#Nix Feathers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scarletmika · 10 days ago

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One Last Gift : ̗̀➛ Robert "Bob" Floyd x Reader

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Reader

Summary: Living with Bob Floyd was killing you slowly, especially when you couldn't bring yourself to admit how you felt about him. It's your birthday, though, and shouldn't the birthday girl get whatever it is she wants?

Warnings: insane amounts of fluff, insane amounts of pining (my god I couldn't stop), roommates to lovers, language, female reader, suggestive and steamy, language, Hangman being Hangman (but he's a good guy underneath), probably incorrect descriptions of the Navy (my dad was a Marine, I'm doing my best lol)

Word Count: 6,060 words

Requests are open! : ̗̀➛ Find my masterlist here

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧

“Living with Bob Floyd is actually ruining my life,”

It was an exaggeration on your part..for the most part. When the Dagger Squad had been asked to stay on assignment in North Island for the foreseeable future, the entire group jumped at the chance. In those few short weeks together, especially when you’re training for a mission many deemed entirely impossible to come back alive from, you quickly become a family, and no one was ready to leave one another. But staying for a prolonged period meant, inevitably, moving off base would be better for everyone’s mental sanity. The Dagger Squad might be like a family, but even families get on one another’s nerves more often than not.

Somehow, when discussing where everyone was moving to and how far from base everyone would live, you and Bob had agreed to move in together.

The decision shocked no one. Truly, the entire team suspected that if anyone was going to live together, it would be you two. You and Bob were like birds of a feather from the second you met that night in the Hard Deck.

“Well, well, well,” Jake Seresin was nothing if not a cocky bastard most of the time. He shoved his pool cue over into your hands, an action that got an eyeroll out of you “If it ain’t Phoenix! Coyote, Naiad, here I was thinking we were special. Turns out…the invite went to anyone.”

Natasha stepped up to the pool table, eyebrow raised, with two men behind her. You quickly handed the pool cue off to Coyote as she squared off with Jake before you both.

“Fellas,” she addressed the boys behind her. “This here is Bagman-”

“-Hangman-”

“-whatever,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re looking at the only Naval aviator on active duty with a confirmed air-to-air kill.”

Hangman waved his hand in the air, pretending to act humble, before attempting to speak. You cut him off, hand on his shoulder with a smirk of your own as you looked at the boys standing behind Nat.

“Mind you, it was a museum piece from the Cold War. And if I hadn’t laid cover for him, he’d have been dead before he could even take the shot,” Jake looked like he was considering protesting your statement, but ultimately shrugged in agreement. You looked from the boys to Natasha, a smile lighting up your face. “Good to see you, Nix.”

“You too, Naiad,” she quickly pulled you into a side hug, arm still slung around your shoulders as she gestured to the boys behind her. “This here is Payback and Fanboy. Boys, this is Naiad. One of the best pilots I’ve ever known, in and out of the cockpit, and the only one who can keep Hangman’s head out of his ass sometimes.”

“Hey-”

“Naiad?” Hangman’s protest was cut off by Payback’s questioning glance toward you. “Isn’t that, like, a water nymph or something?”

“She got her callsign during one of our brief assignments at Boca Chica Field in Key West, Florida,” Coyote threw him, amusement on his face as he shook his head at the memory. “Couldn’t keep that girl out of the water even if you tried.”

“In Coyote and Hangman’s defense,” you quickly jumped in, sending a wink back at your two best friends. “They tried…desperately, but to no avail.”

Laughter rang through the group at the comment, before Natasha pointed off to the side of the pool table.

“Now, who is he?”

The group's eyes followed Natasha’s pointer finger to the man sitting quietly off to the side. He held an entire cup of peanuts in his hand, wiping the excess shells to the floor as he looked around at the group now looking at him, adjusting the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

“When did you get in?” Coyote questioned.

“O-Oh I’ve been here the whole time,”

Everyone missed the small quirk of your lips when the man finally spoke, that slight twinge of southern in his accent carrying through the air as he nervously glanced around the group.

“Man is a stealth pilot…literally,” Hangman commented as your hand flew up, whacking him across the shoulder. The mystery man shook his head.

“Weapons systems officer, actually,”

“...with no sense of humor,” another whack to Hangman’s shoulder had him looking to you with wide eyes. “Can you quit it with that? Your hand is going to be imprinted on my shoulder at this point.”

“Then quit being a dick for two seconds,” you diverted your attention back to the groups new WSO with a grin. “So, what do they call you?”

He sent you a shy smile, adjusting himself on his chair again with a small nod.

“Bob,” and when Payback questioned him about his callsign, Bob seemed to hesitate for a moment before repeating again “...just Bob,”

“Bob Floyd?” Natasha spoke up again as you turned, plucking the pool cues from Coyote once more before turning back to the conversation again. “You’re my new backseater? From Lemoore?”

“Seems like it,”

“Well, let’s break him in then,” you’d chimed in, stepping up to Bob and holding out a pool cue in his direction. “Any good at pool, Floyd?”

He seemed to sit up straighter, mirroring your smile with a nod of his head.

“Pretty decent, I’d say, Naiad”

“9-ball then. Rack ‘em for me,”

It felt like that day had been years ago, when it had only been the culmination of maybe six months. Bob and you had naturally drifted to one another, almost always engaged in a conversation or sharing a beer during a night at the Hard Deck. It helped that you were the only one who was able to get Hangman to back off him most days, something Bob appreciated.

Living with Bob was great. He was one of your best friends at this point. Kind, respectful, deceivingly hilarious, but there was one problem.

You were hopelessly in love with him, and you refused to say anything about it.

You’d kept mainly quiet about it…for the most part. The only ones who knew officially about your feelings for Natasha, Javy, and Jake, as it was impossible to hide it from your best friends. But it had been months, and as the entire squad gathered in your and Bob’s shared ground-floor apartment to celebrate your birthday, you were slowly losing the restraint you were holding onto to keep it under wraps.

“Living with him is ruining your life because you’re being a baby about it,”

Natasha and Javy laughed at the comment from Hangman, the four of you currently sitting around the fire pit in the small backyard that your apartment held the luxury of having. The rest of the squad, including Maverick and Penny, were currently crowded inside somewhere, most likely the living room, while the four of you had migrated outside for a private conversation.

“I’m not being a baby about it!” you’d argued back, taking a swig of your beer and savoring the taste as you threw Hangman a pointed look. “I’m going to ruin everything if I say something, but living together is torture. One-sided feelings aren’t fun, Bagman.”

“Oh, Naiad, you’re so clueless,” Coyote was the one to laugh out the words, clinking his own beer bottle against Natasha’s outstretched one. “You’re both hopelessly in love with each other.”

Your three best friends shared a laugh, but you, in turn, were frozen trying to process his words. It sounded absurd in your head, to think that this was anything more than you pining after your best friend, your coworker, your roommate. There was no way it could be anything more than one-sided..

“You guys are ridiculous-”

“No, Coyote is entirely right,” Natasha sat forward in her chair, giving you a pointed look. “Let’s take a walk down memory lane, okay? When you called me after living with Bob for less than two weeks, that day you both came back from the complex’s pool?”

For a hot summer Saturday, your apartment complex’s pool was deserted, but you relished in it. You got your pick of chairs for sunbathing, and you didn’t have to share any of the cool water with the kids who lived down the hall from you. It even allowed you to blow up your favorite in pool lounger and float around in the cool breeze, the water nipping at your exposed skin around your favorite bikini, and simply soak in the sun.

“What a shock, my waterbug is in the water,”

At the sound of a voice just feet away outside the pool, you lifted the sunglasses off your face, squinting in the brightened light. Bob stood just at the edge of the pool, donning his swim trunks that you’d seen countless times at Coronado Beach with your friends, along with the t-shirt he typically wore to the beach, too. You shot him a small smile, flicking some of the water in his direction as he laughed. You hoped the red in your skin from the sun would cover the blush that was surely spreading through your cheeks at his simple use of the word “my” in front of his favorite nickname for you: waterbug.

“The rest of the complex doesn’t seem to want to take advantage of the sun, so why not claim the pool for myself?”

“Or is it because you can’t seem to stay away from the water?”

“You going to stand there and bust my non-existent balls or join me in the pool, Floyd?”

As Bob laughed and promised he’d be in the water momentarily, you shifted your sunglasses back to their place in front of your eyes. That also happened to be the exact moment Bob Floyd had, for some reason, decided to take his shirt off.

In all the time you’d known him thus far, in all the beach trips you’d been on with him, Bob Floyd kept his shirt on, even as your mutual friends seemed to gang up on him for it. You’d, of course, fantasized at night (and sometimes in daydreams) about what might be hiding under there, because there’s no way he wasn’t at least slightly jacked given that he was in the Navy, but you hadn’t been prepared fully to see it for yourself.

Bob Floyd wasn’t nearly as jacked as Jake and Bradley were, but he didn’t need to be. He was lean, his muscles clearly defined, and the strain in his biceps as he tore his shirt off was enough for you to think that maybe you needed to slide completely into the water and cool yourself off for multiple reasons.

“I see why you keep your shirt on at the beach now, Floyd,” you remarked, trying to cover the feeling crawling through you with a cough and a joke, leaning your head back against your pool float again and closing your eyes. “You’d probably have all the ladies on the beach after you if you did.”

You’d heard a faint laugh from him before the pool got quiet…too quiet. That’s when Bob took off running, and before you knew it, he’d cannonballed straight into the pool, soaking you with the chlorinated water as he went. You sputtered, taking your glasses off and throwing them toward your chair with your bag on the outside of the pool.

“BOB!” you’d called out with a small laugh, still wiping water from your face as you glanced around to get a glimpse of him. By the time you realized you couldn’t see him, and what that meant, it was already too late. Your pool float had been flipped, dunking you entirely into the pool without a moment's notice.

By the time you’d resurfaced from the water, slicking your hair back and coughing, Bob was in hysterics from where he floated in front of you. That fluttering feeling in your stomach was pushed to the back of your mind now as you smirked across the water at him.

“What, my waterbug can’t handle some water?”

“Oh, you’re asking for it Floyd!” you’d called back before tackling him, both of you falling back into the water in another round of hysterics.

Even the mere thought of that day, of the moment you’d see Bob without his shirt for the first time, was enough to bring the blush back to your cheeks. Natasha noticed, laughing as she pointed it out to the boys.

“See! You’re blushing as bad as I know you were when you called me that day!”

“Okay, this doesn’t prove anything! We’ve established I already like him-”

“Oh no, it proves he likes you, too,” Coyote shot back with a smirk. “Rooster is his best friend, and he won’t even take his shirt off around HIM! I haven’t seen him take it off once, so obviously…either he trusts you enough to show off what he’s hiding under there, or he’s deliberately showing off what he’s got because he wants you to notice it.”

What they were saying…it wasn’t hard to believe, at least not if your friends were talking about anyone else but you and Bob. For some reason, it just didn’t seem possible to you that Bob felt the same way for you that you did for him. Wouldn’t he have surely done something by now, have taken the leap that you were too scared to take?

“Guys-”

“Can’t forget the night you made him dinner,” Coyote interrupted again, his smirk growing at the confused look on your face. “Come on, don’t tell me you forgot? The second Bob was on base the next morning, and you split off to head to the gym, he was talking Rooster’s ear off about it. I swear, there were literal hearts in this man’s eyes as he talked about you.”

It was rare that you managed to get a day off during the middle of the week, but somehow it had worked out for you. A very rare Wednesday that you got to spend keeping up on the household chores that neither you nor Bob wanted to deal with come the weekend, saving it for when you were both exhausted and sweating from the San Diego heat late at night. Grocery shopping for your shared kitchen, loading and unloading multiple loads of laundry for both of you, whatever you could do so that Bob would have an easy night when he got home.

Unlike you, he hadn’t gotten a single day off that week.

There was a new batch of young pilots, and Cyclone and Warlock decided that the Dagger Squad was the best choice for teaching them. With Maverick, Rooster, Coyote, and Hangman all being single-seater pilots, you were the lucky one who’d gotten a rare day off. And with a single text from Bob that night, letting you know he’d be back at the apartment soon, you knew exactly the best way to cheer him up after a long day in the sun.

The first day you moved into your apartment together, and the rest of the team celebrated with you, you had cooked for the entire team. Homemade spaghetti, just like your mother used to make growing up. Homemade pasta, homemade tomato sauce, you name it, and the dish had it. The entire team had adored it, but Bob had sung it’s praises over and over again the entire night.

Being entirely homemade, it was NOT an easy dish to whip up at any point in time, so you hadn’t made it again…until now.

“Hey, I’m back!”

“In the kitchen!” you’d called back the second you heard Bob’s voice from the entryway and the familiar shutting of the front door to the apartment. The sauce was heating up, the pasta was boiling, and it left you simply standing off to the side, leaning against the countertop as Bob entered.

He was exhausted, and it was written clearly across his face. He’d already changed into his casual clothes, and judging by his slightly damp hair, he must have showered on base before coming home. A small smile was shot your way before he was digging through the fridge.

“Be glad you had the day off,” he’d grumbled out, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge and almost chugging half of it in an instant. “Those newbies…god, they didn’t know how to listen today. Even Hangman was playing bad cop instead of good cop.”

“Well, that’s how you know it’s a bad day,” you shared a laugh at that. “I did the grocery shopping this morning, so we’re fully stocked up until at least next week. The laundry was all done, too. Your basket is sitting outside your door currently.”

Bob paused at that, just staring at you with a look you couldn’t quite decipher hidden somewhere in his eyes.

“I...you didn’t need to do that. Thank you,” the pair of you shared a soft smile as Bob turned away, shaking his head, and he pulled his phone out. “I haven’t gotten a chance to eat yet, though. Probably going to Doordash something-”

“No need, food will be done in a minute,” he turned back to you as you said that, but you’d already turned back, stirring the pasta noodles in the boiling hot pot on the stove before you. “Pasta should be done in just a minute, and there’s fresh garlic bread keeping warm in the oven.”

“You...you made me…” your cheeks flared for a moment, hearing the way Bob stumbled over his words behind you somewhere in the kitchen. “Is that…your mom’s homemade pasta?”

“I figured it had probably been a long day for you, and I know how much you liked it last time. If you grab us both drinks, I can have this done and on the table in a little bit,”

Silence enveloped the kitchen for a moment before a pair of arms wrapped around your waist. A chill immediately shot down your spine as you froze. Bob’s hands gripped your sides, pulling you back into him as the side of his head leaned against yours, and you faltered for just a second while stirring the boiling food before you. The unmistakable feel of lips pressed against the side of your head, and heat immediately shot through your body at the simple action.

“Thank you…”

“...anytime,”

Okay, that memory made you feel a little different, had yet another flush coating your skin, redness deepening. You’d only been living together for two months when you’d made him dinner that night…but that was just the first night of many.

Cooking dinner together became a new normal for both of you, almost always discussing what you wanted to eat night after night. Gone were the nights of eating separately, of having separate grocery lists; that night had set forth a new normal for you, one that you were constantly navigating together. Thinking back, it was also the night when so much changed over the course of your entire relationship with Bob.

Movie nights where you sat just a little closer together than you needed to, sharing a blanket. Those movie nights that ended in you both falling asleep together on the couch, moments you hurried through the next day, and tried not to dwell on what they could or couldn’t mean. The way you ordered for one another at the Hard Deck after that, the other’s usual memorized. And if you didn’t want the usual, it was like you could read one another’s minds.

Had you overlooked so many signs?

“Hey, losers!” it was Bradley Bradshaw, leaning against the doorway of the sliding glass door that led to the backyard, the setting sun washing over the barren yard. His presence interrupted the laughter and hushed conversation shared between Coyote and Phoenix. “Come on, cake time for the birthday girl before we get the movie going.”

You’d nodded, but your mind was elsewhere. Even as Natasha and Javy reentered your apartment to join everyone else. You were staring off into space, trying to fully comprehend what your friends had said, before you looked to Hangman. Your best friend, your confidant since the day you’d met him (no matter how much of an ass he tended to be), simply waiting for you to speak from across the firepit with a smile on his face.

“Have I really been oblivious?”

“Baby-on-board doesn’t tell me about his deep, hidden feelings…but from what I’ve seen, yes,” Jake laughed, rising to his feet as he looked down at you. “Look, Naiad, you’re my best friend. Hell, you’re basically my little sister. Feelings are scary, I should know, that’s why I don’t do relationships. But you and Bobby boy…god, you two need to just knock that wall down and jump each other’s bones already.”

Somehow, Hangman always knew what you needed, and in that moment, you really did need a laugh. You shook your head at him, rising to your own feet and taking his now-empty beer bottle from him, tossing his and yours into the outdoor bin.

“Thanks, Jake. Sometimes, it seems like you really do have a heart,”

“Don’t let the others know that, I’ve got a reputation,” he slung an arm around your shoulder, dragging you back into your own apartment. “And please, don’t thank me until you two finally get laid.”

It was the perfect night, and there was truly no one else that you would’ve rathered spend your birthday with than these people that had become more than friends, more than coworkers, but family.

Fanboy and Payback had placed a sad, dollar-store party hat on your head, positioning you at the head of the dining room table. There was a reason they were all Navy pilots, because not a single one of them could sing well, and it reminded you that you’d need to personally apologize to your neighbors the next day for what probably sounded like dying whales in your apartment.

You’d simply laughed at the group’s terrible rendition of ‘Happy Birthday,’ watching as Bob and Natasha brought out the large cake they had personally decorated just for you tonight. You’d slotted yourself into Bob’s side as they sang without a care in the world, leaning your head against him before blowing out your candles to yet another round of applause and cheers. Bob didn’t seem to mind, his arm simply winding around your waist and holding you to his side.

Your conversation with Natasha, Javy, and Jake hung in the back of your mind, even as you’d all settled into your small living room to enjoy a movie together after saying a final goodbye to Maverick and Penny for the night. An argument broke out between which of your favorite movies to watch, Beauty and the Beast or The Heat, as you settled onto the loveseat beside Bob, who immediately draped your favorite blanket across both of your laps. Almost unanimously, Beauty and the Beast was chosen, seemingly just to piss off Jake who moaned and groaned that he’d ‘watched it enough with you’ before.

It was that conversation with your friends that replayed in your mind halfway through the movie when your hand reached out under the blanket, interlocking your fingers with Bob’s. If he minded, he didn’t say, simply allowed it to happen and squeezed your hand back, unaware of the blush stretching across your cheeks just as a similar one crossed his.

And when was was said and done, the clock striking 11 p.m. that night, your friends had all filed out with a final goodbye to you both. And just like that, you and Bob were left alone in the comfort of your own home together again. This time, though, the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, your pining wasn’t one-sided was stuck at the forefront of your mind.

Bob washed the dishes in the sink as you dried them, conversing quietly together, stolen looks happening from both sides as you both remained oblivious to the other.

The words were practically hanging off your tongue, and you had to bite them back every time you looked at him and caught him already looking at you. It was your birthday, after all, and if there was one thing you truly wanted to celebrate this day, it was Bob Floyd. You wanted him in every conceivable way, you had since those first few weeks of knowing him, and you knew after the revelations you’d come through tonight with your friends that you could never go back to ignoring your feelings again after tonight.

By the time the clock read 11:30, the dishes were done, and you and Bob both stood quietly in the hallway outside of your bedroom doors, simply looking at one another. The only light flooding the hallway came from the moon shining through the curtains down the hall, but something between you both felt different. Electric. Tense. Charged.

“Thank you for everything today,” you’d whispered out, afraid to speak too loudly in the quiet of the night.

“Of course…you deserved it,” Bob’s answer had been easy, but you could see it. The hesitation at the end, like there was more he wanted to say, but he stopped himself before he could.

You wanted to say more, too. You wanted to profess it all, everything you’d been feeling for months, everything boiling over inside of you. It was dying to come out, dying to know the truth: was this one-sided? Did he feel the same?”

“Goodnight, baby-on-board,” was what you said instead, a small tease woven through your voice.

He’d laughed lightly, a sound you adored more than you cared to admit.

“Goodnight, Naiad. Happy birthday,”

Sleep didn’t come to you. It had been 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes, who knew. But you couldn’t sleep, you simply tossed and turned until you were left staring up at your ceiling in the dead of night, wrapped in the blanket that was soft as a feather that Bob had bought you.

Bob. He’d invaded every single one of your thoughts, not that he was ever NOT in your thoughts, and it was driving you so insane you knew there was no sleeping this off.

Padding back into the kitchen, you left every light off. Instead you stood in the dark, facing your cabinets as you drank a cool glass of water in an attempt to calm yourself down, illuminated only by the lights of the oven and microwave clocks.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

You’d frozen in place, whipping around to see Bob leaning against the doorway of the kitchen…shirtless, only in his boxers.

If your throat could’ve gone drier at the sight, it would’ve. The only saving grace you had was the fact that the lights were off, and you could just barely see the outline of his defined muscles in the darkness. It was then that you suddenly realized you were also standing in the kitchen, across from your almost completely naked roommate, in nothing but a pair of panties and an oversized t-shirt of your father’s you’d stolen before college.

“Y-yeah…something like that,”

“Same here,” his voice was low, the kind of low that sent a shiver straight down your spine. “I uh…I have a lot on my mind.”

The silence between you seemed to stretch on forever. It was like you both knew where this was heading, like you both knew exactly why the other couldn’t sleep, but neither of you wanted to breach it, neither of you wanted to be the one to cross the line. Or you wanted to, but neither of you knew how to.

“That night…when I made you dinner,” you broached the topic slowly, unsure of where you were even going with this. You wanted to just tell him, but you didn’t know how. “It was…it was very domestic.”

“It was,”

“Do you remember it?”

“Like it was yesterday,”

You paused for a moment, watching his outline in the darkness.

“Do you…do you think about it?”

“All the time,” the way he said it, it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders the second he let those words leave his lips. “I…I think about you all the time.”

That was all you needed. Confirmation, no matter how small, that Bob Floyd did feel the same way for you that you’d felt for him forever. Letting out the breath you didn’t even know you were holding, you glanced toward the clock on the oven: 11:58 p.m., and suddenly a burst of confidence flowed through you.

“You know…it’s still technically my birthday. There’s…one last gift I really wish I’d gotten,”

His silhouette seemed to straighten up at your words, before he was across the kitchen in moments. Right in front of you, illuminated by the oven clock light, you could finally see his face just inches before you. His slightly parted lips, those dilated blue eyes you could get lost in for hours. His fingers just barely brushed over the skin on the outer edge of your thighs, and your own breath hitched as he looked down at you.

“Well…it’d be wrong not to give the birthday girl what she wants,” there was a slight tremor in his voice, a twinge of nervousness, as if this could all come crashing down on you both with one wrong move. “What do you want, Naiad?”

Finally, you’d let what you’d been dying to say finally go tumbling from your lips.

“I just want the WSO I fell in love with months ago to be mine…in whatever way he’ll let me have him,”

Another word didn’t need to be said before Bob’s hands had a hold of your hips, lifting you up onto the counter behind you. A small gasp left your lips at the cold feel of the granite against your bare thighs as your legs spread on instinct, and Bob didn’t waste a second in stepping between them and pressing himself to you. Hands gripping your waist and holding you to him, your hands immediately found him, curling around his shoulders and fingers twisting into his hair as he let out a low groan.

The only sound in the kitchen was the sound of both of you panting. You hadn’t even kissed, and Bob Floyd had you wrecked beyond compare.

“You don’t understand how long I’ve thought about this, about you,” he’d whispered, almost moaned, lips just barely an inch from your own. “If I’d have known…if I’d have listened to Rooster when he told me you felt the same way-”

“We were both oblivious,” you’d laughed out, hands tugging on his hair again just to hear that sweet groan flow out of him again. “We’re here now, though.”

“And if you want me to stop, I need you to tell me now,” the grip of one of his hands on your hip tightened while the other moved down to your thigh, fingers splayed across the bare skin. Bob sounded absolutely wrecked, and it sent a burn of desire straight through you to the core. “If you don’t stop me now, if I kiss you…I’m not going to be able to stop.”

You let one hand leave his hair, instead curling around his jaw to tilt his lips toward yours.

“Good…because I don’t want you to stop,”

Your friends had joked that Bob Floyd was probably a timid lover, that his kisses were probably soft, sweet, passionate, but in the most mundane of ways. Maybe they were right, maybe in public, surrounded by others, that’s how he’d be. But in this moment, with you, the air charged with the anticipation that this had been a long time coming, Bob Floyd’s kiss was anything but timid.

He kissed you with passion, with hunger, with red-hot, burning need embedded in every move of his lips against yours. His vice-like grip was sure to leave a mark across your hip bone, or leave the indents of his fingers splayed across your thigh for days to come. There wasn’t a single centimeter of space left between you both as Bob pulled you straight into him, his bare chest pressed against your front as you begged him in your own head to just get rid of your shirt already.

You held him back just as closely, hand still wound into his hair as the other left his jaw, trailing down his chest to the sculpted body you’d only seen a handful of times, but dreamed about getting your hands on for months now. A low moan left you the second his lips trailed away from your own, trialing down your jawline and to your neck, a slight hiss of pain for just a second leaving your lips as he bit a mark into your skin, one just high enough it would be impossible to hide from your friends at work.

Marking you, claiming you as his. He didn’t need to, though; you’d been his long before this moment, he just didn’t know it.

“Take me to bed,” you’d just barely managed to whisper out, tugging is lips back to yours. “Make me yours.”

“You already are,” he’d whispered back before pressing another bruising kiss to your lips. And in a show of incredible strength that flooded your core with another burn of desire, Bob had swept you into his arms, navigating throughout your shared home with precision, before he’d brought you over the threshold of his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him with just his foot.

A night that felt like a dream. That, truly, if not for waking up in Bob Floyd’s arms the next morning, you’d have believed it was just another dream of yours.

Sunlight streamed through the crack in Bob’s curtains as you’d opened your eyes, head resting on his bare chest. His thin comforter just barely covered both of your bare bodies, letting the cool, San Diego morning air of the open window ghost over your skin. Bob’s arm was wound around your body, drawing a circle along the skin of your back. You shifted in his arms in order to sit up and fully look at him, that delicious ache in your bones and muscles an indicator that, no, last night wasn’t a dream.

“Hi,” you’d whispered out the second you had your eyes on him, mirroring the smile he already had on his face as he ran a hand through his messy up hair.

“Hi back,”

A giggle escaped you at the deep sound of his voice so early in the morning. You leaned over him, wincing slightly at that ever-present ache in your muscles, grabbing his glasses and slotting them back onto his face with a grin.

“There’s my handsome pilot-”

“I love you,” he’d murmured, cheeks heating red instantly as another giggle managed to slip past your lips. “I know I said it…a thousand times last night, but I had to say it again. I love you…I’ve loved you for so long, Naiad-”

You cut him off, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips. This one differed from all those the night before. Still passionate, but slow. Still needy, but laced with months of hidden love for one another.

“I love you, too,” you muttered back against his lips as you slowly pulled away.

“Let me take you on a date tonight,” he’d immediately said, arms around your waist, tugging you even closer, as if that was possible at this rate. “I’m yours, and you’re mine, but let me do this right. Let me take you out to dinner-”

“Let me stop you right there,” you interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with dinner dates, but I’d prefer if we do something that we don’t already do constantly in our apartment as our first official date.”

Laughter was shared between you both at that comment as Bob nodded his head in agreement.

“An arcade, then. There’s one over on Mission Beach, even has laser tag, and a roller coaster right next to it. Then, my waterbug can run off onto the beach and jump into the ocean like I know she’ll want to,”

My waterbug. His waterbug. It brought another smile to your lips as you leaned in for yet another kiss, a feeling you were sure you’d already grown addicted to.

“Anywhere, anywhere you want. As long as I’m with you, Bob Floyd,”

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slytherizz · 2 years ago

Text

Everything, with you - Sebastian Sallow x F!MC/Reader

Tags/Warnings: 18+ | Breeding Kink | Size Kink | explicit sexual content | Dad!Seb

All tags can be found on Ao3

Summary:

"Watching you carry my children is one of life's greatest pleasures. If it's possible - you're more beautiful now than you've ever been.”

“Do you ever think about…”

“Having another one?”

A/N This works as a stand-alone but if you happened to have read either of my long fics this would sit either after the epilogue of 'Whatever it Takes' or in between the final chapter and the epilogue of 'In the Shadow of Us' (but I omitted the Azkaban references so it works for both). I have literally nothing to say for myself for this one other than...

For the thicc Seb girlies 💕

Dark curly hair tickled the underside of Sebastian's chin as he adjusted his son nestled in his lap. Book resting against his knee which was bent at an awkward and rather uncomfortable angle where he'd managed to cram himself onto Sam's little bed. Sebastian’s neck ached and his left leg was almost completely dead. Not that he minded. He knew his youngest would outgrow this one day, and would no longer need his father to read him fairytales. So Sebastian succumbed easily to Sam’s pleading and let himself be the dutiful mountain against which his son could rest.

"Now, this word’s a little tricky, so take your time with it,” Sebastian tapped his finger on the page. "What does this say?"

"I'm not sure." Sam frowned. He traced his pudgy finger over the unfamiliar word and along the bright plume of fiery feathers printed in rich shades of red and gold on the page. The enchanted bird ruffled its wings as it clicked its beak attempting to nip at Sam's fingers. Each time the bird squawked soundlessly as he stroked its plumage Sam giggled with delight.

"Sound it out. You see right here? The 'Ph' makes an ‘f’ sound.”

"Like ‘t’ and ‘h’ make a 'the' sound?"

“Exactly right. Two letters. One sound,” Sebastian said, ruffling his boy's hair proudly.

Alice, his eldest had always had an uncanny ability to memorise words. Could recall the contents of practically every book he'd ever given her once she’d devoured it. She'd taken great pride in unnerving her primary school teacher by listing every ingredient in ‘A draft of living death’. Which may have seemed like a feat within itself…until she’d insisted on doing it backwards.

His unique form of parenting had been called into question more than once by her teachers but who was he to tell his daughter that ‘most potent potions’ was not appropriate bedtime reading? Restricting her inquisitive mind would be a far greater sin.

Sam's little mind on the other hand worked like a tinker. Slower it may seem than his sister as he pieced together meaning. But that wasn’t nearly the case. Simply because he liked to fiddle with things more than his sister. Take a word apart and rearrange it before dismantling it again entirely. He picked apart the rules as he learnt them. All whilst, humming sagely from time to time like he was some great philosopher and he wasn't in fact, a boy of four who had spent the morning sulking when there was no honey left in the pantry for his toast.

“Try sounding it out," he encouraged.

"Fee-nix?" Sam’s brows furrowed slightly the new word unfamiliar and clunky on his tongue. "Pheonix?"

"That’s it. You’re doing well. Now I know you know the rest of it. Reckon you can read the full sentence?”

"The p-phoenix went up in…smoke?"

"Clever boy!"

Sam turned to look up at Sebastian, puffing out his chest with pride. Sebastian kissed the crown of his head affectionately. Sam burrowed his head into his shirt trying and failing to disguise a yawn against his father's chest.

Snapping the book closed and placing it on his bedside table. Sebastian scooped him up as he shifted off the small bed placing his son snuggly under the quilt constellations in golden thread adorned its edges.

“Right, I think that's enough for tonight. Bedtime for you mister.”

“But I'm not tired,” Sam protested. Rubbing his drooping eyelids which did little to rally his father to his plight. Eyes so like his mother's framed under furrowed dark brows. Stubbornness was an inherited trait and with how pigheaded he and his wife could be Sebastian should have known his children would be no different.

“I'm sure you're not,” Sebastian chuckled. Tucking the blankets tighter around his squirming limbs. “But it's already way past your bedtime. If you settle down I’ll put the stars up - How does that sound?”

Sam grinned, nodding his head eagerly as he buried his head deeper into his pillow. Sebastian pulled out his wand. Sam’s eyes lighting up. Glittering as they always get in his eyes when either of her parents performed even the simplest of charms. With an unnecessarily large flourish, Sebastian extinguished the bedside lantern plunging them into darkness. He whispered his modified charm.

Stars small but dazzling began to twinkle into life one by one across the steepled ceiling painting the cosmos across the wooden beams.

It wasn’t nearly as elaborate as the charm in the Hogwarts great hall that had given Sebastian the inspiration. Not quite a replication of the overcast sky outside, but to Sam’s childlike wonder; his father could conjure the heavens in his bedroom. Pluck the stars from the sky so he could sleep bathed in starlight.

For all his folly into the persuits into the darker sides of magic - there was no spell more powerful than the ones that made his children’s life a little more magical.

“Night, Dad.”

***

Undoing the buttons of his shirt Sebastian shucking the material from his shoulders. Wincing as he kneaded at the tight knot that had formed in his neck from too long spent hunched over in his son's small bed. Stretching like a bear ripe from hibernation joints cracking audibly.

His dark brows lifted in alarm as he caught his reflection in the ornate oblong mirror tucked into the corner of their bedroom.

Sebastian had always looked like his father. Same bow to their lips, unruly chestnut hair and soft brown eyes like sodden earth after rain. He could practically divine how his features would change using the brushstrokes of the portrait of his parents that hung proudly on the stairs.

But it was the things that went beyond the superficial that made his parents' old friends stumble on his name and acquaintances double-take in the street as if the dead still walked among them. The determined set of his jaw, the curious glint in his eye. There truly had never been any mistaking exactly who Sebastian’s father was.

But he didn’t just look like his Dad ; he looked like a Dad.

Not that he'd ever been particularly lean . A stockiness to his frame as all Sallow men carried. Violence practically carved into his marrow. Built more for quidditch or boxing, than for scholarly pursuits he'd always been drawn to; but this was getting out of hand.

Sebastian frowned at his reflection. Still strong in the trunk in a way that he never minded, especially not with how it elicited such sinful looks from his wife but he had become notably softer around the middle. What had once been a sparse tuft of hair on his chest he’d taken great pride as a lad, was now thick dark hair trailing down his stomach.

It seemed as unprepared Sebastian had been, stumbling bowlegged and awkwardly into fatherhood, not having nearly enough time with his own to have much to go off; his body had settled far quicker into his new role than he had.

Scratching at the short beard he kept neatly trimmed. Well, for what could pass as neat considering his hair was unruly no matter where it grew. Sebastian twisted and turned, appraising himself from different angles.

When was the last time he'd duelled? Worked up any kind of sweat?

Perhaps he should consider himself lucky he was in the shape he was. Carrying his children upstairs to bed and lugging stacks of heavy stacks of old manuscripts and attifacts charmed against magical interference around the Department of Mysteries hardly counted as exercise. The closest thing anyone would consider vigorous was fucking his wife. But then again holding her small frame against a wall hardly felt like work.

He rotated his joints, and the tendons of muscle in his heavy shoulders flexed under freckled skin. An old puckered scar long faded to white across his shoulder now a mere remnant from his past life. Underneath the soft exterior of the doting father he’d become still lurked the shadow of the hellion youth he’d once been.

Delicate hands slithered around his middle running along the breadth of him stroking at the hair on his chest. Her warm cheek came to rest, nestled between his shoulder blades. Sighing affectionately, her breath tickling his skin. Sebastian leaned into her touch, even after all these years he still felt sparks.

"If you keep scowling your face will get stuck like that,” she chided. Sebastian snorted twisting in her hold to face her. She’d loosened the soft braids she usually wore at her temples so her hair hung loose around her shoulders. She smiled up at him, crooked and his heart stuttered in an unsteady rhythm.

“Alice, go down without any fuss?”

“Has she ever?” She quirked an eyebrow at him far more amused by their daughters' antics than cross. “Caught her trying to get into your study after I put her to bed - again. Luckily she isn’t half as stealthy as she is mischievous.”

Sebastian grinned at her, arching his eyebrows. “She gets that from you.”

“I think Scribner would have disagreed.” She said rolling her eyes. “But something tells me it's not Alice's nocturnal antics causing that face. Tell me what's wrong my love?"

Placing a warm hand against his cheek fingers combing through the hair on his chin. He shifted uncomfortably under the weight of her gaze. Failing to suppress the heat he could feel rising in his cheeks most likely staining the tops of his ears.

"Nothing, Pet. I’m uh-” he hesitated, wincing slightly. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed. And is she hadn't, he was reluctant to point it out. Lest it change the way she looked at him. She was still as radiant the first time he'd laid eyes on her but Sebastian was a far cry from the roguish boy who'd made her heart race.

He leaned heavily into her hand resting against his chin. Letting the tenderness of her touch and softness of her gaze quell the unease. “Just carrying a bit more timber than I'm used to. I hadn’t noticed how much the years had caught up to me. After two kids and all."

"You’ll always be the same stubborn and reckless boy to me," she wrapped her arms around him tighter. It was only a chaste peck but an inexplicable blush darkened her cheeks as she nibbled on the inside of her cheek contemplatively. Her hands grazed along Sebastian’s freckled shoulders, through the sparse hair on his chest nails scratching softly. "But I must admit…I rather like you like this. Broad. Manly.”

" Oh - Do you now?" he smirked. Admiring the flush that had stained her cheeks at her admission.

Seeming to take an unnatural amount of interest in the pattern of their curtains she averted her eyes blushing deeply. "Yes. I do. And don't let it go to your big head.”

Far too late for that. After all these years she should really have known better. His chest already swelling with pride a smug smile pulling at the corner of his freckled cheeks.

Tugging at the sleeve of her pale blue dress. The cotton slipped away to expose more of her skin. Sebastian snaked his hand around her waist to settle on the small of her back. Ducking his head to pepper kisses along the dip of her shoulder.

The faint smell of mallowsweet that always clung to her hair far sweeter than any perfume; a herb balm that had soothed and tamed his stubborn heart. Heat rose where he'd exposed her as Sebastian's mouth worked its way down her neck towards her clavicle. Her fingers pressed a little harder into his flesh feeling the tight coils of muscle that still lurked underneath.

Despite Sebastian's intention of letting his wife thoroughly enjoy the body, she found so desirable. She seemed distracted. Her breathing hitched a little as he grazed his teeth over her delicate throat. Sucking in just a way that would usually drive all the thoughts from her pretty head - that was not the case tonight.

“Besides - it's not like I look the same as I did before Alice and Sam.”

"Mmm, but watching you carry my children is one of life's greatest pleasures. If it's possible - you're more beautiful now than you've ever been.”

“Do you ever think about…”

She trailed off. Mouth opened and closed lamely as she searched for the words her eyebrows furrowed.

“Having another one?”

The high-pitched and uncharacteristically nervous noise of agreement she emitted made Sebastian pause his efforts to adorn her shoulder with dark love bites which were now blooming like wild grapes.

It was rare to see his wife nervous. Even rarer still for her mind to be elsewhere when it came to their marital relations. But he could understand her trepidation; it wasn’t as if either of their children had exactly been planned.

Before either of them were born he often wondered if they should have been parents. Not a single guardian between them to cobble together any semblance of what a parent should be. A trail of lost souls he'd not been able to protect.

Hazy memories of love weren't exactly a blueprint for success.

So Sebastian packed those feelings away even before he'd let them fully bubble to the surface. Resigned perhaps to the fact that although she may have fallen in love with the rough-edged boy he’d been; she'd still bore witness to the worst of him. A dark unsightly stain on his soul he kept cloistered away but they both knew would never leave him. Or her.

And why would either of them want to burden a child with him as their father; or her with his last name? It did not do to dwell on something Sebastian never thought he’d be able to have.

Then one day their world shifted and as willfully unprepared as they’d been for it; so did they.

Alice bloomed in the cracks of space in their lives they hadn’t known something had been missing. But perhaps had always left vacant and wanting for her.

Sam, followed so shortly after. Alice - barely a year old when they’d realised three would quickly become four.

By then, Sebastian had put to rest that gnawing anxiety that told him perhaps they should have never been parents. Fatherhood suited him. Soothed an old ache that had been throbbing since the passing of his own and now he wore it like a familiar coat.

He allowed himself to bask in the elation of their growing family; in a way, he’d not been able to with Alice. Not only taking pride in his wife, who practically glowed more beautiful than he’d ever seen her; but pleasure in watching her stomach swell once again with his child.

So much in fact, he lamented over the missed opportunity for what it would be like to take her with the sole intention of filling her with life. Could practically taste it every time he felt her unravelling on his cock. Dragged his feet at the apothecary when she asked him to purchase extra dandelion root for her monthly brew in the years that followed.

Already Sebastian could feel his blood rushing south at the thought. Inhaling sharply, calming his heart which was now thumping hard against his sternum as that familiar desire pooled.

“I love our family. Alice and Sam, are plenty troublesome and we have our hands full as it is,” he began carefully.

Sebastian cupped her chin, shifting her soft gaze to his. The smile he wore, genuine if a little weak. What he said was true. Sebastian did not wish to burden her with making such a decision simply to satisfy his elicit fantasies. He would not begrudge her if she didn’t want another child after she’d given him so much - more than he’d ever let himself hope for.

But she visibly deflated with his words. “Oh…so you wouldn't want another one?”

“No! I mean- not ‘ no’ . Merlin, it’s quite the opposite. In fact, I think I’ll always want more ,” Sebastian spluttered. Tongue tied and feeling the opportunity slipping through his fingers Sebastian took a breath to right himself. “Neither of us has much in the way of family outside of the one we made for ourselves - each child you give me is the greatest blessing I never thought I’d have. I’d love nothing more than to grow the family that we created.”

“I just want to know you're sure. You don't have to just because I want one.”

“There is nothing within my power that I would not give you. But, trust me love there are other reasons it appeals to me.”

“Oh?”

Hands glided down her spine grabbing the soft curve of her backside. Her eyes widened as he pulled her flush against his body where she could feel the growing bulge press against her stomach. Tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, Sebastian ducked his head to nip gently at her earlobe before he whispered.

“Getting to fuck you purely with the intention of filling you with my seed. Watching you swell with another of my children. Breeding you. ” His voice, a low rumble reverberating from deep in his chest. Domineering. Predatory. Every point his body was pressed against hers felt like a fire that ignited a desire that lay dormant inside him. Desperate to claw its way out. Claim her as his - again . "Wearing the evidence under those pretty dresses of yours for everyone to see. So they know exactly what you let me do to you. Who you belong to.”

A visible shiver ran down her spine. Goosebumps prickling across her skin at the filth of his words. Feeling pressed hard against her stomach exactly how much the idea appealed to him.

“Sebastian-”

“Tell me you want it and it’s yours,” he murmured huskily against her neck. Nipping at that spot below her jaw he knew made her knees buckle.

His little witch had never been the obedient sort, as wild and stubborn as a poorly bottled lightning. But after all these years together - Sebastian knew exactly which buttons to push. How to make her laugh so hard her cheeks ached from smiling; a sound so perfect it washed his worries away like a tide. The ones that made rage; burn so fiercely he was reminded she was barely a witch at all but a dragon merely playing at domesticity.

Most favourably to Sebastian were the ones that turned every rational coherent thought in her head into a blinding fog of lust.

He trailed kisses across her skin, her pulse quickening under the tender brush of his lips. An eager whine slipped from her throat. Hips pushing against his in search of friction to soothe the heat pooling in her abdomen.

“Yes- fuck. Please, I want that. Another baby. Your baby.”

The choked sound that clawed its way out of Sebastian’s throat sounded far from anything human. Somewhere between a groan and a growl.

Wasting not a second longer he grasped her hips lifting her swiftly as if she weighed nothing at all. Thighs wrapped tightly around his hips as she moulded into him. Heat radiated from her core barely concealed behind the thin fabric of her undergarment.

Fingers tangling in his hair, she pulled his lips forcefully to hers. Kissing him greedily. Tongue delved between his parted lips as if he were the air she breathed.

From the way she ground her hips insistently, his wife cared little if it drove him to distraction; she knew there was no way Sebastian would let her fall.

Carrying her over to the bed to practically launch her down onto the mattress. Hooded eyes, devoured every inch of her husband standing above her. Her dress dishevelled had ridden up to expose the tops of her thighs which squeezed together in anticipation. Sebastian palmed his hard length through biting hard on his lip to stifle a moan.

Her nimble fingers came quickly to fumble with the buttons of her dress. Sebastian batted her hand away with a grunt to tear into them himself. His mouth trailed kisses further down her body with every inch he exposed.

Stopping as in his journey towards her core to pay particular attention to the soft curve of her belly. She whined under every press of his lips against her stomach squirming impatiently under Sebastian with the need for him to fill the womb he worshipped so reverently.

Sebastian pulled her hips sharply towards the edge of their bed dropping to his knees between her spread legs. Folds already glistening with unrestrained desire. Sebastian ran the tip of his nose through the sparse hairs. The heat of his breath teased against her growing slick. Shivering with anticipation her hips bucked craving - no, needing Sebastian to provide relief to the ache between her legs.

“Sebastian - please,” she whined.

“Impatient,” he scolded. Despite his own clothed erection strained against his trousers twitching desperate to be buried inside his wife’s impossibly tight core. But to Sebastian there no more perfect sight than her laid out before him. Bare, flushed and eyes darkened with desire. A nymph from some Greek tragedy he hadn’t tamed; rather merely a disciple come to worship at her altar. “Such a good girl. Already so wet for me.”

Her fingers tangled harshly in his hair hips bucking as Sebastian at last ended her torment. Licking a broad stripe with the flat of his tongue across her weeping entrance. Her head fell back in a broken whine finally relieving her from her torture. Sebastian released a groan of his own against her folds, lapping more needly at the growing slick. Savouring every drop she offered him. A man lost in a desert and her his bountiful oasis.

He knew her body better than he knew his own. Chasing her keening mewls a wordless plea for more, pleasure only he could offer her as he flicked and curled his tongue against the hooded bundle of nerves. Releasing his grip on her hip to slide his fingers into her tight heat. Savouring how her fluttering walls gripped him as he worked her open with every pump and curl of his fingers.

Her back arched, legs shaking the cool satin sheets scrunched in her fists as she writhed in ecstasy. Clinging desperately to them a last bastion of as she teetered on the edge of oblivion.

He chanced a glance up at her, mouth still servicing her fervently. Their eyes locked her voice caught on a silent plea for release. Sebastian sucked. Devouring her quivering clit and she broke.

Screaming curses and praise to forgotten deities her body jerking to grind frantically against his tongue. Sebastian’s hips rutted forward into nothingness as her body clenching around his fingers as he brought her to climax. His own need growing almost unbearable as he felt her dissolved into pleasure needing to feel that pulsing release around his cock not just his fingers.

His patience was now paper thin, he needed to be inside of her and from the way her fingers tugged at his chestnut hair impatiently as her orgasm ebbed - she seemed to agree.

Bed springs creaked as he crawled onto the bed beside her. He slid his hands along the dip of her waist gripping her soft flesh to flip her onto her stomach.

She peering back at him from over her shoulder. Her lips were swollen, her hair in a wild tangle but her eyes burning into him as if she could set him alight - daring him to take her as she arched her hips up and back towards Sebastian.

Gripping her side he bared down on her. Large body resting heavily against her back she curled up into him sighing contentedly at the feeling of his weight resting against her.

How many wizards had coveted her affection since their school days? Cursed the very ground Sebastian walked on because since the day she’d become his. His cock achingly hard grinding against her arse at the mere thought of her wearing the reminder to them all exactly who she belonged to under her dress.

He scrambled with the buttons on his breeches before pulling them off entirely cock springing free arching proudly and achingly hard. Slit glistening in anticipation that coil inside of him already tightly wound at the mere thought of filling her.

"Going to fuck even more of my kids into you," he purred low in her ear as he settled himself between her legs dragging the head of his cock through her spit-slicked folds. Their nerves practically vibrating with carnal anticipation.

She cried out, broken and rasping as Sebastian finally pressed into her with a strong deliberate thrust. Stretching her open inch by inch groaning low, his head falling against her back when he buried himself inside her to the hilt. The sheen of sweat coating her back salty on his tongue as he mouthed brainlessly at her bare flesh.

“Fuck,” she hissed as Sebastian began to cant his hips in deep maddening strokes. He hadn't expected such a lustful fog to overcome him. Like some primitive part of his brain had overcome him and now he was entirely consumed with the thought of her. Filling her with seed.

His eyes flicked up catching their reflection in the mirror. Sebastian groaned her name as he watched himself pounding into her relentlessly. Tiny body nestled under his own her spine curved in pleasure but her face was buried in the sheets. Stifling the delicious sounds of ecstasy she only made for him into the mattress.

Sebastian grunted in annoyance. Snapping his hips harder she only seemed to bit down harder on the sheets.

He didn’t just want her to feel him filling her with life; he wanted her to bear witness to it.

Tucking his arm around her waist he hauled her up flush against his body. Her yelp of surprise dissolving into a moan as the new angle had her sinking deeper onto his cock. Her back pressed against his chest she rolled her hips, eyelashes fluttering as his crown teased against her sweet spot. Sebastian curled a possessive hand around her throat to keep her upright. The other kneaded her breast, rolling the pert peak between his fingertips.

Despite the utterly filthy position in which he took her. Sebastian’s hands were gentle, large arms cradling her body. He whispered sweet reverent praise and encouragement into her ear with every roll of her as she sought her pleasure.

“Look at you,” he whispered. Pressing a kiss to her temple coaxing her to look and witness how fucking perfect she was. Her eyes cracked open, gaze settling on the mirror in the corner of the room. Sebastian's reflection grinned at her. She blushed deeply at the sight but she made no move to cover herself. Eyes devouring the sight of her bare, legs spread wide and impaled on Sebastian's cock.

“Fucking look at you.” He punctuated the statement with a sharp buck of his hips into her cunt.

She whined desperately with every deep maddening thrust. She leaned back further into his embrace, head tipped back in a wanton moan but she didn't tear her eyes away. As if wishing to burn this moment into her mind. Cunt fluttering greedily around his cock, coaxing more slick onto his shaft.

“Fuck- you're taking me so well. Do you- fuck. Feel how deep I am inside you?” Sebastian groaned at the slight swell of her stomach. He released her breast hand ghosting down the planes of her stomach. “I can feel you clenching around me - fuck . Feel where I'm going to fill you. Where you'll grow our child.”

He barely recognised the cadence of his voice, low gravelly more akin to a growl than anything human. He pressed a little harder onto her stomach. Feeling the head of his cock against his palm, he groaned. Forehead fell against the crook of her neck pumping into his palm as he ground into her with deep thrusts. Gently teasing his thumb over the blunt head through her soft stomach.

She whined readily, shivering with pleasure sinking deeper onto his cock with every needy roll of her hips. Blood pounding in his ears Sebastian could feel the pressure mounting. He released his hold on her throat, taking hold of her hips so hard he knew even if his seed did not take her skin would still wear the marks for days.

Leaning back so she could rest against him, his toes curling in the sheets as he found purchase to thrust into her frantic. Her arm wrapped around his neck keening and whimpering with every strong thrust.

“Please Seb- fuck. I need,” she rasped. Too deliriously close to the edge to tell him what she needed. What they both craved so desperately.

“Tell me what you want, darling,” he grunted. Peppering kisses behind her ear, along the curve of her jaw. “Do you want me to come deep inside you? Breed you? Make you mine again?”

“Yes. Gods. Yes!”

“Tell- tell me,” he grunted. Clutching her hips to pound up into her brutally. The coil inside of him tightened, feeling his release rushing in. Visions narrowing and cock twitching eagerly. “Tell me how much you want it.”

“I-I want your seed. Your baby. You. Please, Seb- fuck,” she cried out.

Deft fingers found her clit. Still so sensitive from how he’d already made her quake. Sebastian circled the swollen nub and her head tipped back in a husky moan. Grinding her hips against him, Glistening with a thin sheen of sweat everywhere their bodies were intertwined.

“You're going to look so perfect. So bloody beautiful carrying our child. My child.”

She gasped as that familiar feeling pooled in her core. “Fuck- Seb please. I'm close.”

“Fuck I can feel you. So tight - around my cock. Let go for me, my love. And I will ah - for you,” Sebastian groaned into the shell of her ear.

Despite his vision blurring as Sebastian teetered so close to the edge of nirvana, he couldn't tear his eyes from their reflection. He doubted there was a more mesmerising and all-consuming sight than watching her come completely undone. Head tipped back all words stolen by how expertly he fucked her so a tune to her body. Beads of sweat clung to every curve and dip on her.

Shimmering. Beautiful. His .

Teasing faster circles over her still-swollen clit. Bucking into her hard and faster. Biting down on his lip so hard he tasted the metallic tang of blood on his tongue as he desperately held back his release. A final uneven snap of his hips burying his cock deep inside her climax broke.

She cried out suddenly; a clap of thunder announcing a storm. Like the heavens split apart and she submitted to drown in the waves of her pleasure. Nails clawing against his shoulder. Cunt tightened and spasmed as she sucked him in impossibly deeper as Sebastian followed her. Pulling her hips down as her came hard.

Her name and filthy praise erupted from his lips in a sound he could only liken to a primal whine. Spilling his seed hot and purposeful into the deepest part of her channel. Grinding against her arse, Sebastian milked every last drop from his pulsing cock.

Willing it to take root.

Her body slumped against him boneless but every nerve alight and still shivering from the last throws of pleasure as her orgasm ebbed. Rasping in broken pants as she tried to recapture her stolen breath.

He kissed her cheek, tender, lovingly and with as much gentleness as Sebastian could muster with how he practically rattled with how hard his heart was hammering against his ribs; he shifted strong arms guiding her onto her side. Cock still sheathed inside of her. Unwilling to remove himself from her his mind still overcome and entirely consumed with the need to fill her with life.

Sebastian pushed his release deeper inside her with shallow thrusts. She whimpered hips bucking away from the overstimulation of the motion. He peppered soft apologetic kisses across the small bruises beginning to bloom around her throat wrapping his arms around her and cradling her body to him tighter. But Sebastian held firm. Hand pressing against her stomach a silent prayer. Willing his seed to take.

"I love you. You're going to look so beautiful. Full of my baby," he cooed, with a languid roll of his hips. Tucking her a sweaty lock of tangled hair behind her ear. She sighed, angling her face to meet his gaze. Dishevelled. Swollen lipped. Beautiful. Her soft crooked and familiar yet it still takes his breath away.

He'd once thought the greatest thing he could do was burn the world for her. But now he knew - It was to build one.

A life. A legacy. One that they forged and fought for together. Everything, as long as it was with her.

Despite his efforts to keep her full of him, he could already feel it leaking out around his shaft, hot and slick, coating her thighs. The crown of his cock dragged over her sweet spot before pushing his further in. “In fact - why stop at one this time? Twins do run in my family.”

“I don't think that's how it works-” she stuttered. But her core clenched greedily around his cock. Still stiff and firmly inside of her, it twitched with approval.

“Care to test the theory?”

#i headcannon dadbod seb so hard #daddy!seb #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x f!mc #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sebastian sallow fanfiction #sebastian x mc #sebastian sallow fanfic #sebastian sallow smut #slytherizz fic

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picknnix · 4 months ago

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Nix Sittin'

Time Taken: 15mins

Been fairly empty on the motivation/inspiration side and I'm a tad worried I won't get any big piece out this month. Just in case, I'll share this emoji made! I plan to turn it into a spinning gif but I'll see how hard that is.

#Nix's Art #Nix Feathers #avians #wings

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ranticore · 9 months ago

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selected pages from Shapeshifter Problems, a small exploration of old old concept art & thoughts on shapeshifter tropes (specifically the question of the 'true form') i posted to patreon earlier this year. there's a bunch more haha. here's some OLD art and bg process for writing said the black horse. I don't like my old art but looking back at it I'm really happy how I've developed since, I used to make everything too sharp, straight-sided, or skinny. I had to make a conscious effort to change that and now it's so much better.

image transcriptions under the cut (just the text sorry)

Image 1: "These are more of those older designs - the horns were a deliberate play into devil imagery on Puck's part while giving Félix this form (all to cause more torment of course) but again I couldn't vibe with it. Such clear statements of intent didn't work for me.

The scars remain canon but not quite so stark, more a difference in texture (again, moving away from visual details). His forehead scar is ALWAYS there."

Image 2: "Félix. These are really old - from 2019-2020. They're the first attempts at Félix's horse form. At the time I was leaning into some goat-like attributes. I liked the idea of something that looked like an emaciated amalgam of many familiar creatures but if you look closer, it actually doesn't look like any animal at all. The original body shape and proportions were inspired by moose. I didn't know how to draw convincing horse shapes which is why he had these hands and claws for so long. I still draw the little flower wheel pattern on his sides sometimes... a secret just for me. His belly fur, squared off ear shape, and beard are still defining characteristics"

Image 3: "More old art from 2020. Bottom left is my first ever painting on my iPad using Procreate. I still prefer SAI for creature drawings, or at least the original sketches underpinning a lot of my art. Below on the bottom was my attempt at a scarier form for the character but I ultimately decided that it ran contrary to the atmosphere I was trying to create. Top left is my first 'real' horse painting and it includes the tail shape which has not ever changed, and feathers, which I nixed because I wanted to learn how to draw the feet and legs properly and not rely on covering them up with flowing hair (my favourite thing to draw)"

Image 4: "Like the black horse designs, these humanoid designs for Félix (circa 2019 - OLD art!) started very complex and simplified over time. I decided to avoid visual complexity, but made the mistake of solidifying specific 'rules' for how the Púca servants' bodies work, and I deeply regret this. Because I wrote Said the Black Horse in 2021, I was still operating under the old mindset and that caused it to become somewhat established canon.

In his original iteration his tattoos represented magical contracts between him and various faeries, so they were supposed to be always visible as a reminder of that contract.

<- a really early furry version, I was playing with the eye on the neck as a design feature. Ultimately I feel that although it looks cool, the medium he exists in is proser. So I needed to move away from visually complex designs and towards designs which were interesting to different senses instead."

Image 5: "As time went on the design simplified. I enjoyed making fun textures using procreate brushes. These designs lack his forehead scar but do include his impalement scar. If you've seen my Hanged Man card you'll know how he got that one. But when I made the charts like this about how his body 'worked' in 2020, again I ran into the same issue I always do when writing about faeries... the more I explain it, the most 'logic' and 'science' goes into it, the less it feels like a faery story to me. Overexplaining is anathema to the faeries of Inver. so even though I like these design notes they just don't fit in this setting."

#setting: inver #mvf

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paceprompting · 4 months ago

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paper faces on parade

written for ‘"masquerade" (amnesty period) and "party" for my bingo square | wc: 441 | merlin x arthur pendragon | rated: g | cw: non archive warnings apply | tags: established relationship, court sorcerer merlin, protective arthur, arthur loses merlin at a party and definitely does not lose his shit

@merlinmicrofic @merlinbingo

Arthur couldn’t find Merlin.

Not that strange—there were quite a few people in the throne room for the celebration of Wessex and Camelot’s peace accord and the following three days and nights of banquets and parties.

But it was not his throne room and not his castle, and he’d prefer if Merlin stayed at his side.

He does happen to be Arthur’s Court Sorcerer, as much as he despises the formality and the fancier clothing. He no longer has the position to go off galivanting through the halls, finding trouble.

They should not have agreed to stay this last night and leave in the morning.

Arthur’s never even liked masquerades.

The masks are confoundingly irritating, and no respectable knight could bear to stand in a room with no many people they couldn’t identify at a glance. Not that he had his sword, either.

Since they were at peace, and all that.

Merlin had found the idea great fun, however. After years of standing against the wall or serving Arthur at the head table had meant he had only ever witnessed these kinds of parties—never participated.

All Arthur had asked was that he stay in sight.

He gets distracted by one congratulatory handshake from one of King Elra’s council men, and then he’s without Merlin’s company at his side in this ridiculous crowd.

Finding a simple blue mask amongst all the ones bedecked with feathers and gems and ribbons was proving quite impossible. Arthur knew he should have made Merlin wear some sort of large hat with it, but old animosity regarding a certain feathered cap had nixed that immediately.

After this, he was going to try very hard to convince Merlin to leave at once. He did not want to dance, or be merry, or do anything but recover from two hard-fought days of negotiations and then lingering fear through the next three days that it would all fall to pieces if he relaxed.

There hadn’t been much time for time with Merlin through all of it. Sure, he was part of Arthur’s council—but that wasn’t the main reason he’d brought him along.

So, maybe one dance. If Merlin really wanted to.

Arthur slid past a group of courtiers, making his way toward the entry of the grand hall. He was sweating under his mask—a red thing with gold thread—and desperately wanted to take it off. He could hardly see through the tiny eye slits, anyway.

A hand grabbed onto his forearm, and Arthur whirled to face the owner.

Two eyes, swirling with gold, stared at him through a blue mask.

“Found you,” Merlin said, his lips curving into a smile.

#merthur #arthur x merlin #bbc merlin #merlin micro fic #merlin fic #court sorcerer merlin #protective arthur

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shadowsndaisies · 11 months ago

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the hard deck: too observant to play dumb (pt 1)

wc: 1.7 k

synopsis: how the arrival at the hard deck went

main masterlist

athena-verse master post

a/n: hey yall! so fun fact it has been 8 years since I started this blog, and as a little thank you, I have a 3 part update to the athena-verse, the whole thing comprises the hard deck scene from the beginning of the movie and will end basically where athena settles debts starts. as always I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you want to be added to the tags!

You'd been standing with Jake and Javi when Nat finally walked in.

"Athena! I've been looking for you!" she shouts, pulling your attention away from the pool table you'd just set up with Javi.

"Oh shit, sorry 'Nix," you offer a half smile.

"Answer your god damn for when I call you," she groans, pointing menacingly at you.

"Yes, Ma'am," you mock salute before noticing the two men behind her. "Looks like you made new friends just fine though," you offer jokingly.

"Payback, Fanboy. Meet Athena, smoothest flier you'll ever see," Phoenix introduces, and you smile warmly at your friend before offering your hand to the two behind her.

"Nice to meet you fellas," you greet.

"High praise coming from Phoenix," Fanboy notes, shaking your head.

"Highest of the high, actually," Payback adds on.

"Yeah, well, there's almost no one I'd rather have on my wing than 'Nix," you compliment back. You were going to ask how they knew your friend, but someone else interrupted you before you could.

"Yo, are we playing or what?" you roll your eyes as you turn back to where Jake and Javi are standing and gesture to the three in front of you; you realize Jake is hunched over the table, lining up his next shot.

"I'm playing nice, Seresin. You should try it," you prod, and Javi manages a slight smirk at Jake.

Jake looks up and makes eye contact with you while landing a ball in a corner pocket, and you can't help but roll your eyes again, cocky bastard. When he straightens, he finally notices what has caught your attention. "Well, what do we have here? If it ain't Phoenix, and she found new friends," he smirks, walking around the table in your direction. "And here I thought we were special Coyote. Turns out the invite went out to anybody."

It's almost like a switch is flipped, you realize, watching as Jake now interacts with others. Cocky attitude inflating his ego in a way that was so Hangman but not necessarily Jake. Nat didn't believe you when you tried to explain that you saw past it, and that's why you were friends. She was confident in her reading, which fair, especially when he acted like this.

"Fellas this here is Bagman," she introduces, and you can already tell it's going to be a long detachment spent between your two friends, especially since they hate each other.

"Hangman," he corrects, tone slightly barbed.

"Whatever," Phoenix makes a face at him and rolls her eyes when she looks at you as if to say, C'mon Athena, don't you see what I'm talking about? "You're looking at the only naval aviator on active duty with a confirmed air-to-air kill," she adds on, turning back to Jake.

Your eyes narrow at the compliment-like a statement; however, you don't trust it for a second.

Hangman smiles, "Stop," he muses as he settles down beside you, bumping your shoulder with his as he does, full of pride like a peacock strutting his feathers.

"Mind you, the other guy was in a museum piece from the Korean War," she clarifies, and you nod; you felt this was where she was taking it.

"Cold War," Coyote corrects, always one to back up his friends.

"Different wars, same century," Payback interjects.

"Not this one," Fanboy tacks on.

"Who're your friends?" Coyote asks, eyes dancing over the two on either side of Phoenix.

"Payback."

"Fanboy."

Both aviators introduce themselves with a simple nod, and you can't hide your smile of amusement. The testosterone was off the charts, and Nat was leading the bunch.

"Hey Coyote," she greets, eyes darting to Javi, and you fight the smirk at the look in her eye.

"Hey," he greets, dragging out the 'ey' a bit, and your eyes dart over to Jake just to find a knowing look already focused on you.

"Who's he?" Nat asks, nodding to the side.

"Who's who?" Coyote's brows had furrowed down, and then Nat turned to look at the quiet Aviator in glasses who'd been munching on peanuts while you played pool.

"When did you get in?" Coyote's voice floats over from behind you as you take a moment to observe your silent comrade.

"Oh, oh I've been here the whole time," he admits, and your brow quirks, and quickly you turn to look over at Jake.

"Man's a stealth pilot," you muse gently, and even Nat cracks a smile.

"Literally," Coyote nods.

"Weapons systems officer, actually," he corrects, and your lips twitch; he's adorable, you decide immediately.

"With no sense of humor," Jake huffs out.

You elbow him, and he gasps before standing and handing off the pool cue to Nat.

"What do they call you?" you ask, voice sweet.

"Bob," he answers, offering a hesitant smile in response to your wide one.

"No, your call sign," Payback clarifies.

He seems to hesitate, "uh.." he trails for a second, and you can read the nervous energy easily. "Bob," he repeats, and you frown a bit at the cautious undertones of his voice.

"Bob Floyd?" Nat asks. "You're my new backseater? From Leemore?" her tone had turned a bit incredulous. The smothered chortles from Payback and Fanboy were not nearly as covert as they seemed to think it was, based on the glares Nat was sending them.

"Looks like it, yeah," Bob confirms, and that nervous undertone is still there.

Nat pauses and looks at you. You tilt your head knowingly, and she nods, turning to the back seater.

"Nine ball, Bob. Rack 'em."

"Uh.. kay, yeah," he nods, standing and taking the pool cue outstretched in Natasha's hand.

You pat your friend's shoulder knowingly before turning to look for Jake. You spot him at the bar and start walking that way. You pause, though, when you see him talking to Penny, and then you realize who was on the other side of her and, most likely, who had just caused the bell to ring. Leave it to your dad to piss off the woman who loved him through his worst and best without even trying.

You're so focused on watching the interaction at the bar you miss it when he walks in.

"Bradshaw! That you?" Nat's voice rings out over the noise of the bar. It's only now starting to get busy, and you can't help the way your head snaps over to him.

You'd knew he'd be here. He said as much in his email, but being confronted by him and the past you avoided was something you decided then and there that you weren't ready for.

You're stuck, frozen, watching him interact with Phoenix.

"This is how I find out you're stateside?" she asks before lining up to take her next shot.

"Yeah I thought I'd surprise you," he responds with an easy camaraderie that you hadn't realized existed with the woman you considered to be one of your closest friends these days.

He's looking around the bar, not having spotted you yet, when Nat lets out a hum, taking her shot. Obviously, she lands another in the pocket; this was Phoenix we're talking about. She manages to hit Bradley in the gut with the end of the pool cue, forcing him to keel over a bit.

A petty and vindictive piece of you takes pleasure in that. But another piece, a little girl, she aches for the easygoing relationship and the best friend she once had.

"Guess I surprised you back," she smirks, facing Bradley.

He nods at her, "it's good to see you," he manages to huff out, slowly standing back up.

"It's good to see you too," she smiles, and he lays a gentle hand on her shoulder, and you have to turn back around.

You're counting your breaths again, focusing on what you can see, touch, hear, taste, and smell. You realize too late that Jake's analyzing you. He'd seen how you stiffened up and focused on the interaction, and he saw how you forced yourself to turn around, away from Bradley.

He grabs the beers Penny offers him and a glass of something else, says something to Penny, you think, and then turns back, walking toward you. He places the glass in your hand with a whispered "G&T."

"Thanks," you manage to spit out.

"Where's your head?" he asks, voice still low, and you know that right now, no one is paying attention to the two of you.

"A little too far off the ground," you admit; it wasn't worth the effort to lie to Jake; generally, he saw through it anyway.

You notice how his eyes dart past you, looking at Brad and Nat, but he doesn't ask you about it. Instead, he asks, "What do you need?"

"Time machine?" you ask, eyes finally meeting his straight on instead of jumping around like they had been. He was good at that, asking the right questions; probably a perk of learning how to piss everyone off is also knowing when to pull back.

"Fresh out, I'm afraid," the drawl in his Texan accent always appeared early in the morning and late at night, but also when he drank. Your favorite appearance was in the whispers when he talked low, and it just tended to bleed into every word; it made you think of Jake the football star, Jake the kid who grew up on a ranch, a version of the man before you, you never got to meet.

"Then I guess I'll have to just… manage," you muse sourly.

"You always tend to do better than just manage, 'Thena," he reminds you.

"I don't know about that, at least not this time," you admit.

"This got something to do with Bradshaw?"

"You're too observant to play dumb," is how you answer.

"What, is this a kiss and not tell situation?" There's a cloud in the green of Jake's eyes as he asks, and you're tempted to answer, but quite honestly, you weren't sure if there was a statute of limitations on don't kiss and tell, and you're not sure if your first kiss when you were 13 counts.

"No, it's a different kind of history," is what you actually say. "I'll be okay, you go on though, I just need a minute," you urge.

Jake hesitates, not at all sold on what you'd said, but slowly, he takes a step forward and then another until he's approaching the pool table again.

...

everything: @butterfly-skinnylegend

athena’s tags: @omgbrianab @smoothdogsgirl @bazellawriz @sbrewer21 @inky-sun @djs8891 @rory-cakes

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columbapalumbus · 2 years ago

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The Feather Folder!

#Nix's Feathers

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godzexperiment · 2 years ago

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last night's nix: i get bitten, i bite back (no thoughts behind his eyes) tonight's nix: fuck it! i could become roomies with an lower angel, we'd get along great it'd only be slightly hazardous to my health but that's no biggie (moody, many thoughts)

#<<insomniac vampire speaking>> mun post #(feathered dumbass -affectionate-)#(this is why im not an cool kid lmao)#(cuz nix's feral and not socialized behaviors are really quite something xD)

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 3 months ago

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Charles, Monty, and Edwin (Death Anniversary)

“Monty,” the one whose lap he is curled up in says, “Your memories might be a bit…off. It happens to everyone on their death days. The pain leeches away that which makes us human. People often “go poltergeist,” as they say, on their death days as a result. Because they cannot handle the pain, and their lack of memory gives them no anchor to the living world.”

Monty distantly remembers a case. A case, where a house was ripped apart by a poltergeist, the stairs rent from their moorings, the curtains and the furniture shredded, enough damage for even living without the ability to see ghosts to be able to bear witness to. He remembers- but how can he remember, he’s a crow, not a boy, belonging to no one save his creator- his boots crunching on the wreckage as they walk through, the way that the air had felt haunted, heavy even to a dead boy passing through.

But he’s not dead, is he? He’s not dead. He’s been killed so many times before, his body recycled, his feathers ripped from his body, his hollow bones regrown, but he’s never died. He’s always come back-

Monty blinks as the boy with the backpack pulls a towel out of his bag. “I don’t know if you remember me,” the boy says, “But I’m Charles, and this is Edwin, and we both care about you, mate. Loads. So let us take care of you, okay?”

Monty could squawk. He could flap his wings and lash out and try to escape, but he doesn’t. The hand against his feathers is gentle, tender, not the sort of grasp that would rip and tear from him. The towel is soft and damp but not soaking as it carefully pats down his feathers, wicking the blood off of them.

Monty shivers. He is so small and his bones are so fragile and they are so strong and yet-

And yet, he leans into the touch.

-aletterinthenameofsanity, take this burden away from me (bury it before it buries me)

@pappelsiin @itsbitmxdinhere @rexrevri @sweet-like-h0ney-lavender @saffirez

@the-ipre @sunnylemonss @days-light @agentearthling @helltechnicality

@sethlost @catboy-cabin @secretlyafiveheadeddragon @vyther15

@anything-thats-rock-and-roll @queen-of-hobgobblers @every-moment-a-different-sound

@nix-nihili @mellxncollie @tumblerislovetumblerislife @lemurafraidofthunder

@likemmmcookies @wr0temyway0ut @thelakeswillbreakourfall

@sapphic-corgi @occasionaloneshots @troublegoblin

@cairngorm-ard @petesdragon @spacegirlsgang

@fandoms-are-my-lifestyle @frottow @sixbynine-da

@packleaderbriggan @artemisadore

#hell au #episode 7 au #ghostcrow #montwin #payneland #fanfic #dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #monty the crow #monty finch #my fics #aletterinthenameofsanity #ao3 #my edits #moodboard #edwin x charles x monty #cricketcrow #god it was nice to get back to these guys

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benrey-the-late-ace · 3 months ago

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I’ve spent literal months fighting this drawing, to keep it in the amine’s art style to work with the golden feathers, to get the crown, just right! I’m so proud of it, and I refuse to fight the background too, so. Here you go, Lord Apostle Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix, from Undead Ebrace - Jircniv ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/48506629?view_full_work=true )

#Overlord #jircniv #Golden emperor #Gold wings #wolfoxymy #eon #Artwork #digital

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rosanna-writer · 6 months ago

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you're in the kitchen humming

Summary: When Elain’s visions throw a wrench in her plans for Solstice dinner, Azriel comes to the rescue. Pairing: Elriel Warnings: None Word count: ~1.2k

A fluffy Elriel oneshot for my bonus giftee, @duskandcobalt!!!!!! I was so excited to get a chance to write for you, too!

Again, a huge thank you to the @acotargiftexchange organizers for all their hard work putting together this event, and Happy Holidays everyone! <3

Read on AO3 or under the cut.

Elain groaned aloud the moment she woke to too-bright sunlight. Today, of all days, she didn't have the time to oversleep. But the sun was already high in the sky as she reluctantly slid back her duvet.

There would be precious little daylight today—the Winter Solstice. Her sister's birthday. At this rate, she'd be putting the finishing touches on dinner with only faelights to see by.

Elain had wanted to make fresh bread, and the dough would take a few hours to rise. Plus, she needed the oven for Feyre's birthday cake, as well as the time to decorate it, and the bottom rack wouldn't fit all three side dishes she'd put on the menu, so that would require several timers running at once to stagger the cooking times.

Nuala and Cerridwen had even offered to help. But when Elain had written out a schedule to keep her Solstice cooking on track, she'd been so sure she could manage it all herself. Her friends worked hard enough the rest of the year—she'd waved them off and told them to enjoy the holiday with their families.

Maybe she hadn't pulled her weight all those years in the cabin, but Elain would never let that happen again.

She hadn't, however, accounted for a night of fitful sleep interrupted by strange visions of the future. The same onyx box, Vassa's screaming, burning feathers. Nothing she hadn't seen before, but lately, the Mother or the Cauldron or fate seemed to be sending them more frequently. Elain had tossed and turned for hours until the sense of dread finally abated enough for her to drift off. Visions always exhausted her, and she'd slept in without meaning to.

Even an immortal wasn't getting any younger, though. Elain sighed and forced herself out of bed.

She dressed hurriedly, digging out an old dress she wouldn't mind getting covered in flour. As she ran a brush through her hair and tied it back, she considered what items from her elaborate, complicated menu she could skip.

If she started this late, the fresh bread wouldn't be ready until nearly midnight. But there would still be time for the cake, and if she hurried, she wouldn't have to simplify the intricate fondant paintbrush she'd had planned for months as a surprise for Feyre. And maybe they'd be alright if she nixed the side of brussel sprouts and only served the green beans for a vegetable…

The sound of activity in the kitchen didn't register with Elain as she rushed down the stairs, even if it should have. Since Nyx's birth, she'd been living in the townhouse alone, enjoying the peace of a house to herself for the first time in her life. The lack of silence should have sent alarm bells ringing in her head.

But maybe it was impossible to panic when she could also hear the peaceful sound of someone contentedly humming to themselves. She paid it no mind until she skidded to a stop in the doorway and took in the sight before her.

One tendril of shadow curled around a wooden spoon and stirred batter, while another held a different bowl steady and a third cradled a potato that a fourth grated into slivers. Another one—Mother above, was it even wearing a chef's hat?—carefully separated the yolk from an egg white.

Elain was so shocked by all of it that she barely even noticed Azriel washing his hands at the sink. Ridiculous of her really, when his massive wingspan took up half the kitchen.

"What is all this?" Elain breathed.

Azriel turned, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. "I got started on cooking so you could sleep a bit longer. It seemed like you needed it."

Elain blinked and decided not to question exactly how he knew how fitfully she'd passed the night. Azriel, after all, always knew things he wasn't supposed to. It was his job.

While she continued to stare at the frenzied activity before her, Elain shook her head as if to clear it. The whole thing was surreal, even stranger than the harbingers of doom that had kept her up half the night.

"Have— Have the shadows always been able to cook?" The more she thought about it, the more that bit confused her. Azriel's pantry—bare save a few sticks of unseasoned jerky and half a head of cabbage—was a thing of horror, and even in Velaris, he ate those packaged Illyrian field rations when left to his own devices.

Azriel unsheathed Truth-Teller and got to work chopping a bundle of carrots. "They learned for an undercover mission in an upscale restaurant a few centuries back."

Elain let out an exasperated little laugh. But there was still plenty left to do before they joined the rest of their family at the River House, so she rolled up her sleeves and reached for the checklist she'd made a few days before, slipping it into the front of the binder where she kept her recipes. Several items were already crossed off in cobalt blue ink.

"What do you think you're doing?" Azriel's voice went midnight-dark, sending a shiver down Elain's spine and her toes curling in her slippers.

"You've done so much already, but I can finish the rest. Thank you," she said.

Scarred hands curled around her waist, lifting her up and placing her on an empty stretch of countertop as if she weighed next to nothing. "I know you can, angel. But you deserve to enjoy the holiday without running yourself ragged before dinner."

Elain nodded, her throat suddenly tight. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that she didn't need to make up for all those years in the cabin. Feyre and Nesta cared more about spending the solstice together than having a table full of intricate dishes and elaborate desserts.

At least for now, they all had the peace they'd fought for. Maybe one of these days she'd stop being so terrified of squandering it.

Azriel made to turn back to the stove, but she reached up and tugged his face down to hers. She pressed a kiss to his lips, then another one to the tip of his nose for good measure. When Az pulled away, his eyes had that soft look he only reserved for her.

"Happy Solstice," Elain said with a smile.

"Happy Solstice," Azriel murmured back. He returned to chopping the carrots, and a shadow handed her a warm mug of tea from the kettle she hadn't noticed on the stove. "It's your kitchen, so give me all the orders you think are necessary. But don't you dare lift a finger until we're ready ready to leave for the River House."

Elain took a sip of the tea—a bit stronger than usual to help her wake up and with just the right amount of milk and sugar. "Alright," she said, feeling a bit better.

Just for a moment, Azriel's lips quirked upward into something close to a smile. He dumped the carrots into a pot on the stove, then turned up the heat on the burner. There was still an onion to chop and mix in with the grated potatoes, but he paused just for a moment and kissed Elain's cheek.

"Be a good girl for me, and I'll give you your present early," he said, and her answering giggle was music to his ears.

#acotargiftexchange #elriel #elain archeron

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illumiera · 4 months ago

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tagged by @lathez, @sulphuricgrin, @kiir-do-faal-rahhe, @theoneandonlysemla, and @umbracirrus—thank you! 💖

tagging: @pinessydr, @madam-whim, @bostoniangirl21, and @bougainvillea-and-saltwater!

[This week Sujamma has been brushing up on his literacy. It's hard being a humble Nix-Hound. Reading doesn't come naturally to him, but he's doing his best! This week Sujamma is hoping you will help him learn to read!

Post a favorite scene, favorite sentence, favorite dialogue, favorite anything from any fic you've written! If you haven't written any fic, feel free to share your ideas. If you don't have any, recommend a friend's fic!]

i'm more than happy to help out our beloved sujamma, so below is what might be one of my favourite scenes i've written so far! this is an excerpt from chapter two of i fear no fate (for you are my fate), in which elentari and miraak meet in yet another dream. here, he learns the real reason why she hasn't returned to apocrypha for their great battle: because she knows that for herma-mora to grant her the last word of bend will, storn crag-strider of the skaal will have to give up his life... but miraak has a solution for that. for purely pragmatic purposes, of course! 👀

“You defy your birthright to preserve Paarthurnax. Now you stall just to keep one man alive.” Miraak’s voice seizes her attention; his masked gaze is locked on her as if to decode her. “Why?”

“I don’t… I don’t want more death on my hands,” she tells him, and she doesn’t let herself think of Mother and Father and Nienna and how she could have saved them if she hadn’t been so weak, she doesn’t, she doesn’t. “Not if I can help it, and not when I’d be going into this knowing that I’d be—” Leading an innocent man to such a terrible end, she means to say, but there’s a lump in her throat and she can’t trust the words to come out the way they should. Dragging in a fortifying breath, she forces all feeling from her expression and finishes, “Doom this man and offer up the Skaal on a silver platter, or do nothing to break your control over the Tree Stone, sit by as the people there toil their lives away for you, and prove myself unworthy of the name Ysmir. It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he agrees matter-of-factly. “Unless I were to teach you the final Word.”

A too-eager “You would?” tumbles from her lips before she can rein herself in, and then she frowns. “But why teach me a Shout that could so easily be used against you?”

“You would not try to command me,” is his immediate response, and he—known and unknown, stranger-who-is-not-a-stranger—sounds so very sure of her and who she is that she once again feels helplessly, inescapably looked-into. “Besides, it is in my best interest to do so, is it not? You are crucial to my escape, but there is little I can do if you insist upon straying so far from me.”

She’s tempted. Here, it seems, is a solution that means nobody will be hurt who does not already deserve it, not until she returns to Apocrypha and faces the inevitable—but if Elentari has learned anything from folktales and fairy-stories, it’s that no offer made in the middle of the night ever comes without a price. “What do you want in exchange?”

“You know what I want, rinisili,” Miraak replies almost gently. “Come. This will be easier for us both if I can touch you. To share.”

Touch her? Her heart swoops in her chest like a fledgling testing its downy-feathered wings; she thinks again of when he’d pressed into it on Solstheim, and how the dragon in her had railed against its cage of ribs in time with the hammering of her pulse. Mara preserve her, she’s too curious to resist, but Miraak does nothing, just waits for her to make the first move. She sets her jaw, shoves aside all fears of being out of her depth and all worries of there being an entire ritual to what he’s proposing that she’s never been taught, lifts her left hand, and holds it palm out so that he may do with it as he must.

Slowly, deliberately, he reaches for the cuff of his right glove and slides it off. As he exposes first a stretch of strong forearm dusted with silvery scars and fine golden hair—and that in itself is a revelation, that her counterpart is, or was, a blond—then a flash of wrist, then at last, at last his whole hand, Elentari sees that although he is a man after all, not some draugr-like creature as Lucien had suggested, he’s been… changed.

His skin is pale, lighter even than hers, which burns in summer without a protective salve and flushes pink to the ears in the cold, but at his knuckles, ghost-white bleeds into stained flesh. It appears pure black at first, but the longer she looks, the more colours she can make out, as though he has dipped his fingers into a calligrapher’s inkpots over and over again: charcoal, jewel-deep green, purple as rich as jazbay wine, the indigo that fills the sky in the quiet before dawn. Tipping them are nails like claws in those same oil-spill shades, and though they’re sharp enough to slice her, she knows without needing to be told that he would not. And his stare—it’s so weighty that it could almost be another presence wedged between them. His eyes are fixed on her and not his own gradual uncovering, watching to see if she’ll skitter back in revulsion or if she’ll rise to the challenge he’s wordlessly set for her.

Elentari stays perfectly still.

She’s afraid, but not of him and the marks Apocrypha has left on him.

She’s afraid of what she might feel when she lets his bare skin touch her own, because something tells her that it will alter her in a way she cannot take back.

Her gaze flicks up to his, challenging him in return. Well?

Miraak raises his hand and reaches out for hers, but allows her one last chance to back down, leaving an inch-wide gap between them that she must bridge herself. It’s funny, but since he’s such a broad-shouldered giant of a man, she’d expected him to have a swordsman’s hands, all rough and blunt, but aside from a few calluses, they’re almost a musician’s or a scholar’s, slim-fingered and… soft, she thinks as their palms meet. So soft, and so warm, and—

—and so right. In that moment, Elentari forgets how to form words, or even how to think. Her whole being—every sensation and every heartbeat and every bit of air in her lungs—narrows down to that point of contact, and when his frame rocks with a fierce shudder, she feels it as if it’s in her own bones. It’s like releasing a breath, like an onrush of clarity that shifts the world from greyscale to glorious technicolour, like she could sprout a pair of wings to rival the solar radiance of his Dragon Aspect, like—

—like her soul has somehow been waiting for this longer than she’s had a body.

“Krosis, mal dovahdin. I have not done this before,” he says, and his voice is hoarse and strange. He betrayed no reaction when she leapt out of her rented bed brandishing the strongest flame spell she knew, one that would have surely burned both him and the inn in which they stood to ash had such a thing been possible in a dream, but now, she has rattled him with a single soft touch of her fingers. “Dreh ni vos zey bo. You must not let go until I say.”

I won’t, she thinks she replies, or maybe she doesn’t need to. Maybe it’s enough that she remains where she is, undaunted and unflinching even when his magic takes hold of her.

Light glows from the centre of his chest and twines itself down his arm in tongues of molten gold and luminous ethereal blue. It pools where their hands connect and in the tiny chinks of space that separate him from her, shining as if they’re keeping a star caged between them, then wreathes around her wrist, the crook of her arm, the place where her shoulder meets her collarbone, until it reaches her heart. She can’t contain her gasp as it pours inside her, all flaring heat and dizzying energy, and must close her eyes against a rush of power so intense that it almost sweeps her away with bliss and terror both. Once it becomes too much for her to bear, once she’s certain that she’ll take flight and soar if she endures it even a second longer, she sees before her a clawed-out word blazing as though written in soul-flame, and knows its meaning as she knows her own name.

“Dov.”

[rinisili = my same-soul krosis, mal dovahdin = apologies, little dragon-maiden dreh ni vos zey bo = do not let me go]

#sujamma sundas #tesblr #writing #skyrim #miraak #oc: elentari #i fear no fate (for you are my fate)#otp: i fear no fate (for you are my fate)#divider by saradika-graphics!

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