#I’ve almost said it ten times within the past hour

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Currently resisting the urge to blackmail my father into therapy

[vviolynn]

A Difference

a/n - I had a random boost of inspiration and I’ve been wanting to post something for the longest time… so I’m just gonna say that I wrote this small bit within a span of like 2 days but less than an hour each time I came back to it. I hope this gives you guys an idea of what my writing is like, and ty in advance for reading <3 {ps - the fic I'm working on outside of this isn't as detailed as this... i just poured my creativity on this one, especially because it's way shorter.}

word count - 1.1k

• the winter soldier x hydra soldier!fem!reader •

warnings - mentions of killing and assassins, no use of y/n, the winter soldier being the winter soldier, angst?, use of russian words(translation given), no real romance... yet, ends with a cliffhanger of sorts

•••••••••••••••••••••

A soldier, or two? One super, one ordinary. One chose, one forced. One assassin. Two assassins. One woman, one machine. Two lives, paths crossed in a horrifying way. A killer, a killing machine. A life spent, a life taken. One free, one brainwashed. One skilled, one programmed. Two eyes met, two souls connected. One soldier, two soldiers.

She’s a soldier, ordinary, human. She chose her place. She chose Hydra. She grew up with one of their leaders. She chose this life. She chose when she was a young woman. She’s spent your life working for Hydra, willingly. She had the option to leave, yet she remained loyal. Hydra was a home to her. Hydra is a home to a strong willed woman. She spent her childhood and opening of womanhood training for the day she’d live her dream: to fight for her country. She’s skilled. 

And yet… another life is placed into hers. The moment that second life awoke, eyes met, locked. For the first time, she wanted more than to serve Hydra. The eyes she met were the eyes of a programmed soul. He wasn’t free. He was brainwashed. His life wasn’t spent, it was taken. Years of his life, asleep, years of his life, stolen. A killing machine. That’s what he was. He was one made to kill, programmed for murder. It was a thought that could bring shivers down one’s spine. A machine, they say. He belonged to Hydra, and Hydra made him. It felt cruel. He was only the assassin they made him to be, how could there be a human behind that cold gaze? Forced… he was forced, and it was wrong. She could see it, even after your years spent with Hydra, she’s never witnessed such a thing. A super soldier? She would’ve killed to be like him. 

That’s the thing, she would’ve killed to be like him. The problem was, she’s not him. Two soldiers, but there’s still a difference. A manner of choice. He was not given that choice. She could only wonder why. 

•••••••••••••••••••••

Behind the facade, there was always a softness. 

“Good morning soldat,” she greets him with a stern voice, but beneath her tone is a form of gentleness. The Winter Soldier looks down at the woman with this icy blues, and similar to her tone, he too had a gentleness buried underneath his gaze. 

The soldier gives her a short nod as to address her, not speaking. She doesn’t appreciate his lack of words. 

“Apologies, I said… good morning soldat,” the respected woman speaks again, she emphasizes her tone to a slight harsher one. The soldier’s gaze remains the same, unfazed.

“Good morning уважаемый,” the soldier nods again, and refers to her as ‘respected one’. 

She gives him a nod back, seemingly satisfied with his reply. She almost smiles. She never smiles, at least not with other soldiers. Being in Hydra for a little over ten years gives her authority. Having grown up with one of the colonels put her as second in command. She has experience. 

She knows she should treat the soldier like he isn’t human, but he is. In her eyes, he’s a tortured soul. She can see it, she has the ability to see past the glare. Why? because she knows how to spot a difference. 

“Mission report,” she requests as she keeps her hands behind her back. Her head is tilted up in the slightest to keep eye contact. Their eyes lock, two soldiers. 

“Negative,” he replies, and it’s his turn to give her a firmer voice. Her eyebrows furrow with the way that he speaks to her, as well as his response. 

“On who’s orders?” the woman nearly growls. She always knew and was informed of the Winter Soldier’s missions. She usually asked only to report back to the colonel, it’s supposedly just a simple and daily task. It was also one of the only interactions she’d have with the fellow assassin. 

“Твой начальник,” the firm voice remains, it feels like his programming showing it’s hold on him. Her eyes narrow in a small glare at how he says ‘your superior(boss)’. Why would her friend be keeping the soldier’s mission a secret from her? 

Her voice is gone, stripped from her. She would never admit how vulnerable she feels right now. It created a storm within; a rage. The temptation to walk away and destroy everything in her path was strong. She stands her ground, glaring at the soldier in silence. 

The soldier finds her silent response amusing in a way. He continues to look right back at her, his eyes gleaming at the entertainment. 

The second in command knew she couldn’t be mad at the Winter Soldier, it was her ‘superior’, and her supposed childhood friend who was defying her. Acknowledging this allows her to calm down slowly, along with the beauty of the soldier’s eyes, the steel eyes that stuns any enemy he comes across. The soldier is an anchor to her, even though neither of them have acknowledged that yet. 

Her demeanor shifts, right before his eyes. She calms, and her breathing steadies. She’s been trained to keep her emotions in check, especially if she’s a superior to most soldiers in Hydra. Although she’d never admit it, his presence just makes it a whole lot easier. 

“I see,” her words finally form, and her voice comes out as quiet but strong. She wants to leave to go confront her ‘friend’ but there’s something that keeps her feet stuck to the ground. It’s almost like a magnetic pull. Her eyes haven’t left the soldiers for the whole duration of the conversation. Her body hasn’t moved an inch. Her hands haven’t left their hold on themselves behind her back. Besides her facial expressions, she hasn’t physically shifted in any way. 

There are several moments of silence, all that can be heard is their soft breaths, and blinking eyes. The atmosphere remains thick, heavy, and suffocating. Both observe how their breaths match each other’s, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. A safe distance is kept between the two soldiers, but it still feels like there isn’t enough. Either that, or there’s too much. Neither of them can tell which it is. 

They’re two magnets, and destiny is playing with them and their sides. It’s trying to decide whether to pull them apart, or pull them together. Stir hatred and disgust, and create distance? Or make it so once they touch, they can’t remove themselves from each other? An undying question. 

Neither their hearts nor minds could comprehend a choice. To hate or to love? It’s hard for the two soldiers, especially when there’s such a difference.

•••••••••••••••••••••

[kingofbodyrolls]

Coming Home (m) | PJM (teaser)

It has been posted! 💜

| series masterlist | main masterlist | part one →

Okay. So I said that I’ve be writing again (been like ten years 🫣). Now I actually have something finished! 🎉I don’t know what happened! I planned to write like 5K words to get back into writing and then boom 40K+ 😆I like the story, but I’m unsure of the theme, but I want to post it anyway, just to celebrate that I finished something. I’ve split it into two chapters, so it’s a two shot with an epilogue. I’m currently editing it and putting my finishing touches on it, so I wanted to post a teaser for fun. So here’s two different snippets from ‘Coming Home’.

Pairing: Jimin x reader (female)

Genre/AU: Best friends to lovers!au, detective!jimin, slice of life, healing after trauma.

Rating: mature/explicit/R18

Summary

When your best friend, Park Jimin, who you’ve had a crush on since forever, suggests you stay at his house to heal and find yourself again after a series of traumatizing events had haunted you for years, you don’t hesitate to accept. Within those walls, a safe haven is woven, where wounds can heal and memories find release. As he nurtures your shattered spirit, an unexpected intimacy unfurls, leaving the fragile barrier between friendship and deeper emotions in question - can you keep your feelings hidden?

Word count (for whole series): approx. 43,5K

Warnings

Dark themes: mention of past abuse and sexual assault (r*pe), trauma, stalking, fighting, trust issues, insecurities, slightly thriller vibes. Other warnings include: angst, fluff, explicit smut (multiple scenes), kissing, cuddling, unprotected sex (better wrap it but, but if you wanna know, she’s on the pill), penetrative sex, oral sex (f and m receiving), slice of lice, healing after trauma (including therapy sessions), guns and blood (only in the beginning and end, and it’s very minor), BIG feelings, protective Jimin, previous character death (a parent), Jimin being soft and loving, self defense, humor.

Disclaimer about warnings

I know nothing about sexual or physical abuse (I only know psychological because I experienced that, not in a sexual context though). This story is fiction, I do not mean to say that this is how one would go through their emotions or handle this situation. This is a delicate and fragile subject, so proceed with caution. I also know nothing about police work or the work in emergency/hospitals.

Snippet 1

The empty streets seem to stretch endlessly, dim streetlights casting flickering shadows that dance around you. An eerie feeling tightens in your chest - what if he had followed you? Exhaustion gnaws at your limbs as you continue to run, legs turning to jelly beneath you. In the distance, a familiar fence and yard comes into view, you feel a twinge of hope surrounding your heart. You quicken your pace, stumbling forward, almost there. The front door is within reach, and relief wash over you. You slam your body against the door, desperate for refuge. Pain sears through your shoulder, but you hardly notice. Knocking feverishly, you hope someone, anyone, will answer in this dark hour. But the silence that follows only heightens the fear bubbling within you. The wind whispers, carrying with it haunting whispers that seem to echo your own terror.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

His eyes snap open, frustration already creeping into his mind. What in the world is going on outside this time? Those blasted drunk teenagers just never seem to learn, do they? Groaning, he begrudgingly leaves the comfort of his bed, fatigue tugging at every step he takes down the hall to the front door. Should he open it and scold them? Or maybe he should just yell from inside? 

“Go home and sleep it off!” he yells, clenching his jaw with irritation. Just as he turns to retreat to his bed, the knocking grows louder and more insistent. He can’t ignore it any longer, and what’s worse, he hears someone crying amidst the chaos. Mortified by the possibility that someone might be hurt, he gives in and opens the door. But what greets him, he had not expected at all. You.

Snippet 2

His pink plush lips, bitten and swollen, kissing you hungrily. His tongue asks permission to enter your mouth, as he rolls his clothed erection against your core. You feel the arousal building so damn fast, you can’t keep up. You tilt your head back, hitting the wall as you let out a frustrated sigh. The room suddenly feels twice as hot as it did before and you are desperate to cool down. In a hurried motion, you lift your hips and pull down both your leggings and pink lace panties. Finally feeling like the temperature is bearable, you open your legs with your pussy on full display. Hissing and panting, your right hand crawls down between your thighs and when you eventually reach your clit, you moan deliriously.

[enchanting-eloquence]

Grounded part 3 (Jake Seresin)

Part One | Part Two | Part Four | Part Five

Summary: After an injury leaves pilot reader (callsign Ariel) grounded, you have to travel cross-country with your nemesis Jake Hangman Seresin. But then a week alone can teach you a lot about a person – and maybe even change the way you look at them completely.

5.3k words

Author notes: Thank you so much for reading and for all of your lovely comments and reblogs – they are all so gratefully received! I know nothing about the US Navy so please suspend belief for anything related to that. Also please note that this is where the story gets smutty – minors do not engage and I promise to do you a summary in the notes of the next part you can read! There's one more (maybe plus an epilogue) part on its way, which will be with you ASAP.

Warnings: Angst – knee injury, grumpy Jake and tw for shitty parents parents, drinking, smut – p in v, and lots of foreplay – f receiving.

Taglist: @gingerbreadandpaper, @shanimallina87, @dempy, @desert-fern, @rosiahills22. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone!

Grounded Part Three

When you headed downstairs the next morning, having woken late to an empty bed, Jake greeted you with a kiss on the cheek; chaste enough that it could have been simply friendly but tender enough to cause his mother to beam from the other side of the room.

Over a breakfast of homemade pancakes, the four of you discussed the day ahead with Admiral Seresin cutting in frequently to suggest changes to Jake’s planned route while his son became increasingly frustrated.

You tried to interject, stepping in multiple times to note the time, or suggest to Jake that maybe the two of you should think about leaving, but each time his father simply waved you away and continued to explain - in great detail - why his suggestion would be so much better than his son’s. You finally got the words out some time after 9, by which time breakfast was gone, and both your departure time and Jake’s temper had long fallen by the wayside.

As Jake packed up the car you said goodbye to his parents. His mom enveloped you in a warm hug and instructed you to come back as soon as possible, while his dad kissed your cheek, patting you firmly on the shoulder as he asked you to tell his son everything you’d learned about flying.

“After all Ariel,” he commented. “It sounds as though there’s a lot he could learn from you.”

You headed to the car while Jake said his goodbyes, and even with the door closed to block out the noise, saw the moment his shoulders tensed in response to his father’s words.

With a final quick kiss for his mother, Jake stalked towards the car and climbed into the driver’s side, slamming the door and starting the engine without a word.

You thought about speaking, about coaxing him into conversation. But if you’d learned anything in the past 12 hours it was that Jake Seresin had damned good reason to be pissed at his father, and in your experience the best way to deal with anger was often quiet. So quiet you stayed, speaking only to offer snacks as you drove through the Eastern part of Texas.

Four hours in though you were hungry, sore and bored of the tight atmosphere inside the car. “Jake can we make a rest stop soon please?”

“What’s up,” he asked, “my driving not good enough for my dad’s new favourite pilot?”

Resisting the urge to roll your eyes and petition heaven for strength, you put a gentle hand on his thigh, almost flinching when you felt tension like a suit of armour beneath your fingers.

“We both know he only said those things to make you mad, he doesn’t know me. And turns out he doesn’t know you - or your flying - at all. But no, your driving is great. My bladder though? Not so good.”

He glanced to you and then back to the road with a nod short enough to make you retract your hand, and within ten minutes you were pulling into a truck stop

“Jake Seresin, that is the saddest haul of road trip snacks I’ve ever seen,” you declared, shuffling yourself back into the car with an armful of treats, while Jake climbed in opposite with water, beef jerky and a few pieces of fruit.

“Body’s a temple Ariel.” He replied as he began the engine again, and you sighed at the return of your call sign.

“I’ve been thinking, why don’t we stop somewhere different tonight?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly ready to argue but you held up your hands in defence. “Not a criticism! It’s just that we’ll be passing right by New Orleans, and I’ve never been. I’d really love to see it, maybe blow off some steam?”

His eyes fixed on yours, jaw working as he apparently tried to decide if this really was a slight on his route planning, and though his face was remained a picture of tension, eventually he nodded. “Why don’t you book somewhere?”

The Big Easy was hot, and as Jake checked into the beautiful Creole building that would serve as your hotel, you found yourself wowed by both the temperature and the buzz of a city you’d long planned to visit. When he found you again you were holding a host of flyers for different museums, tours and more.

“Ariel, we’re not here to be tourists.”

“I know, I know. But next time when I come back, I’ll be ready. You’re all about being prepared right?”

You shot him what you thought was a winning smile, but Jake only turned and walked towards the elevators, bags on his shoulders.

You’d booked a suite, partly because it was a damned good deal that you couldn’t resist, and partly so that eyebrows weren’t raised when someone in accounts realised you and Jake were sharing a room. So when you reached the living area that joined your two bedrooms, you allowed yourself a moment of wide-eyed wonder at just how much space there was while he carried your bag to the room on the right.

“If you want to get dinner, you should probably quit gawking and get ready,” he commented, stalking back to his own room. And while you submitted to the request, you allowed yourself a moment to poke your tongue out behind his back first.

You hadn’t exactly packed for a night on the town, but there were two sundresses and pair of sandals that could be dressed up, and when you emerged from the room forty minutes later you felt good. A feeling that increased when Jake, sitting on the sofa scrolling on his phone glanced up, only to do a wide-eyed double take.

The reaction was swallowed away though as he got to his feet. “You ready to go?”

You nodded, longing to reach out and touch his arm - even more tanned than usual against the white of his collared T-shirt, the scruff that seemed to have thickened into a beard without you noticing, or the hair that had long grown out of its standard Navy cut and hung low into those sharp green eyes. Instead, you simply nodded.

“Sure. I booked us into a restaurant on Bourbon Street - I know it’s touristy but,” you shrugged, “I’m a tourist!”

He only nodded quickly and headed towards the door, moving slowly enough that you could keep up on crutches, but too fast to do that in the heat of the outdoor streets – especially while you were distracted by the beautiful old buildings, fascinating looking shops and intriguing tourist attractions.

Your table was in the open-fronted patio of the restaurant, perfect for people-watching, and providing enough distractions to allow Jake to keep the conversation short. But the meal - you ordered jambalaya of course while Jake, ever the Texas boy, ordered steak, refusing to engage when you tried to tease him - was delicious, and the wine you drank with it was good. When dinner was done and the bill paid, he stood to leave and clearly noticed the disappointment on your face.

“You’re not ready to go?”

“I just figured we could stay for another drink or two. It’s my first time in New Orleans.” You fluttered your eyelashes, your two glasses of wine providing just enough of a buzz to make you determined to stay out.

He glanced at his watch and, for the first time, you were aware that Jake was the older of the two of you. But when he looked back to you it was with a nod, “OK. We can stay out, but not here. If you’re having the New Orleans experience, there are other places you need to go.”

As you followed him out of the bar he turned and looked at your sticks. “Can you operate those things after cocktails?”

You shrugged. “Who knows, but I can operate a jet at 10Gs so we’re probably safe.”

He paused, his face becoming serious, “and you’re ok to drink on your meds?”

You rolled your eyes, once again aware of the serious tone in his voice. “Yes dad. Are you?”

A smirk ghosted onto his face for a moment before he nodded, leading you out into the street and through a bar to an outdoor terrace, where the two of you sat in front of an illuminated fountain. When the server came over he ordered for you, insisting that if you were drinking in New Orleans it had to be a hurricane.

As you made your way through first one and then two apiece, conversation slowly returned and you found yourself laughing at stories from the academy, from training exercises each of you had been part of, and of colleagues you both knew. And when you declared it was time to move on, he gently took your hand and helped you to your feet.

Just down the street was a bar decked out to reflect the beach, with loud pop rock music playing from inside. Jake initially carried on walking, turning back to shake his head when he realised you were now three steps behind; but you’d seen plastic glasses topped with the tackiest sharks imaginable, and there was no changing your mind. So when you hobbled in, of course Jake followed, even joining you on the dance floor eventually after he took pity on your shuffled attempts at moving to the beat. Your leg wasn’t up to dancing for long though, so only a couple of songs later Jake was carrying both of your cocktails to a small metal table outside the bar, pulling out one chair with a chivalrous flourish before taking a seat opposite and leaning in to look at you.

“How’s your night out sweets?” He asked, his eyes a little less sharp than usual and his voice smoothed into a deep Texas twang.

You leaned in a bopped a finger on his nose, “Better now you’re talking to me again.”

Jake sighed. “I wasn’t not talking to you Ariel.”

You rolled your eyes. “Call signs again right? OK Hangman, if you insist.” You waved a hand as you sat back and folded your arms across your chest. “Look, I know the fake girlfriend stuff was awkward, but you didn’t have to be mad about it.”

“Ariel,” he paused. “Y/n. I wasn’t mad. This morning wasn’t about you. My parents are a lot and I -.”

“Your mom was great. Even your dad was OK with me.”

“With you, yeah. Because you’re the saviour of their loser son.” His eyes burned into emerald fire but four and a bit drinks in, you couldn’t quite grasp the heaviness of his response and let out a laugh.

“You’re not a loser, don’t be ridiculous.”

Tipping his glass in your direction, Jake grimaced. “Y/n, you pretended to be my fake girlfriend to get them off my back, what does that tell you?”

You threw your head back and groaned, the alcohol in your system removing any possibility of talking this through like adults. “I thought it would help! You’ve been helping me for the past couple of nights so I figured -.”

“Aaah, so this was a pity lie! Great.”

“What? No! It was a friend helping another friend out! Or that’s what I thought?”

“Well I don’t need your help. I’ve been dealing with them for years and I’ll keep dealing with them long after you’ve paid them a visit.” His jaw tight, Jake took a sip of his drink - a gesture that would’ve looked more angry had said drink not come in a bright pink plastic tiki glass. But you were too mad to laugh.

Struggling to your feet, you shook your head. “Of course you will, because God forbid the all-powerful Hangman ever let anyone else help, huh? God forbid he let anyone else in.” Half-finished cocktail discarded in the middle of the table, you adjusted your crutches and began to head off along the cobbles.

“What the fuck Ariel?!”

He caught up to you easily, but you carried on walking until he moved in front of you, blocking your path.

“You know Jake, I thought we could be friends. Maybe even -,” you trailed off. “But you’re exactly what I always thought you were.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

Hopping closer, you lifted one crutch to prod a finger in his chest. “An arrogant, self-righteous asshole who-.”

You’d planned to go on, but before you could breathe Jake’s lips were on yours, hard, hot and swallowing the end of your sentence until you were moaning softly against his mouth and fisting your hand in his shirt so that your crutch dropped to the floor.

Jake pulled back and looked down, extricating himself to collect the metal stick and hand it to you, before scooping you up into his arms.

“What the-?”

His voice was low, almost a whisper. “Listen sweets, I need to get you back to the hotel faster than those crutches will make it. If you don’t want that, say the word and I’ll put you down, but otherwise-.”

Eyes fixed on his, you felt suddenly sober as you nodded your head and shifted to wrap an arm around his neck, tightly clutching your sticks in the other.

He made short work of the journey back, and for your part there was no distraction with the city or its crowds, only the feel of Jake’s strong arms around you, the heat of his skin beneath you, and the shine of his eyes as they darted to and from your while you walked. He carried you though the hotel lobby, neither of you noticing the looks you attracted from everyone around you; and into the elevator only pausing to kiss you again when the doors closed, and you began to move upwards, and barely stopping until he’d reached the door to your suite and you were fumbling in your purse for the key card.

He set you down and took your crutches, throwing them onto the floor as he followed you into the room and backed you against the door, his lips meeting yours again until your knees shook in the best way possible. And as his hands moved to the hem of your skirt, you found yourself whimpering softly against his lips.

Jake pulled back, gazing at you through hazy eyes. “Is this ok?”

“Yes.” You breathed, moving your hands down to the waistband of his shirt as you ducked in to kiss him again.

“Seriously, you’re sure? This isn’t just the cocktails and the-?”

You paused and gazed straight into his eyes, never more sure of anything in your life than you were at that moment.

“It’s you Jake.” Your voice was throatier than you’d expected, hoarse with a lust you couldn’t ever remember feeling. “Not the cocktails, not the nightmares, not the road trip. Just you, I want it all.”

You saw his Adam’s apple bob, and for a moment you thought he was going to stop, so took matters into your own hands, tugging his shirt up and biting back a whimper as he helped you pull it up and over his head.

Christ, was the man carved from marble?

It took everything in you not to lean forward and lick his chest before his lips were back on yours, coaxing your mouth open with his tongue while his hands roamed up your thighs. He didn’t touch your heat - not yet - but only moved himself firmly between your legs and gripped your butt as he lifted you up around his waist with a fierceness matched only by the passion of his mouth, and the frenzied pulse in your neck. One leg wrapped easily around his narrow waist, but when you tried to repeat the gesture on the other side, it brought a sharp pain that had you pulling back with a sharp gasp.

“Jake. Ow, I can’t…” you gestured to your leg and he looked puzzled for only the shortest of seconds before setting you back down.

“Shit. Of course. Sorry. We should stop.”

You shook your head and, eyes fixed firmly on his, reached down and lifted your dress. As you pulled it slowly over your head, exposing yourself to him inch by inch, his eyes widened and cheeks flushed, until you stood in front of him in just your underwear.

“No stopping. Not now. Take me to bed Jake.”

Again he swallowed, and this time when his lips met yours it was with a softness that was somehow even more sexy than his previous frenzy, hands skimming down your arms, your back, even as you placed both hands on the back of his neck and held tight until he lifted you.

Jake laid you down on the bed as though you were the most precious cargo he’d carried and, running a hand over your hair, began to kiss you. The gentle kisses that ran down your neck, through the valley of your chest and over the blue fabric he found there, over your stomach, along the edge of your panties and all the way down one leg with his hands following close behind.

When he moved to your injured leg, Jake held you gently, meeting your eyes as he began to kiss back up to the apex of your thighs, and placing his hands on your hips as he planted a firm, open mouthed kiss on the heat he found there. When he paused you only nodded, and sighed your encouragement as he began to move your underwear down your legs with a slowness that made you moan in frustration.

And when he slid a finger gently through your folds, you hissed out a shaky breath.

“What happened to getting somewhere fast?”

He smiled at you - the broad grin you were so used to now turned up to a whole new level with the heat of lust. “Some things are worth taking their time over Princess.”

And as he slid his fingers inside you until your back arched, you decided maybe he was right.

Jake watched you intently, responding to every movement and sound with actions that sent your pleasure higher and had you wondering if he could somehow read your mind. It was a slow, delicious pleasure that made you dread this ever ending even as you longed for your release, but when the release finally came with a twist of his fingers and the press of his palm, you felt yourself gripping onto Jake’s broad arm as though your life depended on it, falling over the edge of pleasure with a ragged gasp of his name.

Three days ago you might’ve expected that to be it; that the famous Hangman - duty now complete - would have flipped you over and chased his own high. But now you knew differently, different enough that when he hooked his arms under your thighs and buried his head in your core, the squeak that fell from your mouth was one of pleasure rather than surprise.

How was it even possible, you wondered, body still shaking from your first orgasm, that you could feel any better than you had before? But when his tongue began to dance back and forward across your clit with the perfect amount of pressure, you couldn’t hold back on a steady stream of panted curses. One hand on your nipple, Jake slid a thumb inside your cunt, the heel of his hand pressing against your folds.

When you whimpered, he grinned up at you with wet lips.

“You know sweets, if I’d known you’d taste so good, we’d have been doing this a long time ago.”

Before you could question him, his mouth was back on the swollen bundle of nerves, this time gently sucking as he moved to shift and twist.

“Jake,” his name flew out of you like a spell, getting louder and louder as he took you further and further towards another climax. And when his eyes finally met yours for more than a moment, it was them that kept you there, teetering on the edge of the precipice for longer than you thought possible until he finally moved back an inch, and hissed the instruction, “now” before diving forward again to put all of his focus on the flood of pleasure that overtook you.

When he knelt back a second later, licking his lips like a man who’d just eaten his last meal, to find you still shaking from head to toe, he only grinned again.

“Worth taking time over right?” You nodded emphatically despite yourself and gazed up at him through thick lashes. He held your gaze for a moment before looking away to the wet sheets beneath you. “Although we might need to move to the other room to sleep…”

Voice still unsteady as you came down from your high, you tugged firmly at his hair, “You’re ready to sleep already?”

“I don’t know sweets,” looking at you consideringly as he drew close enough to flick a tongue over each of your nipples in turn. “Think you could go again?”

You moved a hand to his belt, fingers not quite able to undo it. “I might need a little recovery time. But I can think of something that would keep me busy.”

A broad grin on his face, Jake practically jumped to his feet and removed his jeans and underwear faster than you’d thought possible, until he finally stood before you completely naked.

Eyes wide, you let out a short laugh, stifling it as he looked at you in horror.

“Damn. I get naked in front of you and the first thing you do is laugh?” Even in your sex-addled state, the hurt in his eyes shot straight to your heart, pulling you up to a sitting position as you reached out a hand to disagree.

“No! God no, it’s just-.” You waved your hand to the long, thick cock in front of you, standing perfectly tall with just the slightest bend. “How is it that even your dick is perfect. Were you made in a fucking lab?”

Immediately the grin was back as he moved a hand to lazily tug on his erection. “Best there is sweets. But if you think it’s too much for you-.”

Swiping your tongue slowly across your lips in a gesture that was only half feigned, you shook your head. “Hell no Hangman, you know I can take you.”

He moved to the other side of the bed. “Good, because I want to be inside you. OK?”

“OK feels like an understatement. But I want to make you feel good too.”

He grinned. “Oh don’t you worry sweets, this will feel good.”

As he rifled in his discarded trousers for a wallet, you ran your hands down your body, every cell pulsing with electricity. “Jake, I’m on the pill and I’m clean. As long as you are too we could-?”

He nodded but didn’t move away from the wallet.

“I want to feel you Jake, every inch of you. Inside me.”

He stood tall again and looked at you, hand outstretched toward him on the bed. You could almost feel something snap within him and wondered for a moment whether he was really committed to safe sex, or if there was something else at play here. Then he was moving towards you, over you, his lips on yours, and all thoughts left your head as he began to murmur in a low voice.

 “You’re gonna have to tell me the best way to do this princess, don’t want to hurt you.”

You nodded, swallowing quickly as a sharp pain in your knee temporarily overtook the pleasure in your core with a gasp. “Maybe you could turn away while I try to find a comfy position. This might not be sexy…”

Glint in his eye, Jake pushed you gently onto your side and moved to lie behind you, his hot, hard body pressed up against yours just as it had been for the past two nights. This time though his hand went between your legs, moving into your wetness.

“We can do this right? It’s comfortable?”

You croaked out an agreement as he positioned himself at your entrance and began to gently rub your clit with his thumb, causing a low moan to spill from your lips.

And when he began to ease himself inside of you, you lost all power of speech and instead found your eyes rolling back in your head as you gripped the bedsheets and moved against him.

“Fuck Princess, so wet for me. And so tight. This ok?”

Reaching back, you grabbed a fistful of his hair and snapped your hips backwards.

He grunted into your ear and shifted his weight until he was slightly further on top of you, pulling almost all the way out of you before thrusting in again just hard enough to make you cry out his name.

“Harder, please.”

Gripping your hip with his spare hand, he dragged a wet kiss up your neck. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

You growled in frustration and twisted your head to look at him as you breathed raggedly. “Jake, I want you to ruin me.”

You felt him twitch inside you as he heaved a big breath and looked back with a head shake.

“Not tonight, we need to be gentle.”

Then he was kissing you, his hips rutting into yours over and over again, and his thrusts at the perfect angle to hit the most sensitive spots within you even as his fingers worked on those outside of your body. You moved with him, but the need to go harder, faster, was gone, replaced by a sense of connection that had you clinging to him in a desperate need to feel more, to touch more, as you moved closer and closer to your third orgasm of the night.

Jake’s breathing became heavier, his movements slower and more deliberate as he pulled away from the kiss and fixed those green eyes on yours, lust overtaking any of their usual guardedness.

“Will you come with me?

Biting your lip, you nodded. “Please.”

It was all the instruction he needed, catching your lips between hips as he began to touch you faster than before, the rapid flicks of his fingers giving the perfect amount of pressure to make your entire body buzz, while he thrust faster into you, deepening as every inch of him group all the way into you.

Your body began to arch. “Now Jake, now.”

He only groaned and thrust harder, closing his eyes tightly as you began to fall apart around him, the pulsing of your pussy enough to drag him over the edge with a cry and fill you with hot spurts of his cum until you were both panting against one another, sweaty and shaking.

After what seemed like hours you moved your head back and gazed at him from under a raised eyebrow. “You still alive down there cowboy?”

He lazily opened one eye. “Think so. You?”

You grinned and nodded, desperate to face him fully but unwilling to lose even a single inch of contact with him.

Jake laughed lowly and pulled you in tighter until you couldn’t look at him, his voice a breath on your ear. “Good.” He paused for a moment, running a hand down your thigh in a gesture that made you shiver.

“That was, uh-.”

“Not something I’ve ever done before.” He murmured quietly.

Immediately you pulled away, so shocked that you only half registered the absence of him from inside you before you turned back to face him. “You’ve never had sex?!”

He laughed as a flush rose in his cheeks. “Of course I have! But that…” he shrugged. “That was…”

You cocked your head, quietly waiting for him to continue.

“Sex is normally fast and hot and…”

“Dirty?” When a slow laugh bubbled out of him you grimaced. “Sorry. I guess always expected sex with you would be hot and fast and dirty - in a good way.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’ve thought about sex with me before?”

Your cheeks flushed. “I- what? No. I mean yes. Well,” again you shrugged, this time refusing to meet his eyes. “The others at the academy talked about you a lot. It was hard not to.”

He smiled, softer this time with eyes that were less focused than you’d ever seen them, and a heat in his cheeks that deepened your own blush.

“What made this time different Jake?”

To his credit, he kept his eyes on you throughout the moment of silence, but when he shrugged and raked a hand through his hair, his eyes were already on the bed. “Guess I didn’t want to hurt your knee. Anyway, we can’t lie here - it’s wet. Good job you booked a suite huh?”

Jake got to his feet and, barely straining, scooped you into his arms carrying you rapidly towards the doorway until you gently swatted his shoulder.

“Whoah! I need a bathroom trip before bed.”

Nodding, he redirected towards your en suite and began to takea step through the door before you put a hand firmly on his chest. “Nuh uh. We might be getting much cosier than expected on this trip, but you are not taking me into the bathroom. Sticks please.”

He didn’t laugh as you’d expected, but only turned to set you down gently next to your crutches before bending to retrieve them. “Damn straight. You need me to wait here?”

You rolled your eyes. “Jake I don’t even need you to hear me in the bathroom! I’m a big girl, I’m pretty sure I can walk to the other room by myself.”

He gave you a quick salute and strolled away, the only thing hotter than the cocky smile on his face was the tight, naked ass that bobbed away from you once he turned.

You took your time in the bathroom, pausing more than once to stare at your reflection and marvel at the fact you’d just had the best sex of your life with Jake fucking Seresin, only to grin like an idiot at the idea of doing that all over again.

When you headed into the other room you found Jake fucking Seresin propped up in the bed, scrolling on his phone as he glanced up.

“I got you water. Do you need anything else?”

You crossed the room and scooted into the bed next to him, leaning over to plant a soft kiss on his rough cheek. “I’m good. Thank you.”

But when you moved in to deepen the kiss, and moved your hand gently down his front, you felt Jake tense and noticed for the first time that he’d pulled on a pair of shorts under the covers.

“Are you ok?”

He nodded, lips pressed tighter together. “Of course. Good. I just, uh, think we should sleep. Early start tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Feeling abashed you nodded. “Of course, ok. Well I -.”

But Jake was already turning off the bedside light and moving down to lie on his back and extend out an arm, awkwardly.

When you climbed on top of it, he tightened his grip, but there was no warmth in his embrace, only a functionality.

And when he murmured “good night y/n,” you wondered, momentarily, what in the hell had happened during your bathroom trip. A question that crossed your mind God knows how many more times in the dark, silent hours that would follow before sleep.

[itneverendshere]

"this love came back to me". - iii

Pairing: Sunghoon!AU x Reader

Summary: sunghoon never stopped loving his best friend's older sister. even when you broke his heart. even when you left. will he finally let you go or will you finally open up your heart to him?

Chapter word count: 1.260k

CHAPTER WARNIGS: Angst! lots of it; heartbreak; unrequited love; childhood friends; heartache; slowburn!!; did I mention angsty af? sorry

iii. flashback to seventeen and letting go.

Sunghoon was almost seventeen when you left for college.

He prepared himself for weeks, constantly reminding himself that it was never goodbye with you and him, only farewell. Knowing you were leaving was bittersweet, he wanted you around, always, but he knew it was part of growing and moving onward into new challenges. He also hated being selfish when it came to you. He missed you so much, and you weren’t even gone yet.

As he grew and matured, Sunghoon concluded that you pulled out the poetic side of him. Words seemed to flow easily when he thought about you. Taunt, safe, secure. Although he knew those feelings were not reciprocated, he hoped that they stayed with him forever. His heart would always beat and long for you, no one could make him feel the way you did. 

Loving someone you can’t have is an art he mastered at a young age.

Lately, you’d been keeping your distance. Or maybe he’d been overthinking every single interaction and conversation over the past few months. That’s what he did best anyway. Sunghoon couldn’t specifically recall the last time he saw you, properly that is. He spotted you a week before, at a party, but you were surrounded by friends, and he felt like an intruder, so he stuck around in the back and left after only an hour. 

You were perfectly aware that he’d always had a little crush on you. You’ve lost count of how many times he told you, especially when you two were younger. But over the past year…you’ve come to the realization that it’s not just a crush. He’s in love with you. It was written and implied in every little thing he did for you, every gift and gaze, the way his cheeks always warmed up around you, showing off his dimple. 

And that’s why you stayed away. It was unfair to him, but it was also for his own good. 

The outside air felt nice, a small blessing from the awful days you had to endure. Packing your entire life in suitcases and old, overused, cardboard boxes was exhausting. Summer mornings were always your favorite. That one felt bittersweet, cool against your tear-stained cheeks. God, you didn’t want to leave. 

He heard your heavy breathing and constant sniffles before he saw you, sitting on your front porch, arms wrapped around your legs, head hidden in your lap. Your sweater was hanging off your shoulder at a weird angle, unwilling to sit straight on your body as always. 

 He hadn’t even expected to see you or to get within ten feet of you before you left the next day. Sunghoon took a few steps forward until he was close enough that you could feel his shadow, the warmth emanating from his body.

You flickered your eyes up to him in confusion, “It’s seven in the morning.”

He didn’t move an inch, you spared him another glance from the corner of your eye, uncrossing your arms, “I know.”

“Well—” you began, lost in the awkwardness of the early morning air. “What are you doing here?”

“Wanted to say goodbye,” he spoke with an uncomfortable rasp to his voice.

“I’m only leaving tomorrow, Hoon,” it was your only reply, as you scuffed your shoes on the wooden stairs.

“I know, but I felt like you’d be here.”

Your chest burned at the fire in his tone, how he sounded so sure of himself. 

 You sighed gently. “How?” 

“I’ve known you my entire life, that usually helps,” Sunghoon softly said this time.

 You couldn't help but smile, even though deep down you worried. You had done nothing but push him away lately, and somehow, he still showed up when you needed him the most. He was right there, standing before you, a worried expression on his face and you found yourself...soothed. You were glad he didn't bring up your teary eyes. 

“Missing me already?” 

It was a terrible attempt to lift the mood, but he was the first to chuckle, although it came out pained, “Yeah.” 

His reply came immediately, way too loud. Way too forced, different from what you were used to. You stood up immediately from your seat, every doubt about leaving slipping away from your mind, shooting him worried brows, “Sunghoon?”

“'M fine,” he spluttered, face pale “Really.”

“You’re not!”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, laughing breathlessly, but you knew that was not his laugh, “There’s just…a lot I need to tell you before you go.”

“Sunghoon,” you called out, approaching him and gently cupping his cheeks with your palms, “All I need you to do, right now, is breathe, okay? You can talk later, I promise.” You reassured him, your own heart seemed ready to jump out as you took in his alarmed state. 

“I’m sorry.”

You scoffed, staring as deep into his dark eyes as you could, “Don’t be an idiot.

“Didn’t―didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You could never bother me Sunghoon,” you said gently, “Never.”

 He grabbed your wrists then, curling his long, rough fingers around them and swiping his thumbs across your knuckles, “It’s not going to be the same without you.”

You pulled him closer to you, softening your grip and expression, “I’m not leaving forever.”

 His head started shaking, “You're already so far away right now.”

“Sunghoon, please.”

His hands moved to your shoulders, as you kept yourself in place. Sunghoon smiled shakily, “I’ve broken my own heart, haven’t I?”

You didn’t want to dwell on the possibilities, to let yourself become more upset than you already were. Your hands fell from his face, his eyes following the trail of your fingers.

“I’m gonna try and give up the fight,” he whispered, “I can’t make you love me, if you don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” you breathed, taking another moment before finding his gaze. His eyes were glossy and wet, and you hated yourself for causing him so much pain, “I’m so sorry, Hoon.”

Panic struck your entire being as you saw the pool forming in his waterline, “’S not your fault, pretty girl.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, as you focused in on him. Sunghoon meant the world to you, you knew that. But...being in love with him? That was so far off from what you had planned for your life, you were so different. You were about to embark on a new path, a new adventure in your life, miles away from him and he was just a kid, barely turned man trying to grasp is own future. 

The tips of his fingers skimmed the skin of your arms, goosebumps appearing in their wake. Tears filled your eyes, creating an ache felt although your mind, “I didn’t―I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I pushed you away.”

Sunghoon pressed his forehead to your temple, “You did it for my own good, I’m not stupid.” A tear met the high point of your cheek, “It’s okay.”

You thought the day after, leaving your family behind would be painful, but that morning? It was one of the most devastating moments in your life. Finally, grasping how much you’d been hurting the one person who would run to hell and back for you? You didn’t deserve him.

His hand ran across your back, lips lingering on your forehead, “It's okay.”

You clenched your fist, gripping his shirt, distracting yourself from the tears that kept welling in your eyes, “I hope you find the right one Hoon, I really do."

“I’m always going to hope it’s you and me in the end.” 

______________________________________________________________

part i:

part ii:

[endlessbittersweetdreams]

"Broken & Beautiful" Chapter 24

WARNING: The first section of this chapter includes an intimate moment between Jake and Lilah. It's not graphic, per se. But don't read it if you're not old enough.

    It’s the night before Jake and Simone leave for France. It would be a great understatement to say that I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. It goes beyond the fact that I’ll miss Jake. I can’t help the feeling of dread that has built up within me when I think about what could happen. I wouldn’t put it past Simone to try to draw Jake further into her drama with Etienne. I’ve seen her do that before, and I’ve also witnessed what it does to Jake.

     I still remember sitting by his side when he told me about all those nights, years ago, when Simone would call him to complain about Etienne’s family; how she would talk about how desperate she was to come home. It killed him to even think that she would even consider getting back together with Etienne. But what hurt him worse was the fact that she not only denied ever making those phone calls, but that she had said something that made him feel like he meant nothing to her; like he was a burden who was preventing her from having “a real life.” Simone’s careless words crushed Jake’s spirit that night.

     Still, he seems to be looking forward to going to France. He says that he was there once before, back when Simone and Etienne got married. But back then, he didn’t venture beyond Etienne’s family estate. He has talked nonstop about all of the pictures he’s going to take and the places he’s going to see, assuring me that he’s going to stay true to his promise to enjoy himself. The only thing I can do is trust that he’ll do his best.

     I walk up the sixteen steps that lead to his apartment, announcing myself before I step inside. “Hey. I brought that backpack,” I tell him.

     Jake, who is in the middle of packing, turns to face me. “Thanks. Just leave it on the couch.”

     I do as I’m told, setting my purse down next to it, and walk over to the end of his bed. “How’s the packing going?” I ask, sitting down on the side close to the window.

     He stuffs some more clothing into his extra-large duffel bag. “Great. I’m almost finished. Just need to pack my carry-on, and I should be set.”

     “You have your passport?”

     He reaches over to the side table and holds it up. “Right here with my ticket. Just wish the picture didn’t make me look like a serial killer.”

     “What? Let me see.” Jake hands the passport to me and I open it up, laughing when I see his photo. “Well, it would help if you’d smile.”

     “I hate having my picture taken,” he complains, adding more items to his bag. “I belong behind the camera, not in front of it.”

     “Whatever you say.” I hand the passport back to Jake, who puts it in the side pocket of the backpack. “So, what time is your flight?”

     “Ten a.m. Simone wants us to be there at least two hours early. Means I’ll practically be comatose tomorrow.” He finishes packing the duffel and sets it down on the sofa, moving on to the backpack. As he packs the items he’ll need for the flight, he says “You’re going to see me off. Right?”

     “Of course.” As I get up from the bed, I swallow the lump in my throat that forms. “I’d better get going.”

     Jake finishes packing his carry-on in a hurry, setting it down by the sofa. “Where do you think you’re going?” He reaches out to grab me, arms encircling my waist.

     I let out a yelp when I suddenly end up on the bed, laughing a little as he crawls on top of me. “Jake, you need some sleep.”

     “I’ll sleep on the plane,” he says, pushing my shirt up so he can have access to my stomach. I can feel his breath on me as he says “I’ll be gone for two weeks, and I want a proper send-off,” just before he kisses his way across the skin just above the waistband of my jeans.

     Stretched out across the width of his bed, I lose the will to argue with him. He unbuttons my jeans and slides the zipper down, and I work on toeing off my shoes and socks. I raise my hips and watch as he ever-so-slowly tugs the jeans down my legs, tossing them to the side. He kisses his way up one leg while stroking the other one with the palm of his hand. My anticipation grows as he hooks his fingers underneath the hem of my panties, slowly sliding them down as he leaves a trail of kisses around the one area where I need him the most.

     “Jake, don’t tease,” I plead, and I can hear him let out a soft laugh.

     He kisses my inner thigh, and then has the gall to ask me “What do you want?”

     I squirm a little when he continues to tease me, and I breathe out “You. Please.”

     Jake plants one more kiss on my thigh, and I swear I can feel him smiling against my skin. He moves his way back up my body, propping himself up on his hands so I can unbuckle his belt and undo his jeans. It doesn’t take long for our clothing to come off, and I soon find myself being drawn onto his lap. When we become one, I tilt my head back and Jake lets out a quiet sigh into my ear. We move slowly, taking our time and savoring the moment. His arms are wrapped around me, and I can feel his hot breath against my skin as he lets out a series of gasps and sighs. I can feel the wave of pleasure grow higher and higher, my breathing speeding up. Knowing that I’m close, Jake maneuvers us so that I’m now on my back with him over me.

     We don’t last much longer after this, and I cling to him for dear life and call out his name as the pleasure wave finally crashes and breaks over me. A few seconds later he finds his own release, groaning into my shoulder before he stills. He takes a few moments to recover, his head resting on my chest while I run my fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. He eventually rolls off of me, but he doesn’t move very far. After pulling the covers over us, he opts to lay down on his side with an arm draped across my stomach and his head resting on my shoulder.

     The room falls silent for a few moments, and I’m starting to wonder if Jake has already fallen asleep. But then I feel him move a little, as though he’s snuggling up against me, and I hear him quietly admit “I’ll miss you.”

     I try to push down the fear that’s creeping up on me. This time, it’s not the fear of Jake becoming wrapped up in Simone’s drama. Rather, it’s the fear of him not coming back. I let out a sigh and say to him, more for my own benefit than his, “It’s only for two weeks, and you’ll be back before we know it.” I reach out and take hold of his hand, rubbing the back of it with my thumb. “You’ll see.”

     I don’t know how it happens, but Jake is actually up and about before the alarm goes off. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d be up this early. But sure enough, he’s here to shut off the alarm and present me with a mug of freshly brewed coffee as soon as I sit up.

     I take a sip and then set the mug down on the side table, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re already up,” I comment, taking note of the fact that his hair is damp and he’s already slipped into a pair of jeans.

     He sits down on the bed next to me. “Couldn’t sleep anymore. Figured I might as well get a head start. I haven’t been up that long. Only an hour.” He leans down to kiss me, and he tastes like coffee and mint. “I was going to fix some breakfast. Hungry?”

     “Yeah. A little.”

     He gets off of the bed and I shove the covers aside, pulling on my cami top and panties. It’s comfortably warm in the apartment, and so I don’t feel the need to put on more layers. I wander into the kitchen and sneak up on Jake, wrapping my arms around him as he toasts the first of two bagels.

     “When is the car supposed to arrive?”

     “Sometime around 7:00. You know how traffic can be.” He faces me, leaning against the counter. “I wish you could come with us,” he comments, reaching out to tuck some hair behind my ear.

     “Me, too. But there’s no way I could afford it. Maybe one day, though. Just the two of us. France is definitely on my list of places to see before I die. If we’re smart, and if we build up our savings ...”

     The bagel pops up from the toaster, but neither one of us seems to care at the moment. Jake reaches out and strokes my bare arms with the palms of his hands. “You’ve thought about that? The two of us traveling, I mean.”

     Shrugging, I answer “Yeah. Sometimes.”

     I look up at him, finding that his expression is unreadable. Uh-oh. Maybe I’ve said too much. It’s one thing for him to make an offhand comment about how he wishes I could join him and Simone. But it’s another for me to talk about just the two of us traveling. Me and my big mouth.

     “And now, I’ve freaked you out. Haven’t I?” I scrunch up my nose. “I’m sorry. That was just me saying random stuff. You know how I get when I first wake up.”

     He laughs softly. “Calm down. I’m not freaked out.”

     “You’re not?” I ask, furrowing my brows at him. “ ‘Cause I know you don’t like to think about the distant future.”

     He wraps his arms around my waist and looks down at me, smiling sweetly. “Well, we’ve been together for almost six months. I figure that since we haven’t tried to kill each other yet ... maybe the idea of traveling with you isn’t so scary.”

     I lean back to look at Jake. “Seriously?”

     “Yeah. Maybe one day, we could go somewhere. Just the two of us. Probably not France. But definitely outside the city.”

     I’m still in shock. I never thought I’d see the day when Jake would be open to discussing the future. Well, beyond what we’re having for dinner or where we’re going to spend the night. But here he is, standing in front of me, talking about us traveling beyond the city limits one day. It’s wonderful, but it’s baffling all the same.

     “Hey. You all right? You’ve got that ‘deer caught in headlights’ look again,” he teases.

     “Yeah. I’m fine. Just surprised.” I give him a smile. “Pleasantly surprised.”

     “Well, like you say ... I’m full of surprises.” He leans down to kiss the tip of my nose before he preps the first bagel and starts the second one.

     We eat breakfast in comfortable silence. After taking care of the dishes, I grab some clothes from the overnight bag that I’ve left here and take a quick shower. Jake receives a text message from Simone, nagging at him to be at the airport by 8:00 a.m. sharp. A few minutes after 7:00, he receives a message informing him that the driver has arrived. We grab our things, shut off the lights, and make sure the door is locked before we race down the stairs to the cab.

     While the driver puts the luggage in the trunk, I thread my arm through Jake’s and snuggle up against him in the back of the cab. While I’m still not looking forward to him being gone for two weeks, the feeling of dread has lessened a bit. Now that I know he’s actually started to think beyond the short-term future, I realize how silly I was last night. He loves me, and there’s no reason for me to be worried that he won’t choose to return to me.

     Jake and I nod off sometime during the ride to the airport, waking up when the driver loudly announces that we’ve arrived. It’s been a while since I’ve been in an airport, but I’ve never forgotten just how chaotic things can be. Jake and I work our way through the massive crowd, and I’m actually relieved when we finally find Simone waiting for us.

     She breathes out a sigh when she sees Jake. “There you are.” Looking down at her watch, she comments “Five minutes to spare.”

     “Relax, Simone. We still have two hours.”

     “And I see you’ve brought Lilah.”

     I try to ignore the obvious hint of disappointment in her voice, giving her a smile and a wave. “Morning.”

     “I’m so glad you came here to see us off,” Simone continues, and I give her a nod. One good thing about this trip: I won’t have to see Simone for two whole weeks. She reaches out to touch Jake’s arm. “Jake, love.” I cringe when she calls him this. There‘s just something about the way she says it that makes my skin crawl. “Why don’t you go check your luggage? I’ll keep Lilah company.”

     Oh, goody! Alone time with Simone. Yippee.

     Jake looks at me and I give him a nod, watching as he pushes his way through the crowd. Simone and I sit across from each other in uncomfortable chairs, and an awkward silence falls between us. It’s no secret that I’m not fond of Simone, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about me. But, at least for now, neither one of us is interested in battling one another.

     It’s Simone who breaks the silence, and her tone sounds as condescending as always. “So, I heard you made Jake’s birthday dinner quite a memorable one. You remembered he loves oysters.”

     I nod. “I did.” Wanting to lighten the mood, if only for my sake, I joke “Though I don’t know why. That was the first and last time I’ll ever try them.”

     “Yes. They are an acquired taste.”

     “It’s not the taste so much as the texture,” I comment. “But I was happy to do it for Jake.”

     “I remember what that was like.” She looks up at me, noticing my head tilt. “Being in love like that.”

     “It must be hard. Going to see your ex, I mean.”

     She nods, looking down at her hands. “It is. I’m not looking forward to it. But we’ve both decided that I have the right to some of the profits from our champagne.”

     “Hence the trip to France.”

     “Yes. That, and I really do love that country.”

     “Jake says it’s beautiful.”

     “It is,” she agrees. She looks at me, straightening up a bit more. “I know you’re worried, Lilah. About him coming with me.” I shift a little in my seat, looking around for Jake. Just how much did he tell her? “Don’t be. I assure you that I will keep an eye on him and make sure he stays out of trouble. He will have fun, but ...” She gives me a pointed look. “... not too much fun.”

     “I appreciate your offer, Simone. But I trust him.” It’s you I don’t trust, I think to myself.

     “Still, I’ll be looking out for the both of you. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

     I want to offer a retort, and I can feel my blood start to simmer. Instead, I bite my tongue and choose to remain civil. I only have to put up with her for a little less than two hours, and I’ll have Jake with me during a majority of that time. Besides, I don’t want to be hauled away by airport security because of a cat fight.

     Time seems to crawl by until it’s time for Jake and Simone to board the plane with the other passengers. Simone has the gall to give me a hug, which I return reluctantly. I wish her a safe flight and she steps back, giving me some time alone with Jake. I can already feel the sting of tears in my eyes, and I let out an embarrassed laugh as I joke “Oh, great. Here come the waterworks.”

     He leans down, and we press our foreheads together to convey our solidarity. “Remember: I’ll be back in two weeks.”

     I sniffle, whispering to him “I love you.”

     Cupping my face in his hands, he draws me in for a kiss. Stroking my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, he softly says “I love you back.”

     My fingers clutch his leather jacket as we share another, longer kiss. We only end it when we hear Simone clear her throat a few times, keeping our foreheads pressed together as Jake says “Fuck off, Simone.”

     I laugh a little, giving Jake a peck on the lips before we part reluctantly. I watch him walk away with Simone, giving him a little wave when he turns to look at me for a moment. He eventually disappears from my line of sight, and I stick around long enough to watch the plane take off before I let out a weary sigh and take a cab back to Jake’s apartment. There are a few things to take care of before I head home. But right now, all I want to do is curl up in his bed and forget about the fact that he’s on his way to a foreign country with Simone.

@anastacia-lynn

@mypsychoticlove

[thefamilybruno]

Once Upon a Dream - Chapter 7

Hey everyone. Chapter 7 of Once Upon a Dream has been posted on AO3.

Summary:

When Gaston begins to accompany his father, one of the royal gamekeepers, on his trips to the castle, he and the young prince strike up a friendship. Soon enough, the two become inseparable, but after the Enchantress casts her spell, transforming Adam into a hideous beast, Gaston loses all memory of their friendship.

Ten years later, Gaston stumbles upon the castle. Despite a violent reunion, the two strike up a friendship, unable to fight the undeniable connection between them. Gaston enlists Beast's help to woo the new woman in town - a beautiful bookworm named Belle. But the more time Gaston and Beast spend together, the closer they become. Terrified by his growing feelings, Gaston makes an impulsive decision that changes everything.

Click below for a little teaser from this chapter :)

As the three ate dinner together, Gaston tried his best to be mindful not to monopolize the conversation, which was something both Beast and Belle had scolded him for many times in the past, but was finding it hard not to compulsively jump in with his own story or point of view, especially when it was obvious that Beast and Belle had so much they could talk about. Within minutes of sitting down to eat, they had become engrossed in a conversation about Shakespeare, talking as though they were old friends, and soon enough, they were talking about everything under the sun - their childhoods, plays they had read, their favorite spots in the woods. It was a little unnerving. She didn’t seem fazed by Beast’s appearance at all. It was almost like they were made for each other. How could two people, one of whom wasn’t even a person, who had never even met, get along so famously before they had even finished a meal together? 

Gaston shifted in his seat. Throughout the rest of their meal, whenever Gaston found himself growing uncomfortable, he took a sip of wine. Before he knew it, he had blown through three glasses. He had not anticipated how difficult it would be to try to stay in the background while he watched the potential romantic relationship between his friends unfold. As he refilled his glass for the fourth time, he reminded himself that Beast was running out of time. It was a good thing that they were getting along so well, even if he did feel left out. 

When the dessert plates came out and Belle finally turned to ask Gaston a question, he was exuberant to be able to answer. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask, but why do you both have bandages on your palms?”

“We’re blood brothers,” Gaston said proudly. 

“What does that mean?”

Gaston explained it to her and she nodded along, slightly amused that two grown men would participate in such a thing. 

“I’m setting up my best friend with my blood brother. Isn’t that something?”

Beast raised an eyebrow. “It was very nice of you to introduce us.”

“The thought of you two together, it makes me so…happy,” Gaston mused. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

Beast stood from his chair and approached Gaston. “I need to talk with you for a minute. In the kitchen.” Beast gave Belle his best non-threatening, though obviously forced, grin. “Excuse us.”

Beast shoved Gaston into the kitchen and closed the door. 

“What are you doing?” Beast scolded. “You’re putting too much pressure on us!”

“I am?”

“It’s like a fairy tale,” Beast said, purposefully doing an atrocious imitation of his friend. “What was that about?”

“What? I’m being encouraging!”

“It can’t feel forced.”

“It won’t! Look, she obviously likes you.”

“It’s only been an hour!”

“Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?”

“First sight? Have you lost your head? Look at me!”

[severinwoolf]

would you mind telling us about the girl you like 👁️👁️I need more homoeroticism on my dashboard

I mean…which girl, anon? There are several.

I could tell you about my former professor who I was in love with for years. The way her black hair reached her waist. How her perfume always smelled like expensive citrus and wood. The one time she hugged me and I thought I was going to combust on the spot.

Or I could tell you about my dear friend of ten years. She’s twenty years older than me, not really a girl at all, married to a man I despise. And I love her more than almost anything, but it’s the deepest most passionate platonic kind of love I’ve ever known. One time I held her face in the rain and told her “You are exactly who I thought you were when I was thirteen years old.” She’s always been magic to me, like a brilliant alien who dropped out of the sky and knew exactly who I was before we even really knew each other because I was more unfinished archetype than human girl. I still get butterflies whenever I’m around her. I travel hours by train and then by boat to see her. And I hug her son as if he’s my nephew. She gave me a necklace for our tenth friendship anniversary, three silver daffodils on a stem with gold stamens. She said “Happy Anniversary, darling.” And every wretched bad thing in the past decade felt worth it to have her in my life. It’s hard to put how much she means to me into words. I don’t ~like~ her exactly. I love her, but she’s my friend before she’s anything else. It’s hard to explain.

Or I could tell you about a friend of mine, one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. When I see her she makes my whole day brighter. One time a mutual frenemy tried to set her up with some guy and I thought I was going to die that evening. I was miserable and I drank too much but everything was worth it in the end because she wasn’t interested in him. And I felt horrible for it. I can never tell her how I feel. Can barely even talk about it here. But without her my life would be lonelier for certain.

I could tell you about this girl I had the slightest crush on. We met at a party. She played guitar and I sang Rhiannon. She wears glasses and ironic tee-shirts and now she’s engaged to a really shitty girl. I barely got time to know her before she got engaged (it was…within a month. Lots of drama in my life right now, I have to say.)

I have other stories, of course. Actual relationships and things like that. But this is the current state of affairs. Hope I’ve added some homoeroticism to the dash, anon! God knows we need more of it out here ;)

[unrequited-words]

January 7/8 2023

Work was pretty slow for the most part. I made a good day of sales. I opted out of approved overtime because I was tired and slept like shit. Baby didn’t nap and after work I asked her if she wanted to go on a walk and she said no. She was too immersed in Sesame Street. I didn’t go on a walk by myself because for the past several days I’ve been waiting on this cyst to finally burst on my left side. I’ve been using the heating pad anytime I get a chance because the mattress we have is a pile of shit. She has been a fucking nightmare. Defiant, and just a shithead overall. I love my kid no doubt about it but this is me venting on how fucking aggravating she is. We put her to bed after a warm bath about 830 and within ten minutes she is out. I think I fell asleep around nine or ten.

About five I woke up and went back to sleep. Around eight she woke up and I got up and gave her a drink and put on paw patrol. I laid back down and finally around nine this morning (Sunday, 1/8) I got up with her while her dad slept (lucky bastard) I had half a bacon sandwich for breakfast. I moved my phone, water bottle and took my PV with me to the other room. Not sure when he woke up. I went to get her a snack this morning and realized the bananas are going bad and I made banana bread.

Not sure when I took a nap but in that time she sprayed her juice all over the carpet. We rent and that was fun to clean. Zod shampooed the entire house that’s carpeted and we disciplined her. I shredded the chicken he made last night from the crockpot and he seasoned it. I have some to her and had a sandwich. Afterwards I napped for a whole 20 minutes!111 😤

That’s when she became a fucking terrorist and he had to shampoo the house because of this little shithead 😑 the banana bread gave me some awesome heartburn I made some ramen for dinner and of course she painted the walls with it. I’m so fucking over this fucking destructive behavior. No matter what we do she honestly doesn’t give a f flying fuck and no fuck gentle parenting

She’s been given water with tiny ice cubes to drink. No more juices or punch.

I have had the worst fucking migraine. I chalk it up to stress, my back, my cysts, and this wonderful migraine. I took some medication for it with a cold beer and a hot bath which helped. After the bath, it came back with a vengeance. It’s 8:30 pm and I can’t wait for bedtime in the next hour.

This beer is helping me forget about getting older. I looked all afternoon to find a therapist that takes my insurance and I am just so fucking mad. They don’t work on my days off and they’re all men who don’t specialize in PPD/anxiety/and women’s issues. This fucking sucks. I need just an hour or two to myself and if I could just escape for a few hours alone I’d call that a fucking vacation.

Tomorrow (1/9/23 Monday) more than likely I’ll work overtime. We need it and it’s a nice cushion. This week it’s an extra ten on top of what I make and bonus. I’m just tired of working overtime even on my days off. It could be worse, I could be still living with his brother and bitch of a sister in law where she’d watch us in the kitchen. Glad we have had our freedom back for almost three years.

Ignore this post. I’m just a bitter ole’ bitch

[abba-yaga]

I mentioned posting old p101 snippets so here you guys go (these are both for the Moo Manchu Tower quest)

Pre-tower part 1:

“Y’know, with what’s been going on, I can’t help but worry a little,” said Marie, ruminating over her mug. She, Thatch, and Quinn were killing time in one of the taverns in Flotsam, having been discussing matters over breakfast and a few drinks most of the morning.

  “The disappearances, you mean?” asked Quinn.

  “Mhm.” Marie gave a wordless noise of affirmation, looking distant.

  Following her line of sight, it wasn’t hard to see why Marie’s mood was so subdued that morning; several posters were pinned on the wall, featuring various pirates that had apparently gone missing. Not that that in itself was unusual in the cutthroat world of piracy if you’d pissed someone off (and it wasn’t hard to, really), but according to the rumors these people had practically vanished with little trace or time between them. Word of something like that spread fast. The posters were fairly new, too, having cropped up within the past couple of weeks.

  “Jeez. There’s five of those pinned up now,” said Thatch. He wasn’t the only one who shared the group’s sentiment; if the general mood wasn’t enough to tell, almost every patron in the Black Spot had given the board at least one passing glance that morning.

  Marie grumbled unhappily. “I just want to know who’s the one doing it. Usually there’s some idea, but…” Marie trailed off. 

  “A little hard to figure out anything if there aren’t even any signs of a fight left to go off of,” said Thatch.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Quinn could see what they were talking about: there was no obvious culprit. The Cutthroat Sharks and Wharf Rats played dirty, but they weren’t that subtle. Avery already said he had no idea, and had no hand in it. Not that that was ever his thing anyway. The Frogfather… well, none of them had owed him favors anyone knew of. He might have been ruthless, but he still played by the rules.

  Marie kept stealing glances at one poster in particular: Faye Jennings. Quinn recognized the name; even if he’d never had the privilege of meeting personally, she’d been captain of a ship that ran between Marleybone and Skull island, much like they did.

  A successful and well-respected pirate captain, disappearing without a trace? That one was the one that got everyone’s attention.

  “You know, I actually met Jennings a couple of times in Port Regal,” said Marie. “Nice lass. I really do hope she’s alright.”

  Oh. Quinn and Thatch shared a look. No wonder Marie was so down.

  “I’m sure she will be,” said Quinn, but all of them could hear how hollow those words were. There were no such guarantees in the world of piracy. Marie smiled darkly, appreciating the effort made by her captain. 

  “If all you’re going to do is take up a table and be moody, I ask you kindly take it somewhere else,” a new voice interrupted. In that moment, the tavern’s owner came by, taking their empty plates and adding them to the stack he was carrying with ease. One-eyed Jack huffed a little. “Sheesh, it’s not even ten and I’ve half a mind to close for the day. Have you noticed how depressing the place is?”

  They all laughed a little at that, lifting the mood a little. He wasn’t wrong. The place was still crowded and loud, but any regular could tell it wasn’t nearly as raucous as it usually was at this hour.

  “What do you think of it?” Quinn asked Jack.

  “Of what’s been going on? Hard to say,” said Jack. “I mean, yeah, it sounds bad. But there’s not much I can do about it, can I? No point in getting worked up over it.”

  “Even if it could happen to anyone?” Quinn replied. “Including you?”

  “Ah…” Jack paused, considering his answer. “I suppose that’s fair. My point still stands, though. I feel bad for them, but getting paranoid about it won’t do me much good.” He looked around. “Then again, all I do is run a tavern and trade a few favors on the side.”

  “A few, he says,” Thatch scoffed.

  Jack rolled his single visible eye. “You want my advice? Keep your nose clean and your eyes peeled. Whatever’s been going on, I hardly think we’ve seen the last of it.” With that, Jack scurried off to manage the rest of the tavern, leaving them alone.

    Pre-tower part 2:

  “You want me to get you to Marleybone?” Quinn asked skeptically.

Kaitlyn nodded in response. “Please? We really, really need to get to Marleybone, but we don’t have a windstone.”

The two of them stood in the docks at Hamamitsu, discussing the favor Kaitlyn was asking of him and his crew. The crew of the Viridian had made themselves very well at home in Hamamitsu, visiting often on trips between Skull Island and Marleybone. They had been hanging out there that day when the Fife came sailing in, looking for them.

“I don’t think a windstone is your biggest problem,” said Quinn. “You need papers to pass the blockade. There’s a huge war going on, you know.”

Kaitlyn chuckled nervously. Too nervously. Quinn’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Ahahaha… yeah…” she trailed off. “A-anyway! So… do you think you could get us some travel papers, at least? To pass the blockade?”

Quinn shook his head. “Absolutely not. It was hard enough getting some for us.”

Quinn recalled the deal he made with the Marleybonean ambassador residing in Hamamitsu. The lady and her coworkers were so desperate for home comforts, and with all supplies going to war efforts, she was willing to strike a bargain: personally issuing papers for the Viridian in exchange for getting them a few crates of Moolong and Earl Greyhound tea.

Quinn highly doubted she would allow it a second time.

“Crap… how are we going to get through then?” Kaitlyn lamented.

He hummed in thought. “Maybe we could smuggle you guys in?”

“We’d have to leave our ship behind if you did that, though.”

“Actually… you wouldn’t. We have a ship bottle,” said Quinn. 

“What? No way!” said Kaitlyn.

Quinn wasn’t at all surprised by the reaction; ship bottles were expensive, and a luxury to boot. They were the kind of thing made for people wealthy enough to afford more than one ship. Being so valuable, most people in Skull Island saw them to be worth more in monetary value than usefulness; after all, what was the point of carrying a ship when you could travel in it instead and be a hefty sum richer for it?

Quinn shrugged. “Lucky find, I suppose. We thought about selling it, but it comes in handy in our line of work, so we decided to keep it,” he explained. “But I’ll only let you use it for the trip. As soon as we find a safe shore to land, you unbottle it and sail off to do... whatever it is you have to do,” he said, waving a hand vaguely at the last part.

“Yes! That sounds perfect!” Kaitlyn stepped in, hugging him tight enough to make him stumble back a bit. “Thank you thank you thank you, you’re the best!”

“Agh. Ack. You’re crushing my ribs,” he wheezed out.

“Sorry,” she said, letting off.

“It’s... fine,” he said, feeling his face flush a bit. He quickly coughed into a fist to hide it. “You owe me for this, though.”

“Ha. Yeah, I know,” she said, wilting a little. Quinn didn’t blame her; he’d heard some of the favors she had to deal with in the past. Favors were tricky things.

Quinn hummed in thought. “We’ll need to rearrange a few things on the ship tonight… I think we can head out first thing tomorrow. You think you can stay out of trouble until then?”

“Hey, It’s not like I go looking for trouble!” she said defensively.

“Riiight.” Quinn turned to walk along the dock, but then paused. “Actually, speaking of trouble, have you heard about those disappearances?”

“What disappearances?” She paused to think. “Wait, I think I do, yeah! Those missing posters, right? I heard someone talking about them when we were in Port Regal the other day.”

“Yeah, those. Apparently, there’s finally been a lead.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised.

“Yep. From what I hear, someone saw one of those guys with some chap in Mooshu-style robes,” he said. “Didn’t get a good look at his face before teleporting the both of them away, though. The teleporting bit, though? Certainly explains why there was no sign where they’d gone,” he added, clearly deep in thought.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Take a good guess where we are.” Quinn gestured to their surroundings. “If the one responsible is from Mooshu, there’s the off chance one of us might run into them.”

“Oh. Right.” Something like that was the last thing they needed, especially now. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“And I know how you are, so don’t try anything stupid.”

“Okay, mom,” she retorted.

“I’m just saying!”

[djino04]

OmegaVerse - Punishment

Words: Fragile, Shirt, Boxer, Swallow, Sad

This OS is in the OmegaVerse

POV Andreas

I'm in Rosalind's office with Saul. We've both been called in because of a security problem in the wing where the comatose fairies are. It seems that Bloom and co have decided to take a trip there and the headmistress is not happy, to say the least. I don't know if she thinks Saul is in cahoots with the girls or if she's just punishing him to deter them, but either way she's been using her powers on him for 15 minutes. She won't spill blood, she doesn't need to. Mental torture is much more painful and can leave lifelong scars. And here I am, a silent spectator of my former lover's suffering, not allowed to help him because I must not show Rosalind that I have been able to break her hold. 

During a brief period of respite, I see Saul swallowing his saliva with difficulty. His shirt is already soaked with sweat and I know the headmistress is only warming up. I've been in the omega's seat a good number of times in the past, for simply disappointing Rosalind in some way or another. Unfortunately, she won't be the first to crack. While Saul still hasn't caught his breath, she starts again without the slightest hint of fatigue. 

What she doesn't know is that she is also torturing me by doing this. Each of Saul's screams is unbearable to listen to. On top of that, she has removed the scent blocker again, so the alpha in me smells the distressed odor that has invaded the office. I have to wrestle with the part of me that wants to take my omega in my arms and run far away from here to safety. But I mustn't, he would surely not forgive me and I can't leave Sky and Beatrix here. 

The screaming finally stops, but only because Saul has fainted. She puts the blocker back in place and goes back to her desk with a straight face. She looks at me dismissively and says: 

"I always said omegas were fragile little things. Look, it barely lasted half an hour, nowhere near your record."

I don't answer because she doesn't even want an answer. I stay in my seat, waiting for her to decide to send me away. I try not to look at Saul lying unconscious on the office floor. It doesn't stop me from hearing his labored breathing or smelling the lingering scent of his distress.

I'm tired of playing Rosalind's games, but I have no choice right now. I know I'm a valuable asset to the resistance that's being built up within the school. But it kills me to have to wait. And I'm sad to see that Saul is once again the one paying the piper. We're going to have to be more careful in the future because even though he's strong, despite what the fairy thinks, he's not going to hold up if these kinds of sessions happen too often. The headmistress is well aware of this and she also knows that Saul is appreciated by the students and this is one of the reasons why she goes after him. The other reason is that unfortunately Saul is an omega without a pack, without an alpha and society doesn't care what happens to him for this reason. Whereas if Rosalind goes after a student in this way, she's likely to get in trouble at least with some parents. 

I stand still for almost ten minutes before Rosalind gestures to Saul: 

"Get this out of here and he better be at class tomorrow morning. Make it clear to him that no excuses will be accepted."

Without a word, I pick Saul up on my back like a fireman and carry him to his apartments, careful to avoid the crowd. Even though I'm playing into Rosalind's hands by doing this, I'll have to warn the girls not to try anything new at this point. If I had known they were planning something like this, I could have helped them. We're going to have to organize ourselves a little better in the future so we can win and save Saul from further suffering. 

Once back in his room, I quickly put him on his bed. I undress him, leaving him only his boxers, then I put him under the sheets. I program his alarm clock for tomorrow morning and I leave his apartments. The whole thing took me less than five minutes. I wish I could do more and stay with him to make sure everything is okay but I can't. I know that Rosalind is watching this place, which limits my actions a lot. I will stop by tomorrow morning early enough to make sure he is okay and ready to teach. That's the only thing I can do for my omega right now.

[femdomliterature]

FemLit 0301 - Fun With Dice... (5)

I walked upstairs and opened the bedroom drawer where the dice were kept.

“Okay Mistress, I’ve got a dice.”

“You need two dice slave.”

I picked up another dice and rolled them as instructed. I scored a total of five.

“Very good slave, now throw the dice again.”

I did as instructed and this time scored a nine.

“Very well slave, then before I return I will expect you to have cum a maximum of nine times, but five times at the very least.”

“If it pleases you Mistress.”

“Yes slave, if it pleases me. Also I want you to text me each time you cum, so I can keep score too.”

“Yes Mistress.”

“And slave, it goes without saying, just because I’m not there to check on you, don’t even think about cheating will you?”

“Of course not Mistress.”

“Good slave, now look in the drawer where the dice was, there’s a large envelope.”

“I have it Mistress.”

“Good take it out of the drawer and place it on the bed.”

I did as instructed.

“After you have cum five times you may open the envelope. Don’t forget to text me each time.”

“Yes Mistress, thank you Mistress.”

“I’ll ring you tomorrow slave, to see how you are getting on.”

“Thank you Mistress.”

We said our goodbyes, I hung up the phone and turned to look at the envelope. It was a plain white A4 envelope but it quite obviously had another smaller envelope inside. I held it up to the light to see if I could get any further idea of what might be inside, but it was no good. I thought for a second about ripping it open, but I just had this sneaking suspicion that somehow Mistress would know I had not followed her instructions. This was almost certainly ridiculous of course, but I had long since learned not to cut corners or underestimate my Mistress. What was to stop her ringing back in ten minutes and changing her mind? No, it seemed the only way I was going to find out what was in the envelope was to follow her instruction to the letter and make myself cum the required number of times.

The first two were relatively easy, and were dispatched within the first hour. I texted notice of each emission as instructed but received no return communication to acknowledge them. After a couple of hours I tried again, it was getting more difficult and my cock was starting to soften even before I was getting it properly hard. The envelope was playing on my mind and it was hard to concentrate on the job in hand.

It was almost mid-day the next day before I completed the minimum five orgasms, and no sooner had I texted notification of my completion of the task than I got a text back congratulating me and granting me permission to open the envelope.

I nervously peeled open the envelope and peered inside. As I suspected there was a smaller envelope inside and a letter made up of several pages and stapled in the top left hand corner. I pulled both of them out and tossed the larger envelope aside. As I picked up the letter I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the smaller envelope had holes cut in it, and each hole had a letter written by the side of it. Through the holes all I could see was blank paper. I turned the envelope over, more holes, more letters and a note written along the top edge.

‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE LETTER AND FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS!’

I put down the envelope, opened the letter and started to read…

“My beloved slave, these past weeks and months your actions have made me extremely happy and proud. Now that you have proved your utter devotion to me, I want to reward you by offering you the chance to fulfill a dream of yours that I know you have harboured for a long time. If you accept this offer there will be no more pre-arranged femdom sessions, there will be no need. You will serve me sexually as I require, from day to day. Outwardly there will be no change to our marriage, we will still be husband and wife and generally we will continue as normal. But when it comes to sex, I will control you completely. Your cock and balls will belong to me, to do with as I please. This may mean very long periods of teasing and denial for you, and your chastity device will be permanently fitted unless I remove it.”

As I read the letter, my cock, which had appeared completely lifeless just minutes before was trying to get hard again.

“You will of course be required to pleasure me as often as I request it. But I shouldn’t imagine that will be any great hardship for someone who loves eating pussy as much as you do. I imagine your poor cock is trying to get hard now, I wonder how many times you’ve cum since I left? I hope it’s not too many, but I hope it’s not too few either….”

I winced as my slightly sore cock became almost fully hard and the tip touched the inside of my boxer shorts.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions slave, but the answer to nearly all of them is 'yes’. It’s very simple, I will control your cock, your balls, your ass and your tongue. You will continue to eat your cum when I allow you to cum (I wonder if you’ve been doing that while I’ve been away slave, I hope so, you should know by now that that is a non-negotiable condition of relief for you these days) and I will continue to dominate you as and when it pleases me. I am not going to be specific about how often that may be slave, because it will vary as to my mood, but I promise you it will be a more often than once a month…yes slave, a LOT more often than that.”

My poor cock was as hard as it could be by this time, especially considering the demands placed on it over the last eighteen hours.

“You should be aware slave, that when I say that I will own your cock, balls, ass and mouth I mean exactly that. I have no immediate plans to move beyond what we have already experienced together, but if one day I should change my mind then I expect you to comply with my wishes without question. How does that sound slave? I bet your cock is hard now isn’t it?”

It certainly was although the implications of that sentence filled me half with dread and half with shameful lust.

“You know what that means don’t you slave? It means that one day I might decide to cuckold you and have you clean my pussy or ass afterwards. Who knows, I might even have you clean the cock that fucked me too. Can you imagine licking your Mistress’s pussy juice off another man’s cock slave? Not to mention his cum? Still you’re used to eating cum by now slave, you’ve eaten enough of your own and I doubt it will taste that different.”

My head was swimming as I read this, surely she couldn’t mean this. Surely this was just another test, another way to get me to prove my submission to her. But then I realised how clever this part was, because even if she had no intention at all of going through with any of this she knew that it would always be hanging over me, always in the back of my mind. And if she should change her mind one day, well I’d already agreed. Not only that, but in time I would probably have accepted it and would comply with her wishes. Despite the negative feelings the thought of my wife having another man’s cock inside her stirred in me, I was now as hard as a rock. I read on…

“I know you’re confused slave, but I know your cock is hard reading this. It’s difficult for you to accept what you’ve just read isn’t it. But at the same time you know that you will do ANYTHING to please me. Isn’t that right slave?”

I heard myself say 'Yes Mistress’ aloud, to the empty room.

“Now if you are happy to proceed, text me the word 'YES’. If you are not happy to proceed, text the word 'NO’. In this case do not read any further, I will ring you back.

My hands were shaking as I picked up the phone and typed the three letters into the keypad. I stood, staring down at the screen for several minutes, before I finally got up the courage to press 'send’. Finally, after several false starts I managed to press the button and watched as the screen changed to show that the message had been sent.

I picked up the letter again, turned over the page and continued reading.

"Well done slave, if you are reading this then you must have texted me the word 'yes’ and have agreed to continue. If you have not done this, do not read any further!”

The rest of the page was blank and I turned the page again.

“Now slave, you will need three dice before you continue.”

I turned back to the dresser and picked up the dice and then continued.

“The envelope has various holes cut in it, and each hole is marked with a letter. Using the list below fill in the holes as instructed.”

A - Roll one dice and enter the figure into the space provided.

B - Roll three dice and enter the total figure into the space provided.

C - Roll one dice and enter the figure into the space provided.

D - Roll one dice and enter the figure into the space provided.

E - Roll three dice and enter the total figure into the space provided.

F - Sign your name and insert the date and time next to it.

“When you have completed this text the word 'DONE’ to my phone. Your acceptance of my terms will then be complete, and you will be truly deserving of the name 'slave’.”

I followed the instructions to the letter and a few seconds later the phone rang. As I answered it I could feel my hand trembling.

“Well done slave. I am very pleased with you. I will not speak to you again until I get home. In the meantime I want you to complete the rest of your orgasms, four more I think it was, and then, and only then, you may open the envelope.”

“Thank you Mistress.”

“I wouldn’t thank me yet slave…I would wait until you see what’s inside the envelope.”

It took until late on Saturday night to complete the task Mistress had set me and when I finally came for the ninth time my cock was only half hard and was quite red. But assuming that after tomorrow I was unlikely to be coming for some time I reasoned that starting another period in the CB-3000 was best initiated with empty balls. And my balls were EMPTY!

With the taste of my cum still fresh in my mouth, I finally reached for the envelope and with trembling fingers opened the flap and pulled out the piece of paper which lay inside. I was exhausted but I needed to see exactly what my 'special reward’ entailed.

I ****** *******, hereby agree to become sexually enslaved to Mistress ********* ******* for a period of not less than (a) ( 5 ) years, and not more than (b) ( 13 ) years. During this time I will at all times endeavour to please my Mistress in any and all ways requested and attend to her sexual needs immediately, whenever called upon to do so.

As a willing slave, I accept that my needs are far less important than my Mistress’s and as such I agree to a mimium orgasm rate per year of ©( 4 ) which will remain constant throughout the period of the agreement unless Mistress decides to change it. These guaranteed orgasms are to be apportioned as Mistress sees fit, the only stipulation being that at least one orgasm must be provided in each six month period. There is to be no upper limit set, but all orgasms granted over and above the minimum will be at Mistress’s discretion. To facilitate this, slave will wear a chastity device at all times, the sole key for which will be in the possession of the Mistress.

Slave accepts that Mistress may use whatever means she deems necessary to determine slave’s suitability for release from the chastity belt, including tasks to be completed (eg - number of orgasms provided for the Mistress, menial tasks such as washing Mistress’s car, or the completion of exercise as proscribed) and at the same time acknowledges that release does not automatically guarantee sexual pleasure or relief.

Slave accepts that during the period of this agreement Mistress may decide to cuckold him or use him to service others (of either sex) in whatever way she sees fit. However, slave will not be expected to service more than (d) ( 3 ) persons during any one twenty four hour period and not more than (e) ( 11 ) persons in any one calendar month (both figures exclude the Mistress). There is no limit to the number of others (of either sex) that Mistress may be intimate with, but in the event of such an occurrence slave will be kept informed at all times and will be required to attend/watch/provide service if requested.

This agreement will be terminated on completion of the number of years stated above in (b) unless the Mistress decides to end it sooner. In any event this agreement will remain in force at least until the completion of the number of years stated above in (a). Once this agreement is terminated the Mistress will be within her rights to seek another agreement, the terms of which will be decided at the time of renewal (by the Mistress).

I enter into this agreement freely and willingly and agree to be bound by it’s conditions…

The end

[crasherfly]

6 Years Past

CW- Suicide, Self-Harm

It’s July 20th. Six years ago, Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, passed away. He took his own life. For fans current and past it was the sucker punch we all saw coming but could never be prepared for.

Six years past and it still aches the heart.

Folks outside a fandom will not understand what it’s like within the cult of personality when a famous person dies. Yes, it’s a person you never met and who never knew your name. But paradoxically it was also a person you spent your most intimate, emotional moments with.

Chester was with me in the back of my parents’ van on the long vacation drive when I first picked up Crawling from a local rock station on my portable radio. He was with me during my most lonely after-school hours in junior high. He was with me when I wrote my first stories. He was with me when I staged my first autodrama, a piano cover of Pushing Me Away softly playing as the curtain opened.

Chester’s voice and lyrics opened my young mind up to the possibility that the angst and aggrievement I felt was not something to be buried but something to be expressed- written, sung, screamed, put front and center. Most importantly- it was a signal flare, letting me know I was not alone. 

Every year I mark this occasion by listening to Linkin Park’s music and checking in online about my own mental health.

I’ve oscillated between being very loud about the work I’ve been doing and being very quiet. I’d like to think I’ve fallen somewhere in the middle in recent months. There’s a lot of use in being transparent. There’s also a lot of bluster in it.

I’ve experienced a lot of change in the past year. I’m currently in with two therapists, one behavioral, one nutritional. It’s less intense than it sounds, as one basically serves as a sounding board for petty grievances and the other just asks me if I’m eating fruits and vegetables. I am on a program for working through panic symptoms and have some meager goals in sight- drive a car, see the dentist, run a race, that kind of stuff. That said, the program goes slow, partly due to my lack of diligence. Turns out even at my age, homework is still hard to commit to.

I’ve come to accept that for me, at least, there is no grand turning point where suddenly I wake up as a new person. Change is a process of small movements that coalesce into something more grand after months and years. I told an old friend this week “I wish the person I am now had met you back then, rather than the person I was”. It was a bleak but honest admission- I’ve experienced change, and I am mostly better for it.

But still so very far from perfect. I’ve had challenges this year and I have failed them. I still struggle to caretake, to empathize, to reject my own selfishness when tasked with bearing the burdens of another. I’m still racked with panic and imagined pain that rules my decision-making. I still struggle with truthfulness and decisions made purely to manage my own anxiety. I’m told I also struggle with cutting myself some slack- something I often counter with “but so many people have cut me slack already”.

I guess I still have work to do.

I lost a friend to suicide this year. It was someone I hadn’t spoken to in years- someone I didn’t cut slack even when they asked me for grace. As I’ve said of Chester’s death so many times, I’ll say again here- it was the suckerpunch you see coming but can’t brace for. Suicide is just like that.

The last time they reached out to me was almost ten years ago. They were in the process of making amends with people they’d wronged. It’s a sentiment I understand well, having been in that position often enough. It’s rare that I’m on the other side hearing the apology. I guess that’s why this particular moment stuck out to me- as did my failure to yield. This person asked me to forgive them for their habitual abuse. I ignored them. They lived another ten hard years- it’s likely they never thought of me again after that DM. And then it was over and I was at their visitation, alone, like a cat that had snuck into a house uninvited. 

I felt immense regret in that moment. I should have written back. It is possible it would not have made a difference if I did, or even that it could have opened me up to further abuse. I don’t believe my acceptance would have changed their overall fate. I’m not that vain. But it weighed on me nonetheless. Still does, to some extent.

In therapy, I was told there was nothing to learn from this moment. I kinda hate that. I’m not a spiritual person, but I don’t like the idea that these things happen and there’s just nothing to take away from it. So instead, I choose to believe that the lesson here is that grace can be granted, but guarded- and still be worthwhile.

...and that at this new age, there are no guarantees of a next time. Because people will break and healing is a finite quality. Some things- many things, really- will break and stay broke, including people. Especially people.

With all that said, let’s come full circle to discuss Linkin Park once more. That’s what we’re here for, after all.

This year’s single that really leaped out at me was Leave Out All The Rest. 

The chorus feels eerily significant after the fact-

“When my time comes, Forget the wrong that I’ve done. Help me leave behind some  Reasons to be missed. Don’t resent me, And when you’re feeling empty Keep me in your memory; Leave out all the rest.”

If that’s not the strongest possible directive on how to remember Chester and his music, I don’t know what is.

[postapocalypticcottagecore]

MISPER

(Hammered this together in a few hours, after being inspired by something I saw in a Markiplier video of all things.)

It was half-past ten on a Monday morning, and Detective Constable Mark Peters was already more than ready for the week to be over and done with. This morning's briefing had included the news that the particularly unpleasant local loan shark that Mark and his team had been building a case against for the last six weeks had done about 80% of the median lethal dose of cocaine, attempted to drive who-knew-where under its influence without the benefit of a seatbelt and ploughed his car through somebody's garden wall at almost a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The last thing to go through his mind, the Collision Investigation Unit believed, had been the steering wheel. While Mark couldn't say he was particularly sorry to see the man in question depart this mortal coil in a spectacular and ignominious fashion, it did bother him on some level that a great deal of hard work and patience on CID's part had been rendered utterly pointless.

Especially because he still had to finish the damn paperwork on it. With a sigh he got up from his desk and made his way to the coffee machine at the back of the office, quietly longing for the days when they were allowed to smoke in here.

And as if his day wasn't already off to a flying start, some bellend had put a wet spoon back in the sugar bowl again. "Fucksake," Mark muttered to himself, searching unsuccessfully for a clean replacement. "Who even does that?"

Eventually, and feeling slightly better for having acquired a fresh cup of coffee, Mark returned to his desk just in time for the phone to go off. "CID office, DC Peters speaking."

"Morning Mark. You busy at the moment?" The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Detective Sergeant Lucy Whittaker, his immediate superior and semi-official mentor within the team.

"When aren't we busy round here? But I'm not doing anything time-sensitive. What's up, sarge?"

"MISPER case just came in, and it's a bit of an odd one. 25 year-old female named Kimberly Hicks, last seen going home from drinks with friends on Friday night, hasn't answered her phone or checked Facebook all weekend and then didn't show up for work this morning."

"Okay," Mark said thoughtfully. "Sounds potentially nasty. What's odd about it?"

"She was last seen getting dropped off by the designated driver and entering her flat, so whatever happened to her took place after she got home."

"Yeah, that is weird. So what do you need me to do?"

"I'm about to talk to the friend who last saw her, but I've got to be in court this afternoon. Can you go to the address and check it out? Uniform are already there, they're trying to gain access."

"Sure. Hold on, let me grab a pen..."

The address proved to be a four-storey block of redbrick flats in a residential neighbourhood just off the ring road, not the poshest part of town but not particularly dodgy either. The building was a lot bigger than average for the area, being mostly surrounded by old terraced houses from around the turn of the last century, and Mark fancied it might have once been a factory or mill. A panda car was parked outside, and a female constable was standing by the main door talking to a woman in a cleaner's tabard. As Mark parked his own car and applied the handbrake the cleaner walked off, looking quite put out.

"DC Peters, CID." Mark presented his warrant card to the other officer, who he didn't recognise. "Who was that?"

"Cleans for our missing person," she replied. "Couldn't tell us anything very helpful, but turns out she gets the spare key from the man in the flat next door. My colleague's talking to him now, I'll get him to buzz us in."

"Thank you. Oh, sorry, you are-?"

"Helen. PC Helen Matthews."

Mark and PC Matthews climbed the three flights of stairs to where Ms Hicks lived. Helen's partner was waiting for them with a middle-aged, slightly scruffy-looking man who Mark presumed to be the neighbour with the keys. He was proven correct when Helen made a quick round of introductions. "Kim definitely came home," explained the neighbour, whose name turned out to be Jack. "I heard the door swing shut, then about an hour later I heard water running -her bathroom and mine are pretty much back to back and it's not a very thick wall- so she probably took a shower and went to bed."

"And you didn't see or hear her at all since?" Mark asked.

"No. That doesn't mean much, I've been on the back shift so we haven't seen much of each other the last couple of weeks, but I did text her yesterday because I was going to the shops and wanted to know if she needed anything. Never got a reply, but I didn't think anything much of that at the time, she mentioned she'd ordered a new phone because her old one was acting up. First I knew that anything was wrong was when Chloe -that's the cleaner- rung me to say the police were here."

Mark nodded. "Alright, thank you. May I have the keys?"

"Sure." Jack handed them over, looking stricken. "Do you think someone has done her harm, Detective?"

"At the moment I don't know," Mark replied gently. "Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against her, like an ex-partner or a neighbour she'd had a falling out with?"

"Not that she's mentioned to me, no. I know she had a bit of a row with a bloke she was seeing a few weeks ago but it can't have been him, he's been away at sea for the last month."

"Alright, thank you." Mark turned to Helen. "Would you mind getting a statement from him while I check the flat?"

She nodded. "Sure. Once I've done that we'll check with the rest of the neighbours. They were probably all in bed long before half-past eleven but you never know."

"Thanks. Ask them if they saw any unfamiliar faces hanging around too, I know the witness claimed Kim Hicks walked through the main door but you never know." With that, Mark took some rubber gloves out of his pocket and prepared to do some detective work.

The flat's front door had two locks, a Yale and a mortice. Only the Yale proved to be locked when Mark tried them, and he made a mental note to ask Jack about that later: Maybe she only bothered with the second lock when she was going away overnight, or maybe she usually only locked it when she was about to turn in for the night but had forgotten... or been prevented from doing so.

The front door opened into a rather cramped hallway, furnished only with a small table and a coat rack. The coat rack held a fancy-looking rust coloured leather jacket and a more pedestrian green and purple raincoat, and a couple of pairs of shoes were placed neatly underneath it: Some black court heels, ballet flats and a pair of trainers. The hall table had a small glass bowl on it that contained a set of keys, a handful of loose change and a balled-up recipt that proved to be for topping up an electric meter the previous Tuesday. Next to it sat a small red leather handbag, one that to Mark's unpracticed eye looked quite expensive. It was zipped closed, and when he opened it he found a purse and a phone in a leather case, both of which matched the bag. "Miss Hicks likes to colour coordinate, it seems," Mark mused to himself.

The purse held six neatly-folded £20 notes, a single £10 and slightly less than £5 in various coins, along with two bank cards and her driver's license. The phone turned out to be the latest model from Samsung, its screen lacking a single scratch or blemish. Experimentally he tried the power button but got nothing, unsurprising if the thing had been sitting unattended for 48 hours. Mark dutifully placed it in an evidence bag for the forensics team to examine later, then carefully counted and noted down the total amount of money in the purse before placing it in its own bag.

The picture on the driver's license caught his eye as he put it in the bag with the purse. A young woman a couple of younger than himself, short blonde hair with a vivid magenta streak through it, smiling brightly. She looked happy, carefree, friendly.

"Wherever you are, lady, I'll do what I can for you," Mark said quietly, and headed into the rest of the flat.

It was more spacious than he'd expected, with a large kitchen and living room and another door leading to what was probably the bedroom. Most of the living room was taken up by an enormous, battered but comfy-looking sofa with a vividly tie-dyed throw over it, with a small TV and a sound bar perched on a tall mahogany display cabinet full of ornaments: Several colourful china vases, a glass bottle with layers of multi-coloured sand, some rock crystals and for some reason a complete set of Gravity Falls Funko Pops. A poster for some Korean or Japanese pop group Mark had never heard of dominated the wall behind the settee.

But there was nothing damaged or knocked over, and no apparent gaps where some item of value might have been carried off. The place was meticulously tidy, in fact. Mark entered the kitchen and found it much the same. The countertops were cluttered with jars of dried herbs and spices and a wooden block holding some kitchen knives (none of which were missing, he noted) but everything was neatly arranged, and the sink and drying rack were empty. There was a tiny kitchen table in one corner of the room, with an old Macbook and a single mug on a coaster. "Have a cup of Positivi-Tea", the mug read, in a jaunty font and colourful letters.

"That's probably a Class C drug these days," Mark said to himself, tapping the space bar of the laptop on the off-chance it was still logged in. It took him straight to a password prompt, so he decided to leave that to the experts and wondered if he had an evidence bag big enough to hold it. Probably not: The Scenes of Crime Officers would have to deal with it. The mug he did bag up, noticing absently that there was the residue of what seemed to be hot chocolate at the bottom of it. "A quick shower, a night-time cup of cocoa and then... what? Tried to get into bed, accidentally noclipped into the Backrooms? Turns out your mum struck a bargain with the Fair Folk and she's in arrears? 'A bit odd' wasn't saying that half of it-"

Mark suddenly froze in place. Had he just heard a noise? No, not a noise. More like a different kind of silence, the kind where nothing you could consciously hear had changed, but on some subtle frequency that humans only heard at a subconscious level there was something there. Or nothing, and Mark had read enough spooky stories to know that Nothing could be every bit as bad as any number of Somethings...

Just as he was starting to reach for his CS spray, his phone went off, the ringtone seeming definitely loud by contrast. Mark exhaled sharply and leaned against the wall, taking a moment to get his breathing under control before answering it. "DC Peters."

"Mark, it's Lucy. Just got done talking to the witness who last saw our MISPER, but she couldn't tell me much that she hadn't already said to the 999 call-taker. How's it going on your end?"

"Not great," Mark replied, and briefly recounted what he'd found out from the neighbour. "I'm still going through the place but so far I'm drawing a blank," he admitted. "Do we have a description of what Kim Hicks was wearing on Friday night?"

[/i]"Black minidress and tights, ballet flats, red leather jacket with a matching handbag."[/i]

"Well, I can confirm she made it back into the flat then. Found the jacket, the handbag and probably the shoes in the hall. And there was over a hundred and thirty quid in cash and a phone that probably cost another three hundred in the bag, so whatever happened to her it wasn't a robbery. I haven't checked the bedroom or bathroom yet but so far I'm seeing absolutely no sign of forced entry or any sort of disturbance: Wish I had the spoons to keep my place this tidy, in fact. Oh, and do we know anything about this ex-boyfriend her neighbour mentioned?"

"Enough to establish his alibi. Carl Henderson, age 26, currently working as a steward on a P&O cruise ship that left Southampton three weeks ago. And sent about fifty quid's worth of flowers and an apparently very heartfelt letter of apology for losing his temper just before departure, or so our witness informs me. Not sure how we're going to handle him yet, maybe we can get the company to put him on a flight home."

"Sounds a bit risky, but if he does a runner before boarding then we'll know we're on the right track, I suppose. Anyway, I'm going to finish checking this place over but I think we'll have to get SOCO out here. If Kim was attacked then it must have been someone she knew well enough to let in."

"Or someone she trusted with a spare key, maybe? When you're done with the flat I suggest you have another, longer talk with that neighbour. In the meantime, SOCO are more likely to show up before the next shift if the request comes from a DS than a DC so I'll get on to them. Call me back if you turn up anything useful."

"Will do. Bye." Mark pocketed his phone, pondering the possibility that Jack might have had something to do with it. He hadn't really given off a stalker vibe at the time, but if you could tell that sort of thing just by looking then he'd have a lot less work to do, wouldn't he? Although when asked about anyone who might have a grudge, he'd brought up the query-former boyfriend Kim had a falling-out with and then explicitly stated that the guy had an alibi, odd behaviour for someone who was trying to deflect suspicion away from himself...

Well, one problem at a time. Check the rest of the flat first, then start questioning persons of interest in a crime that he couldn't yet prove had even taken place at all.

On impulse, Mark went back to the hallway and opened the bathroom door first. There was nothing especially remarkable within: A shower cubicle, a sink, a toilet and a heated towel rail. The bath mat was a vivid shade of pink that Mark would definitely not have wanted to be confronted with first thing in the morning himself, and the mirrored cabinet screwed to the wall over the sink had been decorated with rainbow-hued stickers. "I've seen romcoms with girls like you in them," Mark quipped, with a bleak little laugh. He opened the cabinet to check for any prescription medication that might indicate some sort of mental health episode: You would think that would have been mentioned with the concerned friends by now, but if she was doing well enough to hold down a job as long as she didn't forget her hallucinate-that-you're-totally-sane juice two days in a row then maybe they didn't know themselves...

But there were no medicines in the cabinet besides birth control pills, some paracetamol and a nearly empty and long-expired foil packet of something called Omeprazole, which a quick search with his phone revealed to be an anti-inflammatory used for treating conditions like heartburn or acid reflux. No antidepressants, no antipsychotics, not even any anti_biotics_...

That was a thought, wasn't it? Mark replaced everything in the medicine cabinet and started typing on his phone, intending to look up some specific medical information. Schizophrenic symptoms usually came on in the first half of your twenties, he recalled from somewhere, so she'd be just within the right age range. Or it could be something like what had happened to a woman he'd run across while on foot patrol a year out of his probation, stammering and confused and trying to speak to people only she could see: Urinary tract infection, the paramedics had said it was. Better take that up with DS Whittaker when she got here-

And then it came again, that sound that wasn't a sound. This time the change was abrupt enough to send Mark spinning on his heel with his CS spray out and at the ready, convinced he'd seen a flash of something in the mirror... But there was nothing there except the empty hallway. "Bloody hell," Mark hissed through his teeth, lowering the spray-can and forcing himself to breathe slowly. "What is it with this place?" He peered suspiciously at the raincoat that was hanging up there, wondering if it had moved slightly in some draught he hadn't noticed until now. Must have been something like that, he decided. And old buildings like this made weird noises all the time...

As if on cue, there came a loud sound of rushing water as a toilet flushed, probably the one on the other side of the bathroom wall. Jack clearly hadn't been exaggerating about how thin it was, which suggested that he hadn't needed to deliberately listen out for the sound of Kim taking a shower. Another small point in favour of him being on the up and up, perhaps.

"Right, then," Mark said to himself. "One more room left to check. And I think I'm laying off the horror podcasts for a bit after today."

The bedroom was pretty small, and a bit on the crowded side. An enormous oak wardrobe with a slightly Gothic design and a vaguely threatening aura took up most of one corner: If he'd been playing a videogame, Mark reflected, he'd expect that thing to either have some really good loot or be the source of an incredibly cheap jumpscare. Most of the remaining floor space was taken up by a double bed covered with -he was starting to sense a theme here- a vividly coloured tie-dye blanket and more multicoloured pillows than could possibly be necessary. A radio and a small lamp with a bright pink shade stood on a small bedside table, and it took Mark a second to notice that the radio was still on, the volume just barely above muted. Did Kim Hicks just have sensitive hearing and prefer to keep the volume this low when using the radio as a sleep aid, he wondered, or had she reached out and turned it down because she thought she'd heard something in the night?

The bedroom window was slightly open. Being careful not to touch it anywhere someone trying to push it from the outside might put their hands, Mark pulled it inwards as far as it would go. It stopped after perhaps ten centimetres, arrested by some mechanism in the frame. Nobody could have got in or out that way, not without causing obvious damage to the window itself. And he'd like to see anyone try forcing it open one-handed while clinging to a drainpipe and not break their fool neck in the attempt, let alone somehow not make so much noise that the occupant of the room would wake up and either scream the place down or club the intruder upside the head with something...

"I wonder," Mark said to himself. He glanced at the drawer in the nightstand, but decided the sort of thing a woman might keep in there was unlikely to be germane to the investigation or anything she'd thank him for fiddling with and instead knelt down to look under the bed. Two objects down there immediately struck him as very suspicious. The first was an empty glass lying on its side as if it had been knocked off the nightstand and simply left there, which was thoroughly out of character given how neatly-kept the rest of the property was. The second, much more alarming object was a very large utility knife pulled part of the way out of its sheath. From the angle at which it was lying and the dstance relative to the bed, Mark could see no way it had landed where it was unless someone had dropped it while they were standing up in the middle of the room.

"She heard something," he said aloud, taking another evidence bag out of his pocket for the knife. "She heard something in the night, and she grabbed the knife and got up and..." He trailed off. And then what? And then somehow someone instantly and completely subdued Kim Hicks before she could even fully pull it out, then carried her off into the night without anyone seeing or hearing a single thing? It didn't seem possible-

And there it came again. The shift in the silence, the feeling that there was something there, listening for you the way you were desperately listening for it... And this time it was accompanied by a faint but very real and identifiable sound. The faint squeaking of the hinges as the door betwwen the hallway and the living room swung open.

Something in Mark snapped, and he yanked his telescoping baton out of its belt pouch. Whatever the hell was going on here, he decided, had been going on for more than long enough. He kicked open the bedroom door and snapped open the baton, bringing it up ready to strike. "Police!" he yelled. "Stay where you are and-!"

And then DC Mark Peters learned exactly what had happened to Kimberly Hicks. The hard way.

"I've tried three times," PC Matthews told DS Whittaker. "No answer from the intercom or his radio. Anything from his phone?"

"Nothing," Lucy replied. "Something's wrong. Get someone to buzz us in, and if nobody answers we're breaking it down." She keyed her own radio set. "November Oscar, DS Whittaker. Urgent assistance to my location, officer believed in danger!"

By the time they got the door open, three patrol cars had reached the address. One of them was carrying an Enforcer ram, better known to its users as "the big red key". It broke down the flat's internal door without difficulty and the officers poured in. They found the property completely deserted, with no sign of a struggle or any other forced entry beside their own. The Scenes Of Crime Officers meticulously searched for any fingerprints or DNA traces and found only those that which belonged to Kimberly Hicks. Her phone and laptop were minutely examined, along with her social media accounts and internet history, and so far as can be determined she had last used her laptop shortly before midnight on the night she was last seen. Nothing about the message traffic or other activity indicated that anything was out of the ordinary.

The last movements of Detective Constable Mark Peters before his disappearance are even less clear. His phone and police radio were never found, and so far as can be determined they were both abruptly and simultaneously powered off less than fifteen minutes after his last contact with DS Whittaker and have never been reactivated. The last verifiable activity on his phone was a pair of internet searches, one for "Omeprazole" (likely identifying some leftover medication that was prescribed to Ms Hicks some eighteen months earlier) and another for "medical conditions likely to cause delerium". No attempts have been made to access his bank account, email or social media since his disappearance.

Other than various items he had placed in evidence bags during his search of the property (none of which ended up providing any insights into the case), the only item DC Peters left behind was his telescoping baton. It was found lying on the living room floor, extended and ready for use. It yielded no fingerprints save its owner's, and no blood or skin cell residue: So far as could be determined, it was never used.

Both missing persons cases remain unsolved.

[messers-moony]

Nothing Left | R.B

Paring: Regulus Black X Wife!Gryffindor!Reader

Summary: Everything crashes within seconds and Sirius doesn’t know where to go. 

Everything went downhill so fucking fast. How was that even possible? Everything was perfectly fine a year ago, but it seems that within that year, everything had collapsed onto the helpless boy. It was like being beneath a crumbling concrete tower that fell with no warning. Like being slapped in the face unexpectedly. Like getting doused in freezing water on a Sunday morning. 

In retrospect, it sucked. 

Sirius Black would know first hand. His entire life had been a screw-up from the beginning. It started with his parents, who - at the start - loved him. But when he turned out to be the child they never wanted all that love had vanished. They tortured him, broke him piece by piece, they built up trauma that took years for him to express to his friends. It wasn’t until third year when they heard him crying alone in his four-poster bed and asked what was wrong. He could remember the comforting embrace James Potter had given him. 

Nevertheless, it never ended there. The summer going into his sixth year, Sirius decided it was enough after too many Cruciatus Curses and body binding curses; enough was enough. His hands were trembling after enduring just ten minutes of the torture curse, and it was a struggle, but he packed everything he could. His heart broke at inevitably leaving his little brother behind. He could only hope that Regulus would understand. 

It took a Knight Bus trip to the Potter residence in Godric’s Hollow. The sky could’ve resembled how Sirius felt. Back at Grimmauld Place Twelve, the sky was always cloudy and rainy. Godric’s Hollow allowed the sun to shine past the fluffy clouds, but tonight was different. The sky was dark and thick, black clouds covered the stars. Rain poured from them, and it pittered on the stone roads. Sirius was instantly drenched when he stepped off the Knight Bus. 

Hesitantly he made his way to the door, where he knocked softly. The house was two stories and was a relatively big family home - not bigger than Grimmauld Place - but an average family home. The house was a mixture of grey, dark purples, and brown. It reminded Sirius of Remus’ patched jumpers. Sirius could hear movement from behind the plum door, and it opened to reveal a familiar face. James Potter with his messy hair, hazel eyes, and long limbs. James was muscular, but he was also tall, not Remus tall but taller than Sirius. 

James didn’t speak and ushered him inside. The following morning at breakfast, Euphemia - Mrs. Potter - had given Sirius the excellent news of his new forever home. The Potters would never forget the way Sirius lit up and how a smile had taken over his face. Sirius didn’t remember being this happy except for when Regulus was born. 

But his forever home was not forever. 

In seventh year, James’ parents had died, and nobody had comforted Sirius except one person who attempted. James had Lily, and that was enough for him. Perhaps it was selfish to think that James should be comforting him. It was definitely selfish. Sirius was doing really good at hiding how he felt until he crumbled behind a tapestry near the dungeons. 

Sirius didn’t know if it was good or bad luck that Regulus - his prefect Slytherin brother - had found him behind that tapestry. Regulus had pulled back the fabric slowly with his wand lit. His face had softened at his older brother sobbing with his knees to his chest. Regulus allowed his wand light to extinguish before sitting in front of him in the same position, allowing their socks to touch at the tips. 

They sat there for a couple of minutes before Regulus moved closer, albeit hesitantly to sit beside Sirius. Regulus had his back against the concrete, and Sirius curled up onto him while the younger Black brother rubbed his older brother's back. Sirius cried harder and harder. It took an hour before he subdued to sniffles and whimpers, but Regulus took it as his time to speak. 

“I know they meant a lot to you,” Regulus stated, still rubbing his older brothers back, “And I don’t blame you for grieving them.”

Sirius sniffled, “I ought to be grateful for them, really.” Regulus released a sound that sounded like a chuckle, but it was so foreign to Sirius he couldn’t tell, “They kept you safe. Kept you away from mother and father. They gave you a home where you could finally be you.”

“And no matter how mad I want to be at them for taking you away from me,” Regulus admitted, “I just can’t be because they gave you everything you wanted, and I’ve never seen you happier in my life.”

Regulus didn’t stop talking, “You know… I- I found my own James Potter.”

Sirius looked up at Regulus with flushed cheeks, but his facial expression was baffled, and Regulus presented him with a small smile, “Okay, maybe she isn’t my ‘James Potter’ per se because I don’t see her as a sister but rather she’s my girlfriend.”

“What’s- What’s her name?” Sirius croaked; his throat was so raw from crying. 

“Y/n L/n.”

“A- A Gryffindor?”

Regulus made that sound again, “Yeah. A stupidly brave one too. Even worse.”

Sirius smiled, “I know her.”

“Don’t tell me she was one of your conquests.” Regulus grimaced, and Sirius chuckled, snuggling back into Regulus’ chest, “No, she wasn’t. It turns out she has the hots for the other Black brother.”

Regulus smiled, and they allowed the silence of the castle to consume them. It was dark in the corridor on the other side of the tapestry, and Regulus could see the faint moonlight peaking out. He could also imagine the stars glittering beautifully in the midnight sky. He could see the star Sirius shining brighter than ever, and he just wanted his brother to feel the same. 

“I plan to marry her.” Regulus said before he could stop the words from falling from his mouth.

“What happens then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mother and father will never approve.”

Regulus scoffed, “I’m done with their bullshit and have been for quite a while.”

Sirius met his brother's eyes again, “I left right after you. It turns out there is no more heir to the Black family name.”

The older Black brother smiled brightly and tightened his grip on his younger brother. Regulus couldn’t remember feeling this warm since they were little boys running around the backyard. Sirius was practically on top of him, and that was okay. For now, everything seemed okay again. Maybe Euphemia and Fleamont were gone, but even in their deaths, they managed to benefit Sirius’ life. 

Now it all seemed fruitless. 

Only a couple of months later, Sirius and Regulus had gotten into a huge kerfuffle. It ended with screaming, raw throats, tears, and flushed cheeks. Sirius could remember how Regulus playfully mocked his and Remus’ relationship. He didn’t know exactly what happened, just that he was pouncing for his little brother, and Remus was holding him back. Sirius had yelled some very awful things that he couldn’t take back. 

She hadn’t done anything. She didn’t even know that an argument had happened. Y/n had been reading in the common room when the book was flung out of her hand, and she was pushed against the stone wall of the Gryffindor Tower. Y/n met eyes with stormy grey ones, not unlike her lovers, but these weren’t her lovers. These were his elder brother's eyes, and he had lifted her off the floor against the wall until James had pulled Sirius off her. 

Y/n hit the floor with a thud and repeatedly coughed, hands on her throat. James had stormed into the boy's dormitory with Sirius with him. She didn’t even understand what was happening not until she met up with Regulus in the prefect dorm, and he saw the marks on her neck. Sirius had taken it too far, and Regulus was furious. They were no longer on speaking terms. 

Now Sirius had someone entirely different to grieve. 

Sirius had felt like his heart hit the floor when he was forced to move out of James’ house with Lily due to Harry being born. Remus had moved away to take care of his sick mother and asked for privacy. The funds that had previously been in Sirius’ account had been squandered, and now he was paying the price. 

He had absolutely nowhere to go. Truthfully, there was one place he could go, but he didn’t think he’d ever be accepted there. He had said unforgivable things, but James had given him enough confidence that it would be okay. Reluctantly, Sirius Black took the Knight Bus to the suburbs in London. The community felt so modern and new. It was different then Godric’s Hollow which had been around for so many years that it began to weather and erode. 

The deja vu was hitting him like a brick. Their house was a mixture of grey, black, white, and maybe blue - Sirius couldn’t tell in the darkness if it was white or pale blue. Perhaps he’d find out tomorrow if he was even welcomed inside. Sighing and shivering, Sirius knocked on the door. He could hear little squeals of delight that sounded much like a child. He also heard talking, but he froze when the door opened. 

Regulus Black, at the age of twenty-two, looked good. His hair was to his jaw, and it was wavy at the ends, whereas Sirius’ was much more straight. His eyes had turned silver over the years. His cheeks looked much fuller, and he looked a lot better. Regulus was no longer looked underweight, but he was still slim and skinny. Black family genes, Sirius supposed. Sirius couldn’t meet his brother's eyes. 

“What do you want, Sirius.” 

His name falling from Regulus’ mouth instead of a nickname hurt more than he expected, “I had nowhere else to go…”

Regulus scoffed, “James finally kick you out, eh?”

“Yeah, he did.” Sirius sounded so distant, “Perhaps it was about time, and here I am, at your doorstep.”

“Come on, Sirius.” Regulus motioned for him to come in, and Sirius did. 

The house was much cozier inside. The floors were dark wood, almost black. The living room - on Sirius’ left - was a darker turquoise color with grey furniture. The dining room - on Sirius’ right - was a light grey. The furniture was a marble table, white wood chairs with cushions, and a beautiful light fixture. Regulus led him to the kitchen, which was straight ahead in the hallway. 

It was a beautiful mint green color with black and white furniture. The appliances were primarily black and the furniture primarily white, but regardless, it was beautiful. They had another table in the kitchen that was a grey wood instead of the shiny marble in the dining room but nevertheless screamed elegance. Sirius sat at one of the barstools at the L of the counter. Regulus slid him a cup of tea. 

“Your house is beautiful.” Sirius complimented, and Regulus placed the cup back into the saucer, “Thank you. My wife picked everything out for the most part. I either built it or painted it.” Regulus smiled. 

“Your wife?”

Regulus hummed, “Y/n Black. Ring any bells?”

Sirius swallowed, “Yeah.”

They both took a sip of tea, “I have two kids too. Both boys.”

“Two?!“ Sirius nearly spat out the liquid he had just taken a sip of. 

“Twins. Fraternal, thankfully.”

He placed the cup down, “What’re their names?“

“Perseus Regulus Black and Leo Alphard Black.”

“Perseus and Leo, huh?“

Regulus blushed, “It wasn’t my idea. It was Y/n’s.”

“I like them,” Regulus looked up at him, “The names. I’m sure they fit them too.”

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t long until footsteps began to echo coming down the steps. Y/n had grown up too. Her face was sharper and her curves more defined. If Sirius was honest, she didn’t look like she had kids at all. To be fair, he wasn’t really staring at Y/n but more so his brother. Regulus had a starstruck expression as his wife walked towards him. He had a dopey smile on his face and stars in his eyes. Regulus really loved her, and Sirius could tell, hell, anyone could. 

Y/n stopped in her tracks at seeing Sirius, “What’s he doing here?” 

Regulus placed an arm around her waist, “He came looking for a place to stay. While I was waiting for you, I decided to catch up with him for a little.”

Sirius looked guilty, “Ultimately, I’m leaving this decision up to you.” 

Y/n sighed and looked at both brothers. She thought of what he did back at Hogwarts. She thought of how Regulus had cried and ached for his brother, wishing for their relationship to be back the way it was. She thought of her two children who always asked about their Uncle Sirius, who was never around. 

“Sirius,” Y/n began, and Sirius held his breath, “Where will you go if I were to say no?”

Sirius looked at his lap, “The streets.”

He couldn’t hear the footsteps that approached him until soft hands lifted his head where he met soft e/c eyes, “I’m willing to look past everything that happened at Hogwarts for the sake of my children. They deserve their uncle. But I need you to show me that I can trust you and that you won’t cause trouble.”

“I’ll do anything.” Sirius complied, and Regulus smirked, “Don’t say that. She’ll have you remodel something.”

“You’re an asshole.” Y/n whirled, and Regulus continued to smirk, “I told you to use magic, and you said we should do it the Muggle way.”

He shrugged, “We got good memories out of doing it the Muggle way.”

“If getting paint all over me counts as good memories, then sure.”

“It does.” Regulus smiled, “Your face was priceless.”

“Dickhead.” She muttered. 

Sirius grinned, “Well, Sirius. If Y/n lets you stay, then you’re welcome here. What I did back at Hogwarts was uncalled for, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mocked you and Remus.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is.” Regulus countered solemnly, “Had I not done that; then we could’ve had a better relationship. For that, I’m sorry.”

Sirius stood up and hugged Regulus tight, “New beginnings?”

“New beginnings.” Regulus smiled. 

Regulus led Sirius up the wooden stairs up to the second story. It seemed to have had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, one in the master bedroom, one in the hallway, not including the one downstairs. On the end of the left side was a door leading to the master bedroom. On the right end was a cabinet and two doors across from one another. Then in the middle of the back was a door leading to another bedroom which Regulus had opened. 

The bedroom was spotless and beautiful. It was painted a grey with purple undertone with a queen-sized bed. Most of the furniture was white, and the bedding was black. Sirius had brought his trunk to its normal size and placed it at the end of the bed. Regulus smiled as Sirius looked around. 

“This is yours for as long as you want it.” Regulus stated softly snd Sirius had tears in his eyes, “Thank you.”

Sirius hugged his brother again, “I really mean it, thank you.”

“I love you, Sirius.” Regulus confessed, “You’ll always be my brother. The one who held me during thunderstorms. The one who sewed up my teddy bear when it had gotten ripped. The one who took the blame so I wouldn’t get punished.”

Sirius was gripping the back of his shirt tightly, “That stuff doesn’t just go away.”

They parted, and Regulus smiled, “Get some sleep. I’m sure you’d like to see the boys tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d like to meet my nephews.” Sirius admitted smiling brightly. 

“Get some sleep, Siri.” 

“You too, Reggie.”

[songbirdstyles]

screw my brain (’till it hurts)

summary: you and harry are spies on an assignment to pretend to be a married couple in order to take down a drug trafficking ring. the only problem? you two can’t stand each other.

warnings: smut (18+), hate sex, knifeplay, breathplay (choking), slapping, fingering, phone sex (sort of); enemies to lovers, one bed, fake dating 

song inspo.: death on two legs (dedicated to ...) - queen / back chat - queen / you’re so vain - carly simon

word count: 19.5k 

You can practically feel Harry’s anger simmering beside you, and you’re tired of it.

He’s been acting like a child since you got on the plane, his eyes narrowed and venomous and steam practically blowing out of his ears as though he’s on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum, and you’re sure if looks could kill you’d be dead a million times over again from all the staredowns he’d been trying to initiate. And you’re used to this, for the most part, but it doesn’t make you feel any less annoyed as he huffs beside you, flicking through the file on his lap.

And - look. You don’t like Harry. You can hardly even tolerate him, most of the time, and the only times you manage to be near him without gagging is when you’re on missions. Usually he’s the same way, pushing aside the mutual disdain you’ve shared from day fucking one when there’s goals to be accomplished and targets to take down but he’s just sitting here like an angry log, thumbing noisily through papers as you swipe through your phone.

He’s looking for attention, Mark would tell you - your boss is the epitome of coolness, desperate for you and Harry to get along because of his tendency to force you together on missions - and that is true. You’re just as pissed as he is and you aren’t making a show of it. No, he’s an attention seeking crybaby, and you won’t give him what he craves. Won’t even look at him.

The plane dips a bit, then, and your stomach lurches, grabbing at the armrest in between you two where Harry’s elbow rests, and he jerks it into his side as though you’d burned him. You scoff, then, the pretense of faking casualness abandoned as fast as you’d stuck to it, and you can sense him rolling his eyes at the noise.

“For Fuck’s sake,” you huff, leaning to the side so you can stare at him as you roll your eyes pointedly, and he mimics the movement. “What are you so whiny about?”

“M’not whiny,” Harry insists in a tone that’s strikingly similar to the whine he claims he doesn’t have, and you sigh before reaching over, snatching the file off of his lap. “Hey - I was readin’ that!”

“Really?” you inquire, shifting so your back is to the man next to you and he can’t read the words on the page you’re squinting at. “Could’ve fooled me. Thought you were just sitting there huffing and rolling your eyes like a baby.” After a moment where he doesn’t respond, you risk a glance backwards and are met with the back of his head full of curls as he stares out the window at the passing sunset as you whiz through the sky. “What’s got your knickers in a twist, hmm? Did Mark not put enough into the budget for hair gel and dirty shoes?”

“Oh, shut up,” he says in a wildly mature way of response, and you can hardly resist the urge to smirk at it. “F’the record, m’mad that I have t’do another mission with you.”

You nod, trailing your finger along the line of words detailing aspects about the target you know you’ll have to utilize later - he has four cats. He and his wife are on the brink of divorce. He has two daughters, and he doesn’t speak to either of them. His name is Vincent Carfield, and, boy, does he sound like a real catch - you’re so focused on reading about him that you hardly register that Harry’s started speaking again.

“Wish Mark would realize m’good enough to do shit like this on my own. Don’t need you t’come around an’ pretend to be my - my girlfriend. S’stupid.”

“Well, if you were good enough, I would be at home with cucumbers on my eyes right now instead of reading about the leader of a drug trafficking ring -”

“God, you’re a bitch -”

“And you’re an asshole -”

“Fuck you - m’calling Mark.”

You snort, leaning back in your seat as Harry fumbles in his bag at his feet for his tablet, and he shakily sets it up on his lap, tapping through the screen until he gets to the FaceTime app. “Real mature, Har, going to tattle to Mark.”

“God, not everything’s about you, narcissist - half hour out, need a debrief.”

You crane your neck to lean in front of him and look out the window, and - sure enough - you can already tell that you’re getting closer, plane dipping slowly lower and it wouldn’t be perceptible to you if he hadn’t told you. Harry’s always been a tad bit more observant than you, though you wouldn’t confess that to him if your life depended on it.

Mark answers Harry’s call within mere seconds - he’s always on high alert when you guys call, especially when you’re off on missions together - part of you suspects he’s always waiting for a call that one of you killed the other. “Hello, lovebirds,” he chirps, the pure image of relaxation as he adjusts his tie, shifting in his seat - you and Harry both roll your eyes at his nickname for the pair of you. “Surprised to see you haven’t clawed each other’s eyes out.” “Wish I did,” you mutter beneath your breath, and Harry glares at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Anyway,” Mark says, and you know he heard what you said judging from the ghost of a smile on his pale face, but he brushes past it. “When you land, you’ll have around an hour to get settled into the hotel before dinner. I’ve sent you the address to the restaurant - the target is eating there with his wife, most likely to discuss their divorce, so he’ll be feeling vulnerable and insecure -” “And that’s where I come in,” you finish, trailing your nail across the fine printed page which holds the plans the three had deliberated over for two weeks prior - compared to most of your missions it was an extraordinarily short amount of time to plan but none of you could foresee this one going anything other than disgustingly easy. If you pull through, you could be home by the end of the weekend.

“And that’s where you come in,” Mark affirms, thick rimmed glasses mirroring the image of you and Harry that he’s seeing on his screen. “Find any way to touch him - pretend to trip - and plant the audio tracker on his jacket.” You nod, and Harry drops his head against the seat with a soft sigh that nearly makes you turn and throttle him but you hold back, fingers tensing as though itching for a throat to grab. “Then you guys go back to the hotel, hold back from slaughtering each other, and listen in - he’s staying at the room next to yours.”

If this situation were occurring a year ago in your first few weeks of working as a spy perhaps you’d marvel at the seeming coincidence of Mark just happening to get you a hotel room right next to your target - but your one-year anniversary working has just come up and, as it so happens, you know he can make just about anything happen by pulling the right strings. And staying in the same hotel, on the same floor, is the perfect talking point for dinner - you’re already storing it in the back of your mind to bring up in conversation when you manage to get the tracker on his jacket -

“ - and, look, guys, I know you don’t particularly like each other,” Mark is saying when your attention snaps back to him, and Harry snorts. It’s the understatement of the century - you almost want to laugh with him. “It’s just really important that you sell yourselves as a couple. I don’t care what you have to do - share a drink or hold hands - but he needs to see you as a couple. All of his mistresses have been seemingly happily married - he’ll be more inclined to get closer with ____ if he sees you’re in a good relationship. Then, Harry, of course, can explore his hotel room - snuff out anything suspicious.”

You nod but Harry seems less convinced - his brow arches as his arms cross over his chest, and you glance over at him with confusion written over your features. “M’confused,” he says, and you raise your eyebrows. “She’s gonna fu - have an affair wit’ him, then?”

God, we fucking talked about this, you want to shout at him, to shake his shoulders until he’s dizzy. If you paid attention while we planned instead of sitting there whining that you don’t go on missions by yourself because nobody goes on missions by themselves unless they’ve been here for nearly 10 years and you’ve barely scraped three -

Mark is more patient. He just shrugs, fingers tapping away at the keyboard connecting to his screen. “Maybe - maybe not. Depends how vulnerable she can get him without resorting to sexual means.”

“Don’t think I’ll have a problem with that,” you can’t resist saying, popping the ‘p’ in problem as you smugly smirk, scratching your nails against the smooth paper you’d been reading as Harry glares at you, seemingly affronted. “Only had to resort to getting down and dirty with a target once - that asshole mob boss - everyone else is just dying to tell me their juicy little secrets. Guess it’s a perk at being good at what you do, right, Har?”

“Oh, you’re such a -”

“Children, children,” Mark interrupts the beginning of Harry’s speech about what a cunt you are, holding up his age-worn palms with mock exasperation as he stares the two of you down. “Stay civil. I’ve just booked your reservation at this Italian restaurant called Fucina’s - it’s for 7, under Mr. and Mrs. James Robinson. Vincent Carfield and his wife have a reservation for 7:30 but have a tendency to arrive early. They requested seating in a more private area, as did I, so you should be able to hear their conversations -”

The conversation rolls on for another few minutes until the pilot announces that you’re landing in ten, and that’s Mark’s cue to sign off - with a fleeting inquiry about any questions the pair of you may have he’s gone, wishing you good luck and making you promise to call him after dinner once you’ve set up the tracker and begun listening to your mark. You don’t suspect you’ll forget to - you and Harry generally can’t be in an enclosed environment together for too long without having overwhelming desires to take each other out, and Mark balances you out. Eases the two of you, calms you down, even when you’re so angry at Harry you want nothing more than to stamp your feet on the ground and scream.

It’s how you feel now, a bit, as Harry shuts his tablet and shoves it back into his bag with a dramatic huff after Mark has signed off. He’s angry about something again, surely relating to you and the mission and how he constantly feels snubbed by Mark but, truthfully, as the plane dips lower and lower to the Earth, you find that you really, really, don’t care.

 ~~

 The hotel room is, for all intents and purposes, fairly large. It’s nicer than a significant portion of the ones you two inhabit on missions and you should be grateful, toeing off your boots in the entrance of the suite, that it has a functioning kitchen and a bathroom with a door that closes and an L shaped couch facing the television (based on the description of the suite Mark had sent), but your mood has been entirely soured by Harry’s sore attitude during the drive from the airport to the hotel.

He drops his suitcase against the carpeted ground of the entrance, and it slams onto the ground so close to your sock-covered toes that you jump back, glaring at him as he pointedly ignores you and descends further into the hotel room, peeking his curly head into the kitchen and the bathroom. You watch him as you rest your suitcase against the wall, nudging his closer to the wall with your foot before following him, already tugging your phone out of the back pocket of your jeans to check for any new texts from your boss when -

“You’ve got t’be fucking kidding me.”

You arch your eyebrows, tilting your phone into your chest as you turn the corner into the main living area. And it’s nice, eyes wandering over the couch that Mark had told you about, and the TV mounted to the wall with a Roku connected to it that you’re sure you’ll take advantage of later tonight. The carpet is soft beneath your feet even through your socks, and the bed is nicely made, pillows fluffy and looking soft -

Bed.

Shit.

What a bastard, Mark is - booking a room with only one bed? And not even telling you two about it? God, you could kill him. You really could, and you will, as soon as you get back to headquarters and see his stupid bald head in person - you’ll throttle him. Or shoot him. Hell, you’ll even stab him.

“You’re taking the couch,” you tell Harry, and before he can protest you take a running start to leap onto the bed, plopping onto your back and tucking your arms beneath your scalp. “Looks real comfy, doesn’t it? The bed - not the couch. Couch looks like it’ll kill your back.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Harry practically snarls, voice all venom and teeth, and he sits at the edge of the bed anyway, hands going up to loosen at the black tie wrapped tight around his neck. “So entitled - I’ll take the fucking bed. Been here longer than you, y’know - just ‘cause y’like t’act like you’re so good -”

“And yet,” you interrupt, bringing your foot up to kick at his side, and he turns around and glares at you, “I’m the one getting put on assignments with you, even though I’ve hardly been here a year. Oh, yeah, what’s that Mark told us? I was put on duty the quickest than anyone else after finishing my assignments?” You screw up your eyes as though trying to fact check yourself before nodding, smiling at the positively hateful expression on your partner’s face. “Guess I am good.”

He opens his mouth to reply and perhaps he assumes better of it - he simply rolls his eyes, pulling his tie off of his neck and dropping it on the ground beside him. For a moment you simply stare at him as he peels his jacket off, littering it on the floor in a similar fashion as his tie, until he’s merely donning a white button down and his black dress pants, hair messy and face light red. 

Sometimes you do that - you watch him - because it’s nice to see him look so peaceful and silent when you’re used to spewing hatred back and forth. You could even be into him if he kept his mouth taped shut and promised to never make a single noise, but he would never comply with it - and you’re sure you’d find a reason to get pissed off at him if he didn’t speak.

You hadn’t realized how long you’d been staring at him until he turns around, and your gazes lock, and you lift your eyebrows.

“Don’t stare at me,” Harry demands, backing up on the bed until his head rests on the pillow beside you - you turn your head to stare at him, affronted. “Told you - m’taking the bed. An’ m’gonna take a nap f’a half hour- already set the timer on m’phone - so you can either take the couch or sit here right beside me.”

You push yourself onto your elbows, glaring down at the man beside you who closes his eyes (rather smugly, you’ll add) and mimics your own previous position, arms tucked beside his head. “You dickhead.”

“Mhm.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Fine by me.”

“I’m gonna nap too -”

“Go ahead -”

“And I stretch out a lot when I sleep.”

“How ever will I handle it?”

You’ve seem to run out of responses, furrowing your eyebrows as Harry’s face settles into an expression of slight comfort and you wonder if he really has gone to bed, resting in the button down shirt and dress pants that he’s always itching to get out of at the end of the day. You’ve had to watch him undress with absolutely no shame in front of your far too many times for comfort, shoved into small hotel rooms together but at least they had two beds - you can hardly control your heart rate as you stare down at him.

(Because you’re angry, of course. Whenever he’s acting like a dumbass your heartbeat quickens to match the pace of a fucking freight train, and that’s nearly every time you’ve ever had to talk to him.)

After a moment you rest back on the bed beside him, head dangerously close to the center of the two pillows where you can feel Harry’s curls, spread upon his pillows, brushing against the sides of your temples. With every feel of his hair against your skin you feel your anger rising, and you exhale softly, pressing your palms to the top of your stomach as you listen to his steady breathing beside you.

He sounds too peaceful.

You wait nearly ten minutes before beginning your plan of attack, not nearly as meticulously planned as the ones you and Harry will employ later - you slowly begin to spread your legs out, feeling your calf brush against his foot, and your arms follow in a similar pattern. They stretch outwards, forearm thrown across his neck, and you can feel his Adam’s apple bobbing against your skin but he doesn’t take the bait - doesn’t even move a muscle, and you can feel his even breathing against your arm.

For a second you wonder if he really is asleep. You’d be surprised.

It’s uncomfortable sleeping on your back and that’s your justification for rolling over onto your stomach, body halfway on top of Harry’s, chest pressed against his and face buried into the pillow beside him so your nose presses into his hair, softly inhaling the fruity shampoo he uses. Your arm lazily throws itself across his torso, leg nudging his until they fall off the bed, and he grunts.

“What th’fuck are y’doing?” Harry questions gruffly, voice just raspy enough to make you consider the very real possibility that he truly had fallen asleep, and you don’t respond. “Get off me, dumbass - tryin’ t’sleep.”

You remain silent. You work on steadying your breathing, faking sleep in the way that you’ve mastered over the past year (and a half, if you count the six months of training you’d done before beginning work) - on one of your earliest missions you’d pretended to be passed out in the back of a work party you’d seduced your way into with a tape recorder taped to your underboob and you’d been able to get enough recording of a conversation between two sleazy old men to support your hypothesis that their paper company was a front for a sex trafficking ring. You suspect this case should be likely the same, albeit easier and likely without the work party, and you’ll breeze through it like nobody’s business if it requires fake sleeping like you’re doing now.

“I know you’re not sleeping,” he correctly deduces, lifting his arm to slam it against your back entirely too hard and you nibble on your bottom lip to keep from making any type of noise at the slight pain the motion brings. “Get off me. Go t’the couch - stop being so stubborn.”

You mumble something incoherent under your breath, digging your face further into your pillow just to hear the way he hisses as you (un)intentionally tug at his hair. You feel his hands dig into your sides and before you can pull off of him he pushes you away with as much force as he can muster, and you’re send tossed to the other end of the bed, grappling at the duvet to stop yourself from slipping over the edge of the bed onto the carpet.

“Fuck,” you hiss, pushing yourself to sit out with your legs stuck straight out in front of you. With a glare directed towards the man opposite you you pull your legs back and push them towards him sharply, kicking him directly in his thigh, and his legs tumble off the bed, forcing him to sit up to maintain his balance. “Take that, dipshit.”

“Can’t you do better than that?” Harry questions, tone so mocking and condescending that you push yourself to his knees just as he rises to stand, the top button of his shirt mercifully coming undone, and you resist the urge to glance at it every so often. “C’mon, babe - if you’re gonna be a bitch -”

You push yourself to stand on top of the covers, taking a leap towards Harry where he stands on the other side of the bed, and your legs hook around his torso, effectively catching him by surprise as his hands immediately land on your waist, tugging you off of him and throwing you onto the bed with an ease that shouldn’t surprise you after this long of knowing him but it still knocks the breath out of you. His body hovers above you, pinning your arms above your head but you won’t have that - hook your legs around the back of his thighs and force him onto his back, throwing your legs over his torso as you mimic the position he’d trapped you in.

“1…” you begin counting tauntingly as you stare down at his face, reaching down to grab his wrists and hold them above his head, watching as he wriggles beneath you, his stomach tensing against your core. “2 … not even gonna put up a fight? What an agent you are -”

He practically growls at that, jerking his hands upward until they slip out of your grasp, nearly whacking you in the chin before he pushes himself up. You’re slammed into the headboard before you can even stop to think of your counterattack, back slamming into the wood as you drop your head forward to ensure you don’t knock your head into the wall, and Harry kneels in front of you with an exasperated, smug smirk, reaching up to press his forearm over your throat.

He’s not pressing hard - not enough to constrict your breathing at all, merely to hold your head in place - and after a second he begins counting just as you had - “1 … 2 … 3.”

You struggle uselessly against him until he reaches the final number, and a satisfied smile etches itself across his face before he pulls away, resting back on his knees to watch you huff before him before he begins crawling off the bed. “An’ I think that means that you, m’lady, have t’take the couch -”

You deliver one final swift kick to the back of Harry’s needs, and he tumbles off of the bed onto the ground with a cry, knees dropping onto the carpet and hands instinctively pressing to the wall he’d nearly slammed his head into. His position becomes one similar to a prayer, dropping his head forward against the wall with a dramatic groan.

“I won,” you tell him, flopping onto your back on the bed with a satisfied hum. “Get on the couch - reckon we still have a good 10 minutes left of our nap.”

Harry pushes himself to his feet in the blink of an eye, turning around with a look on his face that’s so serious you nearly want to double over in laughter, and as he plants his knees on the edge of the bed to resume the fight you’d had earlier, a sudden noise from the wall opposite your bed causes you to hold your palm out to him, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

“Shh!” you hiss, pushing yourself onto your elbows as Harry furrows his eyebrows, craning his neck towards the wall as though it’ll help him hear better. “D’you hear that?”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, pondering the muffled noises coming from the hotel room next door. “Wha’?” Harry questions after a moment, voice hushed and soft, and you wait a moment before responding.

“The shower -” and, sure enough, just as the thought crosses your mind and the words leave your mouth you know that that’s the noise you’re hearing - the sound of water streaming onto the buff body of Vincent Carfield or perhaps his wife - “what time is it?”

“Uh -” Harry scrambles off the bed, digging through his backpack thrown on the ground until he can pull out his tablet, and the light shines on his face as he turns it on. “6:34.”

“Shit,” you hiss, rolling off the bed and practically darting out to the entrance hall where your suitcase rests against the wall, and you knock it to the ground and unzip it quickly. “Vincent’s already getting ready - we need to be at the restaurant soon. How fast can you get ready?”

“Pretty fast -” by the time Harry’s made his way into the entrance hall to dig through the suitcase he’d attempted to hit you with earlier you’ve peeled off your clothes, dropping them in a pile by your feet until you’re clad in only your bra and a pair of lace panties that leave entirely too little to the imagination, holster holding your knife firm against your thigh, and he freezes. “Christ. Can’t y’get a room f’that?”

“Oh, says the one who strips naked in the middle of the room every single night!” You shake your head, digging through your suitcase until you can find the black dress you’d packed specifically for dinner - it’s folded and mercifully wrinkle free, and you unzip the back to begin stepping into it. “Get ready. I’m going to do my makeup.”

“Make sure y’put a lot on - don’t wanna scare him off -”

“Shut up, Harry!”

 ~~

 Fucina’s is dark and fancy, with hosts dressed in all black and waitresses in a similar fashion. You would almost feel out of place, your arm hooked with Harry’s as you’re led through the main dining room towards the back where your table is, but it’s not any more elegant than any of the other expensive restaurants and galas the pair of you have infiltrated together, and with your tight dress and his suit, you look like exactly the couple to eat and afford a restaurant like this.

“The pasta’s $65,” Harry murmurs, trailing his fingertip down the laminated menu that you can hardly see in the dim light of the restaurant. You squint down at the page, bringing your head closer down to confirm that, yes, the fettuccine truly is that fucking expensive, and - not for the first time - you’re immensely grateful for the headquarters-mandated debit cards that you’ll use to pay for this. “Y’see that? The fettuccine?”

“Yeah,” you nod, though you’re not looking at the menu any longer - your eyes scan the restaurant behind Harry’s back, and of the three other tables in the private section Mark had requested for Mr. and Mrs. James Robinson to be in, none of them are occupied except yours. You and Harry had gotten there ten minutes late, much to Mark’s chagrin when you called him in the taxi, and the Carfields still hadn’t arrived. “Think I’m just gonna get a salad - not too hungry, anyway.”

“Me too.”

The conversation drains into a weird sort of silence - not awkward, and not malicious, either, as all of your silences usually are typically the result of one of you purposely ignoring the other. It’s harder to air out your disdain for each other when you’re supposed to be a couple that’s hopelessly in love in a high class restaurant, and you find that you don’t have much else to talk about with your partner besides discussing either the mission or whatever he’s doing that may be pissing you off at the moment -

He actually looks nice right now. Calm, collected - if you didn’t know better you’d say he looks like a pretty stand-up guy. The kind you’d take home to your mom.

“Why are y’lookin’ at me?” Harry questions, then, glancing up at you, and you internally curse at yourself - you always tend to forget how good he is at identifying someone staring at him. 

“Just thinking about how much I prefer you when you aren’t speaking,” you tell him, voice dropping lower as a host clad in black leads an older couple into the area, sitting them at a table towards the window as Harry rolls his eyes. You lift your water glass to your lips, taking a slow sip as you attempt to inconspicuously decipher if the couple is your target -

“You’re being so obvious,” Harry hisses, voice soft like a breath and yet still retaining all the venom his words always tend to hold. “Is it them?”

“No,” you decide, resting your glass back on your coaster as you slide your chair further into the table, foot accidentally kicking his ankle as you do - his face contorts in both annoyance and pain as he repeats the motion to you. “No - Carfield’s wife is young, isn’t she?”

“27.”

“Yeah.” The wife currently settling into her seat, draping her jacket over the back of her chair, is decidedly not 27 - add 50 years, or so. “Not them. They should be here soon, though.” 

“Good.”

In another moment your waitress has come to take your drink orders - you get a bottle of red wine just to hammer in the notion that you’re a young couple on a date night, even if you really prefer white wine, and you’re sure Harry would rather have a beer, but Mark always tells you to go for red when you’re out to dinner on missions. And - well - you’re not necessarily complaining. Wine is wine.

The wine arrives at your table with two tall glasses and Harry takes it to pour with a faux cheerful grin that has the waitress flushing in the dim light of the room - you tell yourself the tinge of jealousy at her clear adoration for the man currently uncorking the bottle to pour for you is simply because of how in character you are in terms of your fake marriage - and if you were someone else, perhaps you’d get angry at her for clearly flirting with Harry, though he doesn’t seem to notice.

Strange. You’d always taken him as the more observant one of the two of you, but he’s paying no mind to the waitress’s blushed face as he pours wine into your glass and she pulls out her notepad, ready to take your order.

“I’ll have the caesar salad, please, without chicken,” you tell her, giving a tight lipped grin as she scribbles it down onto her page. When Harry’s rested the bottle of wine back on the tablecloth-clad table, you reach over and rest your hand overtop of his, feeling his veins jump beneath your touch. “What about you, honey?”

If he’s confused, he doesn’t look it - just gives you a warm smile that feels entirely wrong coming from him, and the waitress looks positively affronted as he orders a large Mediterannean salad, and when she’s tucked her notebook back into the apron tied around her waist and left the private area, he furrows his eyebrows at you.

“Y’jealous?” Harry inquires, leaning his head in with a mocking grin that makes you roll your eyes, though you make no effort to move your hand from his - it looks better for appearances, anyway. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“In your dreams,” you insist, straightening your posture once a different hostess leads a couple into the room. The man is old, bald head shining in the dim light and donning a suit jacket that clearly hasn’t been tailored to his proportions, and his wife is significantly younger, pale face flushed red and wearing a black dress that looks as though she’s attending a funeral - you suppose she is, to some degree, mourning her marriage, so perhaps it’s fitting.

Harry can tell by the way you straighten up that the new couple sitting at the table behind him is the Carfields. Vincent sits with his back to your table, his wife on the opposite side, and immediately they lean their heads together, surely speaking in hushed tones about - prenuptial agreements and custody of their two girls and the like.

You need to be a couple. Mark had insisted on it, that it’s the most important part for you to get closer to Vincent and make him susceptible to your manipulation - he needs to see you as some sort of forbidden fruit - a married woman with a seemingly happy husband. It’s a control thing for him, and one you need to play into if you want to take his drug ring down.

It would sound like an ambitious goal if you weren’t as confident in yourself and Harry - because even if you hate him, he’s a damn good agent.

Your eyes meet Harry’s across the table, and he raises an eyebrow. You nod, jerking your head up and down before wrapping your manicured fingers around the stem of your wine glass, lifting it up and giving your partner a soft smile - one that he’s rarely on the receiving end of, if you’re being truthful - and you nod your chin towards his glass. Harry follows your lead, lifting his glass and raising it to clink against yours.

“Cheers,” he murmurs, and both of you sip from your glasses before resting them back down on your coasters, the rim of your glass decorated with a generous pink stain from your lipstick. “Happy anniversary, honey.”

His voice raises in volume just a bit, and from the table behind him you can see tears fill Mrs. Carfield’s eyes at the sentiment of a happy couple, and Mr. Carfield’s head tilts to the side though you don’t watch him long enough to see if he’d heard Harry - you simply smile - lift your intertwined hands in the air and to anyone else in your private area you’re sure you simply look the perfect part of a happy couple, celebrating their marriage anniversary. Two years together. Mr. and Mrs. James Robinson have been married for longer than you’ve known (and despised) Harry - surely there’s irony hidden in there, deep enough that you can’t see it.

It’s easier than you’d like to admit to fake a meaningful conversation with Harry. Mark generally gives the pair of you a list of things to talk about so people get the impression that you can tolerate each other but you typically don’t even need it - it’s easy enough to talk about your faux plans for the rest of your marriage.

It’s almost fun, even. Not in a way you’d expect - but it’s funny, talking about whatever the pair of you would imagine married couples would discuss - mortgages and trying for babies and politics - keeping your voices loud enough so the couple behind you can hear but quiet enough so it doesn’t seem intentional.

“D’you think we could turn the guest room into a nursery?” Harry inquires, lips quirking upwards as he lifts his wine to his lips, and you nibble on your bottom lip, pretending to contemplate the question.

“Of course,” you respond faux-thoughtfully, leaning forward just a bit, and his eyes flicker downwards for hardly a second before rising to meet your eyes again. “Or perhaps the office.”

“Yes, that’s a bit bigger,” he says seriously, and you nod, reaching for your glass of wine to take another small sip. It’s bitter and leaves a sour taste on your tongue, but you’re determined to drink the entire thing - it’ll soothe the nerves that you’re sure will arrive when it’s time to plant the bug on Mr. Carfield. You still haven’t figured out how you’ll manage to do it smoothly. “Then perhaps we could save the guest room for the second.”

You nod, hardly able to keep the small smile off your lips, and Harry leans forward, reaching for the stem of his glass - perhaps he miscalculates the force needed to pick up a glass, or maybe he’s beginning to feel the effects of the first glass of wine he’d downed - but his hand knocks into the glass, sending it toppling forward onto your arms, sticky red liquid coating your skin. You jerk your arms back as though he’d burned you, watching him hiss as he reaches for the glass before it can spill any further onto you or the white tablecloth now stained with redness.

You swallow the urge to snap at him - that’s counterproductive, and it’ll blow your cover - so you merely inhale, willing the anger down as you reach for your napkin to begin to mop up the mess. “Should watch what you’re doing, honey -”

“My bad, darling - didn’t mean to -”

And the moment of you beginning to like Harry is gone as fast as it had begun, feeling the simmering anger that’s ever-present beneath your skin already beginning to bubble into existence. He’s looking at you with his eyebrows raised as if this is your fault that he can’t control his own glass, like you’re the nuisance, and your desire to retort snarkily is thwarted only as Vincent Carfield’s head turns just slightly to the side, and you can see him and his wife watching the pair of you in what’s clearly an attempt to be subtle.

You rest your palms on the table as Harry sets his glass back on the coaster, and you can feel the similar waves of annoyance rolling off of him that you’re sure you’re mirroring. “I’m going to go clean myself up,” you tell him. “Excuse me for a moment, sweetheart.”

“Take your time, princess.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes as you push your chair back with a tight lipped smile, standing up and resting your napkin on the table before your seat as you push past the table towards the bathroom you’d passed when your host had lead you to the table.

The restrooms are nicely decorated, with large mirrors and sinks and two singular stalls - entirely too fancy for the thoughts racing through your mind as you lean over the sink, turning the faucet on and shoving your sticky arms beneath the flow of warm water. You’d managed to clean most of the wine with your napkin but you still just need - perhaps just a moment to yourself, without Harry’s eyes piercing into you in a way that makes it impossible to feel like he doesn’t want to throttle you.

And you want to throttle him, too. That’s why your relationship works because it doesn’t, because you hate him as much as he hates you - and yet, while you were drinking wine and messing around and pretending to be a couple you didn’t hate him. Not even a bit -

Until he spilled the wine. It’s a forcible reminder of why you want to shave off all of his hair when he sleeps, sometimes.

The water has gone cold on your skin when you finally shut the faucet off, picking up a small stack of paper towels to dry off your arms. When you’ve chucked your trash in the wicker-basket garbage bin you take a moment to simply stare at yourself in the mirror, black dress hugging your body just enough to leave very little to the imagination - you adjust the fabric to hide the bulge where you have your knife holstered to your thigh. The cut of the dress dips low into your cleavage - and then you recall how Harry’s eyes had briefly dipped downwards when you’d been talking earlier -

A smile twitches at your lips. You’ll have to remember to use that one against him later.

Just before you turn to leave you pause - stick your hand down the front of your dress to the small audio device you’d hidden in your bra. The bug is small, barely the size of your pinky nail, one side sticky enough to hold onto Vincent Carfield’s tan suit jacket -

You hadn’t thought too much about how you’d manage to subtly get the device on him, but there’s no time like the present, is there?

You leave the bathroom, then - nearly run into your waitress as she stares down at her notepad, and you’re not sure if you’re imagining the dirty look she shoots you - and climb the two short steps it takes to get to the private area you’d been seated in. Harry’s back faces you, curls looking particularly messy and head dropped forward to surely stare at his phone, and you can see Vincent leaning in to talk to his wife with narrowed eyes and a hushed tone.

You inhale and begin your walk over to the table, heels clicking on the tiled floor, and Harry’s head tilts to the side as he hears you coming. Vincent’s eyes rise to meet yours just as your heel slides a bit on the floor and you slip forward right beside their table, and the plan falls into action just as you’d planned in the thirty second walk it had taken to get from the bathroom to here.

Vincent’s arm sticks out instinctively to catch you, wrapped around your stomach for just a moment too long as his other hand rests on your back, and you use the opportunity to reach up and grab his shoulder as a way to steady yourself. Harry jerks around in his seat to watch you, and the concern in his eyes almost makes you revive your brief moment of liking him but it’s overpowered by the pride you feel - if he can’t immediately snuff out that the fall was a fraud, then it had clearly looked realistic enough that the Carfields wouldn’t be able to tell, your hand with the bug pressing to his shoulder

Boom. Planted. Your grip presses the bug against the back of his shoulder as he helps you to your feet, and you pretend not to notice the way his eyes trail up your body - his poor wife looks affronted at the clear display of attraction.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” you apologize, trailing your finger down his arm as he drops his hands back to the table. “I’m so clumsy sometimes -”

“No worries,” he assures you, and perhaps he would seem like a kind, well-adjusted man if it weren’t for the way his eyes zero in on your chest like a magnet - Harry shifts in his seat, watching the two of you, and his wife picks up her glass of wine and downs it in one sip. “Always glad to help a pretty girl in need.”

A blush works its way up your cheeks and before you can flirt back - it raises bile in the back of your throat to do it - Harry intervenes, leaning forward with a goddamn award winning smile and absolutely stomping on your chance to ensure some sort of relationship with Mr. Carfield as he says, “Did she wrinkle your suit at all? We’ll get the laundry bill, if she did.”

You grind your teeth together through a smile as Vincent shakes his bald head, sending Harry a warm smile which your partner gladly reciprocates. “It’s fine - are the two of you married?”

Didn’t he hear you two loudly celebrating your anniversary? Perhaps he just needs to confirm it - nothing wrong with it - but, God, he’s forward.

“Yes, we are,” you reply, and you step away from Vincent to walk back to your table - Harry reaches for your hand and pulls you to him, and you suspect the motion would look awkward if done by anyone else but it feels entirely too natural for you to be bothered. “It’s our two year marriage anniversary, actually. That’s why we’re here - on vacation.”

“That’s lovely,” Vincent says, and his smile stretches wider until it makes you uncomfortable to look at so you busy yourself gazing down at Harry’s head as though you’re so smitten you can hardly stand to look away. Then he holds out his hand, and you grab it, letting him shake it vigorously before he moves towards Harry. “It’s Vincent Carfield,” he tells you both, and Harry jumps in to introduce yourselves by your false names. “How long are you here?” “Just th’weekend,” Harry responds, nodding as Vincent does. “We’re staying downtown.”

“Really?” Vincent leans forward, and you lean your body back just a bit - not enough for him to notice, thankfully. “What hotel?”

And Harry gives him the name and Vincent acts as though it’s the wildest coincidence in the world that you both happen to be staying at one of the nicest, most popular hotels in London but you’re glad he overreacts, in a way. It’s important to establish some sort of relation between the two of you and maybe this’ll make Vincent feel like he’s destined to start some sort of affair with you - sure, it’s stupid, but he’s insecure and you’re ‘married’ and that should make him feel a bit more in control, knowing there’s a man waiting for you when you’re with him.

The thought could nearly make you gag. You hope beyond hope that it doesn’t have to get to it - that maybe the two of you could just sit and talk while Harry searches his hotel room - but, judging from the way he’s practically salivating as he stares up at you, you don’t think that’ll be the case.

After another moment of chatter your waitress arrives with a large plate of salad in each hand - you let go of Harry’s hand with one last departing wink to Vincent Carfield as you walk around the table to your seat, pushing your seat into the table just as your salad is placed before you.

Vincent’s wife glares at you - you’d feel bad in any other scenario. But - hey - at least they’re getting divorced already.

You pick up your fork, stabbing into a crouton and a few pieces of iceberg lettuce, and you raise it to your mouth, chewing thoughtfully on your food as Harry mirrors your actions. The two of you eat in silence for a minute or two, and you occasionally lift your wine to take a sip - he hadn’t poured himself a new glass, for which you are extremely grateful - before he leans in, curls flopping around his ears in a way that would be adorable if you didn’t have any sort of niggling annoyance for him still lingering.

“Good job, Mrs. Robinson,” murmurs Harry into a forkful of lettuce before shoving it into his mouth, and you scrunch your nose at his sloppiness.

“It’s what I’m best at,” you respond in earnest, and you relish in the way he rolls his eyes.

 ~~

 Harry takes forever in the shower.

It’s an indisputable fact at this point and one you should have gotten used to but it never fails to amaze you as your fingers type away at the headquarters-issued laptop resting on the carpet in front of you. He’s already been in the bathroom for nearly 20 minutes - you can hear his music playing, old hippie music that’s always blaring from his earbuds on plane and car rides, and steam billows out of the crack in the bottom of the door - and you’ve been picking up where he left up setting up the audio transmitter you’d attached to Vincent Carfield so you can hear what he’s saying, wired earbuds plugged into the computer preparation for when you start the audio.

Harry hadn’t done much at all to set it up - you can’t imagine what he was doing in the hotel room while you were showering if he wasn’t working on the mission, but you’d come out after your shower and hardly anything was done.

They should come up with better technology for this, you think as you drum your fingernails against your laptop, watching the small loading bar inch across the computer screen, transmitting the audio from next door to both your laptop and to Mark, back at headquarters. You’d texted him briefly to ask if he still wanted you to call him and he told you to merely connect the audio to him and there would be no issues - well, that’s fine by you, even if you’d largely counted on him coming between you and Harry when you’ll inevitably want to kill him later tonight.

The water shuts off. You roll your eyes for a good few seconds as you hear the shower curtain being shoved open from inside the bathroom, and you lean further into the computer before you, squinting at the loading bar that hasn’t progressed further since the last time you examined it. You sigh - push yourself off of the floor, arms stretched above your head and the sleeves of your t-shirt slide further down your shoulders. You’re simply donning a worn college shirt you’d gotten when you were in high school and still had dreams of attending a typical university - dreams that, evidently, you had squashed in the years to come - and a pair of sleep shorts, their waist just a tad too big on you and you’ve tugged them up further than they should rest.

It’s decidedly chilly in the hotel. The steam dissipating through the room from Harry’s shower serves as the only way to heat you up, humid air warm on your skin, and you hate the way you almost appreciate him for taking such a piping hot shower - but the thought doesn’t have to linger too long before the bathroom door opens with the force of a fucking bullet and Harry walks out, towel tied around his waist and hanging low on his hips, sopping curls brushed and resting on his shoulders, droplets from the strands rolling down his chest.

Your stomach flips. 

“Christ,” you say as a way of hiding the way your skin suddenly feels like there’s a fire lighting it from the inside out, burning your insides with it. “Don’t have any clothes to put on?”

He rolls his eyes - you swallow thickly, perching yourself on the edge of the bed as he takes a moment to stop and glance at the computer on the ground before turning back to you. “Changing in the bathroom is gross,” and - well, yeah, you have to agree with that. “Y’practically stripped naked in front f’me earlier, y’know.”

“You did it first,” you mutter, pulling your legs to cross beneath you as Harry crosses the room to the full length mirror mounted on the wall, fingers running through his wet curls, and you tear your eyes away from the water dripping onto his bare skin with only mild difficulty. “The audio is loading.”

“I saw that, believe it or not.”

Dick. You bite your tongue, though, and resist the urge to retort that he’d clearly not even started to set up the transmitter while you were showering, because the loading bar has moved nearly to the end of the screen while you’d been conversing with Harry. You climb off the bed, kneeling in front of the computer as Harry looks down at you, and you distinctly feel a drop from his hair land on the top of your head.

“S’done?” he inquires, and you glance up at him to reply but he’s already plopping down next to you, leaning over you to squint at the screen so you get a nice whiff of the hotel soap he’d used and his own distinct scent of shampoo - it’s fruity, mixed with something musky you can’t decipher - maybe tobacco? It’s hard to tell - he smells good. You wonder if he’s noticed how still you’ve gotten but then he pulls away, leaning back on his arm while you clear your throat and lean forward, tapping the mousepad on your laptop a few times in quick succession. “You’ve got it hooked to Mark?”

“‘Course,” you say, if only to regain your composure and keep your pretense of light annoyance with him. “Probably why it’s taking so long.”

“Ah.”

Then he stands, crossing to the entrance hall where his suitcase is opened, clothes folded meticulously because he’s nothing if not a freak for his clothes - out of the corner of your eye you see him pull out a pair of pajama pants and only a pair of pajama pants, and when his head turns to glance back at you, you’re quick to avert your gaze back to the computer -

Which has loaded. Hooray!

“It’s done,” you call to him, a decibel too loud and you’re quick to lower your voice with a small glance to the wall separating you and the Carfields. Earlier, you’d heard their door slam when they got home from dinner and you could make out their faint voices arguing if you focused hard enough - you don’t want them to hear you. “Get changed and we can listen.”

You pick up one of the earbuds connected to the laptop and shove it in your ear, fiddling with the volume buttons until it’s loud enough that you can hear their conversations as Harry ducks back into the bathroom. Clearly the coat with the bug has been folded in such a way that it muffles their voices but hell, it’s a strong bug, and you can still manage to hear them fine enough.

You send a text to Mark, and he confirms he can hear it too - you toss your phone to the side, letting it slide across the carpet as you lean in, adjusting the earbud in your ear.

Vincent’s voice is what you hear first - he’s talking fast, as though he’s in a rush, and your brows furrow.

“The new shipment isn’t set to come in until the first,” he says, tone hushed and soft, and you can’t hear his wife’s response after a moment of listening, and then he continues. “Think, you idiot! She’s trying to milk me for everything I’ve got - everything we’ve worked for -”

For a brief moment you wonder who she is, but after another few moments with no response you figure that he isn’t talking to his wife as you’d expected - he’s on the phone with someone, speaking of his divorce. A business partner - of course. The bathroom door opens, and your eyes shift to Harry’s figure as you hold out the available earbud for him.

Fuck. He’s gonna fucking kill you - not with his hands or with his gun but with those fucking pants, so low on his hips you can see the trail of hair leading beneath the plaid fabric, the tie done loose and casual. He’s not wearing a shirt, tattoos on full display for you to ogle if you had the time to, and you don’t, of course, but it doesn’t stop your eyes from roaming over his torso, throat feeling suddenly dry as he pads over to you on the ground, dropping to his knees beside you.

“Are you checking me out?” Harry questions, a soft smirk dancing on his lips and you roll your eyes, dangling the earbud for him to grab and he finally takes it, placing it in his left ear just as Vincent begins to speak again.

“Never,” you murmur, and if that isn’t the furthest from the truth you could get to you’re not quite sure what is. “Listen to him - I’m going to the bathroom.” And, as you push yourself to stand and walk towards the bathroom, you swear you can hear him murmur slacker beneath his breath but - well - you don’t need to respond to everything he says sometimes.

Truthfully, yes. You did have to pee. And when you’re done with that you turn on the faucet to wash your hands and you stare at the bathroom mirror that’s still damp from the steam of his shower, edges still frosted with the humidity, and it makes your reflection fuzzy as you look at yourself.

What the fuck? Seriously - what the fuck?

There’s a pressure in your lower stomach and a neediness between your thighs that you can only assign to Harry’s freshly-showered, no-shirt-low-pants appearance and it has shame bubbling under your skin mixed with some other feeling you don’t care enough to figure out. You’re feeling very strange things for Harry - things you’ve never felt for him, ever, in the entire year of knowing him - and you’re almost completely positive he doesn’t feel the same, doesn’t have the same desire to bend you over this sink -

Almost. But almost is very close to absolutely positive.

You feel embarrassed for yourself as you glance around the sink. His hairbrush sits on the counter, and there are so many assorted beauty products scattered across the surface that you can’t tell which ones are yours or his.

The lotion is his, you decide. You don’t use unscented lotion - but you reach for it anyway, squirting a dollop onto your palms and rubbing it in for a reason you’re not entirely sure of. When your hands are as soft as they’re going to get you glance at yourself in the mirror again, shirt baggy and long, the ends of your shorts peeking beneath the fabric.

You reach up, pulling the waistband of your shorts up until they aren’t visible beneath the ends of your shirt, exposing your legs until it appears you’re wearing no sleep shorts beneath the shirt. It’s more comfortable like that, anyway, you tell yourself, which isn’t quite true, before pushing the bathroom door open and walking back out to where Harry’s perched on the floor.

He turns to look at you, and you don’t miss the way his eyes crawl up your legs but he’s a bit more subtle about it than you’re sure you were - his bottom lip looks a deeper shade of red than the top and you wonder if he’d been biting it.

You decide not to repeat his retort about checking you out, even if you’re almost entirely sure he was.

“How’s it going?” you inquire, picking up your earbud to begin listening again. The wire connecting the two buds is short and you shift closer to him until the tip of your kneecap brushes his - you’d expected him to jerk away like you’d fucking stepped on him but he doesn’t, surprisingly. “Got anything juicy?”

“Jus’ vague references t’shipments and goods - they’re trying t’trace his call, see who he’s talking to.” You nod, resting your chin on your palm as Vincent drones on about exactly what Harry had said - the only substantial piece of evidence you have pointing to his business being a coverup for a drug trafficking scheme is references to obscene amounts of money he fears losing to his ex-wife that he would’ve never been able to obtain working at a privately-owned tailory. 

For ten minutes Vincent’s phone call remains as a bit of a drag and, truthfully, a rather large waste of time in your opinion - this is stuff you’d already known, including the shipment coming in a week’s time that you know headquarters will be able to intercept - and you’ve just begun to pull out your earbud to retreat to the bathroom once more to brush your teeth when Harry’s arm jerks towards you, fingers wrapping around your wrist and effectively preventing you from rising.

“Jesus hell,” you hiss, dropping back down onto the ground as you shove your earbud back in, “what -?”

But then Vincent is speaking again.

“ - look, buddy,” he says, voice suddenly dropped lower so that Harry reaches out, tapping the volume button a few times until you can hear him properly, “met this girl at dinner tonight, out with Bonnie. Real cute - body like a fuckin’ goddess.”

Your cheeks flush as a small smirk spreads across Harry’s face.

Vincent pauses, clearly awaiting his business partner’s response to this shocking bit of news, and when he speaks again he sounds more annoyed. “Fuckin’ done with Bonnie - I’m a free agent, Jules.”

You snap at Harry, but he’s already fishing for his phone, pulling up the notes app and jotting down the name Jules in a fresh page.

“Can fuck whoever I want to, now, and I swear, you’d die if you saw her.” You can practically picture the scumbag’s face as he says it, all smug and arrogant - as though you’d ever give him the time of a day if you weren’t being fucking paid for it. “Staying at the same hotel too, with her husband.”

Another pause. “Jules, do you think I give a shit about husbands? Remember Mia, in LA? The one married to that big fella? She was all over me.”

Your lips quirk up into a smile even as your stomach continues to churn in disgust, and Harry exhales softly, resting his phone on top of his knee. Clearly, Vincent’s conversation with Jules has turned from fighting for nearly fifteen minutes about shipments and payments to you and it’s entirely less important but it still piques your interest more. The gritty details of their shipping is for Mark to handle back at headquarters - you need to make sure you can distract Vincent long enough for Harry to search his room.

“ - and, man, you should’ve seen the eyes this girl was giving me - and her husband was all over her, too, checkin’ her out but she was still looking at me -”

You nearly choke at that, head whipping to the side to look at Harry, and he’s doing a sufficient job of furrowing his eyebrows and looking entirely confused at Vincent’s words but you don’t believe him for a moment. Checking you out - God, and you had the nerve to feel embarrassed for your desire for him. A month ago you may have been truly annoyed at Vincent’s observation but it only fuels the fire igniting in your core as Harry puts on his pretense of adjusting his earbuds, tips of his ears bright red as he pointedly avoids your gaze, and you bite your bottom lip to stop yourself from grinning.

“I’ll let you go. God, don’t sound so pretentious - didn’t you hook up with that French chick who was married to the boxer? - Yeah, that’s what I thought -”

You’re much less interested in Vincent’s conversations now, pulling your earbud out and standing up, arms stretched high above your head as Harry stays, leaning against the ground with one arm. After a moment, though, Vincent must have ended his phone call - Harry shuts the laptop and pulls his earbud out, standing up, and your gazes meet for a moment.

“Vincent’s an idiot,” he tells you, flush creeping up his neck, and you nod.

“Is he?’

“Y’know he was just saying that so he seemed cool, right?”

“Said what?”

Harry rolls his eyes, then, and you can’t stop the smirk from gracing your lips once more as he crosses across the hotel room, collapsing onto his back onto the bed, and you furrow your eyebrows as you watch him. “Didn’t check you out.”

“I didn’t say you did.” He doesn’t respond, and you sit yourself on the edge of the bed, glaring down at his slumped figure. “You’re not getting the bed.”

“‘Course I am. We fought it out, remember?”

“And we didn’t finish.”

“We absolutely did,” and then he pushes himself to sit up, leaning against the headboard, and it takes more willpower than you possess to keep your eyes from roaming his body but you resist with everything in you - you’ll just about die if he calls you out for checking him out. “I beat you. I had y’against the headboard.”

“That was inconclusive.”

“Get on the couch.”

You narrow your eyes at him and he narrows his right back, staring into his fucking soul because you’ll be damned if you sleep on the couch, even if it makes logistical sense because he is taller than you - but, no. You’re the one who could possibly have to fuck Vincent Carfield in all his glory. You deserve the bed, size be damned.

In the end, you blink first, and come bedtime, you’re nestled on the couch with blankets you’d found in the hotel wardrobe.

You hate Harry.

 ~~

 The couch is extremely uncomfortable. It’s what you’d expected but your back still aches in pain when you wake up at 3 in the fucking morning, blankets dangling off the edge of the cushions you’re bundled on top of, and the pillow your head was resting on has slipped off onto the ground.

The room is pitch black as you groan, the noise purposefully loud, reaching down until your fingers graze the edge of the pillow - but your grip is slow, tired, and as you pick up the pillow to throw it back behind your head it slips from your grasp, dropping onto the ground and bouncing against the carpet until it’s resting a solid six feet from the couch.

Do you really need a pillow? You’re not sure, but you desperately don’t want to have to get up and get it because you know your sleepiness will melt away before you can even think about it, and, more than anything, you desire going back to sleep in order to try and be well rested for tomorrow. 

You reach down and pull your clump of blankets back up over yourself, pulling your knees further against your chest so the entire area of the blankets coats your body. Your head rests against the flat cushion, pillow be damned, and you shift again until your back is rested flat against the cushion as well, legs sticking straight out in front of you, the couch creaking at the movement.

The blankets don’t cover your legs - you push one of them down until they’re situated onto your feet, collectively covering your entire body even if it isn’t necessarily warm. At least they’re blanketed to some degree.

After ten minutes of trying to go back to bed, you pointedly decide that yes, you really do need a pillow, and immediately. Your neck already aches with the uncomfortable position and your ears feel chilly without being pressed into the soft pillow you’d snatched from the bed Harry is currently sleeping on - the bastard. He’d practically suffocated you with his smug gazes before he fell asleep, curled on top of the bed that he’d (rightfully) claimed as his after an arm wrestle, rock paper scissors game, and a half-hearted second attempt at a wrestling match - you’d lost all three.

Whatever. You’d been determined not to sulk at your losses before returning to the couch, trying not to let Harry see you mope but now you wish you’d made a bigger show of your disappointment - perhaps he’d have caved and taken the couch, but you’re sure he’d have stayed firm no matter what.

You slowly push yourself off of the couch, creeping across the room towards where your pillow rests on the ground, and you pick it up, clutching it tight to your chest before returning to the couch. You press it against the cushion, punching it a few times to attempt to soften it before huffing softly, lying yourself back down and tugging your blankets tight back up against you.

The next ten minutes goes by much as the night had previously - you can’t find a good position, turning onto your side and your back and your stomach until you’re hardly sure which way you’re facing, at this point, face buried tight against your pillow. You long for not much more than a soft bed for your back to rest into and you’re sure you’ll be a sore, tired disaster tomorrow when you manage to find Vincent Carfield in the hotel.

You turn to your side, the couch squeaking beneath the shift in your weight, and your body tenses when you hear a soft groan from the lump wrapped in covers on top of the bed, his silhouette illuminated only by the moonlight streaming through the window into the hotel room.

“How much longer are y’gonna move?” Harry grunts, voice low and raspy and you swallow when you hear it - if you close your eyes and listen to him speak, you could almost imagine him sounding like that in a very different scenario - “Keepin’ me up.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” you retort, voice soft and crackling with your yearning to sleep. ���If you’d like to take the couch so I stop tossing and turning, I’d much appreciate it.”

He exhales softly, the noise sounding so deep and pornographic it makes your stomach flip. “In your dreams.”

You narrow your eyes as you stare at him, duvet pulled up to his chest and head turned to the side towards you - in the dark you can’t tell if his eyes are shut or if he’s looking at you. For a moment you decide not to say anything, hands crossed over your stomach, and then you shift loudly onto your back, couch creaking, and Harry sighs just as you’d anticipated.

“Please,” he begins, tone low and pleading, and you cut him off before he can continue.

“Not my fault the couch is loud, Har.”

“You’re doin’ it on purpose.”

“Of course I’m not,” you tell him, shifting again so another noise permeates the air of the hotel room. “The couch is just noisy - and uncomfortable.”

There’s a rather pregnant pause after that and you keep your eyes on Harry, watching the way he shifts onto his back, opening up a rather small sliver of space beside him and your heart practically leaps at the sight but you don’t say anything else - simply roll back onto your side, the couch creaking as you do, and he sighs again.

It seems like he sighs a lot.

“If I invite you into my bed,” Harry begins, and a small smile begins tugging your lips upwards even if you want to groan at his usage of the word my, “you’ll promise t’be quiet an’ go t’sleep?”

God, he sounds like your mother. “Yes,” you tell him, clutching the blankets wrapped around your torso. “I promise.”

Another pause. “Then - then y’can come. We can share.”

You try not to look too eager. Masking your emotions is, perhaps, the most important aspect of your job and yet you’re sure you look just as excited as you feel, pushing yourself to your feet with your blankets wrapped around your body, pillow stowed beneath your arm. Your feet pad across the carpet, toes sinking into the plushness of the floor before you make it to the bed, and Harry’s staring up at you, face contorted in a mixture of emotions you can’t decipher.

“Not gonna scooch over, then?” you question, resting your pillow against the bed and hitting it a few times. 

“Y’have room, don’t you?”

And the answer is that you don’t, of course. When you lie yourself down on the bed your legs knock into Harry’s, head so close to his you can feel his curls grazing your face, and the duvet you pull up your chin smells like him, distinctly. His elbow juts into your side - your cold foot rests against his warm one - you don’t think you’ve ever touched him this much outside of a mission.

You drape your clump of blankets over your body, partially resting on top of Harry, smoothing your palms over the fabric with a contented sigh. Your back is thanking you for the switch in sleeping spots and your neck sinks into the pillow and mattress, aches already beginning to alleviate themselves.

“Still need me t’move?” Harry asks, and you shut your eyes, nearly missing the way his eyes lingered on you for just a moment longer than necessary before he rests himself back against the bed.

“No,” you murmur, and there’s another moment of silence before he mumbles his affirmation. Tomorrow you’re sure you’ll regret this - sleeping beside him, even if that’s all you do - feeling him pressed against parts of your body you’d never expected to feel his touch on.

Well, you’d rather deal with the tinge of embarrassment (and pride) than an achy back and lack of sleep - you smile slightly.

 ~~

 The next morning comes entirely too soon for your liking - sunlight peeking through the windows permeates your eyelids until you’re groaning awake, palm pressed against your eyes to block the light and face burying itself back into your pillow.

Your alarm hasn’t gone off yet. If your alarm doesn’t go off, then it’s not morning. Surely you have a few more hours of rest before you need to get up - even a couple more minutes will do -

Just as the thought crosses your mind your phone blares its alarm, the loud noise jolting you up like a bucket of ice water, and, from behind you, Harry grunts into his pillow.

Behind you.

You’re quick to silence your alarm - another nine full minutes of peaceful resting, if you’re lucky, before you’re disturbed again, though you’re sure you won’t get back to bed now that you’ve remembered the events of last night. 

Harry’s arm is heavy, draped over your midsection, the soft surface of his cheek buried intently into the crevice between your neck and shoulder - you can feel his soft breathing against your skin, the air a warm and gentle sensation. One of his legs has wedged itself between yours, thigh pressed entirely too high in the crevice between your thighs, and with every moment that passes you can feel the rise and fall of his bare chest as he snores behind you.

What a fucking sight, you think, sitting up slightly to look down at him. God, if he were awake, you’d tease him until he cries about what a position the pair of you had worked yourselves into but you have the foresight to see how that would backfire on you - technically, you’re just as to blame as he is, even if he’s the bigger spoon right now.

But you’re most decidedly not to blame for the hardness pressing into your lower back, tearing a sleepy groan from Harry’s throat when you shift in your position.

The bastard. He’s hard as a fucking rock from pressing against you while you slept, and a sleepy smirk spreads across your face as you glance down at him. In any other circumstance you think you’d poke him awake just to make him aware of it but there’s a certain air of desire you’re feeling as well that makes you feel - well, not as though you’re in the appropriate position to make fun of him for his boner.

Slowly, you disentangle yourself from his body. His leg drops to the mattress when you swing your own off the edge of the bed, his arm falling until it’s resting in your lap, palm pressed against a certain area that makes your breath hitch, furrowing your eyebrows as you glance down at his hand. There are still fading, pink indents from the rings he takes off every night and before every mission, save for the fake wedding band the two of you often have to don on missions, and you scrunch your nose as you admire it.

Married. You don’t think so. The only time you think of him with anything other than hatred is when he’s asleep, like this - or shirtless.

You stand up, shaking your head to wipe those thoughts from your mind. Harry’s hand drops onto the mattress and you can tell it’s the push he needed into consciousness - you glance back at him to see his eyes cracked open, and they shut when your gazes meet.

“‘Morning,” you tell him, voice louder than you’d intended, and he winces at the noise, shifting onto his back - it’s as though you can see the exact moment he realizes his little problem mixed with the realization that you would also know about it, pressed up against him during the night - his eyes widen ever so slightly, and he pushes himself to lean against the headboard, bundling his duvet onto his lap. 

“Um - g’morning,” Harry replies, voice raspy like it had been the night prior and your stomach turns - you shift on your feet. “Y’goin’ t’the bathroom?”

“You can go first,” you say, and he nods, bringing fists up to rub at his eyes. And then - because you just can’t help pissing him off when you have such a golden opportunity - you add, “Think you might need it a bit more than I do.”

His face reddens.

 ~~

 Earpiece. Knife. Boobs.

You go through the things you need on a mental checklist as you pick up your forkful of scrambled eggs, chewing thoughtfully on the bite. The hotel restaurant is nearly completely full, couples and families packed into the small tables as they feast on their complimentary breakfasts, chatter filling the section. You’ve been sitting eating (truthfully, delicious) breakfast for the better half of an hour, bringing your plate up to the buffet to refill your platter of eggs, fruit, and toast.

Realistically, you would have eaten and left had you not been waiting for a very specific somebody to walk in and catch your eye. You and Harry had plugged back into the bug in Vincent’s room to hear him planning to go down for complimentary breakfast - the only clue you had as to how he wanted to spend his day - and it was the only opportunity you had to find him. Get him out of his room - talking, if possible - so Harry can search it.

It’s such an easy plan, you could practically do it in your sleep.

“Is he there yet?” inquires a crackling voice from your earpiece, disguised as an earring dangling from your lobes.

“No,” you murmur, voice soft as a whisper, and you’re sure he can’t hear your response until he sighs.

“Takin’ his time, isn’t he?”

“Mhm.”

You pick up your glass of orange juice, raising the cup to rouge-stained lips as you take a sip. When you rest it back down on the table, there’s a light red stain on the glass - you wipe it away with a manicured thumb, leaning back in your seat, legs crossed. Your eyes scan the restaurant again, lingering on any newcomers leaning against the wall in case you can pinpoint the man you’re searching for - wide frame, untailored suits, bald head that shines in the artificial light.

(Complimentary breakfast ends at 10, and it’s 9:48. It’s safe to say that you’re getting nervous.)

Your nerves, however, are soothed just a bit when a familiar figure makes his way into the dining hall - tall and haughty, phone pressed to his sweaty head, Vincent Carfield is the image of a stressed businessman, recently divorced and searching for a young, married woman who’d given him eyes last night. His suit is baggy, buttons of the jacket undone and his white button up has sweat stains spreading from the armpits, visible with his arm lifted up to his ear. Instinctively your back straightens, tugging down the top of your lace top so that the top of your cleavage shows - it seems to be your greatest weapon, dealing with a man like Carfield.

You lower your gaze to your phone clutched in your hand but you can still sense exactly the moment his eyes land on you. In your peripheral vision you watch him straighten up, lips moving quickly before his phone is shoved into his pocket, weaving his way between circular tables until he’s standing beside you, and you pretend not to notice the way his eyes never meet yours - his gaze stays on a point eerily similar to your chest.

“Is he there?” Harry questions, and you clear your throat - it’s the symbol you’d decided on to mean yes if you can’t speak.

“Vincent,” you begin, faux smile spreading across your face, and a similar one lands on his features. He reaches for your hand and you give it to him, watching him press chapped, dry lips to the back of your palm, and the urge to scrunch your nose at the feeling is almost overwhelming. “It’s so good to see you.”

“And you,” he says, and you drop your hand back to the tablecloth resting on your table. “Can I sit?”

“Of course,” you reply, and he pulls out the empty seat across from you, resting with a soft grunt. “Breakfast ends in a few minutes, though - you’re welcome to have some of mine, if you’re hungry.”

He obliges, reaching to pull your plate to him, and you watch as he picks up your buttered toast, taking a large bite and smacking his lips as he chews. “I was hoping I’d run into you.”

You raise your eyebrows, leaning forward ever so slightly. “And why is that?”

“Couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Vincent tells you, and in your earpiece, Harry snorts at his words - you hope you didn’t jump too hard at his sudden noises in your ear. “I hoped I wasn’t getting the wrong idea at dinner, last night -”

“What idea were you getting?”

“That you were interested in me,” and you tilt your head to the side, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth - if Harry could see the act you’re playing right now, you’d be humiliated. At least he can only hear it. “I saw the eyes you were giving me - not even worried ‘bout your husband seeing?”

“He’s too dense to notice,” you say, a smile tilting your lips up as Harry groans - from his side of the earpiece you can hear bustling mixed with the sound of a door opening, and you assume he’s just entered Vincent’s apartment. He needs at least a half hour, Mark had told you - breakfast ends in nearly five minutes, and you need somewhere else to take Carfield. “You know, Vince - is it okay if I call you Vince?”

“I don’t think he cares what you call him,” mumbles Harry, so quiet you’re sure he’s hardly even intending for you to hear it, “as long as you have your hand down his pants in the next ten minutes.”

Your cheeks flush as Vincent smiles, leaning back in his seat as he finishes off your toast. “Call me whatever you want to,” he tells you, and you can practically hear Harry rolling his eyes through your earpiece.

“Alright, Vince - breakfast is ending in a few minutes, and I desperately hope we can keep talking.” He nods along with your words, leaning in as he pushes his plate to the center of the table - all that’s left is the fruit and the remnants of your eggs. “Do you think we could go up to my room? My husband is off visiting some family members across London - he won’t be home for hours.”

“Hours?”

“Hours,” you confirm, nodding as you take another sip of your orange juice - this time you don’t wipe the lipstick stain off of your glass, and you watch his eyes follow the mark as you lower the glass back to the table. “Can we go, Vince?”

Clearly he isn’t thinking clearly enough to question how curious it is that you’d had similar feelings for him without much trouble at all - instead, he smiles like a boy on Christmas morning. He practically knocks the table in his rush to stand up - you watch a red blush creep up his neck to his ears as he grabs it, steadying the wobbling surface, and you pretend you hadn’t noticed when he holds his hand out for you. You allow him to take your hand in his and he pulls you to your feet, wrapping a secure arm around your waist, palm stretched across your hips so his fingertips creep up the hem of your lace shirt.

“Are you going to our room?” questions Harry in your ear, and there’s a few scuffling noises on the other end that makes you internally cringe as Vincent begins weaving the pair of you between tables that are now emptying as complimentary breakfast reaches its end. “____? ‘Y’goin’ t’our room?”

You clear your throat once, and Vincent glances over at you with an amused glance on his face as the two of you make your way out of the restaurant. “Are you okay, darling?”

The pet name makes you cringe internally and you give him a soft smile as you approach the hallway full of elevators, available to take you to any of the available thirteen residential floors of the hotel - Vincent presses the button to go up, and you wait for the doors to open. “I’m great.”

“Make sure he doesn’t want to stop in his room,” Harry mutters, and you swallow, your smile not faltering. You want to tell Harry to make sure he’s completely quiet in his endeavors in Vincent’s room but you’re sure he already knows - you can’t risk Vincent hearing a strange noise while you’re attempting to distract him.

The elevator doors open, and Vincent pulls you inside with a grip on your waist like a vise. He glances at the array of buttons available to press, and looks at you with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s floor 13,” you tell him, and he smiles, pressing the button until it glows.

“Floor 13? That’s where I’m staying, too,” he says, and you nod in mock-surprise -

“What a surprise,” Harry snorts in your ear, and you can’t stop the smirk from spreading across your face.

 ~~

 There’s a thick thigh pressed between both of yours, sweaty palms slid beneath your lace top, and you don’t think you’ve ever found a man’s touch less desirable in your  life - and, for whoever may be keeping a record, this job has required you to get up close and personal with more skeevy men that you’d expected when you’d applied.

The only thing keeping a blissed out look on your face is your focus on the soft noises coming from the other end of your earpiece as Vincent lands wet, open-mouthed kisses to your throat, tongue laving over your skin - hearing Harry’s occasional quiet breathing and muffled noises as he searches the hotel room next to yours makes this entirely worth it.

Against your throat, Vincent moans, and the noise is throaty and loud - you can hear Harry stifling a laugh directly into your ear, and the noise sends a chill rolling up your spine. Clearly, Vincent thinks your involuntary movement was for him - his hands grasp on your tits entirely too hard to be pleasurable and you bite back the urge to tell him so. “Such a dirty girl,” he tells you.

You rest your head back against the wall he has you pressed against with a moan that sounds entirely fake from your throat. You can almost imagine how Harry’s going to make fun of this when he sees you next, and your stomach turns when you think about it for a reason you can’t quite decipher. “Fuck,” you say, forcing your voice to a near whine, and you swear you can hear Harry’s voice hitch through your piece but you’re not sure. “Feels - so good.”

The lie sounds natural off of your lips as Vincent’s knee jabs into your clit - the pressure is a pain rather than a pleasure and your breath hitches as you try not to cry out. He chuckles against your skin, clearly taking your soft sign of pain as an emblem of pleasure, and you shut your eyes as his teeth graze the veins in your neck.

“No way,” breathes Harry, and your ears perk up - had he found something in Vincent’s room? “S’he actually good at that?”

You want to snort at that. Of course he isn’t good but the thought of Harry listening spurs you on more than it should - you roll your hips against Vincent’s thigh with a soft moan, higher pitched than your last one, and the man on the other end of your earpiece exhales.

“That sounded fake,” Harry says, voice soft and light, and you want to slam your head into the wall so he knows that he’s starting to piss you off from next door. “So he’s not makin’ y’feel good?”

You practically freeze. If Vincent wasn’t tugging your shirt up to expose your tits to the cold air of your hotel room, you’re sure you would have forgotten where you were completely. Those words from Harry’s mouth mixed with an edge of venom isn’t what you’d expected him to say at all - on the contrary, you’d think he was fucking with you, trying to work you up to embarrass you if you couldn’t hear his little moans that he’s clearly trying to silence.

Is he worked up? Because you can work with that.

You drop your head back to whack against the wall with a loud moan as Vincent’s clammy lips press to the fabric of your bra. Your hand goes up to press to the back of his bald head, fingernails scratching against his sweaty scalp and you wish - not for the first time - that you were feeling thick, chocolate-toned curls beneath your fingers instead, tugging on them as his tongue lavished you. Though, in your mind, it’s more teeth and grit and anger because you’re sure you’d find a way to be angry with Harry even if his mouth were on your tits - it’s one of your special skills - in every fantasy you’ve had of your partner it’s violent and harsh.

“Fuck,” grunts a voice from your earpiece, and hardly a moment later Vincent groans a similar noise as you rock your hips against his thigh. Thankfully he seems to be getting a decent amount of pleasure just making out with your boobs like a teenage boy and - maybe, if Harry is quick enough in his search of his hotel room - you won’t have to fuck him at all. It’ll be a Christmas miracle (a month early, but a miracle nonetheless.) “Are y’fuckin’ him?”

You whimper, Harry’s voice shooting from your ear directly down to your cunt and your clit and you feel wetness soaking your knickers, pressed against Vincent’s thigh though it may as well be the arm of a couch for how it affects you - the only pleasure you get from Vincent’s hard body against yours is the urge to close your eyes and imagine it’s Harry.

“No, you’re not,” says Harry, and there’s a soft clatter in your earpiece - surely he’s dropped something from the room next door and you tense. Surely Vincent hadn’t heard it, teeth still gnashing against your bra, and he seems too distracted to pay attention to it. “M’hard as a fuckin’ rock, ____ - thinkin’ of you, gettin’ off on my voice, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” you exhale, and Vincent glances up at you, thick brows furrowed in confusion. You swallow, focusing on giving yourself a satisfied expression, and he turns back to your chest, seemingly convinced of your pleasure. “Yes - making me feel so good.”

Harry groans in your ear, and you wonder, suddenly, if he’s jerking off - if he’s leaning against Vincent Carfield’s bed, hand pumping up and down his cock as he listens to you. Maybe he’s in the bathroom, or leaning against the wall like you are, his breathing picking up as sweat drips down his forehead - 

“Gonna fuck you,” Vincent mumbles against your boobs, and you scrunch your nose. “Want me to fuck you?”

“Just -” you swallow, and Harry snickers in your ear, the soft laugh breathy and groaning. “Just wait, feels so good -”

“Don’t fuck him,” says Harry, and there’s a few more jostling noises on the other end mixed with another soft moan - you have a sudden image of him, digging through Vincent Carfield’s possessions with a firm hand around his cock and you feel the result of that imagery stricken straight down to your clit like a fucking lightning bolt until you’re crying out, and your orgasm is on you so embarrassingly fast you could sob in embarrassment. “I’m almost there -”

You’re not sure if he means he’s almost about to cum or if he’s almost found something to convict Vincent - you’re not entirely sure which interpretation you’d prefer. 

“I’m gonna cum,” you breathe, the words sour on your tongue as Vincent glances up at you with a wicked smile, jolting his thigh further up into your clit, and you furrow your eyebrows at the pain the motion brings. “Fuck, H - Vincent.”

“Y’were gonna say m’name,” Harry hisses, and you squeeze your eyes shut, embarrassment coursing through your veins. You almost fucked everything up. “Cum. Let Vincent think he made y’cum - go ahead - do it.”

And - fuck. Who are you to disobey? You grind your core down on Vincent’s thigh with a throaty cry, and your orgasm rushes over you with an embarrassing waterfall of pleasure and shame. Never have you cum so easily and it wasn’t even Harry’s touch - simply his voice, his groans as he listens to you come undone - and, in the end, the only thing to pull you from your high is Vincent’s eyes boring into yours, eyebrows raised and lips parted as he pulls his face from your chest with a most satisfied expression on his face.

You want to smack it off of him - if you hadn’t already cum, that look would’ve stopped you in your tracks. As it is, it slows the aftershocks of your release into dull nothingness while Harry moans in your earpiece, his noises a mere backdrop to the sudden growing sounds of scuffling and jostling, and his sharp gasp is loud enough for Vincent’s head to snap up.

“Did you hear that?” Vincent questions - Harry curses into your earpiece.

“I found something,” Harry tells you, voice dropped to a low whisper. “I found - s’under his mattress - m’calling Mark!”

A small smile spreads across your face at his words. It’s done. He’s found something worthy enough to convict Vincent Carfield, and that’s enough for you to press your palms to his chest, pushing him away from you so forcefully that he stumbles over the carpet, back slamming into the edge of your bed as he falls to the ground. His expression is so confuddled as he stares up at you that, for a moment, you marvel at his lack of self awareness - in an instant you’re reaching up the hem of your skirt to the knife in its holder strapped to your thigh, and you pull the blade out to point at Vincent Carfield, in your ear a myriad of Harry’s delighted cheers of, “I’ve found it!”

 ~~

 Wrapping up a mission isn’t nearly as speedy as you’d like - there’s debriefs and paperwork to complete once Vincent is done and arrested, phone confiscated along with the drugs found in his hotel room by your partner, and physical evaluations to determine whether you’d been hurt, and a long phone call with Mark where he congratulated the pair of you.

Not only for taking down Vincent Carfield, your boss had said, his voice booming and cheerful, but for making it out without killing each other.

If only he knew.

Your plane is set to leave tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn, and if you were more reasonable perhaps you’d heade Mark’s advice to go straight to sleep and set an alarm for 3 AM but you’ve never been too bright in that regard. You finish your last debrief in the hotel restaurant, Harry working diligently beside you, and it’s at nearly 9 PM that the pair of you pack up your work and begin to head upstairs.

The elevator ride is silent when Harry reaches to press the button for your floor. Your room had been closed for you to visit for the better part of the afternoon until Vincent’s had been properly searched, though Harry had gladly given the authorities everything he’d found without a moment of hesitation. Tiredness creaks at your bones but here - standing beside Harry, feeling his gaze boring into the side of your face - you desire nothing less than to go to sleep.

“Good work, Mr. Robinson,” you tell him, and he raises his eyebrows when you turn your head to look at him. “Fairly easy mission, wasn’t it?”

“For you,” he says, and you arch your eyebrow, frown tugging your lips downwards as the elevator begins to move up. “Gettin’ off on Vincent’s thigh was the hardest part - I had t’search the room.”

For a moment you wonder if he’s kidding and certainly he’s only teasing you but you still roll your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest as heat creeps up your cheeks. “Didn’t seem too difficult, moaning and crying ‘bout how hard you were. I bet I could’ve found the drugs in half the time it took you -”

“You couldn’t have,” Harry says, and you exhale sharply. 

“‘Course I could -”

“Wasn’t hidden in plain sight like everything you find.”

“So where were they?”

He pauses, and you smile down at your shoes - surely you’ve got him now. “Hidden in his computer,” Harry says, then, and your smile is wiped away in an instant. Shit, you wouldn’t have found them. “Not so smart now, are you?”

“Oh, you dick -”

The elevator doors open to your floor and Harry pushes himself off the wall, stalking out of the elevator and you jump to follow him, picking up the pace to walk beside him as he begins down the hall towards your hotel room. It’s entirely too easy, falling back into an arrangement of bickering with him as though nothing had happened - as though you hadn’t cum with his voice alone, and you’re nearly positive that he had, too.

He stops in front of your hotel door, digging in the pockets of his pants for the room key, and you cross your arms over your chest. “I don’t know why you’re actin’ so high and mighty,” he tells you, voice biting as he shoves the key card into the door’s slot - it beeps red, and he tries again. “As f’you didn’t cream your fucking pants jus’ listenin’ t’my voice.”

“I’m not acting high and mighty,” you retort, praying the burning sensation in your face isn’t visible to him but you doubt you’re that lucky. “You don’t have to be such a douche all the time - and, by the way, you came in your pants, too, didn’t you.”

It’s not a question, and Harry flings the door open, letting you walk in before he follows. In an instant, before you can march into the bedroom area to huff at how pissed he’s getting you - it is what he’s best at - there’s a tight grip on your wrist, turning you around so fast your head spins, and before you can object, Harry has you pressed against the door, hands caging you in on either side of your head.

His face is so close to yours you can smell the alcohol on his breath that he’d had while you two worked, mixed with the scent of his mint toothpaste and his shampoo, curls dropping into your face as he wedges his leg between both of yours, thigh pressed against your cunt. It’s just as Vincent had done but so different, so much better, and it tears a whine out of your throat right off the bat.

Your urge is to lean in, clash your lips together in a fury of tongue and teeth but you don’t want to make the first move - Harry can take the lead and you’ll follow, and that’s more than enough for you. So you simply drop your head back, breathing heavy as you stare into his eyes, nearly cross-eyed to meet his gaze. 

“Fuck you,” you tell him, and the words lack the venom you’d yearned for. It’s filled with more desperation and neediness than you’d anticipated, and you feel your stomach flip-flop at the smirk that spreads across Harry’s face. “Fuck you.”

His hands drop from against your head and for a moment you fear he’s going to pull away, that he’s doing this just to fuck with you but then his hands are on your legs, fingertips dancing up and down your outer thighs, fingering the hem of your skirt, and you jolt under him. “You’re so responsive,” he tells you, and you roll your eyes, dropping your head back against the door. “I love getting y’worked up.”

“Shut up,” you groan, feeling his fingers working your skirt up your legs, and the fabric brushes over the edge of your knife, still fastened to your thigh. 

“Like makin’ y’angry.”

“Shut up,” and finally Harry leans in, mouth slamming against yours until your teeth grind against his and your lips part with a shocked gasp. His tongue slips between your lips, your hands reaching up to bury in his curls and hold his face to yours. His palm slides up your thighs, pushing your skirt up around your waist and your cheeks burn as the cold hotel room air assaults your skin, goosebumps popping up in their wake. You whimper into Harry’s lips and he pulls away, palms smoothing up and down your thighs before you feel his fingers hook against the top of your knife, and he tugs the blade out of your holster.

You watch with wary eyes as Harry brings the blade up to his eyes, examining it with narrowed eyes, his other hand still resting on your thigh, fingertips rubbing circles into your skin harsh enough that you’re sure you’ll find bruises tomorrow in the shape of his hands. Your breath hitches in your throat as you watch him and his eyes turn to yours, smile tugging his lip up.

“Y’look a bit excited, there,” Harry says - an acute observation, because you’re practically creaming your fucking panties. “Like seein’ me with your knife?”

“Yes,” you breathe, and Harry flips the knife in his hands until the blade is just an inch from the spot between both of your eyes, your orbs crossing to see it. “What are you -”

Before you can finish the question Harry presses the knife forward, the sharp edge of the plate pressed to your cheek, and you inhale sharply, swallowing thickly as he increases pressure against your skin. Fuck, this shouldn’t excite you - he’s not half as good as you are with blades - and you’re sure if he keeps going he’s going to slice you either by accident or on purpose, and it disturbs you how much that thought turns you on.

The blade drags down your skin, tracing along your jawline with pressure light enough to feel like a breath and hard enough to catch yours in your throat - Harry’s watching it with darkened eyes, watching as he lowers it down your throat, tracing it along your neck and the veins.

You drop your head back against the door with a thud, feeling the cool metal on your skin, sweaty from being pressed against him and the heat that encompasses your body until it’s all you can feel, and Harry’s just watching, watching the knife run across your skin.

Your eyes, fluttered shut, shoot open when a sudden burning sensation overtakes the top of your chest - you glance down to see Harry pulling the knife away from you, the tip decorated with just a smudge of dark, red liquid that’s mirrored on your collarbone.

“Did you -?”

“Oops,” Harry says as you bring your fingers to the small nick he’d given you, wiping away the drops of blood that spread on your chest. You raise your narrowed eyes to glare at him and you’re trying - trying so hard - to be furious with him, to get angry, to push him away and yell at him - but, fuck, feeling his thumb rub across the cut on your chest only increases the ball of pressure in your lower abdnomen as you look at him.

Your lips clash once more, more intense than before as you whine into his mouth - Harry’s free hand hoists your thigh around his waist, and when his lips move down to bite at your throat, the hand still clutching your knife pulls back before he slams the blade into the door next to you, surely taking a few of your stray hairs. You yelp, jolting your head back as you whip your head to the side to stare at the knife stuck in the door barely an inch from the side of your head, and Harry lifts his head with a smirk.

“You assho -”

Before you can finish Harry’s hand is wrapped around your throat, cutting off your ability to speak and you can’t help but moan at the pressure even if the noise is choked and gasping - Harry grins, moving his other hand down to your hips until he’s helping you to roll against his thigh, clit rubbing against the fabric of his pants. You tighten your thigh’s hold around his waist, pressing his torso closer to yours, and he, in turn, tightens his grasp on your neck.

“Y’like m’hand on your throat, hmm?” Harry questions, voice low and raspy like how it had been in the middle of the night except more, better and intense, and you whimper in affirmation. “Can’t even talk - can’t even say anything.”

When he finally loosens his hold on you, you gasp for air and bring your arm up to wrap around his neck again, fingers scraping through his scalp to tug his lips back to yours. Your other hand drops to the front of his pants, palm smoothing over his bulging erection before your shaky fingers begin tugging his zipper down.

“Can I tell you something?” says Harry, then, as you fumble to undo the button of his pants until you can shove your hand into the fabric, fingernails dragging along his cock through his boxers - his hips jolt into your hands.

“Yes,” you murmur in response, hand jerking up and down his dick and, even through a layer of fabric, he grunts into your lips.

“I didn’t cum,” he says, and you move your head from his, furrowing your eyebrows. “Didn’t cum, even when I heard y’with Vincent -”

“You -?”

“Didn’t wanna cum when I wasn’t buried in your cunt,” and you gasp sharply as his hand on your throat slides down your body until it’s shoved into your panties, cold fingertips dragging along your soaking folds that drip your ambrosia into his grasp. “Even f’you sounded so good, moanin’ for me - almost pathetic -”

You tighten your grip on his hair until he’s crying out, fingertips pinching your clit in your panties and you jerk your hips into his grasp at the sharp punishment. “Don’t call me that -” you moan, trembling hand pulling his boxers down over his cock while he smirks.

“Pathetic -”

“Fuck you, Harry -”

“Whimperin’ like a baby -”

You move your hand from his hair to his face, grip bruising as you grab his chin in your palm. Your fingertips squeeze his cheek as you force his head to stare at you - the lazy, cocky smile that adorns his features makes you want to throttle him, and your fingers flex against his face.

“What?” Harry questions, tone mocking and it fuels the anger in every crevice of your body as you glare at him. “Gonna hit me?”

Yes, you want to say - before you can even open your mouth, though, Harry leans in, teeth nibbling on your earlobe as he exhales, his words low and breathy, “Do it.”

Who are you to disobey him?

You bring your hand back and smack it down on his cheek with a satisfying slap that reverberates through your hotel room. His head is slapped to the side, exposing his side profile to you, and you smooth your palm over the red mark already blooming on his cheek in the shape of your handprint.

“You like to be hit, do you?” you inquire - for a moment, just a second, you feel some semblance of control over the situation, wrapping your fist around his cock once you’ve pulled his boxers down over his length. He hisses, dropping his head back, lips parted in a silent cry when your thumb sweeps over the weeping tip of his cock, precum dripping down his member. “Never would’ve guessed.”

And you do it again, bringing your hand up to slap his face and it tugs a louder grunt from his mouth, pressing his body further into yours until all you can feel is him, chests pressed together and cock rubbing against your cunt through the fabric of your lace panties. You bring your hand back to give him another slap but then his fingers are pulling your drenched knickers to the side, bulbous tip of his cock nudging through your folds for only a split second before he pushes himself inside of you, sheathing the entirety of his length until he bottoms out, balls pressed tight against your skin.

You can’t help but sob out. It’s, really, not your fault - you can tell how it spurs him on, but before he can keep fucking you like how you’ve dreamt of he’s pulling out completely, taking a half a step away from you, cock tall and leaking. The emptiness you feel is overwhelming, even if you’d only had him in you for a few seconds at best, and objections immediately rise in your throat.

“What the fu -?”

Then he’s grabbing your throat, using his grip as leverage to force you around, cheek smushed against the wooden door frame and back pressed to his chest. His palms smooth up and down the globes of your ass, pulling the cheeks apart until the pressure burns and you throw your head back with a cry. Then he pulls his hand back - lands it back against your ass with a cracking slap that makes you jump against him - and he doesn’t give you a second to beg him to fucking do it again before he’s sliding his cock back into your folds.

“Fuck,” he practically shouts, the noise crackling and broken with arousal practically dripping from the syllable, and you drop your forehead against the door with a cry. “Fuck, so tight - knew y’would be -”

“Move, please,” you beg, tone sobbing and desperate, and Harry obliges without another second to spare - pulls out and thrusts back in, pace brutal and desperate right off the bat until you’re quivering, legs trembling when he’s only been going for a half a minute.

Oh my god. Holy fuck, it feels so good, better than you could’ve ever pictured it, his hand smoothing over your ass before landing periodic slaps to the plump skin - his hand landing on you hardly overpowers the sound of his hips smacking against your ass, filling you until you’re crying for it before leaving you empty and diving back in. You can’t do much else other than stand there on quivering legs that feel incapable of handling your weight and take it, pushing your hips back into his with every thrust until you’ve worked yourselves into a rhythm that makes your fucking head spin.

“Harry -” you gasp as he grabs hold of your hips, pulling them upwards until his cock is slamming into the sweet spot buried inside of your walls that makes you sob out, cheek slamming into the door over and over with the force of his pounding. “Harry - God -”

“What?” he practically hisses, the word full of desire and contempt in the most delicious way possible, and your knees would give out if not for his bruising grip on your hips, keeping you flush against him. 

“Har - choke me, please, want you to - to choke me -”

He stutters a groan at that, moving one of his hands from your hips - he delivers one hard smack to your ass before he’s trailing his hand up your back and around to the front of your throat, squeezing your neck once experimentally just to hear the way you moan at it before he tightens his grasp. Your resulting whimper is caught in your throat, pressing your palms to the door you’re leant up against as Harry just fucking laughs from behind you, thrusting himself into you like he was fucking born for it.

“You’re fuckin’ filthy,” Harry says, then, and he almost sounds in awe as he squeezes your throat tighter, tight enough that your vision goes fuzzy and your head feels light. “So filthy - knew y’would be - an’ so - so - fuckin’ - tight -”

With every word he punctuates his meaning with a particularly hard thrust into your cunt, and the hand on your hip slithers around your body until he’s pressing two fingertips to your clit, rubbing shaking, hard circles against the sensitive nub that has you jolting, arms shaking as you attempt to keep yourself up. “Oh my god,” you practically cry, and the voice sounds far away as he briefly releases his hold on your throat - a firm slap is delivered to the side of your face as you’d given him, the motion forcing your head to the side, and you sob out harder. “Fuck - do it again, please -”

He obeys you, bringing his palm back to slap your cheek again before he wraps his hand back around your throat. “M’gonna cum,” he tells you, words throaty and laced with neediness - you push your hips back against his, a loud, long whine bursting from your throat as his fingers never give up on their assault to your clit. “M’gonna fill y’up - y’want that?”

“Yes!”

“Want me t’fill you up?”

“Yes, Harry, please -!” You come undone around his cock just as his hips stutter to a close - there’s a ball of pleasure that bursts in your core, spreading warmth and euphoria through your body like a wildfire attacks a forest. Your forehead slams against the door with a moan that borders on a scream, nails scratching against the wood as though searching for something to hold onto, to ground yourself, because surely you’re far away - in fucking space - because there’s no way on Earth you could feel this good.

Behind you, Harry’s hand on your clit wraps around your waist, holding your body taut to his as you feel him spurt ribbons of cum inside of you, his release filling you up and it only prolongs yours, aftershocks rolling through you mixed with his warmth spreading through your body. His head drops against the back of yours, breath ruffling the hairs at the back of your neck, and when you finally regain the ability to breathe you’re fucking heaving, gasping for air, the once-simple process labored and desperate.

“Fuck,” Harry groans, and then he pulls out of you - you can feel his cum beginning to trickle down your inner thighs, and that mixed with the sudden emptiness in your cunt makes you exhale a low whine. Your pussy flutters around the sudden air invading it, the loss of a certain appendage filling you up glaringly obvious, and you slump against the door. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, and your knees are shaking when Harry unwraps his arm from around your waist, leaving you to fend for yourself as you try and steady your body. “Fuck.”

You hear, then, Harry walking away - surely stalking deeper into your room, perhaps lying on the bed, kicking off his shoes and beginning to tug off his shirt. You feel sudden embarrassment and heat coursing through your body as you tug the bottom of your skirt down over your ass and the tops of your thighs, walking on shaking legs into the bedroom area of your hotel room -

(Your knife can stay in the door until morning. It is, for all intents and purposes, the least of your priorities when you can’t even think straight.)

Harry’s eyes are on you when you make your way into the bedroom section, leaning up against the doorframe to hide the quivering in your legs, and you hope it looks decently natural but you’re sure it doesn’t, judging by the way his lips tremble upwards as he glances down at the shoe he’s focused on untying.

“I’m gonna shower first,” you tell him. Your throat burns with the energy of speaking after screaming your lungs out and your voice is crackling and raspy - you cough into your elbow, hoping it makes your voice sound a bit less fucked-out than it is, but you’re sure you’re not that lucky.

“Fine by me,” Harry says, kicking his sneakers off onto the ground, and he collapses onto his back onto the bed with a sigh. His pants are still undone and are pushed down his thighs, boxers pulled up over his cock, and you feel - decidedly strange, watching him post-coital, at the way his eyes shut, limbs spreading out over the mattress with a grunt. “M’takin’ the bed, though.”

You huff, crossing your arms over your chest. “What -?”

“Y’can hardly walk from how hard I fucked you. I think I deserve it.”

And - well - you can’t quite argue with that logic.

~~

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