#Bad person doesn't mean amoral

[yeyinde]

dangle on the leash | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader

The flimsy sarcophagus housing all his wants, his desires, cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant. Ghost cocks his head in consideration. Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. But he's a rabid dog burning with the urge to bite. No one should really be surprised when he finally decides to sink his teeth into you. Unfortunately, that hail mary Price sent into the aether never reached you.

(your bird is too big for a cage— —but maybe a collar would do.)

this is a babytrapping fic lmao but please read the tags carefully. a companion piece to this (Price + babytrapping).

DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+

HARD WARNINGS—coercion. dependency. intentional alienation. unsafe, unprotected sex. this very much toes the line of noncon (that is still very dubcon even when consent is given) in many ways, notably: somnophilia, and condom/contraceptive tampering. intrusive, violent thoughts. mentions of violence. manipulation; slight gaslighting. implied kidnapping. references to past abuse (Ghost), brief mention of drugging/threats of drugging (ambiguous as to if it was ever followed through on or not, mostly just Ghost's internal monologue unfiltered). ADDITIONAL TAGS—smut. rough sex. unsafe sex. dom!Ghost. mean, obsessive, unhinged!Ghost. spit kink. dacryphilia.

he's feral, but he's yours. too bad for you, no one is really sure if that's a good thing or not.

One of the things Price often tells new recruits is to shove their old life into a box. 

“There's home,” he huffs, fingers twitching as if he's subconsciously flexing around the hilt of a lit cigar. “And then there's work. Whatever box you decide to put this, or your family, your personal life, into is your choice. But for fuck’s sake. Keep them separate.” 

Most of the new recruits are fresh off selection, shaded sickly chartreuse, and take his words as a literal gospel. Work, this; home, them. They don't start to unravel the second part of his gruff speech until much later. Until they can't wash the blood from their hands, and the scent of their mum’s eucalyptus hand soap is nauseating. Unfamiliar. When being in civvies feels like wearing skin that doesn't fit, and everyone around you is alien, foreign. They don't know. They'll never know. 

It's only when they find themselves gazing at the clock on the wall of their family home, counting down the minutes until their mandatory leave is over do they realise that home is the barracks. 

That's something Ghost has always understood. Maybe it was because his home life was already in ruins, tatters. Beer soaking into the knock-off Persian rug a cousin nicked from a flea market when he was nine. No fine china in the cupboards because it'll end up in shards on the floor. Plastic plates and forks and cups. Always. Howling in his head. Screaming from down the hall in his mum's room. His bedroom door creaking open at night. The anger, the curdling fear (shameful—be a man; punch him back, hit him before he hits you, you useless prick—), of not knowing whether or not it was his dad, high as hell and itching for a fight after busting their mum’s lip wide open, or Tommy sneaking into his bed at night because his is soaked in piss and he can’t sleep when they scream at each other like this.  

(Funny that, he always found; neither of them could ever sleep when it was silent, either.)

Blood on the linoleum. Trying to eat burnt toast and overcooked beans with a busted lip and a twinge in his jaw—

(Fractured, they'll say later, years later, during his mandatory medical checkup when he's first recruited. Healed all wrong. Son, didn't anyone take you to hospital?) 

He understands the separation between home and work—even if the former lost all relevancy nearly a decade ago. Back when he buried them all. Was buried himself—

What Ghost never really understood was the box. 

Shove it into a box. 

When he asks over cheap whisky somewhere in Siberia, Price tightens his fingers around his glass before bringing it up to his head. His index finger juts out. He knocks the tip of that bruised, scabbed knuckle against his temple. Once, thrice. Levels Simon with a pointed look he both can’t understand and somehow knows all too well. 

“Up here."

“Paid nearly fifty quid for that,” he grouses, shaking his head. “Think I've been ripped-off, Price.” 

Price scoffs, places the glass down with a hollow thud. “Don't be a fuckin’ muppet, Simon—” his real name makes his shoulders tense. Around the barracks, they know him only as the Ghost. “You put it away somewhere. Hide it. I don't fuckin’ know. But if it keeps you goin’, keeps you sane, and doesn't become a mess I gotta clean up, well—”

The implication is stark. Heavy. 

Price was always good at chiselling through layers of accumulated indifference to get to the madness within, but considering Ghost’s past and his mile-long rap sheet, the warning digging into his words like a dull blade isn't unwarranted. 

Old dogs, he'd called the pair of them when they first met. There was a sharp keenness in his eye when he lifted his hand, waved his cigar toward the tangled mess of scar tissue crisscrossing his face (made with a dull, rusted knife, one that gouged out deep pocks of skin, ugly fuck, looks like the badlands, don't he? like a postcard from the Grand Canyon, sweetheart. not so cute anymore, are ya, pretty boy—), and said, “well, you're fuckin’ rabid, ain't you? Better put a muzzle on that before it becomes a problem, mm.”

His problem, specifically. 

And Ghost gets it. Thinks Price might understand that particular brand of madness—despite growing up on literal opposite sides of the track, his Manchester to the others Liverpool; poverty and prestige—if only just. Because Price seems to be able to curb those baser impulses in a way Ghost hadn't yet mastered (and won't for quite some time yet). He's put together. Sort of. Respected. Normal.

The men in the barracks don't look at him and flinch. 

But he sees the way the man's eyes linger in the crowd, shrewd and careless, before falling on the pretty bartender in the back. The one with roses in her eyes and a smile full of dandelions. Soft, like butterscotch. It's here when they darken. When he reaches, almost angrily, for his whisky. Pats his chest with a heavy fist searching for his cigar. 

She's a sweet thing, he reckons. All pretty and trusting. Birds like her make his head itch—

“Don't even think about it, Simon,” Price grumbles, and it feels like territorial posturing, a challenge he almost raises to meet with his chin, if only to make Price fluster, but it's hollow. Empty. He denies himself, too. The prick. 

“How'd you do it?” He asks, and doesn't specify. Doesn't think he needs to. 

When Price swallows, it looks like a grimace. “Years of practice.” 

He considers the weight of it, his eyes straying back to the woman behind the bar. She's tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wrist delicate like bone china, the kind they could never afford, and for a moment, the intrusive thoughts, the ones he gets sometimes about wanting to tear things to bloody pieces, rears—

It's stamped down in a swig of flat lager You stupid fuckin’ mutt, Price would say tomorrow morning, shaking his head. You always think with your prick? 

Simon cranks his head sharply to the side instead. The resounding crack seems to echo through the empty pub. 

Price just shakes his head. “Christ. No one ever house break you, yet?” 

“Yeah, they did,” he rasps, staring at the bartender who gazes back at him now. Skittish, unsure. Not so sweet after all. She looks away, cowed. Her hands tremble. He leans back, and hums. “And now I piss outside, like a good ‘ol boy.” “Ain't nothin’ good about you, Simon. Fuckin' Christ—”

And he's not wrong. 

The Ghost has a reputation of being a cold-hearted bastard. A Frankensteinian beast cobbled together with spare parts robbed from a jailhouse graveyard. Worst of the worst. An arm from a mass murder. The leg from a spree killer. Heart a patchwork mess of ichor and sulphur. Sutured together with barbed wire. 

It's all sort of macabre. Rather trite, too. 

The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.

But sometimes, he wakes up and he's still buried. Still dead. Dirt in his throat, lodged in his nose. He breathes in and feels pebbles scraping his lungs. Feels worms in his ears. Maggots in his head. 

They crawl through his grey matter. Leeches burrowing into his thoughts, sucking the good in him dry. 

Or, whatever's left of it, anyway. 

He thinks with his teeth because it's easier that way. Cold, calculative instinct. Just barely boxed into a neat package slapped on the desk of Price's higher-ups. 

A good man, they say, and turn him loose on the streets. One of the best we have, as he breaks jaws, and tears through jugulars. A force to be reckoned with. 

They hand him a gun, a rifle, when the bloodied footprints leading back to camp become too much of a hassle to clean. Shoot from a distance. He takes to it like the bulk of metal was made for his scarred hands. Scythe to a Reaper. 

It feels like bloodletting. Draining him of his anger, his fury, until a cold, gnarled indifference curls in the basin left behind. Icy, frigid. Down to the bone. 

Sometimes, he doesn't remember what it felt like to be warm, even buried under a thick balaclava and layers of military fatigues. 

Frankenstein’s monster. Patched together from the rotten remains of horrible men. 

And as he stares in the mirror at the patchwork ruins of his face, his body, he wonders if there's some truth to it, after all. He's pretty sure if someone cracked his skull open—again—they’d find rot. Tumulus. Infested with maggots and worms. Cobwebs behind his eyes. In his nose. His brain perfectly preserved: a zombified tombstone. And oh, how it hungers. 

Wants. 

But in a box it goes. One shaped like a coffin. Placed pretty in the back of his broken head. 

He stares in the mirror and thinks he sees something moving under his eye. Wriggling around. The temptation to claw it out rears, but the shredded tissue on his thighs reminds him of what happens when he listens to that insidious hiss in the back of his head (some amalgamation of his old man, and that bastard—) and goes searching for gold in bone marrow. 

He huffs. Fingers curling around the porcelain. His head is rotten. Putrefied. He can feel the decomposing sludge press against his temples. It grows teeth sharp like a razor blade and hacks away at jaundiced bone. Ghost lifts his hand, digs his fingers into his temple. Down boy—

(Simon doesn't even want to consider what his heart must look like, then.)

Cold-hearted, sure—

But he likes sweet things. 

The kind that will undoubtedly give him cavities. A spillover, perhaps, when candy bars were too expensive, and the only dessert he was given was a toffee by the neighbour when she wasn't moaning to his old man about all the shit he and Tommy got up to. 

(Bruises came afterwards, the colour of liquorice. Sour cherries.)

Unfortunately for him, sweet things don't like him much—a shame, really. Simon has always had a sweet tooth. 

His rough edges are too sharp for their liking, and Simon's—

Intense. Like a dog with a bone, he doesn't know when to let go. When to unhinge his jaw from the morsel between his teeth. He bites hard. Shakes his head. Tears into the things he wants until it's bloodied meat pinched in his incisors. 

And so, they keep their distance. Like they can smell the rot on him. The funeral dirt. The stench of an unearthed sarcophagi. 

Sometimes, though, the wiley ones will inch closer, looking to get messed up badly by a bad man, and it makes something inside his head howl when he turns them down. Following Price’s creed. Can't give in to the pretty ones, he'd said. Nothin’ but trouble. 

Trouble, like a pair of shackles. A noose. Trouble, like gentle, clean hands and fragile bones. Fine china. Fine powder. The marshmallow soft kind of trouble that will melt in the acid that leaks from his pores. Aqua regia. Attacking anything that gets close. 

(Breakable, is what Price means. Pretty chew toys that are beyond repair once he's finished with them.

He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)

But still. He stays away. It's easier on base, in safe houses, too far out from the general public to have to worry about doe eyes and soft touches. He doesn't need it, anyway—

Then comes you. 

And the forfeiture of his self-control. 

You're trouble of a different kind. 

Trouble, like the end of a sledgehammer. Trouble, like the grill of a car. The barrel of a gun. 

In the shape of a battering ram, one strong enough to dislodge the madness in the back of his head. Where the corrosive acid should ruin you, eat you alive, it doesn't. Not with your tantalum skin. 

But oh, do you pack a punch—

At first, you think he's homeless. 

Some scruffed-up man sleeping on a park bench outside of your apartment. 

In another life, he might have been. He isn't a stranger to bad habits, and had the military not been his only choice in life for some semblance of good (laughable, considering what he does for a living), he could see the threads of his life leading him here. Drugs. Manchester is good for it, this he knows all too well. Especially the shithole neighbourhood he's from. 

He doesn't clue into this, though, until you glance at him, warily, and then shuffle into the cafè he’s holed outside of, the place where his current target gorges himself on steeped tea and crumpets. 

(Price's dry text sits, open, on his burner phone: and don't fuck this up—)

It feels a bit like an omen. Made worse when you meet his gaze through the glass, and—

Well. Shit. 

The impact is a collision. Hitting a pole at top speed. Metal bent around concrete. 

His teeth ache (so, so bad—).

You emerge from the small building a few minutes later—the faded eggshell with chocolate trim is nauseatingly sweet against your pastel yellow raincoat—holding a takeaway bag, and balancing a tray of coffees in your hand. 

He tenses. It's instinctual. There's nothing about you that's an immediate threat to his person—unless you plan on adding to his scars with the tip of your umbrella, the scalding coffee in your hand—but it's odd, isn’t it? No one approaches him. Not unless they have a reason to. 

And no one, in his experience, ever has a good one. 

“Hi,” you chirp, disarmingly sweet, as you come to stand in front of him. His jaw aches. Even sprawled across a bench, you're barely looking down at him. Sticky, cold fingers tap a strange rhythm down his spine. “I, um, hope this isn't weird, but I saw you sitting here, and—well. I got this—”

You wiggle the bag. He smells something greasy. A breakfast sandwich, he's sure.

It's an unusual assassination attempt. Price will be livid. 

“What for?” He rumbles, sitting up in the seat. The shift of his bulk seems to make you nervous. You take a step back, and he fights the urge to follow. To back you into a corner. No escape. 

You regain your footing, even if the smile on your face wobbles. Weakens under his flat stare. Some people can smell the rot on him. 

He wonders if you can, too. 

(Pity that. You're a pretty bird, ain't you?)

And the way you take him in lacks a distinct thrum of hesitation, fear that’s normally there. It occurs to him, then, that you see him as just another man. Just another person. 

(“deader than a doorknob, this one. such a goddamn waste, boss. he was a fun one, wasn’t he? should we burn ‘em?” 

nah. bury him out back—)

It's laughable, really. A joke. He has the urge to crack one—sick and awful enough to make that little smile on your face wilt. Wither away. Almost does, too, but it get tangled in his throat when he feels the weight of your stare on him. 

The easy sweep of your eyes is barely discrete, but it's clinical. Pitying. But the softened edges of that empathy dissolve as your pretty head adds up all the numbers on him, coming to a standstill. Your eyes linger on his wrist. The gold of his wristwatch peeks out beneath the black sleeve of his hoodie. An intricate web of complex timekeeping that only he's privy to. A little luxury he picked up in Italy when the cash he'd been given was getting too tiresome to carry around. 

Dead men, after all, don't need bank accounts. 

And then—

You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”

It clicks, then. The pity. The soft words. The goddamn coffee— 

His gums itch. He has the sudden urge to be mean about it. Pick you apart in this street until nothing but embarrassment and humiliation remains. 

“That I was homeless? ‘nd you brought me, what? A coffee? ‘ow sweet of you. Some breakfast, too. Well, aren't you a lovely girl?” 

You are embarrassed. It blisters across your expression. Has your hands trembling around the cardboard tray, spilling droplets of coffee down the side. Your head is bowed, cowed in shame. It reminds him of that bartender some years prior. Pulling away when the bad dog growls—

But there's a thin sheen of intrigue in your eyes, burrowing holes into the shoes in front of you; a tangled knot of want coiling in the heat of your embarrassment over this blunder. Over offending him. 

Well—

That's new. 

Some get off on it. On humiliation. Specifically, of the public variety. He didn't take you as the type. The way you twist, squirming in place, is odd, though. It doesn't fit as well as he originally thought. No. It's not the public shame, but—

Him. 

Ah. 

Sweet, sweet girl. 

(So naïve.)

He reckons he could get you to do just about anything to make it up to him. You would, too. You're soft enough to be submissive, to bow your head in contrition, but there's a flicker of defiance in the jut of your chin when you lift your head. 

This is a blunder and you're sweetly embarrassed, sure, but it isn't enough to break you. 

And now Simon just wants to ruin you. Teach you a lesson about bad, vile men—

(Something you'd welcome with open arms, wouldn't you?)

“Didn’t know Manchester was so charitable,” he rasps. His throat is dry. Parched. He reaches for the coffee—black, with extra creamer and sugar on the side, tucked neatly in a little bag; fuckin’ hell. Ain't you just adorable—and places it on the spot beside him. “I’ll be takin’ this. Will need it for later.” 

You look like you want to protest. Fight back. His hackles rise, ready for it—eager. Something anticipatory, dark, bleeds through the moulted mess of his head. Sickly. Terrible. He thinks about what you'd look like sprawled under him, shaking and begging for more, for him to stop—

Fuck. Birds usually make his head itch, but you make his fucking skin crawl. 

In the end, you just huff. Roll your eyes. He wants to chew them out of your head. Pop them between his teeth. He bet you'd taste divine. 

You walk away from him before he can. You don't look back once. 

Pity, he thinks. Someone's gonna snatch you clean off the streets like that—

Hours later, he sends Price a text message with the coordinates for where to pick up the package Ghost left. 

He considers it a blessing when the man sends him back, good job, now get a pint from me as a little reward. Can't say I don't treat my team well. 

A reward, huh? 

Well. With your stature in comparison to his own, Ghost easily can see you being considered a pint. 

So, he follows you home, and tallies this one as being on Price. 

It's easy. Too easy. He slips deftly behind you, tucked away from view, and masks his footsteps under the echo of yours until he's standing in the shadows outside of your house. This, too, feels like a blessing. It's a duplex. He waits for one of the lights to flicker on, and—

The window brightens. Room number two. 

He hums, and palms his pockets for the pack of smokes he nicked off the man. Needing something to take the edge off. To quell the urge to bite. 

It's even easier to engineer meetings. Random run-ins. All blamed on happenstance, chance. Of course. This towering mountain of a man with his thick manc twang—the sort of gallows humour that can only be found in the blue-collar streets of Salford from the nasty old men squatting on the corners—must have better things to do than stalk you. Surely. You're not special enough to be hunted, right? 

Still. You're a touch wary of him. Distrustful. You keep your distance—six inches for Jesus Christ, aren’t you a peach?—and try to skirt the line between neutrally polite to the strange man loitering outside of the shops you frequent (your schedule burned to his memory, naturally) and that fascinating skittish intrigue from before. All simmering heat. Blunt want. The kind wrapped up in silk threads. 

It's interesting to watch it play out when he steps closer and all those long-forgotten instincts in the back of your head flare up. The shaky step you take back. The inward frown of confusion when you're not sure why your body craves space, acting almost on its own. And then the sweet defiance that breaks over you. The intentional step closer. The feigned warmth in your tone as you talk to him.

It's easy to pocket the uglier aspects of his personality. The coldness. The indifference. The flat, droll insincerity that leaks into his tone. All of it shelved, locked away, and he's not sure if Price would be happy that he listened to what he said, followed his example, or furious that he's bastardising it to lure this pretty fish in.

)The latter, undoubtedly. But Simon gets a sick kick from it all.)

Especially when it brings you closer to him. Thaws you as you rationalise his reaction during the first meeting, gears spinning. Kicking up excuses. 

Anyone would be angry, offended. It's natural. He's alright now—

It makes you look at him differently as you forcefully fight the urge to flee. 

Silly bird. 

Wary eyes rake over his massive bulk. Brows furrow at the series of black medical masks he wears in public. Always. That, in addition to the heavy black of his wardrobe—black jacket, black hoodie, black leather gloves—sometimes makes you glance at him with a touch of worry. Fear. Probably wondering if you brought home a delinquent. 

But it changes when he rolls up his sleeves one day after you've been moaning about your broken beach cruiser (the, I don't know, chain—or something—keeps catching—), and crouches down to fix it. 

There's a hitch in your breath. A distinct swallow. A guilty tinge of something shy, deliciously so, shading your eyes ruby-red when you look down at him. 

And ah—

Sweet little treat snagged on the line. Ain't he a lucky lad? 

It's all the better when you do the work for him. Reeling yourself in, practically throwing yourself in his cooler when you ask about his tattoos, carefully—considerately—nudging the topic away from his ugly scars. 

He guts you clean as he tells you he's in the military. Top secret, pet. Don't ask because I'd hate to ‘ave to hurt a pretty face like yours—

You preen under it. Pet. Pretty. You don't even notice when he slides his knife over your scales, dices you up on his chopping board. 

You're the picture of sweetness when he unkinks the chain in your bike, and sets it straight. All happiness. Smiles. Appreciative glances. You flutter your pretty eyes at him as you say—

“Thank you—”

You're waiting for a name. His belly rumbles. He could eat, he thinks, and licks his teeth. 

“Simon. Simon Riley.” 

The risk-reward ratio is balanced when you breathe it out between plump lips, chasing the end of it with your tongue. He wants to eat it out of your mouth. Swallow it down. 

You touch his arm, hand warm, soft. “If there's anything I can do to pay you back—”

He takes you out for a kebab later on. Nudges you out of the way when you open your wallet to pay. Draft girl. Naïve, too, because he can feel the heat in your cheeks from where he stands, reaching over to snatch the bag from the man with a grunt. 

You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting. 

Doesn't matter. He lets it take root. Especially when you shyly invite him back to yours to eat. 

He makes a feast of it, and fucks you on your mint green chaisse after he's finished. 

(Not on birth control, you say, and hand him a box of condoms, suddenly shy. It's unopened. He hums, and burns that to memory.) 

He keeps his distance—an easy feat when he's halfway around the world, and you're stuck in the gloom of Manchester. 

It's purposeful, of course. He made a promise to Price not to give him a reason to worry, but fuck—

You're proving hard to quit. He's never had anyone cuff him upside the head on his bullshit. Not anymore, anyway. Not as the Ghost. He likes the thrill of it, of this chase. 

You don't let him steamroll you when he's in a mood to fight. You punch back, hitting him right in the mess of his guts, and fuck. Fuck. He's a little bit obsessed with it. With you. This wily little fish that acts so shy when he's got three fingers buried in your cunt, but rides him after like you're starving for it. Clawing at his chest. Scratching his arms. It's raw. Primal. He wants to break you—this fiery little kitten that bites his fingers until they bleed, and then purrs in his lap as he drives a pickaxe through your head, shredding logic into pieces. Rummaging around until he nicks the optic nerve that lets you see red. 

You’re everywhere. In everything. In the back of his head, under the howling that hadn't stopped since you trailed your finger down the jagged topography of his bare chest, digging your nail into the crude x across his heart, and whispered, soft and sweet: you're all kinds of fucked up, aren't you? 

A bludgeon to his self-control—

He resists. Has to. Is mean about it, too. Doesn't tell you where he's going (it's need to know), or what he's doing (would ‘ave to bash your pretty ‘ead in if I told you), but keeps you strung on the line (keep thinkin’ about that pretty cunt of yours; can't wait to come ‘ome and ‘ave you sit on my ugly mug—). 

It's dangerous, this game of his. Thrilling for all the wrong reasons. 

But he’s a good mutt. Good—

Until the text. 

The one you send to him when you're out with friends. A picture. You're in a pub somewhere in Moss Side, a drink in hand. A gaggle of nobodies crowded around you. It makes sense, he supposes. There's that old idiom—you’ll trap more flies with honey—and he doesn't know anyone nearly as sweet as you. 

His sweet girl.

(you fuckin’ mutt—)

Ghost stares at you for a moment, teeth aching. The little ensemble—a crop top and jeans—is a vision, he reckons. But it's spoiled when he catches more eyes on you than pointed at the camera. Practically spilling out of your top, aren't you? 

He breathes heavily through his nose. Tastes guncotton in his throat. 

Ghost commits every face to memory, and then calls you. 

You're drunk. Too drunk to remember it tomorrow. Stuck in a pub on what's supposedly a bad part of town. Chatting away about going to your friend’s house. He gets the address, and something sour twits in his stomach. Shit council houses. 

“That safe?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. He's already chubbed up in his slacks at the slur in your voice. “And dressed like that? Didn't take you for a slag—”

It makes you sputter on the line. “I'm—I’m not—”

You're so quick to placate him. So hasty to make him happy. Please don't be angry with me, Simon. I'm just having some fun—

The claws and fangs are tucked away when you're drunk. He shoves the information in the cache, eyes burning. Head aching. He's feverish. Hot under the collar.

Odd considering he's dead—

“Sounds like you will be.”

“It's not like that—”

“‘ow would you know? Might meet a nice fellow. Might take him home.”

“I don’t—I wouldn't—”

The sniffle makes him throb. Fuck. “Yeah? Well, ain't none of my business, I reckon—”

“It is.”

“Oh? How's tha’?”

“I—I like you, Simon—” he can taste your embarrassment through the phone. He didn't even need to bring you flowers and you're already boxing him into monogamy, confessing to him. So sweet. So tender. If he were a better man, he might have told you to sober up. To talk about this tomorrow. 

Too bad for you, he isn't. And what’s worse is that he’s a loyal bastard, too. 

But that's later, and right now—

He's halfway across the world, and you're vulnerable. In the den of hungry mutts. 

It’s charr in his throat. Anger in his veins. “You like me? An’ you go out dressed like that?”

“There's nothing wrong with how I'm dressed—”

He sucks his teeth. “Dunno ‘bout tha’, pet. You look like you're achin’ to get fucked.”

You take a shuddering breath. “I just want you—”

“Yeah?” It's a growl. His cock spits prespend in his trousers. “Then be my good girl. Go home and wait for me.”

It's quiet on the line. He catches the hitch in your throat, the sharp exhale, like you can't really be sure if he's serious or not. He says nothing. Waits. 

Where there would have been a fight—fists and teeth and snarling words—you quieten in the silence. Docile. Submissive. It's in you, he knows. He saw the glimpses back when you first met, when he'd bent down and fixed the bike he broke. All it needs is a little—

“Jus’ worried about my sweet girl, is all.” 

And you relent. 

Corrosive oil spills out of the necrosed holes in his head. It curls over his thoughts, liquid sin. He takes himself in his hand, blood pulsing in his veins, white-hot, damning, and bares his teeth at the urge to come to you, to push you down on the floor, and mount you like a snarling beast—

“Good girl,” he growls when you tell him you'll call a taxi, that you'll go home and have some wine with your friend instead.

Friend. Friends. 

He'll have to do something about that. 

(The thing about deprivation is that it bleeds into a vicious sense of possession when it's finally obtained. Greed. His wants have wants, have wants—

A perfect ouroboros. One you feed into almost destructively.)

Because the thing is—

Simon wants to tie you to his bed. Keep you locked up in the safe house he has in Manchester. Chained, shackled. A prisoner with him as your iron guard. 

It isn't just fantasy, either. 

The flies that congregate around you are an annoying, incessant buzzing in his ears. Remora clinging to the biggest fish. 

But they're easy to scatter when he waves his hand. 

(Waves off. Threatens with bodily harm, with physical aggression—

Same thing.)

The sting in his knuckles and the blood on his shoes are worth it in the end when your tantalum skin cracks. An aggregate of beautiful lines, pretty in their fragility, their brokenness. He wedges his fingers between the splints, widening the chasm to pet at the sticky-soft centre hiding beneath all that rough rock. Sweet girl. Hard candy enclosing taffy-softness. 

His coos melt you to the consistency of mercury. Liquid silver pebbles along your lash line, spilling over in a dizzying display of raw vulnerability. 

It makes every predatory instinct inside of him bristle. Locking onto the sweet lines of crystalline sadness that run down your cheeks. It has his heart racing. Eager, anticipatory. The thrill of the chase, of running you down into the ground until you're fine powder under him. 

And it’s there, it's in his arms—the maw of a beast—where you seek comfort, lamenting the loss of your friends, your coworkers. No one wants to hang out with you anymore. They don't return your calls or answer your texts. 

What did I do? You sniffle, throat bared. Belly turned up. 

Flooded with tears. The lachrymal face that peers up at him makes his teeth ache. He rolls his head back, feels himself thicken in his pants. 

Simon loves it when you cry.

“Fuck ‘em,” he rasps, words sticking to his dry throat. “If they can't see what a catch you are, then they don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

It makes you cry harder, makes you mumble into his chest about how lucky you are to have someone like him. Someone who cares. 

His breath hitches. Warm floods his veins, fever-hot. 

“Thank you, Simon—”

And then you, smooth silver and wickedly sweet, cradle him in your palms as if you could hold all the broken pieces of him together. 

He thinks it's cute. 

Doesn't really have the heart to tell you it's a lost cause.

“Anytime, pet.”

And you're perfect, too.

You take this mangy mutt into your house, and let it eat your food, sleep in your bed. You let him fuck you stupid, and listen so prettily when he convinces you to let him spoil you. Let him pay your rent, your bills. Let Simon dote on you the only way he knows how—mercilessly possessive, and a touch cruel, mean—but you roll over, showing your belly. Submissive and sweet. 

It's even better when you try to lash out at him with a collar in the shape of his teeth branding your neck, spitting and hissing like a feral cat who doesn't know yet that's claws have been clipped. Only to then curl up in his lap, purring as he strokes your fur, and carves out a place for himself in your life. 

He wants to sink his teeth into you, and you think he's a big dog. Undomesticated. One who comes and goes as he pleases. A stray. A mutt. 

It's said fondly. Full of love—

His mouth is full of cavities. His teeth ache. His gums bleed. 

(do you know he's rabid? that the faded name on his dog tags once read cujo—)

Everything about you makes that sludge flood behind his eyes, pounding rotten fists against his temple. take, take, take; mine, mine—

The howling doesn't stop. It tells him to press you into the mattress and fuck you stupid. Tie you to the bedposts and never let you go—

He throws fists in the dark, trying to hit the madness in his head. Ends up with bloody knuckles and laughter in his ears. 

(a voice of reason says, your bird is too big for a cage—)

He clings to it. 

You're warm beside him. Burning hot. He syphons it from your veins when you're asleep, pulling you close just to feel something on his skin other than dirt. Other than blood. 

It's easy to pretend he's fine with these little nips. Leaving teeth marks in your neck. Bloody rings snaking up your thighs. 

He wraps one hand around both of your wrists, holds them high above your head, and tells himself it's enough. Shackled by him, under him, as he takes you apart, pulling at your sense of independence like the gnarled fingers of winter bringing defoliation to summer's bloom, but even with this, all of it, he still aches. Still wants. Needs—

Stupid fuckin’ mutt. 

Then you bring his hands up to your throat, letting him wrap his bearish paws around your delicate neck, and he knows these little bites will never satiate the hunger in his guts. 

He wakes up the next morning feeling warm. Full. Edges softened, if only just, by the sticky sweetness of your breath ghosting over his chest. 

Simon curls his arm around you, holding tight.  He won't let go. Won't—

Hide it. Put it away. 

Ghost does neither of those things. He buries it, instead.  

But in doing so, you find cracks in the foundation. Ones that are just big enough for your willfulness to slip through. To hand him back the cash he gave with a scoff, and a, i work, too, you know? i don't need your money, Simon. that's not why i’m with you—

(All he hears is, I don't need you.)

And then you send him a text. I'm going out with friends from work tonight. We're going drinking. I'll talk to you tomorrow! 

In the zombified remains of his head, a new howling starts. The hisses tell him you're pulling away, running from him—

It's a big world out there. It'll eat you whole—

Like Tommy.

The thing about want is that sometimes it grows teeth, hands. Claws. Without a body of its own, it tends to mould itself after its maker because that's all it knows how to do: devour, consume. Yearn. 

He shouldn't be too surprised to find that this need of his has dug itself out of the grave he buried it in. 

(he did, too—)

The flimsy sarcophagus cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.

The howling in the back of his head stops abruptly. The pulsing ache in his temple abates. It's heavy, this weight. This absolute, utter emptiness—

No. It's not hollow. The chasm isn't drained, it's—

(In the silence, something growls. Feral. Possessed.)

—full. Perfect equilibrium. All of the patchwork parts of himself, the ones that don't quite fit, suddenly find synergy. 

Communion. 

Ghost cocks his head in consideration.

(your bird is too big for a cage—

—but maybe a collar would do.)

—after all, could you ever leave him with his name etched into your womb—

In leaving the key under the mat for him to come and go as he pleases, you've left yourself vulnerable. But—

Not anymore. 

He has a safehouse he'll take you to. You'll let him, too, because it'll be the best choice for you. The three of you.

He's never entertained any ideas of family, not when the closest approximation he has is drenched in gun oil and smells of smoke from artillery fire, but the howling in his head quietens at the idea of it. He can't shackle you to the bed—stupid fucking mutt—but he can tie you down all the same. Make you his. Wholly. Always. 

And the thing is—despite a pickaxe making figure-eights out of his grey matter; lead poisoning and rust giving him these sour, awful thoughts about locking you up in his house, leaving you a needy mess, dependent only on him—Simon supposes he knows right from wrong. 

Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. 

But in carving himself a place in your life, he failed to realise that the walls behind him closed in. No way out. And so, his only option is to go forward. To keep moving.

He'll be crucified for this, but that's fine. 

He doesn't intend for you to find out, anyway. It'll be an accident. He came home early, and found you drunk. Drank with you. Your drunken idiocy merged, creating a terrible, noxious cocktail of awful, bad choices. Permanent ones. Irreversible. 

(You're so sweet, so docile when you're drunk—)

It'll be easy to convince you. To play the part of a stoic man suddenly in turmoil. You'll offer to get rid of it, a suggestion that he'll flinch at—a cornered dog, a hand raising in the air. You'll whimper. Shake in his arms as you tentatively smooth over the wrinkles in his brow, murmuring out your options in a stilted breath.

You'll be a Riley before the end of your term. It's only proper, he'll mutter, stiff and uncomfortable, and you'll melt. Liquid tantalum in his palm. The fruits of his labour laid bare, seeping from the corners of his mouth. Tucked tight between his teeth. Mercury he can swallow down, keep in the bracket of his rotten ribs. Safekeeping from this world that just takes. Devours. 

But not if he eats you first. 

The mere notion alone serves as an anchor, locking him to the seafloor. The tumult in his head calmed at the promise of owning. Biting to claim. To have. Greedy for it. For you, and the strange sense of quiet your proximity brings him. The warmth, too. 

He's a rabid dog. This he knows—has known—for quite some time. Indisputable. It pools in his mouth. Liquid sin. Makes him ache for just a sip. Unquenchable, though, because he's wary of water. Hydrophobia, but only for how it washes his efforts away. Cleanses. 

The urge inside of him to bite, to infect, quietens when he gets closer to you. 

(a rabid mutt licking at the window you're on the opposite side of, dreaming of just a taste—)

A byproduct of that maddening virus in his veins, the one he must have picked up six feet in the ground. Bite, bitebite—

—and give you a collar in the shape of his teeth.

He finds you in bed. A bottle of wine on the end table beside you, courtesy of your friend. The one lingering remora he couldn't snap at—one who sends you messages about how you are being manipulated. Taken advantage of. Fuck that loser, the latest one says when he picks up your phone, scrolling through the dwindling conversations housed within. Just him now, and them. 

It preaches about empowerment. About how you shouldn't let a man pay your bills (textbook manipulation. he's putting you in a position of dependency. making you feel obligated to stay. it's all on Google, babes. like, fucking get a clue!!!!), or how it's moving so quickly (maybe you should come stay with me in Durham for a bit, hun. get away for a weekend. i worry about ya, is all). He hums, thumbing through the old chats. 

You told her to fuck off about the manipulation, but it came after a lot of, oh, yeah. well, he's just. you know. he's different, and you haven't declined the invitation. i’ll think about it, is what you write. 

It simmers under his skin. That independence he plans on stomping out under his heel. With his kin. 

(sick, sick sick, wrong—)

It's desperation, this. Clawing at the walls—the dirt—until his nails are torn off his fingers. Until his skin splits, peels. Broken under rock and rubble. That animalistic need for air. To breathe. Basic training tells him not to save the person drowning unless he's sure they won't kill him in their struggle to live. But what's he supposed to do when that person is his rotting body, sinking down to unfathomable depths? When all he has is you to cling to—

Damnation built by his own hands. 

You'll die together, he reckons, and tosses your phone on the hamper in the corner of the room. 

Ghost can't remember the last time someone made him feel anything at all other than impartiality. Indifference. Casual apathy. 

Price is the exception to this on the grounds of being consanguineous to him.

And you—

An outlier. 

One he intends on sinking as deep as he can with. Anchored, maybe, by this little plan that beats and pulses in the back of his head. That clogs his throat with a want so thick, he can already taste the brine from the ocean. Water in his nose. Down his esophagus—

Better than dirt, he supposes. And it spurns him forward.

You're malleable like this. Tensile. He bends you easily with just a touch until you're flat on your back, a pillow shoved beneath your tailbone, and stripped. The loose shirt you wear to sleep is hiked up under your neck. Panties are pulled off until your sweet, bare cunt is revealed to him. All pretty and soft, and his. Untouched, he notes, and gives an appreciative stroke over your clit with his thumb. 

It was something you were whining about the other day, panting in his ear as if he wasn't a continent away. Pleading with him on the phone to please, please let you come. 

Simon likes the way you cling to him when it's been a while since something has wrecked you as thoroughly as his cock. When your spoiled pussy was neglected for a few days, weeks, and starved for attention. You were so sweet to him then, cooing in his ear how good you've been, how much you want him and only him, need him. Begging so prettily for it. 

He's almost sad to spoil himself in your cunt when you can't weep for it. Can't bully him closer. Try to claw his eyes out. That delicious push-pull where you hiss at him for pulling away, but whine when he gets too close. 

Sad, but—

Not enough to stop himself. 

You're not wet enough for him to slide inside unprepared—his cock too big, something that makes his bones tremble—and he rectifies it by leaning down, letting saliva pool between his teeth and lips. He holds it there for a moment as he spreads your folds apart with his thumb and forefinger. 

And then he spits on your bare cunt. 

It hits your clit, the thick glob siding down your slit. He reaches between your thighs, pawing at you. Slides his fingers through the slick mess he made, teases around your tight rim. 

Simon usually likes to take his time with you. Lapping at your pussy for hours until you're a weeping, snot-nosed mess whining in the sheets. Spoiled rotten. Begging him to fuck you already, Simon, you can't take it anymore—

He's mean. Cruel. Edges you for hours until your legs shake, trembling around his ears. He never lets you reach that peak—doesn’t let you come until he's buried inside of you. 

Coming on his tongue, his fingers, is rarely a privilege you ever earn. Too much of a spitfire, a spiteful little kitten, to give in and do what he demands. So he keeps you on the precipice until he's ready to fuck you, ignoring your bribes, your bargains. Simon doesn't give in even when you beg, when you relent and tell him you'll finally be good. 

You never are. 

Spoiled, he always huffs. Down to the fuckin’ bone. 

Like now. Pulling away from him. Him, the only person in your life who stuck around. A little bullying (bones breaking, splintering under his fists; the wet, hot smear of blood on his hands, skulls smacking against the pavement—an’ if you tell anyone, he cracks his battered fists and it sounds like a snarl, a gunshot, your parents will be cryin’ over an empty grave—) shooed the gnats away. He took a more clandestine approach to others. Birds that kept circling you tight. Protective, shrill. They made his head ache, but—

(don't want to start nothin’, but i don't want to be alone wit’ ‘er. tried to kiss me, is all. ain't like that, pet—)

It was a test. And they all failed. All but him. 

Yet—

come to Durham. 

i’ll think about it. 

Ungrateful. It's his fault, though. Simon doted on you too much, cosseted by his affection, when he should have clipped your wings from the beginning. 

Ah, well—

Lesson learned. 

You're wet enough now. He pushes in two fingers, scissoring them apart. You'd be yowling at him, kicking up a fuss if you'd been awake. But you're not. It thrums through him. Thick, heady. He likes you like this—probably more than he should. The heat simmering in his veins bubbles. Pops. Sap on charring wood. It clogs his throat with his smoke until it burns, a dry forest fire. 

He needs you. Needs to be in you. He's tired of waiting. Impatience burrows into him like a maelstrom. 

Simon adjusts his hold on your leg, fingers curling behind your kneecap. Steadying himself. His fingers slip out of your cunt with a sloppy squelch that ghosts across his spine. Anticipatory. A touch anxious. He wants you. Wants you bad—

He takes himself in his hand, and slides the weeping tip over your slit. Taps it once, thrice on your clit. And then guides it to your centre. Your warmth bleeds into him. Eager, he shuffles forward. Feeds you his cock. Eyes drilling into the place where his head slips in, swallowed by your sloppy, wet hole. The glands make you stretch around him. Rim pulled taut. 

The sight alone must have been crafted by some Luciferian dream, dangled before him in the shade of nirvana. 

take a bite, it urges. and then take more—

Like this, passed out with your legs hitched over his shoulders, drooling into the pillow unawares, you're just a doll. 

Made for him, and—

“Fuckin’ hell—” He presses into you—cock splitting tight, warm heat—and tries not to lose himself to the sensation of being bare, raw, inside of you. 

—“A perfect fit.”

It's always been condoms. You're not on birth control. Ink blots in his eyes. He goes a little feral with it. Instincts unleashed. Unfettered. 

Simon bullies his fat cock into you until his hips tap the back of your thighs, buried as deep as he can go. It's molten heat cocooning him—a warm embrace. For the first time, ever, he thinks he understands the meaning of home. Sliding home, in particular. 

(Welcome home. Home. Home. He'll make a house out of your body. Sleep inside the brackets of your thighs, head pillowed on your chest—)

As good as you feel around him—slick, wet, and tight—and as much as he wants to saviour the sight of you, passed out on the pillow, cunt split by his cock, he has a goal, a mission, to see through. 

His hand falls, slick and tacky, to your lower belly. Palm pressing against the subtle bulge in your abdomen, the outline of his cock. You always whine and hiss that he's too big for you. That you can't take him to the root. 

Hurts, you complain, hand against your naval. Fingers knotting over the place that aches. 

He presses his fingers there instead, feeling himself under your skin. Changing your anatomy to make room for him to fit—

It lights him in fire. Spurns him on. He bucks into you, pace sloppy, clumsy. Selfish. He's unrelenting as he splits you apart, drilling the full length of himself into your supine body, supple flesh relaxed under him, practically melting into the sheets. 

The thread keeping his resolve, his self-control, sprung up tight begins to quiver. Each piston into you has delicate fingers drumming across the strings of a harpsichord. It reverberates through him, echoing in the stifling, suffocating, silence of the bedroom, overtaking it. Clouding it with the musk of his desire, his devotion to you, to this dream blooming in the prison of his mind. 

Everything narrows into a needlepoint. 

There's just your burning flesh beneath him, softer than it's ever been; pillowy. Welcoming. And the sounds of him fucking into you—lewd squelches, slick and wet; the sound of his cock finding home in the basin of your spread thighs; his heavy breaths, his groans and growls that seem to rattle the bed. The noise breaks, an incomplete requiem of sin in his head, and he loses himself in the lulling notes, dragged under in the bestial beat of taking what his—

A sudden noise shatters through the room. Beneath him, you stir, gasping wetly. The sound mangled in your throat. 

There's confusion in your sleepy, hazy gaze when you peer up at him, lashes clumping together. You moan, whimpering, as you struggle to latch on to the threads of cognisance that he's content to fuck out of you. Your hand lifts, falls to his wrist still pressed against your lower belly. The grip is lax, loose. You’re not pushing him away, but clinging to him. Centring yourself. 

It makes his blood thicken. Has him burning red-hot. 

“Wha’s a’matter, pet?” He taunts, grinding his cock into you hard enough to make your dazed eyes water. Your hand tightens around him, holding steady. “Don't like it? Not fuckin’ you hard enough?”

“Simon—”

His name tapers off into a keen when he angles hips, and starts pistoning into you with a mean, merciless fury. The desperate noises that spill, unhindered, from your slack mouth is the perfect accompaniment to the lewd sound of him fucking your sopping cunt; the piece he was missing when this started. His requiem, complete. 

It's a serrated blade to his self-control, already frayed and threadbare as it is. The pressure makes it snap.

“C'mon, sweet thing. Thought you wanted this?” 

There's a place in hell just for him. It's sealed when you blink your tired, sleepy eyes up at him, mind a slurry of lingering somnolence and the heady alcohol on your breath, and offer a shuddering whimper. Always so soft for him, so agreeable when you’re drunk. 

“So’ry, Simon—”

You can barely string words together. Poor, pitiful you—vulnerable under him. Breakable. Malleable. Anyone else could have tricked you into this same position when he was away. Got you beneath them like this, compliant and unawares, and took what belongs to him. 

(The only thing in this destitute existence he claims for himself—)

Not anymore. Not ever again. 

It's almost callous when he grinds into you. Hateful. Brutish. Furious. And dazed as you are, you barely even flinch at the snarls that spill, unfettered, from the back of his throat. The low groans of him making promises with devils unknown; constructing shackles from brass, iron. 

Entrenching his future in motion, cupped protectively between the parentheses your thighs make around his hips. It's almost a vicious sort of poetry, one laid bare in the odious ruins of that broken thing he calls a heart. Etched into his rotten pericardium. Necrosed devotion. He'll see it through—however noxious, and putrid, you might find the miasmal stench of it spun tight in his web. 

It's for your own good.

And as if you agree, you answer him in perfect euphony, moaning sweetly as you tilt your hips up for more. 

Ghost groans low in his throat, bestial and spinning rapidly out of his control. He feels everything spinning, slipping; the trudge to the finish line narrows into a pinprink. He needs something to cling to, to hold on to with broken hands—

The only purchase he finds is in your demise. 

His hand lifts, shaking yours loose. He reaches up, fingers dig into your chin, forcing your pouty mouth open. You blink at him, sluggish, but he catches the thin gossamer of awareness spooling thin cobwebs over darkened crevasses, covering the canyons in your eyes with cognisance. It makes him leer. 

“Stick your tongue out, pretty girl,” he rasps, words sticking together, muffled under the mask. Crushed aggregate stone under the weight of his own desire. “Tha’s it. Open up nice and wide—”

He lets spit gather again, pooling on his tongue. It's degrading, you always say. Gross. But you swallow it down like a good girl, anyway. Always. You come at him with fangs and claws, but somehow, you always merge in a perfectly dizzying polyphony. 

Ghost spits on your tongue. Lets it land right in the middle of fleshy pink. A sick, twisted pleasure thrums in his veins at the sight. 

There's checking the boxes of an established kink, and this. Horrifically proprietary. Ownership that ignites a fire in his marrow, setting him alight from the inside out. Turns bone into blackened char, cinder. He can almost taste it on his tongue. 

It's made worse, turned frenzied, when you—sweet, perfect, you—bracket it protectively in the curve of your tongue. Completely dazed, head filled with a heady slurry of somnolence and alcohol, but still aware enough to know, even if only through muscle memory, what you're meant to do when he spits in your mouth. 

If anything, you're more obedient like this. Little doll. Coddling it lovingly, this little piece of him that he gives you. 

And it might be the madness speaking—these fraying thoughts take on a vitriolic edge, corrosive aqua regia pooling in his throat—but Christ. He's been stabbed in the guts, repeatedly, and it somehow packed less of a punch than this. 

He wants, wants—

Family never crossed his mind, was never even on the table or something to be considered, but with you it brims. Blooms in rot. Roots in tenebrous. 

He has this insatiable urge to devour you whole so you'll always be with him. The waves of his desire are monstrous. The waters below are rapacious. A gaping maw eager to eat you up—

Pity it’s not an option. 

But he’ll make do. Buy a ring tomorrow. Something pretty that matches your eyes. The curve of your smile. Sanctioned ownership. A collar in gemstones and gold, glimmering and shining bright enough that should any light fade from your gaze, it’ll illuminate in the gloom; twilight made in sorrow. The prettiest blues—

Said eyes water. Ghost’s hold on your face relaxes when you give a muffled keen, cheeks bubbling up against the pressure. Tongue still stuck out even as he takes his pleasure from your supine flesh. Suspended in motion, stasis. Such a good girl for him—

He swallows. Tastes poison, rot, on his tongue. “Swallow.” 

You're a little sluggish, a little slow, but you follow his command all the same. He knows, then, that it could only ever be you. 

No one gets under his skin like this. No one makes him itch, want, crave, as much as you do—

You make a face, twisted up in some amalgamation of pleasure and confusion. It nudges the ruins of his chest and feels almost like a heartbeat when it pulses in his flesh. 

“Simon, Simon—”

His name is all you can say, and he's not sure if you're begging for mercy, or muttering it out into the scant air between your heaving breaths like an obsecration, an orison, but he eats it all the same. Bites down on your pleas, your cries, your prayers, and chews them up between fangled teeth. Takes them down into the swirling pits of his belly where they're eaten alive by what grows in the decay.

(belly full of dirt:

he heaves, and heaves, but nothing comes out even though he can taste humus in his throat, feel worms using his organs like a playground—)

“Somethin’ you want, pet?” He taunts, and shifts his hips back just enough to drag a few inches of his cock out of your drenched cunt. A tease—cruel and mean. He’d get lobbed upside the head for this had you been in your right mind. A tap to his temple, shaking the cobwebs loose. He would have bent down, and sunk broken teeth into your jugular. Merging violence with love until bloody knuckles feel like a kiss. “All you ‘ave to do is ask. Use your words, pretty thing—”

You whine, low and drawn out. A lazy whimper in the back of your throat. “Pl’se—”

You can barely speak. Tongue too thick. Sleep too heavy in your veins. Alcohol, too. A lesson, perhaps, for his willful little pet come the morning when you struggle to measure just how deep into his gullet you’ve let yourself fall. 

He can’t help rubbing salt into the shallow cuts, if only because he likes the way you pout. 

“C’mon, sweetheart. You can do better’n that.”

And damn him—damn you—you do. Your hand curls over his wrist, pulling it close to your mouth where you place a kiss against his palm. Tender. Chaste. Midnight blooms in your eyes, casts shadows under pale moonlight. His breath stutters in his chest when you lean your head back, letting his hand fall to your bared neck. 

Your heavy, lidded eyes gaze back at him, cutting through the shade of night that sews the air like satin. Etched in the file silk is threads of trust in stark white. The kind that bleeds for him; hungers. One that aches, always tender like a bruise. The throb of it echoes between mouldering ribs. Booms between his ears. 

Ghost doesn’t fall into pieces. Doesn’t shatter. No. Something in the splintered remains shifts. Settles. He wraps his fingers around the thick of your throat, thumb notched tight against your pulse, and he feels complete. Whole. Remade from the ruins. 

Your breath hitches. The sound is a gunshot in his ears. He squeezes down, a gentle press. Just enough to make the air spill out of your lungs, to let your eyes water. Lachrymose, eager. It does something to him when you cry. He feels tipped upside down, torn inside out. Left all askew, asunder. He wants to drown in the pebbling river growing against your lashline. Wants to drink it down until it quenches his neverending thirst. Wants, wants—

He feels his name spill from your lips. Brassy and broken, trembling against his palm. A plea—

More.

And he gives it to you. 

Simon hitches your ankle on his shoulder. Adjusts the grip he has on your throat. He settles over your body, blanketing you under his bulk. Stygian beast devouring the maiden whole. The thought amuses him even as it knocks the air from his lungs. 

He anchors himself into the mattress with his knees, steadying himself, curls his other hand around the iron ring of the headboard. All the while, you look up at him—glossy eyes burning coals in the dark, in the gloom. Wanting, hungry. Mouth held open as if you’re waiting for his scraps—

And then he bucks into you, the leverage giving his thrust a savage edge. 

The whines are snuffed out under his palm. Your eyes widen, tears now spilling down your temple, soaking the pillow below your head. 

He groans, head rolling back. “Fuckin’ hell—ain’t you a pretty sight?”

Tucked under him, throat swallowed by his palm. Split on his cock, slick and wet. The tears streaming down your face makes him feel wicked, foul; but the spit running down your slackened jaw quells any doubt. The hand on his wrist holds him tight, tighter still, to your flesh. 

You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.

So, he gives it to you.

Simon’s almost ruthless when he snaps his hips into yours, cooing viciously into your ear about how you feel, how you look, how you sound—so pretty wrapped around him, under him; his little doll—

“S’where you belong, pet—” guttural words spill, flintlike and savage, from his mangled throat. Reinforced with the hateful way he blugeons his cock into you. Times it perfectly with the firm squeezes against your jugular, never letting you catch your breath. Your eyes roll back, legs trembling. Shaking. But you don’t move, don’t struggle. The hand on his wrist is a shackle, and it makes him smirk, scars pulling up in a gnarled mess of mirth; ugly and mean. “Right where you belong. Ain’t tha’ right?”

He leans down, babbles nonsense into your temple. Promises you the heads of gods, the ichor they bleed. Swears he’ll build a shrine for you in Durham.

But for as mocking as these words he murmurs into your ear are, they’re tremulous. Raw. A current roars beneath; a steady stream, a plea, all full of need: stay, stay staystay—

(please)

He buries his nose into your hairline to stem the ravening ache in his guts, breathes in the heady scent of you—of sex, and wine, and sweat. Drags it into his lungs in harsh, angry gasps to stain his skin with the smell of you. Of him. 

It goes right to his head in a heavy rush until he’s dizzy, almost sick, with the swell of it flooding in. An animal, he thinks, drunk on merging pheromones that make him mindless. Unfettered. 

It’s as if he’s driven on instinct alone; his frenzied pace ebbs, grows sloppy. The air around him feels thick. Syrupy. Stifling. The balmy breath in his chest is nearly as unbearable as it is addicting. Sickeningly sweet. Still—

His chest expands, taking as much of the potent miasma into his lungs as he can, filling them up, up, until he feels the edges threaten to brust. It’s only then, when ink moults across his vision, that he lifts his head just enough to shove his mouth against yours, a broken snarl ripping free from his throat as he forces the infectious air into your mouth, down to your lungs. Polluting you with the same sickness. The same rot. 

Little hiccups tumble past your lips as you swallow it down, taking everything he gives you, and he catches them on his tongue. Plays with them between his teeth, basking in the salty tang of you—brine, loam; peatsalt. Ashes, guncotton. Molasses. He’s not sure if he wants to drown you in him, or crawl into the warm, wet cavern of your mouth that pulses around his tongue like a heartbeat. 

Both, maybe. Everything. All of it. 

Always—

But he’s chasing pleasure on fumes. Trying to run with broken legs. There’s nothing refined about this. About the way he cudgels the head of his cock into the places that make your mouth twist away from his greedy lips in a silent scream. His weight is crushing you, he’s sure, but you cling to him harder, holding him tighter. Almost afraid to let go. And fuck—the notion alone is a kick to the chest, harsh and heavy. He nearly gags on the litany of broken moans spiling out of his mouth, landing on your tongue. 

Driven mad, maybe (or pussy-drunk, and high off of his own poison); but in that madness, he discovers this:

Nirvana exists between your thighs. 

Home, too. 

(well—

not yet.)

Pleasure fissions down his spine. The paroxysm taking him deeper into the battle-worn depths of his demise until the walls narrow, closing in. Crushing. No escape. But—

He won’t climb out of his hole he dug. Not until he makes a bed from your flesh; shelter out of your bones. He wants to ingrain himself as deep within you as he can, arsenic subsumed down to your marrow. Poisoned with the fill of him, too sick to let go. 

(Bone nausea. 

A death sentence.)

It metastasises inside of him, filling the barren spaces up until it leaks from his pores. 

He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close. 

Simon lifts his hand from your throat, and reaches out, grasps at it with a shaking paw—

All it takes is a few crass, careless swipes of his calloused thumb across your clit, cock angled toward that spot that makes you rake your broken nails down his back, yowling in his ear for more, there, please, Simon, please—

You clench like a vice around him. A pretty bow tied up at the base of his cock. He bows over you, grunts spilling from his chest as he sinks his teeth into your nape, splitting skin btween his teeth. The warm, ozonous tang of your blood flooding his tongue is euphoric, eclipsing his mind in a haze of pleasure that crackles and burns at the base of his spine, spitting smoke up his body and into his skull. 

The harsh whine you let out—all prey, all animal; wounded, stuck under his muzzle—has some part of him, basal and inborn, rearing up. Roaring in his ears, ripping talons across the jagged remains of his head. 

(mine, mine, mine—)

He answers your scream with a growl, one caught in the smoke clogging his throat. It sounds inhuman when its wrenched out of his mouth—more animal than man: the devastating howl of a forest on fire—but the feel of it vibrating between his teeth is connatural. Innate. It belongs between his incisors; fits like a puzzle piece in his broken muzzle. Unleashed now. Finally free from this ill-fitting cage he housed it, this goddamn box—

Cobbled together from palm ash and brimstone, ichor and salt. Sewed up with copper sutures in the shape of a man for a perfect fit. 

Every cell in his body screams that he was made for this. To be over you, in you. Maw filled with your blood. Pussy stuffed full of his cock. 

He might not have clawed out of the dirt for you, but this mossy, gnarled lump in his chest beats now only for you. Apodictic. Ironclad. His teeth in your jugular, your life pulsing wetly on his tongue. 

It’s his apotheosis. His end. 

His hips stutter. White noise in his head. It drowns out the shrill screams, the hisses. Everything is just—static. Pleasure of a silent kind, humming, buzzing, and molten. Ghost buries himself inside of you as deep as he can, until his cock is fit snug against the plug of your womb, and lays his claim by branding it with the potency of his name. 

Tidally locked, you’re dragged down the summit with him, tumbling to your demise. Too dazed, too wound tight in his arms, his embrace, to see the jagged rock at the bottom of the hungry chasm thirsting for your blood, you just cling to him. Refusing to let go. 

(silly girl—

His pretty little perigee.)

His body aches in ways that cruelly remind him of his age. Joints stiff, stomach quivering. His knuckles sting when he unfurls it from the headboard, skin pink and raw from the tight hold he had around the metal. 

It’s made worse when he heaves a harsh breath, and pulls away from you with a long, drawn out groan. He settles back on his haunches, eyes searing into the space between your thighs. Messy with his spend. It dribbles down your slit, your ass, pools on the sheets below. 

Your chest shudders, legs splayed out how he left you. He thinks, viciously, of gazelles, and wonders if the blood he feels drying on his mouth looks anything like the muddied mane of a lion after eating its fill. 

“Fuckin’ hell—”

He should clean you up, hide his crime, but he burns the image of you into his head (another tattoo over scar tissue), and drops to a heap beside you. The moment his back hits the mattress and all thoughts of moving are erased in silk, in smoke and clover. 

Chest heaving, slick with sweat, he feels the thrum of his victory in his veins. The high of the chase abates, and he nearly purrs with contentment. Hangs his pride on a pedestal, and doesn’t think about the absence of any guilt. Doesn’t even entertain the thought, not when victory dries between your thighs. When you roll over with a huff, reaching out for him. 

It's as if you're trying to bury yourself inside of him, crawl into the safety of his ribs. 

Ghost grunts, feels his sensitive, spent cock give a feeble twitch on his sticky thigh. The idea of you, blissfully unaware, seeking comfort from the man who writ your body with his virile spend, irrevocably changing your life and entwining it so deeply and so messily with his own that to severe either of you from each other is nearly impossible, floods him with satisfaction so deep, euphorically heady, that his chest seems to shudder. Resounding with some amalgamation of a purr, a grow, so utterly primal, that he sounds more beast than man. 

His roots run deep within you, now, and every misaligned piece of his patchwork body seems to sag and shiver in an almost perfect parallelism. Congruence ascertained with the cupping of you between its mismatched maw. Shackled in a baleen prison. Nestled, safe and sound, between white teeth. 

Ghost pulls you close, holding tight, and hums. As you drool on his shoulder, dripping with his spend, he knows he'll keep you there forever, until you're nothing but bones. 

There's a cloud of confusion hanging over you the next morning, a twinge of uncertainty gnarling across the gaps in your memory. The pieces of a puzzle that belong to a different set. He watches you scramble through them, filling in blanks. Oscillating so deliciously between wariness and discontent. 

“‘morning,” he greets, as if his spend hasn’t dried on your thigh last night. Tucked up nice and tight against your fertile, unprotected womb. As if he couldn't taste brimstone in the back of his throat when you wince as you walk, achy and battle-worn from the weight of his desire crushing you all night. 

“Morning,” it's a sticky rasp in your throat. He wonders if you taste him on your tongue. “When did you get in?”

“Las’ night.”

You nod, but it's absent. Flickering through the timeline of events that aren’t drenched in black, shaded over like a heavy bruise. Your expression is fractured. Raw. Pensive. Something untouchable, unchartable, and yet he reads you as plainly as the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup. 

You don’t remember. Don’t know what to make of this chasm, this fissure, that looms, icy and deep, before you. There’s no anger, though. You don’t demand recompense for what he stole, what he took. The lashings he deserves are tucked quietly between your teeth. Hidden under layers of normalcy to prevent yourself from seeing him as is: a beast. 

“Well, um. Some homecoming, huh?” You joke, but it's hollow. Flat. Fragile like fine glass. You're digging for more. Rooting around to connect these vague, absent dots that linger, lost in the vacancy of your memory. 

He almost purrs. 

He wants to chew you up. Spit you in the palm of his hand. Maybe tuck you in his breast pocket, nestled against the lump in his chest—the one those silly enough to dream might call a heart. Keep you there forever. Hidden in the barrel of his loaded gun. 

“Bit rowdy.” 

It’s horrifically vague, but you cling to the prevacation he proffers to you; a lifeline in the turbulent sea, letting it overwrite the absence, the itching in your skull that must be clanging on the walls, begging for you to run. 

“Sorry,” it's sheepish. He knows the ferality in which you sometimes come at him when he's buried deep inside you is something that makes you twinge with embarrassment. Little kitten clawing at the old dog trying to get it to play. Rolling over immediately when it growls. Docile, sickeningly sweet.

But even naive kittens know to watch out for the frothing, foaming maw. 

“Did you use a—?”

He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”

And you take it as gospel. As truth. Why would Simon have any reason to lie to you about this? 

Relief shudders over your shoulders. You relax, inching toward the seat across from him. Gazelle making a home for itself in the lion’s den. 

The spell of unease is broken, now, and you quickly fill the chasm with chatter about your day. Your plans. Asking him how he’s been. 

You shove at the warning signs until they’re hidden away, and ignore the bones of your brethren scattered around you. All because you trust him. 

He aches with the urge to crush it between his teeth. 

And he will one day soon, he’s sure, because it’s just as easy to enact his plan as it was to get you to open the door. 

It starts with him convincing you to drink with him after dinner. Jus’ a glass. Got this fancy bottle. Reckon we should ‘ave some. 

But—

Can’t drink forever—no matter what his dogshit dad thought. 

So, he pokes holes in the condoms you hide in the bedside table, a little wary now. A touch fretful about your contraceptives in a way that makes him preen. You have good instincts, but rarely do you listen to them. Your head must be filled with sirens, but it's futile, he supposes. He's already stuffed cotton into your ears. 

It only feeds into that gaping chasm that bellows up from the depths that this world is not good for you. That it will tear you into pieces, into shreds. You need him. Need the Ghost to protect you. 

Case in point:

You’re needy beneath him, panting and mewling into the sheets as he teases your clit with his thumb. So wet, it almost feels like hot oil on his skin. Syrupy thick. 

In your desperation, you cling to him, throat bared. Fragile fine china. Belly up. Vulnerable. 

You barely notice when he pulls off the condom, crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.. Don’t even react when he shoves his bare, raw cock into you. 

You don't even notice. 

(or when he slurs in your ear about how badly he wants to knock you up—breed his pretty girl until she’s stuffed full of him, making life with what he offers. salvation in the form of creation. ain’ tha’ a thought? he huffs into your ear, humid mirth curling over your skin. a stain. and the way it unfetters you—tightening around him, gushing slick—he finds his answer, one reinforced in the rolling of your eyes as your common sense, independence, trickle out of your ears and down your slackened jaw—)

And when that fails, he just slips you a sleeping pill. There's always an easier way to the finish line, he finds. 

(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)

Nothing bleeds from the cracks he wrought, or slinks from the shadows cast by his machinations until weeks later. 

Life just goes back to what it once was—Simon coming and going, letting himself into your home with the door you leave unlocked. You go to work, and chatter aimlessly about this vision you have about a home in the countryside, near the ocean. Saving up—uselessly—for sheep and goats, and the sought-after Highland cows. Chickens and ducks first, you say, and barely notice when his gaze drops, drilling holes into your stomach. Watchful. Leering. 

He can almost scent the change on you. Nose pressed to your skin; bloodhound sniffing the ground. 

Ghost keeps time in the slow, susurrus drawl of your voice sifting through the cotton in his ears, waiting for those precious decibels to catch on, to tilt up at the end as your eyes skim the calendar he keeps scratching x’s across in red, almost delicate, innocent even though it's from his sanguinary hand. A countdown to something you haven’t yet caught on to. 

And it’s all so sweet. 

—the waiting game, the subtle changes, the desperate way you cling to normalcy—

Sweet, like the way you carve this life out for yourself, filled with stuffed animals full of idealism. So much so, that it's almost bitter. Acrid. He watches the light glow in your eyes as your plans take shape, moulding putty between your hands, and like a pit viper, he coils in on himself. Frenzied. Fearful—

But only just. 

The excitation has run its course. He’s drifting, languid, into his scheme. Content. The notion of you slipping from his fingers is a thought that rarely crosses his mind these days, especially when that house on the prairie grows from an occupant of one to two—

“And, you know… when you're not out saving the world—” your eye roll and air quotes make his lips twitch, tugging at the scar tissue, the acid burns, splashed across his mouth. An ugly fucking Pollock. “—maybe you can come visit.”

“Never fancied myself a rancher,” he drawls, just to watch you squirm. Brow furrowing into a deep ravine as you struggle to make your intentions known without actually giving them sound. Skirting around the issue of wanting him there, of planning a home with him. 

(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—? 

if only you knew—)

He finds it charming, really. 

Still—

“It's just a thought,” you mutter, downcast. He wants to choke on your misery. Your sadness. Drown himself in your anger. Float in your happiness. 

Fuckin' Christ—

All this playing daddy in his head has thrown him off his rocker. Made him soft. Sentimental. It's probably why he yields to you. Offers a lazy shrug and another smarmy twitch of his lips. 

“Sounds like a plan,” and the way you brighten is a dagger to his chest. 

And the thing is. It does. It sounds like a dream, a perfect vision. Just—

Maybe not in the way you'd want. 

He's been looking into places unmarred by human hands. Ghost towns, uncharted territories. His home here isn't perfect for it, not like the vast geography of Mexico. The uninhabited wilderness of Canada, places so remote that it's almost untethered to modern civilisation. Islands of forest, mountains, all on their own. 

Vast corners and crevasses where someone can disappear and never be found. 

But those won't work in tandem with his flighty lifestyle. While he plans on keeping you barefoot and pregnant (common sense in the back of his head screams that he's foul, vile, monstrous—), he will continue to work. Has to, really, to avoid suspicion. 

So—

Home it is. 

But he gets inspiration from the Highland cows you coo on about and purchases a plot of land in the Western Isles. Gives this whim of his—yours, really—a concrete foundation made of the abstract. The filament provided by his newly christened Sergeant—an overeager mutt that bleeds warning signs from his pores. 

(don’t get close, reactive dog. will bite—

the little mutt is a great pyrenees, ain’t he?)

But bless Johnny’s bleedin’ heart, he thought as the man prattled on about this cabin he owns. A place of solitude. Could fire a gun and no one would even peek out the curtains. Beautiful, the way all of Scotland is. The highlands, he breathes in that shade of catholic madness only the dutiful soldiers of god's right-handed wrath can be, is where he keeps his home. A place chiselled from stone, surrounded by wilderness that eats tourists alive. 

(he didn’t ask at the time why Johnny was so keen on finding these places scattered around Scotland, ones with little traffic and a nearly negligible amount of souls within the vicinity, but he finds its best not to get too close to mutts crossbred with wolves.)

But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so. 

You’ll get your fantasy ranch in the middle of nowhere. Your highland cows, your billy goats, your chicken, sheep, and ducks. A baby in your arms, too. One that shows its hand the next morning, dashing all your carefully laid plans. These paths of independence of yours run parallel to his whims but never converge. There’s the potential in this for these fraying threads to split, and diverge. Separate. 

(But it’s all put to rest at the sound of you heaving in the adjoining washroom. His path eats yours until it’s overtaken. Consumed. 

The evasive, unfettered little bird trammelled, caught. Wing-clipped, and all his.) 

Any misgivings the part of his gyri not buried under the frothing mess of his polluted grey matter might have is vitiated by the unwavering certitude that, despite his own gains in this, it really is in your best interest. 

And maybe it's something that should have come earlier in your relationship—however threadbare that word is in conjunction with the unhinged desire blooming in the pit of his chest; madness masquerading as love or some obsessive, desperate facsimile of it. Maybe a proper man, a better one, might have dug down and fully laid out the reality of intertwining your life with the living dead. That the idea of danger, death, and revenge are all everpresent threats scratching at the walls of this sickeningly sweet fantasy you wrap around yourself. 

He’s a dangerous man. A creature of devastation—manmade, bent into, or congenital is yet to be unearthed—which, in itself, brings about a certain lifestyle. One with fewer people around, and always shrouded in secrecy. Friends, family—none of that matters when death curdles gnarled fingers around his jugular. 

You’ll get used to it. Eventually. The only other choice is to let you, his now flightless bird, go. Released back into the wild vulnerable and reeking of his stench. 

You’ll be devoured before daylight, ripped into pieces—only if they’re feeling generous, that is. 

Simon has his own twisted remora. Ones with claws and fangs and a hunger that runs deep. Insatiable. Any scraps that fall from his mouth are devoured before they can touch the sea floor. They’ll crush you in their maw and dangle your mangled body from the gaps between their teeth. 

You’re not made for the wild. Not anymore. You’re meant to be protected. You—this fragile, delicate thing. He’ll hold you close, keep you secure and safe in a mausoleum of your own making. 

This little glass jar domicile. 

A billet in the mountains. 

He’ll fill it with the finest things—silk linens, fine china; mahogany and teak, pink ivory; a bed of soft, downy feathers, sherpa, Egyptian cotton; (sticks and stones and grass and moss). Buy you whatever you need. Chickens and ducks. Sheep and goats. 

They’ll keep you company when he’s away. 

(and if that fails, he can always plan playdates for you with whatever dirty secret Johnny’s been keeping tucked away in the woods.)

He draws an x in the empty, white box of the calendar, the tip of his red marker gliding silkily across the glossy surface. Something unfurls in his guts. Blossoms in his bones. There’s an almost indescribable sense of satisfaction—primal and animalistic—that grows from the upturned dirt in his head. Life composted from rot. 

Ghost hums to himself when he turns, the sound nearly a purr—bestial as it is, suffocated under sulphur. It reverberates through his chest, trembling across the brackets of his ribs that expand with his deep, heavy inhale—breathing in the sight that greets him like a lover’s kiss

The kebab he ordered lays untouched on the table across from the television—some trashy reality show playing in the background while you tried to eat; a dating show, you’d said when he merely shrugged, having other things on his mind over what to watch while you ate. It all seems to be preserved in time. Frozen in on the exact moment when you’d sniffed the döner kebab he got for you—the same thing you order each time—and then promptly wrenched yourself back, gagging. The sandwich was flung back in the takeaway box before you slapped your hand over your mouth, rushing into the washroom. 

If his phone wasn’t in the other room, he might have taken a picture. A little memento to remember this moment. Framed it in iron and perched it on the desk they gave him back in Hereford, the one just down the hall from Price. 

(ah, speaking of—he’ll have to send that caustic bastard a fruit basket, or something, won’t he? maybe some pretty flowers for his lady.)

His reverie is shaken when the door to the washroom creaks open slowly, and you emerge through the gap with sweat on your brow, knots across your forehead, and a shaking hand resting over your churning stomach. 

Shame, he thinks. He really should have brought his phone—

You lean against the wall, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself, confusion and worry knitting over you like a thundercloud. It tastes of ozone when he inhales. An approaching storm. In the blue gloom of the living room, illuminated only by the light flooding out from the washroom behind you and the static glow of the television, you look etiolated. A wilting flower. 

His budding rose. 

He coos. “You alright?”

You glance sideways at the kebab on the table, mouth pinching into a grimace as if to stem the nausea still rippling through you. You stare at it for a long moment, seemingly trying to make sense of the reality sitting in front of you on scratched, old pine; confusion runs laps over the dawn cresting in your eyes. This puzzle is too unfathomable for you to piece together; the keys and slots all askew. 

The air around him grows still. Silent. Anticipatory. A tiger crouched low in the tussock. A little fawn roaming too close. 

There’s a heaviness in your eyes when they flicker back to the wall where he stands, drilling holes into the x. Something implacable frissons over your threadbare expression, fracturing across sallow cheeks. 

The air is electric. It pulses across his bare flesh, irritating scar tissue, acid burns, and scorch marks. His skin prickles at its whisper. 

“Feelin’ sick, pet?” He ponders, playing pretend. He’s viciously, deeply amused at the desperate denial splashing across your cheeks. The thin shade of askance that unfurls like the leaves of a flytrap when you look at him. “Mus’t’a been the kebab. Bad meat, I reckon?”

You offer a weak nod in response, pinching your lips tight together. The matter seemingly concluded, brushed aside. Pocketed for later. 

And you say nothing else for the rest of the night—gaze unseeing, turned inward; pensive—but he purrs in contentment as if everything was alright, sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed against your churning stomach as if he could hear the whisper of another heartbeat from within. 

In the saturated blue light, he catches your eyes listing toward the calendar every so often. Wary. Nervous. He thinks you might say something, might ask, but you don’t. It’s caught on a stilted breath. A harsh swallow. 

All you do is bring your hand to his shorn head, and raze the stumps of your clipped claws against his scalp. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soothe the madness from within. Scratching that itch deep inside until it goes away. Gentle hands play pretend and dress up as a panacea. Affection to scrape the illness away. 

He thinks you should know better than that, even as he leans into it with a soft exhale, more relaxed than he'd ever been his entire life. Content. Unassailable in his conquest. 

Simon has always been more scar tissue than man, and no place is damaged more than the upturned tumulus inside his head. 

But oh. How you try—

His sweet, sweet girl. 

The look you give him the next evening is, in parts, brumous. 

A polynya of dread, worry, guilt, fear that frissons across the deep valleys in your eyes, shaded in plumes of darkness, filled in deliciously with the weight of your beleaguered uncertainty. It yawns out before him, this heavy gloom. 

So close he catch the embers in his hand. 

“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”

You hold up a little rectangle, dismay, misery, etched in the blue tinge spreading across your face. It seems to steal the words from your throat, turn them into ash. What else are you meant to say, he supposes, when you look out at the world now from the gape in his maw? 

But there’s a veil of wonderment that hides below the tidal wave; this precious, deadly, undercurrent that rents the air, splits his chest in two.

The happiness, however meagre, thin, it is right now (just a sunken boat on the seafloor), is there. Ripe for salvage, and he sees that it’s handled with care. Cupped between his palms, nurtured by his own conviction to do what’s right, an’—fuck, pet—know this ain’t what we planned, but—

but:

The howling quiets, turns to a low growl, and then a susurrus hum, when you shakily utter the words he was waiting for. 

“Yes, Simon—”

You shudder when his fist closes over your wrist, pulling you into his purring chest. Shaking like a prey animal in the jowls of a beast, bested and ensnared. It has a profound, almost predatory, sense of satisfaction curling over his bones. He knows this was the right choice, and is sure, in time, you'll come to realise that, too. You’re in the early stages, he knows. Prodromal. You need to be handled with care to curb the lacrimation, the hyperesthesia. 

And there’s no one better than him to guide you through the throes of it. To lead you to the unequivocal end. 

He leans down, and whispers in your crown—

“Good girl—”

—and the sound of his voice is gravel encased in sticky, sweet honey. Dark, smokey molasses. The very same cadence as a key sliding inside of a lock; metal grazing metal. Turning—

“If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tommy.”

Click. 

(he gives you that ring he promised when he takes you to the mountains. you smile wide, and tell him it fits like a gyve.)

Simon stops shovelling his want under the cold dirt and starts burying it inside you instead. Makes a domicile from your flesh; a place where he can rest his aching head every night until the howling scraping down fractured bone stops— (paralytic)

[emprexxluxaic]

PICK A CARD: THINGS THAT PEOPLE FIND ATTRACTIVE ABOUT YOU.

⠀ׅ ♡⠀࣪ emprexxluxaic ⸺ your angel ׅ ࣪ 𝅄

note: after a long time, I finally have a courage to do a reading for all of you. I hope your doing great mi amor and please do enjoy this another reading for you 🤍

PILE ONE

first thing is your body figure, through the way you stand. you might be in the taller side for most or whenever you walk it's like reminding them a model in a runaway or just have a nice pair of legs or it is just simply long. it also feel that you have a nice taste in fashion, you may love fashion and different hair colors— a rainbow hair color can be best and find it good for you. ² I see that you take a great amount of effort to look nice and presentable for other people, they like how you look good and as well as how you look neat and clean in your appearance. if you ever have a back tattoo they also love it, they love seeing it cuz it may have a nice design or meaning. I hear that you make tie your hair in ponytail style and people find it attractive specially for woman. some here are good at letting go and cutting of people who causes chaos and heartache in your life, people find it attractive cuz not all has the ability to cut ties in a person who you got attached and have bond too. it could significantly define that you were good at dealing problems or any negative emotions of people giving them such an advice which can bring a huge factor in you towards the other. you could be also a future oriented, you like to keep in track about your plans but doesn't tell most of the people unless you trust them will of your heart. great hands is what I'm hearing, it not you love to write things that need to be done or your just good at calligraphy. in social, I feel you were may often alone but doesn't mean you were lonely, you just enjoy your life alone which other do like and adore in you. you take a pride in being alone is important in you so it brings you to realization of what are your thoughts and are you and all.

extra message: forest, boots, good shape of nails, journals, a cat, orange, near water, beaches, carving, meditating, walking around and alone, enjoying movies.

﹏ ✿𝆬  like, reblog & follow mi amor ⬞ ࣪ ࿀

PILE TWO

these amazing amount of people love hearing your thoughts and voice, you can be a great singer, has a hobby of singing or just great speaker and advisor for people. for what I am seeing, they find it attractive in your eyelashes — natural or not, probably it suited for you. you were positive and it spread to people which brings light and love, you could be a happy person as well. I don't know why but they love it when you close your eyes or while you fell sleep cuz you look good or cute for them. I feel as well that they find it attractive in way of your sitting — your back is straight or it define elegance and for some you seat in such a boyish way I guess. You have a nice shape of body or they find it attractive how you love your body figure, for most it is a bikini body. you might be someone interested in journal or writing down your thoughts. they find it alluring when you take a pride in your art cuz it likes you make efforts in creating them or it makes them feel awe cuz it was cute or something. they also think that you have a nice hair, how the curl define your own face or how long your hair was. like I said you can be a singer not just that but also a good music taste or you actually create music, you may write poems and actually quite good at it. your soft hearted self bring impact to others, they love how good you are to people.

extra messages: heavenly beauty, flowers, rainbow, heart to heart conversation, able to see what is good and bad in people, hands are pretty, positive in body, flower hair clips, thighs tattoo.

﹏ ✿𝆬  like, reblog & follow mi amor ⬞ ࣪ ࿀

PILE THREE

They feel attracted to you when you wear things or clothes that has lavender/ purple with it. It suited your skin color or they just love how best you look in that color— they may think that your favorite color is purple. You could have have dark long hair— this could be resonate with for most or you enjoy dying your hair in different shades. I could hear that it feels they find it attractive in how you dance whether it just for fun or something— probably they love it how you make face while dancing in to beats of rhythm. You too as well may have a nice foot or nails, maybe it is well shave or your foot nails are pretty— all in all they just love staring at it. If you ever good at cooking or creating dishes they also find it attractive, like how does it possible you got the chef's hands on you. Big butts as I guess, wearing tight shorts or pants, you got a nice ass I think. If happened your butt aren't that big, they feel attracted about your hips or how your waist probably whatever size you are, you got curves. I feel that you can be a soft spoken , how feminine you are or how you show kindness and gratitude towards people. You may also has a habit of resting your hand in your chest when you do it they feel comfort and you are honest in what are you saying to them.

extra message: mermaid curls, diving or swimming, hands on waist, good at massaging, nice pair of hand, inner beauty.

﹏ ✿𝆬  like, reblog & follow mi amor ⬞ ࣪ ࿀

[konigsblog]

Hi! Can I request Yandere Alejandro and Yandere König with darling who is naive and innocent. The man see her as a goddess/angel.

alejandro, and könig with a darling who is niave/innocent

warnings:, smut, sexual remarks, corruption kink, praise, bodyworship: i do not condone any behaviour i write about, all of this is fiction.

masterlist

könig

definitely views you as a goddess/god. you're everything to him, everything he needs.

because of your innocent personality, sometimes he views you as more fragile and delicate than you actually are.

any sexual remark you make is downplayed or thought as just an accident. he doesn't think you actually know what you're saying, even if you remind him multiple times that you are an adult and know what sex is.

when he first had sex with you, he was so nervous. he didn't want to make you uncomfortable or scared after he built up this relationship.

"mausi, are you sure you want this?" he'd ask, multiple times. watching your facial expressions for any sign of discomfort.

if one day, you do decide to say something sexual, he wouldn't think anything of it. you're sat on his lap, slightly grinding against him? maybe you're not comfortable where you're sat, sit on his other thigh!

or if a sex scene came on while watching tv, he'd watch your fave the entire time, confused on how you're not gagging.

könig honestly doesn't understand, you don't find sex gross? but you're so innocent, surely you do?

when speaking to others, he gives death glares to anyone who says something slightly inappropriate. you're too innocent to hear this, save it for the bedroom.

if he does make a sexual comment, you don't notice it immediately. only when you're sat in bed late at night thinking bad to what he said. königs kissing your neck, he's just playing around! right?

but when you're sat in his sweatshirt, it hangs low to your thighs and you panties are slightly showing while you're sat down, he can't help himself from lapping at your pussy juices! you can't blame him, can you?

—

alejandro

due to alejandros job, he often worries about your safety. teaching you how to use a gun, hold a knife and throw a decent punch.

he decided to buy a german shepard while hes away.

because of your niave personality, he knows you could get yourself into danger, telling you what's right and wrong as if you're 5 years old again.

you remind him that, “i'm not a kid, don't treat me like one.” but he hears none of it. in his eyes you know nothing.

but, that doesn't mean he doesn't like that. he values your innocence and bows down to you, worshipping you as if you're some type of magical god that could grant him his three wishes.

during sex, he kisses your body, holding you down so you don't squirm.

definitely into bodyworship, wants you to feel like a goddess/god.

if anyone tries to ask you something that he deems as inappropriate, you won't hear from them again. he'll cut contact off with them saying that he doesn't think that they're right for you when you ask.

he praises you anytime, pretty much looks up to you. “amor, i love you, you're everything baby.” alejandro whispered into your thighs.

oh, and any sexual remark you make sounds like a joke to him. not that he's laughing at you, but just confused because it doesn't match how he views you.

he still loves you though, through your innocence and how niave you are.

—

[magics-neptunes-things]

Sin Darme Cuenta Yo (Sueño contigo)

Hi guys!

This gif of Ona god, it's my weakness *Insert crying emoji here*

This was a request in the comment section of the first part, that you can find here.

Enjoy!

TW : Mention of Smut

_____________________________________________________________

Being in love with Ona is easy. She’s the nicest, most honest, most endearing person you’ve ever met. Not to mention that she is arguably the most beautiful woman in the world.

Your relationship with her is rather strange, no doubt. You’ve known her since you were teen, and you don’t remember a day you haven’t been in love with her since. Her parents know you perfectly and treat you like their third child. You were each other’s first kiss, your first mutual and you’ve never known anyone but her. You know it’s the same thing. Yet you have never been in a relationship officially and you have never had the courage to ask Ona why.

You don’t know what’s changed tonight and while you’re going home, you’re digging your head for a long time without finding it. You hope this isn’t a bad joke, but you have enough faith in Ona to know she would never do something like this to you.

The journey between Liverpool and Manchester normally takes less than an hour, but that was not counting the traffic jams in both cities. When you finally get out of the Uber, you travelled by bus with the rest of the team and didn't have your car, you refrain from running to the front door. However, you run down the stairs, clearly not having the patience to wait for the elevator to lazily descend the floors.

You need to work twice to open the door as your hands shake. Which amuses Ona a lot from inside the apartment. The brunette awaits you nervously on your sofa, the one you took so long to choose at Ikea. You had a lot of fun that day, almost leaving Ikea at the closing. But this is one of the many pleasant memories you have with Ona.

"Hola" she says softly when you finally enter inside.

"Hola" you answer, putting your bag next to the door.

Ona doesn't move, still leaning against the sofa.

And this is probably the first time you’ve seen her look at you with a shy look. Usually, you’re the shy one.

"So… Girlfriend?"

"Yes… If you want to" says Ona with a smile.

You smile when you hear her tell you what she said earlier on the phone and take a few steps in her direction. Ona observes you doing it, always without sketching the slightest gesture.

"All I want right now is kissing you"

You cite yourself too, but it seems to amuse Ona more than anything else. You will probably never tire of her smile, nor of everything that characterizes her. It is not for nothing that after ten years you are here today.

"Please do"

You’re clearly not going to be begged, nor do you remember a single time when you refused her a kiss or a hug. Nor what sometimes followed in the bed of either.

Breaking the remaining distance between you, you gently sit on her lap, sliding both hands on her neck. Your eyes intersect a few seconds before you put your lips on hers. The sensations you get from kissing her are not new, but the meaning of this kiss adds magic to your embrace.

It's only a few hours later that you speak next time, or at least that you have a sustained conversation. You both are lying in Ona's the bed, and you lie on her too. Your face resting on her chest allows you to hear her heart beat and her fingers that slip mechanically along your spine will probably soon make you drowsy.

But the questions you were asking yourself when you came home came back to mind. A simple glance at Ona tells you that her eyes are open, fixed on the ceiling, and that she is lost in her thoughts.

"Oni" you gently call her, immediately drawing her gaze on you.

"Si Amor?"

"What are you thinking about?"

Seeing her hesitate to respond to you causes a strange and unpleasant sensation in your stomach. Your emotions must be visible since Ona hurries to reassure you. "No, nothing like that. I just wonder why I waited so long. It could have been too late." "Too late?" you ask with a frown. "Haven’t you noticed how your new teammate looks at you?" She sighs softly as she rolls her eyes. On your side you are content to look at her, the eyebrows always a little frowned. No, you didn’t notice, but the question she just asked you might explain why she’s having trouble with her. "Watching her with you during the game... that was the last straw. I figured if she was acting like that with you on a football field in front of thousands of people, it would be even worse when there’s hardly anyone else with you." "Ona..." "Let me finish" To support her words, she puts her index finger on your lips, making you bow an amused eyebrow. "I’ve always been jealous of her, but I couldn’t blame you for anything. It was the first time I realized I could lose you. Which is stupid. You could have left anytime."

To free you from her finger left on your lips, you bite it gently, making her laugh softly. "Of course not, I couldn’t leave, idiota. I’ve been in love with you since day one. No one could ever change that. I’ve been yours all along." A few seconds later, you find yourself lying under Ona, her lips on yours for a passionate kiss. You could have doubted the sincerity of her behavior with you, but this kind of moments between you have always confort you in your choices. And today is proof that you were right to wait for her. "I love you too. So much" will succeed in pronouncing Ona between two kisses. And what more could you ask for? The woman you’ve always loved loves you back and is ready to show it to the rest of the world.

[ambcass]

ᴊᴀɪᴍᴇ ʀᴇ��ᴇꜱ x ꜱʜʏ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

a/n: 5 more months of school til i graduate :) THIS HEADCANON MAY BE LONG...

WARNINGS: nothing just fluff ૮₍´˶• . • ⑅ ₎ა

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☆Jaime is so gentle when it comes to you. He doesn't mind that you don't want to go party or eat out. He doesn't mind spending the day at home cuddling and watching TV with them all day.

☆Jaime isn't scared to speak up for his lover. When anyone tries to make fun of or comment on how shy they are, he will always clap back no matter what!

☆"So what if they're shy? What does that have to do with you?!"

☆ Eventually you have to pull him away because of how big of a scene he's causing.

☆He remembers every little thing about you so he can surprise you with your favorite things.

☆Jaime can't help to smile when he hears you ramble about something to him. Your rambling tells him that you're comfortable enough to be yourself

☆Always tries to defend you no matter the cause. Also doesn't want you to be exposed to his hero life in fear of his own enemies targeting you.

☆He wasn't the most patient person before meeting you but slowly he learned that being patient isn't so bad

☆When you found out that he was a hero, he thought you would be scared of him :(

☆Lucky for him, he was wrong !! You thought this whole hero thing was pretty cool and that means that he was able to protect you even more.

☆HE DOES NOT WANT YOU TO BE A HERO AT ALL!!!

☆"Amor, please reconsider this. I don't want you to get hurt"

☆He gave in. BUT HE NEVER LEAVES YOUR SIDE

☆ The moral of the story is that no matter how cool he tries to act, he will always have a soft side towards you :)

[pablitogavii]

Hiii, can you please do a smut where you and gavi are doing it but it starting to hurt so bad and you tell that to him but he doesn't stop cuz he only thinks that you are in so much pleasure. After he came he looks at you worried because you are in a lot of pain still ???

I will change this up a bit but hope you like it :)

Safe Word

Pablo was the first person you were ever intimate with and he was the one with who you've tested your limits knowing that you can trust him to keep you safe always.

You came up with 'red' as your safe word the night he took your innocence and it stayed the same ever since. Whenever he wanted to be rougher with you, he would ask you to repeat your safe word before starting anything. It put both your minds at ease that you always felt secure when with him.

Tonight he was being rougher than usual, having lost the game and also been provoked by some players, he got home ready to release some of that tension with you.

You didn't really mind, wanting him badly and happy that instead of arguing he wanted to pleasure you instead. And boy knew how to pleasure you but that's for another story ;)

Pablo was currently balls deep inside of you pounding mercilessly with your legs on his shoulders and it slowly became more painful than pleasurable. You didn't want to use your safe word, having never used it before, and you didn't want to disappoint him.

"uhh papi..s..slow down" you hoped he would listed but he thought you were only teasing him moving even faster and by that point you screamed 'red!' and he froze any movements.

"Ahh amorcito..I'm so so sorry..I didn't mean to hurt you..tell me what hurts" he said after pulling out and you hid underneath the blanket curling into yourself feeling embarrassed and sad thinking he must hate you now.

"I need you to come out and look at me princesa..this is important" Pablo pulled blanket off you but you still his your face away from him being a blushing mess and also crying for having to stop.

"Amor..look at me.." he slowly moved your hands away from your face heartbroken to see your tears and as you tried to hide from him again he would let you pulling you close and hugging your body against his trapping all the warmth between the two of you.

"I'm sorry..I'm so sorry..It was hurting me" you were crying into his shirt and he felt angry at himself reassuring you that there is nothing to apologize for.

"Amor, that's why we have a safe word... It's okay preciosa. I was a bit rougher tonight and you needed to stop, there is nothing wrong with that mi vida..I'm proud of you for telling me...come here" he said pulling you close and starting to play with your hair gently.

After a few minutes, Pablo laid your head on the pillow gently not wanting to disturb you about to get up and you quickly grabbed his hand giving him tearful eyes.

"Don't leave. I'm sorry..." you feared that after what happened he will leave and never come back again. Tears started to fall down your cheeks at that thought.

"Hey shh shh amorcito..I'm just going to bring you some water okay? I'll be right back I promise..I would never leave mi princesa preciosa" he kissed your head and dried your tears before rushing to bring you a cold glass of water which was exactly what you needed.

"Ahh" you said after drinking the full glass giving it to him as he smiled nodding his head and taking out some makeup wiped to clean your makeup which he definitely smeared tonight.

"There we go. Now my nena doesn't look like an adorable little raccoon..now she is just adorable" he smiled and you blushed getting comfortable underneath the covers and he quickly joined turning towards you and reaching to touch your cheek while you looked at him with dolly eyes (gif).

"Are you okay now, princesa?" he checked up seeing you nod calmed him down while he continued to touch your cheek ever so gently.

"I'm sorry Pablo...I know you needed this" you said sadly and he quickly raised your chin and made you look into his eyes.

"No more apologizing nena" he said sternly but still kept it soft before adding "all that matters to me is what you need, always" he finished kissing your lips and you kissed him feeling his rest his forehead against yours.

"Okay princesa?" he said and you opened your eyes with your forehead still against his and your cheeks bright pink.

"Okay Pablo.." you answered obediently and he kissed your forehead pulling you closer so that you could nuzzle your face into his neck and enjoy his fingers moving down your spine as you fell asleep.

Hope you liked it :)

[disabledunitypunk]

The reason intrusive thoughts are morally neutral is not because you don't actually want to do them.

Intrusive urges and desires are also morally neutral.

And no, I don't mean "impulsive urges or desires". I mean the ones that are still disturbing but have a compulsive or alluring element to them to. I mean the way the idea of slicing my body into thin strips like a julienner is a craving that I have. I mean the way that I sometimes get a feeling like my body wants to move to hurt others around me, and I only know that I have control because I've been dealing with this shit for most of the time I've been alive. I mean the way I get turned on by thoughts of torturing people (which is where paraphilia overlaps with OCD).

I mean that someone CAN even actually want to act on their intrusive thoughts and as long as they don't, that's all that matters. People can fantasize about something and be deeply disturbed by the fact that they fantasize about it. It doesn't make them any more likely to act on it, but if it causes distress, it's still an intrusive thought.

I see a lot of posts which are like "no, intrusive thoughts are not secretly hidden desires of yours" and that's true for a lot of people! It's a good message!

But sometimes they are, and that's okay too. Sometimes they're not even hidden desires, they're blatant. But thoughts, urges, desires, feelings, anything in the head at all, are all completely amoral.

Morality only applies to actions.

If you have violent (physical, emotional, sexual, or otherwise) urges or desires, intrusive or otherwise, this is a safe place for you. You are welcome here. They do not make you a bad person and you deserve not to be left out of OCD/intrusive thought positivity.

[kamwilliamsonn]

I'm okay - Mapi León

based off request here

----------

You woke up to soft kisses placed all over your face. "Mi amor, es hora de despertar." My love, it's time to wake up." ("My love, it's time to wake up.")

You let out a groan and roll over. "Es el día del juego, mi amor". ("It's game day, my love.")

Your eyes fluttered open, a soft frown fluttering on your face. "Tengo un mal presentimiento sobre el partido de hoy, mi vida". ("I have a bad feeling about today's game, my life.")

Mapi frowned softly, her hair coming up to move your bed hair from your face. "No pasará nada, no conmigo allí. Me aseguraré de ello". ("Nothing will happen, not with me there. I'll make sure of it.")

She was wrong.

----------

You'd ended up missing the ball entirely, catching her ankles and sending her to the floor in pain.

You'd stood up instantly, putting a hand out to help her out. But when she doesn't get back up, one of her teammates are instantly in your face, screaming at you and pushing you away.

Mapi was one movement away from stepping in, one more move and she'd get the person on you.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know, I didn't mean to!" You tried defending yourself, switching to English in hopes that she'd understand you. "Is she okay? Are you okay?" You asked the girl on the floor, about to move forward one more time when a fist came swinging at your face.

You dropped to the floor, holding your face as it bled, but you were instantly up when you heard an unrecognisable voice.

"¿Cómo te atreves? Ella no fue su intención. No, no me toques. No me importa si me cardas. ¡Mírala! No fue su intención, ¡mira lo que hiciste!" ("How dare you? She didn't mean to. No, don't touch me. I don't care if you card me. Look at her! She didn't mean to, look what you did!")

"Mapi, Mapi, mi amor, mi vida, estoy bien, vamos, estoy bien". ("Mapi, Mapi, my love, my life, I'm fine, come on, I'm fine".) You told her, one hand still holding your definitely broken nose as you stepped in between her and the player who punched you.

"Estás sangrando, eso no está bien". ("You're bleeding, that's not alright.")

You tried to wipe the blood off your hand so you could hope her with both but you just had to cover it back up due to the immense pain, Mapi was seeing red. She had to calm down.

"I'm okay." You switched to your first language. "I'm okay, darling, I'm okay. I'm going to be subbed off, and sorted out. And I'll be okay. It just means you'll have to be careful with my wake up kisses."

"You told me you had a bad feeling." She told you, regretting not just staying in bed. Feeling your body against hers.

"I know. But tomorrow, we have a day off, and we can sleep all day."

----------

You were wrong about that too.

Mapi had never been the most patient person ever, she'd woken up at 6am, and just laid with you, watching your chest go up and down with each breath, God, you were so perfect in her eyes.

She'd done that for an hour before she creeped out of bed and to the kitchen, waking you up with breakfast in bed and soft kisses placed over every inch of your undamaged skin, making sure to leave your broken nose well enough alone.

-------------------

I actually kinda love this- Mapi León is the love of my life, and this is in celebration of her goal today (and the request of course)

As always, my requests are in fact open, feel free to send anything woso and I'll give it my best shot

[ddejavvu]

Hi Mei!!! I Hope you’re well 🧡

I’m just watching the first season of criminal minds for the first time, and I was on the episode where they go to Mexico. Elle’s ability to speak Spanish made me think of Aaron and reader where he just assumes reader can speak Spanish and tries to get her to interview witnesses but she’s like no babe I said I could get through a resort if we took a vacation!

Thank youuuuuuuu for sharing your writing with us 🧡

i also do not speak spanish so i did use google translate for the pet name that i put in at the end my apologies if it's awkward </3

--

Your brain has managed to tune out Elle's fluent Spanish conversation because you can't understand a word of it, but when the pair approaches you, you stiffen, throwing a kind smile at the woman beside her.

Elle says something to the woman, what you're not quite sure, because she's still speaking Spanish. But she looks expectantly at you, and you stare blankly back at her.

"Hello," You offer cautiously to the woman, wondering if she can manage an English interview, and maybe Elle needs to focus on those who can't, "Can I help you?"

"In Spanish," Elle prods, looking slightly inquisitive at you, "She doesn't speak English."

"I don't speak Spanish..." You shake your head ever-so-slightly, hands hanging limply at your sides.

She rears her head back, "You don't? Hotch said you do."

Your brows raise, "He did? I don't."

"Oh." She laughs lightly, and you assume the Spanish phrases that she offers to the woman beside her detail your predicament, because her words ease the nervous woman into relaxed laughter. Elle places a hand on her shoulder, bidding you goodbye, and resumes talking to the woman in Spanish.

You turn as soon as they leave you, eyes scanning the building you're stationed in for your boyfriend. He stands tall against the wall opposite you, filling officers in on the warning signs that they're looking for.

"-above all else, be vigilant. This person seems to know about our proceedings here, which means it could easily be someone in this room. Stay alert, and be careful who you trust."

With that bone-chilling warning, he dismisses the officers, and you feel bad for them when you see their paranoid glances to each other.

"Aaron," You step up to him once they disperse, "Did you tell Elle I could speak Spanish?"

"Yes I did," He nods, brows furrowing a fraction, "Did you not want me to?"

"Uh, well, I can't," You laugh, and he blinks blankly, "So, no, I'd have preferred for you not to tell her."

"Oh." He offers, "But I thought- When we were discussing our vacation plans..."

"I said I could survive a Spanish-speaking resort," You correct him, "Because anyone can download Duolingo. But I haven't yet, and I don't know an ounce of Spanish."

"Oh." He repeats, lighter this time as he chuckles sheepishly. He pulls you into an embrace, keeping it casual and quick as he bends down to kiss the grin off of your face. He backs away before he can give into his urge for more, but his hand stays clasped around your own, "Sorry. I didn't-" His shoulders shake with a chuckle as he glances at the floor, "I guess I should know that about you. I don't know why I assumed."

"It's okay, Aaron." You lean against his shoulder, "I'm not upset. But maybe we should download Duolingo."

"Maybe we should." He chuckles, "We'll do it in the car when we go for lunch."

"Deal," You nod, reluctant to let go of his hand even though you know you need to get back to work. Your eyes light with an idea, and you retrieve your phone, typing with the screen facing away from him while he watches, waits. Then you pocket it again, grinning devilishly at him, "See you then, mi amor."

[pink-tea]

calling txt spanish pet-names

☆ rating: sfw, fluff

☆ headcanons !!

☆ hispanic/spanish-speaking! reader (gn)

☆ i was listening to kali uchis in the shower earlier, and something in the way she speaks makes me think of getting called sweet nothings in spanish, so naturally i thought about txt !! <3 txt for latine frfr

☆ slight use of hispanic lingo/slang, if you need the context to any let me know in comments <3 (translations at the end!!)

yeonjun

ღ papi

hear me out HEAR ME OUT. ik that "papi" as a pet-name has been dragged through sexualization to hell and back, but i like to think of it as something endearing :( yeonjun coming home and just crashing onto the couch, sighing and leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling, exhausted. then he hears the light tapping of your feet, hand coming to push his bangs from his face as you come into view. pressing a sweet kiss to his forehead and yeonjun melting at your touch. "hi papi, welcome home" or maybe even "papas", as if he were a dog </3

ღ mi amor

mi amor is just timeless, who doesn't like getting called my love? but i'm convinced that something in yeonjun's brain melts at the way you say it. i associate "mi amor" with a soft breathy tone, eyes filled with adoration and long kisses that say words you don't need to say. holding yeonjun's face in your hands, yeonjun letting his eyes flutter closed as you press kisses all over his face. pressing one to his pretty plush lips, sighing sweetly when you pull back to get a good look at him. "so pretty, mi amor"

soobin

ღ cariño

y'all already KNOW. soobin just loves sweet pet-names. like sure, the good natured ones get a cute chuckle from him but he's just such a sap :( you guys should already know cariño by the marias (if you don't, go listen to them, such good music!), but everytime it plays on your playlist or his he just melts because aww, you call him cariño too! pressing a kiss to his cheek when he greets you at the door. "cariñooo," you sing-song happily, tapping his dimple as you walk in, making him preen under the attention as you gush over how you've missed him <3

ღ hermoso

again, such a sap. soobin's such an amazing person, such a beautiful soul even at the times when he doesn't think he shines as much as the others :( showing him off to your friends, bragging about him all the goddamn time to the point your friends get annoyed, but how could you not show him off?! or even just gushing about a picture he posts on social media (he sent it to you already before he posted). "how can you be so perfect?! tan hermoso!" you swoon, holding the phone to your chest dramatically as soobin sputters and tries to point out that you've literally already seen it.

beomgyu

ღ guapo

beomgyu who just wants to hear you praise him sometimes, so he's adored getting called guapo ever since you told him that it means handsome. whining and pouting when you get mad or scold him, tugging on your sleeve and trying to make you forgive him because "i'm your guapo :(" and obviously it works bc he's horrible and you're weak. sitting at the sofa and beomgyu craves affection, sighing loudly and spreading himself across your lap. laughing lightly at his antics and running your fingers through his hair. "hola guapo," you hum, making beomgyu grin, "hi ^-^"

ღ flaco

he's so "mi flaco" coded shut up, or "flaquito". you literally cannot argue with me on this one i feel it in my bones. the more light-hearted one out of the two that he likes to get called, because yeah he is skinny lmao but also because the word just sounds cuter than what it actually is. the two of you being a lovesick mess, pinching his cheeks and having him smile through the pain as you tell him all kinds of sweet and sappy bs. "mi flaquito tan chulooo," and all he can do is smile and take it (it hurts so bad but he loves it).

taehyun

ღ mi vida

mi vida because he literally is my world, my life, my everything. it has the same effect as mi amor but like appropriately more dramatic. flustering him and mumbling the words "mi vida" into his skin, kissing his knuckles because sometimes it's nice to just smother tyun in adoration. taehyun trying to repay you for the sweet nickname, making google translate repeat the words to him over and over again so that he can surprise you. cuddling in bed, his head resting on your chest."soy tu vida," and he says it so softly that you don't think you heard him right til he looks up at you with bright eyes and a grin because he said it correctly (although a little broken). prompting an onslaught of praise and giggles because yes he is my tu vida :(

ღ chikibaby

oh he loves it, absolutely adores it. honestly i was torn between giving this to tae or kai, but i see taehyun just loving the hell out of it. chikibaby's so silly, it's so unserious but it's so cute. whereas the other members would probably whine, taehyun takes chikibaby in stride. it's such a contact name, he'd definitely make it his contact name in your phone (with plenty of hearts!!!). with taehyun in specific i get a lot of cute aggression, so i definitely see the cuddling in bed until you end up on top of him, taehyun desperately trying to dodge your hands squishing his face as you gush over how handsome your chikibaby is <3 oh my god that with his little growl/squeal/scream too cause he knows you're just being playful, i'm dying.

hueningkai

ღ querido

yeah, this is the one. calling hueningkai darling hits in any language tbh :( hueningkai leaning his face into your palms, smiling softly and letting his eyes flutter shut as your thumbs smooth over the skin underneath his eyes. "what's wrong, querido?" and really nothing's wrong, he's just tired. he tells you just that, letting you admire him as he melts into the warmth (or chill) of your palms. knowing that you give him such a sweet pet-name makes him feel nice, it feels personal, something that you two can whisper during your intimate moments <3

ღ papi chulo

on the flip side!! papi chulo is something he'd definitely get teased about, both by you and the rest of his friends. the main point of it being the use of "papi" in the pet-name. "but yeonjun gets called papi too!" "that's different" "no it's not!" but it really is, because papi chulo is made to sound so much more endearing than it is adoring. teasing him over the cute photos of him on your phone, mainly ones of him snoring or sulking after losing a video game. when it gets to one of his childhood photos, he hears the words "my mini papi chulo :(" for like three whole minutes. loves it though, it makes him laugh even if it's a little embarrassing in public <3

mini translation section:

ღ papi meaning 'daddy' but more 'my man' in this context, papas meaning potato but also something i see most hispanics call their cute little ugly dogs endearingly

ღ mi amor meaning my love

ღ cariño meaning dear/love

ღ hermoso meaning beautiful/lovely

ღ guapo meaning handsome

ღ flaco meaning skinny

ღ mi vida meaning my life, i use it more in the context of 'my everything'

ღ chikibaby as a term of endearment derived from the words 'chiquito' which means small and 'baby'

ღ querido meaning darling

ღ papi chulo translates into handsome daddy LMAO, but it's used endearingly in this context, more towards 'my pretty boy' but like, sexy (i can't take myself seriously)

[melanieph321]

PLEASE!!!!!!!!! Ruben being a girl dad! She has him completely wrapped around her finger

I would die!!!! X

Ok 😊

Ruben Dias x Reader - Bad Braces

Enjoy!

Ruben was used to stepping through his front door and be ambushed by a cloud of pink. Your daughter was gifted a ballet tutu for christmas which resluted in her wearing it every where she went. There was a discussion with you about the problem with this, Ruben however did not see it. He loved coming home to a cloud full of pink and the day that this didn't happen was close to a nightmare for him.

"Where is Lina?" He asked, when you peered your head out of the kitchen into the hallway where he stood.

"What?" His eyebrows furrowed, seeing the concerned expression on your face. You stepped up to him, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek.

"Where is Lina?" He asked again.

You sighed. "She's in her room, saying that she won't come out ever."

Ruben frowned. "Her room? Did somthing happen at school?"

"Apparently somone made a comment about her new braces."

"What!"

"Along with her dress. So please Ruben remember what we talked about."

He was already charging towards your daughter's room, suprised to find that the door was locked.

"Lina? Lina meu amor, por favor, abra a porta."

He yanked the handle a couple of times, to no use however.

"Whatever is going on we can fix it, please let me fix it." If he could he would never let your daughter go back to school again. Ruben felt so hopless surrendering your only child to the cruel cruel world. He wanted to be there by her side everyday, protecting her.

"Pãi?"

He heard a low cry behind the door, your daughter's cry.

"Yes Lina I'm here, please open the door."

Small footsteps dragged across the floor and soon a key twisted in the lock.

"Pãi." Your daughter wiped her nose with the arm of her sleeve, her eyes bloodshot with tears.

"What happened, tell me." An instinctive thought appeared in Ruben's head. He would kill whoever made her feel this way. He entered her room only to find her ballet tutu tossed in a corner. They sat down on the bed.

"Did somone say something about your new braces?" He asked.

She nodded "And my dress."

Ruben balled up a fist, his knuckles white. His voice was calm however. "What did this person say?"

Lina bowed her head in shame. "He said that with my new braces on I looked like I stole children's teeth and ate them, like the opposite of the tooth fairy."

"He who?" Ruben said, balling up his fist again.

"This boy in my class, Alejandro said it."

"Alejandro." Ruben mumbled. "Well do you know where this Alejandro lives?"

Lina's eyes lit up, her head nodding excitingly. But then Y/N entered the room having overhead the whole conversation between them.

"The best thing would be to call his parents, don't think?" You said, giving Ruben a stern look.

"He shook his head. "Nah, I want to pay him a visit."

"Ruben he's eight, your not knocking on a eight year old's door, threatening to beat him up."

Ruben sighed, so did your daughter, they were each others soulmates.

"But mommy he was mean to me."

"I know that honey, but that is not how we deal with mean people in life. Ain't that right Ruben?"

He grunted.

You rolled your eyes.

"The next time Alejandro is mean to you do you know what you should do?"

"Stomp him in the nuts." Ruben muttured.

You shoved his shoulder.

"No, what you should do is give him a big smile and walk away, because violence is never the way."

"That's terrible advice. What you should do is sort of trip his legs and when you have him on the ground you should..."

"Ruben."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding." He said, making your daughter laugh. At least he made her laugh again.

"No, your mother is right. We'll talk to your teachers at school, hopefully they'll make sure that this doesn't happen again."

"Promise?"

You watched your daughter jump off the bed and retrieve her tutu from the corner in her room. She put it on to Rubens satisfaction.

"I promise." He smiled and picked her up in his arms. "Or else I'll pay him a visit."

"Ruben." You sighed.

"Kidding, just kidding."

[bleedingoptimism]

First of all, love what you wrote for the Murray prompt. Second, I got another one if you want it. Steve's parents are really nice and cool and supportive of him, they are just very busy with work and he understands, but they find out Steve and Eddie are dating and Eddie is in a band so they show up to one of his shows to be supportive. Cue semi-embarissing parent moment they both secretly love

ok first, thank you! and thank you for sending these prompts, they are lovely and im having a wonderful time thinking of the scenarios. now lets get on with the show...

Steve always calls his parents once a week. His dad's job requires him to be abroad a lot and after a misunderstanding, a bad secretary, and his mom's very jealous, very fiery personality she started traveling with him, only for them to pleasantly discover she was actually very good at making connections and closing deals so it became a thing.

So yes, his parents are not there a lot but that doesn't mean they weren't there for Steve. They talk a lot over the phone, they tell him about the places they've seen, the cute clothes his mom bought for him, the way she embarrassed a sexist businessman in Spain by responding to him in perfect Spanish to a comment about her dress. They worry about him being alone in that big house and encourage him to have friends over all the time. They ask about work, they know everything about Robin and Dustin and the kids, had been very proud of him for babysitting, thinking it was about him wanting to have more of his own money.

His dad is a man of few words and very strict but he means well and his mother is a force to be reckoned with, loud, unapologetic, and loving.

She talks a lot and has a way of making Steve talk a lot too, to get things out of him. When he's not feeling well she can always tell and she always makes him talk through his feelings. Which is why, his parents know about Steve's crush.

So when they come home for a weekend in the summer, and after he cooks dinner for them, he says he's going out for a bit,

"There's a show at The Hideout, Eddie's band is playing, is it okay if I go?" he asks. He usually stays with them the whole time they are back in town since they don't see each other a lot, but he figures they'll understand this one time.

"Of course amor, but don't stay up too late, you said you'd go trekking with me in the morning," his mom answers, so he smiles at them and, then he's off.

He goes, meets with Nancy and Robin there, listens to Corroded Coffin, and sighs enchanted as if he was hearing ballads instead of heavy metal. The band spots them and they wave and smile, Eddie winks at him making him blush and he has a great time.

Except halfway through the show, he notices people moving out of the way and hears murmurs so he looks and- jesus fuck is that his mother?!

And yes, of course it's her, Marina Harrington's hair only rivals his own, it's noticeable everywhere. The tight red dress isn't helping either and his fucking father, in a suit, hovering behind her and glaring at people who stare at her isn't helping either. He quickly goes other to them, and he walks- he does not stomp like his mother tells him he did later. And asks,

"Mom! Dad! What the- What are you doing here!?"

"Esteban! Well, we wanted to meet that boy you like, you said his band was playing?" his mom tells him excitedly.

"Is this them?" Richard asks, looking like he's smelling something awful.

"Oh don't be mean Dick! It's not that bad!" Marina says but then flinches at a particularly loud yell from Jeff and Richard hums and smiles at her, pulling her close.

"Okay no, sweety this is horrible," she says chuckling and leaning closer to her husband.

Steve snorts, "I like it, just because it's not what we usually listen to, doesn't mean it's bad," he says defensibly. Marina smiles at him and lifts her hand to touch his hair but he slaps her away,

"I think you have heart ears," she says and Richard nods and then lifts his shoulders like he's trying to hide his head inside his body so he doesn't have to listen to them anymore.

"Ok, no. You guys need to leave, you are attracting so much attention!" Steve whines and his mom is talking about 'nonsense' and 'lets get closer' when Nancy and Robin show up behind him,

"Mr and Ms Harrington! It's good to see you! what are you doing here?" Nancy asks, probably worried, she must think there's no way they'd be here unless something bad was happening. Steve groans and pinches his nose.

Richard nods at her politely, "Ms Wheeler" And Marina purses her lips, refusing to acknowledge her, and looks over her shoulder, and that's when she spots Robin and lets out a delighted little 'oh!'

"You must be Robin! Oh hi, darling, we've heard so much about you!" she squeals at her and hugs her.

Robin stands completely frozen for a second before slapping her back awkwardly, "Uhm hiii, Ms Harrington"

His mom and Robin talking is actually kind of scary Steve thinks while he puts a hand on Nancy's shoulder, "Sorry" he says regarding his mom, who never forgave Nancy for breaking Steve's heart, even if Steve did. Nancy smiles at him and shakes her head, then shrugs.

"Ah!" Richard says then, and Marina and Robin stop their chatting to look at him,

"Riqui?" Marina wonders looking at where his dad is pointing at the stage now,

"I know which one is Eddie" he says smirking, and stage-whispers in her ear, "Long curly hair, big dark eyes"

Marina's eyes light up and actually jumps up and down in her place, "Oh, of course! It's so obvious now! Ay Esteban, es lindo!"

Nancy and Robin giggle and Steve hides his face in his hands and groans.

"Guys, please. Leave. If you wanted to meet him you should've said something I would've-"

"Oh please, don't lie to me jovencito! You've never brought him home to meet us," Marina interrupts him.

Steve sighs and nods, "Yeah you are right" and then looks at his dad, like he can reason with him, "But I will tomorrow, if you leave now?" he begs.

And he's about to answer when Eddie taps the mic and talks, "Hey so, this next song is a little different from our usual but it's a good one, and I would like to dedicate it to someone very special to m- us" he says and then his eyes find Steve and Steve gasps and his dad hums and his mom squeals, it's all very confusing.

Eddie is blushing and looking intently at him, smiling when he notices Steve gasp, knowing he understood he was talking about him. The first notes of Dancing in The Dark start playing and Steve realizes, this is a confession. The thing he was waiting for, hoping for, dreaming of... finally. He gives Eddie a big smile back and bites his lips excitedly.

But then Eddie's eyes drift over Steve and go huge when he notices the couple standing behind him. Fuck, right...his parents are here. Eddie's mouth opens in an 'o' shape and stays like that for a second and then he blinks, smirks mischievously, and shakes the hair out of his eyes,

"This one goes to that lovely couple in the back!" he yells, waving back at Marina who is waving at the band excitedly, and then he starts singing.

[citizensun]

Queerness and the House of Usher (spoilers!)

See I just added these Thoughts to the tags in @quecksilvereyes 's post but now I have Feelings too

TFotHoU (or HoU, as I will refer to it here), as expected from a Mike Flannagan show, has a bunch of Queer Rep™ to talk about. HoU is, also, about remarkably evil people - amoral capitalists who'll step over anyone if it means they'll get something from it. And look! Some of them are queer! Kinky too!

That's bad queer representation... right?

The show isn't that clear when stablishing sexualities, but we see that at least three of the Usher kids - Napoleon, Camille and Victorine - have same sex SOs/assistants with curious job descriptions. Prospero's taste for orgies probably implies queerness too, but honestly I don't remember if he gets it going with any guys in the story. I honestly have no idea about Tamerlane's voyerism thingie and Frederick is the only one with a "traditional family" going on.

Unrelated, but: Leo is definitely cheating on his bf Julius. Completely dismissing about his worries for him too. And for his cat. That's objectively evil, clearly. Vic literally killed her fiancée Alessandra, though she didn't stuff her under the floorboard, which is an L when compared to Poe's original. Cam doesn't believe in true love. Perry blackmailed his sister in law. Mean. He's also got a surprisingly high kill count for the family's disappointment, but since unlike Roderick he only killed rich people, we stan. I don't belong in Kinky spaces so I haven't got a big take on Tammie, only that - well, she's completely dismissing of her husband and sees him as a prop, just like the sex worker she hires.

Huh.

See, the nature of a story called "the fall of X family" is that X family is going to be the main character. The title kinda implies that they're falling for a reason, ergo, they're despicable fucking people. And they're queer! They're very queer. Many flavors of gay. They're the main characters, and they're monsters, and they're gay.

No, that's not bad rep.

Queerness as a movement, a community and a theory is very focused on scaping a cisheteronormative society's binaries (ie man/woman, husband/wife, public/private) and creating living conditions to those who fall outside of these categories - mlms and wlws, the trans, the nbs, the aros and aces... we are all queer, strange and estranged from this weird and limited worldview. And so we create a community for ourselves. It's very focused on care and anti-stablishment. Since a cisheteronormative society tends to be very white, rich and western, it's also focuses on anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. Y'all know that, this is Tumblr and we love leftist Discourse.

I also know many, many gay people irl who are not like that at all. Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, terfs, completely apolitical people and the like. Sexuality at it's core is personal, not political, so there are gay people out there who are perfectly comfortable with their sexuality on an individual level but do not see the point of getting involved in the broader context. They're queer, but are they...?

Well—

Not to mention there's lots of asshole gays out there! Don't you have a shitty ex? Have you never been almost run over by a drunken butch who blew cigar smoke into your face? I have! Life experiences are just like that. Maybe you should touch more grass. You'll probably find a lucky gift from your neighbour's dog, who is an astrology-obsessed bisexual and also really hot but stopped making out with you at a party once she found out you're a pisces (the neighbour, not the dog).

(Granted, none of this is as bad as implanting an experimental heart contraption into the fiancée you just killed because she dared to have ethical principles and then being so consumed with grief you stab yourself in front you'd your dad but you know how it goes. We're not the 1%.)

My point is, queer people are people. We are complex. We fuck up, and sometimes there's still times to fix things and sometimes... there isn't. We're consumed by jealousy and regret and sometimes we're so locked into our own head we stop believing the rest of the world is real too. Just like any other people, because unfortunately, queerness isn't a sign of morality.

And even if queerness does mean community, kindness and acceptance, tell me... Where the hell would the Usher kids get those from? The people around them are not really peers – they're ass-istants, blowjob-giving apartments, orgy mates, heart surgery providers, hired fitness moneybags, perfect housewives. Even if the partners are all shown to care for the Ushers, there's still a distance, a power gap, that makes the relationships fundamentally wrong.

And the partners? Arguably they're the good queer rep in the show, but look – even when Julius and Alessandra are shown to be good people (or at least people with an ethical boundary), they're not the good gays, they're simply the good SO's to a family of psychos. Exactly like Bill and Morrie, who afawk are straight people.

Which leads us to HoU's parameter of morality - Auguste Dupin. He refuses to drink the Amontillado, symbol of all the Usher opulence over the years. He got screwed over by the Usher twins and by the Raven herself, but he refused to cave in (except for the informant part, admittedly). He's not a good gay guy; he is gay and he is a good man.

The fundamental difference between our show's main tragic yaoi couple isn't that Auggie is a happily out gay man (and therefore is good) while Roderick is a sad divorced hetero (and therefore is bad). Auggie is the richer man because he is a good man; he has a spouse and children and grandchildren he loves with all his heart. He has a family and a community and he has found a sort of happiness no money can buy. Roderick owns the world – but what does he really have? What do his children even have? How could they ever build communities for themselves if they were never in one? Their father made them compete for his love. He never nurtured their bonds, he just showered them with money and excess until it was too much for them to handle. Juno herself pointed out - they were never a family. The House of Usher was only that. A house. It is empty and soulless.

What is queerness without a community? How could the people who represent the relentless corporate normativity and cutthroat capitalism ever be good queer rep? How can they even be queer?

Hear me out: on the most individual, simple level, being queer is still about not fitting in. These kids are bastards. They are are PoC and women in a predominantly male and white dominated space. They're on top of the world, but they're still outsiders to their own House. How could they not be queer?

And yes, I know this discussion takes a different turn when it comes to representation in media, but it's not like Flannagan fell into a Hays Code-era flamboyant villain trope. Queerness is just there. Just like Victorine and August are both black people in (arguably) the opposite ends of the morality spectrum, there are queer characters of many kinds here. The story just happens to be about the fucked up ones.

HoU is a poignant critique of capitalism and a surprisingly funny adaptation of Poe. We'll judge it by that. It happens to be queer – more things should be.

[somebluemelodies]

DAY ONE OF SPIDERBIT THEME WEEK STARTED BY @anonymous-dentist! :D SELECTED THEME: ROYALS part of my existing spiderbit royals au, which you can find here :)

All things considered, this gala is actually tolerable.

It's not that Roier hates galas - he likes dressing up, gossiping with townsfolk, participating in a few dances. It's the politics he doesn't like: classist courtiers, uptight generals, all the talk of pacts and trades and treaties, this and that-

Too many negatives and not enough positives.

But this? This is his first gala with Cellbit as his personal guard. As his partner.

There was another gala, months before. Back when Cellbit was still practically a stranger to him, one of the knights who patrolled the parameters of the massive ballroom and down the halls to ensure nothing went awry. Back when suitors were coming up to him left and right, looking to flirt and dance and win his hand alongside his heart. Roier would humor them, but they would never win. Even if it made his parents increasingly exasperated with him.

There will be none of that this time around, though, at least he certainly hopes. This time, things are different. So much different.

In what has to be a first, there's no armor on Cellbit to be found. Instead, the silver metal has been replaced with black and white and deep emerald fabrics; a high-collared shirt and a long coat. The guard's sword is in its sheath attached to his waist, though, veiled from immediate sight by a black cape, and he expects nothing less.

In no uncertain terms, Roier has trouble looking away. But it's fine, because Cellbit keeps looking at him, too, with unadulterated adoration, smiling with such a warm fondness that it makes him melt all over, and he wonders how the hell he went for so long without it.

(There's a lot of other eyes on them at first, too. It makes Cellbit stiff in his vigilance, his face open to the world and not just his world. But Roier's hand barely leaves his.)

(They really do stand out; dark greens and reds contrary to the bright yellow-golds and vivid violets of the prince's parents. A match that could rival, indeed.)

The gala enters its full swing and everything is, well, normal. Tolerable. The prince makes his rounds with the townsfolk, getting his favorite clue into the local drama. Chisme.

The guard accompanies him, too, but occasionally walks off to strike conversation with his own companions, or do his own silent checks around the borders of the ballroom. The latter doesn’t go unnoticed by Roier.

“Ya, mi amor,” he chastises fondly when Cellbit returns once. “Nothing to worry about.”

The band starts playing a tune that makes Roier perk up immediately, and before Cellbit can dispel the recognizable glint in his eye, the guard is being pulled deeper into the ballroom, Roier’s hand sliding into his own as the prince’s free settles on his shoulder.

Cellbit huffs, but he’s anything but upset, especially with the way Roier’s face lights up with a laugh, pressing closer still.

(And he remembers why dancing isn’t so bad, after all. If it means this.)

(They’re getting married. Married.)

The song ends with Roier getting twirled out with a laugh and a flourish. Then, it’s clear he gets another idea, tugging Cellbit’s hand lightly. “Sigueme, sigueme.”

They’re slipping out of the ballroom and down a hall, going up the stairs. Their final destination is revealed when the prince pushes open one of the double doors and they’re hit with a cool summer breeze.

“They’re going to notice we’re gone.” Cellbit quirks a brow.

“And? I saw the look on my father’s face. I am not listening to another general if I can help it.”

The guard hums, smiling amusedly. “Brilliant solution.”

“I’m full of them, no?” Roier responds.

“Sometimes.” The quip is met with a gasp and a smack to Cellbit’s shoulder. Roier pulls back in faux hurt, hand to his heart and everything, but then Cellbit’s hands are on his waist and he’s pulled right back. The prince pouts. “Hijo de puta.”

Cellbit only smiles knowingly, and Roier feels positively fuzzy. Their lips connect, and he’s flush against his love once more, arms circling snugly around the guard’s neck.

(A fire burns. All it took was patience.)

(He’s never letting go, now.)

When they finally pull apart, Roier rests his head against Cellbit’s shoulder, and they hold each other tighter still.

They can’t hear the music from the ballroom anymore, but it doesn’t matter. The night is their guide, as it always has been, and all is well.

[mrs-santoss]

Our Secret - Neymar Imagine

Summary:

You and Neymar have been in a secret relationship for 1 year now, but the media doesn't know except for your close people. Everything is going great except the videos of him with his exes on your feed everyday.

I met Neymar during the most difficult period of my life. That's why I call him anjo, an angel. He pulled me out of the toxic environment I was living in. Our relationship has always been amazing since the first day we met. Our personalities fit very well together. He's very mature for a serious relationship, but still keeps his childish, funny guy part of him alive, and that's why I adore him. On the other hand, I'm a very positive person, I hardly get mad at stuff. I, too, am a very funny person.

I moved in with Ney two months ago. It's not like I felt a big difference since I spent most of my nights at his place anyway. I'm loving everything about us right now. Except for one thing.

We have to be very cautious when we're in public. We still haven't announced our relationship to the public yet. On one hand, I get Neymar, he wants to keep our relationship to ourselves as long as we can. But, on the other hand, this is making it difficult for me to go online and not see a post that would upset me. I'm not media trained, fame wasn't a part of my life before Ney.

Before Neymar started dating me, he had a very long relationship with Bruna. They were very much in love, which is why people want them back together. I never met her, but she seems to be a very nice and beautiful person. I hate to admit it, but that makes me feel kind of insecure about myself. I mean, I love myself. I work on my physical and mental state a lot. But, I can't just look pretty effortlessly, or laugh hard without making a weird noise. I don't show these insecurities to Neymar though. I don't want him to think less of me.

It was a Saturday afternoon, I just got out of a shower and did my skincare routine and I decided to watch a movie. I laid on our comfy bed and put the laptop on my lap, holding a bag of chips next to me. I decided to scroll on my social media before starting a movie.

That was a very bad idea. I ended up scrolling for 1 hour, before I put myself to sleep crying. I ended up ditching the movie and the snacks. My TikTok feed practically looked like a Neymar & Bruna fanpage. There were a lot of old videos of them kissing, hugging, during photoshoots and during some of Neymar's most important moments.

Neymar's POV:

We had training on Saturday, usually we never do. I was very exhausted from everything I couldn't wait to go home and crash on the bed with Y/N. Once, I stepped inside the apartment, I realized its was very quiet. Maybe she's in the bathroom.

"Bebê, I'm home!" I yell out to her, which she usually responds by running in my arms like a crazy person tackling us both to the floor. I love her for this.

I put my stuff on the floor and make my way to the bedroom. I crack the door open slowly and I see her laying on the bed sleeping with her back turned to the door. I decide to change into some comfy clothes and lay down with her.

Once I lay on the bed, I realize the laptop was open on the bed, a bag of chips was crushed under her and she has her phone on her hands. She must've fallen asleep with her phone.

I cracked a small smile and kissed her forehead softly. She looks likean angel.As I reached to kiss her lips, I could feel her wet cheeks. Was she crying before she feel asleep? When I first got here, I decided not to wake her up, but now I'm concerned, I want to talk to her.

"Bebê...Y/N. Can you wake up?" I shake her arm slowly.

She opens her eyes and mumbles something and shuts her eyes again.

"Y/N, amor. Are you okay? I ask her, now I'm very concerned, she looked tired.

She finally opens her eyes all the way and I can see her eyes are very red. I remove all the things from my way and lay next to her pulling her head on my chest.

"Amor, why were you crying? Did something happen? Can you talk to me, please?" I ask her while I'm stroking her head.

There was a 2-3 minute silence before I felt hot tears on my chest, she was silently crying. I sit up straight and move her head so I'm making eye contact with her.

“Amor, can you please talk to me? Did something happen?” I say to her softly.

“I…I’ve been seeing a lot of videos from your past relationship on my feed. You seem very happy and comfortable on those videos. It makes me wonder if you ever want to go back to what you had and…and end things with me” she says in a barely audible voice, her voice cracking in the end.

I kiss her forehead, nose, lips repeatedly. While wiping away her tears with my thumbs.

“Y/N, I love you so much. I adore everything about you. Your voice, your smile, your lips, you sense of humor, your butt, your smell, everything. Bruna was a big part of my life and she always will be, but that doesn’t mean I love her the same way I love you.” I say to her hoping she believes everything I say. I can’t see her sad of things like these. Especially, when they aren’t true.

“But why are people so obsessed of seeing you two back together? What if you wake up one day and decide you want that too?” she asks softly.

“Amor, people obsess over long relationship. You’ve seen that happen with a lot of famous people, right? I know once the get to see you, they will fall in love with you just like I did. As for me, I wake up everyday feeling blessed of having you by my side.” I say to her and I kiss her lips softly.

I lay down and pull her to my chest. We stay like that for a couple minutes, she seems to have calmed down completely. She lifts her head off my chest wanting to say something to me.

“There’s this movie I didn’t have the chance to see, are you in?” she asks while making a funny smile, making me laugh.

“Hahaha, of course, bebê. Let me go grab some chips real quick.” I stand up quickly, kiss her forehead and leave the room.

"You don't have to Neyyyy. I got them somewhere hereee!!" she yells from the bedroom.

"Noo, you don't!! Your fat ass crushed them on your sleep!" I say back to her from afar. She hates it when I use the word fat ass. I like it when she gets mad and says stuff like 'my ass isss normaal sizee', oh , god, I adore her.

"HEEYYY!!"

[musashi]

hello I am terribly sorry if I am disturbing you but may I ask about more info about pan or bi lesbians?? for the longest time I have had an exclusionist mindset about them however seeing you talk about them in some old post and maybe not so old post is making me question things

so I would appreciate if you could explain it to me

I always interpreted this as maybe what they feel just cannot be described with the bisexual label and thought that maybe all they needed was simply idk another label or one they could create themselves however now? I am...not so sure anymore I am sorry if I sound rude I just genuinely want to know because most of what I've heard simplified is bi lesbian = bad so I really want to understand and learn, if you read this have a good day sorry for bothering again

anon, you seem like an awesome person. i appreciate you leaning into the voice of dissent and fighting back against the kneejerk reaction to exclude.

that said, i will be real with you: i am not a bi lesbian, and i have never really bothered to educate myself much on the how and why of bi lesbian identity. not because i'm not interested, just because i have never really felt possessed to.

the fact of the matter is whatever the fuck someone tells me their identity is, i accept that without diving into a rabbit hole on the topic and bothering to become an expert. my experience with bi lesbians was that bi lesbians told me 'we're bi lesbians' and i said 'cheers bro i'll drink to that'

i did not bother to ask further questions. because they're just vibing and not hurting anyone and it doesn't really effect me, and i don't really have an impulse to ask people to 'explain' their identities or sexual preferences to me. lesbians is lesbians. they're my sisters

if any bi lesbians would LIKE to chime in here that is awesome and welcomed but like... i don't know man. if you met one bi lesbian, you've probably only met one bi lesbian. its a community comprised of thousands of people with thousands of different experiences. try befriending a bi lesbian and asking them what it means to them if the opportunity presents. befriend lots and learn lots. thats all i can really tell you. i don't interrogate people about their amorous or sexual inclinations.