#Long-Term Effects Of Alcohol

[hauntedwoman]

actually one of the things about perpetually online ppl that rly annoys me is how they blindly adopt communism as an inverse of capitalism and call themselves a "communist" (i mostly see this w gen z age ppl that live in the us) as a way to say that they hate america when they really have no idea how badly communism decimated eastern european countries and their possibilities to grow into a stable economic state

[ereh-emanresu-tresni]

.

[eggxdragoon]

why does have to be the only remedy for depression and anxiety that I have that I'm not too anxious to take

[fatliberation]

they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts

Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 

1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.

Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].

4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.

The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].

5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.

Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].

6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].

10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.

Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].

11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.

The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 

12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.

“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].

13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.

Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].

19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 

20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].

21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 

Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].

22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  

23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.

Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].

24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.

Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].

25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.

There's my "proof." Where is yours?

[stephantom]

My nephew doing the probably-an-actually-bad-idea jump and me stressing out in the bg, and then me jumping after. (Can’t believe this kid is almost the age I was when he was born. Love him so much.)

Oh and here’s a bear we saw later that day lol

[drdemonprince]

just like going through the members of my family and my friend groups one by one, i can't think a single damn person i know who does not have a disability. ARFID. Autism. Metal rod in the spine. Arthritis. Cancer in remission. Long-term effects of repeated concussions. Bad back. Exhaustion. Crohn's. EDS. More Autism and ADHD. Migraines. Periods that lay them out for a week. Chronic depression. Alcoholism. Bipolar. Cataracts.

I do not know a single person who is not disabled, typically in multiple ways, and we all face increased disability as a natural consequence of aging. Literally every person on the planet becomes disabled on a long enough timeline. Yet we still talk about disability and organize around it as if it isn't social, economic, and contextual. people treat disability as an innate quality that some people have and some people do not have, and as if there is some large class of intrinsically abled people who are benefiting under capitalism and are withholding the fruits of their abilities from us or something.

i saw this post on twitter months ago that was like "I need people to understand that if you are in a relationship with a disabled person you are going to have to do more than them. you're not disabled and so you're going to have to do more of the work (around the house, logisticially, etc). that is what you owe them as an abled person."

and it just baffled me. because i have only ever seen disabled people in relationships with other disabled people, caring for one another in a stitched-together, messy web of interdependence and missed deadlines and dirty dishes and acceptance and love, not because disabled people are ontologically more generous than non-disabled people but because non-disabled people don't even actually exist.

the mythological abled person who can work a full time job, keep a clean home, do all the dishes, buy all the groceries, cook all the meals, run all the errands, stay on top of all the bills, carry everything, dash up the stairs, stand on their feet for hours, and have boundless energy without any mental consequences to that does not exist. it's an ideal created to oppress us all. it is an impossible standard the reification of which disables us all.

there is no one on this planet who is not disabled under capitalism and colonialism. there are only people who lack the class consciousness to recognize that they're disabled.

it's gonna have to be us taking care of one another. it's going to be the disabled caring for the disabled. it always will be that. that is the human condition.

[shaynly-babieblue]

Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): Understanding the Effects of Alcohol on Pregnancy

IntroductionPhysical Abnormalities Cognitive and Behavioral ImpairmentsDiagnosis and Prevention of Foetal Alcohol SyndromeDiagnosis of FASPrevention StrategiesPhysical Health EffectsCognitive and Intellectual EffectsBehavioral and Emotional EffectsSocial and Behavioral ChallengesSecondary DisabilitiesLifetime ImplicationsTreatment and Support Introduction Pregnancy is a crucial period in a…

[cripplecharacters]

Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1

[large text: Disabilities that You Should Consider Representing in Your Writing More… part 1]

While all disabilities are underrepresented in basically all sorts of media, it’s hard to not notice the trend in what disabilities make up the majority of representation. It’s especially visible when having a blog like this, where we can see what disabilities writers even consider including in their writing, and which ones never come up.

One in four people are disabled. With eight billion people alive it means there’s a lot of disabled people, and a lot of reasons why they are disabled in the first place - but this diversity is rarely represented, even on this blog, and anyone who has been following for a while has probably noticed that fact.

To be blunt: there are disabilities other than “amputee” and “(otherwise invisibly disabled) mobility aid user”. Does that mean that it’s wrong to write either of those? Of course not, and we don’t want to imply that it is. Does it mean that either of these have a ton of good representation? Hell no. Does it mean that when you are deciding on what to give your character, you should think beyond (or along! people can be multiply disabled!) just those two? Absolutely. Disability is a spectrum with thousands of things in it - don’t limit yourself for no reason and embrace the diversity that’s built into it instead. 

This is, simply, a list of common disabilities. This is just a few of them, as this is part one of presumably many (or, at least three as of right now). By “common” we rather arbitrarily decided on “~1% or more” - so at least 1 in 100 people has the disabilities below, which is a lot. Featuring!: links that you should click, sources of the % that are mostly just medical reports and might be hard to read, and quick, very non-exhaustive explanations to give you a basic idea of what these are. 

Intellectual disability (about 1.5%) Intellectual disability is a condition we have written about at length before. It’s a developmental disability that affects things such as conceptualization, language, problem-solving, or social and self-care skills. ID can exist on its own or be a part of another condition, like Down Syndrome, Congenital Iodine Deficiency, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. This post covers a lot of basic information that you might need. We have an intellectual disability tag that you can look through!

Cancer survivors (5.4% in the US, about 0.55% worldwide) A cancer survivor is a pretty self-explanatory term. There is a lot of types of cancer and some of them are very common while others are very rare, which makes this a very diverse category. Cancers also have different survival rates. While not every survivor will have disabling symptoms, they definitely happen. Most of the long-term side effects are related to chemotherapy, radiation, and other medication, especially if they happened in children. They can include all sorts of organ damage, osteoporosis, cognitive problems, sensory disabilities, infertility, and increased rate of other cancers. Other effects include removal of the affected area, such as an eye, a spleen, breasts, or the thyroid gland, each of which will have different outcomes. Cancer, and cancer treatments, can also result in PTSD.

Diabetes (about 8.5%, ~95% of that are type 2) Diabetes is a group of endocrine conditions that cause hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) for various reasons depending on the type. The vast majority of people have type 2 diabetes, which can cause fatigue, poor healing, or feeling thirsty or hungry. A diabetic person will use insulin when needed to help manage their blood sugar levels. There are many complications related to diabetes, from neuropathy, to retinopathy, and chronic kidney disease, and there's a lot of disabilities that coexist with diabetes in general! You might want to check out the #how to write type 1 diabetes tag by @type1diabetesinfandom!

Disabling vision loss (about 7.5%) Blindness and low vision are a spectrum, ranging from total blindness (around 10% of legally blind people) to mild visual impairment. Blindness can be caused by countless things, but cataracts, refractive errors, and glaucoma are the most common. While cataracts cause the person to have a clouded pupil (not the whole eye!) blind eyes usually look average, with strabismus or nystagmus being exceptions to that fairly often (but not always). Trauma isn't a common cause of blindness, and accidents are overrepresented in fiction. A blind person can use a white cane, a guide dog or horse, or both. Assistive solutions are important here, such as Braille, screenreaders, or magnifying glasses. We have a blindness tag that you can look through, and you might want to check out @blindbeta and @mimzy-writing-online.

Psoriasis (about 2-4%) Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition with multiple subtypes; it can cause intense itching, pain, and general discomfort, and often carries social stigma. It’s an autoimmune and non-contagious disability that affects the skin cells, resulting in raised patches of flaky skin covered with scales. It often (30%) leads to a related condition, psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, tenderness, and fatigue, among other things.

Stroke survivors (0.5-1%) A stroke survivor is a person who has survived any kind of stroke (ischemic, hemorrhagic, etc.). While the specific symptoms often depend on the exact location on where the stroke happened, signs such as hemiplegia, slurred speech, vision problems, and cognitive changes are common in most survivors to some degree. When someone has a stroke as a baby, or before they are born, it can result in cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and other disabilities. We have a brain injury tag that you can look through!

Noonan Syndrome (about 0.1-1% - mild is 1%, severe 0.1%) Noonan Syndrome is a disability that is almost never mentioned in any context, but certainly not around the topic of writing disabled characters. It’s a congenital condition that can cause cardiomyopathy, chronic joint pain, hypermobility, short stature, facial differences such as ptosis, autism, and various lymphatic problems among other things. Some people with Noonan Syndrome might use mobility aids to help with their joint pain.

Hyperthyroidism (about 1.2%) Hyperthyroidism is a condition of the endocrine system caused by hormone overproduction that affects metabolism. It often results in irritability, weight loss, heat intolerance, tremors, mood swings, or insomnia. Undertreated hyperthyroidism has a rare, but extremely dangerous side effect associated with it called a thyroid storm, which can be fatal if untreated.

Hypothyroidism (>5%) Hypothyroidism is an endocrine condition just as hyperthyroidism is, and it causes somewhat opposite symptoms. Due to not producing enough thyroid hormones, it often causes fatigue, depression, hair loss, weight gain, and a frequent feeling of being cold. It’s often comorbid with other autoimmune disabilities, e.g. vitiligo, chronic autoimmune gastritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Extreme hypothyroidism can also be potentially fatal because of a condition known as Myxedema coma (or “crisis”), which is also rare.

Deafblindness (about 0.2-2%) Being DeafBlind is often considered to be an extremely rare disability, but that’s not really the case. DeafBlindness on its own isn’t a diagnosis - it can be caused by a wide range of things, with CHARGE syndrome (congenital), Usher syndrome (born deaf, becomes blind later in life), congenital rubella, and age-related deafness and blindness being some of the most common reasons. DeafBlindness is a wide spectrum, the vast majority of DeafBlind people aren’t fully blind and deaf, and they can use various ways of communication. Some of these could be sign language (tactile or not), protactile, the deafblind manual, oral speech (aided by hearing aids or not), the Lorm alphabet, and more. You can learn more about assistive devices here! Despite what various media like to tell you, being DeafBlind isn’t a death sentence, and the DeafBlind community and culture are alive and thriving - especially since the start of the protactile movement. We have a DeafBlindness tag that you can look through!

It’s probably worth mentioning that we have received little to no asks in general for almost all the disabilities above, and it’s certainly not due to what mods answer for. Our best guess is that writers don’t realize how many options they have and just end up going for the same things over and over.

Only representing “cool” disabilities that are “not too much while having a particular look/aura/drama associated” isn’t what you should aim for. Disabled people just exist, and all of us deserve to be represented, including those whose disabilities aren’t your typical “cool design” or “character inspo”. Sometimes we are just regular people, with disabilities that are “boring” or “too much”, and don’t make for useful plot points.

mod Sasza (with huge thank yous to mod Sparrow, Rot, and Virus for their contributions with research and data!)

[peachigummi]

here's a lesson ✎ mattheo riddle.

summary: classic mattheo coming to terms with how he feels about reader. slytherins are having a formal party - and guess what! someone else asks reader to the party, making him jealous!! mattheo tells them it’s a bad idea. yet, they still decide to go through with it. he obviously takes the opportunity to smugly watch from afar while trying to have fun himself. he’ll teach you a thing or two about what happens when you don’t listen to him ����🤭.

pairing: tutor / best friend! mattheo x fem! reader (one use of “y/n”)

warnings: mainly banter, mild jealousy (aka not too insanely toxic), mentions of alcohol/weed, spanking, spitting (one mention of it), fingering, unprotected piv, missionary (if it’s hard to imagine the position), pillow princess action ✨ (I’ll say this again, personally, ME, personally, me and I, could not ever let this slide when it comes to Mattheo, im too feral.), overstimulation, dacryphilia (i do think our dear matty would kinda really be into it), choking, eh kind of edging, praise!, creampie 🫣🤭🤭

note:  im very sorry for not keeping my word about putting this out before my trip with my buds. althoughhhh i brought my laptop with me and here i am c: working on this for yall. i really hope you enjoy this, its a lengthy read because i just love tension so much.

word count: 11k+ (partially why this took so long to post im so sorry. lots of plot)

(trust i will never perfectly proofread my work at this point)

mattheo told me that he expects you to reblog, like & comment so you better do it. do you want to make him mad? (BWAHAHA jk...unless 🤨)

°. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

Mattheo and you were seated on one of the sunny courtyard tables, papers and books displayed all out on the flat surface. You were distracted by your phone, paying little focus on the task at hand. You let out small laughs and smiles, Mattheo was watching you for a while now wondering what the hell was wrong with you. You would snort and shake your head, sighing to yourself. He didn’t like that someone or something was distracting you from him and your studies..of course the studies were more important despite listing himself first. He leaned over to grab your chin, forcing you to turn and face up at him, “pay attention.” Mattheo hissed.

You couldn’t help but blush as he did this, making you look into his deep brown eyes, “I’m sorry Mattheo…”

A small smirk appears on his face when he notices you blush, clearly enjoying the effect he has on you. “You should be. You’re too distracted on that damn phone.” He continues to hold your chin in place.

“I was just asked out on a date…I mean I think it’s a date…” you move his hand away from your face, going back to your phone. You scroll up on the message thread and push it toward him to look over.

Mattheo’s smirk vanished and was replaced with a look of irritation, first when you pulled away from him, and secondly, after reading the message exchange. He pushes your phone back at you, looking at your eyes with annoyance. “Why would he do that? Why would you say yes?” He asked with a snarky tone, clearly not pleased about you being asked out by someone else.

Mattheo had been your tutor at first, but eventually you both became close friends through the forced proximity. Your grades were much higher because of him, and despite not needing him as much for that purpose - you both still hung out with each other. To be truthful and completely honest with yourself, it was because you had a fat crush on him…but it never turned into anything more. So you just enjoyed being his friend.

You decided to jump back into the dating scene after the unsuccessful attempt (as if you even tried confess to Mattheo and turn your relationship into something more; you needed him to make the first move), but it was a struggle because well…you were with Mattheo most of the time. At this point people thought that you had an open relationship, where he’s the one going on dates with different girls and not you. People didn’t approach you, not romantically. So naturally, you were in a state of giggling surprise when you were asked out. 

“It’s Charlie…do you know him? Yay big, muscular, dark headed, dreamy bedroom eyes…he’s a Ravenclaw.” You describe him while showing Mattheo goofy photos of Charlie that he had sent you.

He clenched his jaw, clearly not liking the way you described him. He pushed your phone away again, not wanting to see more of the guy. “Yeah, I know him. He’s in my class.” He said coldly, looking at your eyes with irritation. 

“Really - what’s he like in it?” You leaned into Mattheo, excited for more information on Charlie.

“Why would you want to go out on a date with him?” Mattheo ignored your question. 

“Why not? It’s been so long since I’ve been with someone…” you rolled your eyes, “you wouldn’t understand since you’re always going out.”

He huffed as soon as you mentioned him going on dates. It wasn’t exactly untrue, but the fact that you were going out on a date with someone else now annoyed him more than he’d like to admit. “Because you could do so much better than him and besides, who says I always go on dates?” Mattheo crossed his arms, looking slightly defensive.

Yeah - like I could be dating you!

You let out a sigh. “Mattheo don’t even play games with me right now. You literally went on a date with my childhood best friend last week! And you knew how much that pissed me off.”

He couldn’t help but wince slightly as you brought that up, clearly regretting it. “Okay fine. And? That was last week.”

“I heard from a little owl that Margie has been begging you to take her to her grandfather’s funeral as a date!” You blurt out almost laughing, “can you imagine how insane that sounds!? Bless her grandfather, may he rest in peace…but goddamn Mattheo, these girls are shameless when it comes to you.”

He rolled his eyes, he had to admit, he couldn’t believe just how desperate some girls were when it came to him. “Yeah, don’t remind me. I’ve told her multiple times that I don't want to go with her, but she just won't listen. She’s persistent as hell!” 

You nudged his side playfully, “you’ve got to admit it’s kind of funny though.” You smile at him. It was easy to get him frustrated, but at the end of the day you didn’t want him to feel that way. It was bad on the body to be so angry all the time.

He groaned, but couldn't hold back his chuckle. “Yeah I suppose it is a little funny…and annoying. Mostly annoying.” Mattheo said in a slightly lighter tone. While he did love to have girls practically throwing themselves at him all the time, it did get to be too much sometimes.

“But yeah…Charlie asked me if I wanted to go to our own Slytherin party…like duh I was already going!” You paused going back to your notes, comparing them to Mattheo’s, “I mean could you imagine me turning him down and still having to see him in my own common room?”

He huffed again, not liking how you brought the conversation back to Charlie. “Well you could’ve at least pretended to think about it. Don’t want him to get the wrong idea.” He really didn’t like the idea of you going to this party with him, but he didn’t want to come off as too possessive either.

“Wrong idea? I think I like him. He’s funny…smart..and seems nice enough.” You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, smiling down at your notes, “no one ever approaches me…they’re too afraid of you.”

Mattheo’s eyes narrow slightly when you admit this, and when you list what his good qualities were. He clenched his jaw, “What, you mean you actually like him? Really?” There was a hint of jealousy in his voice that he couldn’t quite completely hide.

“Oh c’mon Matty, it’s not a crime.” You put your hand behind his back, rubbing circles to calm him down. “Let me just take a chance. If things go bad then you can rub it in my face okay? You can tell me that I was ~dumb~ that you were ~right~” You say in a singsong voice, knowing how much he liked teasing you when it came to showing how much better he was than you.

He couldn’t fight staying irritated when you touched him like that. It was slowly calming him down, “fine, fine. I’ll let you have a chance with this guy.” He spits one last time. “If things go bad I am most definitely going to rub it in your face. I guess I’ll have to go to this party to watch you.”

“That’s my boy.” You put your head on his shoulder before returning to your notes, “Now how do I pronounce this incantation?”

 °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

Once you finished your studying together, you both walked to the great hall to have dinner. You were both back to your usual joking selves. You sat down at the Slytherin table, there was a louder buzz than usual, everyone seemed excited for the weekend to start.

“I guess everyone’s excited for tomorrow.” Mattheo said, watching you sit down first before he did.

“I have this new dress just for the event too! I love how there’s a solid theme this time around. It’ll be fun to see everyone dressed up all spiffy.” You say excitedly, being easily influenced by everyone’s energy. You grabbed Mattheo’s plate, serving him his food first before grabbing something for yourself.

 “Oh, a new dress? I bet it looks good on you.” He smiled at your excitement, but he was still feeling slightly annoyed and worried at your choice of date. He tried not showing it. He watched as you served him his food, his eyes unable to hide his affection he had for you. You always took good care of him. He took a deep breath before speaking. “I don't want anything bad to happen to you at this party. I know you’re excited and everything, but just be careful alright? I’ll be there watching but…I’m going to be outnumbered. There’s going to be lots of people and not all of them are good.”

You notice his change. You set his plate down in front of him and feel his forehead with the back of your hand. “Mattheo are you okay?”

He batted your hand away when you checked his forehead, clearly not liking being fussed over. “I’m fine. I just…don't trust other guys around you. They’re animals and they might try something with you, especially since you’re going to wear this new dress that you’re so excited about…” He could just imagine the looks you’d be getting already.

“Oh stop it Mattheo. I appreciate your concern, but it has nothing to go with the dress. Literally everyone is going to be dressed up, it’s going to be fancy. Here, if it makes you feel any better I can show you my dress beforehand for your approval.” You try hard to keep yourself from rolling your eyes, Mattheo had good intentions but he didn’t need to worry.

He smirked, he liked the idea of being the one to approve your dress, even though he knew he was being overbearing and overprotective. “Yeah, I think that would make me feel better. I mean, I need to make sure the dress is appropriate and not too revealing, you know?” He couldn’t help but relish having that power over you.

“It really isn’t though, it’s perfect and beautiful. It shows the perfect amount of skin to make it fun.” You bite your finger and wink at him. You took your own plate now, choosing your usuals.

Mattheo watched as you filled your plate, his eyes unable to resist roaming over your body for a moment as you leaned over the table, “perfect amount of skin, huh? I’ll be the judge of that.”

You knew that Mattheo was staring at you, so you wiggle your hips a little before sitting down. You smack the side of his head when he continues gawking, “tame yourself, Riddle.” He chuckled when you did this. He was going to make a snarky remark when Theodore came over and interrupted you both.

“GUYS PLEASE!” Theodore said, putting an arm around each of you, “hurry up and finish eating, I need help with the common room set up.”

“Damn it, Theo, can’t you just wait? We’ll help you set up the common room, just give us a break for now.” He didn’t like being interrupted when he was enjoying your presence.

You look at him, “Teddy, we still have a full day. Don’t be so worried. You’ll have more hands to help you now that everyone is done with Friday classes.” Theodore wanted to lead this event, he had complained for too long that Slytherins needed to reestablish a sense of powerful class and elegance. “You’re looking pale. Come sit, eat. You can’t miss your own party.” You pull Theodore down to sit in between Mattheo and you.

Theodore slumped down in the seat, grumbling about how stressed he was about the party. “I just want everything to be perfect, okay? This party needs to be one to be remembered, we can’t be known for having sleazy ones. Ugh…who am I kidding, knowing our house, everything is going to turn out terrible -”

“Teddy, no it’s not.” You take his plate, filling it with different proteins to give him energy. “Look around, everyone is excited. They’ll all be more than willing to help. We all know this party is going to be different from the rest.” You hug him after setting his plate down. 

He looks around the Great Hall, feeling the buzz. “I guess you’re right.” He looked down at his plate and began to eat, taking your advice to give himself some energy. 

You couldn't help but ruffle his hair knowing how stressed he was, “please take care of yourself okay? We’ll help. Mattheo and I will go with you after this.” Theo didn’t mind the hair ruffle, he actually cracked a smile at your concern for him and the fact that you were trying to take care of him when he wasn’t. If it wasn’t for Mattheo’s not so subtle possession over you, Theo would have made you his by now. 

You lean backwards over to slap Mattheo’s arm subtly so he could say some words of encouragement. 

“Damn it, woman, quit slapping me.” Mattheo rolled his eyes, rubbing his arm where you had slapped him, giving you a mock-hurt look. You glare at him, go on say something nice! “Alright, alright. Look, Theo, you’ve always have great ideas for stuff like this. This party will be a success, okay? Just relax and take it easy, we want to see you at your own party tomorrow.” He was sounding a bit mocking, but he was sincere.

You smile at him, pleased with his words. 

Draco suddenly popped up in front of the group, “which should I wear…!” He looked nearly as panicked as Theodore did. The three of you looked at the two suits he was holding up. They were literally identical down to the cufflinks. You wanted to snort. 

“Seriously, Draco? Those suits look exactly the same. Just close your eyes and pick one, geez.” Mattheo spoke up, finding it amusing how ridiculous Draco was over such a trivial thing. You were trying your hardest to hold in your laugh, your mouth was cupped by your hand. 

“You guys suck.” Draco said before making his way to Astoria. We watched as she looked just as confused as we did, but she pointed at one of them. He visibly looked immediately relaxed. Draco was hopeless sometimes.

“Seriously, Draco can be such a drama queen sometimes. He couldn’t even pick an outfit without needing Astoria’s help. He’s so dependent on her sometimes.”

“I kinda love that for them though…” You stared at the two love birds before returning to your plate, rolling the grape around with your fork. 

Mattheo raised an eyebrow, giving you a smirk. “You’re such a hopeless romantic. Always swooning over other couples and their lovey-dovey moments.” He felt a little pang of guilt, for not allowing another man to get close to you so you could experience that. We shook his head when he thought about that, trying to get rid of the feeling.

“Shut up Mattheo.” You stabbed the grape, putting it into your mouth begrudgingly. As you did so you looked toward the Ravenclaw table, seeing that Charlie was already staring at you. You wondered for how long he was watching you. You blushed and waved.

Mattheo let out a soft sigh, he enjoyed knowing he could rile you up with his teasing. He followed your gaze and saw you looking at Charlie, who was staring at you lovesick. “Oh great, there’s your lover boy, looking at you like a lost puppy.” He snickered, hating it.

You dropped your smile when you pried your eyes off Charlie, “blah blah blah.” Mattheo was lucky Theodore was still silently munching on his food in between you two, or it would have earned him another smack on the head or an ear pull. “And who are you taking as your date?”

He just shrugged, “I literally made the decision to go to this party once I found out you were going… with someone. I will have to just go solo.” He said with a smirk, clearly enjoying the idea of being able to flirt with other girls without the constraints of being tied down to a date, “that way I can have freedom to do whatever I want.” He felt that pang of guilt again for his hypocrisy.

“Fair enough.” You knew how much he liked to flirt, it boosted his ego. “Just don’t get beat up when you hit on the wrong girl. I won't be there to stop that fight, I wouldn’t want to ruin my hair and dress.”

He laughed, amused with your warning. “Please, doll. I know how to pick the right girls to flirt with. I’m not worried about getting beat up by their partners. They always fall for my charm.” He said, clearly confident with his ability to charm anyone, even those with jealous partners.

“Who falls for your charm? The girl or their partner?” You laugh.

He didn’t like your sarcastic response, “Oh ha ha. Very funny. Obviously, I meant the girls. But let’s be honest, there have been a few of their partners who have fallen for me as well. I’m just that irresistible, you know?”

“Actually…I do believe that. All hail king Mattheo.” You move your hands up and down in his direction.

“Can you two shut up?” Theodore blurted with his mouth full of food, “I’m trying to think here.”

You both stared at Theodore, then looked at each other one more time sharing a silent agreement. Mattheo smacked Theo’s back while you pulled on his hair. Theodore groaned in surprise. Before he could properly react, the two of you had bolted out of the great hall. 

Mattheo and you made it down to the dungeons, having ran the whole way. You pointed at Mattheo to say the passcode, you were too out of breath.

He laughed, enjoying your flustered out-of-breath state and how you were leaning against a wall. Clearly not conditioned like he was. He was hardly winded, “Viper’s Den.” Mattheo opened the door for you, you followed him inside.

“Wooaahhh! What the hell does Teddy need help with? This looks amazing.” You looked around the heavily decorated room. You twirled around taking in the sight, there was no way this was the same common room. 

Mattheo stared at your reaction with a smile, barely noticing the room. He had to peel his eyes away from you when you stopped twirling. “He outdid himself.”

He looked around nodding in approval, “Oh! Come over here!” He beckons you over to a corner of the room. He gestures over to a table that had a clear covering over it. It had an array of sweet-smelling treats. There were honey buns, chocolate cakes, berry tarts, and everything in between. It was like a little piece of sweet heaven. He began to peel back the covering when you slapped his hand. 

“Stop it. Wait for tomorrow night.” 

“You’re no fun. I just wanted a small nibble, we didn’t even get to have dessert at the great hall.”

You look around again, there was an identical table. “All that’s missing is the drinks…you know I heard another rumor that those Hufflepuffs want to help out too with some herbs. If you catch my drift.” You smile at him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Maybe we can get high again! It’s been so long!” You laughed at the last time Mattheo and you partook in their drugs. You had a sleepover in Mattheo’s dorm for three days straight. Surviving on just water and sleep. 

He nodded in agreement, clearly remembering the same thing. “Oh yeah, that was fun. I would love to have another sleepover like that again.” His grin got bigger as he reminisced. He thought about how you both slept on his floor together because the bed was too small and he kept falling off of it. He remembered you being so attached to him that night, being a needy mess. But he was all for it. He couldn’t wait to blow the smoke into each other’s mouths once again.

The door opened, snapping him out of the train of thought, it was Theodore. He looked annoyed but glad to see you both there. “Good. Here’s what I need you two to do.” He started to list things off. Mattheo groaned, but got to work, knowing the promise you both made to him. 

 °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

You got out of the shower, it felt good. It was an intense session. You used your best soaps, exfoliators, you shaved, you slathered on a scented lotion that had a light shimmer to it. You went to town manicuring your nails, curling your hair, and doing your makeup. You would have normally been tired of all this work, but this event was special for you. It was a chance to actually dress up for once and pamper yourself. 

You took your dress, carefully folding it over your arm. You took your heels in another hand, going out of your dorm and locking it. You headed the opposite direction of the hall towards Mattheo’s room.

Mattheo was in his dorm, getting ready for the party too. He was carefully putting on his tie in the mirror, making sure it was perfect. He looked himself over, admiring his reflection with a smirk. He heard a knock on the door, and he called out, “who is it?”

There were people starting to scurry around between dorms too, so it wasn’t out of place that you were standing outside of his. There was a small commotion downstairs as people made their way into the Slytherin common room meeting with their dates and friends.

“Matty, it's me. Open up, I'm here to fulfill my promise.” You couldn’t help but lightly laugh at the fact he wanted to make sure your dress was ‘appropriate’ enough.

He had been waiting for you to come by, “Oh, doll. You’re finally here, huh?” He made his way over to the door and opened it, revealing you there.

You push past Mattheo in order to enter his room. You didn’t bother waiting for permission to enter. You set your dress down on his bed, putting the heels on the floor.

Mattheo laughed, enjoying your eagerness to get ready for the party. He closed the door behind you, locking it to ensure privacy. “Someone’s in a hurry, aren’t we?” He teased watching you, looking over your shoulder to get a glimpse of your dress.

“I mean not anymore no, I was actually taking my sweet time.”

He sensed your annoyance immediately, “what did that jackass do?” Mattheo went to stand right behind you, trying to mask his rising anger at the possibilities. He took a strand of your hair, admiring how soft and perfect the curl was. It bounced lightly in his hand.

You shrug. “Charlie messaged me saying that he’ll be here in like two hours-” You weren’t able to hide your disappointment, especially with Mattheo who could read you easily even without legilimency. “-even though the party is basically starting now.”

Mattheo’s smirk faded as you mentioned that, looking away from your curl in his hand he scoffs, “two hours? Seriously? Isn’t he supposed to be your date? What’s his stupid excuse?”

“Beats me.” You turn around to face your best friend, you couldn’t help but let a smile erupt on your face as you really noticed him. “Mattheo..!” You whistled, “you clean up real good.”

Just that easily, his smirk returned, clearly enjoying your compliment. “Yeah, I know. I look damn good, don’t I?” He said just as cockily. He made a show of straightening out his tie and smoothing his hair down. He had already been pleased with how he looked, but it felt even better hearing it come out of your mouth.

He went with an all black outfit, even his shoes were surprisingly clean and polished. You reached out to him, putting your hands on his shoulders. You inspected his front, flipped him, checked out his back. His toned muscles were peeking out from under his dress shirt. It was amazing, his wide shoulders and small waist. His biceps were being contained just right. You smoothed the fabric down. You turned him to face you again, feeling proud. 

Mattheo had let you inspect him without a peep. Enjoying the way you ran your hands over his body, admiring every single detail of his outfit. He tried to act aloof and nonchalant, but he couldn’t help feeling flattered by your attention. “Having fun, are you? Admiring my good looks, princess?”

“Actually yes. I have nothing snarky to say.” You laugh, “okay okay maybe one-” Mattheo raised his eyebrows for you to continue, “-are you sure they didn’t have maybe a half size larger for your dress shirt? Or did you purposely go smaller? You look massive..” 

“Oh, shut up. This shirt looks perfect on me.” He wasn’t actually offended, he enjoyed the banter with you “…But yeah I did go for a smaller size. Clearly it was a good decision if I have your attention.” 

“Yeah yeah whatever.” You look at his hair, he had slicked it back, but you could still see the ends of his hair wanting to curl back. You loved his curly hair. He looked so…so hot right now. Thank God, you were starting to take those private occlumency lessons with Professor Snape so this idiot couldn’t read your mind. Plus you made him promise you to not enter your mind after a mishap two years ago.

He smiled as you noticed your gaze lingering on his hair. He ran a hand through his hair, slightly messing it up, causing some of the curls to revert back to their usual state. “What, you'd rather have my hair like this, huh?” 

“God, fuck yes. Mattheo thank you for doing that. It looks much more natural on you. The pomade does help define them much more though.” You smile up at him too, “anyway!” You turn back around to face your dress, but in reality you started to feel yourself blush like you were running a fever.

Mattheo noticed the hint of a blush appearing on your cheeks just before you turned away from him, “are you blushing? Is someone a little flustered, hmmm?” He teased.

You choose to ignore his comment. “I’m going to use your bathroom, I don’t trust you enough to just close your eyes for this.” You take your dress and heels into his bathroom and close the door quickly. 

With a pout, “Hey, I'm totally trustworthy! I swear I won't peek-” He began to say before hearing you lock the door. There was no point in protesting.

You undressed, leaving your pajamas on his bathroom floor. You slipped quickly yet carefully into the black satin dress. You had forgotten that it was a corset back and would need help clasping it together. You held the back together with your hands, admiring the vision. It was a long gown, with a slit running up your right leg and stopping just below your hip. You put on a matching black set of heels. You thought you looked very pretty, a rarity on your behalf. You made sure your hair and makeup were still fine. You went to crack open the bathroom door, taking a deep breath, still holding the back of the dress together with a single hand so it wouldn’t slip off. “Matty?”

Mattheo was already waiting patiently outside of the bathroom door, drumming his fingers on the wall as he tried to ignore the image of you undressing just on the other side. He perked up when he heard your voice calling out from behind the door, a smile reappeared on his face. “Yes, doll? You done yet?” He was unable to keep the eagerness out of his tone, so he went and put his hand around the door, trying to make you open it wider so he could see all of you.

“I actually need your help…” You let him open the door, “I forgot this was a corset, and not a zip up. I need you to clap me in.” You laugh, “I mean clasp.”

He laughed at your little Freudian slip, he was amused at how you got those two words confused. He wondered what you really wanted, but he also pushed that thought back too. He raised a single eyebrow as he took in the sight of you. His eyes widening in surprise at how stunning you looked. The dress hugged your curves in all the right places, and the split on the right leg gave him a glimpse of your smooth skin. “Damn princess, you look…beautiful.” He said this, his voice growing a bit huskier as he approached you. He pulled you by your waist so you would come out of the bathroom and into the well lit bedroom instead. 

“Thank you…I think so too..” You blushed as he complimented you, letting him pull you closer to him. Mattheo turned you over so your back was turned toward him.

“I’m very happy you think the same.” He gently gathered your hair, pulling it to one side so it was out of the way.

“It might be a little tricky.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure I can handle it.” He moved your hands out of the way, so the dress split open, stopping at the small of your back. You held the front of the dress up to keep it from falling. Mattheo nearly started to salivate at the sight of your bare back to him, how it exposed more of your skin to him, he was loving the view. He hated having to fasten you into the dress instead of just slipping it off and skipping the party. Mattheo mentally slapped himself, to stop thinking about you in that way.

“Everything okay?” You say, feeling a bit self conscious as Mattheo paused for a moment. He cleared his throat. He started at the bottom of the corset, fastening you in carefully. His hands graze your bare skin occasionally, sending shivers down your spine. He made sure to not pull too tightly, asking you throughout the process if it was enough. “I don’t know if I should be mad or grateful that you know how to do this.” You close your eyes at the feeling of him working on you.

“Why would you be mad? I have a lot of hidden talents.” He finished up the corset, taking a step back to admire his handiwork, “there we go. Looks good and perfect…and secure.”

You let your hands fall to the side, trusting that it wouldn’t fall down now. You gave a small twirl to Mattheo, ending it with a curtsey. He kept a smile at you, his eyes turning a shade darker. You look at the mirror admiring how you looked now that you were finished. You readjusted your hair. “So I'm assuming that this dress is appropriate enough for this event…for you?”

“Appropriate? You look amazing. You’re going to put every other witch at this party to shame. You look like a true goddamn princess, one that I want all to myself.”

You felt your heart skip at his words, it felt different. It was all you could ever ask from him, God if only he liked me back, you thought. If only he wasn’t just saying this because he was your best friend. You go to wrap your arms around him, giving him a tender hug. He wrapped his arms around your waist in return, pulling you tighter into him. Mattheo closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of your body pressed against his. Your sweet scent was driving him crazy. 

He buried his face in your hair, feeling a mix of emotions swirling within him. There was no denying how much he cared for you, but he was still struggling to acknowledge his true feelings for you. 

You gave his biceps a gentle squeeze, pulling back, “shall we head down?” You smile at him.

He nods in agreement, returning your smile with a smirk of his own. “It’ll be an honor…and respecfully, fuck your ‘date’ for not being here, but also I wouldn’t want it any other way. To just walk you down, is an honor in itself.” Mattheo held his arm for you to take, offering to escort you to the party downstairs.

You roll your eyes, but you don't want to admit that you agree with him. You started to have your own doubts about Charlie, maybe it was kind of stupid to think…you could..fall in love with someone else. You had to at least give him a chance..right? You ended up taking Mattheo’s arm, linking elbows, while you placed your other hand on his forearm.

Mattheo could sense your uncertainty in your date, he wanted to just flat out tell you again that he wasn’t worth it. He couldn’t wait to rub it in your face, but deep down he didn’t want to see you hurt. He covered your hand with his own. He was cherishing this moment, feeling a small sense of triumph.

 °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

The party was already in full motion by the time you went down the stairs. People were going around laughing and dancing. The refreshment table was already nearly half way empty. You had to wonder if people showed up earlier than expected out of the excitement. You felt people stare at you and Mattheo. His grip on you was gentle, yet firm and possessive. Mattheo himself could feel, and see the envy, coming off the people as their eyes roamed over you. You could say the same thing, but you thought the looks were because you had Mattheo’s attention, and he was dressed up as well.

You both walked over to the drink table, each of you grabbing a glass of whatever was closest, “cheers to a good evening.”

He clicked his drink to yours, “Cheers.” He tilted the drink into his mouth, still scanning the party as he did so. He was mentally taking note of those eyes that lingered on you for too long.

“Mattheo, I know this is supposed to be a party…but can I ask a lesson from you right now?” You ask, setting down your empty glass. Already feeling the warmth from the drink start to take effect.

With an eyebrow raised again, intrigued by the idea of teaching you something in this setting, “A lesson, huh? Sure what do you want to learn?”

“Can you teach me how to dance?” You blush, “I know just how ridiculous that sounds but I usually just sit around and smoke at parties…so this feels new.”

He laughed, but not in a mean way. He found it surprisingly cute how you requested this, especially considering your usual party habits. “It’s not ridiculous at all. I'd be happy to teach you.” He held out his hand to you, gesturing for you to take it. “May I have this dance?”

You took his hand, “I like this version of Mattheo, so elegant and charming.” You cooed playfully, following him onto the dance floor.

“Careful doll, compliment me too much and I might start to think you actually like me. Romantically.” He teased, unable to resist throwing a playful jab.

You couldn’t say anything to that, you only blushed further, if only you knew how much I really liked you Mattheo, so ironic of you to say that.

Mattheo was loving the effect his words had on you, “What, lost for words now? Something tells me there’s no comeback for that one?”

“So…so what’s the first step?” You change the subject back to the lesson on dancing.

He shook his head, but understood you wanting to change the subject. “First step to the classic ballroom position - holding each other firmly.” He adjusted his grip on your waist and took your hand in his, positioning you in the correct dance position. 

“Okay, easy enough.” You looked into his eyes, one hand on his shoulder. “I swear I was probably born with eight left feet, I’ve never thought to dance.”

He chuckled again, finding your honesty endearing. “Don’t worry, princess. You’re in good hands. Just follow my lead, okay? We’ll start with the basic steps. First, step backward with your left foot as I step forward with my right.” He gently guided your movements, slowly moving in unison with him.

You couldn’t help but look down at your feet as he began to show you more steps. You started to get the hang of it, only after a couple accidental steps on his own feet. Though you didn’t apologize so much since he was finding it so fun to tease you earlier. 

Mattheo was just so stricken with you, he would only chuckle and sigh as each time you stepped on him, finding your clumsiness adorable. “Thanks for ruining my shoes.”

“I’m doing it on purpose at this point.” You look back at him smiling. He feigned a look of shock, pretending to be offended.

“Ah so you’re doing it intentionally? That’s playing dirty, doll.” He spun you around before bringing you close to him. You rested your head on his chest, you could finally reach it comfortably with the height the heels gave you. You closed your eyes, listening to his heart.

His breath hitched, he liked the feeling of you being so close to him. The way your body fit against his perfectly. He dug his fingers deeper into your sides as he dipped you backwards, using it as an excuse to get even closer. His face was dangerously close to yours.

You forgot how to breathe for a second as you watched Mattheo. You noticed a slight change in him, something only you could notice. He had gotten…nervous. He pulled you both up right again. When he did this you noticed Charlie standing behind him, clearing his throat. “Sorry for being late… My roommate had an urgent matter. I came as fast as I could.”

Mattheo’s body tensed as he heard Charlie’s voice behind him. His grip on you tightened, protectiveness seeping into his touch as he reluctantly pulled you back away from him. He hated that he actually ended up showing, having to interrupt the moment he was sharing with you. He plastered a fake smile on his face as he turned to face Charlie, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Ah Charlie. Finally decided to grace us with your presence huh?”

Your date gave Mattheo a confused look, he didn’t seem to really be intimidated by him. Which made sense, if he even had made the effort to ask you out on this date knowing full well he would have to face The Mattheo Riddle. A fact other guys were immediately put off by. “Yeaahh..” He scratched the back of his head, “um thanks for keeping Y/N company for me.” He let out a small laugh, offering his arm to you just as Mattheo had done.

Mattheo didn’t bother hiding his annoyance at Charlie’s casual demeanor, especially as he offered his arm to you. His jaw clenched visibly, fighting the urge to snap at him. He kept his composure the best he could, maintaining the strained yet police facade. “No problem.” He said tersely, his gaze flickering between you and Charlie with a hint of possessiveness.

Almost reluctantly you go to take Charlie’s arm. He smiled down at you, he brought forward his other arm that was hidden behind his back this whole time. “I brought this for you…” it was a single rose. 

You smiled while taking it, “thank you, this is beautiful.” You look back at Mattheo, “I’ll talk to you later? Enjoy yourself Matty.”

Oh how Mattheo wanted to bash at Charlie’s face with his fists. He watched as you thanked him for the rose, his eyes darkened with jealousy and frustration, that wasn’t even your favorite flower, not even in your favorite color. How could some jackass not bother to learn what your favorite flower and color was. He wanted to tear you away from him.

“Yeah, enjoy yourself man. Thanks again for warming her up for me.” Charlie said to Mattheo, pulling you away from where you were originally dancing. You let him guide you away, but couldn’t help looking back, seeing that Mattheo was already facing his back towards you both. You looked down as his fists were clenched, knuckles turning white. You couldn’t help but feel guilt. 

 °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

Charlie was just like a prince, he was actually really sweet and thoughtful past the lateness. Plus, his excuse made you think that he was loyal to those he cares about, to tend to their needs first than his. You both had danced to a couple of songs (thanks to Mattheo for teaching you). It was fun. Whenever Charlie spun you around or hugged you close to him, you couldn't help but look around for Mattheo subtly. You saw him enjoying himself, he was talking to a couple of girls.

In reality Mattheo’s eyes scanned the room for you as well, he would only pretend to focus on the conversation he was having with the girls. Barely making an effort, and yet they were in hysterics laughing. It kind of annoyed him how easy it was. His focus kept drifting to your location. He hated seeing you with Charlie. He hated seeing you in someone else’s arms, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Not yet, at least.

Between songs Charlie would grab a drink, and it was starting to really add up. He began to get sloppy and step on your toes. He’d apologize but do it immediately after. You stopped dancing, telling him that you both should just sit down for a while. So you guided him to an empty couch.

Mattheo watched as you and Charlie made your way to the couch, a mix of relief and frustration coursing through his veins. Finally there was some distance between the two of you, but he didn’t like that your date was making a fool of himself as he kept drinking. He was leaning against a wall, keeping a watchful eye on you from afar. The girls by his side kept rambling and rambling and he was only paying attention to you, scoffing at the state Charlie was in. It was getting ridiculous. The girls rolled their eyes at Mattheo, hating that he wasn’t engaging in the conversation so they left him.

As the night went on, you began to like Charlie less and less. The more his drinking caught up to him, the more he just seemed like an idiot. It was quite the change. The first half of the night with him was great, he was able to hold a solid conversation just like normal. He would ask about you, wanting to learn about what you were into, but now he kept going in circles. He would only talk about himself, it got boring. Fast. 

Charlie’s drunken behavior was becoming more apparent, he was slurring his words and regressing into mindless rambling. Mattheo clenched his jaw as he saw you grow more disinterested in your date by the second. It was clear you were bored and fed up. He was tempted to intervene, to find a way to end this date early. But he also wanted to teach you a lesson. That you were supposed to really be with him, and not some dumbass, especially one who couldn’t handle his alcohol.

You were getting embarrassed, people must have thought it was weird that Mattheo and you arrived at the party together and now you were with other people. You knew this by the curious glances they were making at me. They probably couldn’t help but wonder about the dynamic we held.

A pretty blonde girl went up to Mattheo, blocking his view of you, “Hi..I couldn't help but notice you almost…sulking in this corner…can I ask for a dance?”

He gave her a lazy smirk, looking her up and down before responding, “sure, why not.” He pushed himself off the wall, downing the rest of his drink before offering his hand to the girl.

You continued to sit there bored, your chin resting on your hand. The major downside to people not wearing uniforms was that you didn’t know who belonged to which house. You wished you could just dump him with someone that would know him. 

As you look around you notice Mattheo dancing with a girl, it wasn’t the type of dance he had taught you. It was the kind that would be best suited for our regular ‘trashy’ parties. 

Mattheo’s smirk wavered slightly as the girl pressed herself up against him, grinding against his lap shamelessly as they danced to the music. He chuckled quietly to himself, amused by her boldness. He ran his hands down her sides, fingers lingering on her hips. His gaze wandered over to you, his expression faltering slightly when he noticed how bored and annoyed you appeared to be.

You notice Mattheo make eye contact with you, you give him a friendly wave, watching him handle the girl. You turn away before scowling to yourself.

“What’s wrong, beautiful?” Charlie breathed out, his hot breath bitter from the alcohol. He leaned over the couch to put his face between your neck. You shrugged him away uncomfortably. This didn’t stop him though, he gently put a hand on your jaw, making you look at him “pay attention.” It was major deja vu, but with the wrong person. Very wrong person. Charlie leaned in to kiss you, but you quickly stood up leaving the rose he gave you on the seat. He kept leaning to the point he just ended up face planting onto the couch seat.

As Mattheo danced with the girl, he happened to look back up at you, catching it in time when Charlie tried to kiss you. His fingers dug into the girl’s hips as he felt anger and jealousy. The girl let out a small moan. “Ouch Mattheo. Give me a warning next time.” 

The drunken fool didn’t deserve to touch you like that. He stopped letting the girl grind on him for a moment, but then he noticed how you got up not letting him finish that kiss. He laughed to himself. The girl looked behind at him confused, but she turned around to wrap her arms around his neck, rubbing her breasts against his chest now. “Unless you want to take this upstairs?” she said, trying to get his attention again.

You walked over to the refreshment table, not caring one bit about leaving Charlie behind after that stunt. He could fend for himself. Thank God there was still some weed left, thank you Hufflepuffs! You thought, kissing the air. You set down a paper, neatly tucking in the weed, carefully licking it shut. As you did, you watched Mattheo. At least one of us was having a good night.

“Maybe later, sweetheart.” Mattheo said to the girl, he didn’t care for her advances at all, but he just wanted to play along. He responded with a sly smile as she rubbed against him. 

You looked back down at the fairly fat joint you made, you wanted to light it but you felt guilty. You wanted to get high with your best friend. It was so fun last time. You tucked the joint behind your ear, preparing another one for him. We would have to get high on a different day. With the two joints, you moved them into your corset, just on the side of your boob as you had no pocket or bag with you. You looked toward the drink table, considering but being put off with how it made Charlie. You still grabbed a drink just to hold onto and not look awkward. 

Mattheo caught you putting what seemed like joints into your dress, he smiled knowing you were probably thinking about him. His attention was divided between the blonde girl and you. He smirked to himself, seeing your disapproving face when you went to grab a drink. He found your sudden dislike of alcohol funny. 

You stood there with your drink, not taking a sip out of it. You just bumped your head to the music. You noticed Theodore and made your way over to him. “Hey Teddy, I’ve got to give it to you. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. You did great.” 

He smiled at your compliment, he took a sip of his own drink before responding and gesturing around the room that was filled with students dancing, chatting, drinking, and just having fun. “I know, thanks for your help with finishing it. I’m glad everyone is enjoying themselves…” He hesitated a moment, “but you seem a bit…bored. Where’s your date?”

You just pointed behind yourself with your thumb, “ick.”

Theo laughed at your bluntness, looking over at Charlie’s direction. He was still sitting alone on the couch, face in his hands, “dumbass can’t handle his alcohol? And Mattheo?” You pointed in the other direction. He let his smile falter a bit, knowing his friend was just using the girl. “Ah~ so can I have a dance with you then? You look amazing.” He looked you up and down.

You nod, putting your glass down, and taking a step close to Theo. You put your hands on Theo’s shoulders, as he put his on your waist. You swayed to the music as it changed to a slower song. You put your head on his chest as you did with Mattheo. You let out a small sigh that was concealed with the music, you were definitely going to get an earful later. 

You both danced to a couple of songs, before you pulled away from him, “thank you for dancing with me. I think I'm going to retire for the night. My feet are killing me…though I liked dressing up, I’d rather stick to sneakers.” You laugh straightening out Theo’s tie and collar.

“Of course, any time. I’m sorry your date kind of ruined your night, but you really do look gorgeous tonight, cara mia.” He looked down at you, his tone sincere.

Giving him a friendly kiss on the cheek, “goodnight Teddy.” You made your way up the stairs back to the dormitories. As you go up, you look down at the party once more. Charlie was just now sleeping on the couch, you rolled your eyes. Mattheo had his face buried in the blonde girl’s hair. You sighed. Mattheo’s dorm room was closer to the stairs so you made your way over to his room, your pajamas were still in there. With your luck he had not locked his door. 

 °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂ִ °. •̩̩͙ ִ * ° ໋•̩̩͙ ִ 𓈒ּ ° 𓂂

Mattheo kept his eyes trained on you as you went into his room, he couldn’t help but feel a little excited at the thought. It sent a thrill through him. His mind started to wonder, why you decided to go in there instead of your room. 

When you stepped in his room, you breathed in deeply. It had such an intoxicating scent. Sometimes you went nose blind to Mattheo’s smell, but being in his room where it was the most concentrated almost made your brain fuzz. You went into his bathroom, looked at yourself in the mirror, man what a wasted outfit.

He couldn’t wait any longer, the thought of you inside there by yourself was driving him crazy. He pushed the blonde girl to the side, mumbling an excuse about needing some air. He made his way towards the stairs, shoving people to the side, determined to get to his room as quickly as possible. As he entered inside, he noticed the bathroom light on, the door cracked open.

Bending down to pick up your pajamas that you left on the floor. You debated on changing out of your dress, but knew just how long it would take if you were to do it by yourself. You would need to wait for Mattheo, but you also didn’t want to be in his room if he decided to bring that girl up here for the night. You notice one of his shirts on the floor too, you picked it up. You wanted to smell it. Fucking weirdo, don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do -

Mattheo pushed open the door quietly, peering inside to see you holding one of his shirts in your hands. You jumped at the sound, “oh my god, shit!” You dropped the shirt back on the floor along with your pajamas.

He leaned against the doorframe, watching you with a smirk, “you didn’t expect me to find you in my dorm, love?” He laughed sarcastically.

You peaked behind him trying to see if he brought the girl over after all, “no I didn’t..I thought you were still going to be downstairs. I was just getting my pajamas and shoes.”

The smirk on his face widened as he noticed you peering behind him, he laughed and shook his head, “I got tired of dancing with her. She’s a little too clingy for my taste.”

“Yeah? Well at least you didn’t have to endure a drunk.” You go to pick your pajamas again. You make your way to his desk to take off your heels. His eyes looked at your legs. There was a pause between you two. “Go on Mattheo, rub it in my face.” You huffed, rubbing your feet, closing your eyes, “let’s get it over with.”

“Oh, princess, if you insist.” He moved closer to you, standing behind you. He leaned down, bringing his face close to your ear, his breath against your neck. “I told you so.”

You kept your eyes shut, clenching them a bit hard. “T-that’s all you got?”

He brushed a strand of your hair from your face, his fingers tracing down the side of your neck. His tone was low and husky as he spoke into your ear “Oh, you know I’ve got plenty more where that came from. Want me to teach you another lesson?”

“What do you mean?” You looked up at him, your heart took a leap.

It was now or never for Mattheo. “For not listening to me.” He firmly grabbed your wrist making you stand up from the seat. He instead took you place, he sat down looking at you expectantly as you were now standing by his side.

“Mattheo…what do you mean?” You almost stammered on your own words. 

“It’s a yes or a no, darling. Do you want me to teach you a lesson? I am your tutor after all, right?”

“-and best friend.” You looked at him, still very much confused, but you felt a sense of excitement of the unknown. He rolled up his sleeves to his elbow carefully as you thought it over. Why is he being so…so.. “Yes.” You blurted.

“Good girl, this is the lesson I’m going to teach you. It’s going to be about listening to me, because I know what’s right for you. The first part is having you admit to yourself that I was right and you were wrong. I don't want to have to tell you. You tell me instead…go on.” In a quick motion he brought you down and bent over on his lap. You didn’t have enough time to react to what was going on, but your heart was starting to race. You could feel one of his hands rubbing your ass just above the thin satin fabric of your dress. You turned to look back at him, and he was staring at your ass, but had to quickly meet your eye. “Go on.” He gave your left cheek a rough squeeze.

You closed your eyes, before opening them and answering. “Mattheo you were right. I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?” He said, squeezing your ass again, then tracing a single finger along the slit of your dress. Touching the smooth skin of your thigh.

“About my date…I was dumb to think it was going to be an amazing date. But it wasn’t.” You sighed both at the turn of events with Charlie, and because of Mattheo’s touch.

“And I warned you, didn't I? That you could be with someone so much better than him, didn’t I?” He nearly spat out the last words in emphasis. Squeezing your ass harder this time, his nails are able to dig into you through the dress. 

You don’t respond, you’re too focused on his touch. How he was handling you. Your thought process was going in about a thousand different directions right now. When Mattheo didn’t hear you he swiftly pulled your dress over to the side by the slit, exposing your ass to him. You stopped breathing. He sucked in air through his teeth at the sight of your perky round ass in a black little lacey thong. He gave you a sharp smack on your ass, you yelped not expecting it. “I asked you a question, darling.”

“I uh…Yes. Yes Mattheo, you warned me. You did warn me that I could be with someone better.” You whined as he smoothed out the area he just hit.

“Have I ever done wrong by you?” SMACK! He hit the other cheek this time. You slapped your hand over your mouth to stop you from crying out loud, but he quickly pushed it away from your face so you could answer him.

“No..y-you haven’t.”

“Then why didn't you listen to me?” SMACK! You cried out again as he hit you. Again he rubbed it out.

“I- I…don’t-” you began to say - SMACK!

“Does he know the reasons why you cry?”

You opened your mouth to try and respond but was spanked again.

“Does he know what makes you laugh?” 

SMACK! 

Your legs were starting to tremble due to the mix of pain…pleasure…the excitement of it all. It was so confusing. Well it wasn’t confusing to see Mattheo so angry, but towards you it was new. It was turning you on, and you knew he was enjoying himself too. Not only because he did enjoy inflicting pain onto others, but because you were starting to feel him get hard from underneath you. His dick was poking up into your stomach. You were sure the pressure of your weight on him was sending him over the edge. You looked back at him, biting your lip. He just looked down at you, quite darkly. His hand was removed from your ass, leaving it red and hot. Surely there was bruising and welts from his work. 

Mattheo’s lips twisted upwards in a smile. Then pulled your hair back, twisting it around his hand. This causes you to strain your head backwards. He bent down to whisper against your neck, kissing it. “I can promise you this, no one is ever going to make you feel the same as I will. I’ll do anything for you.”

You nod, your eyes going wide at his confession. You were about to respond to him but once again you were silenced when he let go of your hair, and pushed your head back down. His hands went over your sore ass and and he hooked his fingers around your panties, shimmying them down your thighs and off of you. He stealthily stored them in his pants pocket. 

You felt a cool breeze as you were exposed to him now. Especially because of your growing wetness, which Mattheo could now see. “M-Mattheo… can I please speak now?”

He shook his head, “Not now, darling.” He leaned to the side, putting one hand on each ass cheek. His gaze quickly looked over at you, your head was still hanging down. He returned to what he was doing, and he slowly spread your ass, showing himself your pussy. He groaned at the sight. He smirked, liking that you were enjoying this treatment. “Fuck, baby. It’s so pretty.”

You couldn’t help yourself, but at his words you arched your back to further show yourself to him. You felt your face get hot, this was Mattheo. Once a stranger. Once your tutor. Now your best friend. The guy you’ve developed a massive crush on. He chuckled at your action, he was so tempted to break the promise you had in regards to him trying to read your mind. He wanted to know what you were thinking of all this.

“I promise you won’t need him after this, ever. You will never think about him ever again. Only me.”

Mattheo crept his fingers closer to your heat, so he could spread it further. You scrunch your eyes closed as he was getting closer to where you wanted to be touched. God you wanted to be handled like this by Mattheo for so long. So many nights you had spent alone in your dorm touching yourself and imagining it was him. You wondered if he ever had those moments (he definitely did). You were snapped out of that thought when you heard him spit onto your cunt, you felt it tickle into your hole. 

“Go on, say my name, Doll. I want to hear my name coming from your lips.”

“Mattheo..” You breathed out shakily. “Shit mattheo… please touch me.”

SMACK! That was all your plea earned you, another slap on your ass, “You don't get to order me around…but alas I was going to regardless. You’re so impatient.” He ran two fingers along your wet folds, smirking at the idea that his spit was just sitting inside of you currently. 

“M-m-matty.” you moaned out. He was a sucker whenever you called him that, so he dipped a finger into your core. You moaned out again, especially when he began to probe around feeling your gummy ribbed walls. You reflexively clenched around his finger. He breathed out, imagining how it must feel around his cock. He curled his finger inside of you. “More-more please.” 

He sighed, with his free hand he grabbed your hair in his fist, “stop telling me what to do.” Once again, despite his words he still gave you what you wanted. He pulled out his first finger, just to shove two back in afterwards. 

“Oh my god.” You moaned out. He smiled, moving his fingers deeper inside you. Your precious little cunt was making unholy sounds from how wet you were. Mattheo loved the sound of it, he could tell that his dick was just leaking with precum. He didn’t know how much longer he could take. 

Mattheo was just being relentless with his pace, fingering you. He tried holding you down by leaning on you with his body weight, but you were wiggling too much from pleasure. You felt like you were about to cum. But he would sometimes take his fingers out just to spread the wetness around your lips, massaging it in before continuing. It was driving you absolutely nuts. Eventually you were able to reach your high, cumming down his fingers. He sighed, just as satisfied with the sight of your slightly creamy cum that was now going down your thighs when he pulled his fingers out of you.

“Princess…I really like you, you know? Like really like you. I’m not just saying this…for what we’re doing.. And sorry for a lack of better words..I can’t- I can’t think straight right now. I just want to bury my dick deep inside your pussy.”

“Don’t worry…Matty..” You tried to catch your breath, trying to bring your heart rate down. Mattheo helped you turn around and sit on his lap, making you straddle him. You looked down to his lips, smashing them with yours. The kiss was hungry. Each of you kept biting the other. Mattheo with his clean hand turned your head to the side, kissing and biting down your neck. “I like you too…I have for a while now.. I just..I didn’t think you felt the same.”

Mattheo looked up at you, as you admitted back to him. He was relieved you felt the same. He smiled sweetly at you, your usual best friend peeking out for a moment. He hated that he kept you waiting for so long as he sorted through his own feelings for you, and it only took some jackass taking you out as a date for him to learn this. Just as you had been, he was ripped out of that thought when he saw that you took the hand that he used to finger you, putting the two fingers inside your mouth. Cleaning yourself from him. 

“Oh fuck, darling.” his jaw hung low, groaning with the sight. His eyes glued to where the two digits were disappearing between your lips. He took another sharp inhale, unable to tear his gaze away. He pulled them out of your mouth, leaving a trail of spit to fall onto your chin. He tried to regain his authority, he cleared his throat, “W-What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Can I please suck your cock?” You smiled sweetly at him again, batting your eyelashes. 

He breathed out, his voice low and almost hoarse as he spoke, his words coming out in short bursts “n-no princess. I’m trying to teach you a lesson. You’re supposed to be good and pay attention to what I'm doing.”

“Okay Mattheo…sure.” You agreed to play along. He put his arms around you, lifting you up easily. He got out of the seat and walked over to his bed, setting you down in front of it. He turned you around so your back was towards him and he pushed you down onto the bed. Keeping your head flat against his comforter with one hand. You inhaled, taking in his scent from his sheets. You let out a small moan.

He knew what you were doing, “for your information…I knew you wanted to sniff my dirty shirt that I left in my bathroom. You freak.” He brought up how he caught you when he returned back to his dorm after the party. He couldn’t resist a little banter despite how heated things were getting between you and him. 

“Shaddup!” You said muffled from your head being pinned down. You felt him move your dress to the side, tucking it under your hip, making sure it was out of the way, “do you want to help me remove this…?”

He smiled at you again, shaking his head, “no..I actually want to fuck you in your dress. You look too beautiful in it to let it go to waste. A real princess.” You couldn't help but love the sweetness in that. He momentarily let go of your head, so he could unzip his pants and pull it down. He also took off his dress shirt, exposing his toned torso and abs. He used his knee to open your legs apart further, he pumped himself a few times, needing to feel some relief already. “Spread yourself to me.” He commanded bringing your hands to your ass. You did what you were told, you arched your back again, spreading your pussy for him. You felt Mattheo rub the tip of his dick around your wet entrance, then rubbing it around your clit before using his full length to use your wetness to lubricate himself. 

You wanted to turn around to look at it, you wanted to see if you could take him. You always wondered what he was packing. You wanted to know how long it was, how thick it was, what color it was, how it would feel inside of you. You were feeling a slight headache, then the realization hit you. You were going to stand straight up when he pushed you down again, “Mattheo!”

 “Okay okay..i’m sorry. I know I promised, but I wanted to know what you were thinking.” He said not so guilty. “Buuuuut know that I know.. I want you to see me fucking you. I need to see your pretty face-” He turned you around, lifting you so that you were now sitting forward, facing him on the side of the bed. He was smirking when he brought over a pillow to put just underneath the small of your back. He pulled you by your waist so your ass was barely hanging out of the edge, it was a perfect height to his hips, “-I need to see how you look when you take me.” He pulled your legs so that they were resting on his shoulders. 

Fuuuuck. You thought as you looked down at his twitching dick. He was so big and girthy. His cock slightly tanner than the rest of him, his tip as pink as his lips. God the lips you stared at all the time, day to day. You felt nervous, he would definitely be the biggest you’ve taken. You felt a ringing in your ear again. You rolled your eyes, knowing he was reading your mind again.

“I know you can take me, sweetheart. You’ve done everything I’ve taught you so well.” Mattheo stroked the side of your face gently, with warm eyes. You couldn’t fathom the duality of this man. He was doing this while his other hand was adjusting his dick to your entrance, carefully dipping the tip into you. 

You looked down away from his face to watch him enter you. “Please take it slow…I’m-”

“There’s no reason to be scared, of course I will take it slow.” He said this, but hated it. He just wanted to fuck you senseless. He looked away from your face, looking at your pussy. He tried pushing himself in slowly, but you were not letting him in. “You're so tense, please relax for me.” He moved over to suck on his thumb before moving it to your clit and rubbing slow lazy circles, earning him a moan from you. He smiled, continuing his work. He wasn’t even trying his best and you were already shaking again.

“Matty… I think..I think-”

“Oh no you’re not.” He stopped just as you were about to come to your next high. “Next time you cum, it’ll have to be on my dick.” 

You whined and wiggled against him. He took this opportunity and really pushed himself, leaning down into you. You held him by his shoulders, biting him on his bicep. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer into you. All you felt was pain at first, and he wasn’t even moving yet too. You said a silent prayer to yourself.

“Shit. You’re so tight. When was the last time you were fucked…? Actually please don’t tell me I don't want to think about another person doing this to you.” He said one hand on your waist, the other on your hip, pulling you closer so he could really be balls deep into you. He tried not to get angry at the thought. “It feels so good, damn. So warm. Baby, can I start moving?”

You felt so full. So very full with him all the way inside you. You felt his cock twitch impatiently just as you had been earlier, maybe more. You felt bad for Mattheo, you also wanted him to feel good, but it was almost unbearable. You nod, “you can Matty.”

His eyes snapped up at yours. He didn’t like your uncertainty, but he really needed to feel relief. He almost felt sorry for you, but he was way too horny to fully care and to just pull out to make you suck him off. “I’m sorry Princess…I’ve been wanting and needing you like this so fucking bad.” He began to pull his hips back little by little, going in and out of you. He sighed, moving your legs back up on his shoulders, he kissed your leg.

“No, dont app-” You gasped when he slapped his hips against you, “-ologize. I-I want to make you feel good too. I want you to use me…” He smiled at your words, despite your not so hidden worries. You were a fool for him, and he loved it. He loved it because he was a fool for you too.

While you loved watching him fuck you, loved hearing his grunts and sighs. It was still so much for you. You turn your face away from him, biting on your finger. The other hand, covering your face. When you were just focusing on just the physical, not the visual it helped relax you. The pain began to disappear, especially once you started to get used to his size and the pace. Mattheo was definitely stretching you out. You whimper at the thought, at the pleasure that was starting to hit you like a pulsing wave.

“W-why are you hiding your face?” He grunts, slowing his movement, “Don’t hide it, I want to see your expression.” He pulls your hand away from you. His eyes widened when he saw your cheeks were stained by your tears. He completely stops, midway pulling out. “Princess, are you alright? Am I hurting you?! Oh my god you should have told me if I was-”

“No please- please don't stop. It just feels that good.” You reassure him by pulling yourself forward so that his cock would reenter you. You went back to biting your finger to hold back your cry.

Mattheo smiles at you, a sense of relief rushing through him. His smile turns into a smug look. “You’re still so pretty when you cry. You scared me.” He leaned back down, licking the tears off your cheeks, not minding the salty taste one bit. He moved to suck on your neck, he pulled your other hand down that you were biting on. “You sound so beautiful too, especially when your cries are just for me. Don't hold them back. I want to hear how you feel about me, how I'm making you feel..”

“Matty, please just keep fucking me.” You moan out, moving your hips against him.

“As you wish, just don't tell me off later if you can’t walk. You asked for this.” His smirk and cockiness returned. He pulled your legs forward so that they were being pressed up against your chest, really exposing your pussy to him. He didn’t hold back anymore. 

“Yes mattheo, I’ll tell you again that you were right. That you’re always right. I will always listen to you.” You moan out, knowing he loves the sense of control. You arched your back off the bed, so he would keep hitting your sweet spot directly. You felt your eyes lul back. You tried to keep your eyes open to watch him slamming his dick into your sweet sopping wet cunt. Each time he pulled out of you, his own member glistened.

“That’s my fucking girl. You’re taking me so well.” He spread your legs away from your chest so he could lean back into you once more, he kissed your forehead. “Oh this - s is this is so frea k…freaking ba-bad” He began to get sloppy with his movements. He wrapped both of his hands around your throat, to choke you and also to steady himself. 

“You’re cock feels so good inside me Matty, so good. It feels so euphoric, it’s so filling.” You choked out through his grip around your neck. You saw him look down at your pussy again. He let go one hand and pressed down just under your belly button. “Fucking shit Ma-Mah-Mattheo.”

When he did this, he saw the way your own pussy was gripping onto him, he smiled at the sight. “You’re being so greedy now aren’t you? You just can't enough huh? You like me treating you like this, you’re so dirty.”

You keep moaning his name, not being about to think about anything but how he was fucking you so well. Just as you had always imagined and wanted. You were just so focused on the pressure he was creating in your belly, the all too familiar twisting and knotting as you felt getting closer.

“Shiiiit~ your pussy is suffocating my dick darlin’. Are you about to come around me? Am I making you feel that amazing? Please don't hold back now, I'm all for it.” He moved his hand back to paying attention to your clit, but he paused before continuing his motion much more slowly. “Are..are you on any birth control?”

“What?” You were kind of dumbfounded, he asks this now? He just stares back expectantly. “Yeah I am..” You kind of gave him an attitude because he was denying your next orgasm with this sudden questioning. 

He squinted a bit, “why?”

“Matt- what? Just what? My periods hurt like hell and this is what helps me dur-” 

“Can I creampie you then?” He nonchalantly says interrupting you, returning his attention back to your clit, smiling.

You throw your head back, you were slowly but surely returning to the state you were in before he suddenly stopped. 

“I asked you a question… Please don't make me ask again..” He said, closing his eyes, needing to know your answer before he thrusted faster. He needed to know what to do now that he was getting close. God he hoped you would say yes. Mattheo wanted to see your little cunt filled up with his cum. He wanted to see it drip out of you..He looked at you realizing you had been shaking from sheer pleasure. The reason why you weren’t answering him was because you had came around him without him fully realizing it while in his own thoughts. 

“Mattheo..” 

He looked at you quite lovingly, tucking your hair back into place, “I’m right here.” He gently taps on your cheek, trying to pull you from your trance, “I’m right here, open your eyes. Look at me.” You open your eyes slowly to him, giving him a fucked out smile. He smiled back at you, “that’s my girl.”

“...yes fill me up with your cum. It’ll be an honor.” 

With that he did not need to be told twice, his smile widened. He kissed you on the lips before ramming himself back into you. He still didn’t give up on the attention he was giving your clit. It was starting to ache by how overstimulated you were. It was so red and swollen. There was no way in hell you were going to tell him to stop. He was just using you like a toy at this point, and you were loving it. He had your legs pressed together and to your chest again, you were hugging them for dear life. You kept calling his name, begging him to fill you. “Princess, I love you so much..I lovee - I love yo u.” He stammered out “I love you..m-more than anyone i n my l-life.” He shook, and stayed still a moment as he came.

“I love you too.” You said, a little sadly as he pulled out of you. He gave you another kiss on the lips, before just peppering your face with kisses.

“You’ve always been mine, you know that right?”

“Mhmm” You close your eyes. 

He sighs contently, kneeling a bit. He watched as his cum started to be squeezed out of you. He thought he would love it, but he just wanted it to stay inside of you. He brought his two fingers to your hole, scooping up the cum that escaped and pressing it back into you. He curled his fingers once more, starting to pump in and out carefully. You moaned out, grabbing his wrist. You opened your eyes and he was already looking into yours. He smiled his devilish smile. Oh fuck…

“Yeah, I'm not done with you just yet, princess.”

With that it was like he was trying making up for lost time with you.~

[ace-writer-lani]

Nico: What are you doing?

Will: Ain't it obvious? I'm stress drinkin'.

Nico: But...that's just water.

Will: Well, obviously I can't drink alcohol because I'm sixteen. Babe, do you know how many terrible and long-term side effects are caused by underage drinkin' because I do, and lemme tell you-

[lexluvsmegs]

Bet you could do better…

[Choso Kamo x fem!reader]

Synopsis ౨ৎ - After a recent break up, you search for comfort in the form of your long term best friend Choso. But what happens when he finds out the reason you weren’t all that into your ex is because he couldn’t make you finish?

Warnings ౨ৎ - smut ⭒ oral (f receiving) ⭒ Choso is basically so in love with you ⭒ dry humping ⭒ Choso cums untouched ⭒ a lil bit of fingering

Word count ౨ৎ - 1583

(18+ please if you’re a minor do not interact!)

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You weren’t upset, per se, however you did find yourself fed up with the lack of manors in which men possess. You’re sat on your sofa, glass of wine in hand and your handsome friend to your left. You had known Choso for quite some time now. He was extremely shy in the earlier stages of your friendship: flushing at any physical contact, stuttering over his words when you asked any questions, his voice ever so breathless during late night calls… But he had grown since then - well, except for the last point - and found himself to be more comfortable and open in your presence. You could even call him your best friend.

So who better to call than said best friend when you’re down in the dumps over your most recent break up. You had always been open with Choso with almost every aspect of your life. Except one. You see, ever since you met Choso you’ve harboured a small crush on the man. Can you really blame yourself? However, you made a promise that you wouldn’t do anything to ruin the beautiful bond created between the two of you. So that was that.

You decided to invite Choso round for a drink. Of course Choso was down, and so here he is now, sat on your sofa nursing a beer in one hand and fiddling the string of his sweatpants with the other. He wasn’t wearing anything extravagant, but the compression shirt he was sporting did little to hide his mouth watering muscles. You’re surprised you didn’t jump his dick when he walked in. You had some serious self restraint.

Choso makes a humming noise, breaking the silence, as he turns to you, asking if you want a refill of your wine. You shake your impure thoughts and gladly accept, scooting closer to his figure feeling the warmth radiate off of him. “So.. how you feeling?” He asks apprehensively. You appreciate his concern but aren’t too sure you want to remember the man who you foolishly went out with. “Fine. Don’t even know why I gave him a chance” you laugh slightly, feeling the ever so familiar tipsy side effects of your drink. Choso stared at you, almost in a trance, as if he was deep in thought. He gives you a look you can’t quite decipher. “Why do you say that? I thought you found him attractive?” You take another sip then turn to face him. “He couldn’t satisfy me” it was blunt. Blunt enough to cause a deep red to coat the tips of Choso’s pierced ears at the sexual implication.

He clears his throat. Was that too much? But before your thoughts can spiral, he takes a quick glance down to your lips before returning his gaze to your own and replies “oh yeah? In what way?” His voice was low and shaky, unsure of the words coming from his mouth. The eye contact you’re both holding is intense, it causes you to subtly rub your legs together for any sort of relief. “Uh, he couldn’t make me finish” you finally choke out after the initial shock of his boldness wore off. The tension was thick. You knew he could feel it too as you saw him subtly shift his free hand to hide his crotch. Oh. You swallowed thickly. Could Choso really see you that way? You can only hope. You drag your sight away from his lap and back to meet his own, already staring at you like you were the only person to ever exist. Choso always looked at you like you were fine art, but this time it felt slightly different.

You don’t know what came over you. You were trying to fill the silence you swear but the alcohol really messed you up when you blurted out “I bet you could make me finish” it was a whisper but still loud enough for Choso to hear every word. Fuck, you’ve definitely taken it too far now. You open your mouth to apologise, but Choso cuts you off with a short“Please.”You didn’t have to wonder what he was begging for for long as he soon follows up with “Please, let me make you finish.” He looks so pathetic pleading like this and it makes you so unbelievably wet. You don’t offer a reply as you place your drink down and grab his face, pulling him down to meet you in a desperate kiss. He follows suit in hastily planting his drink down on the nearest surface and grabs your hips returning the same heat to the kiss. You open your mouth granting him access as he slips his tongue inside, tasting the bitter wine left behind.

You’re getting handsy, throwing a leg over to straddle Choso, hands moving to grip his hair as he lets out an angelic whine. God, you can’t get enough of this man. He starts bucking his hips up as you feel the outline of his cock rutting against your clothed cunt. You soon break apart from the kiss both parties moaning at the stimulation. “Fuck, you’re so pretty. Wanted this for so long. Y’dont know how many nights I’ve fantasised about this very moment” it comes out rushed, but fuck, that turned you on even more. Choso got off to you. Pride swells in your chest at the realisation and you decide to reward him by licking and sucking your way down his neck, making sure to focus on the one spot that caught his breath.

“P-please take this off, wanna see those pretty tits” who knew Choso had such a dirty mouth. You follow his request, bringing the top above your head and shimmying out of your shorts. He’s in awe, basically drooling at the sight of your plush breasts. You giggle at his reaction. “Now you’ve gotta take stuff off. Only fair” you tease his already flustered self as he scrambles to get fully undressed. He’s beautiful. Sculpted by the gods. His abs are so defined, making you want to ride them, and his pecs are big enough to bite. Now the only thing separating your wet cunt from his throbbing cock is the thin fabric of your panties. Your wetness is seeping through causing a slick sound to form as you grind down on his now bare dick.

Choso fumbles to remove your bra and watches as your tits fall free from the restraint. He wastes no time in taking one of your nipples into his mouth sucking at it as if he expects milk to pour out. This has you moaning and squirming as you drag your nails down his chest causing marks to form. He soon removes his mouth and replaces it with his fingers to keep the stimulation as he pants a “can I eat you out?” the pleasure has you speechless as you can only manage a nod at his request. He lays you down on your back, your limbs splayed lazily over the span of the couch. You’re impatiently awaiting Choso’s next move as he watches over you, he finally removes your panties and stares in awe at the view in front of him. “You are so beautiful” his words make you flush. “J-just hurry up” you reply, slightly embarrassed at your exposure. He lays down, coming face to face with your glistening cunt as he continues to mumble about how lucky he is and how pretty you are. When he finally takes an experimental lick you both let out desperate moans. “God, you taste so good. So sweet f’me” he spreads you open with both hands and takes your clit between his lips, sloppily lapping at your pussy causing you to clamp your legs around his head. Fuck, does he eat pussy like a champ. He’s got you squirming from the intense pleasure, his tongue teasing your entrance before going back towards your clit.

Choso can’t control himself, the sight before him is too hot to handle. He slowly starts to grind his dick against the fabric of your sofa. It’s so messy with the pre-cum spilling from his cock. He’s just as messy though, moaning shamelessly into your pretty, wet cunt with your juices all over his face as he chases his own release. It’s all getting too much as you grab onto Choso’s hair for dear life, practically humping his face, his nose bumping your clit. He can’t get enough of your taste, he think he may have just become an addict as nothing sweet could ever compare to the taste of you. Choso’s whines get more desperate and so do yours. “Fuck! Choso, gonna make me cum.” A pornographic moan leaves him at this statement, showing he was the same. Choso suddenly adds a finger, curling it up to hit the spot that made your toes curl. That was your breaking point as your orgasm came crashing down. However, Choso didn’t stop, lapping up your release as he finally comes to his own panting like a needy dog.

You both take some time to calm down from your highs and soon find yourself sat back on Choso’s lap. “Guess I was right then” you smirk, kissing him as a form of gratitude. He looks so cute like this, so fucked out and you’ve not even touched him properly. “Now it’s my turn to return the favour” you say with a giggle as you slowly make your own way down.

It’s gonna be a long night.

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© lexluvsmegs 2024 ➳ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PLEASE DO NOT Copy, Translate, Re-Upload, or Steal ANY of my work.

Thank You, Beautiful People!

[precious-little-scoundrel]

|| Sanchez ||

Requested? ☑️

Circa: October 1943

Summary: Upon being shot down on his last mission, Major Gale Cleven finds himself in the company of a female officer -and not one from the 100th. While already inclined to show solidarity, the increasing threat towards his fellow officer forces him to act. The jeopardy such action puts him in is more than he could have ever estimated, as is the fallout upon finding women he knows in the stalag

Cast: Cleven, Sanchez, Demarco, Brady, Egan, Kendeigh, Lu Smith, Ida Brady

Author’s note: the first portion of this segment is in the immediate time frame of Gale being downed. The second portion follows the events of What Took Him So Long? the mirroring of both these segments will hopefully prove enjoyable but I worry perhaps confusing

Content Warning: due to the disturbing content listed below the cut, I understand some may choose not to read this segment. If you’d like an abridged summary of the events herein to keep up with the series, I’d be happy to supply that 💋🌹

Warnings: usual universe warnings apply 18+ additionally for this chapter there are warnings for depiction of rape. This entire arc was produced on popular request, i have tried to portray the brutal events found herein in the most elevated and respectful terms I found effective. I would not call it graphic, however, it’s not vague either. And it’s rape. Male and female. Depiction of rape and discussion of past rape. Violence as well, obviously, fucking Nazis, ptsd from said assaults, choking, hints of childhood trauma, mentions of medical experiments. General cloud of dread. With light at the end of the tunnel.

Note: my blog and writings are strictly 18+, this means that we are all adults here enjoying free connection and art. The themes of this particular story are mature, at times harrowing and for some, potentially intolerable. No worries if the latter is your case, feel free to move on or block tags. On the other hand, please take responsibility for your reading, I provide warnings as a courtesy but I cannot cover them all and if something doesn’t sit right, please exercise adult autonomy and make your way to the nearest exit. Xo

When Gale extended his hand to aid the next prisoner up into the truck, he hadn't anticipated one so small or so brown. Busted knuckles that had rivulets of crimson pouring over copper flesh; he was mildly fascinated by it. His concussed mind flashed to ‘Lu Smith and her shaded face, before belatedly realizing it was indeed a woman’s lighter frame he was hauling in beside him to the shrill insistence of German threats.

The woman who flopped on the bench opposite him, legs spread wide and boots braced with a brow like a thundercloud, was not Smith. And for that Cleven was relieved.

Last he had seen of Ida and Graham’s fort, they’d been carrying on over Breman, and while he had every reason to think few had made it back, who’s to say they weren’t lucky? And Ida could fly a tin can on the fumes of an alcoholic's breath. Smith wasn’t here, Ida either, and he tried to arrange his mind to that, to not even let the doubt creep in, and instead took to studying the newcomer in between the passing of more downed airmen filling the benches.

The incessant barking of their dogs must have been half strategy, the throbbing in his back working its way into his head as the minutes went by. It had taken too long for them to be brought to Luftwaffe jurisdiction, he knew that much, even with giving them the benefit of the doubt for wartime communication failures and muddy roads. He’d been well read and prepared and braced for the outcome of being downed since before they left the states, grilled his men on procedure, on their rights, their privileges as prisoners of war, also on their duties to silence. The fact he’d never truly thought it would happen to him didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly knowledgeable about the requirements.

So far Cleven had managed not to say a single word to anyone, the farmer with the pitchfork probably didn’t speak English and a wheezy “please don’t kill me” seemed like a flaccid bunch of last words that Gale refused to let off his tongue.

Instead he let them haul him to the nearest company of Wehrmacht soldiers and had been marched for ages by them, had seen and given Benny a nod when his column of prodded, sheepskin wearing sad bastards merged with Buck’s column of the same. Kendeigh hadn’t been there; crew get themselves killed in a hard landing as often as an exploded plane.

Cleven thought about breaking the silence now to ask the woman opposite where the hell she came from, her patches not what he was used to. But no, bad precedent, he stayed quiet and watchful as the Krauts pushed the last of the men into the overcrowded truck and snapped the tailgate shut. Someone could easily make a run for it by jumping out, but the jeep following behind at a steady few yards with a bristling assortment of machine guns suggested against it.

Once the truck began to move, Benny leaned forward beside him on their jostling journey and motioned in an ingratiating arc at the woman’s patches. “I don’t know those.” he said what Gale had been thinking, half yelling over the clamor of voices and the roar of the truck engine, “Looks half like varsity shit.”

Gale wasn’t sure his kindhearted co-Pilot meant those sorts of digs out of innocence or as a tactic to get reticent folks to defend themselves with the very information they might has previously withheld. As said, Gale didn’t know, but he knew it never failed. The woman went from scowling at Cleven -a pastime she had set herself to with such diligence that every time he tried to make discreet observance of her she already had her eyes on him- and turned to Benny.

“201st, fighters.” well that explained nothing and everything. “Sanchez.” she offered Benny after a beat, maybe knowing her name was hardly damning considering her looks.

Kinda like how Benny looked and sounded likely to have a name that started with “De-“ and a dog named meatball. “Eagle Wings, huh?” Benny nodded at the patch. “And a uh, uh triangle.” he couldn’t make it out all the way from his seat, but Buck could -the patch read ‘Mexico’ above a magnificent spread of Eagle Wings with a green triangle as the body.

They were all a long way from home.

“Aztec,” Sanchez tweaked it, “Aztec Eagles.”

“Mexican?” Benny asked, the accent wasn’t one he commonly heard in Philly but even crappy shows and movies got some things right, and Benny had seen his fair share of westerns.

“Sanchez.” she repeated instead and was back to scowling at Buck.

They seemed to drive for all day, until the light began to dim and what was a pleasant day turned into a misty chill as evening grew near.

The truck came to a halt at last, barbed wire and mud about them and the painted checkpoint arm whirled by as they drove into the dulag and came to a final stop. In the quiet that followed the cut of the engines, the rain was suddenly audible, pattering on the canvas above them. At the resumption of barked order and harsh commands the prisoners stood up, gingerly hopping out of the truck with just enough quickness not to be hit and just enough slowness not to be shot. Didn't help much anyway, muzzles were pointed quite liberally around here and you just had to hope the trigger fingers weren’t so generous.

The dulag guards turned away a good seven of those remaining after the packed truck had dispensed its human cargo. They didn't have enough room.

Go up further, to the next one, go to Frankfurt -those seemed to be the directions.

Directions their drivers and guards took poorly; it was late, it was drizzling and Buck could guess how little they enjoyed the on-edge detail of ferrying outnumbering prisoners around the countryside. They cut down on the number of guards, five to go with: a driver, two in the jeep, one more in the cab and another supposed to be with them in the truck back.

After a bit more haggling, the Dulag accepted three more prisoners. Cleven made sure to stay put, he didn’t know the foreign arguments well enough to decipher all but half the protesting seemed to be over who got Sanchez. And he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her here without a superior officer as defense. A dulag guard had hopped up into the truck and shined his flashlight at Buck’s markings, that’s when he mentioned something about Frankfurt.

Benny didn’t move without Cleven and so, when the truck took off again into the evening gloom, it was Buck and Benny and Sanchez and another hapless kid who looked all of fifteen and was, according to his over liberal offer of conversation, a scared shitless waist gunner.

“They’re arguing over you.” Cleven finally chose to speak up. It could get rough, the guards’ distinction of her. He felt it with a premonitory dread that came from too many right predictions as a child. He hated this feeling, he hated how right it usually was, he hated how it was usually met with folks telling him he worried too much. He’d taken to not saying much the older he grew, watching things play out, grieving over foreseen misfortunes all on his own. Until he met Bucky. But right now he had to speak up, this time he had to.

Yet Sanchez remained scowling, “They argued over you.” she retorted.

Gale gave her a tight smile, “I’m a major.”

“I’m a lieutenant.”

“I can see that.” he proceeded cautiously, “But they just took in a baker's dozen of lieutenants. No problem. But they didn’t take you.”

“Didn’t take him either.” she nodded to Benny.

“His captain’s ass never left the seat.” Cleven said, “You were on the ground, ready, they put you back. I’m tellin’ you, if they can’t decide who you are, where you go, I’m gonna need your assurance you’ll fight like hell with me. For recognition of it.”

-Just don’t say I worry too much, Gale thought desperately, he could almost feel Bucky’s gentle squeeze of his shoulder, like shaking out the tension in a cat as he said the same; his back was so stiff he thought it might snap if Bucky did it now but -but John wasn’t here. Thank Almighty God.

“You know you look more German than most of our guards.” Sanchez replied and Benny suddenly snapped to attention beside him at that. “I’m not assuring you of shit.”

“He’s not a damn spy!” Benny insisted, more loudly and vehemently than was maybe best with guards all around.

“You know this how?” she asked, unmoved.

“He’s my goddamn co-Pilot.”

“Pilot?”

“Ya think he just ripped his own cheek open for a part?”

Sanchez swayed with the jerk of a pothole and shook her head, “Maybe you both are.”

Smart, and a worse worrier than himself. Cleven liked her immensely and stared out the flap of the tarp, watching the rain pour down, dusk fully settling over everything outside and the trailing jeep’s headlights poured into their little haven, whiting-out his vision of the road.

“I’m not leavin’ this seat ‘till a Dulag takes you.” he told her, it was all he had to give. For her part she seemed determined to wait and see before expending any thanks. He didn’t expect it.

They weren’t in any city when the truck brakes checked them in a squeaking lurch, followed by the sound of tires turning off gravel and into squelching mud and then the echoing silence of the engine being cut once more. This wasn’t Frankfurt, and this was no engine failure. From the headlights of the following jeep, all Gale could make out was trees. So many damn trees. It had stopped raining.

“This isn’t Frankfurt.” He remarked to the guard sitting with them, the sullen fellow had not said a word for five hours and he didn’t start spilling now.

The others made an appearance when they joined them in the truck, hopping up with muddy jackboots and the clatter of what seemed to be a portable camp stove, along with rucksacks, utensils and the like. They unwound rope from the cloth neck of one sack and poured out oats, and another seemed to have been wrapping some preserved sort of meat. Gale eyed the discarded rope where it lay on the floor with the lust of a man used to working with what he was given, while Benny stared with barely concealed longing at the now simmering concoction on the tin stove.

These guards made conversation, or at least they tried. But not even the scared little gunner was in the mood to reply, and so it remained one sided. His boys hadn’t eaten since chow this morning at the crack of dawn, and Cleven didn’t blame them for their hunger but his own stomach was in loathsome, uneasy knots, and by observance of Sanchez’s wary sullenness, he figured he wasn’t alone in that. A dinner break for the Germans was one thing, he guessed, but the solitude was oppressive along with the forced proximity of all these grinning enemies stirring and chopping their porridge bits and laughing amongst themselves on the benches and floor next to them.

When they offered Demarco a hunk of whatever they had prepared, to his credit, Benny didn’t even acknowledge them. Their offer had been mocking enough, even without understanding the language.

“You must be hungry, ja?” The one with sergeant stripes cajoled, greasy teeth flashing, the muggy smells of rain and sweat and steaming food were all so noxiously trapped under the tarp, Gale had to bite his cheek to keep down the salient precursors of vomit.

The sergeant tried it on Sanchez next, insistently holding out a hunk of the meat impaled on the knife tip. She wouldn’t even look at him and that was an admirable thing until it served to anger him, and the man reached out, hand snagging in her waistband and hauling her smaller body beside him on the bench with ease. Benny was almost to his feet when Cleven fetched him back with a grip of his own, sitting him down firmly.

He managed to keep his voice perfectly neutral when interrupting the man’s flashlight lit perusal of Sanchez’s frozen features, “Hey, she doesn’t mean any harm, you let her go now.”

The sergeant looked up, less surprised to have gained a reaction from Gale but maybe at hearing his voice at last. “Only trying to be good hosts, ja? She von’t eat. Neither you?”

“Just not hungry.” Gale countered mildly.

“But ve must thank you,” the Sergeant laughed, and Sanchez stayed stiff as board in his grip, shying away from the still offered meat as much as the touch “so many parcels of gifts you drop.”

“Let her go.” Gale insisted, gently.

“She not drop zeez parcels?” The sergeant asked.

“She’s not a bomber.” Gale grit his teeth, “I do the dropping.”

The sergeant pulled her jacket apart in curiosity, thumbing at the patches, “Not’z a bomber?” Cleven felt his tongue go numb as the man tugged at her clothes, it was a curious inspection so far and yet- “Then it’s you should be given meat, ja?” The man left off his tugging and rose from his squat on the floor to approach Gale, the man was huge upon closer acquaintance, “For Hamburg,” he insisted through gritted teeth, his anger more palpable up close, and he pressed the meat to Gale’s tightly shut mouth, “and for ze little ones you turned to ash with your parcels.”

Gale kept his jaw locked and his mouth shut, eyes meeting the sergeants’, unblinking and unsorry.

“Open!”

Gale didn’t obey. The man sighed as if he were actually a host turned down. Gale could feel Benny’s eyes on him, wary, careful, his whole posture shockingly good at blending in, a damn good man to have next to you in a place like this.

“We have no beer,” the man confessed, knife and meat still pressing insistently, “or else we would offer it for such heroes. But not to fret, you have provided refreshment, ja? Full belly and beer iz ze best, full belly and a voman iz better.”

Carefully Gale turned his head away from the offered chunk, “That's a prisoner of war, not a woman.” He saw how little effect that had and added for benefit, “And your superiors are waiting for her.”

The man scoffed loudly and turned towards his men who were, Gale could now perceive past his bulk, scraping the last of their tin plates without so much as looking at the bowls -they were eying her. With intent. The kind of intent Gale wished he didn’t recognize but he did, carnival dins and race tracks after dark being hardly the best places to grow up unless you wanted to learn how often folks really would act on their worst impulses.

Not tonight, not if he could fucking help it. By Benny’s taut posture beside him, he knew he had an ally in the assumption that this would end in a fight. He eyed the rope lying on the floor.

“Eat with us.” The sergeant insisted, “She von’t be alive to tell on you, prisoners make a run for it all ze time. Must be shot. Ve’ll let you fuck her too.”

Oh Jesus- “Your superiors know-“ Cleven reminded, voice starting to shake in rage from the keyed up adrenaline he was barely keeping a lid on.

“-zey know emergencies happen.” The man snapped, almost annoyed at Gale’s persistence, as if he expected less protest from an airman at the prospect of one of his own being abused. “Zey would send more guards if zey cared as much as you ‘sink.”

The men had finished their bowls, they set them aside on the bench, pushing the stove away as well. Clearing the floor.

“Or fuck, oh fuck.” the gunner kid, who Gale had almost forgotten about on his end of the bench, began to panic, sounding like he was retching his prayers.

Gale met Benny’s eyes, then down to the rope on the floor, then back up. It was good to have a man who got it. Always got it, his Benny.

“Can I go first.” Gale asked, and held his breath.

“Vat?” The sergeant lowered the knife in surprise, the meat chunk slid and fell to the floor but neither cared.

Gale let his lips twitch, his eyes conspired, “I don’t wanna catch whatever shit you fuckers got.”

He could hear more than see Sanchez begin the thrash on her bench but she made no progress, maybe already being held. “And you von’t tell?” the sergeant asked.

Gale gave him a look that could be universally interpreted as ‘whadda ya think?’ and bent to retrieve the meat nugget from the muddy floor, right by the sergeant’s boot, the rope was just out of reach. When he straightened his back he popped the soiled peace offering in his mouth, he chewed it loudly, the rush of an imminent attempt thrumming so strongly in his body it replaced the queasiness for a moment. The sergeant clapped his hands together, once, in appreciation for the despicable deal.

Gale knew they wanted nothing more than sport of him, it was no comradely favor to allow him to go first, it was blackmail and it was likely something worse once he got his pants down. But they could all play along, he just needed to get close to her. They had her jacket off already, her boots, too.

This didn’t really have a chance in hell but if she was like Ida, or Smith or anyone else, she’d rather be shot barefoot than have this happen to her. Gale supposed dying with German ham stuck in his teeth was about a draw with being killed via pitchfork prongs through the belly.

He didn’t process much when he stood up: not beyond the two paces it took to get to her, the men holding her on the bench seat and wrestling at her clothes, the way Benny didn’t say a word. He really was thinking of Benny in those paces, hoping his co-pilot was ready -it didn’t occur to him even once that Demarco might be as fooled as these sick fucks around them, letting go of her all too quickly at the prospect of a degrading show.

Cleven had his hand around her necktie, pulling her off the bench before he’d even really registered being close enough, he’d forgotten how to hold his face for this act but maybe the mad determination passed for lust, he didn’t think of anything but yanking her up when he felt a sudden, stinging slice against his right cheek. She’d been waiting for this moment, smart thing had a penknife hidden somewhere, it was something one of the Banshees would have pulled, and the mirroring slice was disorienting enough that he wasted a good two seconds in smarting surprise as warm blood trickled down his chin and the guards began to shout.

Someone else wrested the knife from her grip, someone else held onto her wrist now, his moment of shocked pain wasted his fucking plan.

Still, he tried.

Cleven yanked her further toward the middle of the space, spun her around despite her incessant clawing -and maybe the actions seemed to the guards in accordance with his plan, plus some anger from the wound. He didn’t know what they thought, he only knew that no one halted him, they just gathered closer to see, never expecting it, just as he didn’t expect to manage it when he got her turned to the open flap of the tarp and bodily hurled her out its back, into the night.

Benny must’ve tripped the first one, a clunky helmet clattering as the guy fell flat at Cleven’s feet, right as he turned around to help. It wasn’t ever gonna be a nice fight, or a likely chance for her to have even a ten second start but it was something besides sitting on a bench and watching them violate a fellow officer. He’d have done the same for Benny. Just as Benny now looked pretty resigned to dying in this fight, getting in a couple of excellent, unapologetic punches with the next guard who manned up and realized what was what. -It’s gotta be a let down to be keyed up for a nice orgy in the woods only to end up having to play guard again. Gale wanted to manage to kill one before he got shot, that’s all he really wanted anymore.

And for the girl to get out, for all the girls to get out wherever they were.

He was grappling with the closest one, the guy nearest the flap who almost managed to give chase to her right away, when he felt something that gave him a chill of horror he never expected. Rope; he registered it slipping down his chin, making him let go of his opponent to try to slip his fingers between the twine and his collared throat -too late. He felt himself bodily yanked back, a burn in his throat all consuming and the sudden deprivation of air turning him into a desperate mess, nothing useful about his scuffing feet and clawing hands.

They were giving orders to go after her, and two men were scrambling out the back as Gale began to sag. From his new position gasping on the floor, Gale could see that they had a gun to Benny’s gut, while the gunner kid hadn’t needed such firmness, he was braced at the back of the truck in absolute terror.

Well this was over faster than desired but -to be expected. Fuck.

“Halt.” Cleven felt the sergeant’s boot kick at the side of his head, emphasizing his order to cease his struggles.

World grew fuzzy then, not at all like drowsy sleepiness in a hammock but instead like being caught in the river current when you thought you’d managed to strike the ford just right. Gale’s pulse thudded between his temples like the blows of a sledgehammer on his skull, his lungs burned, the cuts on his cheeks blared their pain like screaming infants demanding to be heard above the rest of the pain and terror and fury. He could taste the blood gushing out of them from the pressure, the cuts spurted and dribbled down into his already choking mouth.

What a way to go.

He felt cold air, he felt himself drug and a painful drop to what was likely muddy ground, felt himself dragged some more and his own finger -wedged between the rope and his throat- hurt him worst of all, that knuckle digging into his windpipe.

When some slack finally came, it was minimal, only enough for his body to heave and gag and try to force air into collapsed pipes, enough for sounds of cries and shots and clanking metal to flood into his consciousness. He was either at heaven’s gate or on the cold hard ground at eye level with the beaming jeep headlights -that would explain the blinding glow in his vision.

Or else, heaven wasn’t half what it was cracked up to be.

Someone or a few someone’s, were standing over him and he could see then that he was tied by the makeshift noose to the trailer hitch of the truck, tarp flaps widened far above him like stage drapes. Was Benny still alive in there?

“Maybe you defend her because you too are female?” One guard suggested while prodding at his crotch with a boot, and that made Gale’s frozen, sluggish, oxygen deprived blood begin to pound. “Hübsch.” they complimented him repeatedly -pretty, so very pretty. Too pretty for a man. “We should check, ja?”

He spared one single hope, that Benny wasn’t watching. He didn’t hope they wouldn’t act on their threats, and he hadn’t any hope left that he could actually save Sanchez from what they were even now wrestling her to the ground for. But it felt worsened somehow at the idea of his co-pilot seeing him this way, he yanked his head against the noose and regretted it after. The constriction made his eyes burn, and all his efforts were once again concentrated on grappling with his breathing as they tugged at his clothes and made sport of discovering he was not, in fact, lying about being male.

They laughed, they touched, they said he was some mistake. A face like that had no business owning a cock. He wished he knew less German, in fact he knew little but there are kindnesses and there are cruelties that need no articulation to be understood.

The earth beside him, the mud beneath Sanchez’s hands, was tilled up from her nails, like furrows for planting and her face was so near his when they threw her down, he could make out the spit and blood on her lips.

“Should I?” One was saying and they had their knife out, Gale’s panicked mind had a generous moment of hope that they would cut the rope, that he would soon be able to breathe again. Or else his throat, and he’d not breathe anymore. Both sounded perfect.

They cut open his flight suit instead, a hand heavy on the back of his head, turning him fully over, and then there was the feeling of a warm and sweaty body beginning to roll on top of him.

The mud was cold beneath his cheek, smooth on the forest floor, none of the rough gravel of that endless road, only mud and pine needles sticking to his face now, their knobby little ends roughing up the older wound on his cheek. Every time the guard pushed closer, it scraped him -that blade to his other cheek. The metal tip glittered in the periphery of his one good eye, shining from the headlights.

Sanchez had begun to scream.

Hoarse, wounded, fox like.

It felt very much like a demented dream, even down to the hunter’s attitude above him, the grunts, the prey-like waiting for the lethal blow. He wasn’t sure how long he had floated with only her wounded cries as a grounding agent when he felt a splatter against his lower back and consciousness came back with a heave of his chest and a revolt so strong he fought again against the noose. Predictably, it only tightened. There was cold on his skin then, when the man drew away, fresh night breezes mocking the mess he’d made of Gale, kerosene and exhaust fumes ruining the smell of soil beneath him. Then the heat was back, someone else draped over him, and Gale dug his fingers into the earth too, readying for what the other had spared him. It didn’t matter, if they tired themselves out with him, that was one less -now two less- to use her instead. There had been only five.

This one flipped him over, Gale went easily, both hands occupied straining to get even a finger between the asphyxiating pressure of the rope and his throat.

“He is easier now.” he heard the man laughing, foggy, hazy, unfairly. “The bitch has gone quiet, maybe he will make music, huh?”

Gale frantically turned his head to seek her out, desperate to find her alive -she couldn’t be dead. Not just from this, surely not, what could they do to kill her?-but his own vision was spotting and his throat spasmed in protest. They surely could kill them this way, they could do anything they wanted because they could kill them. And no one would ever hold them to account.

His poor girls. What were they doing to his poor girls?

It burned enough to jolt him awake again, both the forceful entry and the smack to his cut cheek. They wanted him awake, aware, he refused to look at them. This was reminiscent, bright lights and unwanted hands and all but the carnival music missing. He kept staring to the side at her, and at her face, at the way the headlights lit them both up like a carnival spectacle and cast the shadows of their tormentors in looming, grotesque proportions against the treeline. She had her eyes closed, face almost suffocated in the soil, balled fist growing lax beside his own, just out of reach. She didn’t even react when the next replaced the other. There were only five, Gale repeated to himself, there were only five.

No, no, no.

“Smith,” he begged her, “Smith don’t fuckin’ give up on me now.”

His poor girls.

Gale’s own voice made him cringe, how hoarse it was, how young, what a beg it sounded like, how punctuated each word was with the winding pain of a fresh thrust. But her eyes flew open at his call.

Sanchez, her name was Sanchez, he reminded himself. And Smith was with Ida, probably throwing the ball at the flack house after making it back from Breman. She had to be. He didn’t want to live in a world where Lu felt what he felt now as the man shuddered inside him, used him like a skein, a shell, a vessel, hot breath stinging at his cuts.

“Stay with me Sanchez.” he muttered, wondering if he had it in him to do the same. He didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his tormenter any longer, he felt his face gripped and turned, cuts smarting beneath calloused fingertips, cheeks being squished like Bucky used to do in play. The yeasty splatter spit landing on his own tongue was somehow more revolting than all the rest. He gagged, he struggled, his body was on fire.

Smith was screaming again.

There were only five.

He refused to remember more until there was a sudden absence of the heat and the breath and the tearing pain, and if he wasn’t so drugged on misery he might have thought everyone seemed a little rushed at the end. Not how he expected them to be with all the time in the world to wipe their pricks, close their pants, pull out a pistol and deliver a headshot. One apiece here in the mud. See ya there, Benny, he thought dismally, not bothering to open his eyes.

But then there were sounds of squealing tires and the roar of engines and the white bright glow behind his eyelids grew in intensity until he realized -in a fumbled state of what felt like being redressed- that someone else had pulled up to this horror show. There’d only been five and now- now, oh fuck, he didn’t think he could, no, no, no, he yanked at his noose, half hoping to strangle himself or at least be caught fighting this.

If he didn’t know much German when lucid and keen, he certainly wasn’t adept at deciphering the angry babble above him when half dead, half uncaring about listening for an order to flip him over for the next or to blow his brains out. No, no he was far away in the Silver Wings and Maureen’s boot was dug into his shoulder as she turned himself and Egan into scaffolding, all to smoke the club’s ceiling with testament of their survival for their 20th. No big bash like for 25 but it had been a milestone, as terrifyingly hopeful as it had been all too fortunate. He’d seen her cry for the first time that night, hands shaking, admitting she felt in her bones they’d not be lucky, that she’d never really thought about this part, not when she joined up, about getting so close and now she wanted to see it through she was sick to death of the idea of seeing it though being a fiery death. Well, Gale knew now she’d managed to jump, she’d not known fire.

But what else, oh what else?

Next time Cleven woke he was face down on the same old bench seat from hours before, burning ribs nothing compared to the lapping flames below his waist. The truck beneath him was moving and his cut face was only partially gentled by the feel of someone’s meaty thigh beneath him. Horrified, he startled up, hating the idea of being someone’s pet after-

-but it was Benny, looking busted as hell but alive and holding onto him lest he jolt off the bench with the next pothole. As far as he could feel, Gale had his clothes on, muddy and cold and it was daylight and they were moving. A guard he didn’t recognize was on the opposite bench near the flaps, watching them curiously with a rifle slung easily over his lap. He had wings on his lapel.

Sanchez was sat as far from him as possible near the front of the truck, alive and looking for all the world like she might kill the sniffling and unharmed gunner on the floor.

“Luftwaffe.” Benny informed him and Gale winced at their good fortune before giving his friend a pat and letting the sludge of insensibility take over again.

————————————————

“What was done to you: I am horrified.” Lt. Hausmann’s eyes were warm but his smile was cold, as cold as the holding cells, an odd dichotomy, opposite to most but not foreign to Gale. “I have heard they had intentions to hang you, yes? You, a prisoner of war. An officer. Horrifying, base, cowardly, I can only apologize for my countrymen’s attitude, they will be held to account. Was there anything else? I shall make a note. Are you well? Was there anything else?”

“There was a fighter pilot with me.” Cleven did not miss the eagerness in the man’s body language when he let loose his voice at last, hoarse from the rope and suppression of his cries. He’d been sat at this frigid desk with its proffered whiskey and smokes for half an hour already. “She was brutally raped, Lieutenant. And it is my understanding she is under Luftwaffe command now. Held here. I’d like you to make note of both, treat her accordingly.”

“Appalling.” Haussmann insisted, pen scritching away at his pad, “Noted, I-i will see that they are brought to account. Appalling. And you, Major, were you treated well? Besides your throat, I mean. Satisfactory? Honorably? I will make a note.”

The gnawed and broken thumbnail he’d bitten off hours ago slipped from between Gale’s molars. His teeth grated against each other for a split second. It was the only sound that filled the room. There’d been only five.

He passed Benny in the hall when they drug him back to his cell. But he never saw Sanchez again.

———————————————-

He didn’t see Sanchez again, not until a month later when she came with Smith. And all the others. Not until after a month of a John Brady biting through his lips with well placed anxiety over the absence of their female fellows. A month of Gale acting like he actually thought they were alright. As far as he knew, the boy’s sister was fine. Until she came through that gate, head shorn, cheek disfigured, half her buttons missing and a look in her eye that was half fury, half woe.

He was angry for Ida, but she didn’t belong trapped in a dog run with all these men. So Gale protested.

“If it can happen to you-“ John Brady had the gall to suggest at the gate, to suggest something Cleven had never confirmed. But Brady was like that, and Cleven had stopped his fight against the girls' inclusion all the same. Perhaps his fight had been less about the rules being broken, and more at the idea of having to see any more of their mistreatment, being witness to it, his rank proving useless once more. Never again. Not if he had to barter the golden gates for their safety.

———————————————--

“You ok?” Cleven asked Brady on the second day after their arrival as he counted out the syringes on the rough hewn table, one by one. He didn’t doubt the kid’s promise to get the supplies but instead the stalag doctor’s elusive provisions and willingness to comply. But sure enough, there was one for each of the girls, and a spare.

Brady gave him a tight lipped nod before expounding, “Sunnuvbitch wouldn’t dish on the iodine, I could see the damn relief package right there behind him but -no swabs. Dry stab. I guess.”

“It’s ok.” Cleven insisted, eyeing him still; he had his coat bundled about him even indoors but the buttons of his shirt beneath were redone, Gale knew that because they skipped one and started again wonky, wrong buttonhole, twice over. Like they’d been redone in haste. It hadn’t been that way when he left. “These are what we need.” he glanced up from his task at Hambone who was animatedly informing Benny of his visit.

Cleven had tried at subtlety, listening in with discretion but he couldn’t help it anymore, too curious himself. “You went with him, yeah?”

“Yes sir.” Hambone gestured to his newly smoothe cheek, stitches gone.

“So, what’s he like? The doc?”

Hamilton gave a signature sneer, “Weird as fuck and a little weirder than that. Wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Yeah!” Hamilton insisted, pissed off by it apparently, “On and on about psy- psycho -sam-“

“psychosomatic.” Brady rescued him boredly.

“-reflexes and shit. On and on. Just want the stitches out, ya know?”

“Yeah.” Cleven agreed. Waiting for the shoe to drop. He stared at the extra shot, his stomach curdling. “Just want some shots.” he added, eyes drifting up to land on Brady and his sightless stare at the opposite wall that bunked his motionless sister.

“Yeah, that was a whole other debacle.”

“Oh?” Cleven prodded, the picture of nonchalance as he started to divide the shots into groupings. He was seeing things, he was projecting, he was doing what Egan told him not to ever do -assume what has been is now what is. What he’s experienced is what everyone else has. He knew that deep down, but there was a brittle bravery to Jack Brady these days that reminded Gale too much of his own fraudulent brand of survival.

“Hammy it’s- how about you leave off.” Brady muttured. “Don’t bother the major with it.”

“Weird as fuck.” Hambone confirmed stubbornly.

“I’m the one who asked you if you thought he was weird.” Brady corrected, irritated enough by impression to continue.

“And it was! I said he was.”

“I’ve been telling you guys.” When Brady said it, it was without heat. “Him and his stupid little hammers.”

“Yeah what was all the hammering for?”

“Reflexes, Hammy. Psychosomatic.”

“Weird as fuck.”

Gale bit his tongue so hard he hoped it cleared his head before daring, “He make you take your shirt off for it?”

There was a pause in the slapping sounds of the card game ongoing behind him, Kendeigh and Demarco and Crank all freezing at the question.

“He keeps checking the shoulder.” Brady finally said, it was admittance enough.

“And the fuckin’ knee.” Hambone chipped in.

He shrugged, meeting Cleven’s eyes stubbornly, “He’s obsessed with reflexes.”

“You hurt your knee landing?”

Brady’s flat line of a mouth tugged up wryly, his eyes flitted over to his sister's motionless form. “A tad. Uh, the shots sir, he said they go in the hip. Didn't have the pamphlets, no instructions.

“I remember.” Gale had some knowledge of it, they’d all gotten a few vaccines in training, and he knew enough to ask for them in the first place, to help with whatever the poor girls might have contracted. His own eyes skittered to Kendeigh who sat at the table, making a poor show of holding her deck of cards. “Well, you first?” he pleaded.

She looked a little cross but she didn’t fight him, she rose from the table with stern imprecations on anyone skipping over her turn and cast about for a place. Gale put his hand on her shoulder and gently guided her to a corner by the bunks, it was really all the privacy he had to give.

“You’ll have to undo my belt, Ida had to do it up-“ she flashed her swollen hands again, “-my hands.”

“I got you.” he whispered, gently reaching around and loosening the belt so that her borrowed trousers sagged enough for him to get at the meat of her hip.

Johnny was rolling Ida over in their bunk beside him, and Gale wasn’t sure who should give Ida her shot but he supposed her brother was the best candidate. Much as he hated the boy having to. But, perhaps, it wasn’t the worst thing he had to do tonight, and that made Gale’s stomach sour. He willed his hands to steadiness and undid the cap off the needle.

“Jesus Christ.” Johnny was suddenly exclaiming, hoarse and infuriated, Gale glanced aside and saw the boy had uncovered a hip alright, with his usual meticulous precision, and still, there wasn’t a spot of skin on Ida not green or else blue or else near to black. Gale stared back at Maureen and the jagged little scratches on her hip, crescent moon ditches, the blooming bruise here and there and swore not to count his blessings.

What did he know? Nothing, he knew nothing about any of them really. Except he knew such injuries didn’t have to show to hurt like hell. He drove the shot home with merciful force, squeezed in the stinging contents and retracted it, smooth and fast as anything.

“Hell, fuck, damn! Son of a carpet wearing Methodist-“ Maureen hopped around on her one good leg in barely contained frenzy at the sting.

Gale tried not to smile, “Bad huh?”

She scowled back at him in between pained giggles, “If I could give yours just for pay back, I would. Damn!” she held her hands up up once more and Cleven kept his eyes above, “But I can’t, sorry, can’t help with the other girls either, fucking useless.”

Johnny was standing, straightened up again, syringe empty, sister still just lying there. Bucky Egan out cold beside her. Gale couldn’t even allow himself to question if those two would be alright. They had to be, he didn’t think he could make it without them, make everyone else make it along with him. “She didn’t even budge.” Jack muttered.

What was there to say to that?

“She didn’t make it all the way here just to fuckin’ die.” Kendeigh assured him while straddling her chair again, voicing her peculiar brand of kindness and her true opinion on Ida Brady, “She’d never be so wet. They had a whole day to kill her on that train and they didn’t manage to.”

A day? A train? Gale didn’t know what to make of it; he was just glad that Bucky was dead to the world for now and not getting riled again by every new tidbit so that Gale would have to talk him down and also administer shots to a bunch of traumatized women.

“We’ll help sir.” Crank offered to him as he stood over the divided piles of syringes again.

“Alright,” Gale agreed, “but some may wanna give it to each other instead, you let them. Give ‘em space. I don’t think they’ll fight it, they know they need ‘em.”

Benny sauntered up beside him, flicking at the supplies, “This one yours, Buck?” he asked casually, fiddling with the spare.

Gale glanced at Brady and found him looking back at him. “Yeah.” He told Benny. “For the cuts.”

“Here, let me-“ Benny was already at it. Gale tugged his waistband down to assist, just enough to expose a sliver of pale hip and leaned a little over the table, there were bruises on his hipbones, he knew, but they could be from anything.

It did sting like hell.

“Alright you take those, and that’s enough for, yeah-“ Gale divided the supplies to each man, lingered just a moment as they went into the hall to brush by Brady, and murmured to him him lowly, “That was real thoughtful, thanks. You need one?”

To the credit of his poker face, the boy didn’t startle a bit, except for an infinitesimal flutter of an eyelid. “No sir?” he asked as if that were an idiotic question.

It was the only way Gale knew to ask him: to ask about something more. -Tell me son, just tell me you need a shot and I’ll know I’m not imagining shit. That I’ve not become paranoid and irritable and callous, too.

But then, “No sir?” and that incredulous face that left even the strongest man feeling like a dunce.

Well, that was it.

“I’ll help you tell them.” Maureen was by his side suddenly and Gale appreciated that, Smith was the only other female Lieutenant and he could use Kendeigh’s unapologetic pragmatism. “Ida told them she’d ask for remedies. Think she meant for pregnancies but, this is a start.”

There really wasn’t much of an announcement to be made; who didn’t understand what penicillin was needed for? It was needed for the dreaded thing that was hung over every bathroom stall door at canteens and on the underground in London, warning of having too good of a time and catching something. No one needed explanations, even though Gale watched their faces as Kendeigh announced and helped distribute the shots one room after another, he was trying to detect if any were hesitant or unconvinced. He found none.

He did find Sanchez, across one identical wooden room and still in her jacket with the eagle patch. She must have washed her face with the others, the mud was gone. When they locked eyes he saw a hard and warning look harden her eyes further; it made his cheek throb. Stonefaced, she broke the stare after a moment and advanced to grab her allotment, even as her fingers dragged along his palm, even when she passed him, Gale could not get her to resume it.

In one of the last rooms he went in alone -Maureen was delayed with one of the girls doing poorly, one who was not well enough to rise from her bunk. “They about drowned her” Maureen told him casually, and that was something else he dreaded learning about.

“Drowned?” he’d repeated a bit dumbly, and he deserved her

annoyed face.

“To get info from us.”

“Us?” he repeated again, low and slow, “You too?”

She gave him another of those looks before nodding at the last parcel in his hand, “Go take care of Smith’s girls before Johnny gets to them first and helps them with all the tenderness of a mortician.”

When Gale had stepped back into the hallway, Johnny’s voice could be heard still two doors down with Benny, fighting a fine line between helping and making themselves scarce. Personally, Gale felt Johnny was a gentle fucker when he needed to be. This wasn’t one of those cases, none of the girls wanted pity from them. Or acknowledgement even, judging by Sanchez’s cautioning venom.

In the last room, Smith and Tong had the girls sorted efficiently, and it was a little thing to ask the ever obliging Graham and the other men to step out briefly. Same old script here as before, Gale felt in a numb sort of loathing for his lack of originality -he distributed a shot a piece and apologized for the lack of iodine to sterilize the injection site and they all assured him it was fine, and everyone knew he was apologizing for far more than the lack of iodine and they knew that they’re assurances were more than about it either. Gale liked these girls for how well they knuckled under, it had made them pretty great in the crews after a shaky mission. They shoved a bad thing down as well as the next man, and if they punched their bed frames at night or cried in the showers, just like how it was for his men, that wasn’t Gale’s concern.

Only Lu Smith’s face went off script when he pressed the needle and its cartridge in her hand, something besides tight lipped thanks or a nod of efficient understanding. There were questions in her eyes, dancing slow and swirly and blatant as sorghum specks in molasses. A rich dark pool of uncertainty. Some girls were already discreetly headed for corners of the room to make the stab or else rolling up a shirt sleeve and insisting to the giver that they wanted it given there. Lu glanced away from him only to watch these proceedings with something like fear and then she was looking back at him, a hesitant plea written on her face. He didn’t know she was scared of needles.

“Major, is Ida awake?” his lieutenant asked, voice scratchy and a little closed, like how it got when she tried her hand at professionality or had to present a solution in front of a crowd. “I need to ask her something.”

That was a remarkably vague sentence, not at all professional. “No, she’s not.” He told her, watching as the fear grew more pronounced around her mouth and chin, “You ask me, Lieutenant.”

“May I?”

“Course,” Gale nodded his head toward the door, “step out here.”

He strode down to the very end of the combine, by the locked double doors, just far enough away from the windows not to invite a guard to come in and give them shit about it. The bright orange lights of the camp came in from the general darkness outside, glowing through the always dusty glass and making Smith’s skin shine a pretty bronze, even with the dark spots on her chin. Those made his blood thud quicker. It was quiet down here, as private as he could get.

“What’s up Smith?” he urged.

“I’m sorry sir I-I’ve got a few questions.”

“Told you to ask, Lieutenant.” Gale reminded, “So ask.”

“Yes sir.” She’d developed a tick since he’d last seen her, an odd sort of hugging of herself, arm crossing her chest and hand gripping her opposite clavicle, fingertips curling just over her own shoulder. “It’s about the shots. Ida’s been teaching me but she never mentioned about those.”

Gale took a deep breath, only the faintest bit of mirth left at the reminder of the ‘condom balloon’ incident. Ida had needed a stiff drink after taking her engineer aside and informing ‘Little Lu’ those were rubber socks men put on their members, and not in fact balloons. And yes, Benny had lied out of niceness, and yes men’s bodies sprayed things like cattle’s did when they got excited, and yes it’s for the purpose of making babies. Gale had heard all this from Ida after three stiff shots she’d downed like medicine, she’d relayed it in a perfect montone and Gale had not asked but she told him all the same, then said she needed to hit the sack and Ida Brady was gone while Gale remained at the bar with his cider and shaking shoulders. The memory had been amusing only weeks ago, when Douglass came to loot Benny’s footlocker for more rubbers and they’d all made a joke about Smith having beat him to them -for balloons.

“Everyone else seems to know and want them and I’m the slow one again.” Smith was muttering, a petulant look of annoyance crossing her young face, angry at herself.

“It’s about the guards.” Gale murmured.

Smith looked so hurt by that he wasn’t sure where he’d misstepped, but then, “Is it for what they did? Or is it such a sure they’re gonna keep hurting us and these- how do these help, sir?”

Gale startled and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder out of pure, gut instinct to impress on her his next words, “Not a single thing is goin’ to happen to you again, not like that, you hear me, Lu?” he shook her a little and it dislodged her own hand from her chest.

“Yes sir.”

“These are for anything you might’ve caught.” he tried to explain, coming up short and he knew it. If Bucky were here he’d use all manner of crass slang and common vernacular phrases to jog the poor girl’s memory about magazine advertisements, the sorts that warned of ‘diseases’, the underground posters and the bathroom stall flyers urging chastity or safety. Gale could not manage it back then and he couldn’t now. “Diseases Lu.” he tried again, “Men who aren’t- careful, or- disciplined, they, they spread diseases to the girl they’re with. Uh, with- intimately. If they’ve been with other girls before.”

He hoped to God that Ida had used the word ‘intimate’ when educating Smith on these finer yet so utterly crude aspects of human interaction. ‘Intimate’ seemed like a word Ida Brady would use, he thought he recalled her accusing him of being intimate with Kendeigh. Maybe the accusation had been ‘fraternizing’. Or ‘getting familiar’. Gale wasn’t sure, he only recalled that it had not been complementary and he had blushed into the floor under her stare but her accusation had been vague. He knew Ida had been vague.

Was she equally vague with Smith? Did that mean Smith was as uneducated as she’d been before Ida gave her an ineffectually Catholic lesson?

“They can spread it with-“ Smith paused only a minute before deciding to trust him, “-with their bodies? Like a wound?”

Gale gave her nod, trying to stay teacherly, “With their bodies. Yeah. They don’t need wounds it comes from- well, other places. Intimate places they- look, Smith if you weren’t hurt that way, you don’t need the shots.”

Grueling as this conversation was, nerve wracking as her dense innocence could be, it fed that traitorous bit of hope he’d been harboring since he lost all hope for himself that she might’ve been alright. It wasn’t fair to Kendiegh or Ida or Sanchez or any of the others to hope for that, but none of this was fair anyway. Maybe her lack of comprehension was a kindness.

Smith’s eyes were latching onto one surrounding thing and then another, a good long beat between each new object, not darting but roving, now latched on the doorframe and now on Gale’s coat buttons and then on to the glass window panes beside them as if she could see through the bubbled glass out into the dark yard. He could tell by her change in breathing more than the light when she began to cry.

“I didn’t want the girls to think I’m stupid.” She admitted, and she was definitely crying, “I’m their officer, I should know these things.” she explained, lips going into a full tremble, all the harmless jokes of before suddenly not a bit funny, “But I don’t know at all, I didn’t know they’d-“ Gale kept his hand on her now jolting shoulder, spending a little too much time thinking how to mould his own face to some correct expression for this as she began to crumble, it was better than watching too closely as she broke apart, “When they beat us and put the bags over our faces I- I expected it. It wasn’t right, we weren’t treated like prisoners but, I expected it. Ida had told us. Then they started saying things to her, the ones that could speak English and I-i really didn’t know what they meant, not at first until they started- oh Major, they, they started touching her, like lovers in a movie.”

Lu had her eyes squeezed shut like that would get the image out somehow, one brief flash and Gale could remember everything about laying there and seeing Sanchez’s face -and he knew nothing wiped the image out. “They had her chained to a bar and they kept doing that,” she went on, “It was over her head, the bar was over her head and I could tell how much she hated it, and she couldn’t do anything and they weren’t hurting her anymore, they were- they were touching her. They stopped beating her and started touching her, sir and I- that’s when I realized that, there could be something worse. They wanted us to start giving up ranks, and they kept doing that until we did and I wanted to give up then more than any time else. Just to make them stop doing that to her.”

Gale squeezed her shoulder and she jerked under it but cried afresh, she stayed still next to him and just kept crying. “Smith, right here and now I need to know if you’re alright.” he steered her away from memories back to now, as gently as he could, “Ida is gonna be alright, and she’s proud of you, and she expects you to take care of her girls, you hear me? And I need you well for that, Lu. I need to know if you’ve been hurt.”

Smith pulled herself back into a shaky composure, her neck still trembling so badly her head made tiny little jerks from time to time. “They did hurt me.” she agreed.

“Hurt you where you need these shots?” he gently clarified, hoping she was catching on, dreading the confirmation all the same.

“They put -they kept putting themselves inside me.” she got it out, her face dazed like she still didn’t understand it even as her voice cracked from a soul deep knowledge of the wrong done, “I didn’t know they could- they could use their bodies like that. I didn’t know. They kept doing it.”

-There had been only five.- Gale felt his belly lurch, some bowel deep memory of the same torture taking over him, like a haunting he couldn’t prevent. He’d thought he had it locked far down enough, hardly thought on it these days, but maybe he’d shoved it down to where it hurt in the first place, with his belly in knots all again and Sanchez’s cold face sneering and Benny’s worried eyes making his stomach shake and salt flood his mouth. He wanted to vomit.

“Oh Lu.” he muttered ineffectually, “C’mere.” and he had her hugged and cradled to his ratty jacket before his ingrained and temperate habits could interfere. He had her turned to the doors, her sobbing eyes pressed into his sweaty layers and it was better that way. With his lips pressed to the crown of her head he watched the rest of the hallway go on without them, men going back into the rooms once the shots had been administered, Benny darting into one with a bucket in hand. Gale saw Brady as Brady saw him, only making a small pause in his stride as he watched Gale hold Smith before he turned away, face still a blank slate, the boy went back to his sister.

Maybe if Gale had been closer or the hallway brighter he might’ve seen the same hurt and tears there as he and Smith were sharing, but Brady wasn’t close and he wouldn’t say and maybe Gale was a fool to think his own experience wasn’t a fluke. But Brady just went back to Ida, and Gale still felt the damning weight of the shot in his palm even as he hugged Smith’s narrow shoulders.

His own hip still smarted from the injection, -the shot for his cuts. Just his cuts.

“I’m sorry sir.” Smith was trying to say in between sobs, no doubt finding her emotions galling in the face of her prized professionalism.

“Don’t be.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll be fine-“

“I know.”

“I’ll be fine i just, I didn’t know-“

“I know, Lu.”

“It hurt so much.”

“I know.”

She pulled her face away, he was glad to see that while it was puffy and reddened, she looked far calmer. The suddenness of her recovery should have warned him. “Do you sir?” she whispered, pained.

“What?”

“Do you know, sir?” she asked again, harmless yet intent, “Did they hurt you that way too?”

Gale felt a rush of heat, heat and numbness where his hands fell from their grip on her and shook by his sides instead, and he hated his limbs for that betrayal. Heat, like she could see it so clearly on his face, like the harmless cuts on his face really spelled it out. Everyone’s suspicion of them put him on edge, wondering what was wrong with his bearing, his walk, the way he took a seat, that somehow exposed him. With her dark, pitying, horrified little face staring up at him, he felt like he was back on the bench with Benny holding him there, knowing most likely why he had to lay on his belly and not his back.

“Smith you can’t-“ Gale sounded young again and he hated it, when he was ready he began again, and this time he sounded like Major Cleven, “-don’t ever say shit like that again, alright? You can’t say shit like that. Not about- men. Not about me.”

She looked affronted and close to tears again, but his tone couldn’t be helped, last thing this stalag needed was news their Major had been so easily overcome. “I was just asking sir-“

“Not something you ask a man.” he informed her. “Like ya said, there’s lot of things you don’t know, it’s alright. But you don’t ask that, Smith.”

Harsh but necessary, he told himself again. Except she looked less hurt now and closer to something like anger, if her kind self could be angry. He’d seen her get angry when someone kicked a dog once. He’d seen her angry after a shit mission. She looked close to it now, like some grave injustice was firing her up. “But it can happen to men.” she was suddenly wise and he picked a cuticle bloody in trance-like distress, his face was motionless, “I know because they- they can put themselves both places.”

Fury took the place of numbness in his being and he grabbed her again, pulling her close and tucking her under his chin, she made a wounded noise when their chests collided despite the layers, but she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed back. “They’re never gonna do that again, Lu, never again. I’m gonna make sure of it. Bucky’ll make sure of it.” he swore, his voice gone so low it shook. “They hurt you other places?”

Smith shook her head against his chest, “I’ll take the shot, sir.” she murmured meekly. “Would you give it? I don’t want the others to-“

“Sure, Lu.”

He waited until she pulled away, her eyes downcast but the look on her face broke no argument that she wasn’t in a humor to be less than her rank. Gale shifted the shot in his palm and bit his lip, willing away any sentiment about it.

“Goes in the hip. Mark my words, those bicep shots that Tong went for- gonna hurt for ages, you don’t need that. Lemme put it in your hip.”

Smith nodded and cast a furtive glance behind her at the empty hall, only looking down again to undo her belt when Gale moved his body to block any hapless onlooker.

There were bruises when he gently aided her in tugging the drab olive aside, some nearly as dark as the ones on Ida and welts from what looked like a belt strap, even on the high swell of her hip. Gale knew the smarting bite of a belting.

“Did you wash these?” he whispered to her, crouching to better see his work as he made a harbor of unmarried muscle between his thumb and index finger, bunching up the meat of her leg and holding it for her to relax into his touch before he jammed the shot home.

“When we showered.” Lu wasn’t crying anymore but her voice matched his in its softness, tense anticipation for the jab mellowing the longer he kept her staid under his hold.

“Good.” he commended her, voice muffled by the needles’ cap between his lips.

She only stiffened when he drove it in, pressed down on the plunger with his thumb, kept his hand gripping her hip, shaking the muscle just so, “Loosen up.” he ordered, it would hurt less that way. Cleven heard her take a breath and try.

When he stood straight again he took the cap from his mouth and clicked it back on the needle, acting like it took great concentration and focus to do so, all while she pulled her trousers back up and refastened them discreetly. Her cheeks were wet once more, either from before or she’d begun crying again.

“You ok?” he asked.

She gave him a long series of nods as she got on top of the embarrassed anger. “Yes, thanks Buck.”

“I’m right down there.” he reminded, thumbing at his own quarters. “You feel the least bit sickly or- or anything, you come get me. Same for your girls.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright, well get in there Lu,” he patted her toward her room, “one thing the krauts are picky about here is bedtime.”

Smith sucked in a breath between her teeth, a shuddering thing, “Alright, I’ll remember. Bedtime.”

“So you’re gonna remember bedtime and what else?” Gale catchized her.

“Bedtime and that…you’re -right down there.”

“Very good, Smith.”

“Night, Buck.”

“Night, Lu.”

💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.

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[wraithdance]

Stray Dogs | GHOAP x Reader

Synopsis: You never had a problem with strays, but you should have been wary of the rabid dogs begging to be leashed.

Note: AFAB!Reader, No phys. description but reader has background story, no y/n use or gender terms for reader, Reader is LGBTQ (Bi/Pan) w/ Avoidant attachment issues. Content warning: Mature | domestic partner violence and harassment, avoidant attachment traits, mentions of sickness/vomiting, sexually explicit content, mentions of p in v sex, alcohol consumption/misuse & physical violence.

Chapter One: Soap Comes Over

Foxy won’t stop calling you.

The first attempt to reach you after the breakup started two weeks after dead silence. You’d been in the middle of a presentation at work when the phone rang. Thankfully you had the foresight to keep the ringer on silent, but you’d been checking your email when her contact lights up the screen. 

You freeze. 

“Do you need to get that?” Your boss Marc had interrupted the poor intern going over the quarter projections. His startling gray eyes bore into you as he looks down his nose. He raises a thick brow when you forget to answer, it’s mocking and layered. 

It pulls you out of your stupor long enough to put your cell on do not disturb. You flip the offending object face down on the table before giving Marc an apologetic half smile.

“No sir, sorry about that, it can wait.”

He looks at you for a beat longer than polite then signals the nervous intern to go on.

From the corner of your eye you can see your assistant Eric cutting eyes at you from beside you at the conference table. You meet his look head on with a deadpan expression of your own. It doesn’t deter him from mouthing ‘what the hell?’

You ignore him. 

It’s not like you had an answer yourself. You’d been dealing with the impending episode that came with a doomed relationship as best you could. So, you didn’t know why she was calling you when she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with you. Your mind was unfocused throughout the rest of the meeting. 

You accept the call that comes in when you’re walking to your office.

“Why wouldn’t you pick up the fucking phone?!” She screams into your ear as soon as the call connects. It makes you pause in your trek.

What the hell?

“Fox-" you clear your throat and cover the slip up. “Taylor, I’m at work. I can’t just pick up whenever, you called me during an important meet-”

She screams into the receiver loud enough you need to bring the speaker away from your ear. Margarita from accounting gives you a startled look as she passes, having heard.

Shit.

You flash your coworker a disarming smile and placing the phone at the juncture of your neck and shoulder.

“Hi Margs, are we still on for happy hour next week?” 

Margarita laughs, swatting you with the manila folder in her hand.

“Of course someone’s got to keep you from climbing onto the tabletops.” she winks.

That causes you to wince in embarrassment. The after effects of the impromptu tequila shot contest during the last happy hour had not been your finest moment. (You couldn’t turn down a double dog dare though, you weren’t a coward.)

“Okay, I’ll see you there Margs, I have to wrap up this call.” You return her retreating wave and press the phone back to your ear. 

You frown in confusion.

“Foxy?” A glance at the screen shows you that she’d hung up. Strange. You don’t have to wonder what happened for long before the texts start flooding in.

> you never fucking cared about me did you.

You know it’s meant to be a statement not a question. You’re typing a response when the next texts come in rapid succession. 

> How have you already moved on so soon??? you’re such a fucking bitch!! >I hate you >I HATE YOU

You’d barely made it to a restroom before vomiting. 

You meet your dead eyes in the executive bathroom mirror, rinsing cold water in your mouth and spitting into the ornate sink. Your mascara is smudged from the tears prickling the corner of your lashes. Worse is the full body shaking and gut churning panic that takes over your limbs.

Double shit.

You text Marc that you’d be working from home the rest of the day. He asks why and you cite a family emergency taking priority. You’re not sure if he believes you but you chance it nonetheless.

You answer Foxy’s calls the first days after. Reasoning with her on the validity of her claims of you never having cared for her is met with more screaming and hysterical crying on her end.

When you finally block her you’re riddled with guilt and anxiety so intense it zings through you. Foxy starts calling from an unknown number after that.

You spend the rest of the day in bed with your phone off. Your muscles hurt from staying in the fetal position, you’re sweating profusely under the comforter despite the freezing temperatures in your flat. It’s almost a blessing when you lose track of time and falter in and out of restless sleep.

Until Duckie calls your work phone when you don’t respond about her dinner thing to meet her new boyfriend. You’d done your best to skirt around the topic but your usually laissez-faire friend is irritated at your noncommittal answers. 

She snaps at you and you know it’s warranted. You’d already had a talk about pushing past your anxieties and being more forthcoming with her.

Still you panic and hang up on her.

This time you don’t make it to the bathroom when you’re suddenly sick. Your left leg is on fire where you’d landed on it in your hurry to get out of bed. You’re frantically scrubbing puke out of your good throw rug on the bathroom floor, waiting for Duckie to pick up your Video call.

Her ocean blue glasses fill up the screen before she sits back enough for you to see her scowling round face. You’re sobbing before she can say a word.

“She won’t stop fucking calling me!”

Duckie blinks in confusion, anger momentarily forgotten.

“What? Darling I can barely understand you, who won’t stop calling?”

“Foxy!” You cry out, “She’s called me 48 times since this morning, I haven’t slept through the night since last Thursday and there’s puke on my new rug!” 

Duckie comes over and helps you change your phone number. 

Your teeth chatter on the line with the overly cheery agent at your phone company. Duckie rubs soothing circles on your trembling back, a frown unnatural on her usually smiling face. It takes several hours of promises and consuming everything Duckie sets in front of you before she’s willing to leave you alone again.

“Darling, call me if anything else happens okay? I’m serious. I’m still pissed at you for not telling me she was harassing you like that. You really need to talk to me.”

You’d like to object to that.

The threads of self loathing already tighten around your body with the fact that you needed her support already. You don’t tell her that though. You kiss her cheeks and follow her to the door. Swearing you’d call her the second anything else happened and confirm the day you’d be free for dinner.

The second the door closes behind her the energy saps out of your body. You slink to the floor in your foyer in a boneless heap. 

Triple shit.

Foxy starts showing up to your house.

She hadn’t taken being ignored very well and had banged on your door, demanding you come out and speak to her.

You’d finally opened the door when your neighbor texted that they would be calling the police if you didn’t get her under control. Foxy launched at you the second you came into view.

Your cheek still sports from the slap she’d managed to half connect before you shifted your face. 

You’d managed to push her out of your home and lock the door to your apartment, dodging her clawed fingers as best you could. She kicked and screamed obscenities at the door while you’d called the police yourself. Unsurprisingly by the time the police showed up she’d gone. You write a report nonetheless.

After another week you’d been hopeful she’d gotten the hint and would leave you alone for good. Your sweet neighbor Mrs. Henderly had stopped you on the way to work whispering that a woman had been digging through your planter.

The planter where you kept your spare key.

Despite having the locks changed you’re still paranoid. It’s why you’re currently in a bar near your home, sipping on ginger ale and watching a fight break out.

After some thought you come to the conclusion that Johnny MacTavish is like a rooster. 

You watch him puff out his chest to strut around like the biggest cock in the yard in the overcrowded space. From where you’re sitting at the bar you can tell the restraint he has over his muscles, it’s in his carefully controlled motions and showy posturing. His choice of hair is just a laughable coincidence when you think about it.

If Duckie were here you’d know she’d agree with you.

She’d nervously giggle and make some terrible joke about wondering if he was overcompensating that you’d scoff at. Your gaze runs down the firm expanse of his broad shoulders in his blank t-shirt and his jean covered thighs. You take a sip of your drink and shudder. He was the size of a tank, it would be a cruel twist of fate for him to be a lousy fuck.

Still, watching him beat a man to a pulp with single minded focus makes you think of your grandfather's prized cock fighting rooster. The bird was the center of a terrible memory and you hadn’t thought about him or your late maternal grandfather in years. Until now, in the dingy bar nearly a decade later. 

Johnny circles his downed prey like a bloodthirsty game fowl, the drunken crowd jeers in excitement while a waitress screams for help stopping the brawl.

There’s a startling unhinged quality to Johnny’s eyes as he lays a succession of blows on the man who’d called you a cunt for denying his advances.

The drunk had been loud and getting more and more aggressive with you when you told him to leave you alone. You’d been at your breaking point preparing to smash your glass in his face when Johnny's right hook came out of nowhere to connect to the bastard's face.

Johnny's pupils are blown out and his smile bright as he takes fists and returns them with triple the fervor. Occasionally his glacial blue eyes bore into yours, making sure that you’re still watching. 

A knight, waging war in your honor. 

You’d never been a damsel before, it’s something you mull over as you watch the bartender and other patrons wrestle Johnny from atop the now unconscious man on the floor. 

You close your tab and follow where they manhandle him outside.

Johnny’s knuckles are raw and split. He doesn’t seem to notice or care as he takes out a cigarette and attempts to ignite it with a cheap lighter. When the blood from his knuckles causes his thumb to slip on the spark wheel he curses into the night. You step forward from your place just inside the bar door and he watches your approach with lidded interest.

Taking the lighter from his hands you wipe it on the side of your black jeans, before holding the lighter to his mouth.

He was definitely far from a knight, you think, observing him from under your lashes. He stares back openly without blinking as he puffs the cigarette to fire. His focus makes your heart beat thunderously in your chest.

“Do ye smoke?” He tilts the cigarette in an offer. You shake your head with a smile. 

“No, bad habit.”

He laughs, it’s humorless, layered with something more. “Ar’nt most things?” 

You make a noncommittal sound, not really caring to consider it. You’re content to watch him, watch you. It’s a game of chicken you’re used to playing with most men, testing their resolve. Johnny doesn’t flinch or look away and you like that.

The eye contact is broken by the sound of the bar door opening. The noise from inside spills out in the night as two men struggle to carry the limp form between them. The man Johnny pummeled into a pulp is barely conscious, stumbling on his unsteady feet. 

His head lolls to the side and you watch the eye that isn’t blackened widen when he takes in Johnny and you. 

‘Fockin’ bastard I’m gonna fockin’ kill ya!” He slurs out.

The man thrashes, kicking his feet and all in an attempt to escape the two hand carry. Johnny just laughs meanly puffing on the cigarette without a fuck to give. 

“I’m gonna fuck your slag too, see how she likes taking real cock you Irish fuck!”

The crazed look in Johnny's eyes is back as he flicks the still smoking cigarette into the bushes.

“Ya mam is the only one who wants a turn on yer howlin’ cock!” Johnny barks out darkly “c’mere I’ll black your other eye for ya, ye fuckin’ bawbag!”

You’re smiling when you place a hand on his chest stopping him from charging forward. 

No, he’s definitely not a knight at all.

But you won’t be satisfied until you’ve ridden his cock nonetheless.

He sees it in your expression when he looks at you. A muscle in his jaw jumps when his eyes dart between your parted mouth and the man who’d insulted you both, weighing out the desire to war or kiss it better. 

You know he chooses the latter when he cups a hand on the back of your neck, tilting your head back to force your face close to his. 

“What’s yer name hen?”

You tell him. He gives you his (you know it, you’ve been watching him at the bar since you'd come in.) He tells you to call him Soap if you want, you raise a brow at that but shrug. It wasn’t your business you’ll never see him again after tonight.

“Okay, my place or yours?”

You have to pass the bruised and drunken man to get to the path of your apartment. Despite his previous bravado he flinches when Johnny crowds him, silently daring him to say a word. 

“I’m nae Irish, I’m Scottish ya daft fucker. I see ya even pissin’ distance near here again and I’ll put ye down like a fuckin’ dog.” 

One of the other men puts a hand out to Johnny's chest to put some distance between the two. Johnny brushes it off with a sneer but takes the hand you offer him. He follows you silently through the darkened night and you laugh to yourself.

Definitely not a knight at all.

Johnny takes up space in your apartment like he pays bills in it. His big legs spread out on the couch, one hand tapping rhythmically on his bouncing thigh while the other holds your remote with your floral throw pillow tucked under his arm. He's clicking through channels with half attention.

Your mouth twitches when he lands on Planet Earth with a grunt. While he’s engrossed in the mating instincts of primates you top off your drinks with ice, juice for you and leftover wine for Johnny.

He pulls you into his lap when you go to hand him his cup, you allow it with a breathy laugh. Johnny takes a sip of the red wine before wrinkling his nose and taking a sniff of your cup instead.

“Are ye trying to get me drunk bonnie? Why’re ye nae drinking too?”

“I don't drink anymore.” you reply with a shrug that’s meant to be unceremonious.

You hadn’t had a drink since Duckie threatened you with an intervention after finding you blacked out one too many days in a row. Your breakup with your ex-girlfriend had opened up old wounds already, but the constant harassment stressed you out enough. 

Regrettably, you’d exhausted all of your therapy options, so drinking was the only thing you could think of to self medicate. Now, you didn’t have anything harder than a mocktail. Simple as that. 

“Here we can share mine.”

You take quick sips of your juice and hand the cup to Johnny, taking his mug in hand and placing it on the coffee table. He thanks you and gulps some down and passing the cup back to you. This goes on for a while until the cup is empty. Johnny palms your ass through your jeans when you set the empty glass aside. You roll your hips against his crotch slowly, bracing your hands on his knees to rock and swirl into his hardening cock with added pressure.

He groans and slides his big palms up to your waist gripping tight and thrusting up into your covered core. 

“Och, hen keep movin’ like that and I’ll give ye somethin’ to sit on.” You snort out a laugh. 

That’s the point. 

You look at the time displayed on the screensaver of the television. It was 3am on a Saturday. Which means you had about seven hours until your support group and the rest of the day to prepare for Duckie’s ‘meet the man’ dinner. So, technically you had less than 2 hours to milk Johnny of all the cum in his body and send him on his way so you could sleep.  

Tight turn around but you’ve worked with less.

With that in mind you climb out of Johnny’s lap standing in front of him, ignoring his protests. He doesn’t pout for long as he watches you lift your shirt and toss it aside. His blue eyes glaze over with want as you reach for the buttons of your jeans and slide them down your thighs along with your panties. He makes a guttural noise between a groan and a curse when you unhook your bra last, dropping it to the floor beside you.

The poor man is conflicted between looking between your legs at your soaked thighs and making eyes at your hardening nipples with the cute jewelry that decorates them. He finally settles on palming his cock under his pants and reaching out to palm your belly moving to cup your cunt. You stop him, tapping your foot against his shoe (which makes you scrunch your nose up, he should have taken them off at the door.)

“Pretty boy, eyes up here and take your clothes off.”

Leaning back on the couch, Johnny scoffs with petulant indignation, “Ye dinnae have to sweeten me up just to ask to see my prick hen.”

That gets you laughing outright, “Not trying to sweeten you up, you are very pretty, baby.”

You reach over to card your fingers through his short mohawk and down the sides, scratching his scalp as you go. “Besides, If you didn’t want me to see your ‘prick’ you wouldn’t be here now would you?” 

Johnny’s ears turn flame red as he leans back to accept more of your gentle stroking, his dark lashes flutter concealing the vibrant blue of his eyes from view. It’s cute. You’d been so sure he’d be the type to preen under compliments but his boyish embarrassment and openness is refreshing. 

“C’mere bonnie thing let me get a look at ye.”

You aren’t expecting it when he wraps his big hands around the curve of your ass, swinging your body down to the couch beneath him in seconds.

Your muscles lock up under the sudden shift and the feel of his heavy mass pressed against your body. His arms cage around your head and his face is close for you to smell the lingering scent of cigarette smoke and his cologne. It brings memories of another time and place you fight to keep buried. 

The effort makes your stomach churn violently.

Your hands press against the wall of Johnny’s chest frantically pushing him back, struggling to stay calm. Johnny sees the unconcealed panic on your face and the shallow breaths you take in. He immediately lifts off to lean back on his haunches on the couch cushions, giving you space. Still, you scoot as far back as you can to the other end of the couch to try and steady your racing heartbeat. The sudden whiplash of memories and fear makes you light headed.

“Lass are ye a’right?"

You blink trying to clear the sudden brain fog.

A wide eyes Johnny rubs soothing hands on the sides of your calves watching your face for any sign of discomfort. Your throat is tight and you miss the opportunity to answer him in a timely fashion. It causes him to reach a hand up to your face which you flinch from, his dark brows furrow. The sudden concern in his expression makes the palms of your hand sweat in discomfort.

Fuck.

“Are ye a’right?” Johnny asks again, this time not allowing you to back away from his touch. His calloused hands leave warmth in their wake as he rubs down your arm.

“Yes I’m sorry, I’m good.” You wave him off not looking at him directly. “I just prefer to be on top. I should have said something earlier.”

“Hen are ye sure? Ye look like ye were having a momen- creepin’ Jesus!” Johnny jerks when you dart forward to reach inside his pants and stroke his softening cock back to life.

You didn’t have time for him to ask daunting  questions that would freak you out to answer. You had approximately -you glance at the clock- an hour and sixteen minutes to ride this pony and put him out to pasture. 

You were on a mission so you bring out the big guns.

“I’m good Johnny, I just got a little overwhelmed, I promise. I still want you if you want me.” You pout, pumping his rigid cock with one hand and trailing a manicured finger down his bicep with the other (why the hell they were so large, only the universe knows). The angle is a bit awkward but it successfully overwhelms his senses by the way his breathing catches.

You’re able to shimmy on to your knees to press  chaste kisses along his jawline and throat, watching his eyes cloud over completely.

“You still want me Johnny?” You whisper in his ear.

Johnny answers your teasing by grasping the back of your neck and pressing your mouth open with a demanding kiss. His tongue tastes sweet with the remnants of the juice, he shudders when you suck on his tongue pulling back and forth like you were taking his cock. He groans deep and loud in your mouth when you squeeze the base of his cock in a tight grip.

“Fuck- aye I want ye hen, 

Hook. Line. Sinker. 

You try not to smile when he pushes you back to hurry and discard his clothing in record time. He was pretty everywhere it seemed. Down to the thick patch of dark hair on his belly that transitioned to his trimmed pubes. His tanned body is riddled with scars that add to the roguish appeal that caught your eyes in the bar.

You let out an appreciative sound when his cock finally comes into view. He was girthy and uncut, the veins along his shaft prominent in a way that made your mouth water. The head leaked pre-cum out of the pinked tip like a faucet. 

“Ye like what you see I ken?” Johnny smiles wolfishly, showing teeth.

“Yeah,” you snort, “that’s not even a question, I like it a lot.”

He stops you from reaching for him again with a hand to your wrist. His eyes are searching and you know he’s going to ask if you were lying about being okay, so you beat him to the punch.

“I’m okay, I swear I just panicked a little, it's no big deal. If you want to make it up to me you can give me a kiss right here.” You take his hand and guide it to your drenched cunt, spreading his fingers to glide through the slick from your entrance to your clit, as you roll your hips.

‘Fuck’ you both whisper in tandem. Johnny doesn’t waste another minute and pushes you back against the couch, diving to lap at your folds with a flat tongue.

Your head lays back on the arm of the couch and you sigh. Another look at the clock shows you have at least a full hour left. It’s not ideal, but you think you can work with it. With that in mind you stroke Johnny’s head in encouragement, whispering how good he made you feel and gasping at the sensations pulsating through you.

Finally, the muscles that had been taut for weeks relaxed. This was good. You’ll get the itch scratched after an orgasm or two and blissfully slumbering in no time.

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[kremlin]

@wikwalker hi sure yes anything to give me an excuse to procrastinate the post i should be writing right now. here are all teh drugs and how to manage them. you can trust me, a drug addict

first of all: https://www.erowid.org/ , erowid always

don't be afraid of drugs, if they're the right drugs, you should do them since they will be a blast regardless and overcoming fear is also good (but outside the scope here)

OK to do as much as you want: alcohol - social benefit greatly outweighs health effects, no reason to avoid if predisposed to abuse since that'll happen sooner or later. what can i say? don't be a fucking dork. when you start drinking, really overdo it as much as possible without dying and get a few real nasty hangovers under your belt so you know how much is the right amount to drink.

weed - innocuous enough to be fine but will make you stupid in the long term. make sure to only buy from a real drug dealer and never some legal institution. cut it out when you're a "real adult". don't smoke weed and watch TV routinely, go out and do things so you naturally grow to hate it. good to go through this as early as possible to minimize the time you spend as a cringe weed enthusiast

i guess those are the only two.

ok to do infrequently (annually): "lsd" - or whatever it is, probably not lsd, blah blah blah, if it works and is sold on blotter its fine and won't make you go nuts or whatever. opt for a better psychadelic imo. see psych rule at bottom of section

mushrooms - better than acid since you know what they are. rule of thumb is to always do more than you think you want. minimum 1/8oz. see psych rule at bottom of post

dmt - if you somehow have a dmt hookup you don't need to be reading any of this. lasts 10 minutes which leads to tendency to way overdo it, don't do this, my favorite webcomic artist is permanently crazy from exactly that. using a crack pipe is also not the uhhhh most dignifying-feeling thing to do either. it's harder than you think.

mdma - for use at electronic music event or rave. overuse causes brain lesions or something.

coke - wait until you're in your 20s, have maxed out your roth IRA for a couple of years in a row, and havent missed a car payment in a similar timeframe. better still if you've worked a very shitty low paying job and know the value of a dollar. if you still find yourself buying candy you're not ready. too expensive to be worth it to get hooked on. know that you are VERY ANNOYING to anyone who also isn't high. don't fuck around with the guy selling it to you. avoid discussing or thinking about business ideas. you can't afford to make it a habit + kinda turns you into a piece of shit after a while, but at least a very interesting one

ketamine - another sick drug that rules, but save it for a special occasion. don't try and go into the k-hole your first time

rule for psychedelics - you get one good strong trip a year and that's it, make it count, always opt for doing a bit more than a bit less. but don't make it a habit, otherwise you turn into a very stupid very annoying "hippy" style cliché and believe in ghosts, aliens, crap like that.

ok to try once prescription opiates/benzodiazepine (xanax), valium, this kind of shit - worth trying so you can go "holy shit, this stuff is way way way too good to ever use responsibly" and then never do again. especially if you're white. for some reason we just can't handle this shit. if a doctor prescribes it to you, idk, that's your call to make.

ayhuasca - this is just dmt in a different form. do some other psychadelics a number of times before you do this. once you realize the whole "substantial visual hallucinations" thing is made up, its time. do exactly this: -buy root online (legal). receive box of dirt -boil dirt into "tea" (read erowid for exact recipe) -take over-the-counter anti nausea medicine or anything that will give you a stronger stomach -drink tea (its nasty as fuck, get it down quick) -have someone bigger than you keep an eye on you for the next five hours. -have the experience, which is absurdly intense, has no bearing to the real world, etc etc. don't be a bitch and throw up, if you do it'll only last an hour or so. again there is no way to provide a consistent description of the experience except that you will meet god. you only ever need to do this once and never again. trust me

peyote/salvia/etc - try em if you want, you'll never ever want to again afterwords. these are drugs for idiot teenagers too lame to get real drugs. imagine being very very sick from poison and utterly terrified at the same time. No good

whippets/nitrous oxide - just find a dentist that uses it and don't bother creating hundreds of pounds of trash on your floor for this crap that lasts ten seconds. you have to understand the extremely short timeframe coupled with the cost makes zero sense. go to a phish concert parking lot and do some people watching -- you do not want to be these people. only use is as a motivator to get routine dental exam. also if you somehow manage to make it a heavy habit your fucking legs stop working, no shit, but they start working again once you quit.

don't ever do heroin/meth/pcp - is is truly a mystery why you should never do these ��

synthetic weed/k2/shit from the gas station - it is so funny that they sell this as "weed that won't pop you on a drug test". its not weed. it is some dubious chemical sprayed on yard waste. smoke it to have a terrible time and go nuts. only buy drugs from legitimate drug dealers!

kratom - anyone's guess as to why this is legal but it's heroin for pussies. its still heroin

dxm/cough syrup - do you ever wonder why it is exclusively teenagers robotripping? it's because it sucks ass. is like a cheesegrater on your brain in terms of health effects with repeated usage. you're better than this king

inhalants - these are at the bottom of the list for a reason. do not huff gas. don't huff paint. do not consume computer duster. not fun + fastest way to make yourself a complete, uh, (word i can't say anymore) and then dead

not listed quaaludes- unavailable due to no longer being manufactured. these ruled apparantly

sincis2c - unavailable due to not existing, i just made this up

amphetamines - cannot provide objective take here. they're my albatross, lifelong (posted 4:55am natch)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: List of Aphrodisiacs

Here is a brief list of some of the foods that have been considered, at some time or other, to have aphrodisiac qualities.

Almond - As well as being the same shape as the vesica piscis, the sacred doorway through which matter emerges into spirit, the almond is a nut and therefore carries the potential for new life.

Aniseed - Falls into the category of seeds. Also aids digestion and sweetens the breath which could explain why the Romans considered it a useful ingredient for seduction.

Apple - Infamous as the fruit that Eve gave to Adam, a symbol of sexual awakening.

Asafetida - (or Asafoetida) This is the ground root of a fennel-like plant. It has a powerful odor, and despite its folk name, Devil’s Dung, it is used as a sexual stimulant in Ayurvedic medicine.

Avocado - The Mexicans called the avocado tree the “testicle tree,” since the fruit dangles down in pairs. The sensual texture of avocado adds to its reputation.

Banana - The banana flower resembles the phallus. Islamic tales say that Adam and Eve covered their sexual parts with banana leaves rather than the more common fig leaves.

Cherry - Sensuously red and juicy, and containing a potent symbol of new life inside the stone. “Popping the cherry” is a slang term for losing one’s virginity.

Chocolate - The melting point of chocolate is the same as that of blood temperature, and so its mouthfeel alone is a sensual experience. Added to this, chocolate contains mood-lifting substances, including phenylethylamine which, when released into the bloodstream, induce feelings of euphoria. Still arguably the most popular food given as a gesture of love. When the 16th century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés heard about its reputation as an aphrodisiac, he planted two thousand trees.

Cinnamon - The glorious scent of cinnamon was reputedly used as oil by the Queen of Sheba to help her capture the attention of King Solomon.

Cloves - Because they resemble little phalluses, cloves were considered to enhance male potency. The clove tree was planted to signify the birth of a baby boy in certain parts of Indonesia, the health of the tree reflecting the health of the child as it grew up.

Coriander - Also comes under the category of seeds. Reputed to stimulate appetites of all kinds.

Fennel - The Egyptians who used this as a sexual stimulant cannot have known that it contains plant estrogens that can help balance female hormones. These estrogens also enhance the breasts.

Fig - The plethora of tiny seeds inside the fig is symbolic of fertility, and the moist plumpness of the fruit has a very sensual, feminine element to it.

Ginger and ginseng - Considered to have aphrodisiac powers because of their sharp sensual taste, and because their roots resemble the human form.

Honey - The sweetness of honey made it a rarity for ancient man. It is likely to have given humankind its first instance of alcohol in the form of mead, and its intoxicating effect has distinct aphrodisiac qualities. Bees are themselves symbols of fertility, and honey gives its name to the honeymoon period spent by newlyweds immediately after their marriage.

Mint - A Greek legend says that Menthe, a beautiful nymph, was transformed into the herb because Persephone was jealous of the beautiful scent that captivated her husband, Pluto.

Oyster - The oyster’s resemblance in form, scent, and texture to the female genitalia is renowned. Oysters have had a long history as an aphrodisiac and their reputation is well known. The pearl that is sometimes found inside the oyster was said to increase the powers of arousal, because it resembles the clitoris. Other shellfish, such as mussels, fall into this same category.

Raspberries and strawberries - Libido enhancing because of their color, their many tiny seeds, and their resemblance to nipples.

Star anise - Because of its shape, the star anise was sacred to the Goddess and therefore a potent fertility symbol.

Tomato - Also called the “Love Apple” and is regarded as an aphrodisiac, because of the prolific number of seeds contained within it. However, the name itself is the result of an accidental misinterpretation. Because they were originally a yellow color they were called “Pomo D’or” in Italy, the Apple of Gold. It was also called the “Pomo d’Moro”—the apple of the Moors, referring to its Spanish origins. From here, it was just a slip of the tongue to the French, “Pomme d’Amour,” or Love Apple.

Source Writing Notes: Aphrodisiacs