roles of caretaker vs being cared for) I asked my parents to come visit for the first week post-surgery and help out, because I knew it would be a lot of work for my wife to be the only person taking care of me. they spent the first day or two of the visit talking a lot about how they might need to leave early for weather reasons, and it was making me really upset (bc yeah I've always been the independent low-maintenance kid but also I donated a fucking kidney it should be obvious that I need the help right?), but I didn't do anything about it until I realized my wife was upset by it too. and that was what pushed me to say "hey it's really stressful that you keep talking about leaving earlier than planned, I really need the help." and my parents did a complete 180 - they stayed the whole week and made food and drove me to my followup appointment. before I communicated with them, they'd been worried that they were in the way.

I do not think that letting my parents leave early and then waiting until they needed help with something and refusing to give it would have solved anything. what solved it was flat-out saying "I know I can technically do this by myself but I need the emotional support, not just physical/logistical support." and obviously what I need to work on still is not waiting for my wife to be angry on my behalf before I can advocate for myself. which is, tbh, so annoying. I would prefer to have no needs at all thank you. No needs, no vulnerability, no reason to ask other people for help and give them an opportunity to let me down :)

anyways OP I hope that next time you need to go to the ER (hopefully not for a long while) someone volunteers to drive you without you even needing to ask, bc asking sucks so much. but also yeah it's good to learn how to ask, unfortunately.

Why is it that I am always the person people ask to accompany them to the ER and yet nobody has ever agreed to accompany me on any of my ER trips. What kind of grievous injury does a guy have to acquire to get a little company here.

[hivemuthur]

To Be Known - Ch.15.

viktorxfemale!reader very explicit as usual, Modern AU, set in London, current era but not very specific. It's just a love story.

<- previous chapter MASTERLIST next chapter ->

word count: 10,1 K (not sorry anymore)

warnings, or rather this chapter contains: domestic fluff through Reader’s lens, spanking, anal fingering during sex, the usual crying after sex, subspace/domspace, injection mentioned, oral sex, anal sex, angst.

author’s note: Reader’s POV on the weekend + what follows after Viktor’s visit to Young Vic. As usual, playlist here and artist is @petitesieste ♡ @doggrowth thank you so much for bearing with me and beta reading! A little extra info at the bottom.

Cross-posted on AO3

—

For two days, you exist in an indeterminate space between Viktor’s hands. Between his kind hands, spreading soap across your shoulders and chest, and his heavy hands, beating you clean of your sins. The I love you he expresses in both moments carries equal weight.

Washing Viktor is effortless. You know the lines of his body: collarbones, the stubborn muscle at his neck, old scars under your thumbs. Vetiver from here on becomes his scent. It lingers in his hair and armpits. You smooth the lather over his chest, across beauty marks and strokes of pearl, and there’s a comfort in it. He leans in, lets you work, sighs from somewhere deep in his belly. That sound alone should be illegal, but you don’t stop.

The second one on the list to be outlawed is the giggle. You barely word a remark when his ribs shy away from your fingers and he laughs outright, swatting you away with one hand. Thank God Viktor closes his eyes, because the look on your face is so awed you are almost ashamed of it.

It’s another thing to be washed in return. You feel seen, not just naked—naked is fine at this point—but bare in ways that have nothing to do with skin. Viktor’s hands work slow, patient, mapping the length of your arms and the dip of your waist, as if he’s memorising you for an exam no one else will ever take. When his fingers slide over your ribs, you shiver from the nerve of it: the audacity of being loved so ordinarily. You wonder if he notices the bite marks from last night, the old bruise near your hip, how uneven your breathing gets when he’s being gentle.

You help him out of the cabin without thinking, moving on muscle memory alone. The same way you reach for him when you’re first to leave bed. Instinct, as fundamental as breathing. Your brain keeps up its little war with your heart—logic stacking arguments, pros and cons, practical fears, as if any of them might protect you from how good this feels. Every time you surrender, let yourself lean into the warmth and the clumsy closeness, it feels better than anything your head could manufacture. The heart wins out in these tiny moments. They feel clean in a way nothing else does.

You ogle him secretly while brushing teeth. Eyes wander sideways over his arms, chest, and hips wrapped loosely with a towel. During the spit and rinse you sigh internally, and what you couldn’t word when he gave you his boyish giggle, you find the courage to say now.

Your fingers wrap around the towel and pull him close. Then, the towel drops, and Viktor stands in front of you naked. You can’t help but think how pretty he is in all forms. What you think, you tell him, and more, and for one moment you hope to maybe have found agency over what you are able and unable to say. But it���s shot for shot now, and Viktor—your beautiful in all the significant areas man��once again knocks you out with his reaction.

Suddenly, it’s back to being precarious. Because if this is Viktor’s reaction to something as basic as receiving a compliment—one that understates entirely what he is—then you have no idea how you are going to give him any justice. How you are going to face the expectation of being a girlfriend without letting him down horrendously. And for a fleeting second, it pisses you off that just loving someone doesn’t solve any of those issues.

You mull it over while giving in to the compulsion, scrolling through your inbox. Your thumb flicks through the avalanche of overnight messages—an old reflex, a quick hit of control. The plate Viktor slides in front of you goes untouched, steam curling up and dying. He notices, of course, and crushes you again by assuring you nothing will be taken without your permission. You know damn well whatever little you permit is not enough, and you sit there feeling stupid for being so desperate you can’t last twenty-four hours without checking if the theatre world has fallen apart without you.

As soon as he points you to the floor, gratitude floods your veins. The raw honesty of it, the longing of your flesh, leads you to splay yourself across his lap, trusting, obedient—where he can deliver his love in a series of stark slaps.

You are so grateful for it, you could cry. To be given something you understand—a simple choreography, something that has always made sense when nothing else does. The rules of cause and effect, your body reading his intentions before your mind can catch up. You feel yourself settle, safe, exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Then he peels your clothes away as if you were always meant to be naked. Calls you a slut, but it sounds so adoring you smile terribly while he inspects the drip between your thighs. How utterly depraved to lubricate from being bent over his knee and spanked. How blissful it feels—almost beyond words.

His mouth brushes the prominent vertebrae at the top of your spine as long arms come from behind to wrap around you. Viktor pulls you to sit on his lap and spreads your legs. Soon, with thighs shaking and the heat in your ass still raw where his hand left it, you are so grateful you actually do cry. Because, fuck, it feels fantastic to be so full of him. It feels fantastic to ride yourself back into tranquillity on his cock. Each drop of your weight drives him deeper and drives the burn home—pain and stretch folding over one another until they can’t be told apart.

When Viktor teases you with his thumb it’s all you can think about. More, all of it. One plea is all the encouragement he needs. He keeps that thumb buried where he pressed in, working small, torturous strokes just inside the tight heat of your ass—enough to keep you shaking, every descent forcing you to take both lengths at once. Your clit slaps the thick root of him on each grind, and the sting there flares, then dissolves into something hotter, wetter. The rhythm turns ruthless: down, crest, spark—again—until your breath hiccups and vision fuzzes at the edges.

You feel him throb, feel yourself clench, a matched set closing around the same pulse. The fullness is obscene and perfect; it pinches a sob right out of you—and God, you are being loud. Tears bead and run, from just sheer too-much. He holds onto your hip, lets you spend yourself on him. When you break, it’s sharp and bright, body meaning to lock and shiver, but Viktor commands you—no, begs you—not to stop. So you keep going, lure him after you with the world’s most effortless I love you ever spoken out loud.

It’s then when he bends, his chest meets your back, arms lock around you and teeth sink into your shoulder. Heat spills so deep the aftershocks roll through both of you, his cum a balm to your abused centre. You sag forward, tears streaking your cheeks, and can only whisper, thank you, thank you, thank you, into sex-slicked air, and it’s so quiet Viktor can’t hear you.

“Stay, stay, stay,” he mutters, reaching blindly for your face, finding dampness. It takes everything in you to empty yourself of him, but the reward evens out the loss. It’s Viktor’s neck against your nose, his stomach to yours, hands in your hair, his mouth on your forehead, your brow, below your eyes, and finally, finally on your mouth. It’s not even a kiss so much as a press, as if he’s giving you CPR through touch.

The deeper you go with Viktor, the finer the space he folds you into. Where it used to hit like falling through ice—shock, darkness, silence—it’s now a slow tilt, a gradient descent. Sensation narrows, breath softens; you feel the floor of yourself long before you touch it. And coming back is just as gentle: a hand on your shoulder, his voice saying your name, and the surface rises to meet you.

The result is still the same—noise stripped out, marrow quiet, the hard edges of thought filed smooth. Yet lying there afterward, chest fluttering against his, you wonder if there might be other ways to hush the maelstrom. Something less consuming than Viktor fucking you into being. You wonder, and you’re almost afraid of finding out.

From this, it takes a couple of breaths for you to return to yourself and register hunger. The regular human one. And he helps you dress. Ushers you to the bathroom, where you twist to admire your ass in the mirror.

Then, Viktor feeds you. Patient and kind, movements smooth, he prepares a new breakfast, and again, you can’t help but stare.

Because Viktor looks just breathtaking in his own space. It’s subtle—no swagger, no borrowed authority—just a quiet rightness that settles over him. His shoulders loosen, but he stands taller, as if the weight that usually drags him forward has redistributed into balance. The habitual hunch is barely there; his spine aligns in a long, sure line. The shallow crease between his brows smooths out, replaced by a soft intent focus. When he speaks, the words come measured, already arranged; you catch the sense he’s ten sentences ahead, mapping the conversation the way a conductor sees the whole score. Even the smallest gestures carry that certainty: the way he plates the food, folds a napkin, touches the back of your chair before you sit. It isn’t power in the usual sense—more an ease inside his own skin, as though every part of him has finally been given its precise job and is content to do it. Watching him, you feel the room settle too, like gravity has chosen a gentler pull.

He meets you exactly where you live. His steady current of assurance finds the hollow places in you and fills them, lets you finally unclench. In turn, your raw urgency sparks warmth in him, keeps his composure from tipping into distance. With him guiding and you giving way, every movement falls into place—an effortless rhythm neither of you could reach alone. In that shared space, breathing is easy, choices are simple, the rest of the world briefly irrelevant.

And this breakfast is so different. Now you want to eat from this man’s hand, lick his fingers when you’re done, detach those hands from his body and wear them as a tight collar. Have you been grateful before? No—now you are fucking grateful. Now the two of you are the best versions of yourselves, and you love those. And you love Viktor for giving you yourself back.

When the mood settles into calm, you play with fire by picking up something that will immediately reveal how much time you actually spend thinking about him. Your acting skills have never reached a level that could fool Viktor. Inevitably, your secret is out; no amount of tickling saves you. But instead of being painfully smug, he is only a little—what dominates his face is an expression of complete adoration as he offers to read with you.

So you stage The Memorandum, and the deeper you go, the more convinced you are that the universe is mocking you. Every page is a mirror you didn’t ask for. The invented language, the frantic translations, the circular memos that never reach a point—every bit of it feels like the way you talk around what matters, the way you bury need under schedules and jargon. Gross can’t get his message read; you can’t get a clean sentence of feeling out without choking on disclaimers. You laugh at the absurdity, but the laugh is thin; every correction Lear gives him might as well be one of your own deflections—clarifying, revising, stripping meaning until nothing true is left. By the time Viktor voices Gross’s final complaint, you realise you’re hearing your own: a terror of plain speech, and the quiet disaster that blooms whenever you try to keep everything perfectly managed, perfectly safe.

It flickers and quickly dies in your expression when Viktor licks your neck, clearly happy to be let in on something this close to your heart. You don’t take it away from him.

When he hands you the syringe with quiet trust, your face contorts between awe and hesitation. You smooth a gentle hand across his stomach, thumb brushing over faint bruises—yellow-green echoes of past injections. Viktor says nothing, his breathing slow and even, trusting you fully, and that quiet vulnerability lodges somewhere deep in you. You disinfect the spot carefully, his stomach twitching beneath the cool swipe of antiseptic, and he steadies himself, palm wrapped around yours. Needle piercing skin is a brief resistance, then smooth glide. Viktor's eyes drift shut, the lines on his forehead relaxing, gratitude softening his expression as you withdraw. Another part of him handed to you on an open palm.

In the morning, the first thing you reach for is your phone. The bed beside you is still warm, and Viktor announces himself by throwing a towel on the bed and leaning in to kiss your forehead. You take your turn in the shower, lingering in front of the mirror, fingers running across the painting he left on your skin as you check the blossom.

You know he thinks it’s pretty, but for you it’s something completely different. A reminder of a moment in which you transition between clutter and slip into focus. And a semi-permanent one, when every time you get dressed, sit, lean on it, you will think of him. Signature lasting only as long as it takes for your immune system to clean up the mess of dead cells, so the cycle can begin anew.

You stretch in the kitchen doorway, making all your major joints pop at once. Viktor doesn’t turn, only laughs and says, “There she is,” as he pours water in the press.

You slip your arms around him from behind, pressing your cheek between his shoulder blades, hoping the warmth will still the noise already gathering in your head. The phone in your hand thrums—work messages stacked like bricks, some frantic, some routine, each one a reminder the week is waiting to dismantle you. Behind your eyes, yesterday’s reading still bangs around: wrong words, crossed wires, the joke of clarity.

Viktor pauses, as if he can feel the doubt through fabric. He turns and kisses you—slow, sure, sealing off the noise for a moment. His hands find your hips and he walks you backward, gentle but unyielding, until the edge of the kitchen table presses the small of your back.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, lips ghosting yours.

“Not yet,” you breathe, phone forgotten on the counter.

“Good.” His lips tip into a crooked smile. “I am. Bend over the table for me, will you?”

Your mouth gets the question out even as your body is already folding. “What are we doing?” You’re in position before the words finish, hands flat to the wood, legs spreading on instinct. Viktor doesn’t need to ask; obedience rolls off you like water.

“I am having breakfast,” he says, dragging a chair behind him, the scrape loud in the quiet kitchen. “And you are feeding me.”

He hooks his fingers in the waistband of your shorts, peels them down, and exhales—half gasp, half growl. Your T-shirt he rolls up, bunching it into the dip of your spine, most likely to clear his view. He smooths both palms over the heat of your skin, thumb tracing the outline of his own fingerprints. “What’s the situation here?” he asks, tone curious, almost clinical.

“Good,” you hiss, the word trembling out as his touch spreads the ache. Good isn’t enough said. It hurts just right. It’s a dull, persistent ache that warms you up from the inside. Just like iron-stiff muscles after running a marathon are a trophy, this is your trophy for being a good girl.

Viktor chuckles, leans in, and drags his tongue flat across one cheek of your ass, slow as paint across canvas. “I’ll be gentle,” he murmurs, thumb parting you, then his mouth dips lower, sealing over the seam of you—first a kiss, then an open-mouthed devotion that makes your elbows buckle against wood.

“F-fuck,” you breathe, knuckles whitening as you grip the edge of the table. A tremor runs through you when Viktor’s mouth finds its pace—slow at first, like he’s testing something, then deeper, each pass of his tongue coaxing your spine into a perfect arch.

He hums against you, a low vibration that sparks heat up your back. Fingers keep you open, gentle but insistent, as if he’s protecting every inch he’s worshipping. You push onto him without thinking, heels lifting, the need to meet each stroke urgent and immediate. Every time you rock back, his chuckle spills against your skin—a quick, pleased sound that tells you exactly how much he enjoys the way you can’t stay still.

When he finally lifts for breath, his voice is wrecked but playful. “Still with me?” He presses a kiss just above the bruised curve, hands resting, waiting. Another heartbeat, another pause. “Tell me how it feels.”

You try to shape an answer, but the words collapse—a sigh, a plea, nothing intelligible. Viktor lifts away, thumb still holding you open, breath warm. “I’m not sure I quite follow,” he says, voice light and dangerous. “What was that?”

“Good,” you manage, hips tilting up for contact that isn’t there. “It feels good.”

He’s grinning now, smug and patient, simply watching you strain. You crane your neck, searching for his eyes. “Viktor, please,” you breathe—the word splits at the middle, raw and exposed.

“Please what?” He rubs a slow circle just beside where you need him, nowhere near enough.

You squeeze your eyes shut, gathering your fleeting dignity. “Please give me your tongue,” you whisper, arching harder, spine a drawn bow.

The grin softens into something hungrier. “There’s my girl.” And he bends back to you, mouth sealing over everything he’d just denied, tongue sliding deep, relentless, until the plea turns into a broken, grateful sob. Viktor reads every twitch, alternates tempo: a long glide that has you melting, then a teasing, feather-light flick that makes you hiss and beg under your breath.

Between strokes he speaks in quiet praise—simple, wickedly kind things he knows will land: “Good.” “Beautiful like this.” “Give me more.” Each line punctuates the heat spiralling low and tight in your belly, until you lose track of which words he says and which your body invents.

You feel another laugh against you, a little thrill of sound before he dives back in. Every pulse of his mouth draws you higher; every pause drags a moan out of you. It’s a rhythm of worship and tease—just enough respite to make the next return unbearable.

Then, mouth seals onto you with no more breaks—tongue working tight, focused circles, the steady pressure that unravels thought. Your knuckles creak on the table edge; breath hitches, fractures. His free hand strokes up your spine, soothing while he devours, pace unwavering until your whole body coils. You press your forehead to the wood, trembling, and come hard against his mouth—sharp, flooding, vision white-edged.

You’re still shuddering when his hand slides lower in a final caress. So dazed you barely register him standing, only the new heat of his cock sliding slick between your cheeks as he rocks forward.

“How are you?” Viktor’s voice is husky, words pushed through quickened breathing.

You glance back: pupils blown, lips shining, the flush of want high on his cheeks. The sight knocks the rest of the air from your lungs. You manage a smile, soft and wrecked. “Good,” you whisper, and mean it.

Viktor groans and falls forward, hands braced on either side of your shoulders. He dips his head, voice strained. “I am so tempted to fuck your ass like this, you have no idea.”

And God, this excites you. Doubts fall away once more, as Viktor slowly elbows every unread email away from your brain. You close your eyes and rock back, offering. “Do it,” you whisper.

He sucks in a wet gasp, fingers threading into your hair. “Are you certain?”

You nod, slow, tilting toward his mouth as far as you can. “Yes. Fuck, yes,” you say, and then: “Use me.”

Viktor makes a sound that etches itself into your memory with intensity that borders violence. “Oh my dearest darling, you have no idea what you are doing to me,” he rasps. One hand settles at your throat, the other slips lower, gathering the slick he’s coaxed from you. He works it over the tight entrance, massaging small circles. His cock glides between your thighs as he rocks, coating himself in the heat of you.

You meet him half-way, as much as you can. Offer yourself through small wiggles and sighs. He presses a single fingertip in, slow enough that the burn blooms then settles. It’s good. It forces you to focus your breathing and dedicate your entire attention to his hands. “Colour?” he murmurs.

“Green.”

He waits—one breath, two—then begins to move, shallow, coaxing. When your muscles ease, he slides in a second finger. It starts all over—at first, it sets your tissues ablaze. You have to battle off the distraction of his cock nudging your clit each time his hips move. Through exhales and praise, you adjust, and Viktor checks in on you again: “Colour?”

“Green,” you manage, voice barely there. He opens you gently, gives you one adoring thing after another under his breath. When you soften around him, he adds a third finger, filling you, the stretch turning sharp-sweet. “Still green?”

You release air through mouth shaped like an o. “Green,” you whisper, shoulders trembling.

“You are doing so well, my good girl,” he coos, fingers thrusting and twisting; each pull drags heat through your gut, each push leaves you more pliant. The burn has thinned into a pulse, a wanting that feels astonishingly right—you press back, greedy to expand.

Only when you open for him completely does he withdraw. The slicked fingers leave you empty just long enough to sense the blunt crown of his cock nudging at your entrance. “Ready?” Viktor asks.

“Yes,” you say, heart hammering.

He drags himself through your slit first, gathering every shimmer of slick, then angles up and presses—slow, devastating. You tense at the breach; his hand moves to your hip, the other steady at your throat. “Breathe. And any time you want to stop, we stop.”

“Okay,” you mouth, voiceless. “Okay.”

The words leave on a ghost of breath, as the crown breaches. The shock is electric: a white flash behind the eyes, muscles shivering around the sudden, blunt heat. For a few heartbeats it stings—bright, foreign, impossibly full—then, as Viktor holds still and the pulse of his cock beats inside that first inch, something in you loosens. Breath spills out. The burn thaws into a deep, slow bloom; tremors give way to a liquid ache that feels wickedly right. Your back uncoils, each vertebra loosening a notch at a time, vision hazy at the edges, every nerve narrowed to that single point of pressure where you start—astonishingly—to open and want.

“Fuck, Viktor,” you breathe, sweat prickling at the well of your spine. “Please, I—” The pause is agonising; you need him to move, in or out, anything but stillness. “Please fuck me, I can’t—”

“God, you’re tight,” he mutters, more to himself than to you, laying his chest along your back. “Colour, colour—I need to know.”

“Fucking green,” you hiss and nearly buck your ass into him. He exhales, relief and hunger tangled. He takes another slow inch, hips rocking forward. There’s pain, for a moment. You tense and squeal, the sound raw enough that he stills at once.

“Does it hurt?” He’s already easing back, hand cupping your throat but lighter now.

“No. No—just a little. It’s good, Viktor. It’s good.” You cover his hand with yours, guiding his fingers to tighten, the pressure grounding you. “Please fuck me. Pleasepleaseplease fuck me,” you beg him, barely recognising your own voice.

Something in you—a need—yawns open. Something from the very depths of you howls at being fucked like this. Because he’s being so destructively patient, so gentle. And you can tell it costs him absolutely everything to not just bury himself inside you, and somehow this stupid sacrifice makes you feel seen and not alone. Because Viktor is not just fucking your ass for breakfast. He’s taking care of you—of your tired, tormented brain, of your rabbit heart, and he’s doing all of it because you are being a good girl.

He groans, obeys the invitation—shifting, pushing deeper by fractions. The stretch burns and blossoms; every time he pauses, you breathe into his grip, easing the muscles until they loosen around him. He whispers steady encouragement, words sliding against your ear: “That’s it… take me… still green?” Each check-in gets the same answer, voice shaking but sure.

When he’s seated—hips not flush to your backside, but close enough for you to feel the heat radiating off him—the fullness is a living thing, thrumming where his cock settles and throbs. Viktor holds there, letting you feel the weight of him, letting himself feel you gripping every inch. Then—inch back, slow drive forward, a rhythm that starts careful and builds, your whimpers turning to low, ragged moans that echo in the quiet kitchen, until restraint blurs into raw, rolling pleasure and you finally lose track of where the pain ends and the wanting begins.

He fucks you like he loves you, you can feel it. It’s just another confession spoken through bodies, through skin. And this time it’s not scary, because this need you can understand exactly.

One palm slides between your belly and the table, find­ing your clit with unerring aim. He circles—slow, precise—nothing gentle in the intent. “Oh my fucking God,” you groan, head dropping, the words vibrating straight into his fingers at your throat. Instinct makes you push back, coaxing that grip to tighten, and the chain-reaction is instantaneous: his cock thrums deeper, thumb works harder, every nerve laced into a single, blinding current.

Ass filled so utterly you swear you can feel his pulse in your spine; slick heat blazing where his hand teases; throat cinched just enough to throw gasoline on every spark. Pleasure ripples outward in overlapping shock-waves, each one bigger than the last, until the world is stripped to three points of contact—cock, clit, throat—fused into a single, unbearable sweetness.

“My darling— Nemůžu, já—” Viktor’s whisper breaks apart against your ear, spilling raw and helpless an instant before his body does. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—” he hisses into your ear, drives in and freezes, a guttural groan punching out of him as he spills deep, cock jerking, knees shaking against the backs of your thighs.

The sudden flood tips you straight over the edge; you clamp down around him, violent and greedy, milking every last drop while your own climax howls through nerve and bone, white-hot and endless. “Viktor—oh, fuck—yes,” you babble, his name breaking apart on each wave as pleasure rips through you.

Bodies lock, lungs scrape for air. Then, his grip eases on your throat; his other hand coaxes trembling circles that turn aftershocks into shivers, until both of you sag, boneless, against the table—one heartbeat, two heartbeats, perfectly spent.

Viktor moves first and it nearly hurts to lose him. As soon as his cock slips free you can feel the cum pulsing out of you, dripping between your legs, and you could swear you hear him sniffle—or maybe just drag in a wet breath through his nose.

Then—mouth. Warm and tender, it comes to kiss your aching skin as Viktor murmurs, “Děvče moje.” He rubs his cheek over the bruised curve and adds, “Talk to me. How are you, my darling girl?”

And how are you? Beyond ruined. Nothing hurts and everything aches. Your ass burns inside and out with a sweet kind of fire that rolls through your body in waves, making your fingers feel fuzzy when you push yourself off the table. Every nerve hums like struck metal; vision swims into shapes and heat. Before you know it, you slot into Viktor’s lap, imprisoning him with your limbs, fingers tangling in his hair.

“Fuck, Viktor,” you breathe, the words shaky in his neck. And he tries to be the anchor, but the tremor in his muscles betrays him when he cups your face, and the tremor in his voice betrays him further as he checks he hasn’t ruined anything.

“You’re so good,” you tell him, blinking away tears.

He’s so good—hands on every place you need them, even though you can feel he needs to be held, too. The rest of language deserts you. Phonemes, consonants, diphthongs: all the usual furniture of speech feels alien, and you wonder how you’ve ever managed to set foot onstage. “Fuck, I can’t speak,” you murmur, curling back into him. Viktor chuckles, dares to tease.

“I think we should have breakfast in bed today,” he whispers against your shoulder, all honey-warm.

You tip your head, study his face, and dry-smile. “I bet you’d eat off my ass if I asked you to.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. Grist to the mill, his mouth drags along your jaw, hands slipping under your damp T-shirt. “I’d eat off it if you asked me not to, even.”

“Freak,” you snort, soft and fond.

“I’d eat just your ass day and night, my beloved.” He seals the promise with a deep, clumsy, slow kiss—tongue flat, coaxing yours out, humming into your mouth. “I’d eat you whole.”

A sigh, long and deep, grounds you. “I’d eat you whole,” you echo, catching his bottom lip and kissing him back until words are pointless.

Once again, the slipstream inside your skull is quiet. Satiation settles over you like a heavy quilt—muscles lax, breath relieved, mind blessedly blank. Viktor pads around the kitchen in nothing but his underwear, making toast, scrambling eggs, fussing with the French press. You watch from the chair, shoulders slack, and the sight alone—bare calves, still-kissed neck, hair in soft damp tufts—manages to keep the hush intact.

You help carry everything back to the bedroom. He arranges the tray; you fold your legs under the duvet, leaning into the warm dent his body left. Between bites he slips into caretaker mode, telling you—gentle, practical—how to do maintenance after the kind of morning you’ve just had. You wince, cheeks burning, because somehow this feels more exposing than any position he’s bent you into.

Later you settle in the lounge. Viktor stretches out with a book; you curl beside him, head fitted to the crook of his shoulder. It’s good, it’s normal. But the phone beside your ankle won’t stop vibrating—a mosquito whine of notifications. You pretend to ignore it, yet your gaze flicks over each time the screen lights. With every buzz the calm thins, like steam peeling off a cooling kettle. Viktor’s thumb strokes your arm in absent patterns; you breathe in the scent at his throat and try to hold the moment steady. Another buzz, another glance, and you can feel the hush beginning to splinter.

The phone wins eventually. You pick it up, thumb already scrolling, and there it is—a message from Charlie, blinking with its polite urgency. A stomach bug; the entire lighting crew flattened, sending your next week's rehearsals into a tailspin unless replacements materialise, pronto. You huff out a sigh, rubbing a hand over your face, the comfort of Viktor’s warmth suddenly prickling with guilt.

First, you try from the couch, legs tucked beneath you, phone tilted as if holding it closer to your face might somehow solve the problem faster. Message after message trickles out, each response more useless than the last—half-hearted apologies, gentle brush-offs, lukewarm leads to other people who don’t reply at all. The endless scroll grates your nerves raw, and finally, after the sixth politely-worded rejection, you mutter a low, defeated, "Fuck."

Viktor shifts beside you, and his thumb pauses, mid-stroke, on your arm. You don’t have to look up to see his expression; it’s etched already behind your eyes, brows knitted, eyes gentle and questioning and trying so hard to pretend it’s all right.

“How upset will you be if I leave soon?” you start weakly, though it’s a laughably thin lie. His weak smile does all the work, stripping your resolve down to bone until you’re forced to offer him scraps of truth. “I just accumulated over a hundred emails and half of them I actually have to respond to before tomorrow.”

Viktor's nod is slow and knowing, a quiet resignation dimming the gold of his irises. You’ve broken a tiny bone between you; you can feel it snap. It hurts more than you'd like to admit.

“This week might be terrible, Viktor,” you whisper, the guilt blooming, heavy as a bruise, beneath your ribs. “I know it’s unfortunate timing—”

He shakes his head, not to stop you, just to push away your apologies. But when he finally looks up, his eyes betray him, open and wounded, quietly pleading, unable to conceal how badly he wants you to stay. You force yourself upright, already mourning the warmth of his side against yours.

He takes your offer of Thursday being a possibility like he has to force himself to believe it. It stings, because it mirrors your own hesitation. You both linger in the doorway, Viktor clinging to you as if you might change your mind at the last minute, until you have to plead for him to let you go. He milks it to the very end, the elevator doors the final thing that parts you.

You let yourself long for him through the whole descent and then the cab ride home, replaying his hands on you; now the burn in your skin whenever you sit without thinking is its own small comfort.

As soon as you get home, a bitter, throaty laugh escapes when you open your laptop. Hoping the week wouldn’t obliterate you? Naïve. It does that and more before Monday even arrives.

It finds you still awake in the grey edge of dawn, hunched over your desk, trying to put out the lighting-tech fire. By the time you cobble together a backup plan—an external crew on a fixed-term contract—pale fingers of morning slip through the curtains, and you realise there’s no point in chasing sleep now.

The week barrels forward like a stage-winch gone haywire: cue sheets lost, cue sheets rewritten; Charlie barking into headsets while you juggle three different crews, praying none of them wedge a Fresnel where a flood should be. Every hour some small disaster erupts—an actor with a late November flu, a dimmer pack that shorts, the stand-in electrician who can’t read the plot. You and Charlie stitch the mess together with gaffer tape and adrenaline, lurching from grid to wings to office until nights collapse into mornings.

In the brief, fluorescent pauses—plastic takeaway fork dangling from your mouth—you catch that yellow Post-it on the desk: call V, a little heart-shaped wound pulsing at the edge of vision. Texts cross like missed trains: your 02:17 “Still up, sorry,” answered at 05:04 when you’re buried in a production meeting prep. You fail Thursday spectacularly, trading the promise of his arms for a last-minute hire crew who agree to the job only if you sign before midnight. In the morning you type I miss you terribly and hit send before you can backspace it away.

Guilt rides shotgun through every cue-to-cue. This is what you wanted all along—work stacked high enough to keep the shadows out—yet now every solved crisis feels like a tax levied against something tender. You replay Viktor’s voice—I take only what you give—and find a strange, aching gratitude in his silence; no breach, no demand, just a space kept open for when you can breathe again.

Still, the absence scours. The memory of his hands on your hips flares each time you pass a mirror; the scent of his soap clings to your scarf like a stubborn line note. One week without him leaves you brittle and over-caffeinated, counting hours until the house lights rise on something gentler—hoping the next call won’t be another apology, but the long, clean exhale of going home.

When the following Monday makes it look even worse than the previous one, you nearly tear your hair out. Tuesday detonates before lunch. Charlie slips through your doorway, cheeks flushed, tie crooked, whispering the disaster straight into your ear: an entire rig of Fresnels—gone. Vanished between strike and call-time.

Theatre goes into lockdown. No one clocks out, everyone files in. A siege of clipboards and suspicion. You’re halfway through triaging the fallout—calling hire houses, drafting emergency budgets, wondering how many kidneys you can sell for tungsten—when Charlie reappears, knocking once and then ushering someone inside.

Someone tall, cane hooked over an elbow, two takeaway cups clutched like peace offerings.

Time folds. Coffee. Cane. Viktor.

Everything hits at once: flabbergast, because he’s here, really here, eyes already apologising for turning up unannounced. Then shame, because your grease-smeared sweatshirt, hair far from fresh, and lipstick eaten off by stress make you look like the love-child of insomnia and phosphorescent light. Guilt, mirroring his, at the ten days of missed calls and sorry texts ringing in your ears.

Then you’re threaded through with relief—real, physical, like air after surfacing—just the mere sight of him brings it. Yet fear cinches tight just behind it, the old reflex whispering: See? This is where the closeness tips. This is where the leaving starts. You try your very best to chase away the familiarity of this sight—your lover, face sad and longing, stood on your doorstep with I missed you poised on the tip of their tongue. You pray for him not to say it.

Viktor stops two paces in, as if gauging the blast radius. You register the smallest tell: shoulders rolled forward, guilt-furrow just beginning between his brows. He lifts the coffees an inch, a mute question—

Charlie, either saint or sadist, slaps a Post-it on your laptop—suspects—and retreats, closing the door with theatrical delicacy. The latch clicks; the silence blooms.

Before you know it, your hands are twitching, mouth mutters hollow apologies, excuses and questions, and your spine locks into a stiff pole. But Viktor is faster than any of this. Instead of answering, he kisses you, rolling ten days of absence between tongues. You are close to melting into it, into his coat smelling of wool and the street, but before your brain locks off hearing completely, it reaches you: “I missed you.”

The phrase that usually marks the beginning of an end in a scenario like this: you, overworked; the other side, disappointed. You push him away—gently—but your insides are churning. Saved by the bell, you pick up the ringing phone and can barely make yourself nod at the joyous update on the lights being found. In a brittle tone, you offer him Saturday and leave him hunched in your office.

You run through the corridors, bell ringing loudly between your ears. I missed you. You’ve heard it so many times. An argument past partners used for everything: for showing up when you can’t afford the loss of time. For calling Charlie or Mel when you wouldn’t pick up. For going through your phone, your emails. For asking dumb, accusatory questions about actors and producers. For turning your bedroom upside down looking for evidence. For leaving.

And Viktor is nowhere near venturing that far, still lingering on the weak bottom of that list. But what he’s done today—completely oblivious—is enter into the realm of people whose expectations you will never be able to fulfil.

Evening out your breath, you arrive where you are needed. And then, carry on. Through crisis after crisis, complaint after complaint, blisters upon blisters on your feet. You don’t get to wash your hair for the next two days, and spend the entire Wednesday at Young Vic, catching two hours of sleep drooling on your desk. Viktor doesn’t text first but sends you a smiley emoji that stares death at you from the screen when you confirm Saturday. It’s harrowing that you can’t bring yourself to tell him you miss him again. And you miss him and his heavy hands and his kind hands so fucking much your entire body aches.

Just as the shoemaker’s children go barefoot, you, the child of theatre, go without actually seeing the effects of your two weeks’ worth of extensive labour and skip the pre-premiere, opting instead on visiting Islington.

When you ring his doorbell, it’s with breath held tight in your throat. He lets you in after one buzz and doesn’t even bother to open the intercom line. In the elevator, you crack all your joints and scratch your neck furiously until the scraped epidermis feels uncomfortable under your fingernails.

His door is already open. And there, as usual, Viktor waits for you, head low, posture tentative. He blinks once, as if to steady the frame.

“Hi,” he says, soft, almost questioning. A beat—your bag slides off your shoulder, your mouth tips in the smallest smile.

Permission granted. He’s on you in a breath, arms winding tight, nose in your hair. The sound he makes isn’t a word, just that low ache of finally. You angle yourself to kiss him, and this time Viktor waits for your mouth to meet his first, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed to go this far.

“Hi yourself,” you tell him, brushing hair off his forehead. “How are you?”

“Eh, tired,” he says with a shrug. His lips press to the crown of your head when he mutters, “But glad you made it.”

He takes you to the kitchen to make tea, and you briefly wonder if he’s disinfected the table, though you suspect he hasn’t. When he takes the opposite seat, you instinctively curl your palms into loose fists against the wood, but Viktor still manages to brush your knuckles.

“So, how was your week?” he asks.

You sigh with your eyes closed and decide to tell him. It will serve as a solid groundwork for what you are about to offer. You tell him of all the late hours, what was solved and what remained a mess just for you to be forced to accept it; you tell him how the lights theft was no theft but a misplacement by the new crew, and how it backtracked you a few hours, how you’ve slept in your office, and how Charlie’s mother fed you the last ten days. How all of this doesn’t matter because the spectacle is happening right now as you speak, and when you left, everything looked great.

Viktor’s face reacts to everything you say with smiles, chuckles, worried glances and nods corresponding to the story beats. When you are done, he uncurls your fingers from the fist and laces them with his. And you do not know how, but Viktor seems to know exactly where this is going.

“What are you really saying here?” he asks carefully, eyes fixed on your joined hands.

It strikes you how he’s already sounding disappointed. You feel like you’re being catalogued and found lacking. Teeth worrying your lower lip, you look down and speak quietly, distrustful of your voice. “I think we should maybe regroup?”

And Viktor frowns. He clears his throat and adjusts himself in the chair. “Could I ask you to be clearer?” he says, matching your volume.

You are already tormented. His fingers are lead-heavy between yours. You exhale a shaky breath and start your rehearsed line: “I think the last two weeks have proven that I am not in a space to commit to something that would be fair on both sides.”

Viktor breathes heavily through his nose, visibly forcing himself to remain calm. He retreats his hand and leans back in the chair, giving you a look of being utterly unimpressed. “Could you be any more impersonal?”

“Viktor,” you chide, daring him, trying to reason. “Admit it, it was terrible. And it’s not something that is temporary. This is what my life looks like.”

He chuckles, incredulous. Gets up and begins a slow three-legged walk up and down the kitchen. “So, help me understand something here,” he says, “You would rather nip it in the bud instead of talking to me first and searching for a solution or a compromise?”

“Unless you are able to extend the day beyond twenty-four hours, I don’t see how I could compromise,” you mutter dismissively.

Silence, for a beat. He’s walked past you and stopped somewhere behind you. Then, the steps resume until he pauses by your side. “Is this happening because I came to visit you at work?”

Yes, you think. “No,” you lie through your fucking teeth.

But Viktor is too smart for this. He plays no games, abandons the concept of treading carefully. He looks you square in the eye and asks, “What are you so afraid of?”

You frown, mouth pulling sideways. “Nothing.” It's defensive, brittle. You pause, softening your voice, eyes flicking to him pleadingly. “Will you stop that? I am not saying we need to drop it completely—”

“Oh? Aren’t I lucky?” Viktor interrupts sharply, a cold note underlying the mockery. He leans, planting one hand flat on the table as if bracing himself against anger. His voice is tight, biting. “Should I be proud of myself for being so great in bed that you’re willing to come back for that, but nothing else?”

“Don’t be cruel,” you say, throat closing around the words. He scoffs, pushing himself up and walking a few uneven steps, creating distance. You rise instinctively, reach out—but your hand freezes mid-air. Voice lowering, you let the words fall out fast, hugging yourself in an attempt at comfort. “Please, trust me. I know how this ends. I've seen it, I've lived through it. You coming to my work was just the beginning. It'll get worse, and you'll end up resenting me.” You tighten the hold around your shoulders, voice dropping even quieter, almost inaudible. “It was good before. Easier. We can just—”

But Viktor doesn’t fall for it. His posture stiffens, spine snapping straight. “If you want it easy, you have to look elsewhere,” he says, voice dangerously controlled. When he speaks your name, it cuts through the room, pinning you in place as effectively as a hand around your throat. “Is that truly what you want?”

He turns then, eyes finding yours. His voice is hoarse, wounded, cracking open down the middle—and for the first time, you see clearly that he's afraid too. It’s there in the cave of his shoulders, in the startled, pleading depth of his eyes. And it hits you fully: you’re not the only person in this room with gnawing fear. Worse still, unknowingly, you've struck directly into the very core of Viktor’s.

“N-no, I’m just—”

You stare at him helplessly, while the language fails you once more. Your hands knot together, knuckles white, your breathing reduced to shallow, unsteady gasps. Viktor’s limit is approximately ten seconds of silence before he breaks it.

“What?” he spits the word out, short and sharp. His whole body leans toward you on the cane, tense, as if ready to seize the truth from your mouth.

The dread of being confronted mixes with pure peril of him seeing through this strange contraption around your chest, successfully deflating you of air. “Of course not, Viktor, I—” There’s a gasp, a hitch of breath so audible it’s like nails on a blackboard. “I just don’t know how to navigate this yet,” you blurt out, voice strained.

He inhales unevenly, and you sink deeper between your shoulders. “Before we—by a common agreement—” he says, limping past you, “decided that there is no point in calling it casual anymore, how many times have you slept in my bed, in my arms, snoring and drooling like you live here?”

He stops behind you, twists the cane into the floor and tilts his head in your direction. “How many tears have I wiped off your face? Have I ever disposed of you right after?” His tone is clipped, voice shaken by frustration.,

“No.” You stay drilled into your spot right where you stand. “You haven’t.”

“What is different then? Why is this harder than before?”

He stares at you like he’s searching for a crack to pour himself into, exasperated and—just beneath it—oh God, heartbroken.

“I don’t know,” You clutch at straws, at razors to the drowning, hands wringing the fabric of your shirt. “There is more expectations, more responsibility?” More risk, a bigger wound, a potential loss much more devastating than it would be before. So many thoughts—vulnerable and honest—bounce off each other in your head, yet none makes it to live out its life as meaningful confession.

“Is it?” he whispers, a haunted sound. “How?”

And there it comes. An absolutely ugly, vile thing crawls out before you can swallow it down. “Well, you… did come to my work.” You say, eyes cast down, ashamed of voicing it.

He scoffs, appalled. “I haven’t seen you in almost two weeks,” Viktor says, taking a step toward you. “I came to say hello. To bring you a coffee. To give you a kiss, is that so unthinkable?”

“Viktor,” you try your best to sound kind, “we both know you wanted more than a kiss and—”

He winces. You hate it. You feel it in your teeth, in your stomach. “How dare you.”

“What?” You blink at him, flinching back at the chill in his tone, bewildered.

“How dare you call me out on something like this. Have I not stopped immediately? Have you no sense of romance and courtship?” His voice cracks again, half anger, half perplexed hurt.

“Viktor, I was at work,” you say, trying to steady your voice, but it comes out too quick, words tumbling over each other. “Completely not in the headspace for romance and courtship, running on empty, trying to navigate complete chaos—” You swallow, hands clenching and unclenching at your sides. “And there you fucking pop in.” You hesitate, searching his face for any flicker of understanding. “It’s not romantic, it’s controlling.”

Even as it leaves you, heat blooms under your skin—shame prickling cheeks, voice trembling on the edge of something you can’t communicate properly, something enormous and heavy with fear.

His face is horrifying. He looks older. Mouth parted, eyes glassed over and reddening by degree. It wrenches your heart into a steel grip.

“Please tell me you are not being serious right now,” he whispers, sounding completely destroyed. His voice has the weight of a thousand silent disappointments, but he doesn’t look away.

And there is no way of explaining this anymore. You try, so desperately to be heard, but you miss each other by a glimpse of meaning. A small calamity. A gentle mistranslation of thought that wreaks disaster.

“Well, what is it if not a higher stake of expectations?” You slip out brittle, hands gripping the air as if you could wrestle sense into them.

Your name comes again—so pained it nearly slices you open. “I have told you,” he says, stepping closer, hand reaching for yours—determined to bridge the gap. “I am taking you as you are. I obviously made an awful mistake by coming to your work, but I promise it will not happen again. So what expectations are we talking here?” His thumb brushes your knuckles—there’s a tremor you’ve never felt before.

“I— Viktor,” you squeeze his palm, seeking anchor, “I’m just telling you… it is harder for me now. Before—it was… easier. God, I don’t know.” You pinch the bridge of your nose, squinting up at the ceiling, fighting the urge to bolt.

He leans in. It’s quiet, barely there, his breath mingling with yours. “Are you having second thoughts?” The question is soft, not accusing—terrified.

“No!” you snap, eyes wide, the denial flaring out of you. “No. Viktor I told you. I told you… first.”

“No,” he says, voice small, with the gentlest shake of his head. “I told you first. In my mind, first. Four weeks in,” he admits, and it’s benevolent and kind and awful. “Then cowardly, when you were asleep. Then, even more cowardly in a language you can’t understand, and all that while drunk.” A hollow chuckle, then: “But I… knew what I was afraid of. Why are you so scared now after you’ve been so brave with me?” He holds your gaze. He’s being brave now.

“I just… oh, it was so much simpler before. We just met and it was just the two of us, and now—” You trail off, speech dissolving.

“Let me make this clear then.” He straightens and clears his throat, your hand abandoned. “So you would rather step back—back into an arrangement where I cannot, under any circumstances, disturb your life. In which we pretend we don’t know each other in front of our friends. In which you’d rather have a horrible fuck in a car, than invite me in, yes?” There’s no malice in it, only exhaustion.

“N-no, I—I don’t know,” you stammer, defensive, desperate to find your footing. As the first shock of it passes, anger prickles your cheeks. “Why are you bringing this up? If it was so horrible, why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because—I had no idea how to show you that I am no threat to your independence.” Viktor’s voice is quiet. Each word accentuated with a thud of his cane against the tiles. “That I will only take as much as you are willing to give. That I am not a man who will ever tell you there is something in this world you cannot have.” A beat, and he lets his hand fall, almost helpless. “Besides. Would you invite me in then, if I stopped you?”

You stare at him, throat collapsed, lungs burning from holding it all in.

“I thought so.” He looks away, bitter. “What is it that you want then? No commitment? Just sex? Or, nothing?” His mouth barely moves, his voice rough as sandpaper.

“N-no.” You shake your head. “Of course not.”

“What do you need from me?” he presses.

“I don’t know.” You feel yourself shutting down, fear overriding reason.

Viktor’s jaw works as if chewing, determined not to let this become silence. “Not good enough.”

“Viktor, I can’t—” You’re out of air, of courage, of anything that could pull this conversation back from its edge.

Once more, it’s him taking a leap of faith. “Talk to me,” he says. “What is this poisonous emotion?” A hand, cold, cups your face, and Viktor rests his forehead against yours. “Lásko, please, talk to me. For fuck’s sake, it’s me. Whatever you say, I will never think badly of you. Please, tell me what is happening.”

But for you, it’s game over. Thoughts blend with one another and there are too many. All of them swell in your head, painful, and your throat clenches, making it impossible to move anything through.

Viktor closes his eyes like he’s praying. “I really, really need you to talk to me. Tell me what is wrong, so I can fix it. Darling, I beg you.”

It’s survival instinct now—lizard brain kicks in. The only language you are fluent in emerges from the bottomless pit—the one where mouths don’t speak. Where tongues are used to beg. It’s a mad kiss—deep, pleading. And for a moment you think Viktor understands it for what it is. His lips part for you and there is even the faintest sigh coming from him, until—

“Stop,” he protests, grabbing your wrist. “…stop this. Why won’t you talk to me?”

Trapped in the sympathetic response, all you can do is stare at him. It’s something between fight and freeze, where you are caught in a loop of actions. You try again—cup his face, pull him close, thumbs digging into the hollows of his cheeks, eyes squeezed shut as you attempt to pour meaning into gesture. The meaning being: that you want him. That you are sorry. That you love him, but you are scared.

And it splits you in two that today, Viktor doesn’t speak your language.

“Stop,” he breathes, voice shredded and helpless. He says it even as he lets you kiss him—allows you to try, for one final moment, to make everything right through touch.

His voice breaks down further, trembling. “Red,” he whispers so quietly you don’t catch it at first. “Red.”

The second one lands like a gunshot in a wasteland.

You freeze, lips hovering above his cheek. “You can’t… you can’t say red now,” you mumble like an idiot. Stunned, disgusted with yourself, you scan his face for an answer.

Viktor lets out a low, haunted chuckle. “This is not how you react when someone says red,” he manages, the sadness in it sour and metallic. “Please, I need to think.” He turns away from you, spine hunched as if he’s shrinking into himself.

“Viktor,” you gasp, tears welling. You reach for him, clutch at his arm, trying to make him turn back to you, but he halts you—his palm coming down firm and warm on your hand.

He says your name, sound both steady and drained. “This is enough. Go home. Please.” His eyes stay locked on the floor, jaw set, refusing to look at you.

A stunned silence settles in the space between you, then: “No. No, Viktor, I beg you, don’t leave it like this,” you plead, clawing at his shirt. The sobs come raw and uncontained.

“This won’t work now,” he mutters, shoulders hulking sullen. “I said… red, I said red.” His voice cracks, rising and breaking, and he sounds so lost it makes your heart skewer. You see the tear slip down his cheek before he can wipe it away.

“Viktor, please. I love you, please,” you say, as if it could patch what’s come undone.

He pulls away, voice suddenly firmer—final. “Stop.” He turns to you then, and you see it all—the red of his eyes, the sag of his shoulders, how utterly crestfallen he is, how bereft. “This is not what I want. I don’t want you to tell me you love me because you are frightened. Don’t you think I deserve better?”

He takes a shuddering breath, holding your gaze for just a heartbeat longer before turning away. “Please, leave me. I will call you, I promise.”

“Why do you want me to go?” you whisper, almost too quietly for it to reach him.

“Because I’m… hurt,” he manages, ragged and thin.

“Viktor—” Your own voice fractures, pain lancing through you like a tumorous growth of a second spine.

“Please.” He sounds so tired. “Let this breathe. Go home.”

You stand there, for a moment, waiting for a reprieve—a miracle, a change of heart—but it never comes. Viktor just shakes his head, one hand gripping his cane like a lifeline, the other pressed to his mouth. Today is the day you thought would never come. The day in which stay has turned into go. As you pick up your shoes and shut the door behind you, you realise the sodden, pathetic stay was always brave. That his heart was always full of valour for the both of you. And now you are running home like a coward, cursing every time you rolled your eyes at his stay.

—

Gross’ final complaint is literally: “Goodness! So much fuss about three little words!” (Clasps fire extinguisher in his arms and leaves) – which to me is incredibly funny, because even though he is talking about Ptydepe, the “I love you,” is also just three little words with a lot of fuss around them :’)

[hhhwnr]

ꨄInk-stained affection — S.R

masterlist + navigation

genre: fluff/mutual pinning word count: 1,1k

pairing: post prison!Spencer Reid x sunshine!reader

warnings: brief mentions of prison.

summary: Some things are easier to write than say. Especially when he has forgotten how to say anything at all. But you were patient—and paper listens just as well as you do.

author’s note: post prison!Spence is my beloved. I’m new to writing on Tumblr and in English (which isn’t my first language), so please be kind. I’m open to suggestions or feedback, as long as it’s respectful :)

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

It started with a journal — not as some grand romantic gesture, but something quieter, simpler, something that didn’t demand too much. After prison, words weren’t easy for Spencer, not in the way they used to be. He still talked, of course, still rambled sometimes about quantum theory or 18th-century handwriting, but even those rambles were slower now, more deliberate, like each word had to be checked and weighed before leaving his mouth. Conversation felt like walking across a rope bridge in the wind — possible, but uncertain — and some days, no matter how much he wanted to connect, the space between thoughts and speech felt too wide to cross. So you didn’t ask him to talk. You just left a blank notebook on the edge of his desk one afternoon, nothing fancy, just a soft-covered journal with a post-it on top that read: In case speaking feels too loud today. You didn’t expect him to use it, but two days later it reappeared on your chair, opened to a page written in small, careful handwriting: Do you want to get coffee after work? That was all. But it was enough.

Over time, the journal stopped being just a bridge and became a home for the quiet parts of your connection—the kind of things too soft or too strange to say out loud. You took turns without rules, slipping it into desk drawers or messenger bags like a secret waiting to be found. Sometimes it was practical—grocery lists, book club notes, flight times for a shared case. Other times it was tender: a pressed flower from a walk you’d taken apart but thought of each other during; a doodle of his cardigan draped over your chair with a tiny “missing you” written in the pocket; a smudged coffee ring beside a scribbled line of poetry neither of you could quite finish. It was a slow, careful accumulation of small things—anecdotes, quotes, quiet thoughts in the margins. You looked tired today, but beautiful still. I thought of you when I saw a crow with a limp. This passage reminded me of the way you fidget with your sleeves. The kind of notes you don’t say aloud in case they sound too big or too honest, but that, written down, felt just right.

Spencer stared at the open page for a long time before writing anything. The journal sat between his hands like it always did—familiar, worn at the corners, faintly smelling of lavender and ink. He tapped the pen against the edge of the paper, like the rhythm could pull the words out of him. He’d written so much in this journal—facts and fragments and safe little glimpses of affection—but this felt different. This felt like crossing some invisible line he wasn’t sure he could uncross.

Still, he wrote.

You were humming in the elevator today. I didn’t know the tune, but it stayed with me all day. I think that’s what love does sometimes—slips in without a sound, nestles between your ribs, and makes a home there before you’ve even noticed.

I used to think of you when I was still inside. Not often at first. Just… little things. Your voice in meetings. The way you held a pen. How you always had a hair tie on your wrist, even when your hair was up. I think I was clinging to whatever felt normal, whatever reminded me that the world was still going even if I wasn’t really in it. But somewhere in those small, quiet thoughts, you became a kind of comfort. A light that wasn’t too bright, but steady. Familiar. You were one of the few things I let myself keep.

And now, here you are. Reading my bad handwriting, correcting my book quotes, drawing ridiculous doodles in the margins like it’s your full-time job. And I still don’t always have the words when I need them. Even when I talk, it’s slower now. Softer. I second-guess things I never used to. But you never make me feel like I have to perform. You listen like it’s second nature. Like I’m worth listening to. And that… that does something to a person.

So I guess I’m writing it here, because I still don’t trust my voice not to tremble: I am in love with you. Tell me in ink.

The next morning, he brought you coffee—your favorite, made exactly how you liked it, which he somehow always remembered even when he forgot to eat lunch or where he last put his keys. He didn’t say much, just set the mug beside your hand and lingered there a moment longer than usual. The notebook followed, placed gently on top of the folder you’d been reviewing, its familiar spine worn soft. He didn’t look at you when he left it there—just gave a quiet little tap against the cover with two fingers and mumbled something about paperwork. But his ears were pink, and you could swear he smiled when your hand brushed his knuckles in thanks.

He didn’t expect it back so soon.

But there it was, sitting neatly on his desk that afternoon like it had been waiting for him all along. The cover still smelled faintly like your hand cream—coconut and something citrusy—and there was a tiny yellow post-it stuck to the front, a smiling sun doodled in the corner. He opened to the next blank page and found your familiar handwriting, looping and full of warmth.

Spence, I read your note three times. Not because I didn’t believe it—but because I wanted to feel it over and over again. You don’t know what it means to me that you let me into your heart like that.

I think I’ve loved you in small ways for a while now—like how I always look for your face first in a crowded room, or how I find myself smiling when I see your name on my phone. It didn’t hit me all at once. It was like the warmth of the sun sneaking through a window on a cold day—soft, unexpected, and completely impossible to ignore.

And even if you’d never said it, I think I still would’ve kept writing to you. Because even before I loved you, I liked you so very much. And being liked by you in return? That’s already one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

So… meet me after work? You can tell me in words this time. I’ll bring your favorite muffins. You bring that smile I like.

And there it was—at the bottom of the page, a soft lipstick mark, right where your signature might have gone.

Spencer let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, his fingertips tracing the edge of the page like he could hold the feeling steady just a little longer.

He couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the day.

Thank you for reading ♥︎

[uhhhj13iguess]

the boy in apartment 5B

peter parker x gn!reader

summary: in the aftermath of the world forgetting about peter parker, peter finds himself wanting to let someone in again for the first time in months

wc: ~1.8k

omg okay i got permission to write a fic entirely based on a headcanon headcanons.foru wrote on tiktok, and i was fucking obsessed with it the second i read it. leighton, your work is beautiful, and i thank you for letting me run with this and flesh it out. some of the language is directly from their tiktok, so please go watch it! they’re the mastermind behind this bad boy, not me. i've been so afraid to write anything post nwh because it is devastatingly sad, and i don't like to acknowledge that my sweet boy peter is out there alone, forgotten, and miserably sad. but the hc was just so pure and sweet, and i had to expand on it

masterlist and taglist!

later in the winter months, you met your new neighbor, a meek brunette who moved into the apartment down the hall. you couldn't get much of a read on him, as all you'd exchanged were soft smiles and quiet greetings when passing through the halls.

there was no recognition as you passed him each day, no knowledge of spider-man or his extensive history. of everything he'd been through. it was just genuine human interaction, and as he began to catch onto that, it grew to mean everything to him. you only knew him as peter, the guy with tired eyes and messy hair who lived two doors down from you. you were a fresh start, and that both excited and terrified peter.

you found him sitting outside the building one day, visibly shivering and nose bright red. he was clearly upset, a day's worth of more trauma he could add to the list you knew nothing about. you swore his cheek had a soft yellow tinge to it, like a bruise almost healed.

peter flinched as he saw you approach him, not wanting to explain what he was doing sitting in the cold alone. you gave him a soft smile, a quick 'hey peter' as you passed and headed inside. he was both relieved and disappointed as you let him be, thankful to not have to explain himself, but feeling himself grow sad as you left him.

you didn't leave him for long, though, as minutes later you walked outside and took a seat next to him on the steps. you passed him a bowl, steam heavy between the two of you from the fresh soup you'd brought down for him. he took in in his hands with a confused look.

"i thought you might be cold out here. grandma's recipe," you motioned towards the bowl in his hands. "chicken dumpling. a great cure for whatever ails you."

the tone of whatever had weight to it, like you were referencing his emotional state without prying. he didn't say much, just staring down at the soup in his hands with his eyebrows furrowed. you left him with another soft smile, headed back inside for the evening.

he took a hesitant bite, not wanting to believe that his cute neighbor down the hall would poison him, but not trusting anyone around him at this point. after the flavors hit his tongue and his stomach blossomed with warmth, however, he'd be happy to go out this way, he thought.

he went inside that night with a little more strength than he'd left with.

later the next day, there was a soft knock at your door. you gave a 'comin!' as peter heard you run through your apartment, laughing quietly to himself as he heard you trip and mutter a string of curse words. you opened the door, a surprised look on your face as you saw peter in front of you, your bowl in his hands, empty and washed.

he held it out carefully, a genuine but tired smile on his lips. "thank you. it really does cure whatever ails you."

you gave him a playful smile back, a meek 'anytime' dancing on your tongue.

that moment was the starting point of your friendship with him, an invitation on both ends to reach out more. peter didn't want to admit it to himself yet; he couldn't, but you made him feel safe. everything about you put him at ease after a long day, after the weight of the world and the consequences of his decisions threatened to pull him under.

he started to show up at your apartment in the evenings, excited for a break from reality and to hear the adventures of your days. food became a silent peace offering between the two of you, an endless supply of sweet treats and warm soups traded on the harshest days, no words exchanged as you ate with him in silence, an occasional comment on how good everything tasted. words weren't needed with you, he didn't need to explain himself. he didn't need to justify his feelings or why he was suddenly being so weird and distant. you just let him be, and peter couldn't express how grateful he was for that.

over time, peter felt himself falling for you, and it terrified him to his core. he was so awkward with getting close to people now, scared to death of losing anyone else in his life. he fumbled his way through every part of falling for you: texts with too many emojis, stuttering his way through compliments, awkwardly hovering before asking if you wanted to hang out. but he was trying, and that surprised him.

he fought it for a while, his feelings for you. he cursed himself, angry that he was getting close to someone again. but he wanted to. he wanted to be close to you so badly. so after weeks of fighting it, he began to break down. to let you in. and it was messy. it was messy, and it was awkward, but it was real. he was trying, and you started to see some of his softness beneath all his scarring.

peter started to find any excuse he could to be around you, becoming your own personal handyman when you needed him. you didn't even have to ask. hell, half the time, you hadn't even noticed the issue yet. dripping faucet? he's on it. flickering light? he replaced the bulb and even bought it himself. he shrugs it off each time you thank him, bashful in your appreciation towards him. he did whatever he could for you, wanting to be a positive force in someone's life for once. he didn't even tell you how he scaled the side of your building the other day to fix your window that wouldn't fully shut. not that he could, without giving himself away anyway.

sometimes when you were talking to him or laughing, peter would go quiet. not a distant or sad quiet, but almost reverent. he would get so completely lost in you, so utterly entranced in your very being that it took all the words from his mouth. he didn't know how he managed to cross paths with you, how he managed to be blessed with someone so wonderful in his life after all he'd done, but over time, he stopped questioning it, rather soaking it up instead.

he was scared to let you in — how could he not be? but no matter how hard he tried, peter just couldn't stay away from you. he avoided many of the personal questions you asked him, the ones about his family, friends, or his past. you noticed, but you didn't pry, and peter appreciated that more than you could ever know. he wanted to let you in, to repay you for everything you'd done for him and all you've told him about yourself, but he didnt know how. he didn't know how to explain a life full of erased memories and unbearable losses.

but as time passed, he did. he'd catch himself accidentally lost in telling a story about may, eyes wide and mouth hung open as he realized what he was talking about. you gave him a smile, one so wide and excited that he hadn't seen before, as you patiently sat and waited for him to continue. he was flushed, almost embarrassed for how caught up he was over a story that he wouldn't have thought twice about telling a few months ago.

slowly, it became easier for him. he didn't tell you everything, but he began to let himself grieve his lost loved ones through the stories he told you. and you listened. you listened with such respect for him, peter almost thought it was laughable. because all he was talking about was a joke tony had told him once, but it was hard for him to get out, and you were so patient with him as he spoke. he fell quiet, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he nervously laughed to himself. he told you how he'd lost more than he ever thought possible, and instead of asking for more information or shrugging him off, you just sat in a comfortable silence with him, your hand hesitantly on his.

that was another thing peter hadn't prepared for: touch. sure, he'd still been spider-man since everything happened, but there was a difference in the physical combat with criminals and the kind touches you gave him. whether it was a gentle hand on his arm as he spoke or a goodbye hug, each time, he didn't know how to handle it. his eyes would go wide, his breath caught in his throat. it had been a long time since someone touched him like that — not to heal, not to hurt, but just to be close. it made him nervous, but for the first time in a while, it was a good nervous.

when he realized he was fully and utterly in love with you, peter was so afraid. but his fear made him so gentle with you, treating you as though you were made of glass. he stared at you like you were made of stardust, a personal cosmic miracle standing before him. he held doors for you, buying an umbrella (which he'd never owned in his life) so he could make sure you'd never get caught wet in the rain again. he would give you his hoodie whenevr the weather grew shitty, even if it left him shivering.

and you noticed each small thing he did for you, from his handywork around your apartment to each gesture he made towards your comfort. you returned your appreciation in your own ways, leaving him little notes at his doorstep each morning to get him through the hard days, baking him treats, even going out of your way to pick up random junk electronics you saw out on your walks.

peter fell for you quickly, but you fell quicker, infatuated with him as soon as you realized just how much he hid to protect everyone around him. and when you kiss him for the first time, a kiss so soft and slow it was healing, you could feel part of him relax for the first time since you'd met him. you sat with your foreheads pressed together, a smile laced on your lips, and tangled in his own.

you pulled back enough to meet his eyes, your voice a gentle whisper. "whatever you're carrying, whatever hurt you're holding onto... you don't have to carry it alone anymore."

and for the first time in forever, he believed it.

taglist: guineveresghost nyutasgirl extremebookreader iamacheezburger

[strawberryg-cake]

Bond | Tighnari x Reader.

✦ Category: Fluff, friends to lovers, kind of soul mates...?

✦ Warnings: includes +18 content, so if you are a minor, skip this one pls ♡.

✧. ┊   やほ～( ≧∀≦)ノ. How are you doing dearest reader?, I haven't post something about Tighnari for so long, it was his turn this time, this one doesn't includes a drabble unfortunately but it's quite a long one. I hope you like it.

Enjoy! ✦

✧. ┊    "How does it feel to be Tighnari's mate?"

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

❀ He found out it was you a bit too early... You were a new friend he made because your father visited the village he was from, doing some research and bringing you along to spend the spring there.

❀ Poor guy had his first heat sometime between 16 and 17 and ran off into the forest. You spent the whole night searching for him with his parents. When you finally found him, he just pulled you into his arms, wrapping them around you automatically, overwhelmed... But when your scent filled his lungs, his whole body suddenly relaxed. His ears pinned back, and his heavy breathing finally slowed...

❀ "Shut..." Tighnari murmured, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. "I wasn’t going to say anything..." You whispered back, hugging him without quite understanding what was happening.

❀ When his parents found you two? Under a tree, him holding you like you were his savior, his tail lazily swaying as if he’d finally found the cure to all his troubles, he calmed down... His mom knew, of course she did.

❀ But he never told you, even after going to the Akademiya together. For Tighnari, for his kind, finding a mate was a once-in-a-lifetime thing — no turning back.

❀ You were slowly learning how things worked for him... especially during one of your visits to Grandharva Ville, when he let you borrow one of his books about hybrid species. You found the one about him a bit too detailed... purposely, of course.

❀ And when you finally chose him back? Tighnari pretended it wasn’t a big deal, but you saw how his fluffy, pretty tail wagged excitedly, and his big, characteristic ears curved slightly toward you.

❀ Oh yes, bonding means he’d need to scent and physically mark you... he might leave a tiny mark on your neck. The scent part... well...

❀ Tighnari is a man with control. He would never do anything to make you uncomfortable or without your permission. But the moment you’re his, he can’t help hugging you tightly, then kissing you... then worshipping you with his gaze until, awkwardly and shyly, he might ask, “Is it bad... if you stay the night...?”

❀ Long story short, you stayed. He loved every second — from teasing to kisses, from kisses to slow touches, until finally… clothes ended up on the floor next to the bed.

❀ He may... or may not, knot... Just saying.

❀ He’s always aware of your well-being, not just because you’ve been his crush forever, but because that’s just who he is. Sharp tongue, sassy... and deeply caring in his own way. So when you two made things official, he made sure to take even better care of you.

❀ He notices if you skip meals, if you’ve drunk enough water, or if you’re uncomfortable... He sometimes fights the urge to do things for you because he knows you’re capable, but he loves you so much, he just can’t help it.

❀ Tighnari has sharp senses. But your scent? He picks up everything through it — not like he’s obsessed or anything, though his tail does twitch when you walk past... No, he’d never admit that. Still, he notices how your scent changes with your mood, your health, and all that.

❀ If you ask him privately, “How’s my scent?” he’ll stop writing, look at you, close his eyes, and sniff. An unconscious, pleasant smile will tug at his lips. “You smell like raw honey and flowers.” You blink, surprised. “That’s... pretty specific.” He opens his eyes, looks straight into yours, then drops, “Want to know how it changes during your ovulation?” You.exe stops working — totally flustered. Did he do that on purpose? Of course he did.

❀ Speaking of ovulation — now that you’re his mate, he keeps his distance during that part of your cycle. For his own sanity, really. The scent becomes intoxicating, messes with his mind, and makes him want to lock you both in his room. Not just to cuddle, uh.

❀ Remember heat and mating season...? Yeah, good luck. Tighnari will warn you to keep your distance even days before because he knows what’s coming. He has control — he’s not an animal, after all — but he’s never been in heat while mated to you. “Come on... it can’t be that bad, right?” you say innocently, thinking of his past heat seasons when he isolated himself but mostly controlled it. “Yeah, sure, it can’t be that bad,” he replies sarcastically, then drops the bomb: “Not like I’d want to keep you in my bed and make you unable to walk for a whole week.” You? Malfunctioning again.

❀ You — stubborn and head over heels — show up in his bedroom anyway. He’s flustered, trying to handle it, but seeing you there makes his pupils swallow the bicolor green-brown of his eyes, his ears pin back, his tail flicks, and you swear he’s about to pounce on you like you’re his prey. “I hate you...” he whispers, exhaling sharply. “No, you don’t. Come here, at least let me hug you.”

❀ You hug him... then kiss him. When he finally asks for permission — because even at his most primal, he asks — and you say yes, he lets go. Girl, he knows all your sensitive spots and will use them against you, sassy and teasing... because that’s Tighnari's soul.

❀ Next day? You’re sore and can barely get out of bed, while he’s shining. Not like he just made you unable to walk; you’d swear the fur on his ears and tail looks softer.

❀ Tighnari loves to cuddle. His tail will wrap around your thigh or waist, pulling you closer. His arms wrap around you, and he falls asleep like that. Sometimes he lets you be the big spoon... sometimes, when he needs comfort.

❀ One day, he pins his ears down and hides his face under your oversized t-shirt, resting on your belly. You hear his breath ease out, and yep — he falls asleep there.

❀ Tighnari purrs... but if you point it out, he’ll deny it. You can’t make him admit it.

❀ Cyno jokes about you two being mated. For his own nightmare, you join him in endless bad jokes. “Archons, what am I paying for?” he says one night at the table, pulling his ears down, while Collei just giggles.

❀ You’re the only one allowed to touch his tail. Ears? He might let Collei once, but that fluffy tail? Only you.

❀ He loves your cooking, but be kind — don’t make it too spicy for him.

❀ Tighnari gently bites you... yep, those little love nibbles on your shoulder, sometimes on your neck.

❀ His canines are sharper... no changing my mind about that.

❀ He can be a bit possessive... but he keeps it under control. Still, you notice how he acts when someone gets too touchy with you, and that sharp tongue of his comes to your rescue.

[luciemggio]

The Girl Who Smiled at Me

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Setting: Brooklyn, Present Day, Post-Endgame

Warnings: soft and non explicit smut

Summary: A quiet girl with a warm smile teaches Bucky Barnes how to love—and stay.

The first time Bucky saw her, she was humming.

Not loudly—just soft, like something private she didn’t mind sharing. A worn-down jazz tune, like it came from somewhere far away and golden. She was standing outside the apartment next to his, juggling her keys, a tote bag, and a paper coffee cup that was too full and already leaking through the lid.

She saw him and beamed.

“Hi! You must be the new neighbor. I’m in 3B.”

He blinked, one hand tightening on the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder. It was too early. His brain wasn’t online yet, not for this.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “3C.”

She stuck out her hand, the one not holding the coffee. “Well, hello, 3C. I’m Y/N.”

He hesitated. Then, slowly, he shook her hand. Her fingers were warm. And soft. Like kindness in physical form.

“Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you, Bucky. Let me know if you need anything. I’ve lived here a while—I know which laundry machines eat quarters and which ones make your socks smell like weird mint.”

She grinned at him like she’d known him forever.

He stared.

And nodded.

And retreated into his apartment like she was a wildfire.

After that, she made a habit of saying hi every morning.

He’d leave his apartment at 7:30, head down to the park for a run, trying to keep the ghosts quiet with rhythm and sweat. And every morning, like clockwork, she’d be there—getting her mail, locking her door, chatting with a neighbor’s dog.

“Morning, Bucky!”

He grunted the first few times. Then he gave a half-nod. Then a full nod. Then, one cursed morning, he actually said “Morning” back.

She looked like he’d handed her flowers.

He couldn’t stop watching her.

She was… warm. And weird. She laughed a lot—big, belly-deep laughs, even when she was alone. She wore paint-splattered overalls sometimes and sang in the hallway when she thought no one could hear. She helped the old woman on the first floor with her groceries every Wednesday and brought her own Tupperware down to share leftovers.

She made the building feel… safe.

And he hated how much he started waiting for her.

Then came the Tuesday with the muffin.

She knocked on his door. Actually knocked. He was in sweats and a t-shirt, still damp from his post-run shower, hair curling slightly at the ends.

When he opened the door, she was standing there holding a muffin on a tiny plate.

“Banana walnut,” she said, smile hopeful. “Made them last night and immediately thought of you. You look like a banana-walnut guy.”

He blinked at her. “Do I?”

She shrugged. “You have that ‘I don’t eat sugar but secretly love it’ look.”

He stared. Then—God help him—he laughed. Just a low sound from deep in his chest.

She looked a little stunned. “Was that…? Was that a laugh?”

“Maybe.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, delighted. “Well, miracles do happen.”

He took the plate. Their fingers brushed. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, softer now. “Let me know if you want more. I make a mean pumpkin bread.”

He started looking for her after that.

He tried not to. He told himself it was nothing. But his mornings felt… lighter when she waved at him, her hair pulled up, earbuds in, dancing a little at her door. She smelled like cinnamon and rosemary. She made bad puns and good coffee.

And one night, when he came home after a long walk and saw her sitting on the front steps reading a book, he sat down beside her.

Without a word.

Just… sat there.

She blinked in surprise, then offered him half her bag of trail mix without asking.

He took it.

And they sat in comfortable silence for almost an hour, the sounds of the city moving around them like water.

Their first real conversation happened by accident.

She was struggling to carry a box of books up the stairs. He saw her from the second floor and immediately started down.

“You don’t have to—” she started to say, but he took the box from her arms anyway.

“It’s heavy.”

“So am I. Doesn’t mean I’m impossible to carry.”

He snorted before he could help it. “You always talk like this?”

“Only when nervous or around very attractive men who could kill me with one arm.”

He faltered mid-step. She froze.

Then they both burst out laughing.

It felt… good. Real. Like something he’d lost long ago and didn’t know how to find again.

He didn’t ask her out for a long time.

He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But what did he have to offer? A broken past, a hundred pounds of guilt, nights filled with nightmares and silence. What if she saw too much? What if she saw the soldier and not the man?

But she never looked at him like that.

She looked at him like he was here. Now. Human.

And one night, as they stood in the laundry room folding towels and she told him a story about a raccoon that stole her sandwich in Central Park, he finally said—

“There’s this jazz bar. In Brooklyn. Small place. I used to go before… everything.”

She blinked. Then smiled.

“Are you asking me out, Barnes?”

“I’m trying.”

Her grin widened. “Then you’re doing great.”

The jazz bar was low-lit, tucked between two shops that had long since closed for the night. The stage was small. The chairs were mismatched. But the saxophone player was brilliant and the drinks were strong and she looked like heaven in a navy dress with stars on it.

Bucky couldn’t stop looking at her.

“You okay?” she asked after the second song, her voice barely audible over the music.

He nodded. “I just haven’t done this in a long time.”

“Gone on a date?”

“…Yeah.”

She leaned forward, hand resting lightly on his. “Me neither.”

There was a beat of silence. Then she added, “You picked a great place. This feels like something out of a memory.”

He looked at her, and something in his chest tightened. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’s what I wanted.”

They sipped their drinks, shared stories. He told her about growing up in Brooklyn, the food carts, the stoop where he kissed a girl for the first time. She told him about her mom’s record collection, the way jazz always felt like home to her.

“I used to dance in the living room,” she said, laughing. “Badly. Still do, actually.”

He smiled. “I’d like to see that.”

“Oh, you will. But not unless you promise to dance too.”

He shook his head, grinning into his drink. “I’m a hundred and six years old, sweetheart. My dancing days are over.”

She leaned closer. “That sounds like a challenge.”

And later, when the music slowed and the lights dimmed, he let her pull him onto the tiny dance floor. His hand settled on her waist. Her fingers laced through his. Their bodies moved, swaying, quiet and close.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Bucky didn’t feel like a man made of pieces.

He felt whole.

Afterward, on the walk home, she slipped her hand into his.

He squeezed it gently. “Thanks for saying yes.”

She smiled. “Thanks for asking.”

Then she turned to him, eyes shimmering under the streetlight, and said, “You don’t have to be perfect, Bucky. Just… let me be near you. That’s all I want.”

He didn’t reply.

He just leaned in.

And kissed her.

Soft. Steady. Like it was the first step toward something he hadn’t dared hope for.

Something warm.

Something human.

Something real.

And then it started with a text.

[7:04 a.m.]

You: Morning, Sarge. Coffee on the roof later?

[7:06 a.m.]

Bucky: Sure. I’ll bring muffins.

[7:07 a.m.]

You: Aren’t YOU the domestic dream.

[7:07 a.m.]

Bucky: Don’t push it.

She laughed at her phone, still curled in bed, the sunlight creeping through her blinds like golden fingers. He was learning how to tease her now. How to loosen the gravel in his voice. She could feel the shift—something unfurling in him. Something fragile and warm and real.

The rooftop of their building was nothing special—concrete floor, a crooked lawn chair someone left in the spring, two old crates posing as a table. But to her, it was peace.

And when Bucky stepped through the creaky door with a small paper bag in one hand and two mismatched mugs in the other, she felt her chest tighten like a secret.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.”

He handed her the coffee. Still hot. Just the way she liked it—cream, two sugars. He remembered.

“You really brought muffins?” she asked, leaning against the ledge.

He sat beside her, legs stretched out, boots scuffing the rooftop. “I bribed the guy at the bakery with a story about my grandma.”

She grinned. “Was it true?”

“Not even close. But he liked it.”

She took a bite and made a sound so content that it made Bucky look away, jaw tight.

“God,” she said, mouth still full, “I think I’d marry you for this muffin alone.”

He glanced sideways at her, quiet for a second. “That’s dangerous talk.”

Her smile faded just a little. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes soft now. “I might believe you.”

The air stretched between them like a string pulled tight. She reached for his hand—not the metal one, the other. His fingers twitched, then relaxed into hers.

“I like being around you,” she said quietly.

He looked down at their hands. “You’re the first person who’s made me feel like I can just… be.”

“With me, you don’t have to pretend,” she said, brushing her thumb along his knuckle. “Not ever.”

Their second date happened four days later.

He knocked on her door with a cautious smile and a bouquet of wildflowers that looked like they came from the corner market—imperfect and cheerful.

“You brought me flowers?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

“I thought that’s what people do,” he said, awkwardly holding them out. “I haven’t exactly done this in—well. Ever.”

She took them, brushing her fingers along the stems. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” A beat. “You look… wow.”

She laughed. “That’s not a full sentence, Barnes.”

He stared, earnest. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

He took her to a quiet Italian place tucked between a bookstore and a tattoo shop. The lights were low, candles flickering on the tables, and a pianist in the corner played songs older than both of them.

Halfway through dinner, as she twirled her pasta, she looked up and asked, “Can I ask you something kind of serious?”

He paused, setting his fork down. “Yeah.”

“What scares you the most?”

Bucky went still.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That was too much.”

“No,” he said softly. “No, it’s not.”

He stared at the candle between them for a moment. “I’m scared that if someone really knows me—the real me, all the darkness, all the history—they’ll walk away. Or worse… they’ll stay and regret it.”

Her eyes didn’t waver. “Do you regret sitting here with me?”

He looked at her then—really looked. “No. Not even for a second.”

“Then trust me when I say this,” she said gently, leaning closer. “You don’t scare me. Not even a little.”

Later, walking her back to her apartment, he was quiet. Reflective.

They stopped outside her door, and she looked up at him with soft eyes.

“Would you… want to come in for a while?” she asked, unsure.

He hesitated. Not because he didn’t want to. But because the offer felt like more than just a casual invitation—it felt like trust. And he didn’t want to ruin it.

“Not tonight,” he said quietly. “But soon.”

She nodded, understanding. “Okay.”

He reached out then, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. “Can I kiss you?”

She smiled. “You never have to ask.”

He kissed her gently. Slowly. One hand on her waist, the other in her hair. Like he was afraid she’d disappear if he held too tightly. But she didn’t. She kissed him back, hands gripping the front of his jacket, grounding him.

And when he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers, he whispered, “You make me feel like I’m allowed to want things again.”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Then want me.”

That night, he didn’t sleep.

Not from nightmares this time—but from hope.

A slow, quiet hope that crept in through the cracks she’d made in his walls.

It had been two weeks since their second date.

Two weeks since she’d kissed him in her doorway, breathless and trembling, whispering “Then want me.”

Two weeks of quiet rooftop coffees, warm glances across the hallway, hands brushing in elevators, dinner in sweatpants, long walks in silence, and hearts learning how to breathe again.

She didn’t push.

And he… showed up. More and more.

In small ways—like remembering how she took her tea, texting her when the moon was full because he knew she loved it, walking her dog when she had a bad day.

But also in the way he’d look at her now—like she was a lighthouse and he was tired of drowning.

Tonight, she was curled up on the couch, her apartment dimly lit by string lights and a sleepy jazz record playing in the background. She wore one of his sweatshirts—he’d left it there a few days ago “by accident”—and it smelled like him. Like cedarwood and old leather and something deeper.

There was a knock at the door.

When she opened it, Bucky stood there, hands in his jacket pockets, wind-flushed cheeks, hair damp from the misting rain.

“Hey,” he said softly.

She blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know,” he said, glancing down. “Can I come in?”

She stepped aside, heart already thudding. “Of course.”

He paced a little in the entryway, wet boots leaving small prints on the rug. She waited, giving him space. He didn’t need questions—he needed stillness.

Finally, he turned toward her, eyes darker than usual.

“I was gonna walk past,” he said. “I told myself I’d just walk by, clear my head. But my feet stopped at your door.”

Her brows knit gently. “What were you thinking about?”

He hesitated. Then: “You.”

She waited.

“I can’t stop thinking about how you looked that night,” he said. “The jazz bar. That stupid little smile you gave me when you took my hand across the table. The way you kissed me like I was something worth loving.”

His voice caught.

She moved closer. “Bucky…”

He looked up at her with a kind of desperation. “I don’t want to go home tonight.”

Her breath hitched.

“Not because I want to rush this,” he added quickly. “But because when I’m not near you, I feel like I’m somewhere wrong.”

Her heart cracked open like a sun through clouds.

“Then stay,” she said gently. “Please.”

He kissed her like he’d been holding his breath for years.

There was no rush—only heat, and longing, and deep, reverent need. The kind of kiss that said thank you for waiting. The kind of kiss that left her toes curled and her fingers trembling in his hair.

She pulled back just enough to whisper, “Are you sure?”

He touched her cheek, nodding. “Only if you are.”

“I’ve been sure,” she breathed. “Since the first time you smiled at me. Even if it took you a month to do it.”

He laughed—just a quiet breath—but it was full of something sacred.

In her bedroom, he was slow. Gentle. As if every inch of her was something to discover, not conquer. He took his time—removing her clothes like unwrapping a gift, kissing her shoulder, her collarbone, her stomach.

“Tell me if I go too fast,” he whispered.

“You’re not,” she said, pulling him down to her. “You’re perfect.”

She touched every scar. Every inch of metal and skin. Not with pity—but with love.

When he was finally inside her, it wasn’t frantic. It was full. It was everything.

Their hands tangled. Mouths found each other again and again. His metal fingers dug into the pillow beside her head while his other hand clung to her hip, grounding him.

“You feel like home,” he whispered into her skin, breath shuddering.

Her eyes welled. “Then stay with me. Just stay.”

He kissed her, and when they came undone, it was together—quiet, trembling, like prayer.

Later, he lay beside her, head on her bare chest, arm wrapped tight around her waist.

“I’ve never made love like that before,” he murmured.

She smiled against his hair. “That’s because you never let someone love you first.”

He looked up, blue eyes soft and open.

“Is that what this is?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, Bucky. That’s exactly what this is.”

He pressed his forehead to her collarbone, letting out a long breath.

“I’m not used to being wanted like this.”

“Well,” she whispered, kissing his temple, “get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t sleep much that night—not because of nightmares, but because she held him, warm and naked and real, and for the first time in forever, he felt safe enough to stay.

And he did.

The room was still.

Early morning light filtered through the sheer curtains, casting soft gold across the floor and the sheets tangled at the foot of the bed. The air smelled like skin and sleep, the ghost of last night still lingering in the quiet.

Bucky stirred first.

He didn’t open his eyes right away. He just… felt.

Warmth.

A soft weight against his chest — her. Legs tangled with his. Her hand resting just above his heart. Her cheek pressed over it like she was listening.

And then he remembered.

Every second. Every breath.

Her hands on him, steady and kind. Her body underneath his, welcoming, trusting. Her voice whispering his name like it meant something.

It did. To her, it did.

And that terrified him more than anything.

Because for the first time in years, he had no instinct to run.

Her fingers twitched against his chest, and he realized she was waking.

[heartandeye]

《ᴛʜᴇ ꜰɪᴇɴᴅ'ꜱ ʙʀɪᴅᴇ》♛°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⚔︎

​🇨​​🇭​​🇦​​🇵​​🇹​​🇪​​🇷​ 1 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦

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➵ ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: king!sylus x assassin!mc ➵ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Iris, the middle daughter of House Andignes, is sent to the dragonkin lord and the King of the Abyss as a bride. An orphan raised to be a weapon, she has an additional task to her bridal duties: assassinate the Fiend and relieve Ivory City from his threatening power.

Succeed and she may return to a place she can finally call home… or fail and do not return at all. ➵ ꜰᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇꜱ: arranged marriage, slow burn, angst, (badly written) politics, dragon myth retelling, luke and kieran woo!! :D ➵ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: death, blood, more will be added as we go ➵ ꜱᴍᴜᴛ? not yet! :D ➵ ᴡᴄ: 3.9k ➵ read on ao3 ➵ ​🇹​​🇦​​🇬​​🇱​​🇮​​🇸​​🇹​: @theycallmesoup

A/N: WOO finally get to post chapter 1. updates will be wonky. please forgive anything i get wrong about fantasy medieval rankings and politics lmfao im no expert. and also yes i know kings are not addressed as lords ;_; it's for character building i swear! if you'd like to be part of the taglist, just let me know :)

The Fiend is amused when he sees her kneeling on the floor of the throne room before him, dressed in bridal red — the color of desire. A matching red veil is draped over her head, hiding her face from his probing gaze.

“Your Highness,” she starts, and though she has practiced her lines so many times, her voice still betrays the slight nagging uncertainty in her heart. It sounds thin in the cavernous room, pathetic. “I am given to you as a peace offering. A bride at your side to appease your wrath and fury. Please accept the Ivory City’s humble offering of my flesh and spare their souls.” She tries to keep her voice light and lilting — as a desirable maiden should.

“Humans never fail to come up with all sorts of useless plans to stave off their inevitable end. Do they regularly send living sacrifices into the enemy territory in hopes they live to see peace?” he says. When she doesn’t answer, he gives an exasperated sigh. “Come. Let me behold you.”

For a moment, she thinks about running. Two crow servants stand guard outside the doors to the throne room — no, rather, they are the only two servants she has seen from her brief walk through the castle grounds to where she kneels now.

There is still a chance to leave.

A chance to choose the smaller of two regrets.

The bride slowly stands.

Head bowed, she carefully picks her way up the onyx steps to where the Fiend sits on his obsidian throne.

She stands before him, waiting for his assessment, breath held.

He’s so close that if she wants to, she could reach her hand out and strike him.

But even through the red haze of her veil, she knows how terrible an idea that is.

She can barely make it out, but she recognizes the shine of black metal shoulder guards and spiked greaves. And though he is not fully armored and his chest is exposed to reveal the red gem in the center, just by the way he is unconcerned with her arrival sets her on edge.

The Fiend takes his time raking her from head to toe with his eyes.

When he teases the hem of her veil, he’s impressed when she doesn’t flinch at the sight of his sharp claws. In one swift motion, he tosses the fabric over her head. The veil floats gently to the floor, traitorously giving her up.

The bride keeps her eyes downcast, planting her gaze to where her muddied shoes are hidden by her dress.

There’s nothing special about her face — eyes that resemble the soft blue petals of irises, pinched cheeks for rouge, red paint on dry lips. Skin kissed by sunlight, calloused hands hidden by her sleeves, dark hair bound in a braided bun that no maid would claim ownership over. All this, roughened by her journey to him.

“You must forgive me for coming without a dowry,” she says. “You see, I could not carry it all on my own.” There hadn’t been much to begin with, and what would this king do about such trivial things as a few bolts of fabric and a small sum of human money?

“A humble offering indeed,” he says with a lazy smile. He leans his chin against his hand, amused by the sight of her.

Up close, one could see the snags in the linen fabric and the hems of both cloak and dress had darkened with dirt and dust. The Fiend knows this is not a dress a cherished daughter of a noble would wear as a bride. And neither would a cherished daughter be sent to him. So then, who was this woman who presents herself in such sorry fashion?

The bride trembles before the Fiend. Her nails, under the bell sleeves that drag along the ground when she walks, dig into her palms in tight fists.

The journey to the Abyss had not been kind to her. From the edge of the long descent into the Abyss where Folks of all kinds had been driven to live generations before her birth, the bride and her entourage had been stalked and hunted from the very beginning.

Every night in the Abyss, the beasts in the shadows picked one from her group of eight. Nothing, save for their belongings, would be left behind. The only trace that they had once been alive was the rusted patches on the ground.

And this morning, she had woken up alone in the camp. A maid about her age, the last to die, had seemingly done so peacefully in her sleep, had it not been for the scarlet smile slit into her neck. She had been the only one whose body was left behind as a message.

Your life is our plaything.

The boughs and leaves of the trees and shrubs around her shivered as the wind passed through, but she could swear she heard the bastards laughing in the shadows.

Perhaps the Fiend enjoys toying with his prey. Perhaps he likes the taste of fear before they die. Whatever he is thinking, she cannot yet decipher.

But what she is certain of is that she had been allowed to live, watched every step of the way to see how heavy these deaths weigh on her heart as she arrived alone and empty-handed at the doors to the Fiend’s castle.

They want her to be afraid.

It should be fear that shakes her so.

But instead, why is it anger that bites at the back of her throat?

She forces herself to keep silent, waiting for judgment to pass. Whether she lives or dies hinges on what he says next.

The seconds of silence pass by like her days of travel — suffocating.

“I will accept the Ivory City’s offering,” the Fiend finally says.

She doesn’t dare allow a sigh of relief at this first admittance into the enemy’s territory, but her breath comes back to her.

When she raises her head to thank the Fiend, she’s stopped in her tracks — not because of the sharp black horns protruding from his curtain of white hair, but at how his eyes glow red and knowing back at her.

An innate understanding races through her that he is not to be trusted with any emotion that slips through the cracks of her mask. Like a rabbit hiding in the brush, she cleans her face of expression and hopes that that is enough for the danger to pass.

“You are most generous for accepting this gift.” The words are bitter on her tongue, but she mangles them into relief. “House Andignes is ever grateful for your mercy.”

But the Fiend can see that spark of anger, that defiance that she swallows. His interest is piqued at her demure illusion. He smirks at her as he says, “My dear bride, welcome to your new life in the depths of the Abyss.”

She should smile back, or cower at his feet. Act the part of a woman who would do anything to earn his favor. But all she can do is try to ignore the thumping of her heart and hope that the dragonkin lord cannot hear it too.

After all, this is only the beginning of her precarious plan to assassinate her husband-to-be, the Lord of the Beastfolk, and the King of the Abyss.

“My lord says you may choose any room that suits your fancy,” the crow servant says. “Would you like to see your options?”

He and his twin walk ahead of the bride for a few steps. Their black feathers that protrude from the skin of their arms sweep just above the ground as they walk down the yawning length of the colonnade, their sleeveless robes as midnight black as their plumes. A white tassel hangs from Luke’s belt, while a red one hangs from his brother Kieran’s.

“I have no preference,” the bride responds. “Whichever room is most convenient will do, I suppose.”

“Leave it to your new and humble servants,” Luke crows from behind his mask as he hops into a spirited step down the hall ahead of them. “We have a great eye for comfort.”

But with every echo of their steps down the stone walkway, closed in by the columns on either side of her, the bride’s heart staccatos between each footfall. She moves carefully so that the daggers strapped to her body make no noise in the much-too-quiet castle. She is so sure that just like in the throne room, the sound of her heartbeat must be amplified as it reverberates against the stoic stone pillars.

She looks beyond these bars of her new prison. With the sun already beginning to set, nightfall in the Abyss is darker than in the Ivory City that rests past the cliffs above. She can barely make anything out in the large courtyard that flanks the west wing of the castle she is being led to.

The twins’ makeshift tour as they walk (mostly Luke speaking as he shoots off into multiple tangents) calms some of her nervousness. These beasts don’t behave as if they’ll kill her here or now — at least not yet. But with everything that has happened today, she is grateful for a moment where she could, to some degree, relax the facade.

After counting to 418 steps, the bride slows to a halt as the twins whirled around at the end of the hall, where she presumes her chambers will be. The crows throw open the doors with great enthusiasm, presenting the interior with open palms before dipping down into an exaggerated bow.

Their gesture makes the bride feel somewhat embarrassed. She’s not used to this sort of behavior despite being a noble’s daughter. The usual curtsies, quiet greetings, and occasional dress-ups for society were more than enough for someone who wasn’t long for this world.

“Don’t bother yourselves over etiquette,” she tells them.

“You’re now the mistress of the Onychinus castle,” the red-tasseled crow says. “Speaking of which, we haven’t even asked your name, Your Highness.”

“I have not yet wedded, so cease with the title.” What use would it do to tell them her name anyway when the possibility of her death looms over her? She’ll be another corpse unworthy of remembrance, just like the servants who were picked off in the night. Her fate had been sealed the moment her adoptive father agreed to send her to the Abyss.

“That won’t do. What will all your new subjects say if you allow your servants to be so dismissive with you?” Luke insists.

“Then… You may address me as Lady Andignes.”

The twins look at each other, mirth oozing from beneath their masks.

“They’re more alike than he thinks, huh?” Luke whispers to his nodding brother. He straightens up under the bride’s watchful eyes. “Lady Andignes, what do you think of your chambers? Not bad, huh? I wasn’t lying earlier. I’ll have you know, we crows have impeccable taste.”

The lit candles wash the sitting room in a warm yellow light. At first glance, it is a simple room decorated just enough to be functional. In the daytime, the bride is sure that she’d find it less dreary and more welcoming than in the pitch darkness of Abyssal night.

Or perhaps she’ll find it her deathbed come morning.

“We made sure to clean it up a bit right before you arrived,” Kieran said with a tiny puff of his chest.

So they were the ones spying on me on the way here, the bride thinks. Suddenly the smiles she hears in their voices warp into something sinister as she remembers the bright red line curving across the maid’s neck. She manages to split a small grin of her own at them despite bumps raising all along her arms.

“Thank you. Your consideration is appreciated,” she says, trying not to choke on her words. “You’ve done a thorough job.” They’d done well to pick off each servant cleanly — even the last one was presented with such clear and thoughtful intention. It was the first time she’d seen a dead body so close to her, as gruesome as it was serene.

She wonders which of those two descriptors she’ll end up bearing should she fail the one duty her father had given her.

“Wait till you see your bedchamber,” Luke continues, interrupting her thoughts as he makes a show of taking a step forward.

“I do apologize,” the bride cuts in, gaze lowered. Luke stops mid-motion, arms akimbo and foot frozen in the air. “The journey was long. I would like to retire for the night.”

She was the picture of a tired bride, but truly she could not look the monsters in the face. I need to collect myself. I must act like I do not know.

“Of course, my lady,” Kieran says hastily with a dip of his head. “No need for apologies. We are the ones who are inconsiderate.”

“We prepared some clothes for you in the bedchamber,” Luke adds. “Nothing special, unfortunately. As you can see, we are quite sparse in maids and servants — our lord does not entertain too many guests here, if he can help it. I hope you can forgive our shortcomings.”

Their sincerity is off-putting. It inspires doubt, and that is the one thing the bride cannot let seed.

“The bath is already drawn. We shall take our leave now,” Kieran says as he tugs on the back of Luke’s clothes. “If you need anything, ring the bell.”

“We crows have exceptional hear — hey, I get it already! You’ll pull my clothes right off! Goodnight, Lady Andignes!”

With a couple of flaps and a kick of their legs, Luke and Kieran’s feathered arms take them into the sky back in the direction they’d come from, presumably to report how their little chat went.

The bride can only hope that she played her part well enough.

Only after trudging through the sitting room and closing the door to her bedchamber did the bride heave a long sigh. Here, past two sets of doors and a hall between rooms, did she finally feel safe enough to let the mask slip. But only for a brief moment — for some reason, she can still feel those eyes from the forest, the faint echo of laughter still brushing past her ears.

But what shakes her even more than those shadowy assassins are the red ruby eyes of the Fiend. They saw right through her the moment she looked into them, her soul bared against her will. It felt as if he had seen and heard all the lies that she would inevitably spill from her lips, the risks she’d be willing to take. The dreams she holds close to her heart. The fears that she is working hard not to let come true.

The bride runs a hand through her hair, breaking up the braided bun she’d made this morning after waking. A leaf comes away between her fingers and flutters to the floor as her hair falls below her shoulders. She can’t help but laugh at the sight of that singular leaf — surely, no bride of her status could have a more humiliating meeting with her future husband.

Well, I didn’t think I’d ever make it to marriage. Politically or for love.

Even the red color of her dress mocks her in the yellow light. The color of happiness, the color of everlasting love — she feels wrong in it. This image of a bride is as superficial as the paint on her lips. The color gnaws at her as if to burrow into her skin and expose her insincerity. That is what makes her feel dirty instead of the days of traveling and sleeping on the ground.

“I suppose I should start with a bath,” she mumbles, picking herself up from the ground.

Despite the state of the dress, she still takes it off carefully, folding it neatly and placing it on the chair by the black-curtained window. Underneath her white slip, three daggers are warmed by her skin. Each garter on her thigh brandishes a leather sheath with a slim blade in it, and the last one nestles across her waist. Gifts from her older adopted sister Simone, a master craftswoman in weapons both decorative and dangerous.

She still remembers the tears slipping down Simone’s cheeks as she helped secure them to her body. You shouldn’t have to do this, she cried as shaking fingers tightened string and hide. I’m supposed to protect you.

The bride passes her thumb lightly against the moonstone embedded in the silver hilt of the dagger that had been strapped to her waist. This particular dagger was meant for her 25th birthday as a present, but it is unlikely now that she will celebrate it. Their younger sister — Simone’s biological sister — Tara had picked out the milky stone. The most particular about presentation, she must have spent hours comparing one white stone to the other to choose the best looking one for her.

Before the bride could board the carriage that would take her to where the Abyss began and human territory ended, she remembers Tara had clung to her, knuckles stark white against the fabric of her dress.

I’ll find a way to get you back, so promise me to stay alive until then, Tara had said with an uncharacteristic vengeance to her voice. The bride only patted her chestnut hair and smiled sadly in response. After all, it is because of their love for this sister that both the bride and Simone could bear to sacrifice so much. Even their lives. If Tara could have a chance of normalcy through the work they are forced to do, they would do anything. She alone should not suffer the whims of human greed, nor be dragged into the vortex of political schemes.

So, now in the enemy’s castle, the bride squares her shoulders and hides two of the daggers underneath the folded dress, leaving the last to carry with her to the bathroom. The twins were right — the robe they left for her is simple but clean. She’d never been one for fashion, anyway, so it suited her just fine.

The water in the porcelain tub is still hot when she enters the adjacent bathroom. Red rose petals decorate and scent its surface. The bride can’t help but glare at the dark, inescapable color that breaks the reflection of her hollow eyes staring back at her like a premonition.

Blood, too, is this shade of dark red, and she has seen enough, for today at least, for her own comfort.

The guilt at having been the reason for the deaths of her servants prick at her heart. Picked from the rural countryside and promised heavy compensation to their families for their service, these young men and women were chosen to be Folk fodder. Their fearful faces as they were told they would head into the Abyss will be forever carved into her memory. So too will the rusted red patches they left behind when they disappeared be ingrained behind the darkness of her eyelids.

In the future, however, the bride knows that this haunting color is already woven into her life’s path, no matter how long or short that may be. And perhaps, she thinks as she disturbs the water with her entrance, it may dye her and suffocate her — so much so that even scrubbing in the bath until her flesh turns raw will not get it off her.

This is something I must acclimate myself to, she thinks, running a wet hand down her face. I cannot make a single mistake from here on out.

“Lady Andignes has been seen to her chambers,” Luke reports, kneeling on the floor of the study.

The Fiend sits behind his wooden desk, hair cascading over his shoulder as he folds his arms over his broad chest. He’d changed out of his armor, donning a wine-colored robe in its place. The candlelight flickers, elongating the twins’ shadows against the wall.

“She is, understandably, on guard,” Kieran says, kneeling beside him.

“In a way that a human noble daughter shouldn’t be,” Luke supplements. “I think.”

“I suppose it doesn’t help that someone interfered with her arrival,” Kieran says. With regret, he adds, “We couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening. It was planned in advance, and the enemy was too powerful.”

“And my lord has just recently returned from visiting with High Lord Ginevra. The timing could not have been more impeccable,” Luke laments.

Kieran sighs. “We had no idea they would send Lady Andignes so soon after hearing that you are seeking a bride. We should have been better prepared. Apologies, my lord.”

“I am not seeking a bride,” the Fiend says with a sense of finality, as if this is not the first time (or second, or third) he’s had to say it. “The High Lords insist on sending marriage candidates, and the humans simply want a small stake in this nonsense.”

“The High Lords will not be happy to hear you’ve agreed to wed a human bride instead of one of the Folk,” Luke warns.

The Fiend clicks his tongue in annoyance. “This is a temporary engagement. If anything were to happen to her, it would give quite the excuse for war. This is, unfortunately, for the best.”

“But you cannot postpone the marriage forever, my lord. If this is to protect Lady Andignes…” Kieran trails off, unsure how to finish his sentence. “Peace is priority, my lord.”

The Fiend runs a clawed hand through the long strands of his hair, nonchalant as he says, “I may not have to marry her. She is a human noble, after all. And nobles are bred for betrayal.”

“Will you kill her, then?” Luke asks curiously. “We can make it look like an accident.”

Kieran groans. “Please do not, my lord. The recent marriage candidates have only grown bolder. I cannot stand their lingering glances at me any longer.”

The Fiend doesn’t answer, the ghost of a mysterious smile lighting his fair face as he taps his temple lightly with his finger. Instead, he says, “Find Mephisto. Have him send a letter to the count of House Andignes informing him I’ve accepted the engagement.” He leans back in his chair. “We shall see how long this feeble alliance will last.”

Luke and Kieran both bow their heads in acknowledgment.

“And what of the High Lords?” Kieran asks.

“The High Lords have become impatient, and their impatience has consequences. Let them believe that their transgression will be tolerated for now. We’ll hold an engagement banquet a month from today. In the meantime, find who it was that gave my dear bride such a scare on her way here.”

The twins answer, “As you wish, my lord.”

Before the twins could open the doors and begin their tasks, the Fiend gives his last order for the night before he forgets. “And send word to High Lord Ginevra. I didn’t expect to ask for her help so soon.”

“She will be delighted to hear it, I’m sure,” Luke teases. The Fiend glares at him as he hastily shuts the door.

Alone in his study, the dragonkin lets out a huff of amusement.

Everyone has made their move.

In the yellow candlelight, his right eye glows with eager anticipation at the game that has now begun in earnest.

[killjpeg]

I think it's very funny that this is the only significant post i made on that blog and is the only reason the blog is still up. It's been a while and rereading this I think some of my thoughts had changed, having come down the high of hyperfixation I had and bias. All and all I still stand by pretty much all of it, but here are some points I want to correct/elaborate more on:

"Unless when Shockwave said he was going to give Megatron a gestalt he meant he'll postpone it for 4mil years and do it a little before he succeeded with Devastator so Ambulon deserting LITERALLY as he is picked out for the combiner project JUST to avoid it"

I already put the examples in the post a little after this but this is not too farfetched Shockwave was taking his time with the gestalt, as he literally says it's not his first priority. I think I'm more accepting of the thought that Ambulon was a volunteer, but for me I'll stay by the idea that his MTO team was built long before being experimented on for the gestalt - as the problem seems to be their inability to "connect" mentally that Shockwave also was trying to fix. The reason why I'm so set on this is the way Ambulon explains his name:

"Ambulon: from the verb 'to ambulate', meaning 'to walk about'. It's a stupid name..."

To me diegetically it comes off as something he was told rather than having any choice in the matter. As well as talking about his alt mode as something he was "born" with instead of being made into without his consent.

And for us it was meant to serve as a twist that his name is not formed from an "ambulance". All things considered, it works anyway, so it wouldn't even make sense he'd be so upset about it - which just cements it for me that he was told what his name explicitly means to him and not other way round.

"I'm gonna also get this out of the way that Ambulon's established character is continuously ignored, dumbed down and twisted: the point is that I do believe JRO didn't think about him that much or that deep, and what he did with him did not retain with him into further issues. That is to say, "You're gonna let Dr DJD cut us in half?" is a dumb fucking line to come out of Ambulon specifically, makes no sense, too snarky and cruel all things considered, and while I think it's also very funny it jsut shows Ambulon's accidental insignificance. Ok. That's all."

I'm going to completely back off from this point mostly because it was majorly charged from my bias towards his character and a lot of distaste for JRO (which i still have but its neither here nor there).

In-story it makes sense to me he'd react uncharacteristically and snarky when his life is literally on the line - if anything it serves to show how mean he can be when put in a high stakes situation, and obviously he'd be pissy about Pharma betraying all of them. I wonder if it was an in-joke between him and First Aid for a bit as a way to cope with the fact their boss killed people and tried to kill them allegedly (even though there are good reasons to believe Pharma didn't and wanted all three of them to leave).

Like it doesn't remove my point that his character was not considered of thought into deeper than what we got in those first issues but it doesn't contradict his character either.

"You see, I think Pharma is incredibly caring person. He cares for his patients and he cares for his people. He takes his work extremely seriously. He's willing to be a donor for his patient and he's still conducting research to cure illnesses when there was no legitimate point for him to do that anymore. He's not just a surgeon, but he's a virologist/epidemiologist."

Here I just want to elaborate more cuz I got some new thoughts on the matter.

Medics in MTMTE story ultimately have an overlapping theme of purpose that many other character don't exactly have. While the theme of purpose and shape is a prevalent throughout the whole story, it is especially emphasized with the medics and their inherent ability for healing, their hands. It puts them in a very narrow idea of what they're supposed to be doing with their life. You can choose to be a doctor but not if your shape doesn't permit it (ur a jet) but if you have good hands then sure you can try. This is where a Pharma dilemma coming from and is very interesting to me.

Pharma is more than anyone is defined by his desire to fulfill his purpose, because he doesn't see himself outside of it, an even bigger extreme than what we saw of Ratchet. He's so dedicated to asserting his place in the world he ruins his life about it. He does not want to be viewed as lesser than, his ego is keeping him from reaching out, and the kinda person he is just puts him into position where all he can do is double down.

And I've rambled on about my point (because I wrote the entirety of the original post in one sitting) too much that I feel like I didn't elaborate it even close enough.

Ambulon and Pharma are driven by their desire to serve a purpose, while both defying what that "purpose" even means. Neither of them by the facts we're given in text are supposed to be doctors - they're not the right shape for it. But nevertheless, they are doctors. But for Ambulon, he is choosing his purpose and his place in the world, while Pharma has rushed himself into a corner. Pharma in desire to chase his purpose and assertion of his value has put aside why he's doing it - because he does care for people, he doesn't actually want anyone to die and suffer, but in a circumstance where his interests are being challenged, he chose what's best for him, specifically, hoping it just works out for others in the end.

Their Amica Endura could've been defined by enhancement of each others strong points, of Ambulon being Pharma's anchor from spiraling and letting his flaws drive his actions, and Pharma sympathizing with Ambulon's dysmorphia and giving him respect he deserves for his achievements, despite DJD, despite what functionism dictates, that Ambulon stays faithful to his oath as a doctor.

I genuinely don't think there's anyone who would understand them better than they would each other, in a better world.

Of Ambulon and Pharma and doomed amica endura

I'll preface that I'm the last person to try and explain my ships by how canon they are and this is very much the same case of me just entertaining the idea and what their relationship represents and what role they play in a wider story, this is not an invitation for discourse or a debate. It's just me rambling on why I like the ship so much, think Pharma and Ambulon are narrative foils, while using some canon stuff and word of god.

Jokes about hamburger or hot dog or literally anything regarding Ambulon's death will end in block idc I think it's obnoxious 👍

CW for robot gore, discussions of torture, you know, the package that comes with DJD and Decepticons and MTMTE.

When it comes to Ambulon and Pharma's relationship, I think it's fair to start with bare bones, yeah?

I'm going to start with each character individually, what my take on them is, so we're all on the same page.

Ambulon

So, the basics are:

Ambulon was part of the failed combiner project of decepticons, the first combiner at that. He has horrible alt mode, that brings him a lot of shame, so he prefers to keep it a secret. He switched to the Autobots, eventually.

We don't know for certain if he was created for the project, or was one of the "volunteers". What we do know though, is that he's an MTO specifically, not just constructed cold, and MTOs were a concept of war.

Meaning, he cant be older than the war. Meaning, in my personal opinion, he was either made for some operation, then snatched by Shockwave for the project, or was created already specifically for the project.

There, I think, comes a timeline conflict. It feels unfeasible, to me, that MTOs were made this early into the war, by Decepticons. What I think happened, is that Shockwave did try to experiment on other Decepticons to figure out and develop on Jhiaxus' research, but once MTOs as a concept came into the picture, it became infinitely easier to just have an alt mode pre-made for a mech.

Unless when Shockwave said he was going to give Megatron a gestalt he meant he'll postpone it for 4mil years and do it a little before he succeeded with Devastator so Ambulon deserting LITERALLY as he is picked out for the combiner project JUST to avoid it makes this line from him especially funny:

Boy for all we know you're not even 15 years old.

Also the idea that character like Ambulon did that out of some sort of cowardice, that THIS was his breaking point to join Autobots, feels wrong.

In-text it becomes even less likely Ambulon had a life before the project, as his name "Ambulon" seems to be the only one he ever had (judging by his statue post on Necroworld).

I think why I'm getting a Little long-winded explaining Ambulon is to draw a better picture on his experience with Decepticons, Specifically Shockwave.

That to say, he had a horrible one. He knows better than anyone what Decepticons are capable of and how far they will go/what Megatron would allow. Especially once DJD comes into the picture.

And it just emphasizes the way Ambulon in the end of it all chose kindness. The first issues he appeared in cement it very well, especially since most of his intro we get from First Aid's point of view.

Ambulon is tetchy, can be a gearstick sometimes

Ambulon took pity on the Decepticons he thought were hunted down by the DJD

Ambulon convinced Pharma to let them stay

The Genericons showed their scars to Ambulon specifically

Ambulon gets passionate about hate crimes concerning one's shape/alt mode

Ambulon is "tetchy" and rejects First Aid's idea because he's concerned that it's too risky

For Ambulon to put your own life on the line to save a single life is an act of selfishness (also stemming out of his concern for First Aaid, imo)

Ambulon let the Genericons share a cell

To sum it up: Ambulon is very greatly concerned for the greater good and treating people without bias, Decepticon or Autobot, especially when there's any sort of discrimination involved.

(Using Genericons and Triple M as a tool with Ambulon was a very clever foreshadowing for Ambulon's situation, but it is a general theme that runs in these issues and Ratchet's/medics character arcs, it's the functionism, one's shape and purpose in life, but it is a completely different post to make. Just let's keep the theme of one's shape and purpose in mind.)

The thing is, Ambulon is who he is by choice. His Decepticon past is always showing, whether he wants it or not, but all he wants, essentially, is to help people and treat them with kindness. He's a "gearstick", but he's a gearstick with a big spark. He saw the greater cruelty in Decepticons and made a choice to never participate in it.

Ambulon is an MTO who made his life and became what he wants to be despite everything: Decepticons, his alt-mode, biases, all of that. He's true to himself and his intentions.

I'm gonna also get this out of the way that Ambulon's established character is continuously ignored, dumbed down and twisted: the point is that I do believe JRO didn't think about him that much or that deep, and what he did with him did not retain with him into further issues. That is to say, "You're gonna let Dr DJD cut us in half?" is a dumb fucking line to come out of Ambulon specifically, makes no sense, too snarky and cruel all things considered, and while I think it's also very funny it jsut shows Ambulon's accidental insignificance. Ok. That's all.

Pharma

Oh boy this one's a doozy. Okay, listen, I'll try to get more brief with it, try to get straight to the point, but Pharma has so much nuance around him on a greater scheme of things that it might also just be it's own post. SO we'll just try to focus on his persona and relations to others.

Pharma is a doctor of talent on par with Ratchet, if not actually better. He used to be friends with him, he's implied to have used to do medical service in the new institute, and eventually was stationed on Delphi by Prowl, practically abandoned by Ratchet. There, he ends up being blackmailed by Tarn, ending up killing his patients to meet the increasing quota, being led to the brink of creating a virus that he exposes the facility to in hope to close it down and escape it scot-free. Obviously, because of Ratchet, it didn't work, the rest is history.

Unlike Ambulon with his 3 panels and a half of screentime worth talking about character-wise, Pharma is a combination of multiple things at once, his place as an Autobot, his connection to the DJD, his act, and most of his actual character we get from very few shots of him from the past and what people say of him, and just a little of his behavior at Delphi before his crime is revealed.

So I think we'll focus specifically on the Decepticon part when it comes to Pharma cuz it's much easier to talk about.

Pharma vehemently, without hiding it, hates Decepticons.

It will go into even bigger field of speculations than trying to piece Ambulon's character together for why he hates them so much. It could both just be a thrown in line for the story to flow (Genericons) and act as a foreshadowing (DJD blackmail), the fact of the matter is, he hates Decepticons, he does not have pity for Decepticons, and if DJD did not play into his hatred, years of war for sure did.

(Also worth mentioning that in the issue #4, the paralleling story is Tailgate learning about the war and backing off on his decision to be a Decepticon. The entire build up works very well, imo, and plays into just how much it should hit you when Pharma turns out providing for DJD, along with the choice of Ambulon to not be a Decepticon anymore.)

You see, I think Pharma is incredibly caring person. He cares for his patients and he cares for his people. He takes his work extremely seriously. He's willing to be a donor for his patient and he's still conducting research to cure illnesses when there was no legitimate point for him to do that anymore. He's not just a surgeon, but he's a virologist/epidemiologist.

But, probably when we ask ourselves, "So if he was such a wonderful doctor, equal to Ratchet, someone Ratchet recognizes, why wasn't he the Chief Medical Officer in the first place?"

I think it's mostly his personality. It's his hubris and ego. It's also the inherent societal bias of Cybertron when it comes to jets - though this part of worldbuilding isn't that consistent, he is a forged jet AND a doctor.

And that's also why I think he doesn't believe in that "forged" functionism bullshit. BUT thats another post of its own (take a shot every time i say that in this post).

Let's just bullet point this:

Pharma is a talented doctor who's good and dedicated to his job. Practically nothing is impossible for him and it becomes a focal point of his conflict with Ratchet, too.

That said, Pharma's shape is what, I think, is responsible for his hubris. He's a jet, he's forged, he's a doctor, but he's a doctor because HE, PHARMA, is good. Nothing to do with some God. (which is different from Ratchet's internalized functionism)

Pharma hates Decepticons, he tried to kill the DJD, and it may seem like he pushed it all on Ambulon because he was a Decepticon, but I don't think that's the case. Specifically because of this:

He does not see Ambulon as a Decepticon, and it was just panicked shitty lie he had to quickly come up with on the spot.

Pharma feels guilt for his actions, and after killing Ambulon, he's actively taunting First Aid to kill him.

Pharma is a jet doctor trapped in the loop of self-sabotage after being exploited, psychologically tortured and left for dead, after a poor attempt of saving face. Pharma is a jet doctor who embraced his new look, but couldn't live with it, far from accepting it. Furthermore, his body is used by Adaptus himself, where the only thing he could do is trying to get his body back, to help his comrades, only to end up dying, again.

That's where I'm going to use a single word of God that makes, all in all, a lot of sense.

"Grurdging respect" is about best way to describe Pharma and Ambulon.

Now since I've reached the image limit on this post it's relentless rambling and speculations time!

You probably can already tell where I'm going with this. I think Pharma and Ambulon direct inversions of each other.

Decepticon gone Autobot as a choice - Autobot gone rogue out of blackmail and fear of failure

MTO doing what he wants to do and taking control of his body and life, disconnected from a gestalt or his "purpose" - A forged jet trying to continue his career of a doctor despite all the odds but who's agency is continuously taken, not only by others but by his own ego

Where they overlap, is their desire to do what they want. Where they differ, is one's sincerity and other's toxicity.

Ambulon is someone Pharma would never be, and someone he, on meta level, wishes he was more like. He doesn't want to be Ratchet, even if we think a little about his obsession and desire to prove to Ratchet that he's better, he wants to be someone Ratchet would respect. And in the end of the day, it all didn't matter anymore, because clearly Ratchet never respected him enough in the first place: "waging a war on his body", taking body parts for his own gain (hands), that Pharma didn't even really care about anymore. It was personal. He wanted Ratchet to hurt.

All of this, ultimately, is justified. Little who would respond to knowing someone who betrayed you (and whom you, also, betrayed) also breached boundaries of your autonomy. It's just basic decency. I don't believe TFs never heard of that or don't follow it, in some fashion. Maybe it's more loose, but for the purpose of drama and villification of Pharma, it was convenient, I guess.

See, Pharma is just inherently, like anyone, very flawed. The circumstance he's put in and the war led to the worst of his qualities spike. And in relation to Ambulon, it's the inverse of a person who, having seen the horrors of the war, having been through the horror and the existential dread of being in a gestalt, chose kindness anyway.

"Grudging respect". A jet doctor, a genius, and an ex-soldier MTO, who made the choice of helping people. An ex-Decepticon, too, no less.

See how it could've developed into something more?

Both eager to do their job, Ambulon is a perfect stabilizer for Pharma's general emotional response to things. He may be a good doctor, but he's prone to acting and saying things before really thinking about it. Ambulon is capable of convincing him and giving a good argument, without it being personal.

"Grudging respect" with Ambulon working with one of the best doctors out there, who's work is going to be invaluable even after his death.

And if things worked out differently? Do you think Ambulon wouldn't be there to sympathize with Pharma's trauma regarding DJD? Do you think Ambulon wouldn't pity Pharma for what Tarn put him through? Ambulon? The Decepticon who was there? The one who even should fear DJD the most? The one who might've even triggered DJD once he was so close on the radar?

He might've confided in Pharma in the first place, as someone literally second in charge after him.

Pharma and Ambulon are defying Adaptus as a societal concept, among with the existential idea of your shape dictating your purpose. And within the text they don't just defy, they end up suffering the most out of it - Pharma ends up in a position where his hands are praised more than he, as a person, is, Ambulon dies by these hands, and his death dooms Pharma as well.

I hope it was comprehensive enough, i WISH i could include more images to prove my point. The amica endura would've been insane. If only the circumstance was different.

[wiseatom]

for @stonathanweek's first round of stonathan sunday prompts!! based on the following: "I thought that was our arrangement now. I get to kiss you and you get to shut me up."

“I thought that this was our arrangement now,” Steve mumbles into Jonathan’s skin, breath hot, words slurred and strung together by the trail of open-mouthed kisses he’s leaving along Jonathan’s jaw. “I get to kiss you,” he continues, and then there’s teeth where Jonathan’s neck meets his shoulder and a hiss coming from his own mouth— “and you get to shut me up.”

That had certainly been the arrangement — not that they’ve ever come to a verbal agreement on it, and that was kind of the point in the first place. The thing is, when the one person who ties you together doesn’t want to talk to either of you, and the only thing you have to talk about is her, not talking at all is usually the best option. If it had been up to Jonathan, back when this all started, not talking would have meant not interacting at all, and of all the things he was losing sleep over, not having to interact with Steve Harrington wouldn’t make the short list, or the long list, or any list at all, really. 

(It hadn’t been up to Jonathan, which didn’t come as a surprise, because nothing Jonathan actually wants is ever up to Jonathan.)

There had been a series of arrangements prior to their current arrangement, and none of them involved Steve until they did. After returning back to a considerably more apocalyptic Hawkins than he’d left it, there hadn’t been any choice other than to stay, and staying meant several things — first, finding a place to stay, their old house long-since sold. After that had been sorted — with Will posted up with Mike in his bedroom, Holly and Nancy sharing so that his mom could take Holly’s room, and Jonathan taking up residence in the basement — everything else seemed to implode, like the universe felt it had to make up for the fact that something in Jonathan’s life fell into place with relative ease. Being in close quarters with Nancy meant the truth about Emerson had nowhere to hide, and despite the fact that it didn’t look like either of them were going to college any time soon, if at all, she’d been mad enough and hurt enough to end it between them. Jonathan didn’t think she’d understand, because she never does, when it comes to things like this, but it still hurt; he also didn’t think it was possible to never see someone you shared a living space with, but Nancy manages fine enough to make it look easy. 

It’d be nice to have someone to talk to about it — or anything — but Argyle had fled back to California the moment the sky had started bleeding red, and Jonathan doesn’t blame him for it. His mom is focused on El and Hopper and Will, always Will, never Jonathan, and he doesn’t blame her for that, either. And Will, who Jonathan knows would listen — who would probably love to listen, who would somehow be able to say exactly what Jonathan needs to hear — has enough going on without Jonathan adding the weight of his own trivial problems for his baby brother to bear. Jonathan doesn’t know how to blame Will for anything, so he doesn’t. 

He does blame Steve. Because Steve is there — always has been, lingering in the edge of his peripheral, and no matter how hard he’s tried, Jonathan has never been able to block him out. He blames Steve, because Steve knows what it’s like to be iced out by Nancy; he blames Steve, because he knows the truth about what’s happening in Hawkins, all of it, without Jonathan having to explain; he blames Steve, because Steve had been the one to find Jonathan sitting on the hood of his car in the high school parking lot as he was burning through the last of the weed Argyle had left behind, and it was Steve who had plucked the joint right out of Jonathan’s fingers and taken a hit, and it was Steve who’d asked him about Nancy and Steve who’d said shit that Jonathan didn’t want to hear and Steve who’d only shut up when Jonathan made him, when kissing Steve to get him to quit seemed like a better idea than decking him. 

It still hadn’t been a good idea, and Jonathan fully expected Steve to deck him instead — but Steve had kissed him back, open-mouthed and filthy and a little mean, and that had been the start of it. He doesn’t think they ever finished that joint, and he knows for a fact they’ve barely spoken a word to each other since then. Come to think of it, he’s pretty sure this is the most Steve has spoken to him in the past two months outside of propositioning him, which is weird, because Jonathan has never spent so much time with someone without really speaking to them before, and he spends a lot of time with Steve. And that, really, is the other thing — it’s really hard to spend so much of your time with someone and not end up caring about them, even if that someone is Steve. 

Because, yes, Steve is there, and he knows, understands what’s going on without Jonathan having to explain, which is why hooking up with him is easy: they don’t have to talk or explain. They already know. 

But Jonathan— well, Jonathan wants to talk to Steve. Jonathan wants to talk and be heard, wants to be heard and be listened to even more, and he thinks Steve might be good at both of those things. After all, he’s silently shown up for Jonathan in other ways — he stares back, a challenge, when Nancy’s eyes are on them any time they have to share the same space; he stays close when they’re on patrol together, like he’s trying to become Jonathan’s shadow; and sometimes, he’ll randomly swing by the Wheeler’s house to pick Jonathan up and just drive him around, no words or funny business, startlingly and uncannily always seeming to know exactly when Jonathan feels like the walls are closing in on him. In terms of physicality, the vibe has shifted entirely, so much so that Jonathan doesn’t even begin to know what to do with it. He doesn’t know when Steve stopped kissing him like he had something to prove, can’t pinpoint when everything they do together started to go soft around the edges, but it’s where they’re at. Even now, with Steve biting kisses into his neck — it’s not a mean thing, meant to hurt, the way it had been when this first started. It’s softer, more controlled, a clear effort being made to make sure it’s good, something Jonathan likes. 

He’s not sure why, but it kind of makes him want to cry. 

“I know,” he finally says, a little breathy. Steve’s hands slip under his shirt, settling on his hips, thumbs tracing circles into his skin, like he’s detected that Jonathan is coming to a conclusion in his head and is trying to give him more evidence to support it. “I just,” he starts, and then stops, because he’s not looking at Steve, but he’s right there — he’s right there, and they don’t talk, and Jonathan is worried that if he tries to, he’ll lose Steve altogether, and Jonathan doesn’t know how much more loss he can handle. 

And then he remembers it’s already the end of the world, and he could die tomorrow, and he doesn’t want to go as quietly as he has lived. 

“Maybe I want a different arrangement,” he manages, addressing the car ceiling. The bravery he felt to ask the question in the first place — do you want to talk, or some variation of it — has since evaporated, gone to become one with the cycled cabin air. His fingers tighten their hold in Steve’s hair, holding him in place when he tries to pull back. “Maybe I want to kiss you without shutting you up.”

There is an excruciating moment where the words hang between them, where Jonathan’s awareness has honed in on the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears and Steve’s breath on his neck and Steve’s hands on his hips.

“Okay,” Steve says, and he doesn’t sound mad or weirded out, and the breath Jonathan didn’t realize he was holding breaks free from his lungs, his shoulders relaxing with it. “Okay,” he repeats, and when he tries to pull back this time, Jonathan lets him, fingers slipping from Steve’s hair. It’s dark, most of the interior lights in the front seat rather than the back, but he can still make out Steve’s face, the earnest way he’s looking at Jonathan. “I can— we can talk, too. Is that what you want?”

Jonathan can’t remember the last time someone has asked him what he wanted. “Yeah,” he says, and to his horror, his voice cracks, right in the middle. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I—yeah.” Another beat, an uncertain silence, and then: “Is that—okay?”

“Of course that’s okay,” Steve answers instantly. He looks properly upset, like the fact that Jonathan even asked is an affront to him. “Jonathan, I thought you didn’t” —he cuts himself off, looking down to Jonathan’s lips, and then the position they’re in, sprawled all over each other in the backseat, and then meets Jonathan’s eyes again, the rest of his sentence unspoken, but understood— “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t say,” Jonathan says. 

“No, you didn’t,” Steve agrees. He leans forward, kissing him again — uncharacteristically soft, shy, even, before he pulls away completely. He stays close by, though, settles into the seat next to Jonathan, facing him, without being on top of him the way he was. One of his hands returns to his own lap, while the other settles on Jonathan’s knee, a comforting, steady weight through the denim of his jeans. “Alright,” Steve continues, suddenly alert. “What do you want to talk about?”

What Jonathan had thought to be the hard part — asking Steve to talk in the first place — seems easy in the face of Steve’s question now. There’s so much he wants to talk about that he doesn’t know where to begin — about how he’s scared, every single day; how he buried his brother once before, and doesn’t want to do it again. About how his mom keeps throwing herself into danger without any regard of how anyone feels about it, and Jonathan feels a lot about it. He wants to tell Steve that every time they’re patrolling together, he’s started to worry about Steve, too — about how losing Steve is shaping into just as scary of a thought as losing Will or El or his mom, and how badly that scares him. He thinks all of this might be too intense for their first real conversation, and he thinks about how nothing they’ve done in the past two months fits into any definition of normal or conventional, and he thinks that that’s not a bad thing. 

“I don’t know,” he says instead of any of that, because self-preservation is a useful skill for when you’re trying to survive an apocalypse and for when you’re trying not to scare someone away. “I didn’t get that far.”

Steve laughs, languid and easy, his head rolling to the side. “Just—start easy,” he suggests, nudging Jonathan’s leg with his own. “Tell me about something you like.”

“Something I like,” Jonathan echoes. 

“Something you like,” Steve says again, accompanied by a curt nod, sending a fluttering feeling throughout Jonathan’s chest. He thinks that if they make it through this, come out of the end of the world on the other side alive and well, he’d very much like to visit New York, take the camera he knows had the wrong name on the gift tag, and bring Steve, too. “Like— music,” Steve prompts, when Jonathan still hasn’t responded. “I know you like music.”

Jonathan shakes his head with a laugh. “We’ll be here all night if I start talking about music,” he says. 

“Our former arrangement meant that we were going to be here all night anyway,” Steve replies with a wink. Jonthan likes that word – former. “Go ahead — I’m all ears.”

And Jonathan does. 

[sunandflame]

hello hello! How are you? I hope you are okay. May i req a kuzan x reader? some angst since you love it.... maybe reader is angry at kuzan because he joined blackbeard plus kidnapped a 16 y o and attacksd garp. She may feel like she doesn't know him anymore and broke up with him 👀

Drift

Warnings: angst, breakup, post-canon (Blackbeard era), emotional fallout, betrayal, unspoken love, cold distance

Word Count: 860~

Pairing: Kuzan (Aokiji) x Reader

crossposted on AO3

You’d never expected to feel afraid of him.

Not him. Not Kuzan.

But the headlines hit like a cannon blast. And somewhere in the cracks of those ink-soaked words, in the shadows between names like Marshall D. Teach and Shiryu and Pizarro, sat his. Quiet. Present. Kuzan.

Your hands shook for an entire day.

At first, you tried to deny it. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he was there to stop it. Maybe he was doing something bigger—something you couldn’t see. But those excuses wore thin fast. You knew him. You knew that silence wasn’t passive. It was calculated.

He used to tell you the hardest part of ice wasn’t the cold. It was the stillness. The way things died beneath it without ever making a sound.

He didn’t come home that night. Or the next. And you didn’t send a single message.

You waited. Eyes fixed on the door, the clock, the paper curling in your hand. Until finally, two days later, he strolled up to your little house on the bluff like nothing was wrong—his hands in his pockets, long coat trailing behind like some worn out memory.

He gave you a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You’re early,” he said lazily, like it was just another night.

Your throat went dry.

“I read what you did,” you said, low and flat, brittle as cracked sea-glass.

His brows barely lifted. Not with surprise. More like… weariness.

“It’s not that simple,” he said after a beat.

Your voice rose, sharp and cold. “She’s sixteen, Kuzan. Sixteen. A kid. And you just stood there—!”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“You didn’t stop them either!”

The silence that followed was worse than shouting.

You stared at him, heart racing, willing him to give you something. A reason. A lie. A justification. Anything. But his eyes—those heavy, half-lidded eyes—just watched you with something unreadable beneath them.

Your voice cracked as you tried again. “You stood by while they took Garp. Garp, who raised you. Who fought beside you. Who trusted you.”

Still, he said nothing.

And that was the moment your heart finally split in two.

You shook your head. “I don’t recognize you anymore.”

Something flickered in his expression. Regret, maybe. Shame. But not enough.

“Whatever you are now,” you whispered, “it’s not the man I—”

You stopped. The word was right there, aching in your mouth. Loved. But saying it would only make it real. Saying it would break you.

He must’ve heard it anyway.

“I never wanted you to see me like this,” he murmured.

You stared at him. The way his broad shoulders still slouched like a man who didn’t care what the world thought of him. The way frost still clung faintly to his boots, leaving pale smudges on your wooden floor. The way his hands, once gentle on your skin, now looked like weapons he didn’t bother to sheathe anymore.

“And yet here you are,” you breathed.

He looked away. The silence stretched so thin, so sharp, it nearly cut through your chest.

You wanted him to say something. Anything. That he had no choice. That it was undercover. That he was biding time, playing a role, protecting someone. That Garp ordered it. That the girl was safe. That this was all a part of some grand scheme he couldn’t tell you about.

But he didn’t.

He just stood there—taller, colder, and somehow smaller than he used to be.

You remembered the nights you used to fall asleep against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, lulled by the steady rise and fall of someone you thought was immovable.

Now… he felt like drift ice. Floating. Detached. Quietly dangerous.

“I loved you,” you said finally, the truth clawing out of your throat like it needed to bleed.

He didn’t flinch.

“I still do,” he replied, soft. Like it hurt to admit.

And maybe that made it worse. Because love wasn’t enough anymore. Not now. Not like this.

You stepped back. Just one pace. Enough to draw the line neither of you wanted to name.

“I can’t do this,” you said, voice shaking. “Not when I don’t know who you are. Not when you don’t know anymore, either.”

Kuzan didn’t chase you.

He never was the chasing type. He moved like glaciers—slow, steady, irreversible. He’d always let people come to him, and once, that had been comforting.

Now it just felt like surrender.

You watched him for a few more seconds, memorizing the curve of his face, the tired crease of his mouth. The deep sorrow in his eyes that he didn’t even try to explain.

You turned and left.

He didn’t call your name. Didn’t ask you to stay. Didn’t offer you the closure you needed.

Outside, snow began to fall—soft and silent. You hated how beautiful it was. How familiar.

Just like him.

You didn’t look back. But if you had, you might’ve seen the frost blooming along his boots again.  You might’ve seen the way he clenched his fists.  You might’ve heard the way he finally exhaled, long and broken, like something in him had just shattered too.

But he stayed silent. Still. 

Like ice.

tagging @witchy-scribblings because I know she enjoys the ice man as we do

[izzyssurfcheese]

how did cassandra clare's books save your life 🎤🎤🎤🎤

Sorry I’ve been on vacation with spotty internet connection.

So basically. It went like this:

Several years ago, I was in a relationship with an avoidantly attached person (pro-tip: don’t) and this person would do this really mean thing where they starved me of affection for weeks at a time, until I was ready to end things. Then they would flood me with attention and convince me to stay.

Fun fact: this technique is called “hot and cold” and it’s been used in war as a torture method. If you do this to someone, you are being mean, bordering on torture.

This person watched me, over the course of two years, go from a securely attached partner, to remarkably anxious one, as a result of the constant emotional roller coaster, and never having support when I needed it, and constantly giving to the other person.

I became severely depressed. I felt that I couldn’t leave - and in that headspace, I really couldn’t.

This person often insinuated that there was something wrong with me,

ie: you are depressed, therefore something is wrong with you, not the situation;

and because they were the person I trusted most I believed them.

So I went to my doctor, and he prescribed me antidepressants.

The antidepressant, “worked”(?) for me, by stopping me from being able to feel anything at all. No emotions whatsoever.

Which actually felt, really amazing at first. (I know how that sounds, just hear me out.)

In six months, I went from being so depressed I wouldn’t eat for days at a time, spent days in bed, and showering very sporadically, to being able to make and keep appointments.

Often pre-antidepressant - I would be driving somewhere, and feel so depressed that I couldn’t find a reason to actually get where I was needed to, and I would just pull over, turn off my car, and stare straight ahead, at nothing, for hours. (I had never done that prior to meeting this partner)

No motivation to go home, no motivation to go anywhere.

Needless to say, I felt absolutely awful at all times, like the world was this brown mud, and I was drowning in it, and there was no escape.

And then when I started the antidepressant, most of that started actually going away.

I didn’t notice at first that I was also unable to feel compassion, or joy, or happiness.

The medicine worked as a sort of gradient, it wasn’t like I woke up completely emotionless one day, it was more like after three months I noticed.

By the time I noticed that I didn’t have emotions at all anymore, I just didn’t care. I didn’t feel shocked, or scared or worried, because all of those are emotions that I didn’t have.

I knew what happened to me, and I knew that the old-me would have been upset, but mostly, I just kept on with life. I ran the numbers and I was more productive without emotions, and as a bonus, I didn’t feel awful anymore. In my (new) book, that was a win.

There was one, huge benefit to not having emotions though that I am still grateful for:

I was finally able to dump that awful boyfriend.

When he tried to manipulate me into staying with his normal dance - [redacted because who needs to be bummed out?]

I just did not care.

I ran the numbers on how much good he was bringing to my life, and how much bad, and he came up staggeringly negative, so I dumped him.

These days, I feel 7% bad about it. While he was profoundly avoidantly attached - and an awful partner - I can see post breakup that he did love me in his own way, and I’ve genuinely never seen another human being break, the way he broke for me once he realized he couldn’t win me back.

I was done sacrificing my whole life for an ounce of affection from him.

But once I dumped him, my life still didn’t really change, because I still couldn’t feel anything.

Fun fact: without emotions, the entire world, just becomes one, big, math problem.

After about a year of being single and emotionless, the sheer boredom of life had really set in. I started thinking about my past, and what I used to like, and I remembered Cassandra Clare’s books.

So I opened my library app, and started re-listening to the audiobooks.

Although I couldn’t feel emotions anymore, I could remember what it was like.

Since that was the closest thing I had, I used it.

Re-listening to Clary and Jace fall in love reminded me of everything I used to be excited about. What I felt in middle school at the time I read them, what I thought romance could feel like, etc.

But most importantly, her books reminded me:

That caring about something isn’t supposed to make you feel worthless.

That you should feel confident that your partner wants to be around you, and that a good partner will listen to you, respect you, and stop when the vibes say stop.

But the book that saved my life, was QoAaD.

When Julian removes his emotions to furlough the effects of the parabati curse, I immediately recognized myself.

P.S. Cassandra Clare nailed the experience of not having emotions.

The book explained to me, in a way that I could understand at the time, why it’s important to have emotions, and all that we lose without them.

When the Seeliee queen says to Julian “you are in the cage” I started to genuinely consider life without the antidepressants.

I knew that I didn’t feel anything because of the medicine, but the idea of going back to being that level of depressed, was daunting. I didn’t know what I would face on the other side.

But seeing Julian have the courage to get his back and that it was worth the struggle, even when the emotions were unpleasant, gave me the courage to try.

So for the first time in two years, I went back to my doctor, and told him I wanted to look at stepping down the medication.

We came up with a plan to do so, and it took about a year 6-7 months to step down safely.

I didn’t notice any change whatsoever, until the final step down, from a teeny tiny dose, to zero.

And about two weeks after my last dose, it was like a dam broke.

What I thought has been an absence of emotions, turned out to be just a wall. Everything from the last two years came flooding at me, and it stayed like that for about two weeks.

After a very rough re-entry, I felt, like myself again, like I hadn’t in years.

Things like hugging my mom had meaning again.

I would walk outside and see butterflies and it actually felt nice.

I cared about people, and myself, and sunlight, and summer, and winter, and swimming.

And it wasn’t perfect, or all nice, but it was remarkably, my life.

And I felt grateful to have it, after losing it for so long.

Ever since then I have felt profoundly fond of her books, for giving me back what I had lost.