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sundrop-writes · 2 months

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Careful - Chapter One

(Dad)Spencer Reid x (Mom)Fem!Reader

Chapter One: Over Yet

We can go farther, beyond the end.

Summary:

You and Spencer broke up more than four years ago. Since then, he has tried his best to forget about you. He has pushed all of his feelings down - locked them away into a little box that he never touches.

That is, until he sees your name on a list of potential victims being stalked and killed by a man who kills single mothers. (And he quickly realizes that your son could be his.)

Dad!Spencer Reid x Mom!Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Angst.

Word Count: 5,900

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Please keep in mind - I am not doing a taglist for this series, so please do not ask to be tagged in future parts. I do not do taglists. If you want to be notified when future parts of this fic are posted, you can follow this blog and turn on notifications here - I don't make personal posts on this blog, it is just pure posts of my fanfiction. Or you can subcribe on AO3 to get email notifications when this series is posted. You can also view the posting schedule on the series materlist and check @tenpintsof-sundrop for any information about possible changes to that schedule.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: general warnings for a Criminal Minds episode - mentions of murder/killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of dead bodies, the underlying misogyny that comes with a man killing women, mentions of children being orphaned due to their mothers being killed (though there is no mentions of other living family members taking care of those children - you can imaging that they still have nice families to take care of them if you want, I didn’t fill in that detail), mentions of children being in proximity of a serial killer; exes to lovers - the reader and Spencer broke up and the reason why will be revealed later; mentions of pregnancy/mentions of the reader having a child; mentions of sex that resulted in a child/pregnancy (there is no detailed sex scenes/detailed smut in this chapter, but there will be in other chapters); mentions of JJ x Will; the reader’s looks are described as vaguely as possible; passing mention of incest (in the context of a historical figure); all statements that Spencer makes toward the end of this chapter were heavily researched and are factual; I think that’s about it?

A/N: The reader and Spencer originally dated around Season 1/Season 2 - I state at some point during the fic that they dated for 3 years before breaking up, so they started dating when he was very early Season 1 baby Spence (or even before Season 1) and they broke up around Season 2. So technically this fic takes place around Season 6 - but because I didn't want to distract from the plot, I didn't mention any of the stuff going on with Emily or any of those major canon plot points, and I am using pictures of later versions of Spencer just because that's who I was picturing in my head while writing this. But that's how the math works out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic!! This chapter is more of an introduction before we really get into the meat of things, but I still hope that you guys like it.

...

The team had been in Portland for three days.

No leads, a confusing, inconsistent profile - huge pieces missing that would likely give them the real answers.

A patient killer with an extended timeline who likely wouldn’t kill again for months - leaving them chasing their tails, looking for answers.

“Okay, so, let’s take a step back.” Hotch sighed. “What do we know so far?”

He leaned against a nearby table, looking at everyone with the hope of reassessing the case from a different angle. The hope of talking it out to get some answers.

Another woman’s body had been found just before they arrived, and that would mean that the UnSub would be out hunting again soon. This was both good and bad.

Good, because the UnSub clearly had to spend a lot of time stalking his victims - he knew a lot of details of their lives, and he had spent a lot of time developing an intimate fantasy of being a part of their family in his mind. So he wouldn’t be killing again the next day. No woman was in immediate danger. It gave the team more time to find viable suspects.

Bad because they had no physical evidence, no good leads. And thus far, the profile was leading them nowhere. It felt incomplete.

They could find no real connections between the victims - their gyms, their banks, their childcare, their grocery stores. Somehow, the victims didn’t seem to have any crossover in their lives. There was no real way to say how the UnSub had met them. And someone like this - he would have interacted with them at least once in order to become obsessed and stalk them to this degree.

“Five women dead within the last three years.” Prentiss announced, starting to round up the facts that the team knew for certain. “All of them mothers, all with children under the age of five. All within the same ten square mile radius of Oregon, around Portland’s suburban neighborhoods.”

She slumped back into her chair with a tired huff, and then continued.

“The UnSub breaks into their homes through a backdoor or a back window, and somehow goes undetected in such an upscale neighborhood.” She sighed. “He kills the mothers, but he leaves their children alive. And then he calls 9-1-1 to report the death as a case of child neglect.”

“So he was likely neglected by his own mother in his childhood.” Morgan easily theorized.

“All of the victims upper-middle class, single mothers to one child with good jobs. All of them are of the same physical type.” Rossi added on. “They’re the same race, they have the hair color, they’re the same body type - all in their late twenties to early thirties. So the UnSub definitely has a type. He’s most definitely recreating a fantasy of some kind - perhaps taking out revenge on his own mother, but protecting himself. Which is why he never hurts the children.”

“Yeah, but the children are different.” Morgan replied. “Sometimes boys, sometimes girls. Some of them are biracial - he doesn’t look for a specific type in the father. He doesn’t necessarily need to see himself in the children.”

Then, as another thought occurred to him, Morgan continued on:

“Plus, the children’s ages vary from barely a year old all the way up to five - if he was looking to seek revenge on his mother, looking to protect a younger version of himself, then he would have locked in on a critical event that he needs to protect himself from. The age of the children would be more consistent, at least, because he would be looking to protect himself as he hits the age that he was most traumatized by a specific event.”

“That’s good.” Hotch nodded. “Then we know that it’s more about the mothers. He hates women at his core. Protecting the children is just a byproduct of his obsession over these women.”

“But we still have no clue how these women could be connected or how they met the UnSub.” Morgan replied, jaw stiff with frustration.

“Focus on what we do know.” Hotch reminded him.

“All of the women were killed via stabbing. They all had over a dozen stab wounds to their stomachs and genital areas.” Rossi replied. “So, he is an aggressive sexual sadist.”

“But if he hates women so much, why spend so much time in the house?” Morgan argued gently. “Every single one of these scenes has evidence that the UnSub spent hours - possibly up to a day in the house before he killed them. He cooked dinner, set the table, and made the women eat it before he killed them. Including a second place setting for a child. Some of the kids even said that ‘the scary man’ tucked them into bed and read them a story.”

He held up one of the crime scene photos that depicted the scene of the family’s place settings - a haunting scene of plates not cleaned up from dinner, with a flower vase sitting in the middle of the table with a few white flowers wilting inside of it.

“He’s right - why bother to show them the kindness of a last meal if he shows so much aggression toward them during the killing?” Prentiss added on.

“It’s a routine.” Hotch said, the thought suddenly occurring to him. “It’s likely that he chooses single mothers because he gets to play the role of the father. With the real father figure absent from the picture, it makes it easier for him to impose himself into that role. At least for a temporary amount of time.”

“It is strange.” Reid added on, clearly swimming in thought. “It’s almost like he’s courting them? Sending them gifts, showing what a good father he could be. Each of the women were sent white carnations sometime in the days before they were killed, and after the killing, he lays the flowers around their head in a halo-like fashion. It is said that carnations represent motherhood, and the white shade could depict an angelic innocence that he’s projecting onto these women.”

“So he views these women as angelic figures, yet he kills them so brutally?” Prentiss scoffed. “It just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe he views the killing itself as a type of purification.” Reid theorized. “It’s not uncommon for killers to emotionally fetishize dead bodies and consider them more ‘pure’ than their living counterparts.”

Prentiss visibly cringed at this.

“Wait.” JJ said, looking at one of the crime scene photos with a sharp line pulling her brows together.

Everyone looked to her, waiting for her to finish this thought.

“I don’t think that the mothers were the only ones sent gifts.”

She held up the photo, showing a picture of a colorful child’s play mat in the living room. Everyone stared at the photo in confusion, and JJ sighed and began to explain.

“Look at this toy truck in the middle.” She said, pointing at something that almost blended into the background of the photo. The true focus was a large handprint - one that belonged to the killer, but he had worn gloves. “It’s wooden, it’s hand-carved, it’s old fashioned. All the other toys are plastic, brightly coloured. Remember what the UnSub said in the second 9-1-1 call?”

“‘She pretends to have her son’s best interests at heart, but she was going to let him get cancer from sucking on those cheap plastic toys.’” Reid said, repeating it word-for-word, using his impeccable memory.

“Exactly.” JJ confirmed with a nod. “Clearly the UnSub believes that he would be a good father because he can gift his child something hand-made instead of something mass produced.”

“Alright, get the crime scene techs back over there to pick up the truck, maybe he wasn’t wearing gloves when he made it and there is some slim chance he left a print on it.” Hotch said, and JJ left to call the crime scene unit.

This left the team sitting in silence for a few more moments until Reid spoke up again.

“What about preschools?” He said, suddenly coming out of a wave of thought to announce this to the room.

“What?” Prentiss prompted, wondering what on earth he was talking about.

“Preschools.” Spencer confirmed, looking across the table at her.

“We checked already, none of the victims’ children went to the same preschool.” Morgan reminded him. “Two of the kids didn’t even go to preschool.”

“Yeah, but preschools typically have large waitlists.” Spencer argued.

Naturally, all eyes in the room fell on him, waiting for him to explain.

“In the first 9-1-1 call, the UnSub said that the victim ‘shipped her son off to be cared for by strangers half the time’.” He explained, once again perfectly reciting this from memory. “What if the UnSub resents preschools and the schooling system for taking these children away from their mothers, so he’s choosing his victims off of a preschool waitlist? What if that’s where his obsession stems from because that’s where his rage stems from?”

Reid jumped up, pointing to the map he had been using to make a geographical profile.

“All of the victims live within the same school district.” He added on. “So they would be applying to the same group of preschools.”

“I’ll call Garcia.” Morgan announced.

A few minutes later, Morgan connected Garcia’s call to the comm on the center of the conference table they were working from.

“Hey, pumpkin pies.” She greeted them sweetly, as usual. “So it turns out, the preschool that Tommy Laird, and Emily Ashton, the third and the fourth victim had in common, does have a waitlist. But none of the other victims’ names were on it.”

“Come on, babygirl. I know you’re holding out on me.” Morgan said, giving a small smirk.

“Oh, my Adonis, if I don’t have your trembling anticipation, I have nothing.” Garcia giggled. “The school’s waitlist, and their applications, are handled by a firm called Gordon & Stanheight. And it turns out, they handle the applications and waitlisting for five other preschools in the area.”

“Which gives the UnSub a perfect way to pick his victims.” Morgan sighed. “The first interaction that gets him hooked might not even be in person-”

“Unless he’s picking them out of the line-up on paper and then waiting to meet them in person?” Prentiss replied. “With this type of guy, the smallest smile, a nod in his direction - that could be consent in his mind to play father to a household that’s missing one.”

“You said they handle forms for five different schools? That just widened the victim pool.” Rossi groaned.

“And the suspect pool.” Garcia added on. “The firm has thirty male employees. And I did a bit more digging - the preschool applications have ten ‘optional’ questions on the bottom that are definitely not marked as such. Questions directed at the parent filling out the form, rather than vital information about the child. Things such as: ‘what’s your favorite food?’, ‘when is your birthday?’, ‘what’s your favorite color?’, ‘do you plan on having more children?’ - typical survey schlock,”

“That would explain why the UnSub served Lisa Laird a birthday cake.” Reid sighed. “He knew it was her birthday two days before he killed her.”

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like where this is going.” Emily sighed.

“Oh, sugar. You probably won’t.” Penelope easily agreed. “The ‘optional’ part of the forms is sold off to other companies as survey data. And those forms are seen and handled by over a thousand male employees of Gordon & Stanheight’s larger ‘data processing’ sector.”

“Well the UnSub has to be local to Portland. So narrow down the suspect list based on his last known address and go from there.” Hotch said. “Also, it would be someone who has a criminal record. Someone committing this level of violence wouldn’t be a first time offender.”

“Gotcha.” Penelope said. “Penny G, out.”

…

The team ended up raiding Gordon & Stanheight’s Portland based office.

After some pointless conversation, some threats of lawsuits, and some even larger threats of being detained for impeding an FBI investigation, the team was able to get their hands on the preschool applications. Over two-dozen boxes worth, that they would have to sort through.

So this left JJ, Reid, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss knee deep in paper, looking for anyone who fit the UnSub’s victimology - praying that they would be able to pick out the next victim and get to her before the UnSub did.

“We’re never gonna get through these fast enough, are we?” Prentiss sighed, continuing to sift through the papers.

“We just have to go as fast as we can, and hope the UnSub sticks to his schedule.” Morgan replied. “He has to spend time stalking them, learning their routine. Even if he has chosen his victim by now, he won’t break into the house until he’s fully confident that he won’t be disrupted.”

“And the stalking helps build up the fantasy.” Reid added on. “He romanticizes them from afar, sends them gifts. It adds to his delusions of grandeur and forbidden love. The idea that he’s swooping in to become the perfect father figure for these ‘broken’ families.”

“So we’re hanging all our hopes on the idea that this psychopath needs time to ‘fall in love’ with his next victim before he kills her?” Prentiss groaned.

“Sadly, yes.” Rossi confirmed.

“It helps that most of these applications are from two-parent households.” JJ pointed out. “We can throw out anything with a second applicant on the form, because he’s only targeting single mothers.”

The rest of the conversation easily became quiet in Spencer’s ears when he saw it.

It should have been just another page among the sea of paper in his hands, but when he saw those words on the page - that name - it was like a punch to the gut. It pushed all the air out of him in seconds, it made him dizzy, made him struggle to breathe. Like a reel flashing through his mind, it brought back a flood of memories he thought he had locked away forever.

It was you.

What the hell were you doing applying for preschools?

Spencer rushed to tear this paper away from the others in order to read it more carefully.

Surely enough, the application was filled out in your handwriting. Something that had barely changed over the years. And it was all right there, laid out in front of his eyes, clear as day -

You had a son.

A son named Sebastian, who was three years old. Spencer checked the date on the form, eagerly looking for a birth date for your son. His birthday had just recently passed, actually, so he was four years old now.

And his birth date was… fuck.

He had been born eight and a half months, almost nine months exactly after the two of you had broken up. Your son had been born eight and a half months after the day you had left and Spencer had never seen you again.

One thousand, seven hundred and two days.

Four years, eight months, and two days.

It wasn’t difficult math.

Your son was the perfect age to be Spencer’s child. Was this Spencer’s child?

His hands began to shake at the very thought of it.

Is that why you had disappeared from his life with such haste? Because you knew that you were pregnant and you didn’t want Spencer to be a part of your child’s life?

Had you been keeping this from him intentionally?

He hadn’t thought about you in four long years, he had tried so hard not to. He had spent so long forcing himself not to miss you, and now he was struck with the realization that he might have a child out there with the woman he considered to be his regrettable lost love. A child he didn’t know - a child who he had missed four whole years with.

What the fuck was going on?

There were no pictures included with the application, and suddenly, Spencer found himself dying to see the boy. He wanted to know if there was any physical resemblance to himself, or if he was jumping to conclusions.

Maybe you had cheated on him. Maybe that was why you had left town and never contacted him again. Maybe the kid wasn’t his at all, maybe-

“Reid.” JJ called out gently, getting his attention.

Spencer suddenly realized that he was hyperventilating, staring down at the application with your name on it in his hand, wrinkling the paper as he squeezed it more frantically.

“Did you find something?”

…

All in all, the team found four different women who fit the victim pattern in the files - you being one of them.

So the team split up, ready to knock on each of the womens’ doors, preparing to warn them that if they received any gifts or saw any suspicious men lingering around them in the next few days, they should call. They had to hope that the UnSub wouldn’t move on from this victim pool if he saw the FBI around. But he was overly confident, he had contacted police before.

It could definitely work.

When Hotch found out that Spencer had known you, he said that Spencer should be the one to knock on your door. That you might find it comforting to hear that you and your child could possibly be in danger if it were coming from ‘an old friend’. Spencer stuttered over himself and didn’t have the words to explain that you weren’t just a good friend to him, but a romantic flame. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of the team by telling everyone that the break-up had been messy, and sudden, and Spencer still wasn’t even completely sure what had caused it. He didn’t want to rip open his old wounds in front of everyone.

So he simply shut his mouth and got in the car with JJ, and they made their way toward your house.

…

“So…” JJ’s voice broke through the undulating silence of the car ride - filled by nothing but the sound of the car’s motor running and gears grinding inside Spencer’s mind as he tried to figure all of this out. “I do have to ask the obvious question,”

“What is that?” Spencer probed, slightly glad to be relieved of his own thoughts.

He wasn’t so glad when JJ pried those thoughts out of his mind and spilled them to the open air.

“Is the kid yours?” She wondered aloud. “I mean - when did you and Y/N break up?”

JJ had known you as Spencer’s girlfriend.

Come to think of it, she was probably the only person on the current field team who had some kind of a relationship with you back when you and Spencer dated.

Initially, it had been by accident. JJ had driven him home one night after a particularly long and sleepless case, and you had been coming to his apartment to drop off some books he had asked for (shortly after he had given you a key). When JJ saw you, her natural curiosity got the better of her - even more so when you stuck out your hand and introduced yourself as ‘Spencer’s girlfriend’ without hesitation.

The two of you got to talking, and JJ invited you to ‘girls night’. You met Elle and Penelope shortly after. You had become pretty good friends with the three of them before the break-up.

But Spencer had always felt secretive…. well, protective of you. He didn’t want Morgan teasing him about you, or him wanting to have ‘guy talk’ about things that occurred in the bedroom. Not when it might mean talking about intimate moments with you. Spencer had only introduced you to Gideon over coffee about three weeks before the break-up, and that felt like a lifetime ago.

Back then, having you, Elle, and Gideon leave his life all in a matter of a few months felt like hell on earth. It felt like being grabbed by his ankles and shaken for all he was worth. He really wasn’t sure that he was ready to see you again.

It had been four years.

JJ was someone he could lean on right now.

“Four years ago.” He told her, completely honest.

“And how old is the kid?” JJ asked.

“Four - four years old.” Spencer stuttered out, realizing that now as he was speaking about this very real possibility, he might be breathing more life into it.

“Oh my god.” JJ sighed. “Well… could it-? I mean…? Did the two of you?”

It took Spencer a moment to clue into what JJ was talking about. He gave her a sideways glance and she took her eyes off the road for a moment, raising her brows and giving him a pointed look.

“Please tell me you know what does and what doesn’t make a baby,” JJ groaned.

“Oh!” Spencer huffed, a small wave of embarrassment flooding him. “Yes! God, yes. I know.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Spencer felt the need to clarify his answer.

“We - I mean. We…” He trailed off for a moment, clearing his throat. “We didn’t always use… protection. We were together for three years, at the time, it was on the table.”

“Kids were on the table for you back then?” JJ asked, clearly shocked by this. “I could not imagine little twenty-four year old Spence with a baby.”

“Well… it’s something I’ve always wanted.” He mumbled quietly in reply.

It was true. At the time, Spencer easily imagined himself getting married to you, having multiple kids with you. These days, seeing JJ with Henry and Will brought him the occasional underlying pang of jealousy - but since breaking up with you, there hadn’t been anyone else in Spencer’s life that he could have imagined having kids with. He thought that he was going to be alone and childless for the rest of his life. That the dream was long dead for him.

“Hey - then, maybe this is a blessing in disguise?” JJ posed. “If we hadn’t been looking through those forms because of this UnSub, you never would have found Y/N again. You wouldn’t even know this baby exists.”

There was another thing that JJ was dying to ask - something she held back because she felt like it was a touch too personal. (Even if ‘too personal’ was basically how the BAU team lived - knee deep in each other’s business, all the time).

She wanted to know why you had a baby, a baby that Spencer had very likely fathered, and you hadn’t contacted him about it. Spencer seemed entirely clueless about the child’s existence before now, and JJ knew that because of what his own father had been like, he wouldn’t just blow off a kid that was his if he knew that one was out there in the world.

So why hadn’t you told Spencer about the baby?

“What if the kid isn’t yours?” JJ wondered aloud.

Maybe that would unburden him. She knew that either way, Spencer would fight to protect you from the UnSub. But if the kid wasn’t his - he would walk away again, and he wouldn’t have to be hung up on the heartbreak of dealing with his ex just to parent a child together.

“Honestly… I think I’ll be more heartbroken if I find out that he’s not even mine.” Spencer told her, his voice quiet and already lulling with that disappointment.

That was not something JJ had considered. She frowned as she saw the sadness paint across Spencer’s face.

“One thing at a time, alright?”

…

When they pulled into your driveway, Spencer’s mind immediately began churning.

It was a nice house. It was a beautiful, quiet neighborhood. The front yard was clean and trimmed and there was a silver SUV in the driveway with a ‘baby on board’ sticker in the rear window. There was a rocking chair on the porch, but he didn’t see many children’s toys out front on the lawn. He guessed that was a good thing. Letting children play in the front where they could run into the street and potentially get hit by a car was too dangerous. He was glad to already see signs that you were a good mother.

Spencer felt like he was opening up a book halfway, desperately wanting to be filled in on the previous chapters while having missed so much. Still wanting to read ahead and see more.

He had already missed so much of your son’s life. He had missed you. That was something forming the biggest knot in his gut. He had truly missed you. The times he had allowed himself to think of you over these past few years - he had missed you so dearly.

And now the two of you likely had a child together.

Craning his neck to get a better look, desperately trying to take in more information, Spencer’s eyes were wide and hungry as JJ put the car in park by the curb in front of your house. As Spencer reached for the passenger side door handle, JJ’s phone rang.

“I have to take this.” She sighed. “You go ahead.”

She gave Spencer a distinct look that said ‘I know you need a minute alone with Y/N’, and he nodded, stepping out of the vehicle while she greeted whoever was on the other line. He smoothed down his tie - for once in his whole life, he was actually worried about how he looked. Only because he knew that he was going to see you. Perhaps he had only ever felt like this before going on his first date with you.

He had such a strange lashing of emotions going through him as he approached the door. Fear, anxiety, anticipation. Longing.

He truly had tried so hard to lock away his feelings for you when you had left. He had tried to move on. He had considered, briefly, in passing, dating other women. There had been times when someone else caught his eye, and he considered asking her out on a date. Morgan had offered to ‘set him up’. Penelope had offered too, telling him that he deserved to ‘get back out there’.

Whenever she asked about you, his heart freshly cracked open.

At one point, she had advised him to write a long, Shakespearian letter, pouring out his heart to you in an effort to get you back - one which she would mail. (Because of course, she could get your new address in a heartbeat.) But he didn’t want to experience the heartbreak all over again if you ignored him. He didn’t want to sit, waiting by the mailbox every single day like a lost dog, waiting for you to write him back in return.

You had disappeared from his life for a reason. Just like everyone else had. For a long time, Spencer convinced himself that he was simply meant to end up alone.

Perhaps if he had known about your son - a child that could very well be his - then he might have felt differently about getting Penelope to contact you.

But now he was standing at your front door, his fist shaking as he raised his hand to knock.

He let out a sharp breath and steadied himself, giving three swift, firm knocks against the door and then trying to wait patiently. His heart thumped inside of his throat, and it felt like forever.

“Sorry!” Your voice called out from behind the door, muffled. “Sorry, I almost didn’t hear you. I was-”

You cut off your own words as you opened the door - the moment you caught Spencer’s eye and recognized it was him, pure shock fell across your features, and you froze on the spot.

You were just as stunning as ever. You had barely aged at all - your hair was different than the last time he had seen you, of course. And you were dressed casually - wearing a simple hooded sweatshirt with a drawstring and a pair of jeans with some fuzzy slipper boots on. But pale blue looked so good on you.

So much like the pale blue dress you had worn on your first date with him.

You were breath-taking.

“Y/N.” He greeted you, his throat dry already.

You didn’t say anything, simply continuing to stare him down with wide-eyed shock.

Seeing you again, Spencer couldn’t help but to think back to that first date.

The first night that he knew he was in love with you.

…

He had taken you to see the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

It was Spencer’s idea of a good time - and it ended up being one of the most beautiful, most romantic, most unique first dates that you had ever been on.

It was difficult not to fall for him with the beautiful music in the air and his glossy eyes, so sickeningly thick with affection, staring you down all night.

Afterwards, the two of you stopped to get ice cream at a small shop that was a short walk down from the orchestra. And now you were both enjoying your ice cream as you walked along in the cool night air - enjoying the peace and quiet and the gentle breeze in the darkness.

It was a perfect night.

Spencer could think of no better way to spend it than with you. The yellow bulbs of the street lights practically cast a glow onto your skin, the mulberry lipstick now worn off your lips as you brought the pink spoon to your mouth and licked up your sweet treat.

His stomach was churning with nerves. Joyous nerves.

And as per usual, when he was nervous - he rambled.

“You know, Bach actually married his cousin.” He said, spouting off the first thing that came to mind.

You told him that Bach was one of your favorite composers - it’s why he had thought to bring you to the orchestra on a date in the first place.

“I did not know that.” You giggled. “So what? Was it like a ‘third cousin twice removed’ type situation?”

Spencer found himself grinning at the fact that you actually engaged him in the conversation, rather than staring at him with an odd look for bringing up such a strange topic.

“Not quite.” He replied. “They had the same surname before marriage.”

“Oh, ew.” You chuckled again, giving a shudder at the thought of this.

Spencer knew it was an odd topic to discuss on a date, and if he rambled on too much, it might freak you out - but he couldn’t stop himself. His mouth ran away with him, and he continued.

“He married Maria Barbara Bach, and they had seven children together.” He told you. “His sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel became composers and musicians much like their father, which was actually carrying on a legacy started by Bach’s father himself - who was a seventh generation musician. He was the one who taught Bach the organ from a very young age.”

“Why don’t people play the organ anymore?” You wondered aloud. “Except in churches, I guess. The organ rocks.”

Spencer’s brain began rocketing off at the fact that you had asked him a question. A question he could answer.

“The organ has actually long been associated with divinity.” He replied. “The instrument rose in popularity alongside Catholicism throughout the eighteenth century, and in a sense, that was part of what made Bach a sort of ‘rockstar’ of his time. The religious references in his work, and his mastery of the organ - all of it made him incredibly popular at the time because it caused him to be favored by the church and by royal figures associated with the church.”

Spencer gleamed a large smile, heavily enjoying that he could share these facts with you. He thought for certain that any moment, you would change the subject or imply that he should stop talking. But instead, you engaged the conversation more.

“Religious references?” You questioned, wondering what he meant by this.

“Yes!” Spencer grinned, suddenly very excited by the explanation behind this. “Even in his secular music, Bach would often incorporate the acronym ‘INJ’, a Latin abbreviation that means ‘In Nomine Jesu’, or ‘in the name of Jesus’. It was something he put on all of his manuscripts.”

You grinned back. You found it fascinating that being around Spencer for such short periods of time caused you to learn so many things. It easily made you want to be around him more.

“Interesting.” You replied.

“And his talent on the organ was seen as something that made him ‘divine’ at the time. Divine enough to be worthy of performing for royalty.” Spencer added on. “In 1708, Bach got a position as the court organist in Weimer for Duke Wilhelm. And later when he requested early release from this position, desiring to go work for Prince Leopold of Koethen, the Duke actually had him arrested and put in jail for several weeks in 1716.”

Spencer laughed at this mental image - the composer being put in jail.

“Ooh, harsh.” You sighed. “But I guess Dukes have too much power.”

Spencer let out another bright laugh at this.

“And see, the interesting thing is, Bach later became the conductor of the court orchestra, in which Prince Leopold played.”

“So he got his wish,” You replied with a smile.

“And see-”

Spencer set off on another rant again, and you couldn’t help yourself. You put your spoon into the cup of ice cream and then you used your now free hand to reach out and grab Spencer by his tie - you pulled him toward you before he could get anymore words out, and he let out a shocked, choked-off sound when you pressed your mouth into his.

He sighed gently against your lips, and unconsciously dropped his own melting chocolate cone on the ground by his feet as his limp hands drifted toward your waist. He was dizzy, and now every single fact he had ever known about any composer had vanished from his head. In that moment, standing under a random street lamp on a random sidewalk somewhere - all he knew was the soft, pillowy feeling of your lips and the cool night breeze against his skin.

It was perfect. You were perfect.

You found his intelligence and the enthusiasm with which he spoke to be so utterly irresistible. You had been on so many dates with men before where they had acted like talking about their interests was a chore. Where they had made it seem like the whole thing was simply a routine, waiting for the end of the night so they could get into your pants. And for them, that’s what it probably was.

But Spencer was nothing like that.

He spoke about everything with such intense passion - and you couldn’t resist the urge to try and suck that very passion off his lips.

When you were forced to pull back slightly, your lungs crying out for oxygen, Spencer let out a gentle moan and began puffing out sweet little pants across your chin as he tried to catch his breath. You kept a hold of his tie, wanting to keep him close, and he stayed there, gently pressing his forehead against yours.

“That was… wow.” He sighed.

“I didn’t think I would ever find you at a loss for words, Doctor Reid.” You replied with a giggle.

“Well, I - you - wow.”

It was all he could muster, causing you both to break down into laughter.

Back then - everything had been perfect.

He had no clue where it all went so wrong.

...

Continue reading: Chapter Two - Liar

#sundrop writes #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #dad!spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic

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rthko · 3 months

Note

to add to the whole proud faggot thing: i rmbr at age 15 me and my friend (both newly out) would say faggot all the time until a teacher told us off and my friend (v cocky) said actually miss i can reclaim it to which the teacher was like ...its still a swear word ur still not allowed to use it like its not that deep. and that was a sort of revelation like 'oh yeah this word obvs holds meaning and whatever but at the end of the day us reclaiming it isnt revolutionary its just two kids who got their hands on a new curse word to use' & ever since then i try to figure out whoevers using faggot in a useful or meaningful way vs whoever is just excited to use a forbidden word. n i think for a lot of ppl its the latter

So for context, I saw a post where someone had left a comment with Israel apologia, and someone else responded by screenshotting their blog, which has a cutesy Tumblr aesthetic, and added a screenshot of another post about what it called "Smol bean Zionism." I noticed the blogger's bio also said "proud faggot," so I tagged the post:

"Are we ready to admit the 'proud faggot' is not contradictory to the smol beanification but part and parcel to it?"

I see sentiments on Tumblr that "I call myself a faggot to scare the tenderqueers," but I think the cute harmless approach and the edgy approach are two sides of the same coin. Molly Rose on substack writes about how she as a Black woman could never get away with "tenderqueer" behavior. She writes: "As far as I can tell, the hallmark of a true tenderqueer is an unwavering avoidance of responsibility or culpability at all costs, paired with the use of social justice and personal advocacy language to ensure that lack of accountability." The real problem with this type then is not that they're too sensitive, but that their sensitivity is a tool by which they act like they could never be in the wrong. So we see a soft type and an edgy type, but both wear their victimhood on their sleeve to feign superiority and avoid any kind of interpersonal conflict. The former will invoke queerness or neurodivergence to guilt trip you, and the latter will act above it all and treat you like you're stupid for even caring. It's "enough discourse, we should be making out with tongue" when trans women try to talk about transmisogyny, etc.

With all these discussions of the "tenderqueer," It's easy to forget that "queer" was that transgressive word said to connote political radicalism, or rather, speak political radicalism into existence just by uttering that very word. And while I have heard people prop up "fag" and it's equivalents as the solution when the former has been watered down, they are not getting to the root of the problem. If the problem is that some have turned the supposed magical powers of a word into a political dead end, the solution is not to go find other magical words to replace it. I am aware and respectful of the fact that to some, these words really are a political statement, or a symbolic gesture that they're not afraid or have moved beyond past wounds. Any word is what you make it. But to get back to your point, yeah, some people have that same teenager's mentality of getting their hands on a new curse word. And it does not automatically make them meaningfully transgressive or even interesting.

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astonmartinii · 2 months

Text

fatherhood looks good on you | george russell social media au

pairing: george russell x fem albon reader

there comes a point in the relationship where you take it to the next level

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR

- part of the brother's best friend series -

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, landonorris and 783,409 others

tagged: georgerussell63

yourusername: looking so good i want to give you a baby

view all comments

user1: WHAT

user2: we really be saying anything on the internet these days

alexalbon: SHUT THE FUCK UP THE LITERAL ONLY RULE OF THIS RELATIONSHIP WAS THAT YOU KEEP THIS SHIT TO YOURSELVES

yourusername: gosh a girl can't have baby fever in peace these days

alexalbon: unless that baby is coming by stork you can put that talk on hold real fast

yourusername: just because lily is busy does not mean you have to take it out on me and george

georgerussell63: alex is it illegal for a man to be handsome?

alexalbon: if it's illegal to be handsome, you'd have the cleanest record known to man

yourusername: STOP RIGHT THERE DIDN'T YOU KNOW THAT LYING IS A SIN

alexalbon: i'm not going to say YOUR boyfriend is hot, no.

yourusername: just because i got in there first 🙄

user3: i don't think she's serious but also george with a baby is just too cute not to happen

user4: george is the perf instagram boyf like he's so ready to pose

landonorris: well that definitely is something we all want to know

yourusername: i know you would LOVE to know ALL the details norris

georgerussell63: she's never going to let your crush go lando, you gotta just hold it

landonorris: i was THIRTEEN

yourusername: you don't love me anymore? 😕

landonorris: i don't know why i always get in these arguments with you

user5: i love how george just instigates things for y/n lmao

user6: your boyfriend should always support your mess

liked by yourusername

georgerussell63

liked by lewishamilton, alexalbon and 1,209,458 others

tagged: yourusername

georgerussell63: fatherhood is a different beast

view all comments

user8: alright i am so confused

user9: there's no way y/n can actually be pregnant i saw her down at least three pornstar martinis in hospitality this weekend

alexalbon: this better be a joke or i'm gonna kick you so hard you get a free non-reversible vasectomy

yourusername: stop the violence!

alexalbon: THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR GLEE REFERENCES

yourusername: someone is channelling some serious sue vibes right now

georgerussell63: let it be known i like my reproductive systems the way they are

alexalbon: that's kind of the point of a threat, you aren't supposed to want it

yourusername: he likes threats if they come from the right person

alexalbon: i am about one more comment away from knocking down your hotel room door and throwing george from the balcony

yourusername: and deprive our child from a father... alex i expected better from you

alexalbon: that's it i'm on my way

georgerussell63: @mercedesamgf1 PLEASE PROTECT ME I AM PRECIOUS CARGO

user10: these bitches got me actually combing through tiktoks and hospitality menus to see if y/n was actually drinking

user11: i'm gonna be real angry if this is all a big joke

user12: i know kimi antonelli is young but this is NAWT the way to announce him for 2025

charles_leclerc: guys i need you to spell everything out i am confused

georgerussell63: no can do charles you gotta follow the breadcrumbs just like everyone else

yourusername: it's right there sharl

charles_leclerc: actually alex, wait, i'm coming with you these hoes are annoying me

landonorris: don't forget me

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, maxverstappen1 and 1,409,556 others

tagged: georgerussell63

yourusername: our baby is here!

view all comments

user15: A CAT?

user16: i just knew george russell would be a ragdoll girl

georgerussell63: they were right i AM a girl dad

yourusername: finally dilf status

georgerussell63: a title i do not take lightly

yourusername: i can confirm libido has gone UP since becoming parents!

landonorris: shut THE FUCK UP

yourusername: you'll understand in time lando

georgerussell63: you just found yourself at the bottom of the babysitting list

landonorris: i don't want to look after it

yourusername: IT? IT? HOW DARE YOU?

georgerussell63: she can hear you lando that's so disrespectful :(

landonorris: ??? i'm not saying sorry to a cat over instagram comment

georgerussell63: expect the same courtesy when i take you out first corner next weekend

user17: i fear that was not a threat but a promise from george

user18: it's kinda hot

liked by yourusername

alexalbon: NEW ALBON PETS LORE AND NONE OF YOU TOLD ME

yourusername: ella can't wait to meet the gang

alexalbon: no offence but ella is kinda a shit name

yourusername: short for mozzarella

alexalbon: i take it back

georgerussell63: cause she's the lil pearl of our life

alexalbon: i love her already

user19: so we went through all this tomfoolery for a cat? a cat called mozzarella?

user20: you have to agree it's iconic

alexalbon

liked by yourusername, maxverstappen1 and 889,304 others

tagged: georgerussell63 & yourusername

alexalbon: i knew @albon_pets would get george at some point

view all comments

user22: i love how alex became the chill guy again after it was revealed he was not yet an uncle

georgerussell63: hard on the yet

alexalbon: too soon george

user23: the albon pets signature of approval is a bigger sign that george is in the gamily than if he actually proposed to y/n

user24: they've got a baby now he's an albon

yourusername: horsey is going to kick off over having to share george with me and mozzie

albon_pets: bring it on - horsey

yourusername: alex i'm not arguing with you pretending to be horsey, this ain't roscoe and lewis

lewishamilton: rude

roscoelovescoco: meanie

yourusername: did you just call me mean as your dog?

lewishamilton: you were extra mean

yourusername: fine lets let mozzie and roscoe scrap it out at silverstone - she's got the sass of both me and george btw x

lewishamilton: stay AWAY FROM MY DOG

user25: the merc garage gonna be a whole petting zoo at silverstone i can't

user26: you wanna catch up with red bull? sell meet and greet tickets to the petting zoo

maxverstappen1: this is my official invitation to a play date with jimmy and sassy

yourusername: WE'LL BE THERE

maxverstappen1: is mozzarella civilised?

georgerussell63: of course my child has manners?

maxverstappen1: you crash into people all the time, i had to check

georgerussell63

liked by alexalbon, landonorris and 896,045 others

tagged: yourusername

georgerussell63: all of the family here for the home race

view all comments

user27: y/n wearing mozzarella in a baby harness i need to be put down

user28: that really is their child oh my

yourusername: make our baby proud georgie

georgerussell63: anything for you two xx

alexalbon: why do i never get these nice comments

yourusername: they're transmitted through our genes x

yourusername: also george more important 👍🏻

alexalbon: i'm literally your brother? your flesh and blood?

yourusername: george cuter

georgerussell63: can't argue with that

alexalbon: well of course he is this ain't alabama. (sorry logan)

logansargent: i'm from florida?

yourusername: even worse, my condolences

georgerussell63: can we get back to talking about how dashing i am?

yourusername: yes!

alexalbon: NO. SAY GOOD LUCK Y/N

yourusername: good luck y/n

alexalbon: what if i crash and you never said good luck, think about it y/n

yourusername: good luck alex (you're an asshole for weaponising the sport (and you being shit at it))

user29: i think i had about three strokes trying to follow this argument

user30: poor logan is just a victim of the albons at this point

landonorris: have a baby and forget about the rest of us, i see how it is

yourusername: you will never measure up to mozzie lando i hope you know that

georgerussell63: what y/n means is that i love my friends, but a child is a gift from god

landonorris: it's a cat. she can't even talk

yourusername: and yet she makes better points than you, makes you think

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, landonorris and 834,019 others

tagged: georgerussell63

yourusername: fatherhood looks good on you

view all comments

user31: mozzarella is so big already 🥹

user32: maybe i'm worse than them cause i'm attached to mozzie as well

georgerussell63: no one else i'd rather be cat parents to

yourusername: you're such a romantic

georgerussll63: such a pleasure to take this next step with the love of my life

yourusername: i love you more

georgerussell63: not possible

alexalbon: you being gross about mozzie was better than what ever the fuck this is

yourusername: @lilymunhe does he not treat you right?

lilymunhe: he's a romantic really, he's just exhausting the protective big brother act until george finally proposes

alexalbon: sue me

maxverstappen1: still waiting on the play date ...

yourusername: monaco?

maxverstappen1: done

yourusername: jimmy, sassy and ella will be like the charlie's angles reincarnated

georgerussell63: can't wait for you to see her IMPECCABLE manners

maxverstappen1: okay princess george

yourusername: hey only i can call george princess

maxverstappen1: you keep that to yourself

user33: disappointed that with all the tomfoolery around mozzie that there was no maternity photoshoots

yourusername: oh do not give me a challenge...

fin.

note: NEW SERIES ALERT? i'll create a masterlist after i post this. i hope you enjoyed, this one is more of a tame brother's best friend take but dw they can get more beefy and more sassy - send me any pairings you might like to see! thanks for reading x

#f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 instagram au #f1 x you #f1 social media au #f1 #george russell instagram au #george russel imagine #george russel x reader #george russell #george russell imagine #george russell x reader #george russell fluff

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artists-ally · 6 months

Text

{Show Me Where It Hurts} Azriel x Reader x Xaden Riorson

Sooooooo I had a thought. And then this happened. That's all I'm gonna say. Just two shadow daddies doing unspeakable things. Title inspired by this song. Enjoy!

Word Count: 7,238

Warnings: ACOTAR x Fourth Wing, alcohol, smut, MMF, Oral (m and f receiving), DP, dom/sub vibes, use of the nickname "pet", bondage, shadow play, degrading, spanking, choking, spitting, unprotected sex.

Tagging: @needylilgal022 @librafairy @cyrygher @agent-anna @thelov3lybookworm @blessthepizzaman @bubybubsters

Summary: After a miserably failed night out, you decide to head to a local bar to drink away your sorrows. Two males, one of them being your Court Spy Master, the other a stranger, approached you.

~~~~~

“Are you kidding me?” “I understand your frustration but-”

“My frustration?” I shouted, eyes wide. “What do you mean he did book a reservation?”

“There has been no reservation made under that name. I am truly sorry, Yn. But it looks like he may have… done it on purpose?”

“No,” I shook my head. I could not fathom being stood up let alone whatever this was. “No this cannot be right. I-I spoke with him this morning, he said that our table was reserved for tonight.” The hostess offered me a kind look as the realization slowly settled in my bones. “Oh my gods… he set me up.”

“If I were you,” the pretty Fae came around her stand and took my hands in hers. “I’d find a way to forget about that damned male. He clearly is undeserving of you or your kindness. I wouldn’t sweat it, a pretty one like you won’t go unnoticed for very long.”

I tried to smile, but a grimace was the best I could do. “I feel like such an idiot. Thank you for all your help…” I paused to look at the little tag on her black tunic. “Jasmina.”

“My deepest apologies, Yn,” Jasmina waved as I exited the restaurant and the bitter Velaris air nipped at my bare shoulders.

What a fucking lame excuse for a male. How dare he stand me up on a date? He was the one practically begging on his knees to ask me. I should’ve known better. Males like him do not like females like me.

In an attempt to not let the night–or the fierce outfit I put together-go to waste, I went a couple streets over to a tavern. It had a nice ambiance and a surplus of good liquor. The dark, rustic interior greeted me with a ploom of warm air and the scent of cheap ale and wine.

After hanging my coat on the rack at the front, I weaved through the rather crowded space to hopefully snag a stool at the bar. I was lucky enough to get one at the end, only one person to my left and the wall to my right.

I just sighed. What a shitty day. I had spent a few hours getting read, and for what? To be made a fool? To be embarrassed? I shouldn’t have to pay the consequences for something I didn’t have control over. I swear to the gods that if I ever see what’s-his-face again I’ll put my fist through it.

“Evening, milady,” the polished man behind the counter said. He had a thick beard and a mustache that curled up on the ends. He had a thick accent too, probably from somewhere in the hills. “Celebrating tonight?” “More like mourning,” I huffed, bracing my chin on my palm.

“Terribly sorry for your loss,” his eyes softened. “Oh,” I gave a chuckle. “No, not a death. I just came in from what was supposed to be a date. Turns out I was set up and he wasn’t going to be coming.”

The male scoffed. “The boldness from some of the males in this city.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What can I get for you?” He asked, wiping a few glasses down and setting them atop a stack.

I looked at the board behind him, the list of crafted beverages going on and on. “Maybe something sweet?”

“Do you like cherries? Passion fruit, pineapple maybe?”

“Cherries are wonderful,” I sat up a little straighter. “I honestly couldn’t care less about what alcohol is in it. You had me at cherries.”

The male smiled, “I shall put in an extra just for you, darling.”

“Thank you,” I smiled and watched him get to work.

The tavern was far more crowded than I expected for a weekday. There were more people than tables and chairs to accommodate them. Some even sitting on the tables. But the hum of voices and clinking glasses was the type of ambient sound that could put me right to sleep if I laid my head down.

I felt incredibly comfortable and safe here. Not that I didn’t other places in the city, but something about being here was… calming. People were enjoying themselves, and it was like I was the only person in here with a scowl on their face.

The crack of billiards had my head turning the other way as I saw a group huddled around a green velvet table with colored balls scattered around. I recognized one immediately as our High Lady. And right beside her was the High Lord.

“This is called a cherry sour. It is made of distilled vodka and lemon. I added some cherry syrup to give it a little extra sweetness for you,” he said, placing the drink in front of me.

“It looks lovely.” I smelled it and it was strong. When I took a sip, it was like my brain blew up. The most strange combinations of flavors, yet somehow it all worked. The brutal burn of the alcohol mixed with the bitter lemon and sweet cherry made my stomach burn. “I see the High Lord is in tonight.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “he is here with the High Lady and a few of their courtiers. The commanding general as well as the Morrigan. And the shadowsinger is here… somewhere. He was with another male when he walked in.”

“I have visited other Courts before. I have never seen any of their High Lords step foot outside of their palaces to so much as wave at their people let alone live amongst them like Rhysand does.”

The craftsman nodded in agreement. “He is not the traditional Lord our continent has come to know, and that is what makes him a vital part of our city. He’s our founder. He built our sanctuary not for us but for himself, too. It is only fair that he dines and plays games where he chooses.”

“Have you ever met them?” I asked curiously.

“Of course, they are here a few times a month. Morrigan and Cursebreaker’s sister are in here more.”

I glanced again, finding a few more heads now joining them. The general, Cassian, was in conversation with a shorter male, his brown hair glistening in the overhead light. He had a tattoo on the side of his neck and it disappeared underneath the collar of his black shirt.

At first I thought it to be the shadowsinger but it wasn’t him. His hair was too light. The more I looked, the more I realized that he looked a little out of place. He had darker skin than either of our Illyrians, and he didn’t have wings. For just a second he turned his head and I caught a glimpse of a scar on his face. Above his left brow and below his eye.

He was very pleasant to look at.

“I will be back, I need to break up some ice in the back,” the bartender spoke generally to the crowd. In a second he was out of sight and out of mind. I could not stop looking at this male.

The curls in his hair looked soft and fluffy and I really wanted to run my fingers through them. Though he was shorter than the general, he was at least a head taller than me, if not a half more than that. Whoever he was…

That couldn’t be the shadowsinger, could it? From all that I’ve heard of the illusive male this did not match any of the descriptions. He was just as tall– if not taller– as Azriel, but the hair… It was too light. And now wings. No shadows. Our High Lord can summon his wings, maybe the others can as well? Plus, I’ve heard that the scars the shadowsinger has on his hands are rather brutal. This male didn’t have any scars on his hands that I could see.

The air around me cooled and I shivered, wishing I had brought my jacket with me. It was like a door just opened and a draft seeped in around me. Up my legs and around my ankles.

To not appear creepy I looked elsewhere, not finding any of the other males in the room as interesting as the one with the brown fluffy hair. There was a couple sitting in a booth across the room, very clearly struggling to keep their affection tame. Another was dancing together and I became painfully aware of just how awful my dating life had been.

I threw back the rest of my drink, just as the bartender returned and ordered a few shots of something stronger. Much stronger by the smell of it. The warmth of it spread through my arms and fingers and the room seemed to get a little rowdier.

“Before I pour another, milady, I would just like to ask if you have a safe way to get home,” he asked kindly.

I smiled at the tenderness in his voice. “Yes, I live right down the way in the set of townhouses by the Sidra. Two minute walk.”

“Excellent.” Another shot was placed in front of me.

I kept sneaking glances at our High Lord and Lady. They looked so magnificent. Like a true emperor and empress. And they looked so happy to be together. Not with just themselves but with the general and whoever this other male was. Perhaps someone from Illyria?

Again, the whole no wings thing was throwing me off.

Wait, where did he-

“Excuse me,” a deep, rough voice said from beside me. My eyes met the most beautiful set of eyes I’ve ever seen. A dark, almost black color with flecks of amber and gold. It was the male I had been gawking at for the past half hour. He had an accent like I’ve never heard before. “I am Xaden.”

I stared at his extended hand for a moment before shaking it. “Yn.”

“Yn,” he practically purred. “A very beautiful name.”

It was hard not to blush. “I don’t mean to sound rude but are you-”

“Hey, there you are. We were just about to start another game did you…” The Spy Master of the Night Court stopped right beside him. His hazel eyes locked with mine and my stare darted between the two. The two very attractive, tall, muscular males in front of me. “Hello there.”

“This is Yn,” Xaden introduced me. “I was just about to ask if I could buy her a drink but I think you had a question for me?”

All thoughts leave my brain. Just above the shadowsingers shoulders lay his wings, and curling around them were those infamous shadows. The most lethal male on the continent stood two feet from me. And he was looking at me like… I didn’t let myself finish that thought.

I cleared my throat, “I was going to ask where you’re visiting from. You have a very… foreign accent.”

Xaden smiled a little and I thought I’d collapse on the ground. “I come from Navarre. A place far from here.”

“I’ve never heard of Navarre,” I said truthfully. But if males like him came from there then maybe I need to visit.

“It’s not entirely accessible,” he folded his arms across his chest. His very muscular and sculpted chest. “I am just visiting a friend.”

I looked at Azriel, who, much to my surprise, hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I shifted in my seat. “You two are friends?”

“Only recently,” Azriel spoke and I felt his voice crawl down my spine. “Xaden here is the closest thing to me that his puny world has to offer.”

“Puny?” Xaden’s eyes went wild. “Take away your wings and siphons and see how well you do as Basgiath. I doubt you’d last five minutes on Sgaeyl in a basic flight maneuver.”

“Basgiath? S-Sgaeyl?” The names were so weird in my mouth.

“Basgiath is the name of our War College. And Sgaeyl is my dragon.”

His what?

“Riroson here thinks that I couldn’t mount and ride a dragon. I’d like to see you take on the Bogge or a Naga with those tiny daggers of yours,” Azriel broke his gaze away from mine to take a sip of whatever was in his glass. “Pathetic.”

“You have a dragon?” I most certainly didn’t hear him correctly. “But they’re-”

“Not where I’m from, they’re not. See, we don’t have magic like you do here in Prythian. Back home, we have to study, bond with a dragon, and then we get the ability to channel their power. Mine just so happens to be shadow-wielding. Apparently this one could feel it across our world and tracked me down. He’s been teaching me for a few years now.”

“And somehow you still can’t manage to winnow,” Azriel rolled his eyes playfully.

“Some of us haven’t had centuries of practice, asshole,” Xaden retorted. If I had known anything about Azriel, I fully expected him to flatten out this Xaden guy.

“You’re not Fae?”

“No offense, but who would want to live forever?” He shrugged. A valid response. It was only then that I saw the roundness of his mortal ears.

Azriel grumbled a curse. “I apologize for him. He is cranky after his long flight here. I’m Azriel, I’m not sure I introduced myself.”

“I know,” I forced myself to look anywhere but his gorgeous face. Easily the most attractive Fae I’ve ever seen.

“Are you here with anyone? I saw you walk in about an hour ago and haven’t seen you talk with anyone,” he asked. He saw me walk in? “If my night had gone any better than yes, I would be here with someone. But, instead, he had other plans and never showed up for our reservation.”

Both of the males stood completely silent. I watched Azriel’s eyes narrow, his jaw clench. “Who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I could feel that bubble of emotion rise up in my throat, pricking my nose and eyes. “He’s just some nobody I was seeing. His loss.”

“Biggest fucking mistake he’ll ever make,” Xaden scooted in closer, leaning his forearms on the counter. “What were you drinking? Next one's on me.”

“Oh, that’s kind of you but I would like to wake up in the morning without any regrets. A water will do,” I smiled sweetly at him and he returned it without a second thought.

I felt Azriel move closer to me and I could just barely see him in my peripheral vision. I tried not to look. It was so hard. All I wanted to do was look at him. Then he was closer. A lot closer. His arm across the back of the stool I was sitting in.

Oh gods his scent.

“For you,” Xaden slipped a cool glass of water in my hands. “To you, Yn.”

I blushed as I knocked my glass with theirs.

“Not to impose, but I would like to know more about this asshole who stood you up tonight. Because clearly he’s not right in the head for leaving you. Especially when you look so good.”

I couldn’t help the flush that spread down my neck and up my ears. “I don’t know, we met over the weekend and he asked if we could go on a date. I said yes. And I think what makes it even worse is that I was looking forward to it. I was excited to get all dressed up and go out for the first time in months. Now I just feel like a fucking idiot for getting my hopes up and wanting to-”

“Hey.” Xaden’s finger pulled my chin to look up at him. “You are not the problem. That mother fucker has another thing coming if he thinks he could’ve ever given you what you need.”

I’d like to focus on the latter part of that statement, but all I could think of was his face– inches from mine– and his other hand at my knee. My heart thrashed and I was so still I wasn’t sure if I was breathing or not.

“I think you’re scaring her, Riorson,” Azriel said from behind me. Then I became aware of just how close he was to me. He practically spoke right against my neck. A hand brushed at my right shoulder and I shuddered.

“If you’re willing, we’re offering.” Xaden has this gleam in his eye and a smirk on his lips.

I had to sit up a little so I could start seeing clearly. “I-I’m sorry ‘we’re’?”

“You don’t have to say yes,” Xaden grinned. “But, if you’d like to erase this guy from your thoughts, all you have to do is show me where it hurts. I promise I can make it all better.”

Is he asking what I think he is? I looked at Azriel who had the same look Xaden did. Full of mischief.

“You… You can’t be serious.” They were playing games with me. They have to be. There’s no way that our Court Spy Master and whoever this guy was from Navarre were willing to share.

“Az?” Is all Xaden said.

Fingers brushed my hair over my shoulder and tucked it out of the way. I gasped when Azriel kissed down my neck. I think I’m shaking, though it could just be my pulse beating so wildly through my veins that it feels like I’m shaking. But I definitely can't feel my fingers anymore.

Xaden stepped in a little closer and blocked most of my view of the rest of the bar. “May I?” He held out a hand. I swallowed and nodded as best as I could with Azriel gently nipping at my throat. Xaden quickly placed his mouth on mine.

I got lost in him. In both of them. All the bells and whistles in my body were going off at once. I’ve never done anything like this before. I had two of the most attractive looking individuals in the world right here. Both kissing me.

In a few seconds Xaden pulled from my mouth and Azriel went with him. I was suddenly so cold and needed them back exactly where they were. My thighs clenched together.

“What do you say, want to take out all your anger, your frustration and disappointment, on us?” Xaden asked softly, right into my ear. The way he pulled it between his lips made it very difficult to say no. Not that I wanted to in the first place. I’d be a fool to say no.

I nodded eagerly.

Azriel clicked his tongue and made me look at him. “Need you to say it, Yn.”

“Yes,” I said without a second thought. “Yes.”

Both of them chuckled. “Let’s get out of here.”

As we made our way down the street, both of the males on either side of me, I was burning with desire; every so often– about every three or four steps– one of them would have to pause, spin me around, and kiss me until I saw stars. They ‘just couldn’t help it’.

Not that I minded.

“Apologies if the place is a mess,” Azriel said, unlocking a door. It looked vaguely familiar, and when I looked up and across the street, I realized why.

“Hey, that’s my place right there,” I smiled, looking at the small rose bushes lining my little walkway.

“Would you rather go there instead? No pressure if you do,” Xaden’s hands went down my sides and hips as he spoke.

I nearly collapsed onto the floor. “No, no this is fine I don’t think I can wait.” “Impatient, are we?” Xaden murmured into my hair.

“Well,” I blew out a breath as he nipped at my ear. “I’m not exactly dreading being taken to be by two males.”

“Hopefully we won’t ruin you for any other lovers.”

Was it bad that I hoped they would?

The door gave away and it was flooded with Azriel’s scent. A mixture of Xaden’s too, but it was hard to differentiate them. His was far more subtle than the shadowsingers. They guided me inside, lights coming on along the halls and overhead.

“Have you ever…” Xaden trailed off and I flushed a deep red.

“No, I’ve never done this before.” My laugh was a pathetic attempt to hide my nerves.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you,” Xaden grinned and gave my mouth what it wanted most. His tongue was hot against mine and I pressed as close to him as I could get. For a moment I couldn’t see or hear anything, and then we were in a bedroom that seemed far too massive for this little townhouse.

I looked around; a massive bed was standing right before me, dark curtains over a door that led to a balcony.

“Did we just-”

“Winnowing,” Azriel explained, pulling me out of Xadens arms and into his own. “This is far easier when we have room. Like Xaden said, we’re gonna take care of you. Any time you feel uncomfortable just tell us to stop and we will. We do this at your pace, you control it.”

Weirdly enough, my heart ached at the tenderness in his voice. But my body did not want to be in control. It wanted everything but. “And what if I said that I didn’t want to make any decisions. That I just wanted to feel and nothing else.”

I saw Azriel look up first, then felt Xaden press against my backside. I was squished between them and I thanked the Mother that I never went on that date tonight. But they looked at each other.

Azriel grinned. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. I need it.”

“Aww, you’re that desperate already?” Xaden pulled me into his body, one hand gripping my face to make me look at him, the other wrapped around my stomach. “We haven’t even touched you yet, pretty thing. Haven’t even tasted you.”

“What are you waiting for?” I have no idea where this boldness is coming from.

Xaden stepped away from me and laid at the top of the bed. “Come here, then.”

No turning back now.

I crawled to him on my hands and knees. The dress I was wearing did nothing to hide my ass any longer. Xadens hand reached out, and when I was close enough, he grabbed me by my throat and pulled me into his lap. Pulled my mouth on his. I let out a very pathetic noise.

His other hand made me sit right on his cock and I could feel everything that was waiting for me. I moved my hips in a circle and he let out a breath, his dark, almost gold flecked eyes looking at me with hunger.

The bed dipped and Azriel pulled my hair back so I looked up at him. “You don’t have to be ashamed if you want to scream our names while we fuck away the pain, Yn.”

I nodded, wanting to twist so I could kiss him but Xaden firmly planted my hips to his. “I didn’t tell you to stop moving, pretty thing.”

I obeyed him. It was such an odd angle; to have my head thrown all the way back but my hips moving. It made it hard to breathe.

“I think she’s getting impatient, Riorson,” Azriel said as if I wasn't even there.

“Yeah I can feel how wet she is.” Xaden curiously slipped a hand between my legs, a few fingers trailing the crease of my thigh. “You really are impatient, aren’t you?”

“Please…”

“Please what?” Azriel pulled my hair harder. “Come on, use your words, Yn. Don’t be shy.”

I whimpered. “Please touch me, Xaden.”

“How can I resist when you ask so nicely.”

Azriel released his grip and Xaden lifted up my hips, pulling down my thong. His fingers were cold against my pussy. I shivered. His fingers were so long. It took everything in me to not fuck myself on them. The shadowsinger remained behind me and slipped the thin straps of my dress off my shoulders.

“Arms up.” Azriel commanded. The dress was lifted off my body and I felt very exposed. But soon enough he was against me, his hard chest against my back. “Kiss him.”

I burned red at the tone of his voice. But I kissed Xaden with enough force to make him bite my lip, catching my tongue between his teeth next. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my chest to his. I jolted as he brushed my clit and he let out a dark chuckle, doing it again and again.

“So easy,” Xaden muttered, pushing me on my back effortlessly. I watched as he stuck his two fingers in his mouth. “Fuck do you taste good, pretty thing.”

His massive hands spread my thighs apart after he threw my underwear somewhere in the room. Those brown curls felt just as soft as I imagined. I didn’t care if I was being desperate, I needed his mouth between my legs. The first pass of his tongue made me go limp. I let my head fall back, my knees parting even further.

My body welcomed him as he explored, tongue flicking, hands bruising my skin. Fingers brushed my chest, so faintly I thought I might’ve imagined it. Azriel had gone somewhere, but I was too focused on Xaden to care at this moment. When I looked down, those were not fingers playing with me, but rather tendrils of shadow circling around.

“What the-”

“Shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay Yn,” Azriel said from my right, standing further in the room. He was undressing, the fighting leathers he had been wearing folded neatly on a desk. His wings were... dear gods his wings were massive. “It’s just me. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Pleasure and fear coursed through me at the same time. My brain and body were on fire with emotions as I watched them drift and encase my body. They were cool to the touch, a stark contrast to the boiling temperature of my skin. As I watched, I settled. It was quite fascinating.

A sharp smack to the inside of my thigh had me looking at Xaden. “Focus on me.”

I nodded and I became aware of just how close I was to my release. I panted and writhed, itching for something to grab onto. Something to touch and yank-

My hands were above my head two seconds later and I was dragged to the edge of the bed.

“Hey,” Xaden shouted and another wave of fear crashed through me. “I was in the middle of something.”

“Well, it’s my turn, Riorson,” Azriel gritted his teeth, taking himself in his hand. “You can still have her legs for now. But I need to feel her mouth.”

Were they fighting for me? For my body? I smiled. So wide it hurt. I obediently opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue, enticing him further. In tandem, I spread my legs as wide as they could go for Xaden.

“You’re so well trained, pet.” Azriel wasted no time forcing his cock down my throat. I couldn’t breathe, but that’s how I wanted it. He thrusted in slowly, stopping when he was all the way, then pulled back out. “You take my cock so well, Yn. I’m so proud of you.”

“If you think her mouth feels good, wait till you get inside her pussy. She’s so warm and tight.”

I moaned around Azriel, knees fluttering off the bed as Xaden sucked my clit. The shadows continued to writhe around my nipples and I felt so exposed. I couldn’t keep still. My legs trembled and I felt that coil in my stomach clenching and clenching. I wanted Xaden’s cock between my legs more than his tongue, but I couldn’t tell him that with Azriel down my throat.

“Do you think she can take both of us?” Azriel asked, brushing a hand across my cheek, then it gently wrapped around my neck. I choked hard enough for tears to streak down my face.

“Hmm,” Xaden hummed around me and I thrashed. “Well, that was adorable. As for fitting both of us? It’s possible. Probably gonna hurt. Don’t worry, he’ll work you open on his cock so good you won’t have a choice but to take both of us.”

“We don’t want to hurt her, Riorson,” Azriel cupped my cheeks. “Unless you want us to, pet?”

I nodded immediately. He pulled out and I heaved for fresh air, eyes glossy as I looked up at him. “Don’t be gentle.”

The way Azriels’ eyes darkened should have made me afraid. Instead it filled me with a primal desire. The force of his hips was brutal. The slight salty taste of his skin was intoxicating. I gagged around him with every press of his tip at the back of my throat, tears burning down my face.

Without any resemblance of a warning, my release barreled through me and I shook, legs kicking out as Xaden continued to tongue fuck me until I saw stars. He kept going. He didn’t stop.

I tried to get him to ease, to let up but my hands were bound at my sides. That same cool feeling sliding around my wrists as it did my chest. It was so much. Already too much.

“Alright, she’s had enough,” Xaden finally pulled away from my throbbing cunt, caressing my thigh and the bruises there. His chin glistened with my cum, and he didn’t let any of it go to waste as his tongue dragged over his lips.

“I’ll tell you when she’s had enough. Get back up on the bed. Strip.” With a more than heavy shove, Azriel sheathed himself inside me one last time, held just long enough to make me panic for a breath. “Good girl, Yn.”

I hiccuped a small sob, already teetering on my breaking point. Azriel sat me up and pushed me down on my hands and knees. In front of me was Xaden. His very hard cock straining up. The shadowsinger’s hand fisted in my hair and I was forced to take his cock down.

“Stay right there, pet. Don’t move. You came without permission. Since you decided to be so greedy, you’re gonna get Xaden off while I punish you.” A merciless hand smacked my ass hard enough to make an outline of his hand. “Got it?”

I nodded around Xaden’s cock and yelped when another smack came down. Xaden groaned, his sculpted abdominal and chest flexing. One arm was behind his head, the other on my head. He was far more gentle than Azriel was, but I could see his control slipping as he thrusted up in time with Azriel’s hand on my ass.

“Fuck she feels good, Az,” Xaden praised, cupping my cheek. “And you look so pretty full of my cock. Gods I can’t wait to be in that pussy.”

I squeaked out an embarrassing noise when Azriel dragged his cock through my cunt, coating himself in my release. Just the tip of him had me stretching and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to block out the sting. With a snap of his hips, he slid in deeper and deeper and deeper-

“That’s it, pet. Take all of my cock. Good girl, Yn. Good girl.” His cooing made it impossible not to cry out around Xaden. As Azriel pulled back, slowly, he grabbed my hips and took me with him. I scrambled to try and keep Xaden’s cock in my mouth, but I was too far away now.

“Look at how desperate she is for you, Riorson. She wants your cock soooo badly she’s fighting me for it.” Azriel ran his nails down my spine. “How about we play a little game, pet. When I pull out of you, you have to keep your mouth on him or else you get a smack. How does that sound?”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Xaden. He had a flush to his cheeks. The same primal hunger I had in my eyes. There wasn’t anything I wanted more than to have him come down my throat. A sharp crack rang through the room and I screamed.

“I want an answer. Now.” Azriel demanded, yanking me up and forcing me down on his thick cock.

“Yes yes yes,” I babbled. “Please let me make Xaden feel good.”

“You’re so pretty when you beg like that,” Xaden mumbled, dragging me back down to him by my wrist. I wrapped my lips around him and worked up and down. He was just as big as Azriel. But the shadowsinger was bigger.

Azriel’s hands on my hips hurt almost as much as the hand that smacked me. I’m sure it was bright red and swollen. Every time he thrusts into me, he forces my body back into him. A few times I was pulled off of Xaden and I got punished. New tears running down my face after every one.

“F-Fuck Az stop doing that,” Xaden growled out. “I barely have her for two seconds before you’re ripping her away again.” His two hands gripped the sides of my head, forcing me all the way to his pelvic bone. “Now stop holding back and fuck her like you mean it.”

“Think she can handle that?”

“Of course she can, look at her. Split open wide on our cocks, taking them like she’s been doing it for years. She’ll be fine, won’t you, pretty thing?” I nodded, blinking up at him. “See, she wants it. Such a good fuck toy. Such a good pet.”

“If you can’t, say so now, Yn,” Azriel gripped at my hips to pull Xaden's dick out of my throat. “Well?”

“D-Don’t… don’t hold back.” Gods my voice was raw. “Please don’t hold back. I need it.”

“See? Now go, I’ve been on the edge for the past ten minutes,” Xaden said rather impatiently.

I could not have prepared myself for the force of Azriel’s thrusts. Or the grip Xaden had on my head. I thought my neck was going to rip from my shoulders with how hard I was being pulled in opposite directions. I only got a breath every two or three drives of Azriel’s cock.

Both of them were a whimpering mess. Xaden especially. I prayed to the Mother that these walls were thick enough so no one would hear us.

Minutes ticked by and I became a limp mess. A mere boneless thing for Azriel and Xaden to play with. My arms were trembling beyond use and my legs and toes were numb with euphoria. I couldn’t keep myself up any more.

“Fuck, Yn,” Xaden panted, hips bumping into my nose every time he snapped his hips. “Gonna come.” I just let all my weight fall onto him, letting him go deeper and deeper down my throat. “You’re such a good girl, Yn. Such a good fucking girl.”

Azriel shoved his cock as far as it would go, forcing me to take all of Xaden’s cum down my throat in one go. I didn’t even get to taste it. Xaden fucked into my mouth, hands firm on my head as he continued to spill. I dared a glance up and I saw shadows, slightly different than Azriel’s, caressing his shoulders.

How the hell did I get so lucky?

I was pulled off of Xaden and I was completely limp. “What do you say to Xaden, pet?”

“Thank you,” I stuttered out as Az continued to fuck me.

“Good girl. Now clean him up so he can take my place.” On my own accord, I picked my heavy head up and lapped at his cock, gently cleaning him with tiny flicks of my tongue. Up and down and up and down. He tasted so good. Salty and tangy. “Still got more, Riorson? I forget you humans can’t reset as quickly as we can.”

“I have stamina that’ll put you to shame, Illyrian.” Xaden had a devilish grin on his lips. “My turn.”

Xaden’s hands wrapped under my arms, guiding me off of Azriel. I tried to get my legs to move, but it was a useless effort. I could barely think let alone tell my body what to do.

“Easy, Riorson. I know you’re eager. And trust me, you should be. Fuck is she tight.”

Xaden let out a teasing noise, pumping a few times to get himself hard again. “Aww I bet she is. Gonna take my cock next, pretty thing? Yeah you are, and you’re gonna take Azriel's, too. Come on, sink down and- yes just like that, yes Yn. Good girl.”

Riding him made this so much easier. He was far stronger than I was and helped me rock back and forth. It was wonderful stimulation for my clit, too. For a few minutes he bounced me up and down, filthy praises spilling out of him like it was his job.

“I told you,” Azriel’s voice was right up against the back of my neck. “Worth the wait.”

“What if I told you I didn’t want to share her anymore?” Xaden sucked on my nipple and rubbed my clit at the same time.

“Too late for that, Riorson. She’s all ours, aren’t you?” I felt the press of Azriel’s cock against my hole and jumped. “Relax. It’ll hurt if you don’t.”

I nodded, getting lost between the two sets of hands–the two sets of lips and tongues and teeth. I was one with the stars, completely suspended in a place I didn’t know but I sure as hell didn’t want to leave any time soon. I tried to remain still as Az slowly–very slowly– pushed in bit by bit. I was reduced to nothing but mumbling noises and begging whines.

“Should’ve asked Cass if he wanted to join us so she could have something to do with that mouth of hers,” Xaden blew out a breath. “Need something to suck on, pretty thing?”

I just nodded, too overstimulated to speak. I just needed. I don’t know what I needed but I needed it.

“Gods you really are such a good pet,” Az pulled my head back. With a firm grip on my jaw, it fell open and he spat in my mouth. The shock of it damn near pushed me over the edge. My eyes crossed and my vision blurred as he stuck his fingers in my mouth for me to suck.

It took several minutes but then I was balancing between both their cocks, vibrating with energy and a need so deep I knew the second they would move I’d come. And I’d keep spasming around them as they did as they pleased.

Hands expanded every inch of my body. “Ready?”

“Mhmm,” was the best response I could get out. Xaden pulled me towards him, then slowly pushed me back onto Azriel. Then Az slowly pushed me onto Xaden. I was weightless in their hands, practically being held up by them alone.

“You are doing such a good job, my pet,” Azriel pulled out his fingers, gripping my throat. “So tight and wet. That’s it, just relax. Let us take you, Yn.”

“She’s being so good, don’t you think she deserves a reward, Az?” Xaden plucked both of my breasts.

“Of course she does.”

My ears were ringing. Sweat soaked my hairline. I could feel Xadne and Azriel’s pulse against my own, and I swore I could’ve felt them all sync up for a beat or two or five. Endless shadows swirled across my skin, hands fighting for leverage on my hips. I knew I’d be marked and bruised in the morning.

“I got her here, you take care of her down there,” Azriel instructed. Both of his hands cupped my chest, pinching brutally. Xaden snaked his hand between our fronts and just barely grazed my clit before I was coming so hard my vision blacked out.

I screamed, throat burning with pain as I writhed and begged for nothing and everything. I cried out over and over as they continued to push me. Lips and tongue slid over my throat, Xaden’s forcing its way into my mouth to swallow my screams.

Azriel bit down on my shoulder and snapped his hips a few times, trying and failing to suppress his moans. It came from deep in his chest and it rumbled through me. “Gonna take my cum, pet?”

I couldn’t respond. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get words to form.

“Give it to her, Az. She needs it,” Xaden said for me. “Don’t worry, pretty thing, Az is gonna give it to you. Just be patient.”

His hips worked into me, fucking me onto Xaden. With one hand wrapped around my throat, the other on my side, Azriel came inside me, the thick, bitter scent sending my mind spiraling. His thrusts didn’t stop, even as Xaden warned him he was close.

Azriel stilled then, panting hot against the back of my neck. “You’re clenching so hard, pet. Such a good job at keeping it all inside you. Now do the same for Xaden. Let him fill you up, Yn.”

Xaden was far less controlled, those shadows over his shoulders whipping wildly as he fucked up into me hard enough to touch places he hadn’t yet. With a handful of movements, Xaden brought our hips flush together and he strained his neck, baring his teeth into the air.

His noises would’ve been enough to set me off again had I not been so previously spent.

It could’ve been hours that I laid between them, their cocks still buried inside me as they stroked my skin, stroked my hair and kissed me lazily.

______

“Yn.” A gentle press of lips to mine. My eyes fluttered open and Xaden’s face became clearer. “There she is.”

“She awake?”

“Mhmm,” Xaden kissed my forehead. “Feeling better?”

I wiggled my toes to see if the feeling had come back. I just nodded, snuggling in deeper to his chest. “Yeah.”

“Good good,” he wrapped his arms tighter around me. “You were so good for us, Yn.”

“The best,” Azriel seconded, and a warm body pressed up behind me. “You were pretty out of it for about an hour. We cleaned you up as best we could with you mumbling about how much you loved to please us.”

I flushed in embarrassment, putting my hands over my face. “Cauldron damn me.”

“It was quite adorable,” Xaden murmured, prying my hands from my face. “And you were incredible.”

“So fucking incredibly,” Azriel agreed, tucking in close behind me. I carefully flipped over, looking at the shadowsinger. “You did such a good job.”

“It was easy when I had you two doing all the work for me,” I smiled, leaning up to kiss him. “Still cannot believe I just did that.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Absolutely not.” I squashed down that possibility the second their hands had been on me. “It was perfect.”

“Don’t feel pressured to answer, but Xaden visits every so often to Prythian. When he comes back, how do you feel about doing this again?” Azriel asked cautiously. “If you would like some time to think about it then-”

“Yes.” Why would I ever say no to being worshiped? “Absolutely yes.”

Both of them chuckled, Xaden molding his body to fit mine, arm laying across my stomach. “Told you we might ruin you for anyone else.”

#azriel #acotar fanfiction #acotar #acotar fanfic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader #azriel x reader x xaden riorson #xaden x reader #xaden riorson #fourth wing fanfic #fourth wing #fourth wing smut #acotar smut #fourth wing fanfiction

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saturngalore · 3 months

Text

afrofuturism🪐

☆ one ~ solange hair by darknightt (tsr warning) ☆ two ~ loretta hair by @simtric ☆ three ~ bahati braids by @sheabuttyr ☆ four ~ isonoe hair by octetsica ☆ five ~ binah braids by @sheabuttyr ☆ six ~ cornrows & curls hair by @leeleesims1 ☆ seven ~ indie hair by @sashima ☆ eight ~ loc petals by @shespeakssimlish ☆ nine ~ mnemosyne hair by octetsica ☆

mini dedication essay to black simmers and ts4 creators below! pls read if you have the chance! <3

this edit is a small homage to afrofuturism and the various unique black hairstyles (and especially the black creators of most of these hairs) that i have downloaded and admired over the years! some of these are old and some of these are new.

to me, afrofuturism means constantly honoring/reclaiming/challenging the past while constantly creating/dreaming of a better society/world/future. a society/world/future that embraces and empowers all of our differences, ingenuity, aspirations, and unique lived/cultural experiences. a society/world/future that does not limit us through the various systems of marginalization and oppression (racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, classism, colorism, etc.) that often affects how we, as black people, live today.

blackness is so diverse and intricate yet it's always been a struggle to find my culture within a game that's known for being so limiting, bland, and extremely eurocentric when it comes to hairstyles, clothing, food traditions/events, etc. black simmers have always had to figure out how to make this game more inclusive and make it resemble either more like how our ancestors lived, how our current lives are, or how we would want our lives (and even our children's lives) to look like in the future no matter how dystopian the real world look and feel now. fortunately, these hairs and their uniqueness bring a huge sense of culture and style to this game. they have always inspired me and made me feel extremely proud to a part of the lovely african diaspora (and the ever-growing black simmer community).

in a way, being a black simmer and cc creator usually means that we are often digitally creating our own worlds as afrofuturists to varying degrees (whether we know it or not) every time we open our game, make our sims, make houses, and/or make black cultural cc. also, now i know that cc making is not easy to do and is extremely time-consuming so this post is also just me giving all black cc creators especially those who create for free their well-deserved flowers! here are some other black cc creators who created cc that have greatly impacted my game since i first started playing sims 4: @/leeleesims1 @/simtric @/hi-land @/yuyulie @/sims4bradshaw @/ebonixsims @/xmiramira @/sheabuttyr @/qwertysims @/oplerims @/sleepingsims @/shespeakssimlish and so many more im forgetting probably (im too shy rn to tag ppl but i greatly appreciate y’all fr i hope y’all telepathically get this message somehow 😭).

last but not least, i am hoping that this inspires somebody to keep creating or start creating regardless of what they think their skill level is! somebody will absolutely fall in love with your work and/or your art/work will 100% change someone's game forever <333

756 notes · View notes

landograndprix · 8 months

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「Mini me, mini you? ๛ l.n || c.l」

part vii

✧.* you and lando need to make a decision, a decision that might just be the best for the both of you but one is getting over it faster than the other

✧.* there's a little time jump in here 😉 also this is a psa for the people who wanted to be on my taglist but never got tagged, i didn't forget or ignore you, I simply am unable to tag you and therefore removed you from the list since it's a mess to tag that many people when half of it doesn't work, hope you understand! Some people are tagged in the comments, I can only tag 50 peeps in a post. Love ya ❤️

✧.* prev part - next part

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𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

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y/nusername

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y/nusername he be cheesin' 🐶

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norrislando I refuse to believe this is our boy Benji, why's this dude growing so fast? 🥺

julieeeexo love that she still tags lando, like man, look at our son 🥰

landonorris he do be goofin' 🐶

norry4 just like his mom and dad!

clsixteen I just know this boy's spoiled rotten like he should 🥺

yourfriend3 the most handsome boy on the planet ❤️

charles_leclerc the best boy 🐾

sharl16 this dog having the best step-dad for real

carlandooo did I miss something? Step-dad?

sharl16 we are all convinced charles and y/n are dating 🥰

carlandooo but she's with lando..no?

sharl16 they broke up like 5 or 6 months ago but they're still good friends!

carlandooo wow, a lot has happened since I left 😭

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y/nusername

liked by maxfewtrell, charles_leclerc and 202,673 others

y/nusername Monaco day ft the love of my life @.maxfewtrell

view all 601 comments

charles16 okay girlie I see the soft launch 👀

maxfewtrell soulmates babes

norrizz lmao this is so max and y/n coded, I love them

landonorris absolutely disgusting

norry4 someone's a bit jealous 😂

leclerc_16 that soft launch tho

yourfriend3 better take us with you next time

y/nusername yes mum, I will

charles_leclerc ❤️

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formulaonewags

liked by 425 others

formulaonewags one of charles' friends posted this picture of what seems to be charles' and y/n enjoying some time together! The picture has been removed from the friend's story, most likely posted by mistake.

view all 102 comments

carlandooo oh stop it, I'm not supposed to ship this 😭

bott_ass yo y'all so quick, this was posted like 5 minutes ago 💀

sharl16 could be anyone tbh but okay

sixteencl I mean the rumors have been y/n and charles so it would make sense bestie

sharl16 thanks bestie but I'm in denial 😔

chilisainz no but they are being cute though..

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Everything taglist; @thomaslefteyebrow @hopefulinlove @smoothopz @softboystarkey @buffysummersx @honethatty12 @cixrosie @parkersmjs

Mini me taglist: @myloverjk-blog @allywthsr @myescapefromthislife @justdreamersdream @celestialams @ihrtdan @sunnytkm23 @yunnie-f1 @stevesworld9 @azxulaa @raizelchrysanderoctavius @leclercdream @opchelia @ssararuffoni @mqcherie @c-tangerine @au-ghosttype @changetyre @elijahslover @roseseraj @luciaexcorvus @evans-dejong @rinhvnt @champomiel @ohyoureaqueenbutuncrowned @hearts4joao @escapism-writer @eugene-emt-roe @bb-swift @christianpulisic10 @bladestark @ayoana @greigreyhiyyih @f1mockingjay @ironmaiden1313 @enhacolor @loxbbg @babyvinnie @wibi96 @celesteblack08 @laneyspaulding19

Lando taglist: @beatricemiruna

#lando norris x reader #charles leclerc x reader #lando norris x you #charles leclerc x you #lando norris x y/n #charles leclerc x y/n #lando norris fanfic #charles leclerc fanfic #lando norris au #charles leclerc au #lando norris #charles leclerc

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vivalabunbun · 10 months

Text

As You Are, I Am Too

Summary: If we compare people to magnets, opposites attract and sames repel, so why are two stoic faces paired as soulmates?

Word Count: 15.4k (why are you surprised at this point, get some snacks)

Tags: Alhaitham x Fem! Reader, Smut(r18+), NFSW, MDNI, Modern AU, Soulmate AU, Mutual Pinning, Fluff, Slow Burn, Slow fic, Perfectionist! Reader, angst, arranged pairing, TW: Toxic family, unhappy childhood trauma, child of strained marriage trauma, TW: Themes of self-loathing, themes of infidelity(misunderstanding), toxic work environment, slight workplace harassment, pushy boss, slightly yandere! Alhaitham?, Soft! Alhaitham, second chance romance?, slightly bratty! reader, Dom! Alhaitham, Degradation, Heavy adult themes, attempts at comedy

Author Note: This is experimental, I want to explore if two same sides of a magnet can still attract. I want to explore the fumbles and mistakes of love.

Side Note: Here is a continuation

Do you believe in soulmates?

It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you do. Because who doesn’t want to believe in it? The concept of an ‘other half’, a missing piece that completes you. Someone who loves you and only you unconditionally.

Who doesn’t want to experience that?

To be loved, to be accepted, and to feel whole are all natural human desires. So it’s no surprise society, regardless of the century, culture, or demographic all obsessed over finding that other half.

To find a hand that fits perfectly within the gaps of one’s own.

The greatest minds in all of Tevyat came together, analyzing each pattern, quantifying each data point, and testing each hypothesis until their magnum opus was created: The Akasha System.

Taking the work out of fate’s hands and into a large database.

What criteria did this wonderful system use to piece together two halves of a whole? Who knows, it’s a black box. However, the machine was quite smart, quite quick, and quite accurate.

So much so, there was no reason not to use it.

Humans, no matter how much some might deny it, despise being lonely. They fear it so much they’d rather hold a hand which strangles theirs with an equally crushing grip.

That’s why people rush toward their soulmates the moment the Akasha finds them, they fear being alone.

But do you believe in soulmates?

“No.” Alhaitham puts down his drink.

“But you still used the Akasha??” Kaveh juts a finger in the direction of an ashen-haired man.

“And?” Disinterested eyes glance at the time displayed on a clock in the rowdy bar.

“And?! What do you mean and? You just said you don’t believe in soulmates!” The slam of Kaveh’s palms on the table made a bit of beer lap over the edge of his cup.

“I don’t believe in soulmates, but I’m not ignorant to the benefits of marriage.”

“Huh?”

“It’s convenient.” The blunt statement rolling off Alhaitham’s tongue as he motions for the tab.

“Ugh, you know what, forget it.” Kaveh chases his heavy sigh with a hearty swig of his cup.

“Well then, I’ll call it a night.” He’s stayed out long enough.

Placing a handful of mora on the table to cover his tab, Alhaitham bids goodnight to his two workplace acquaintances and former college roommate.

He swiftly strides towards the creaky tavern door, swinging it open as he steps into the warm Summer evening. Tomorrow is another workday, better to get an adequate amount of rest.

“Still the same even after a full year with her, huh,” Kaveh sighs dryly.

“Did you really think he’d change after marriage, Kaveh?” Cyno finally chipped in from the sidelines.

“I should’ve known, someone as egotistical as Alhaitham practically married himself.”

“Now, now, his wife is nowhere as egotistical as him,” Tighnari says over the rim of his glass.

Cyno and Kaveh paused for a moment, sharing a glance as they considered Tighnari’s observation. With a shrug, they concluded: you weren’t nearly as egotistical as Alhaitham.

Still, the great mystery remains.

“How is he the first to marry?” The blond bachelor slumps further on the tavern stool.

“Life is full of wonders.” The ebony-haired bachelor gave a few comforting pats.

———————————————————————————

Unlocking the solid oak front door, Alhaitham steps into the serenity of a quiet house. Good, his ears were slightly buzzing from the boisterous conversation in a crowded bar.

Taking a few more steps into the entranceway, the man shuts the door behind his body.

The dull gossip over a few rounds of drinks made their influence known to him, he just wants to go to bed. Thus he takes a few more steps toward his bedroom.

“Place your shoes into the closet, I just mopped the floors.” A level voice called out from the living room.

Alhaitham’s movement halts, quickly glancing down at the Oxford shoes still on his feet, taking note of the spotless floorboards.

Wordlessly, Alhaitham unties the laces allowing him to kick them off with ease, placing them onto the shoe rack just behind a closet door.

It’s a habit that slips his mind every now and then despite a year of marriage; Surprisingly unsurprising when you take into consideration his busy mind.

However, times were different now, he’s no longer a kid, free to be lost in thought. He’s now a homeowner of a spacious house, a space he shares with you, and you liked things clean.

Not a speck of dust lingered on surfaces, no plates left in the sink, and books pristinely placed on organized shelves. Qualifications that he deemed exceptional for a life partner.

Now with slipper-clad steps, Alhaitham makes his way through the house, peering into the living room to spot your curled figure reading on a sofa. The warm glow of a floor lamp illuminated the soft curves of your cheek.

“Is something the matter?” You didn’t look up from the page as you addressed him.

“No, just heading to bed.”

“Okay, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The start and finish of tonight’s conversation, after all, you valued a quiet house as much as he did. His colleague’s words weren’t without merit, even Alhaitham isn’t stubborn enough to deny the obvious.

Hobbies identical to each other, books upon books lined up along numerous shelves, preferring to stay within the walls of this house unless dragged out by friends.

Your indecipherable gaze and stiff lips rival his own stone face. Perhaps that’s why the Akasha paired the two of you together. Two beings with stoic faces only another stoic would bear for a life partner, like two sides of the same coin.

Alhaitham stops unbuttoning his shirt behind his shut bedroom door, reanalyzing the previous statement. Actually, that isn’t a very good analogy.

It'd be more accurate to compare you and him to a double-sided mirror that reflected only one view.

“I don’t believe in soulmates.”

The man sitting across from the cafe table, introduced as Alhaitham, bluntly states, interrupting your sip of coffee, warm beverage just barely touching your lips.

Placing your cup back down on the coffee shop table, your gaze observed the stranger who just met you moments ago - a meeting in a small cafe arranged by Sumeru’s Ministry of Human Relations, the government body tasked with delivering the Akasha’s verdict.

After a few breaths, you decided to humor his abrupt statement with a response. Staring straight into his teal-orange eyes, you say, “What a coincidence, neither do I.”

————————

So then why did two nonbelievers follow the verdict handed to them? It’s simple really.

Two salaries combined can buy a sizable house. Two pairs of hands get chores done faster. Two signatures on a certificate save tax money. Life is simpler with a partner to bear some of the burden.

Young professionals and fresh graduates aren’t known for their financial independence; a boy eager to move out of a cheap flat and away from an infuriating roommate, a girl trying to escape a noisy environment.

The circumstances had aligned.

And that’s how it’s been for two years now, a nice quiet house. Although, you’d be lying if you weren’t thankful that the Akasha paired you with someone as handsome as Alhaitham. Silver hair, broad frame, and beryl eyes with a hint of ochre - maybe he’s an apology gift from some fickle god.

He’s a well-rounded and capable man; perceptive enough to know not to cross boundaries drawn in the air, apt enough to not disrupt the serenity, and able to take care of himself.

Although, he could learn to launder better.

Your lips tug down as your eyes scan over the deep wrinkles crimping the fabric of a freshly washed button-down. It looks too rumpled to look professional, even on him. A sigh falls from your lips.

The presence of slow steps make your head turn in their direction, connecting with Alhaitham’s neutral eyes, quirked gray eyebrow questioning your purpose.

Two bodies, two rooms, and two beds.

The only time you or he crossed into the private haven of one another was when the floors needed to be mopped or shelves dusted. Owning a house means owning up to tedious chores and dividing up responsibilities spares one’s sanity from the tediousness.

It’s best to point out the critiques now to spare your own clothes from the same fate. Picking it off the back of his chair, you show him the shameful state of the garment.

“Leaving your clothes in the dryer for too long will create stubborn wrinkles.” You advise.

Teal eyes glance at the shirt in your hands before they flick towards the closet rack, your own gaze follows, noting the numerous other shirts in a similar state. Another heavy sigh escapes you, it's obvious Alhaitham attempted to do laundry yesterday.

Wordlessly, you begin gathering each wrinkled garment.

“I’ll rewash them and hang them outside, it’s the best way to smooth them out. Heat isn’t recommended for your fabrics.” You swiftly walk past him with your arms full.

“Thank you, I’ll clean the floors then.” He takes hold of the mop against the wall.

This seamless switching of responsibilities is done with less than two sentences, the efficiency of which is only possible between two people such as yourselves.

Button-downs are much more fickle than a casual t-shirt, using the wrong detergent or leaving it unattended for too long will cause unsightly wrinkles.

Alhaitham’s laundering skills have improved in the last two years… perhaps the singing of the dryer still slips past his preoccupied mind.

The two of you are working professionals. Crucial insight you’ve learned from your parents: A nicely ironed shirt, neatly brushed hair, and elegantly tied ties are all it takes to make others believe in the white lie of a put-together life.

Alhaitham was raised by his grandmother, a detail you recall from a passing conversation some time ago. It shows.

The amateur attempts at chores, the books strewn about a desk absent-mindedly, and the afternoon naps spent on a couch underneath a sunlit window are secrets only seen behind closed doors - all telltale signs of being well-loved.

‘How nice it must be.’ You thought, clipping his freshly washed button-downs to the clothesline, allowing the Sunday morning rays to shine down upon them.

A stone-faced man was once a beloved grandson. Maybe his juvenile attempts at chores were too endearing for an elderly lady to correct.

Hidden from everyone but the audience of swaying fabric and a curious star, a bittersweet smile tugs at stiff lips.

The clinking of forks against porcelain plates accompanies the evening news. Your eyes starring indifferently towards the TV just around the corner from the dinner table; looks like tonight's topic was the annual metrics of the Akasha.

With each passing year, these metrics only climb higher and higher, a machine learning to calculate better and better.

“What’s your theory behind the Akasha?” you blurt out the question without looking away from the screen.

A pair of utensils halted their movements as Alhaitham glances at the evening news. He takes a moment to wipe the corners of his mouth before humoring you.

Technically, the two of you have yet to fill your daily conversation quota. Might as well do it over dinner.

“It’s all mathematics, the Akasha system. Pairing individuals based on collected data. Demographic, interests, and dispositions, are all factors in a pairing,” he explains in his baritone voice.

“Mmm, then again it's all just a black box, we can’t be certain unless they choose to reveal it.” You ponder aloud.

“Correct. Those factors are all key when it comes to compatibility. The Akasha simply uses probability. However, there’s the element of human variability.”

“Meaning it can’t always be right.” You know this, live it even. “Is that why you don’t believe in the concept of soulmates?” Pivoting to an adjacent question, you return your attention back to the man across the table.

“Yes, it’s an unrealistic belief.” Alhaitham sips on his wine.

“Such a brilliant conclusion, what an astute mind you have.” Honeyed-voice mimicking awe over a glass of water.

Narrowed teal eyes honed in as his glass returned to its place on the lacquered surface, unamused by your quip.

“How about you? What theory brought you to hold the same brilliant conclusion?”

“Do you know phenylethylamine? PEA?” Glancing up from your glass.

From his idle gaze and unmoving lips, you take his silence as a “no”.

“It’s a stimulant that causes your heart to beat abnormally, released when you’re around a special someone. It causes what people describe as the ‘rush’ or ‘fever’ of love.”

He says nothing, waiting for you to continue.

“But then your brain gets used to it, and the abnormality in your chest corrects itself.” You take a sip before continuing, “Nothing last forever, so why do people think love is an exception? That only one person ever will cause their hearts to flutter till the end of time?”

A dry giggle follows the clink of your water cup against the wood.

“How insightful.” Alhaitham takes another sip of wine to chase his sarcasm.

Maybe it was the amusing quip or how tonight’s butter chicken turned out to be exceptionally delicious, but a subtle smile curls at the edges of your lips. With today’s conversational quota fulfilled you focus your full attention back to the awaiting dinner.

You remain ignorant to the gaze of teal eyes, oblivious to how it fixates on the faint smile complimenting the soft curves of your cheeks and plush lips.

“...”

The front door shuts and locks behind you, your shoes are halfway into the closet before a familiar scent beckons you towards the living room.

Quickly getting into your slippers, you trek through the entranceway and round the corner. The vivid hues of pale blues and gentle violets with pops of bright yellow catch your eyes, confirming your speculations: it’s a bouquet.

The bundle of flowers were placed into a long-forgotten vase. Turning away from the blooms, you face the man currently thumbing through a book on the couch -the only other person with access to this quiet haven.

Turning back to observe the blooms, you note each species of flower. The Sumerian Rose, Kalpalata Lotus, and…Padisarah.

You observe how the pollen of the Padisarahs dusts the radius of the surface around the vase. It’s a fickle flower after all.

A fickle and potent-smelling flower.

A scowl twists your face despite your best efforts, the sickly-sweet fragrance of the capricious blooms assaults your senses.

“Please open a window.” your hand comes up to shield your nose.

“Is something the matter?”

“The smell is giving me a headache.”

A headache forms from within the deepest depths of your mind, the same visceral reaction to the heavy perfumes that plagued your childhood walls. Your mother believed the saccharine scent could cover up her infidelity if she sprayed enough.

Compared to that artificial perfume, fresh Padisarahs were much tamer, but still enough to make a bitter taste appear at the back of your tongue.

“I see.” Alhaitham sets his book down, getting up to allow the Autumn breeze in.

Swiftly, you trudge away from the vase and its potent blooms and down the hall, eager to find an untainted corner of the house. It’d be best to sleep the headache off.

In the morning when you round the corner back into the living room, you notice the vacant vase and table wiped clean of any speck of yellow pollen. Passing through into the kitchen, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafts in the air.

As you pour yourself a cup, you take note of how the trash has already been taken out, a fresh trash bag lining the bin.

Good, flowers were a hassle to keep around the house.

———————————————————————————

“Chocolates?” You study the box of sweets left out on the kitchen table.

“I picked them up while getting ingredients for dinner,” Alhaitham answers, busy chopping carrots.

“You can have some.”

You return your gaze back to the intricately designed package in seasonal Winter colors. It’s not often that you indulge in such elegant treats, you couldn’t refuse such an offer.

Delicately picking up a piece, the glossy dark chocolate shine looks inviting, you can see the quality in these sweets. Placing the small chunk onto your tongue, savoring the rich flavor. Not too sweet and not too bitter.

Using your tongue to maneuver it towards your teeth you bite into its center, only for your tastebuds to be assaulted by a foul flavor. The distinct and sharp tang of alcohol and the revolting aftertaste of bourbon spoils the sweetness.

Refusing to allow the detestable flavor to remain on your tongue, you briskly swipe up a few napkins, spitting the foul sweet out. You frown at the stubborn tang of bourbon which threatens to ruin your appetite for dinner.

“You can have the rest.” You throw out the crumpled napkin.

“Are they of poor quality?” The tapping of the knife paused.

“They’re just not to my taste.”

“In that case, I hope tonight's dinner is.” Alhaitham resumes his task.

Taking a glass out from the cupboard, you fill the cup with fresh water before gulping it down, washing the foul tang of alcohol from your tongue, and even fouler memories of the stench of sour wine and crushed cans.

Wiping the escaped droplets off with the back of your hand, you go for a second glass. Hopefully, you can cleanse your palate.

———————————————————————————

“Do you have plans tonight?” Alhaitham’s words make you stop in the middle of the hallway.

You have a book ready in hand for a night of reading on the sofa under the soft glow of the floor lamp. You know his eyes can see that, gaze questioning his intentions.

“I was given two tickets to a movie, would you like to accompany me?” He holds out the slips of paper.

As your eyes pass over the printed font, you recognized the title, a name picked up within the chatter of coworkers at the office. It’s An adaptation of a famous light novel from Inazuma, and the reviews seem positive.

“Sure.”

You could get out of the house a little more.

…

It seems like everyone wants to see a movie tonight, the theater lobby is filled with bustling crowds, families with excited kids, and couples holding hands.

And then there’s you and Alhaitham. Standing side by side, his hands carrying two carbonated drinks, your hands holding an overpriced bag of popcorn, walking toward the room printed on the tickets.

“C5…C6, looks like we got good spots.” You settled into the plush seats, careful not to spill the bag.

Alhaitham hums in response, placing your drink in the cupholder. More and more people filed into the screening room, waves of ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s rolling through the space until all the seats were finally filled. The lights begin to dim as the opening logo booms through the sound system.

The cinematography was beautiful, the musical scores accompanying the plot pleasing to the ears, and the popcorn perfectly seasoned.

It’s been a while since you’ve last gone to a movie theater, maybe you should go more often. As you brought a few more pieces of popcorn to your lips, your eyes travel toward Alhaitham.

His arms crossed as the light of the silver screen reflects onto his skin, noticing your stare, his teal gaze connects with yours.

Moving the striped bag closer to his frame, you offer him some popcorn, he paid for the refreshments. It'd be a shame if he didn’t get to enjoy them too.

His large hand reachs over and takes a handful, your curiosity wanting to see his reaction to the snack. However, a piercing shrill snaps your attention away.

Just a few rows away, a woman stood up from her seat, throwing a bag of popcorn at the man sitting beside her. Screaming words you couldn’t quite make out as they merges with the onscreen dialogue and equally furious shouts of the now popcorn-covered man.

Their thunderous voices were only amplified by the acoustics of the theater.

They’re both standing now, still hurling insults and grievances one after another. There’s a ringing in your ears, their faceless silhouettes in the dim theater replaying a scene you’ve seen many times before. It’s as if they’ve finally developed a conscious, now aware of the stares and glares thrown their way.

Oh, look they’re leaving now, still fighting the whole way out of the screening room.

With the disturbance now cleared, a low wave of murmuring swept through the audience before dying out. The dialogue and soundtrack were audible again, the atmosphere reverting to how it was.

You didn’t feel like snacking on the popcorn anymore. Gaze focus on the fluffy puffs for the rest of the movie.

“Did you enjoy the film?” An indifferent voice resounds from your right side.

Walking out as the credit rolled in the background, following the flow of traffic toward the exit. You were walking by Alhaitham’s side, but your mind was elsewhere, a subtle frown etched on your lips.

“It was fine, just crowded and loud.” Your voice was just as flat.

“Oh.”

Tossing the unfinished bag of popcorn way into the nearest trash can, the two of you continue on the silent journey home.

Perhaps, it’s best if you just stayed curled up with a book.

“Eh? It’s been three years and you’ve never gotten your wife flowers? I knew you were cold-hearted, but not to this extent. Here, a quick bouquet of some fresh flowers I picked.”

“You should gift her some sweets, maybe then you two can talk a choco-lot… Did you get the joke?”

“Are you serious?! Almost four years and you never took her on a date?? You’re hopeless! Take these tickets and take her to the movies. By the way, you’ll have to pay for them.”

Alhaitham wasn’t sure what made his colleagues so invested in his marriage, maybe a projection of their own lack of one. To his colleagues, you were just as much of an enigma as the ashen-haired man.

Any passing comment, no matter how vague or curt, would bring forth an onslaught of unsolicited advice. And it was for that very reason within the walls of your home these details shall stay.

Alhaitham isn’t sure which was more irksome, the uninformed guidance of bachelors, or the fact he was the one who actually tested each suggestion. Regardless, at least these trials were fruitful in the sense he can gauge your dislikes now.

You despise flowers for their fickle messes and scent. You’re revolted by overpriced chocolates. You detested rowdy theaters and subpar films.

Four now going on to five years, and these were his results. Frankly, he didn’t have to subject you to such experiments for these results, because they aligned with his own preferences.

A waste of time, disturbing your peace for the sake of his own curiosity.

A heavy sigh falls from his lips as he sets the bucket of water down, one hand holding a mop as the other turns the knob of your bedroom.

It’s a Sunday, meaning the floors needed to be mopped. Your door's hinges sing as they swing open only to be abruptly silenced as Alhaitham stood motionless under the door frame.

Oh. He should’ve knocked.

You were in the midst of getting dressed in front of your floor-length mirror, glimpses of smooth skin peeking out from under baggy fabric. Before he could stop, teal eyes followed the dark fabric reaching just down to the middle of your thighs and draping low on one shoulder. Your fingers were in the middle of buttoning the clearly oversized shirt as you turned back to focus on him.

Blank gaze traveling up your soft lips set in a neutral position and meeting your deadpan stare, Alhaitham’s conscience restarts.

Today was Sunday, which meant it was laundry day yesterday, and it was the ashen-haired man’s turn to wash and dry the clothes. Somehow, his button-down got mixed in with your blouses, leading to your unamused reaction.

“I’ll be more mindful next time, did my shirt dull any of your whites?” Forcing his eyes to avert, a late attempt at respecting your privacy.

“It’s fine, fortunately, the dye didn’t bleed out during the wash.” You turned away as your hand pulls the draping fabric up your shoulder.

“Just place the shirt over the chair in my room, I’ll take care of it later.”

“Okay.”

Once more your door sings as he shuts it on the way back into the hall, deciding to clean the floors of his room first and allowing you to change into your rightful clothes. It was early noon and a weekend, meaning there was no reason for Alhaitham to brush out his sleep-tousled hair. Hopefully, messy gray locks were enough to conceal burning ears.

———————————————————————————

“The Evolution of Everything.” His eyes scan over the title held out in front of him.

A newly published scientific journal filled with freshly collected data, the book's spine still in mint condition. Alhaitham takes note of the identical copy held in your hand.

“You seemed interested in this genre, so I picked up a copy for you.” You motion for him to take it.

There wasn’t a rule etched in stone that forbade the sharing of books within these quiet walls. The books on your shelves have been more interesting than his as of late. A pattern of folded corners inflecting more and more pages of the books lining your bookshelves, evidence of a certain man’s meddling.

The warning glare every time you smoothed out a creased page directed his way didn’t seem to be enough to stop the unconscious habit of his hands.

It looks like you’re trying out a new solution, getting him his own copy to prevent the infection from engulfing each and every corner of your bookshelves.

“Thank you, I’ll read it soon.” He accepts the peace offering.

With that, you made your way back to the sofa. Flipping open your own copy, fingers gently making sure to not crumple the delicate pages or crease the pristine spine. Alhaitham compares it to the book currently held in his own hands.

An older book, while not falling apart or tattered, it’s obvious the man has thumbed through its pages. A well-loved book as his grandmother would’ve described it.

Alhaitham needs to stop this practice he never corrected in childhood.

———————————————————————————

“Alhaitham.” You greet him at the entranceway.

Said man is currently placing his outside shoes away into the closet, returning from an uneventful day at his office. You usually got home before him, but this was the first time you’ve waited for him at the front door. He notes that you seem to be holding something behind your back.

“Here.” Bring your arms out from your back, the distinct crinkling of plastic was heard.

Teal eyes study the gift basket filled with bath products, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion all nicely packaged with a satin ribbon.

“It’s to thank you for helping me with errands lately,” you explain.

Recently, you’ve been asking him to accompany you to the cluttered streets lined with stalls and haggling merchants. With his towering frame and larger hands, he could carry heavier bags and part a path through the pushy crowds easier. You were using your resources to maximize efficiency.

“There’s no need to trouble yourself with this, I’m just doing my part. But thank you.” He takes the basket from your hands, eyes remaining collected.

Just as the basket leaves your hands, the distinct chime of your phone goes off as ‘Bahram’ flashes across the screen. The name of your boss.

“Excuse me, I have to take this call. Dinner will be ready in half an hour.” Turning away, you walk toward the kitchen.

The he hums in response, slipping into his inside shoes. With brisk steps, he covers the distance from the front door to his room, closing then leaning against the solid oak.

Sharply inhaling as one hand balancing the basket of toiletries and the other holding his head.

You’ve always prefer to maintain the serenity of the house. Resolving strife with proactive actions or brief comments. Not once in these past five years did you ever nag him, you’re too pragmatic for that. At times it’s a curse more than a blessing, evidenced by the gift basket staring back at him mockingly.

Although Alhaitham was messy at times, he knows the importance of hygiene. Teeth brushed twice a day, a shower taken every day before dinner, and deodorant applied daily.

However, the temperatures this Summer were at record highs, even for Sumeru. The packed market streets pushing the two of you closer than usual, perhaps he’s no match for the heat this time.

Washing his hair twice and his body thrice, Alhaitham finishes his prolonged shower by gurgling some mouthwash for good measure. Walking into the kitchen in a fresh set of clothes and his hair still damp. The table set with potato boat and some steak. Impassive eyes met inscrutable eyes as you motion for him to take a seat.

Your nose remained relaxed, meaning you were probably satisfied with his efforts.

Alhaitham makes a silent reminder to research some cologne after he finishes washing the dishes. One that isn’t overbearing nor too weak to linger.

How embarrassing it is, five years in and the stoic prodigy known as Alhaitham is still testing the bounds of his wife’s patience. Selfish experiments and habits he can’t seem to correct conflicting with your wishes for a clean, serene, and quiet home.

The entire reason why you bothered signing your name next to a stone-faced man who said ‘I don’t believe in soulmates’ before asking ‘How are you?’.

Flowers, chocolates, and movie tickets.

You weren’t oblivious to the sentiment behind these arbitrary actions. In a way, it was expected. A husband wants to get closer to his wife, it’s simple chemistry.

The human mind craves connection, oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin released at the sight of gifted blooms, crafted sweets, and from simply sitting within each other's presence.

A chemical cocktail the mind gets drunk on.

Alhaitham isn’t immune to it and neither are you. Even if you were able to stiffen your lips, steady your gaze, and hide those flushed cheeks. Nothing you did could quell the abnormality in your chest, was Alhaitham having the same issue?

There comes the first hurdle, the unknown which hung in the air formed over years of peaceful silence. The thought of two stoic faces peering into each other’s eyes as two monotonous voices stated the obvious would make any romantic keel over and die.

It’d be too embarrassing, especially when it’s already been awkward.

Headache caused by sickly sweet blossoms, spitting out pricey sweets, and dulled reaction to a critically acclaimed film. None of this was Alhaitham’s fault, how can you blame someone for something they don’t know?

He never asked, you never told.

No one knew what happened within that noisy house with empty bottle-covered floors of two ‘soulmates’ who refused to release their crushing grips. All except the three unfortunate souls trapped within its Padisarah-scented walls.

Still, his keen eyes didn’t miss those details, reassessing his actions before ultimately channeling more of his energy into chores around the house instead of frivolous gifts. What a proactive husband.

A sting of guilt felt as you recall his sincere attempts at trying to cross an icy bridge. What should you say? ‘Thank you, you tried.’ Sounded far too condescending, it could even lead to a huffy fight. Something you’ve been good at avoiding these past five years.

Marriage is filled with compromises, meeting each other halfway along the road of life, side by side. So you tried this time.

Curiosity guiding you as it did a naive hero towards the brilliance of a red star.

———————————————————————————

Your first attempt was inspired by an article that popped up on your phone’s feed, something about wearing your partner’s shirt to make them flush, nonsense known as the ‘boyfriend shirt’.

You still gave it a try. Swiping up one of your husband’s black button-downs one Saturday night, only building up the confidence to put it on the next morning.

Your original plan was to just casually wear it around the house as you got the Sunday morning chores done, but that got thrown out when Alhaitham suddenly opened your door when one-third of the buttons were still undone.

A moment of tense silence followed, impressively you managed to maintain a cool facade. Grasping the opportunity to leave this stale silence with an expertly crafted response.

———————————————————————————

In the end, he just wanted his shirt back. So for your next attempt, you toned it down, no longer taking advice from nonsensical articles.

Recently, Alhaitham has taken more of an interest in your bookshelf. More of the once pristine edges of your books folder here and there. If it was anyone else, you’d make them buy you a new copy immediately, but for now, you simply smoothed out the paper.

If he wants to read the theories and studies that muse you, why don’t you read them together?

However, two bodies pressed together on a sofa trying to read the small print along pages at the same time is simply uncomfortable. Plus, Alhaitham reads much faster than you.

To ensure a pleasant reading experience for both of you, two copies were the best solution.

He read it after you.

———————————————————————————

Your next attempts used thinly veiled excuses to get Alhaitham to accompany you to the bustling markets of Sumeru City. In a way, trying to make up for that lackluster movie experience.

Only for it to soon turn into using Alhaitham to carry arm fulls of bags as he shielded you from the push and pull of the busy crowd.

Perhaps you should stick to gift-giving, to spare your husband from working like a Sumpter Beast in this weather.

But besides books, what should you give him? He’s just like you, if he sees something he wants, he’d just buy it with his own money.

On the way home from work, you caught sight of a shop, one which displayed handmade soaps and fancy lotions. Huh, Alhaitham often takes your lotions, maybe you should get him his own. A bell ringing overhead announces your entrance into the cozy store.

“Welcome!” A bright voice chirped as a shop assistant with vibrant red hair and an equally vibrant smile bounded toward you.

“I’m Nilou, how may I help you today?”

“I’m just looking for some lotion.” You politely responded, trying to ignore the faint fragrance of Pardisarahs.

“We’ve got plenty of hand-made ones, for you or for someone else?”

“For my husband.”

“Oh? What does he like?”

You paused for a moment, lips pressed together in contemplation before deciding.

“Something fresh and not overbearing, nothing made from Pardisarahs.” If he liked using your lotions, then he must have the same scent preferences.

“We just got this new lotion that fits the criteria! Oh! But it pairs very well with this body wash… actually this shampoo and conditioner set is also a good fit. Oh! What if we bundle them?”

What was supposed to be a simple lotion turned into you leaving the small shop with an entire gift basket. A sigh leaves your lips, looks like you’re not as immune to sales tactics as you originally thought.

That night you handed the ribbon-wrapped basket to Alhaitham. Even if he isn’t interested in expensive handcrafted soaps, he’ll still use them out of necessity, they were a gift after all.

However, it doesn’t seem you had to worry about that. He used up the fancy soaps and lotions.

The opulent scent lingering on his skin and towel-dried hair, looks like your gift made you discover a new side of your husband.

He enjoys really long showers, evidenced by your rising water bills.

Still, the vast expanse of uncertainty didn’t shrink, not even one bit. Just like the distance between an outstretched hand toward the sun.

Books, lotions, and walks through a market, looks like it was all for naught.

The mutual agreement to not lock eyes, these cold halls, these awkward dinners filled with nothing but the clattering of silverware and plates. Where have you seen these patterns before?

Oh, you’ve seen these in your childhood home.

Ah, was this a curse passed on to you? What an awful wedding gift from uninvited parents to a courthouse office.

Clutching the straps of your bag tighter, your legs quicken their pace, wanting to get out of the crowded streets filled with the mumbles and pushes of people freshly off the clock.

With each stranger knocking into your shoulder another drop is added to a bottle. White knuckles gripping on your straps as a pressure rises within the bottle’s glass body, threatening to shatter it.

You can’t let this continue, the mounting pressure will sooner or later detonate into a hideous mess. Best to avoid that scenarios. Eyes catching sight of a small reprieve from the crowd, you direct yourself there.

The small store front provides you with some shelter for your lungs to breathe. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. The pressure subsides just a bit. There’s still room in there, you can suppress a little more, you can endure a little longer.

Eyelids fluttering open, you recognized the name of the shop. It’s the fancy soap shop, one with the vivacious sales assistant.

Peering through the glass you searched for that brilliant shade of crimson. And you found it, right next to glimmering silver hair. It’s like your body forgot how to breathe.

From the rumbling of the late evening rush, all you could do was read their lips from behind a thick glass door.

Petite pink lips giggling behind clasped hands as Nilou looks up at Alhaitham, tilting her head to the side as if she asked him a question. His lips remained stiff, but teal gaze reflected crimson as they softened. Something you never witnessed within the quiet walls of your home.

Looks like you found the cause of the rising water bills, perhaps Alhaitham likes the smell of Padisarahs.

Your bottle couldn’t contain the ocean anymore.

It wasn’t an Earth-shattering catastrophic event, no tidal waves crashing down, no flood flood devastating everything in its path. Only a defeated ‘pop’ and its pathetic echo as your bottle finally overflowed.

Bitter sea-foam fizzled out as it made an unseen mess.

Listlessly, you rejoined the rolling crowd, letting the eb and flow of its movement carry you all the way to the front door of a false haven. Systematically inserting the key, placing your shoes into the closet, and shutting your room door behind your back. Staring at the clean floor with its intricate wood grain.

However, your mind weren’t processing any of it, busy with its calculations.

When did his fever start? That one Autumn night with a chaste bouquet. What day is it now? The cusp of Summer. How long has it been? In a few months, it’ll be three years.

A lecture from an inescapable past resurfaces.

————————

“Hey, kiddo.”

Slurred words made you stop in your tracks, small hands tightening their grip on your backpack straps.

You weren’t quiet enough, the careful steps of your feet were rendered useless when it came to the creaky wooden floors of this house. Your lungs burned for air, but you didn’t want to breathe in the stench which permeated this air.

The aroma of cheap perfume, sour wine, and cheap beer. The source of this foul smell? The freshly awakened man laying on the couch just a few inches away: a man known as your father.

Still trying to reserve your stored supply of oxygen, all you offered the drunkard was a firm hum. Not that he’d care, judging from the crushed cans and empty bottles littering the path, he’s probably too far gone.

“Did you know love is a chemical? Something called ‘phenylethylamine’?” A hiccup interrupts his sentence, but he continues, much to your dismay.

“Haha, it makes your heart beat faster and your cheeks flush because it’s considered an amphetamine, one of the most powerful drugs.” His stumbling hand blindly reached for another can, knocking over empty shells until it found one with just a bit of liquor.

“Too bad the high can only last three years.”

Your disinterested gaze trailed off down the empty hall, legs itching to break away from the lecture you’ve heard numerous times before. Lungs begging to inhale the untainted air of your room, the only sanctuary this hollow home held.

Just a few minutes was all you needed, then you’ll start mopping these foul floors.

A clink of aluminum hitting the wooden boards draws your attention back to your father who had finished moisturizing his throat with another swig of beer.

“Stay away from that drug, kiddo” A sloppy grin stretched across his face as he stared up at a blank ceiling.

The sight made your arms bristle, seeing a smile on your father’s face was uncanny. Something you’ve never seen at the dinner table, just silent scowls and disgruntled glares constantly exchanged over a subpar meal.

Wanting him to finish this one-sided conversation, you gave another firm hum, every now and then glazing back toward the hall.

“Or you’ll end up like this old man.” He wraps the conversation up with a bitter laugh, one which resonated off the blank walls.

————————

Maybe you should’ve heeded your father’s words. A brilliant scholar to the public but a pathetic drunk when within the confines of a cluttered, noisy house is still a brilliant scholar.

This was your punishment for straying away from your beliefs. You reached your hand out towards the fire despite knowing it’d hurt, and you fell in love. Now look at where you are.

How utterly laughable, you, the ever-bright Ms. Perfect, who’s broken love down to its base form of chemical compounds, fell victim to the addiction that was love.

So blindsided by it.

The fog of love is slowly running its course through him. Once the trees abandon their vibrant greens for shriveled browns in the Autumn, his fever will be over. There’s no such thing as an endless Summer.

How did you not see this coming? Covering your eyes with ignorant hands, blatantly ignoring the signs right in front of your nose.

No more flowers, no more chocolates, and no more movies.

Turning back around, you took note of a figure in a floor length mirror. Indifferent gaze identical to how your husband looks at you.

Two sides of the same mirror, what’s what you and him are. What’s the use of that? Shiny surfaces point off in opposite directions, yet only ever reflecting one view. What’s the point of having two sides then?

You don’t intrigue him, you can’t show him his blind spots, and you can’t reflect to him a view he’s never seen. Same perceptions, same hobbies, same expressionless faces, how stale it must be.

It’s much more interesting to have a wife who’ll smile at receiving flowers, a wife whose eyes light up at chocolate, and a wife who’d blabber on about a movie as Alhaitham listens intently. The beating of his heart is starting with someone new.

Emerging out of your thoughts, you stare directly at the person in your mirror.

Dull eyes stared right back, light dimmed from years of staring at a bright star grasping at its warm rays in substitution of a cold house, only for your fingers to slip pass right through.

Idiotic girl, you can’t touch the sun, not even Icarus did.

An unlovable child grew into an unlovable adult. Add that to your footnote, so you’ll never forget this lesson again. The fool in the mirror finally looks away.

It didn’t matter if Icarus smiled or laughed as he tumbled from the sky. Silly girl, did you forget what happens in the end of that tale? He drowned alone.

Drowning isn’t like what the movies show. The thrashing of limbs against cold waves, the garbled screams under the water, all accompanied by the ominous soundtrack crafted by a sound master. It’s all dramatized for the silver screen.

Muscles pushing through the cold exhaustion, mouth agape but prioritizing large and fast gulps of oxygen over cries for help, followed by the melodic lull of water lapping over eardrums until the head disappears under its surface. Never to breach it again.

It’s possible for a person to drown in a pool full of people. Just like how it was possible for you to feel alone despite having your husband just across the lacquered expanse of the dinner table. Forks and knives clacking porcelain plates.

It’s a silent death.

For once you’re grateful to attend a nugatory dinner hosted by your company. Venue filled with superficial smiles and handshakes all over food served on sliver platters. Even if the heels are killing you, you’d rather not wallow in a quiet house.

A heavy sigh leaves your lips, catching someone’s attention.

“What a heavy sigh, here have some wine to ease the burden.” A glass filled with fragrant wine was held out in front of you.

Your eyes travel up the hand which offers the vile beverage to you, sights landing on the face of your boss, Bahram. Pushy as always, always testing the limits of your loyalty to a nice pension and dental insurance.

As always you politely push the glass away, uttering a firm “no thank you.”

“Oh c’mom Ms. Perfect, you look like you could use a drink.” He pushes the glass closer.

Stares from all around the formal dinner table hone in, the weight heavy on your shoulders. Stakeholders and coworkers turn away from their shallow conversations to watch the brewing spectacle just across the table.

That’s right, you have to be professional, where was your crafted mask? Make use of all those years observing the masters of deception you knew as your parents.

So you accept the vile glass.

Before the aroma could register on your palate, you emptied the whole glass. Not a single drip escaped past your lips. It took all your strength to no scowl at the sweetly bitter and alcoholic flavor.

“Oh? Ms. Perfect is drinking tonight?” Some nameless coworker mused.

Ah, the name lightly tossed around at the office with oblivious chuckles and ignorant smiles. You despise being called that, but not as much as you despise being told ‘you’re just like your father’ and ‘you’re acting like your mother’.

Better to be Ms. Perfect, so disgruntled ‘soulmates’ can’t compare you to their flawed counterpart.

“Do you like this wine? Have some more.” Eagerly, your boss fills the glass once more.

Staring at the beckoning liquid swirling in the glimmering cup, as the weight of those stares force your hands to accept it once more.

Maybe you should’ve just stayed home.

“I should really be trying to sell you our products but… I think you’ll find a better gift at another store. Here, I’ll write the address down for you! They have the best jewels, I’m sure you’ll find something for your wife there!” Hastily the shop assistant scribbles on a notepad before pushing the slip into his palm.

“Just don’t tell my manager.” Clasping her hands in front of her mouth, signaling to him to keep a secret.

Alhaitham simply nods, examining the address in his hands. He hasn’t tried jewelry yet, but a ring would look nice on your hand. Maybe you’d think so too.

“You really love her, don’t you mister?” Nilou notes how attentively his hands smooth over the address.

Pausing for a moment, Alhaitham envisions the softness of your cheeks shifting as that tender smile spreads across your lips. Yours eyes reflecting the light off the polished and cut gem as he slips it onto your bare finger.

“I do.” Unable to stop the softening of his gaze.

———————————————————————————

A ring still left in its miserable black box, stowed away in the depths of a drawer. A sigh slips out of him just like how he let another opportunity to place the jewel on your finger pass. You’re attending a company dinner tonight, a rare occasion requiring you to dress up.

The dress draped over your figure and curves just right and highlighted the contours of your body. He wanted to tell you this earlier as you were leaving, too bad he was occupied with swallowing ‘stay home’.

There’s an annoying itch in the deepest depths of his mind. Covetous hands crawled up his spine, they tried to convince his own fingers to grasp around your wrist and pull you back into the house.

Alhaitham shakes that itch away, refocusing his attention onto your bookshelf in front of him.

You have a life and responsibilities outside these walls, he can’t overstep the boundary to block you from your individuality. Running a finger along the tops of the neatly lined books, searching for something to redirect his impulses.

Momentum halting when his finger sunk into pages when he expected the firm edge of a spine. The force crumpling the paper, immediately he pulls it into his hands, smoothing out the folded edges. Title catching his attention.

The Lifespan of Love, the only book where the spine wasn’t facing out. Flipping it to the back, Alhaitham scans the blurb, noting the portrait of the scholar who authored it.

A familiar face, a professor who’s lectures he barely attended. A distinguished researcher and mentor in the eyes of his old university.

The sight of his face made Alhaitham recall a scene he once witnessed.

————————

The halls of the Psychology department were desolate, as they always were. A much-appreciated reprieve from crowded foyers as a quiet student walks to his next exam in the department next door.

Just as his hand reached up to activate his headphones, two voices caught his attention, the high shrills of a woman and the raspy shouts of a man leaking out from an office door left ajar.

It has nothing to do with him, Alhaitham know this, but he still had 30 minutes to kill before the exam.

Teal eyes peer through the gap between the oak doorframe.

A man the student recongizes, but the scowl and flush of rage twisted his face into an unrecongizable mess. The professor juts his finger towards the woman as foul names left his mouth, the same mouth which lectured the brightest minds of Sumeru.

The woman screams back equally loathsome words, tears leaving mascara trails down her red cheeks. Suddenly, she grabs a lamp off his desk and hurls it to the floor.

For a brief moment, the scholar pauses as his eyes scanned over the broken debris scattered along the floor. Then his fist slammed into the solid oak of his desk, thud so forceful the office ratted with the poor furniture.

His shouts resume, volume escalating by the minute.

Alhaitham backs away from the door, turning on his noise-canceling headphones. He’s satisfied his curiosity enough, walking off to his exam.

————————

A peculiar sight behind the superficial mask of a respected professor with his jolly grin and light hearted jokes with students. Inspecting the name printed just underneath the portrait, a furrow forms between his brow as he scrutinizes the spelling closer.

The professor’s last name was spelled the same way as yours.

Oh. So this is the source you were citing back then. Numbers and figures published by a notable name backing your rebuttal to the societal notion of a soulmate. Inquisiveness rearing its impatient nose, inciting his hands to choose this book as his subject tonight.

You never told him, so he never asked. This was a chance to peer into a view sealed behind your closed lips.

To study, dissect, and analyze the resources which congergated together to form the you of today. Alhaitham isn’t going to deny such an opportunity.

Teal eyes glance at the ticking hands of a clock, he’s got a good few hours of reading before you return.

The distinct rumble of an engine leaking in through the living room window interrupts his peace, the slam of car doors causing Alhaitham to promptly fold over the corner of the page he has yet to finish.

The dinner must have ended.

Getting up from a cushy couch, Alhaitham makes his way toward the entranceway.

His keen ears picking up the unmistakable hearty chuckle of a man, Alhaitham stills for a brief second before continuing to the door.

Before the chime of the doorbell had the chance to sound throughout the home, Alhaitham already pried open the front door.

Teal gaze darkening as they examine the display on the front steps.

Your arm around the shoulder of another man while his arm was snaked around your waist, pressing your body against his as he supports you up the steps.

The sound of the hinges directs the man’s attention to the homeowner currently staring at him, oblivious to the way Alhaitham’s grip threatens to crush a metal handle behind solid oak.

“Oh! You must be Ms. Perfect’s husband. I’m Bahram.” The man greeted.

Alhaitham already knows him. He’s seen that name flash up enough times across your phone. He’s seen you pick up no matter the hour and step out into an empty room.

A new habit of yours which started some months earlier.

“Haha! She drank a bit too much tonight.” The jovial man continues, his hand still resting on your hip.

Drank? You drank? You don’t so much as glance at Alhaitham’s wine cabinet at home, yet you drank with this man? The begins of scowl start to set into Alhaitham’s face.

“I’ll bring her inside for ya.” Bahram takes a step forward only to be blocked by a towering frame topped with ashen hair.

“I’ll take it from here.” Alhaitham barely bit back a pointed tone, forcibly smoothing it over to make his voice pass as neutral.

Prying that hand off your hip and your arm from Bahram’s neck, Alhaitham’s strong hold supports your slumping figure against his own body.

Pulling you across the threshold of the front door, finally putting some distance between you and that damn boss of yours.

“Have a goodnight.” Venomous lie rolling off Alhaitham’s tongue as he firmly shuts the oak door, not bothering with any more pleasantries.

It didn’t take much effort to carry you into the living room. Setting you down on the sofa then kneeling down with dexterous fingers, Alhaitham freed your feet from the chokehold of those heels.

You make a mental note to throw them out tomorrow morning.

“Thank you,” you breathed out, relieved to finally be home.

Your husband doesn’t respond as he walk away to place your shoes into the closet. The lingering taste of wine churns your stomach, you needed some water to wash it out.

Carefully, you amble into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with fresh water. Praying it can finally rid you of that foul flavor.

After three glasses of wine, your stakeholders and coworkers finally turned their attention elsewhere. You’ve entertained them enough.

Granting you the freedom to push away anymore glasses your boss offered, only getting him to stop after you agreed to his offer of driving you home.

What a troublesome night, your mood sourer than it has been for the past few months.

As you fill up your glass again your ears catch the pattering of Alhaitham’s steps as he trails into the kitchen, stopping only a few paces away watching you glup down your second glass.

“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” His husky voice resounds from behind you as his finger taps against the marble countertop.

“No.” You fill rinse out the cup, the stubborn grip of wine not releasing your tastebuds just yet.

“Oh? It sure looks like you did.”

Your body stiffens as your turn the faucet off, glancing over your shoulder with eyes narrowing.

“What do you mean by that?” Your tone a bit more sharp than you’d like it to be.

“I’m certain you know exactly what I mean.” Alhaitham stops his tapping as he lays his palm flat on the table, teal eyes boring straight into you.

“Well, well looks like your assumption is wrong.”

“I doubt it, stop mincing your words and just say you enjoyed a few drinks with your boss.”

Your body turns around fully, glaring stare connecting with his teal one. Ticking of a clock sounding throughout the quiet kitchen.

So that’s why he’s behaving like this, partners with wandering eyes tend to project their hypocritical insecurities onto the other after all.

“Then why don’t you say you’ve been enjoying your visits to Nilou?” Something more venomous than sour wine drips off your words.

“How is she related to this conversation?” His eyes narrowing at you, unlike the same teal irises that reflected the scarlet of her hair.

“You know exactly what I mean.” You spat his own words back at him, maneuvering around him as you make your way back to your room.

At this point you weren’t sure what was the cause of the headache threatening to form.

The wine? This deafening silence? Or the thought of Padisarahs?

You don’t care, you want to go to bed. The thuds of his steps weren’t far behind yours as you trek through the halls.

“Our conversation hasn’t concluded.” His deep voice ringing in your ears.

“Yes it has.” Your room was just in sight.

“No it hasn’t.” His hand encloses around your wrist.

There you were, halfway through the doorframe of your room with the pull of his hand preventing you from getting the rest you want.

There’s no longer any space left in a shattered bottle, just a rippling ocean getting rougher and rougher with each deep breath.

“Can’t you be honest?” His ironic, paradoxical words causes the tide to crush against each other.

“Can’t you be honest? Do you think I wouldn’t notice your showers right as you come back from ‘work’? You’ve been driving the water bill up with your cover-up efforts.” Glaring right into those damn beryl eyes, frown breaking your stiff lips.

“Cover-up? What a bold accusation coming from the same person who awaits a call everynight.” He mirrors your scowl.

“Maybe its because work offers better company than this stifling house.”

Alhaitham grip tightens on your wrist as his lips press into a firm line, indecipherable stare weighing down upon your frame. His broad shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath.

“Strip,” he commands.

“Have you gone mad?” You snap back, unable to budge in his hold.

“Yes, furious even.”

It didn’t take much effort for him to make his way into your room, pulling you in as well. You could barely keep up with it all, glaring at him but it didn’t affect him one bit.

The movement causes your dress to shift. Glancing down you realize a strap of your dress slipped off, leaving one side of your breast dangerously exposed.

With swift strides, he arrives at the edge of your bed. It’s rare for you to dawn such attire, applying a lovely shade of crimson to those plush lips, and tying your hair up so nicely. Did you get all dressed up for Bahram? Why couldn’t it be for his viewing only?

Tsk, noisy nonsense is cluttering his mind, those the claws of a green-eyes monster digging into his last shred of restraint. Seizing his rationality in its ugly, greedy hands tighter and tighter the longer your soft thighs pressed against his tense body.

Crashing into those crimson lips of yours, one hand positioning your face to allow his tongue to catch yours by surprise. Letting the two muscles dance together as his other hand explored the expanse of your body, pulling up the silky fabric to grant his palm the pleasure of gracing your soft thighs.

‘Oh, so this is what he wants,’ you thought as your lips moved against his.

‘Fine, might as well experience what he’s been doing behind your back.’ The fingers of your free hand tangling themselves into his hair, tugging at ashen locks with disregard.

Unfortunately, the pesky need for oxygen made Alhaitham release your lips. Chest panting as his darkened gaze observed the state of your lips. Crimson smeared over the corner of your glossy lips. You put so much effort into painting them, making sure they were nicely defined.

However, it felt so cathartic to know that he’s the one who messed them up, no one at the party saw them like this. Only him.

“I’ll ask you one last time, strip now.” Not letting go of your face.

“Go to hell,” you spat out.

And the last chain broke, dignity and self-control reduced to nothing more than ash as his hunger commanded him. Go to hell you say?

“Then I’ll take you with me,” he sneers through clenched teeth, pushing you into the mattress face down. One hand restraining those disobedient hands of yours behind your back.

Before protest could leave your lips a rip resounds through the hot air. Alhaitham knows he should be delicate with it. That he should carefully pull the zipper down your back, letting the fabric naturally drape off your frame.

However, a man who starved for six years now knows nothing about patience.

You feel the silky fabric slip off, leaving you in nothing but your panties. Teal eyes honing in on the darkened patch on the thin fabric, a dry chuckle leaving his lips.

“Wet just from this? Or were you wet during dinner too?” He pulls the fickle fabric off.

You wiggle in his hold, face flushed with frustrated embarrassment at your current predicament. However, in terms of strength you’ll always lose to Alhaitham. A violent flinch jolts your body as he runs a finger runs along your glistening slit.

“What a lewd thing, has he seen this slutty hole of yours?” Alhaitham watches the way your cunt quivers with each stroke of his digit.

“Do really you think I’d sleep with my boss?” Your voice slightly muffled by the sheets as you turn your face to the side.

“I need to confirm it.”

With two fingers, he spreads your soft pussy lips apart, keen eyes observing the trail of slick starting to drip down from between them. He sees the muscles of your entrance clenching around nothing, he glides a digit in, feeling your slick walls clamp around it. Clear essence drooling out. He hums in satisfaction before sliding his finger out, you bite into the sheet to silence any sounds.

“Enjoying this?” He muses, fingers spreading your cunt again.

You don’t respond, but the glare you’re sending his way makes his lip curl into a smirk. For once he could read the emotions behind your stoic eyes, he wants to see more.

Trailing his fingers up your slit until they bump into a hard nub making your body twitch. Softly pinching your clit between two fingers, he slowly rolls the senesitve bundle of nerves as you bite harder to stop your moans.

Cunt slick but unstretched, clit throbbing but not swollen, only your essence coating his fingers. Looks Bahram hasn’t gotten the chance to taste you yet.

Calming the thrashing of a green-eyed beast just slightly. However, this wasn’t enough. Alhaitham feels the parchedness of his throat as his eyes scan over your glistening slit.

Alhaitham once believed that the touches exchanged when his fingers brush against yours while passing plates, when you pull a blanket up his napping frame, or when your bodies briefly pressed against each other as he helps you hang the laundry out was enough to satisfy him. That he could sustain off just borrowing your lotions.

Such a false assumption, a foolish one even. As the heat radiating off your body melts away another restraint he imposed on himself. Alhaitham realizes just how much he’s been starving himself.

Thumb rubbing firm circles into your clit, the pleasure making your legs close together, trying to shut him out but the grip of his hand stops your attempt.

“Tsk, stay still.” His strength pinning your legs apart, showing you just how ‘feeble’ he was.

In retaliation, he pushes your legs further apart. Exposing more of yourself to him, it was embarrassing enough to almost make your lust-hazed mind care.

Thick fingers gathered up drops of slick leaking out from your dripping cunt as your lewd hole unable to contain its greed. Allowing him more access, feeding into his greed further.

Two fingers tracing the rim of your entrance before it slowly pushes through. Instantly, your gummy walls clamped down on his fingers, making him hiss through clenched teeth.

“If you’re grasping my fingers this much, how will you take something larger?” His breath ghosting over your cunt.

Your toes curled in the air as a kiss was pressed against your throbbing clit, almost enough to let a gasp escape you. Biting back a drawn out moan as his tongue traced your leaking slit, starting with your sensitive numb then traveling up to lap at the essence escaping your stretched hole with the smooth muscle then back to flick at your clit.

You never realized just how pent up your body was until whines and moans just fell from your lips like water. Turning your head away, pressing your face into the mattress in hopes it’d catch those sinful sounds.

“Tsk.” Alhaitham escalated the pace of his fingers.

A sharp slap against your puffy clit, shooting white-hot pleasure up your core. With a gasp you pulled away from the sheets, unable to stop the moan which tumbled out. Hastily, you tried to muffle your voice again, only for a warning squeeze on your still pinned wrist stopping you.

You’ve enjoyed your silence, he’s been deprived of those sultry moans, so for tonight let him enjoy them to the fullest extent.

Your back arched, hips bucking in the air. Your little pussy finally rewarded his hard work with a rush of slick soaked the sheets and his face further. Swiftly removing his fingers again with a disgraceful squelch, only for his tongue to dip into the cavern they left. He slurped and lapped up every drop of your nectar, quenching a thirst he never knew he had.

Overstimulated clit trying to flinch away from each nerve-frying lick while your weeping walls beckoned his tongue to go deeper. The tightness in his pants was painful now, engorged tip rubbing against the fabric and soaking it in precum.

With his unyielding hold, his half-lidded eyes, and his unrelenting tongue lapping up all of your essence while bullying your poor nub, you were powerless. Unable to hide from his hungry gaze, nails digging into his unflinching hand, and chest heaving with the mounting pleasure in your core.

Scowl long replaced by a loose expression, the pleasure ripping through every fiber of your being. Shooting up from your curled toes to the eyes seeing only the back of your head, the edge growing closer and closer-

Alhaitham pulls away, your slick dripping down his chin glistening in the moonlight illuminating the room. Cruelly pulling back from the edge before you could taste true euphoria. No, he doesn’t think you deserve it yet. Flipping your body effortless on your back, wrists now pinned above your head.

His teal eyes drank the sight of your breast bouncing with each pant, puffy cunt clenching desperately, and the glimmering tearful eyes rivaling the stars themselves. A sight so sinful the devil is writhing in envy.

“What the fuck?!” You thrashed in his hold again, mourning the lost of the orgasm your body was denied.

“With this attitude, you should be grateful for what you got. I’m tired of waiting.” Alhaitham sneers next to your ear, chest pressed against yours before his warmth pulls away.

Tugging his pants and boxers down his thighs with a hand still coated in your nectar, trailing kisses and red splotches in the valley of your breast as his precum and your slick mixed with each stroke of his shaft. The wet sounds even reached your ears.

Making the mistake of looking down, your eyes widened as they comprehended his length and girth. Your restless pussy twitching but your legs closing as to preserve the last of your ego. Something thick pressed against your dripping pussy making your hole quiver and legs freeze as his tip threatens breach your entrance.

“Trying to be coy now? When you were moaning like a whore mere minutes ago.” Smug teal eyes peering down at you.

Another frown breaks onto your face at his pointed words. Your tongue is just as sharp, best to remind him of that fact.

“What a practiced line, you say the same things to her as well?” A mocking smile curling your lip as a scowl tugs down at his.

Too self-satisfied with your small victory to notice his large hand gripping onto your hips, aligning himself with you. With a sinful squelch, Alhaitham snaps his cock fully in. Your lips thrown open with a gasp as your back arches off the mattress.

“I. Never. Had. An. Affair. So, instead of spewing out anymore nonsense, why don’t you just moan instead?” Puncuating each word with thrust of his hips, feeling the vibration of each syllable in his chest pinned against yours.

Jagged words ready at the tip of your tongue, yet you couldn’t form a single sentence. With a broken moan your back slowly descended back onto the sheets.

Tearing a hiss from his clenched teeth and a breathless moan from you, gummy walls contracting down tighter and tighter with each girthy inch pushed as his balls slap against the slick down your ass. Nothing could’ve prepared him for this. Alhaitham stays there, tip pressed against the deepest part of you, a furrow between his brows.

Alhaitham knows he should be gentle. He knows he should allow your walls to grow accustomed to his girth by slowly rolling his hips against yours.

However, you just won’t stay still. Mewling and whining against his frame, nails clawing at his hand as your legs fluttered in the air. Each movement makes your pussy slurp around his stiff cock, lapping at the girth as if trying to pull him deeper than he already was.

Tempting his hunger like a lunatic testing a starved beast, it’ll only be so long before the hunger bends the iron bars containing it and devours you.

“AH!” A sharp slap of his hips rips a moan from your lips.

Alhaitham pulls you off his cock until the tip threatens to slip out, then thrusts it all back in one fluid motion. Instinctively your teeth clamps down on your disobedient lips, desperately trying to bite back those lewd noises. The slurping of your greed welcoming him over and over was embarrassing enough.

What a selfish move, trying to deprive him once more of your pretty moans. Provoking that ugly appetite within the pits of his stomach again. If you won’t behave, Alhaitham decides to fuck the stubborness out of you.

Each thrust of his hips into yours rocking the sturdy bed, bullying your poor sensitive pussy still recovering from a ruined orgasm. Hands and hips held within bruising grips. The pitched gasps every time he railed into a certain spot didn’t escape his keen ears, his hips now angled to bully that spot with each thrust.

How helpless you were to the devastating rush of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. Unable to ground yourself on anything, your last wisps of sanity swept away by the waves of pleasure.

A groan reverberates deep in Alhaitham’s chest, the sudden convulsions of your slick walls trying to milk him. It was almost impossible to move with the way your pussy just kept clamping down.

Unfortunately, his hips couldn’t seem to care, operating solely on selfish desire.

Fortunately, a fresh wave of arousal aided in his rhythm, relentless slams bouncing your body and bed.

Strength long leaving your arms Alhaitham releases his hold on them in favor of supporting your limp hips, a breathy chuckle leaving his lips as lust-hazed eyes honed in on the frothy white ring forming on his shaft.

All your lips could do was babble out nothings as the headboard continued to beat the poor wall. Cunt thanking his cock with a contraction every time his tip knocks against your weakness.

The sweet moans caressing his ears, the filthy slaps echoing through the room, and your walls pulling him deeper and deeper, Alhaitham was at his limit.

There was nothing separating you two, he had enough sense left to know that. Reeling in the reins of his greed, he pulls back, fingers digging deeper into your plush skin. Well, he tried to pull back, but your locked ankles behind his back foiled this plan.

He felt so hefty in you, heavy balls slapping against your ass as his girth and length tore apart your sensibility. Something deep inside your cunt pleaded to be fed, to be filled, pushing your limp legs to lock ankles.

He feels a bit too far for your liking, blindly your hands groped at his body. Finally, reaching his face, cupping it roughly, you crash his lips down onto yours. Tasting yourself on his tongue still, but you couldn’t care less.

As your tongues tangled together, Alhaitham reached his limit. Pressing his thick tip as deep as it’d go, thick ropes of cum start to coat your walls with each twitch of his cock. His shaky moans swallowed up by your kiss.

The slurping of your pussy milking his still throbbing cock only prolonged his hunger.

Dropping his head into the space between your neck and shoulder, he relishes in what he’s been depriving himself of. Feeling the faint shiver of your neck against his face.

Something was fogging up his mind, Autumn breeze doing nothing to quell the heat burning him.

–

“Ah! Mmmh! A-ah Ah!”

The first rays of dawn breaking through the navy sky, the light so flushed by the scene it witnessed, it’s pink hue illuminated skin into the room heavy with lust and the slap of wet skin.

“N-no more… too m-Ah!-much-ch.” Intoxicated brain sputtering out broken sentences.

It really was too much, you’ve cum too much to bother remembering, from the creamy drops dripping onto the soaked sheets, he’s also cummed too much.

Pussy overflowing and spasming with each thrust pushing more milky seed out.

Cock rubbing its red tip rawer with each quiver of your gooey walls.

Six years of starvation will make any man forget gluttony is a sin.

“Too much? No More?” A husky pant between each word as Alhaitham continues with his punishing rhythm.

“If that’s the case… then why is your pussy refusing to let me go?” His chest pressed against your back, caging you further as his breath tickles your ear.

Unable to form a sentence anymore, your head pathetically shook side to side, stubbornly denying the obvious. Looks like he hasn’t fucked out of you yet, better change that. Large fingers digging further down on bruised hips, as the pistoning of his thrusts escalated.

Bed frame pushed to its limits.

Each smack of his hips against your limp body further drowning your pride out in a flood of dopamine. It’s mounting again, that familiar pressure building up in your core, making your toes curl in painful arches.

There’s a sudden flick at your swollen clit, walls flinching as his fingers encircles around the abused nub.

“Who’s making you feel this way?” His husky voice too close to your ear.

Groundless pride preventing you from unsealing you lips, refusing to feed into his ego anymore than your wanton moans already did.

“Who are you showing this shameful face to?” There’s an edge to his voice again, why must you be so stubborn?

Once more you refused to answer. Making Alhaitham’s jaw clench and his fingers roll your clit harsher, making your bruised hips thrash.

“Who’s shape is engrained into this lewd body?” Voice dangerously low as he pushes his thick tip deeper against your beaten and painted walls, fingers never stopping their torment on your little nub.

The edge was getting closer, you knew you’ll fall off it soon, you’ll dive head first into the euphoric sea of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin and drown.

“Ah-ah Al-mmh!” You try to collect your breath.

Alhaitham quickens his fingers on your clit, feeling your greedy cunt clamp down on him again, walls suckling his twitching tip as his balls tighten. He’s close, but he needs you to say what he’s been waiting to hear all night.

“Alh-ah a-a…” Your hips shaking violently in his hold now.

Lust-glazed eyes staring straight into equally hazed teal eyes. Shaky hands slowly weaving themselves into his damp ash locks, gently pulling his ear closer to your lips, your hoarse voice just barely audible.

“A bastard.”

Self-satisfied smirk plastered over your loose face as your tear blurred vision catches the stunned expression on his handsome face.

The heat of his touch, the chemical stirring in your brain, and the pleasure frying your nerves made a delirious smile grace smudged lips. Your sight so hazed by lust you couldn’t see where your smile was even directed to.

Alhaitham wanted to etch the sight of your debauch face, smeared makeup and glazed eyes rolled back, into his memories forever.

Too caught off guard by your response to remind his hand to stop its movement before it was already too late. Eyes seeing the back of your head, back arching under his frame, you fell back into the all consuming waves of pleasure.

A hard earned victory in this veiled battle of two egos. Exhaustion seeping into every fiber of your being. The pale pink of twilight dimming in your vision as the dark hands of sleep covers your eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of drifting off into a blank nothingness, you feel a hand tenderly guiding your head to rest on a soft pillow.

Your eyelids twitch and brows furrow as the brightness of the room crept its way behind your shut eyes. Unable to retreat back into the dark embrace of sleep, you begrudgingly open your heavy lids.

Greeted by blurred shapes and fuzzy colors, you slowly blink your unfocused eyes. Gradually, the shapes and colors merge into distinguishable objects: a mug left on your bedside table with vapors rising from its rim.

“It’s morning-after tea.” A husky voice followed by the distinct flip of paper tenses every muscle in your body.

Alhaitham’s still here. You wish he wasn’t, you wish he’d realize last night was a mistake created from the clashing of egos, you wish the other side of your bed was empty.

So why did the tightness in your chest melt away with the mere sound of his voice?

You drag your sore body up from the sheets, shaky hands supporting the weight of numb legs and throbbing hips. Your sealed lips refusing to give him the satisfaction of any audible ques of your current state.

Sitting at the edge of your bed, back bare of anything but your hair draping over the marked skin facing him, you took the warm cup into your hands.

A harmony of methodical sips and soft turns of pages fill the room, an open window washing away the haze of lust with an Autumn breeze. Just as the last bit of tea slides down your throat a gentle slap of a book snapping close brings an end to the heavy silence.

“It’s unreliable,” Alhaitham announces.

Peering over your shoulder with a quirked brow, freezing as you recognize the book clutched in his hands. Not waiting for a response, he continues.

“Anyone with eyes can see how his biases exude through each sentence. He only studied 15 couples, not an appropriate sample size for a world filled with millions of pairs. His experiments have yet to be replicated, it seems his status is what got this nonsense published.” He sets the book down.

“What are you trying to say?” Your eyes narrow in suspicion.

“Your theory of phenylethylamine having a shelf life is based on nonsense.” His eyes connect with yours with that familiar indifference.

A frown twists your face, so he still wants to argue huh. Of course, what else did you expect? You and him have long gone down the bitter circular path you’ve seen travled before.

Irritation rising in your chest, like Alhaitham had jabbed his finger into a wound you’ve yet to heal.

“Oh, then your theory must be the intrinsic truth, huh?” Words leaving an acidic aftertaste on your tongue.

“I never-”

“Look at you, so correct with no data to support your vague mathematical thesis.” You cut him off, anger replacing the soreness of your legs.

Cup knocking against a bedside table as your hand casts it to the side, getting off the bed you march into your closet, pulling a random shirt on without regard of your movements wrinkling the fabric.

You just needed to leave this room, just being by his side is making your blood pressure rise. Your bed creaks as Alhaitham gets up as well, but your back was already through the door.

Two sets of steps trekking through the halls, paces mismatched as one tries to take quicker steps to counter the broader strides of the other. Alhaitham keeps pace with your escalating march.

“It’s a critique of his research, not you,” he voices.

You didn’t want to hear it, sharply pivoting into your home office, but you weren’t fast enough to stop Alhaitham from following you in.

Now a husband wants to spend time with his wife, where was this before?

“It’s an experiment conducted at the Akademiya, how is that not reliable enough? You think you can do better?” Your body whipping around with a glare directed at him, your hideous ego showing its face again.

“Are you listening to yourself right now? Do you even believe in such a shallow analysis?” He mirrors your glare.

“I’d rather believe in something with actual quantifiable numbers.”

“Fine, you want quantifiable numbers? Care to calculate along with me? Or is your mind still recovering from last night?” Alhaitham folds his arms in front of his chest.

“Go for it,” you say through gritted teeth, accepting his challenge, wanting to shush that snooty tone of his.

“The Akasha bases its pairs off demographic, interest, and dispositions, all variables we can calculate,” he states.

You straighten up your back, staring him in those teal eyes with your head held up high.

“Sumeru city is home to roughly 1 million people. Only 1/3 are around my age.” Alhaitham begins his trail.

“That brings that number down to about 333,333.” No delay in your response.

“Only 1 in 10 people have a personality I can tolerate, then suppose only 1 in 20 of those people can withstand mine.”

“ Rounding up that leaves about 1,667 candidates.” You tsk at his estimations, that number should be far greater than 20.

“Next comes shared interest, only 1 in 4 people have touched a physical book in the past year.”

“417 left.”

Perhaps the gods didn’t think cheating you out of a childhood was enough, out of 417 people you had the misfortune of staring at his stony face.

“Having to arrange 417 separate meetings at a small cafe would be much too burdensome for the Department of Human Relations. The scope needs to be narrowed further.” Alhaitham takes a step forward.

“Only 1 in 16 will have the patience to teach a grown man how to avoid wrinkles in his button downs.” Baritone voice losing its pointed edge.

“26 left.” You take a step back to preserve the space, hating how your skin craves the heat of his.

“Only 1 in 8 of those people will allow me to borrow their books even when they know the edges of the paper will be creased when its returned.” He takes another step.

As you take another step backwards, the edge of your office desk prevents you from retreating further. The sensation of the cold wood distracting you momentarily from your calculations.

“Then only 1 in 6 people will drape a blanket over a body that hogs an entire couch for a nap, placing a pillow under my head to ensure I don’t wake up with a sore neck.” Alhaitham doesn’t stop.

Reaching an arm out, he firmly sets his palm on the expanse of your desk, caging you between the wood and the risk of your skin feeling the heat radiating off his body.

“How many people are left now?” His breath ghosts the shell of your ear.

“ 0.543,” You blurted out.

A deep furrow appears between your brows, something must’ve gone wrong in your calculation, it’s impossible to have half a person. In the context of the Akasha, one person, a whole person, is matched to another.

Once more your mind ran the numbers over again, then again, and then thrice trying to recompute the figures.

Each time the same number came back: half a person.

“Are you mocking me with those groundless fractions? Where did you even get those statistics from?” Your pointed gaze still directed at him, did he intentionally lead you down this illogical trail?

“Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.” He peers down at you, teal gaze back to its neutral state.

“Ha! Says the man who places logic and rationality on a pedestal, what caused such a change, Alhaitham?” You laugh dryly, not bothering to decipher the most brainless qoute you ever heard him use.

No change in his expression as his shoulders rise with a deep inhale, exhaling slowly as he leans his face in, his finger digging his palm against lacquered wood.

“Instead of wasting time citing subpar research, you should’ve just been honest. Then maybe I’ll give you what you want and sign those damn papers you hid away in this desk.” Voice low but steady as his gaze never leaves your frame.

It was a strange phenomenon, the chirping of the crickets had halted as two bodies remained unmoving, not even a single grain of dust dare move. If it weren’t for the faint ticking of a hallway clock, it would’ve seemed like time had stopped.

How long has he known about the divorce papers neatly stacked away a desk drawer?

Alhaitham slowly backs his body away from yours, hand returning to his side, freeing you from the cage it created. Teal eyes carefully observes your downcast stare and stiff shoulders as guilt suffocated him.

All the emotions he bottled up, all the fervor he held back, all the desires he swallowed down. It all came tumbling out, spilling out into a murky, repulsive mess.

“Wife.” If he had spoken any louder than a breathy whisper, that word would’ve crumbled on his tongue.

“I love you.” Alhaitham finally allows the words which have been clinging on his tongue for years now to fall out of his mouth.

Every inch of you froze at those three words, the weight of his stare heavy on your shoulders.

“Do you really feel nothing from those words?” Baritone voice beckoning an answer from you.

You don’t dare lift your head, gaze downcasted and frozen. Because you know you’ll have to stare at your reflection in his eyes.

Phenylethylamine, oxytocin, dopamine.

All these hormones and chemicals should’ve ran their course through your body. The haze should’ve faded and the abnormality of your chest should’ve corrected itself. It’s been three years at this point.

So, why is your chest aching?

The wood grain of the floor began to blur together as bitter tears compensated for the painful stinging of your irises. There it is, your brain finally short-circuits as the logic which once held up your sanity has crumbled away.

Finally, you met his gaze, staring right at your reflection in teal irises.

“It’s suffocating to be with you… it’s so lonely in this quiet house… it burns me like fire to touch you… yet… and y-yet see-”

“Seeing you leave will kill me, ” Alhaitham spoke the words just about to fall from the tip of your tongue.

The last piece of evidence that shattered the hypothesis he cultivated for all his life. If soulmates don’t exist, if the concept of an ‘other half’ doesn’t exist, then why is he feeling the same agony as you?

Looks like both theories were wrong in the end. Mathematics and chemistry unable to solve the enigma known as love.

“I… I want to love… but I’m drowning… Alhaitham.” You were finally honest, you’ve been drowning all your life, thrashing hands searching for something to hold onto.

Would you be oh so kind enough to grab that pen just behind you and stab its steel nib into his chest? Alhaitham’s certain that it would hurt less than the words that left your trembling lips.

A gentle hand cradled the back of your head as he pulls you closer. Letting those bitter tears strain his shirt and burn his skin.

No one, but the audience of a curious star and capricious gods peering down behind their blanket of clouds into this quiet house.

Alhaitham once thought of himself as a good husband. Doing his fair share of chores and paying his half of the bills.

However, seeing your broken figure barely clinging onto his stiff frame, it’s clear that his overconfident assessment was a grave error.

A good husband would’ve been more attentive. A good husband would’ve noticed the tide slowly sweeping you away into the rough sea. A good, loving husband would’ve never let you sink alone in salty tears.

“Then I’ll drown with you.” His other hand grasping onto one of yours, slowly easing it away from his wrinkled shirt with soft caresses.

Only monsters live in the deep cold sea, the only creatures able to survive the saltine waters and the pitch black nothingness. But as long as your fingers wove themselves into the gaps between his, he’ll be warm even as he sits on the sandy bottom of the murky ocean.

Maybe that’s where the two of you belonged, two unromantic and prideful fools sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Hand in hand so that the stupidity contained between the two of you won’t pollute anyone else.

Gradually, those aching hiccups of yours faded into nothing more than muffled whimpers. Allowing silence to creep its way back into the gaps. The cause of this mess in the first place.

He has to remedy this, but what should he say? All those encyclopedias and journals he had thumbed through were all for naught. For Alhaitham’s mind couldn’t recall one fact from those pages.

One hand patting a slow rhythm into your back, trying to buy the man some time.

When logic and reasoning fail to explain the unexplained, folklore takes its place.

“According to legends, people used to have two pairs of hands, two pairs of feet, and two faces pointed in opposite directions.” He began.

“Back then, humans were powerful, powerful enough to threaten the gods who created them. So the gods split them in two. Cursing humans to a cruel search, desperate to be whole again.” His other hand still toying with your fingers.

You peer up at him, head still resting against his chest, feeling the soft beating of his heart. Blinking away the tears, listening to his telling of a myth.

“That’s the origin of a soulmate.” He finishes.

A soft giggle leaves your lips, a mixture of confusion and disbelief from Alhaitham quoting a fairytale.

“And you believe in that?” Amused gaze connecting with brilliant beryl eyes.

“Yes…because I found you.” Alhaitham tenderly brings your hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss against your fingers as a glint catches the sunlight.

With a foreign sensation hugging a finger, your brows furrow. Holding your hand out toward the light again. Blinking eyes finally identify the gem which coyly appeared on your ring finger.

So that’s what he was doing, your tear stained cheeks shifting up as a smile stretches your once stiff lips.

Burying your head in the chest of the most unromantically romantic idiot you’ve ever known, a radiant laugh bubbling in your chest as it resonates off quiet walls.

But as he is, so are you: An unromantically romantic soulmate in love.

~Fin

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