Tumgik
#after a misty morning
uwhe-arts · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
at the bus stop . . . | uwhe-arts
3K notes · View notes
me during the fall out boy concert: wow i am being so moderate at filming i’m really living in the moment i am taking a small, reasonable amount of videos
me the next morning looking at my 43 videos i took: huh
1 note · View note
foldingfittedsheets · 3 months
Text
So several years ago I was in Taiwan with my betrothed and two of our other friends, one of whom was Taiwanese. One morning we had the bewildering experience of waking up to Beethoven’s Für Elise blaring through the misty morning streets.
We sat up in utter perplexity. We went to a window and watched people trailing after a garbage truck, chucking their trash bags at it while it slowly drove down the street, speakers pumping out orchestral music.
Three of us gathered at the window staring in rapt fascination and the one native friend was like. “Guys, it’s just the garbage truck song.”
Years later I can’t hear it without thinking of the garbage trucks.
So when I was working on Kilonova in our team space with twenty some people and heard Für Elise playing briefly my head popped up and I said, “Oh! The garbage truck song!”
I planned to explain but one of my teammates heads also shot up and said, “Yes!! The garbage truck song!!” I’d forgotten she was Taiwanese and we were both suddenly bonded in our mutual joy of knowing the garbage truck song together.
We then realized the rest of the team was just staring at us like ????
14K notes · View notes
recreationalcynodont · 6 months
Text
i have an oc species that i straight up will not make the conlang for because when i was trying to come up with a good name for this character i came to the conclusion that the language is highly interpretive and being largely poetic in a way that the transliterated name is actually just shorthand for a paragraph of a poem
0 notes
apomaro-mellow · 7 months
Text
Steve gets the wrong number and starts texting an interesting guy. Steddie, modern au, no upside down
Steve had been feeling pretty good. He’d gone out, had a nice conversation with a girl at the bar and gotten her number. He didn’t feel sparks but she was nice and cute. They didn’t talk about anything too deep but when Steve had asked for her number she put it in and then left with her friends.
He tried not to be too desperate. But he wanted to let her know he was serious and that he would (eventually) be good boyfriend material. So a little before midnight, he shot a text to her to make sure she was alright.
[11:47] Hey this is Steve just making sure you got home okay 🙂
He had debated on the emoji but figured it was harmless and innocent in the end. He put his phone down and got ready for bed, expecting her to text back after a couple of minutes. Unless she didn’t get home safely. Steve tried not to think about that.
After changing his clothes and brushing his teeth he checked his phone. He lit up when he saw that Misty had replied.
(11:52) Sure did Steve-o (11:53) Thanks for your concern 🫡
Misty texted a little different from the way she talked. A bit more…well he wasn’t sure how to describe it. Misty seemed like a really straight-laced woman. She was in the process of getting her education degree.
Steve shot back another message, saying that he had a good time tonight and he really hoped to see her again. There it was. A clear intention. If she responded positively, he’d ask her out right then. But the reply didn’t come as quick as he wanted. When it got around 12:30, Steve finally called it a night. Misty had probably gone to sleep as well.
-------------------------------------------
[11:47] Hey this is Steve just making sure you got home okay 🙂
Eddie stared at the text he just received. He racked his brain for whoever Steve must be and what he had done all day today, wondering if he met someone but their name just slipped his mind.
But nope. He had spent this lovely Saturday at home, lounging around in his apartment on his day off. He hadn’t gone out. And he hadn’t met anyone named Steve. The message came when he was in the middle of making his near-midnight dinner of mac and cheese. Whoever this guy was, he was clearly checking in on someone.
Eddie looked at his surroundings. Decent place, a bit cramped but big enough for just him and for anyone who needed to crash on his couch. He had popped out earlier to get some cigs and he had in fact made it back safely.
(11:52) Sure did Steve-o (11:53) Thanks for your concern 🫡
And who said he didn’t have impulse control? He thought about it for at least two minutes before sending the message.
[11:55] I had a nice time tonight. Hope to see you again.
Eddie looked at the new text, his chewing slowing to a stop. This Steve guy had met someone, spent some time with them, and was now trying to set up another date. There were a few ways to go about this. For just a moment he considered what a rational person would do, just a moment though.
A rational person might’ve said right away ‘wrong number’ or ‘wires crossed’. But Eddie’s brain didn’t function on rationality. So even though Steve clearly meant to text someone else, Eddie thought of the best way to reply. It did take him a bit to send it, the macaroni was calling to him. But by 1, Eddie had sent something back.
(1:07) You saw me?  (1:09) From my apartment?  (1:10) Creepy
He went to bed, thinking he’d wake up to a very confused man and when morning came he wasn’t disappointed.
[8:13] What are you talking about? It’s Steve? From the bar?
Eddie checked his clock. It was ten in the morning. Who got up at eight on a Sunday? Eddie’s first thought was a church-goer. Those folks were early risers. But they didn’t frequent bars too much.
(10:29) Sorry man (10:30) I think you got the wrong number (10:30) I didn’t go to a bar last night.
Once he sent it, Eddie belatedly hoped the words weren’t too blunt. It couldn’t feel nice, getting a number error. But after a moment of thinking, he started coming around to the idea that maybe Steve wasn’t such a catch. People didn’t give wrong numbers after a good time. Maybe he actually was a creep.
[10:36] Oh. Well, I’m sorry to bother you.
Eddie rolled from his back onto his stomach. Curse his soft heart. He didn’t know anything about this man and somehow he felt sorry for him. But he wasn’t about to go gushing to a stranger. Who knows what kind of interactions Steve had with this mystery number? So instead, he went the typical Eddie route and tried to lighten the mood.
(10:38) Probably dodged a bullet (10:38) They could’ve been a serial killer (10:39) Or worse someone who jogs in the morning
He put that little dig there just to feel out Steve. If he wasn’t at church, maybe he was the kind to go and workout in the morning. In the middle of making his coffee, Eddie realized he was trying to learn about the dude and thought he might be courting danger. Then he heard a ‘ping!’ and any ideas of caution were thrown to the wind.
Leaning against the counter, the only sound was the percolating as he read what Steve had said.
[10:46] Okay confession. I did actually go for a jog this morning. Is that weird?
Eddie started to visualize this man and another alarm went off in his mind that he promptly shooed away.
(10:47) No not weird at all (10:47) It’s perfectly natural for an insane person (10:48) Didn’t you go drinking last night? (10:48) And then you went for a jog this morning? (10:49) You might just be more scary than a murderer (10:50) Scratch that (10:50) This seems like text book serial killer behavior (10:51) Bet this is how you scope out your targets
The coffee finished brewing and Eddie starting pouring it and it was only then he realized the wall he’d sent Steve accusing him of being a killer. It looked like texts from a crazy person. He looked crazy. His friends had complained more than once about him sending these streams of texts instead of keeping it all in one response. Steve was going to see that and leave him on read, or just block his number.
[10:57] Damn guess I better come up with a new tactic.
Eddie didn’t realize how hard he was smiling until he tried to drink and spilled hot coffee on himself. Alarms were ringing in his head again but he might as well be deaf.
Part 2
3K notes · View notes
halcyone-of-the-sea · 2 months
Text
FROM FAR DISTANT WATERS
Tumblr media Tumblr media
PAIRING: Merman!John Price x F!Artist!Reader
SYNOPSIS: There’s something in the water - you're going to figure out what it is, and why it chose to save you.
WORDCOUNT: 16.8k
WARNINGS: Blood, murder, death/near death, assault, injury, gore, mystery, mentions of suicide, angst, protective!John, pining, sickness, etc.
*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*
Tumblr media
The little boat rocks as it slips through the expansive water, a thin hanging of mist in the air. The curtain-like film it leaves makes it nearly impossible to see the dark rocks of the shore a far distance away, and the dip and push of the oars through the chilled waves leaves splashing droplets connecting to your cheeks. You touch the flesh delicately, brushing away the spray as your eyes slide over dark, lapping water—deeper than anything. 
In your lap, sitting below the high waist of your skirt, was your sketchbook; the tweed material was all the rage these days, though you never focused much on that. The thick item kept out the chill of the, very, early morning, and that was all you cared about, though, it seemed you lacked the foresight to pack a proper coat. A large woolen shawl sat over your shoulders, hiding the plain white blouse but not its cuffs; not the slight poof of the bottom part of the sleeves. 
Your numb fingers fiddle with the pencil in your hands, your open sketchbook filled with page after page of images ranging from the common sea-bird to great ships and shorelines. 
“I still have to ask why you feel the need to tag along,” is the voice that breaks the silence, and you blink away from the cloud of condensation from your exhalation. Your ear twitches, but only a small flick of a smile pulls your lips at the older man’s garbled words. “So cold my damn hands are going to fall off. Why am I always the one bloody working the oars?”
Otto Whitworth was a man far into his later years—one who entertained your fascination with the raging waters and the need to immortalize them on paper; that draw to the sights and sounds. Graying, covered now in a large coat and his boots, with the long fishing rod knocking around by your feet, he grumbles more than he speaks sentences, content with only the pipe in his breast pocket and the promise of fresh fish for breakfast. 
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” you chuckle, glancing over at his wrinkled face—the glare of dark eyes set into a deep browline that’s more for show of annoyance than genuine emotion. “Gets the blood pumping harder, Mr. Whitworth.” Your vision slides to the shadows of the black rocks, and your pencil finds your palm before the sound of it meeting parchment echoes over the nothingness. “Isn’t it lovely? Listen to the Gannets.”
“Don’t need my blood pumpin’ harder,” the old man grinds out, scoffing. “Gonna make my fuckin’ heart stop, Girl…” Otto sighs, shaking his head as you chuckle. He growls under his breath. “And, no, I’m not listening to the birds—they’ll be trying to steal my fish soon enough. Greedy bastards.”
Your eyes roll in their sockets, pencil shading in the rough shapes of misty rocks, your face cold but still eager for something. There was a type of magic to this place—to Southern England and the small coast town you had settled in nearly a year ago: Redthorpe. 
It seemed your talent for the arts was appreciated here, you had a shop to your name and friendly compliments from the locals every time the door was pulled open. People here liked the attention to detail in a place where they had most likely lived for a good ninety percent of their lives.
You tilt your head at the paper as Otto lets the oars drop back into the water, grasping for his fishing rod that you kindly move closer with your foot. 
The man takes up the item and sets the line, whipping back the pole and snapping it forward with a wizz and a grunt—a cracking of old bones. 
“Now hush,” Otto sighs, settling back. 
You send a silent look upward, and at the same time as he does, you say out loud in a soft voice.
“You’ll scare away the fish with all that blabber.”
A heavy glare is leveled at you, but you raise a hand innocently and laugh under your breath. 
“I’m as silent as the fish, Mr. Whitworth.”
“Cheeky Bird,” Otto sighs loudly, shifting in his seat until he faces the water, eyes glinting. “You’re too wild for this place, then, eh?”
“For most places,” you breathe, smiling as you study the rocks again before going back to your work. It’s only after there were the wiggling bodies of three fish set into a fisher’s basket that the oars are taken back up and the silent water is again forced back by ripples. 
Pencil finding the middle of the spine, you close your sketchbook, the routine is as simple as it always is. Otto will complain about having you at his dock, he’ll begrudgingly invite you in and cook three fish: one for him, the second for his cat, Harriet—older than England itself and missing most teeth; as blind as a bat—and then, finally, you. After that you’re back in your shop finishing up your piece of the misty shoreline, working until the candle burns through both ends and the oil paints are swirling colors as your eyes bug. Bed, and finally, repeat. 
A splash of water makes you blink quickly, your head jerking over at the slide of movement from the corner of your vision. Eyes wide, you swear a fin had cut the surface of the water like a knife through butter. 
Your body moves closer to the side of the boat immediately, leaning over eagerly. 
“Hey!” Otto barks, steadying himself as the vessel shakes back and forth. Your eyes shimmer, a smile overtaking your lips. “Watch yourself—you’ll send me overboard!”
“Did you see that?” Your eyes dart over the water. “I think I saw a fin.” 
“You got excited over a fish?” The older man’s voice is unimpressed, hissing in the crackling of age. “Hell, I got three in the basket if you’re that bloody impressed.”
“Shh,” you wave one of your hands, unblinking. “It was bigger than a fish, Otto!” 
Your ears twitch to his scoff, his hands grasping the oars harder before he shoves the boat forward. Body looming, the intense pull of adventure dims the longer nothing happens, and after a minute or two of dead mist and water, you hum under your breath like a fool and sit back.
“Lost it,” your numb lips murmur, breath puffing out softly. “Damn.” You shake your head as the wooden dock gets closer, more boats tied and shifting with the waves. “It was strange,” you admit. “Like a deep navy color—with specs of silver along the spine.”
Otto pauses, his hands tight over the oars. He blinks over at you, face for the first time showing an emotion other than annoyance. You barely notice before the sheen of crafted blankness is back. 
You smile down the length of the boat, curiosity plain to see. “Do you know of any animal like that around here?”
“No,” Otto grunts out quickly, and your excitement dims sharply, blinking through shock. 
Your brows furrow after the silence falls stiffly—the boat had never been uncomfortable to you, the atmosphere quiet, of course, but always easy to charter. Now the air was…muddy. Something had changed as fast as a fish being yanked out of water. 
Fingers twitching, you sit back slowly onto the plank, pulling your sketchbook the tiniest bit closer to your abdomen. Face open, Otto continues to row and the entire ride is silent until the boat is docked and tied to the pole by calloused hands. Your digits grasp your shawl and wrap the fabric harder, shifting down to hide your chin into the wool as you shiver. 
“...Need help?” You ask, eyes still shifting back to the water like always. 
There’s something now that makes your attention drift like the waves themselves—and it wasn’t only the shadows of the rise and fall, it was Otto’s strange behavior. The man wasn’t one to just say one word and nothing more. He could bounce off you like it was a game; you often thought he enjoyed your company just so he could insult someone. Jokingly, of course. It was the companionship he craved, it was why he always let you on his boat in the mornings. 
Otto lived alone. You never asked about it. 
“Don’t need any help,” he grumbles out, tying off the last knot to the pole and stepping back with a smirk of satisfaction. “M’not in the grave yet, Girl. Been working the boats since I was out my mum’s womb.”
“Feel sorry for her.” Your mutter meets the air as light streaks through the mist. Breathing hot air into your free hand, you rub it over your arm repeatedly and sigh, fingers of the other limb tightening over your book. Absentmindedly, your head turns back to the open water one last time, for one last glimpse of anything you want to commit to memory while you paint—
The fin is back. 
“Otto!” Feet swiftly dart to the end of the dock, you stop only an inch away as your skirt whips over. “It’s back! Look!” 
A hand grasps your wrist and yanks you away. 
Gasping sharply, you stumble until the harsh bark of, “Get back!” echoes across the dock just as it does through your ears. 
“Whoa!” You’re quickly let go of, a shadow shielding you from the view of the water as you scramble to make sure your sketchbook won’t slip from your hold. Head jerking to stare in shock at the middle of Otto’s curved spine, your heart stutters in confusion and a bit of hesitation befitting one who was just manhandled. Standing up straight again, your tight face pulls in, the pound of your heart telling you something is wrong. 
Glancing past a still frozen Otto, the water is utterly devoid of life again—only ripples to show there had ever really been something there at all. 
“You go back to the ocean,” Otto yells, spittle flying from his mouth, fishing boots stomping against the wood as he moves forward a step, pointing. “Go back to the bloody hole you swam out of! There’s nothing for you here! Nothing!” 
You watch, struck dumb. 
“...Mr. Whitworth?” Your lips mutter out, eyebrows shifting from the waves to the man—utterly confused down to your chilled bones. Who was he talking to?
Perhaps time had caught up to him—was he mistakenly taking the rocks for people? The waves for whispers? All you had seen was a fish’s fin, nothing more, nothing less.
“Otto,” you call again, concerned. You should get the man inside; get him warm and let him cook his breakfast. “Let’s just go.” Your eyes blink lightly, fingers twitching over your book. “Alright…? My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, it’s nothing important.”
His form waddles past you, more in tune to his sea legs than the ones on land, and under his breath, you hear him snarl out a low, “You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.” 
Withered hand connecting with your shawl’s edge, you’re dragged back with more force than you’d anticipate Otto still having, but you go with him nonetheless. 
Looking at the water, there’s nothing to see beyond the stretch of nothingness.
You dare to ask when you’re pushing the fish bones over to the side of your plate, slipping some mashed-up scraps to Harriet who lays in your lap purring. The rough scrape of a tongue licks your fingers, and deep gray fur caresses your palm.
“Who were you talking to back there?” Your voice carries over the small hut that Otto calls his own, the sounds of the water meeting the rocks plainly heard seeing as his property was as close to the cliffs as you could get without going over them. “I never took you for someone to believe in spirits.” The joke was a small jab, but even your own amusement was dim in the situation. Your hand puts down the fork and moves to rest along Harriet’s back, lightly petting the old cat as her half-missing tail flicks in satisfaction.
The man’s back over at the sink tightens. 
“You watch yourself near the waters, Girl,” Otto grunts, dark eyes glancing over his shoulder. “By God, you watch yourself. There’s things out there—terrible things.” 
“What kinds of ‘terrible things,’ Otto?” Your head tilts, sketchbook resting still on the table, your gaze flickering to it. Terrible had a nice ring to it. But something else was swirling in your gut now, a hesitation of a special sort that only comes out with the unknown paths of life. 
What could make a man born and bred on the waters so reserved when speaking about them? Your interest had been piqued—your curiosity unsated until you were given a clear answer. You’d only been here a year, that wasn’t enough time to know the secrets of Redthorpe; to be let into those deeper circles. 
Otto licks his cracked lips, the wrinkles of his face leaving behind something akin to a scrunched dog’s visage—worn by time and improper care from the damage of the sun. He’d been at work on his boat for decades, and while you took his advice with a grain of salt usually,  this time he carried himself differently: you wanted to know why. 
He glares with no venom, taking out the scrubbed pan from the soapy water and barking, “What’s it with the younger generation and their bloody pushing? Listen to what I’m telling you and take it as it is, Girl. You don’t go on the water,” he blinks, face grim, “unless I’m the one ferryin’ you through it, eh? That’s the end of it. I’ll say no more.” 
Frowning heavily, you sigh under your breath and shake your head. Letting your eyes slip down to Harriet, you scratch under her chin and stare into her milky eyes as she lets out a little chirp.
“So much for answers,” your lips mutter. 
But a fire had been lit in your breast now—a low simmering pull like a rope had been tied to your wrist, drawing you closer and closer to the rocky shore, to a boat tied on the dock which you knew was steadily rocking to the deep, dark waves of this isolated place. 
To a navy-colored fin in the water, and a shape far larger than any you’d seen before. 
Blinking to look out the window of Otto’s home, your eyes find the ocean, and the longing that you’d always had for it grows ten times larger as your sketchbook begs to be filled.
It was only fate, you guessed, that you had come to Redthorpe—a tiny, unimportant dot on the map—when the way of life you’d chosen had led you astray. This place was a way to start over. Fix yourself. You’d picked the least-known town in all of Europe, and that was exactly what you wanted.
One trait, though, that could never be squashed from your psyche was the lust for the unknown. It was an obsessive lover; a toxic hand on the back of your neck that dragged you back over and over, until there was only yourself to blame for the repetition of disappointment. 
It was the reason you found yourself on the shore two days after you sighted the dark fin that cut the water. 
Your lace-up boots were atop a large boulder, shifting as your body turned from left to right, eyes patiently dragging the expanse of nothing. Waves lap only inches below, spraying up to get absorbed into your skirt, shawl whipping with the wind. The breeze is stuck with the sounds of birds, the very beings darting above your head, playing their games with varying cries that sound like throaty groaning. 
Bending, your arms wrap your waist, lips flickering. You were cold, limb-numbingly so, but even if you saw nothing today, or tomorrow, the push and pull of the ocean was enough—the call of the birds, the hypnotic sway of water. Calling to you, even if it had no lips to do so. 
Taking down a lung-shaking inhale, you chuckle, sketchbook sitting in the small purse around your shoulder. 
“What am I doing?” You ask yourself, shaking your head. “It was just a big fish—that old man was just being paranoid, anyways.” Eyes caressing the line where water meets the sky, your smile pulls your chilled cheeks. “There’s nothing out here worth my time. I need to finish my work.” 
Leaning back, you rub your hands up and down your biceps, nonetheless enjoying your time despite the burning of something in the back of your head. A knowledge that the fin was nothing documented before? A hope of discovery? A need for adventure? Oh, who can really say—what can be known are only three things: 
One, the weather was getting worse, two, the water was getting wilder, and, three, you had forgotten the way the rock you were standing on had shifted when you stepped up to it. Shuffling, your boots connect to the right corner, and your hands extend to keep your balance as you hiss a low breath, purse beginning to slip. 
There’s a gruff call from the water.
“Careful, then.”
Your head snaps up to the sound of a man’s voice, and you startle sharply, gasping as your foot slips. A quick cry is all you get out before you’re suddenly plummeting downwards headfirst into the frigid water. 
The feeling of liquid is all-consuming as it seeps into your nostrils and ears, all sound muffled entirely beyond the roar of it leaving you so stupendously—a flare, and then nothing. Eyes bugging, limbs slashing through the waves, the chill hits you in the chest with the force of a stone, smashing through your ribs to weigh you down with concrete stuck in your lungs. It was entirely a bodily reaction to gasp. 
Through the blue and the bubbles, you start to drown. 
Fingers twitching, you claw at nothing as the darkness settles its hands over your panicked eyes, not for a moment thinking about who had called to you in the first place—or who was poking a head out of the water before you’d gone over. Obviously, it was a trick of your senses; no one could survive being out in water like this.
You certainly weren’t going to. 
Legs slashing, something is darting in the corner of your eye before your vision fails, but the rapid fear in your heart masks the hand gripping at your shirt’s collar. It hides even the feeling of strong arms until the point where you’re yanked upwards with little effort as one curls your waist. It doesn't hide, however, the way you vomit up water as you’re heaved to the rocky shore moments later.
Choking, you hack up salt that burns your esophagus until your lunch quickly follows—all spilled with little care for your hands caught in the crossfire. Spine arching as if a cat, air can’t come sweeter as it is drawn in rapidly; nearly hyperventilating on the ocean-smooth stones as your clothes are utterly ruined. 
Panting, gasping, shivering violently, your head pulls itself weakly upward. It doesn’t take long for your mind to scream at you, and your head snaps behind you in a panic.
But there’s nothing but the raging water and the splash of a large navy-colored tail as big as your entire body disappearing back into the depths. 
Your fear can only stay for so long before the threat of a frigid death becomes more and more probable. In your race back up the cliff face to your shop, your purse is completely forgotten, trapped on the top of that shaky rock where it had fallen from your shoulder before the great plunge. 
Your shawl is seen floating out to the open water before it’s grasped from below and suddenly plucked—vanishing without a single trace.
The fire rages with the inferno of a million suns, and it’s not nearly hot enough. Wrapped in every blanket, sheet, and warm item available, you still can’t stop shivering hours later. A teacup was stuck in your hands, the liquid sloshing over the edges to slip over your quivering fingers and absorb into the cocoon of heat. 
Breathing through your shaky lungs, you keep the rim of the cup to your lips, eyes wide and horrified. In the still moments after you’d stripped and tried to stop the onset of sickness that you could already feel coming, there was a flash of realization from your strange and fantastical ordeal. 
There had been a man. 
The sensation of hands around your waist—the gruff voice that had spooked you so violently. A man. In the water. Every time you blink, you see a shadowed image, a tiny glimpse as you’d turned to the sound of human speech above the shriek of birds. 
Short brown hair and narrowed blue eyes set into sockets of pale skin. A bearded face, mustache…square jaw…
“What in God’s name?” You stutter in question over your tea, shaking your head. “That isn’t possible.” 
Outside your shop, the wind screams, pushing against your exterior shutters as night sets in. A storm was coming; there’d be no other adventures for you. Sipping your drink, you shiver again, curling in tighter to yourself as wood crackles. The light dances over your easels and side tables, piled high with jars of brushes and pallets—bottles of linseed oil and liquin, labeled with little pieces of hanging paper at the necks. 
There are paintings in the tens—in the twenties—hanging on the walls and set to the corners, all blue and gray; misty and clear. The water is a staple in all of them, and the cliffs as well. Perfect imitations of this place, as if you could reach a hand through the canvas and enter a mirrored world. Great ships are in some of them, or little fishing boats, with the birds overhead. Sometimes, it’s only the water itself, and to you, those were perhaps the best of your work. 
There was a beauty in the nothingness. A mystery. Who knows what’s under that thin surface? Well…apparently, it wasn’t human. 
You swallow down saliva and your lips thin. 
The thing in the water wasn’t… unattractive, you had to admit. Beyond the waterlogged hair and dripping beard, a large nose sat—full cheeks with an odd mole over them. The more you thought about the brief flash of a visage, the more you grew to hang onto it, strangely. And that navy tail? It had been incredibly unique. 
Spiney, nearly—four thin bones going down on both sides, branching out from the tail starting with the shortest that was perhaps only as long as your hand until the final was as lengthy as your entire arm. There was webbing between each spine to help the thing through the water quickly, it spread to the end of the barb until it sunk back in a ‘U’ movement, before once more arching out again to connect with the next spine. Small gasps in the caudal fin calling to either battles or a natural state of being—for show in it…his?...species. 
Could you even assign it a human gender? 
You close your eyes tightly in your shop, trying to will the image away from yourself. “What in the hell is going on?” Your voice is scratchy and low. 
Yet, the undeniable truth was that the fish-man had saved you. It couldn’t be overlooked. Not by you, who now can sit in front of this very fire because of it. Like a moth to the flame, the surge of cautious confusion is burning your wings. 
Deep blue eyes like the ocean. A navy tail. A gruff, hard voice.
You open your eyes and glare into the fireplace. 
“What has this place been hiding in the water? And why did it bloody save my life right after it nearly ended it?” 
More importantly…you had to think of a way to get your sketchbook back without getting on its bad side.
With a heavy chest, and more than a little fear in your heart, it was resolved to do something about all of this tomorrow. There was no use leaving the shop now. Glancing at the shaking window, you could hear the ocean rampaging over the cliffs; hear the slam of the rain hitting the roof like pounding feet. 
But that voice played in your ears like a gramophone's bleated chorus. 
You shiver again, not from the cold.
Careful, then. 
There was no question if you’d gotten sick because of your impromptu bath in the ocean—the evidence was in your salt-covered shirt and the stockings that were still drying on the hearth. 
Pressing a handkerchief to your mouth as you cough haggardly. You’re bundled in a nice fur dress coat, walking along the street with a skipping heart, a simple cloche hat over your head to protect you from the elements; dark blue in color.
The irony was not lost this morning when the hue had a striking familiarity to a fish-like tail, but it hadn’t stayed in your hand. A small drizzle slapped the fabric, and you were thankful you had brought the hat and coat along with you on the move from the big city. 
You weakly smile and nod to the locals you consider friends—at the very least acquaintances. But before long, you’re at the place you feel you need to be to gain answers, too nervous to go back to the shore immediately.
The library.
Something Otto had said came back to you last night, in the throws of insomnia. The two sentences he’d called out on the docks that day—You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.
Eleanor? Who was that and how did it correlate to the beast in the water that wears a man's face? Maybe, the local records would tell you the answer—there had to be something about this person, ‘Eleanor,’ in them, right?
If not, there was only one option left, and that was going down to the shore and getting the results first hand…you’d rather exhaust all of your resources on solid land first. 
Slipping into the library with a deep breath and a cough in your throat, you sigh and nod slightly. Time to get to work.
“Oh,” the librarian looks up from her desk, standing as you shuffle over. “Hello, Dear,” she breathes through a chuckle, eyebrows pulling in softly. “My, you look a bit under the weather, don’t you? Would you like me to get some tea going…?”
“No, thank you,” you wave an easy hand. “I’m here on a bit of an errand, actually, and I was wondering if you could help me with something? I need to ask about your records.”
“Records?” The woman’s face shifts to confusion, her body slipping out to stand next to yours, you bring back up your handkerchief and sneeze into it, groaning. “What kind were you thinking, then?”
After you can push away the sheen of sickness to your eyes you take a breath and clear your throat of the stuffiness. “Births and work records? Addresses?” You make a small noise in the back of your mouth. “I guess I don’t know…anything that might help me?”
The librarian chuckles a bit, amused. “How about you tell me what it is you’re looking into, and I’ll try and grab any public knowledge that I can find. We’ll work together, then.” 
Weight is loosened from your shoulders and you nod appreciatively. “Deal.”
“Go on then,” she walks over to a shelf on the far side of the room, standing as her fingers run the spines. “Occupation I can start with, Dear?”
“Well…” you pause, shuffling after as your head looks from one sizable book to another. “No, unfortunately. Only a first name.”
“You’re lucky Redthorpe is small,” the woman laughs. “Otherwise I would have told you you’re lacking your senses with only something like that to go off of.” 
“Eleanor,” you comment, licking your lips and staring at a spine labeled ‘1890-1900 financial records - Redthorpe’. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R, or at least that’s the common spelling, I believe.” 
The librarian’s body is stone-still. Comparable to the immovable rocks of the shore as the waves bash against them; the raging of the wind. When you glance over, confused at the silence that infects the building, you’re reduced to a meek hesitation at the blank eyes that dig into your face. 
“...Or…maybe it’s N-O-R-E?” 
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” is the hurried answer, and then the woman moves past with fast feet, heels clicking over the hardwood rapidly. “There hasn’t been an Eleanor in Redthrope. You’re mistaken.” 
“Wait,” you follow, stuttering. “I don’t understand, there has to have been—Otto was talking about her not days ago!”
“You’re mistaken,” is the repeated, firm answer, the librarian’s body swirling to face you again, pointing a finger at you. “Go back to your shop. Mr. Whitworth is old, he sees things that aren’t there. Don’t take what he says to heart—”
“I saw it!” You bark, fed up. Your mind was sick of these games being played, left out of the loop like you hadn’t formed a relationship with the people of this town. 
The woman’s mouth locked shut with a clack of teeth, something darting over her expression…fear?
She backs up slowly. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dear.”
Your lips twist, a threatening sneeze in the back of your nose. “I’m done with the word games! It dragged me out of the water like a sack of flour and tossed me to shore! It saved me!” Her hands are held in front of her as you stalk closer, trying to brush what you’re telling her aside as she struggles to string words. 
“It…it wouldn’t do that—that’s not how it acts. You’re just imagining things; you’re under the weather!”
“Who’s Eleanor?” You huff, stubborn as you cross your arms in front of you. “And what in the hell is a man with the tail of a fish doing living just below these cliffs?”
Wide eyes meet glaring ones, and the librarian’s lips move up and down in a panic. 
“I…” she begins, feet tapping the floor nervously as the rafters creak above the both of you. “I can’t talk about it. It’s not something to be said out loud—especially so close to the water.” 
You bark incredulously, “There’s a bloody monster that lives down in—!”
A hand is snapped over your mouth and you startle, blinking through the twitch of your body. 
“Shh!” The librarian panics, shaking her head, with flaring eyes. “Stop it or you’ll end up being dragged down to the ocean floor like Eleanor was!” You tense behind the hold, shoulders pulled in. It’s a quick spit of whispered words like a fast breeze. “Do you want your body showing up on the rocks?! Stay away from it!”
Your heart pounds in your chest, vision darting back and forth before she finally lets you go in a quick jerk of her body. The woman backs up, quivering as her eyes go to the window, nearly panting from fear. 
She looks back at you, blinks, and mutters out a quiet, “If you’ve already seen it, it wants you. Don’t go back to the water,” before she rushes into the back room and slams the door shut with the slipping of the lock. 
Left standing in the open library, the shelves sit stationary as if sentinels to your raw distress—this had only left you with more questions and a handful of jumbled answers. 
“Careful, then.”
You shake your head harshly and pivot to leave the library in a stupor, shoving your chin back down into your coat’s collar as the wind slaps your face once more. The call of the ocean is like a knife to the back of your neck.
Call you whatever name in the book, but you wanted your sketchbook back.
No one in town was giving you anything that was of use, and Otto was tighter-lipped than a lockbox. There was only so much you could do—could speculate—before the need for your belongings was too strong to ignore. It took two more days of pacing your shop before it was decided. 
Taking up the heavy cast-iron pan above your fireplace, you slip the thing into your coat, shove on your hat with a defiant grunt, and force the front door open. It’s a ten-minute walk to the shore, and all the way there, dread fills you up like soup until you’re bloated with it by the time your boots hit black rocks. Yet, there’s a point where a woman’s courage outweighs the sense of caution, and today was currently that day. 
Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you grab your skirt and hike it up, placing your boot carefully on the first of the larger stones leading out to where you’d been previously. 
“Don’t look at the water,” you mutter quietly as you move, not shuffling forward until you know the rock isn’t going to topple this way or that. “Don’t even think about it.”
But that tail…that face…
With a growl under your breath, you grind your teeth and continue on. 
The weather today was much more agreeable, but cold. It was always chilled in Redthorpe—dreary as if the clouds never left far above. You didn’t mind, and in your coat pocket, the reassuring weight of your pan left you much warmer than you’d like to admit. 
The heat of protection, so to speak.
“Even a fish-man can die, I’d wager,” you utter, grunting as you ascend a larger rock, palm slapping the wet stone before you heavy upwards, slamming your boot to the top much like a schoolboy as your skirt bunches. “If I hit him hard enough in the skull. I wonder though,” you sneeze, shuddering, “if he even bleeds? If I crack his head open…will blood seep out, or salt water?” 
You shiver, and it’s not from the cold. “Fucking hell, you do like making it harder on yourself, don’t you.”
Lightly panting, you brush down your coat on the top of the rock and turn to look at the boulder where you’d fallen previously, blinking. Pausing, your eyes find not only your sketchbook sitting there…but also your shawl. 
Struggling for a moment to try and justify your actions, you swiftly look over the surface of the water, seeing the gentle push and pull of waves. No fin. No tail. 
You aren’t sure if the feeling in your chest is joy or disappointment.
Licking your lips, you take a large breath before your face turns grim.
“Grab it and run,” your voice echoes in your own head, heart pounding with adrenaline the more steps you take to the boulder, water sloshing at the sides. You had thought perhaps that the rain—the storm—would render all of your lost belongings null, but as you bent and snatched your items to you, shawl hanging from your arm, you were pleasantly surprised. It was all dry; impossibly so. 
Amid your shock, your slack jaw, and the weight of your pan in your coat, your shaky fingers open your book with bated breath. 
Everything was in pristine condition, if not only slightly curled at the corners due to…your eyebrows pull in, expression struggling to take on the emotion of anything other than pure awe.
“Fingerprints?” 
Eyes slipping from one page to the next, flipping them only to see the press and pull of a long gone thumb, shiting the paper to gaze at the back, where a forefinger would have been. A hand laced in water had been turning the pages, just as you do now—and, yet, there wasn’t an inch that was damaged; nothing smeared. 
Shoulders loosening from their tensed position, your wide stare is utterly transfixed as your digits rub the material softly, feet shifting. 
Lowering your sketchbook, your small huff of amazed laughter, mind running. 
He’d been going through your drawings—he’d somehow protected these items from the rain and salt. How? Why? But another question wrapped its hands in your skull.
Did he like them?
Shuffling the book into the crook of your arm, you carefully wrap your shawl over the material to further keep it safe, not able to find your purse, though the only thing it ever held was your sketchbook in the first place; it wasn’t too important. 
Rising your head again, you gaze openly outward, lips opening and closing in a small stutter. Was he out there, this strange creature with a strong face and those deep eyes? That navy tail, looking like a beautiful imitation of kelp…was it just under where you now study the waves?
So many questions, so few answers. 
You clear your throat, holding your items tighter. There’s magnetism in your blood, and it sits on your tongue like salt.
“Thank you!” Your voice calls high, joining the chorus of birds far above on the cliffs. Eyes skating the rocks, the shore, the ocean, everything. Call you prideful, but perhaps the best way to gain your favor is to know that someone, whatever bit strange and fantastical, had enjoyed your work to the smallest degree. 
The way your eyes spark is still embarrassing, though, but it comes naturally after the heat that simmers over your face. 
“Truly,” you shout to the wind. “You have no idea how much this means! If you’re listening, I’d like to extend my gratitude…” Your face is beaming, and you can convince yourself that all of your fear over this is gone, even if that would just plainly be untrue. “My artwork is everything to me, I do hope you enjoyed it!” 
A creature so easily curious about your skills wouldn’t drag you to the bottom of the ocean…right? 
Hell, he’d already had a chance to do that—a perfect one—and yet, here you are. What the Librarian had said had to be false, it made no sense otherwise.
Seeing nothing, and knowing that you were needed back at your shop, you chuckle under your breath and back up swiftly, walking the distance back to the surrounding rocks and slipping off softly. Grunting under your breath, your boots hit the stone, and you carefully begin back-tracking. 
“You’re good at it,” you halt in a fraction of a second. “The images. Where’d you learn to do that?”
It’s a long moment before you turn with a cautious tilt to your head, and find the very same visage as you had a glimpse of days ago. You fight a fast inhale, but your straightening spine tells all the story it needs to. Like a fool, you lose the words in your mouth, as if trying to catch a bird of prey with a butterfly net.
A strong face is poking out of the water only a mere five feet away.
Your eyes slip to the soaked beard, the peak of bare shoulders—broad, of course—and the prying orbs that you feel will never leave; he wades there, arms under the dark water only a flash of pale skin before they’re gone again. 
“I…” you lick your lips, blinking through the moment of animalistic panic. You were on land, there was nothing to fear. The sight was still something to be remembered, though. “I was self-taught, Sir.” 
Blue eyes blink, serious face only made more so by the twitching of his large nose, which water drips from periodically. Droplets stay stuck to his dark lashes, and you’re near bursting with questions. 
But silence persists long after your sentence filters out to nothing.
“You pulled me from the water,” you state slowly. “And I don’t even know your name.”
The man looks you up and down, not arrogant, no, but in a way that is comparable to how you did the same to him. Studying you as if your body was strange to him. The realization almost made you laugh—perhaps it was strange to him.
You want to see that tail of his again. Your fingers itch to sketch its likeness and commit it to muscle memory. 
“I scared you,” he grumbles, sighing. “It wasn’t my intention to send you over.” Eyes still stay stuck. “My own fault.”
“I won’t deny you there,” you huff, gaze shifting away for a moment before filtering back. A slash of amusement curls in the thing’s eyes, and he hums. “Forgive me,” your breath wafts out over the air, face going what you can assume to be sheepish. It astounds you, though, that the conversation comes easily. “But I haven’t the faintest bloody clue as to what to call you.”
“John,” is the reply. Accent like gravel. He doesn’t waste his breath, seems. 
“John?” You lick your lips, legs shuffling over the stone. The name leaves you holding back a loud laugh. “Well, I suppose I could have guessed that, then. I’ve met more than enough ‘Johns’ so far.”
“Funny, are you?” The response, however dry, is tinged with something you can’t name. 
“I try,” you nod jokingly, motioning with a hand. “Just didn’t expect a man with a fishtail to act so….human. Certainly not be named like one, either.”
“Hm,” John grunts, blinking slowly. A hand slips above the water, and you watch it flex and drag to itch at the back of his neck, hair over the arm slick to the flesh. Your face heats, and your eyes dip to see the small shadow under the water almost graze the surface, rippling the waves intimately, as if tail and liquid were of the same sound mind. 
It wasn’t out of the question to say you longed for a glimpse. 
What would it feel like to touch it?
“You live here?” Your voice is hoarse before you clear it quickly. “Right below the cliffs?” 
“You’re the woman that goes out in the boat,” John firmly interjects, and you blink, taken aback. 
“Yes, that’s me.” You explain, pulling at the lip of your hat to force it down further over your head. “Otto goes fishing in the mornings—I like to sketch the shore. He isn’t the worst company, of course. He’s kind enough to let me along with him.”
But you won’t be kept down. There’s magical curiosity in your chest now.
“Your tail,” you take a step forward, boots being licked by icy water. John’s eyes widen a smidge, not expecting you to actively move closer. His head tilts as if a bird, confusion brimming though he hides it expertly. You imagined he considered you a bit mad. “Forgive me, Sir, but I must know,” your uttered rambles make his hidden lip twitch, a little twist to your expression that shows wonder. “Is it attached to you, or do you slip out of it like a pair of pants? O-or even like wearing a stage costume? Oh, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
John can’t find the words for a moment, only able to watch and assess as he always did in times like these. You were…different, he supposed. But he knew that the moment you had shifted your body over the side of that old man’s boat—looking for a glimpse of something unknown. He could see it in your eyes. 
The water calls to you. It lives in your veins already, waiting. More salt and seaweed than earth and grass. Sand, rock, gulls, they all cry in the back of your mind, and your fingers itch to catalog them into immortality in a way that John was fascinated over—the skill of parchment and memorization. Mastery over detail.
He doesn't know why he’s speaking to you, truly. He’d done his penance; saved your life. But he knows he doesn’t dislike it, and that in and of itself needed to be understood. John couldn’t leave his analytical brain lacking an answer to a question as big as that—a woman of all things? A human one? 
Blue eyes can’t seem to slip from yours, as you await a gruff reply.
“No.” You blink, pulling back a smidge when John’s voice is low and graited. “Go back to your home. It’s late.”
“Hey, wait—!”
But he’s already gone under the waves, and you’re left with a waterlogged boot, a cast iron pan, and the two items that had survived because of a grizzly creature's compassion. Your lungs heave, and the cloud of condensation rises into a gray sky.
You stay there far longer than you’d like to admit.
You struggled, slipped, and climbed your way back to that point on the rocks every other day, and yet, there was nothing more to be seen of the man with the tail. You knew he was out there, felt it in your bones, and still…you were left here staring out at far-off boats and half-hopes. Wondering. Waiting. 
In the days that passed, you would explore the shore further, going in nooks and deep bends that extended into the cliffs during low tide, cringing away from the slippery fingers of kelp stuck to the walls. Dead fish, mucus-lined snails—you had made the important decision of leaving your sketchbook at home, the pages already filled with the perfect reflection of a man’s face peeking above the water. 
Taking off your hat, you huff on a similar day to those others, this time slipping inside a cave with a direct connection to the ocean. There wasn’t any wind in here—and you sigh in relief as your breeze-bitten cheeks can finally get a rest. You didn’t know what you expected to find doing all this fruitless searching, but it didn’t erase the fact that you enjoyed it; looking for a glimpse of something out of the ordinary. 
Brushing your hat of sand and other such items, your head swivels softly, a delicate smile on your face as water drips from the rock ceiling, stalactites like broken fingers reaching for the ground. A pool of sorts takes up most of this place, the thing extending to the ocean through a medium-sized opening in the stone.
You turn in a half-circle. 
“Beautiful,” your lips murmur, voice echoing. 
Walking forward, every so often your body stoops to carefully grasp shells and smoothed shards of colored glass, beaten down by waves and reduced to harmless trinkets. Continuing, you care little about your boots or your coat, only for the pull in your chest that tells you to keep going until your legs are weak and weary—shaking from a day long spent in selfish adventure.
When you find the pile of rings, sitting in soft kelp, you nearly walk right past them until the glint of metal takes you by surprise. Pausing, your pulse warms as your eyes slash to the side, getting sucked in as easily as cookies to a child. 
Only hesitating a second, you slowly walk until you’re inches away, seeing different styles and gems like starlight sitting as if unaware of their raw beauty. 
“What are you doing in here…?” You ask yourself, your own voice responding from the walls as it bounces. 
Picking up one of pure gold, you shift the band to stare openly at an emerald nearly the size of your knuckle set into it. Lips parting, it’s as if your breath is stolen by a quiet thief. But the sudden arrival of splashing snaps you out of your stupor quite quickly.
Dropping the ring immediately back into the pile, your hand jerks to your chest as an increasingly common face shows itself once more from the water. 
You clear your throat, face burning as John raises a slow brow, glancing at the stash of rings silently. 
“One day you’re going to make me keel over,” your voice berates, pointedly avoiding his blues. So the items were his. 
“A thief as well as an artist?” John asks after a moment, tilting his skull as his body drifts closer to the rocky side of the pool. The next sentence is no question, only a statement. “You’ve been looking for me.”
You take a long breath, sighing, before you shove your hat into your coat’s pocket, glaring lightly. “You left so abruptly, I never got to ask my questions. Quite rude of you to keep a lady waiting, John.”
As you say his name, he glances over, but not before his sizable hands slap to the side of the rock and he hoists himself up with a single push of his forearms. The man grunts, lips pulling, before you’re left breathless. 
Eyes stuck on the upper half of his body, the water dripping down the hair-layered bulge of visible muscle, your wide vision skates from one point to another, flesh on fire the more you stay mute. But the tail—that was something you could never describe. 
The beginning was all you could see; scales of dark navy and a spread of muddled silver-like dots, nearly impossible to make out except at this distance. They began at the top of where hips should be, the scales, smaller and blending into the skin easily, only becoming larger the more the tail extended down; the appendage was far larger than legs would be, that you can tell easily. You can’t see all of it, as perhaps a little less than half still sits swaying in the water…but even this was enough for now.
This moment would be stuck in your sketchbook for all of eternity. 
It’s only after your jaw is slackened that you realize John has been watching you the entire time.
Forcing it shut with a tiny clack of teeth, you try to regain any composure you can. The being’s beard curls in a smirk, cheek pushing to show the lines near his eyes. 
“If someone’s avoiding you, Sunshine,” he grunts out, voice low. From the corner of his eye, he watches as his hand rises to itch at his beard. “They usually don’t want to have a conversation.”
“I think it’s fair,” you huff. “You can’t just disappear when I have so many unanswered questions.”
John blinks, attention not moving for even a second. Your own is less than firm, fighting to not dart down to openly study every dip and bend of his bones. He was so…stoic. Gruff. But there were moments of amusement—even annoyed interest. 
“I don’t have time to fuckin’ entertain others,” he thins his lips. 
Your arms crossed, face dripping into seriousness. “And what else is so much more important, then?” You raise a brow. “Scaring other women into the water?”
He huffs under his breath. “It was an accident—wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so jumpy, eh?” 
“It’s not like I expect to see fishmen pop out of the water,” you defend. 
“Mer-man, Love,” he licks his lips, sighing, as his eyes shift to glance at the opening of the cave. Your face bleeds into a slight expression of satisfaction, arms over your chest tightening as your feet rock back on their heels.
“Well,” you chuckle. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” 
An emotionless glare is all you receive. 
It was no surprise that you ended up blurting out inquiry after inquiry—what does having a tail feel like? How do you breathe underwater, or do you only hold your breath like a human? Do you have gills somewhere, or lungs? What other creatures are out there like you?
You have no idea what time it ends up being, and you have no intention of stopping soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that John answers all of your quick words with full answers; giving slow, but not condescending explanations. 
A few times there had been tiny chuckles, and the little conversations amounted to you sitting on a rock right near the water, only feet away from where the tail drifts in the waves; John’s hands keeping his upper half straight as his palms meet slippery stone. 
“And the rings?” You breathlessly wonder, attention darting to the pile. “Do you find them out there? Keep them?”
John tilts his head in an affirmation. “Shipwrecks. There’ll be hundreds of them—I’m not one to keep many belongings, but the bloody things were nicely made.” He sighs. “Seemed a waste to leave them down there.”
You huff a sound of amusement. “I see. Fascinating.”
In the small pause, your eyes once more study the cave, seeing little breaks in the walls where cubby-like indents are. In them, your focus drifts from one glimmering object to another, all previously missed by you when you’d first entered. 
You blink. “You live here?”
“Affirmative,” John stares. His body shifts, tail flickering as your focus snaps back to it, almost lost in the way the ends so nimbly slice the water. Like wispy fabric. Your eyes soften like molten metal. You look back at him and find his eyes already locked to yours. 
Breath caught in your throat, you chuckle meekly to dispel your embarrassment. John’s face minutely relaxes, stern brow loosening.
“And…” you lick your lips, knowing it was time to leave. The sun no longer shines through the crack in the rock. “If I were to come back, would I be able to find you here?” 
There’s a flash of that same indecipherable emotion as before over his bushy face. 
The man was anything but small—everything to the swell of his tail; body hair for, what you assume, is to keep out the constant chill of the water. You’d never imagined that you’d find it all so attractive down to the navy scales that shimmered above the push of his side. That healthy layer of meat was eliciting far more of a physical reaction than you’d care to admit to anyone, let alone a priest of any religion during a confession.
Perhaps that fall into the water really had killed you.
“I’ll be here,” John responds lowly, gravel in his throat.
Swallowing down saliva, you push back the ravenous smile that threatens you.
“...Okay.”
And this affair became such a constant, that most of the people in town had begun asking about you as you snuck to the waters. Otto was largely concerned, but would not say anything more for some unseen fear—nor the Librarian, who avoided your eyes any chance she got. 
Dragged to the ocean floor. Body on the rocks. 
The sheen of discovery could be a powerful vice, and for those first two months, you never asked John about the woman named Eleanor or who she might be—what correlation she had to beasts of the water. Then again, you didn’t have to ask. He managed to get around to it himself. 
Your eyes blankly stare at the page of your sketchbook, the merman’s rough shape chicken-scratched with small lines into the parchment, and your pencil stays still to it, immobile. From across the cave, John’s face tightens as his eyelids narrow. You’d been quiet today, he had noticed. Usually so bright with your words, the walls had barely echoed with the symphony of your speech, and, more importantly, John’s ears hadn’t twitched to it. 
He had become fond of your company, he admitted to himself. A strange human woman with her fur coat and hat, the little sketchbook that held such wonderful imitations of life. John was anything but dull—he knew you drew him, and he entertained the activity. In fact, the thought at one point or another may have made the brute of a man blush a bit. So, when you were as still as the stone you sat on, he had concerns. 
He liked it when you spoke, even if it was only a tease. And the tightness of his chest when you don’t look his way is enough to leave his tail twitching in confusion as it sits in the water.
“You’re quiet today,” he starts, frowning. 
Your fingers jerk, sending a line over your paper as you blink, looking up as your heart skips a beat. Glancing at John’s face, the thoughts inside of your head slip until you can understand what he said. 
“I’m sorry,” you sigh, and the man’s face pulls. “You can speak if you want. I'm just a little distracted.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Love, yeah?” John grunts, hands shifting over the stone. He looks you up and down, tail sitting still below him. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” your lips mumble, and you shake your head. “It’s one of my questions again.” You pause, closing your book. “A difficult one.”
John’s lips flicker. “Well, we’ve been at this for ages. Can’t see how this one is more difficult than the others.” He nods softly, voice a low and somewhat smooth mutter. “Go on.”
“I don’t know if I can,” you huff, standing and placing your sketchbook in the driest part of the cave before walking closer. Bending right in front of John, your face is tight. The man likes it like this—having you closer. He can feel the heat roll off you, and his eyes flutter even when nothing on his face gives away the pull he senses in his chest. 
John hums and swallows stiffly.
“Why not?” His head tilts, and he clears his throat to get rid of the raspy scrape of his vocals. “Something going on up there?”
Up there. 
The Merman had asked about Redthorpe, as well as the rest of the people who lived there. The atmosphere, the way of life. Your meetings were more of an exchange of information and stolen glances than anything else, the other none the wiser to this magnetic attraction. It was a delicate thing, knowing that there was something more and yet unable to fully express the way it makes you feel. Neither of you knows what to call it.
“More so in here,” you smile tinily, pointing at your head as your cheeks grow hot. 
“Then speak to me,” John frowns, trying a low smirk. “Think we both know I’m a good listener then, Love. There’s time,” he glances at the entrance. “Won’t be near dark for a few more hours—don’t want you climbing at night.”
“Awe,” you breathe, beaming suddenly with that glint back in your eyes. John hides the sagging of his shoulders, only offering a hum under his breath as he looks over at you. His kelp-like fins twitch, and he wonders what it would feel like to have you touch them. It was obvious you wanted to.
Not yet. 
“Hurry up, Sunshine,” John grinds out, that accent all the more sandy. 
There’s a small grunt and a shuffle, and, soon, a warm body is plotting itself next to his own, arm touching his, and a pair of bare feet slipping into the pool. Blue eyes widen in surprise, head darting to where your form rests so simply—so near the crook of his shoulder that he could reach over and draw you to him if he so wanted. 
Your feet shift as the hem of your skirt gets soggy with water, and John barks out a firm, “You’re going to get cold.” 
“It’s not as cold here as it is out there,” you shrug to him, smiling with a side-eye. “Besides, I’m right next to you—you’ll keep me warm, won’t you, John?”
“Fucking hell,” he puffs out, shaking his head as he rips it forward once more, clenching his jaw. Your scent seeps into his nose, and when your leg slips along the side of his scales under the water, he all but goes a blank-faced scarlet. 
You hide a chuckle, shivering at the chill but more so at the unimaginably smooth sensation of John’s tail over your flesh. Your legs move through the water to cross at the ankles, your right hand resting to directly touch John’s left. With every pump of your blood, his own mirrors.
Yet, your mood sobers, and the joy leaks. 
“There’s a woman that no one speaks about in Redthrope,” you begin, and John settles to listen, brows furrowing in concentration as your skin sits so well next to his own. “Eleanor.” 
The man pauses abruptly, and you keep talking.
“And for some reason,” you sigh out a low breath, turning to look at John and his still face; emotionless. “Everyone seems to blame you for whatever happened to her. I don’t know if she’s missing, or…”
Your words trail off, insinuation clear.
Not noticing any chance on John’s face, you lightly bump him with your elbow, expression going concerned. “Hey, are you alright?” Your opposite hand raises, moving out between the two of you. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything, I would just really appreciate anything you might know about it.” Eyes imploring, your heart pours itself. “I don’t think you’d do something like that.”
John blinks slowly, finally opening his mouth. “What makes you say that?”
“If you were some murderous creature,” you shrug, “I don’t think you would have tried to pull me out of the ocean in the first place.” Lashes caressing your cheeks, you smile. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” the man huffs, quirking a brow. “No, you’re not wrong.”
“Knew it,” you whisper, eyes crinkling as you side-eye him.
John chuckles, half rolling his eyes as he leans to your ear as he grumbles. “Gettin’ cheeky, are you?” 
If you were a bird, you’d be preening your feathers, eyelids narrowed. “Perhaps, John.” 
It is a wonder, then, that the two of you don’t lock lips that very instant—long fins curling around legs and shoulders stuck together, pinkies unconsciously sitting atop the others as if pieces of parchment. Blue eyes shift smoothly to your lips, but before you can register that they have, John’s head is already moving back and his spine is straight. 
The man flattens his lips, tilting his skull. 
“I knew of a woman named Eleanor—she would come down with her husband, Noah, and they would walk along the shore. Got close to this place a few times.” Dark brows tighten. “Found her body in the water after a storm about two years ago; brought it back to the rocks so someone could retrieve it.” Your face loosens as the information settles in. John makes a noise in his chest. “Interesting that I’d be roped into it, but it’s understandable. Always someone to blame, eh?” 
“I don’t blame you,” you whisper. “That must have been horrible.”
Blue slips over to you silently, and it’s a long moment before John only hums under his breath, blinking away softly. 
“Scared me when you fell in.” Listening, your heart clenches in your ribs. To think about what must have been going through his head at that instant was sad to you, and even worse so when you know he would have blamed himself if you might have ended up seriously hurt.
“Well,” you lean into him, face on fire, “it was a good thing you were there to drag me out, then. A little water never hurt anyone, so long as a handsome merman is there to take them back to shore.” 
John huffs out a laugh. “Handsome?”
“Oh, very,” you joke. “The tail is a bonus.” Your expression lightens, eyes glinting. “Since when did you know that navy is my favorite color?”
The feeling of the cold water is only a back-drop to the way John’s fins twitch against your bare legs intimately, and you chuckle as the beard can only hide so much red skin. 
“Bugger off,” he grunts. 
You’ve never heard a smile so clearly before in your life.
Your paintings were selling far better than they ever had, and you had to thank the new muse of them for that fact. 
John’s appearance in your work had started small—a glimpse of a fin, the presence of a shadow in the water—and had steadily grown. Now, hidden like a present, there was the image of some fishtailed man somewhere in all of them, a steady injection of magic into the veins of cerulean blue and ivory black. It showed you that fewer people knew about John than you had previously thought. 
Initially, you had imagined that everyone knew and the reason you didn’t was because you were relatively new here, but no. Most had been enamored by your work when they found the ‘strange fish-man’ in one, pointing and chucking to themselves, talking about how adorable it was. No one was shocked, no one sent looks. 
By the end of the week, you had been convinced that it had been narrowed down to Otto and the Librarian—
The bell of your shop dings.
Looking up from your easel, you smile and stand automatically, thinking about closing soon so you can go and see John. Nowadays, even the thought of him makes your blood pump heavy. 
“How can I help you today, Sir?” Your brushes find the side table you had set up, locking eyes with a tall, thin man in his late thirties. He wears a suit, and in his breast pocket, there’s the gleam of a gold chain attached to a pocket watch. 
“I’m here to ask about a detail in your paintings, Miss.” He’s well-spoken as well, and you’re shocked to know you haven't met him yet if he lived in Redthorpe—he doesn’t seem familiar at all.
“Of course,” you nod, perplexed. “I’m sorry, I think I missed your name.”
“Noah Moore,” is the even response. Noah is already walking around, bending to look into some of your work which hangs on the wall. “My neighbor brought home one of your pieces; I found I liked it very much. Had even considered commissioning.”
Noah? You blink slowly, watching. Wasn’t that Eleanor’s husband?
“Thank you,” your lips move, thinning. “That’s very high praise, Mr. Moore.” 
“This creature,” Noah stands, and dark eyes set on you. For some reason, the hair along your arms stands on end. “The man with a fish tail. Have you seen him?”
Your instant reaction is to lie, and that in and of itself is a telltale sign that something is wrong. Noah makes the alarm in the back of your head go off for no reason other than the way he’s trying to pry with that unblinking gaze of his. The rich apparel; the attitude. He isn’t right.
“Seen him?” Chuckles echo off the walls. “Who? The beast? No, Sir, that…thing…is just something I made up.” You wave a hand, but back up a step, trying to create distance. Your hip lightly bumps the side table, and your materials jerk. Gasping under your breath, your head snaps down, catching your brush before it can fall. “Oh my, clumsy me.” you laugh stiffly. “Apologies, Sir, but that’s the truth. I wanted to create something that all of Redthrope might enjoy; a local legend of sorts, see.”
Your eyes had siphoned back with a dread in your heart. The man mutely stares, a deep frown pulling his lips. As if the conversation had never happened, after a long stretch of tension, Noah smiles widely. 
“Ah,” he huffs, “of course. It was silly of me to ask.” Dark eyes are emotionless, and the pull of his eyelids is not there. Spine so tight it could snap in half, and your fingers curl around the brush before you place it down stiffly. “Though,” Mr. Moore clicks his tongue, taking one step closer. 
Your eyes widen, but you say nothing. Your mind flashes to John, and there’s a longing for the ocean so strong, it seems a good idea to you, to rush out the door right now and sprint for it; hurl yourself to the waves, if need be. He’d find you—you know he would.
“Though,” Noah continues, tilting his head. “There is a striking resemblance to a creature I recall seeing from the cliffs, the day my wife’s body was found at the rocks.” 
Backing up another step, your muscles ache with how you hold them like a shield to your organs. 
“As far as I know, only two others were searching at my side that day. And in it I am certain,” he hums, “you weren’t even here.”
Otto and the librarian, you think quickly, mind a mess of information and fear. It’s why they’re so spooked. They think John actually killed Eleanor and left her—they saw him bring her body to shore.
It’s a lack of foresight on your part, that the next bark is more of a reaction to the panic than proper knowledge, cracking under pressure. 
“John would never kill an innocent woman!” 
It’s as if a switch goes off, and, suddenly, there’s a ruthless hand grabbing at your throat. Yelping, you stagger back and snap your fingers to Noah’s wrist, clawing until there’s blood under your nails; air is sucked in with a wheeze. In the back of your head, there’s wild screaming, and you can’t tell if it’s the pounding of your blood or the internal sensation of primal fear. 
Raging eyes shove themselves right in front of yours, faces so close you can feel Noah’s hot breath moving over your burning face. You try to cough but find you can’t as one of your hands struggles to slap to the side table—searching fruitlessly. 
“John?” Noah sneers, holding tighter. “The thing has a name?”
Your easel clatters to the ground, back being shoved right into it. Mouth opening and closing, the cut of oxygen reduces your mind to acting purely off instinct—breaking down like glass to fracture to only one thing: survival.
“It was perfect,” Mr. Moore growls, eyes ablaze. “I had it all planned out, only to be ruined by a freak of nature at the last moment!” 
Your nails gouge the wood, dragging, searching, slapping. Anything—anything at all to help as your boots scrape from under you. You can’t even comprehend the words being said; all of it is a blur as blackness peels the side of your vision. 
Tears splatter down your cheeks.
“Two years, and then you had to come along and fucking speak to it! What did it tell you? Eh? What did it see that night?”
Your hand curls the glass bottle where you store your brushes and without another thought, you slam the side of it to Noah’s head. 
Shouting, the man releases you in an instant, glass leaving long lines of blood splattering out to sprinkle your face as it shatters, collapsing into itself. Connecting to the ground, your hacking can only take place for under two seconds before your boots scramble for purchase, stumbling and flailing at least once; lungs gasping. 
Shoulder connecting with the side of the door frame as you bang it open, an enraged scream follows you into the rainy afternoon, the rumble of deadly thunder far overhead. 
Running, you don’t know how to stop, and it’s even harder to catch your breath by the time you’re down to the rocks, looking over your shoulder as if Noah would be right behind you. He wasn’t—but the fear was enough to keep you going until you were bathed in sweat and barely strong enough to fall into the entrance of John’s cave, fingers cut up and raw from grappling over stone.
There’s a quick call of your name from across the enclosed space, but your ears are ringing too loud to hear—whipping around to stare at the entrance as you struggle back on your hands, legs shaking. 
“Love!”
Your eyes slash to the side, and through the quivering of your lashes, through the blur of tears, you lock onto the desperate slash of grayish-blue that’s a near-perfect reflection of the ocean itself. Painting, the realization comes a moment too late, as pale fingers touch your cheek and you flinch back with a deep pain in your neck. 
Pulsing veins echo along your entire body, but there, at the point of where hands had wrapped your flesh, it burned with a horrible fire that made thin noise escape your lips.
“Hey,” John breathes, having dragged himself at a moment’s notice across the floor of the cave. “Hey,” he repeats slower, eyes slashing you up and down for any sign of injury. 
His hand is outstretched, but he doesn’t try to touch you again seeing how you’d jerked away. The man’s heart had stopped at that—his concern shooting up similar to how he felt when you’d raced through the entrance as if a fire was on your heels. A near panic at the fear on your face, leaving his body on high alert; eyes skating the surrounding quickly.
But the splatters of blood on your face were something to reduce him to an enraged beast.
“What is going on,” he tries to keep the rough anger from his tone, attempting to leave it soft and smooth. There’s only so much he can do, though, as you shake and pant. 
Your body gradually slows itself, attention seeping back to allow you to take control of your limbs. The first thing you see clearly is John’s outstretched hand, and, then, the clench of his jaw—the eyes that follow every teardrop down the flesh of your cheek.
Openly gazing, when John sees you’re back, his blues slip to a softened caress. 
“Love,” he mutters, face tight. 
You shove yourself into his arms and let off a sob that echoes louder than any laughter could. Curling into his chest, water seeps into your shirt, but the all-expansive hand that keeps you close is worth every clothesline you would have to hang. 
“Shh,” John breathes, knowing that he’d get an explanation when he calmed you down, even if his mind was breaking itself to try and understand. “I’m right here, Sunshine. Breathe, then…I’m right here, yeah?” 
His nose pushes itself into your scalp as your head hides away, quivering body curled like a cat around a fish—no air between the two of you, chests running across the others. So little space, and yet this breathlessness was one you could welcome time and time again.
John watches, eyes always open as he glares into your hair, grip tightening the longer you cry; a feeling so potent brimming in his chest, he would be a fool to ignore it.
You were more precious to him than any ring, than any trinket he could stash away and forget about. The way his heart bent to yours was stronger than any storm. 
Breathing down your scent, John sighed, kissed the top of your head, and lightly rocked you back and forth. 
He’d wait as long as it took.
When it became apparent you couldn’t speak beyond broken little coughs and wheezes, John was quick to bring you to the water of the pool.  
Now, perhaps hours later, you sit with the burn and fatigue of crying eyes, sniffling as you shove away the stain of red on your cheeks. 
“Careful,” John lightly comments, grasping your hand and pulling it away. His own replaces it, wet from the water he now wades in to help. “Let me get it, eh?”
Your eyes stay stuck to his nose as fingers push away the crimson of blood easily, firm but still utterly delicate. 
“I’m not glass,” you croak, one hand near your throat. 
Blue eyes blink at you. “Never said you were,” he grunts, frowning, and you see his Adam’s Apple bob. “Don’t like seeing you with blood on your face, Love.”
Like it had never happened, the fingers return, and a moment later, he grumbles out, “And stop talking—you’ll make it worse.” 
You hadn’t explained, not yet, but by the utter rage you see John trying to hide from you, you know he understands how you might have gotten the swelling now present on your neck. His heart had been visibly pumping the entire time you’d been here; you could hear it when he was holding you, a relentless, thump-thump-bump, thump-thump-bump in your ear.
The brunette had been clenching his jaw more as well, grunting as if a boar after every sentence, a nervous habit, perhaps. He was trying to mask it for you, but you weren’t blind. 
John pauses his cleaning, glancing at your throat. 
He studies your face after he hums under his breath, having to dart his gaze away for a moment. 
“...Can I?” You pause, swallowing as the burn persists. 
Nodding after a minute of slow contemplation, cold hands shift to press carefully—not tightening, not holding you there—resting to give relief. You only tense a little, but as the seconds draw, John watches you sag forward with a large sigh through your nose. 
He lets a small sliver of calm enter him.
“Easy,” John whispers, blinking. He keeps the chill of his hands at your neck, fins shifting the water to keep him still. “When you’re ready, explain it to me, eh?” His head tilts, voice a low tease. “Glass or not.” 
Your lips twitch, and the way your eyes melt could only be compared to safety. You open your lips, and John mutters lowly as your fingers brush over his own, “Quietly, now. Can hear just fine—don’t push yourself.” 
Blue flickers to your touch, fingertips trailing his knuckles as the man grunts, attention fluttering back. 
All you say is one name. 
“Noah.” 
There’s a moment of confusion on John’s face, skin wrinkling, before the understanding settles swiftly—he wasn’t a fool. From there, his expression changes ten times over; that rage, then fear for you, confusion, and stubbornness. It’s of little surprise to you that a man so loyal was reduced to a dog. 
A dog with scales, that is.
Your body is still running hot—your heart still pumping, though the adrenaline has left with all of its stimulation. You’re tired, yes, that much is obvious. But you want John to hold you again. 
When you shift your body, the man’s eyes widen, and he blinks quickly in shock as your legs then slip into the waves inch by inch.
A noise exits the back of his throat, and John’s mouth moves in serious question. “What are you doing? Fucking hell, would you just stay still and let me have a look at you—”
Arms grapple around his waist, and a warm head burrows into his neck. 
You rest against him, body suspended in the water of the deep pool, a merman’s tail swishing to shove you the tiniest bit closer unconsciously. John’s chest bounces with every emotion, but all he does is stop you from sinking by holding you. Your eyes close at the dig of his hands, and, letting the water move the both of you, the smooth scales along your legs feel as if the finest silk. A thumb caressing up and down your spine; breath at the top of your head.
You both say nothing, and it’s a long while before either of you takes any action to leave.
When your words could be strung together and not broken every other sentence, you explained all of it, and the hunch you’d strung together in the meantime.
You fiddle with one of John’s rings—the emerald one—as you glance up and speak softly, voice still delicate. The pain still blossomed, but some things needed to be explained.
“I think he killed his wife.” 
By the way John stops massaging the flesh of your neck, letting you rest your head in the crook of where his tail begins and skin ends, you knew he already pieced that together a while ago. Your clothes were still heavy with water, and a puddle had formed around the both of you on the rocks.
“Hm,” is all John says, fixing the position of his lips as he looks away.
He shakes his head, growling out, “You’re not going back up there. Not while he’s still walking the streets.”
You frown, but John glares without any venom. “It wasn’t a question, Love.”
“What will you do,” you whisper, voice hoarse. A brow quirks. “Run after me, John?”
The man stares, not taking it as lightly as you. “If I have to.”
Your breath hitches, hands resting numbly over the ring as John’s fingers once again continue their touching—as if he can rub away the swelling; the damage of the veins. 
“You don’t have legs,” you utter, having to pause in the middle of the sentence to breathe deeply. 
“I’ll crawl,” he grunts.
“The rocks are sharp.”
His face is immobile. “Then I’ll bleed.”
Your mind memorized the stubbornness of his expression—the pull of the crow’s feet beside his eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of a joke in John’s eyes; no lie. Watching him, your face is loose with wonder, and water drips from your temple to connect with those dark navy scales, glinting with the light from the outside sun growing low. 
The ring in your hands is frozen, stopping its turning as your pulse soars.
John licks the corner of his mouth, glancing at the item of gold and green. 
“Keep it,” he mutters, tilting his head to the ring. “More of a use to you.” 
Larger fingers capture yours, and in one deft motion, the elegant item is slipped onto your digit, sitting comfortably as if made just for you. 
John shrugs. “The rest of ‘em, too, if you want the damn things.” His blues card over the view of your hand, and imagines fingers filled with every bit of gold and silver obtainable to him, brought up from the ocean just to sit pretty atop your flesh. Necklaces, bracelets, belts, and accessories; the things he’d seen from far distant waters. 
Oh, but they’d pale in comparison to how you would wear them. 
A muse to a song. A painter to a portrait. 
A women to the water.
He’d seen your latest sketches—you’d brought them down to him here—and when you were exploring this cave, he had taken a peak. Unlike him, yes, but there was a pull to it, that parchment bound by leather. He’d not seen anything like it, and as he had watched you work on occasion, he was entranced as he’d listened to you explain it. You’d told him that you could even manipulate color, and that had left his eyes widening in awe.
You were incredible, and when he saw his own likeness littering page after page, John had been unable to take his eyes off of you. A silent appreciation—a voiceless devotion. He’d never been…captured like this, so to speak. A mirror image. Details he didn’t even know himself, and yet there they were. 
Beauty marks across his cheeks and nose, the scars that littered his flesh that he’d all but forgotten about, the list was endless. 
But he looks at you now, and he can understand why there’s a draw to immortalize the mortal. 
His fingers stay at yours, and they brush skin as they dip along your hand, falling to your wrist. You stare up into his eyes, he stares down into yours. There’s little air to be taken in between the two of you. 
“John,” you utter, blue gaze stuck to your lips. 
He hums, tilting his head, his body looming over yours like a shadow. By the time his face is so near to yours, you don’t want to fight it, you don’t want to think about the strangeness of this predicament you’ve found yourself in—a creature living in the cliffs, handsome and half-inhuman.
When smooth lips brush over yours, and your eyelashes begin to flutter, the shouts from outside break whatever spell had just started weaving itself. 
Head snapping up, John’s body tenses as you push upward quickly. Attention slashing to the cave entrance, it’s not long before you realize what’s going on with a sharp breath and a leap to your pulse. 
The smash of something connecting to rocks echoes like a feral killing song. Yells. Yowls. 
“John,” you say hurriedly, flinching from the pain in your throat. Your eyes dart to his tension-ridden form, his arms wrapping above your body. “You need to run,” you choke out. “Go! Quickly!”
You only get a glance, and the clench of his jaw is as stubborn as it always is. Your brain already knows it’s fruitless. He won’t leave you here alone.
“They’ll kill you!” Your hands push at his chest, finger grasping at the bristle of hair to try and shove at an iron will. 
“Stay under me,” John mutters, voice low and nothing more than a chilled order. Yet, even he knows there’s little that he’d be able to do. His eyes flashed to every trinket and bauble he had collected, the new ones he’d yet to show to you, but there was few in the way of weapons. A dagger or two from a trench, a sword from under a ship—a spearhead. All too far away and rusted for it to even matter. 
There was a sharp feeling in John’s chest. A need. An oath that he gave to himself the moment he’d seen the way your little stick could breathe his image onto a sheet made of fibers. 
He was to watch over you whenever you were in his sights, and that had extended itself to gliding through the water as he watched you climb and grunt your way to his cave; a careful eye that he had no need to tell you about. That was just how he was. 
“John!” You try to bark again, growing desperate. 
Yet, it was already too late, and the merman hadn’t shifted even an inch before Noah, Otto, and the Librarian burst through the entrance like bats from hell.  They hold all manner of weapons, though the more you blink in a panic, the less afraid of them you seem, at the very least, the older man and the woman.
Otto held a cut-up and dented club, nothing more than something you’d keep for a home invasion beside the bed—the Librarian, a heavy book that seemed to contain every bit of information available to the world, so large it strained in her hands. Noah, though, was a different story. 
He had a sharp, long knife and eyes that could cut flesh by themselves. 
Half of Mr. Moore’s face was sliced up, cuts leaking blood to the ground—skin hanging and an eye completely poked with glass; shards in its gentle makeup. 
You swallow saliva and stutter through a shaking breath, and John’s glare could burn cities as he feels it reverberating against him. 
“There!” Noah shouts, balking closer. “See! I knew it was here—seducing the next woman to take to the ocean!” 
Your wide eyes try to take it all in, hands slapping the ground sending droplets of collected water flying. John’s face hones in, digging in like how the glass from your brush container had into Noah’s visage, and, somehow, you think that dead stare can cause more damage. Grasping the merman’s waist, you attempt and silently urge him to go. 
“Girl!” Otto calls quickly, eyes darting from you to John and back. Even if you could yell, you’re not sure you would. You wouldn’t even know what to say. “Get away from it!”
“I’d put that down,” John grunts to Noah, disregarding the old man and the librarian entirely. He clenches his jaw. “‘Fore you end up hurting yourself. Leave.”
“Otto,” you start, glancing at the woman beside your friend who looked like she was about to pass out when John had started to speak. The man in question’s face pulls, wrinkles thinning. “You have to listen to me, please, it’s not how Mr. Moore told you—”
“It speaks!” Noah barks, pointing his knife harder at John. “Freak of nature, it already has its hold on her.”
“Oh my,” the Librarian gasps. “Noah, it’s horrible—look at the tail.”
Your eyes flare with rage as John doesn’t react.
“Hey!” You shout, but instantly slap your free hand to your throat, coughing raggedly until your spine hunches. The merman brings you closer, but you’re already pushing until you’re on your feet, stumbling for a moment as John gives you a sharp look.
“You watch your bloody mouth,” you grid out, glaring, whipping your hands to get rid of the water droplets. Noah licks his lips as John grabs onto the back of your knee, fingers resting firmly. Sending a look down to him, your shoulders loosen at the expression he levels. You can almost hear the words.
 Steady. Keep your head on.
Though, a slash of silent pride made your heart stutter a small bit.
Your eyes glint. “Drop your weapons,” your sentence is crackling but nonetheless sharp. “Leave. John is innocent—he told me all of it.” You turn to Otto. “Mr. Moore attacked me in my shop, I smashed a glass container into his head so he would release me.” Otto tenses, club getting strangled by his fingers. 
“Noah killed Eleanor,” you breathe, John’s grip pulling a bit tighter as if sensing something you have yet to see. Noah shifts quickly, boots squeaking along the rock as he growls. 
“Absurd—!”
“He pushed her over the rocks and blamed John when he saw him bringing back her body,” you interrupt as fast as you can, pain bouncing off your throat. “You all saw it on the shore, the lie was simple enough for a man like him. Saying she drowned to a creature.”
It didn’t surprise you that John was quiet, that he was studying more the stance of men instead of talking or trying to defend himself. While he could be hard-headed and stiff, he was never dull—he never missed ques. So when Noah launched himself at you, Otto and the Librarian more confused and concerned than anything, there was only a heavy push on the back of your knee that left you buckling with a gasp, and then the explosion of water as John sent you both quickly to the water.
Hands whipping to snare around the merman’s shoulders, you’re only able to get a quick breath in before you’re completely enveloped in water, with John’s hand setting itself over your mouth just in case. The sudden rush is comparable to a heavy wind, yet far more cold and nearly like a slap to the back of your spine. 
You both disappear into the deep with a spray, Noah’s muffled yells of terror seen far above near the surface, arms captured by the Librarian and Otto—held at his sides. There’s a flash of those dark eyes, horrible things, and then John’s fins hide the rest as they slash through the water. 
When you both resurface, retreating far back near the watery entrance of the cave, John keeps you firmly behind him, your arms around his waist as you gasp for air. He keeps his head slightly turned to the side—always having you in the corner of his vision. Above the spread of his shoulders, you peek softly, legs suspended below. 
“Lier!” Noah screams, face contorted. “She’s lying!”
You look at Otto and see the grim way he’s already looking back, struggling to keep the younger individual from breaking free. He was sensical, but stubborn in his ways. Otto had a choice just as the librarian did—believe a woman who’d been here a year or someone they’d known nearly their entire lives.
“Noah,” Otto grunts, gritting his teeth. “Breathe, boy! Stop spitting, let her speak—”
The knife in Noah’s hands slashes the air, and suddenly there’s a yell from the librarian and a spray of blood. 
“Otto!” You scream, fingers flinching. 
The old man stumbles, hoarsely crying out as he grasps at his neck. Your eyes widen, mouth ajar as John pushes his hand into your head, shoving it into the back of his hair as he watches blankly, eyes glinting with a deadly hate. 
“Don’t move,” he utters quickly, sternly, to you as your breath breaks, mouth slack to stare at nothing. Scales skate your legs, great kelp-like fins curling your ankle. “Keep still. Focus on my words, Love.” Under his breath is a tight, “Fuck!”
John speaks above the gargling—the spillage of blood to stone. He mutters through the screams of the Librarian as Noah slips trying to run to the entrance, scrambling with bulging eyes. 
“Don’t look,” John says to you lowly, shifting his body as he keeps your face hidden away and let him hold you like a corpse to the earth. The sounds…oh, the sounds were horrible. 
But the man holding you tries very hard to hide them.
Your body quivers violently as the slam of a body hits the ground, the frantic calling of the woman still here with the both of you; the loud calls from the fleeing murder outside the walls.
“That’s it,” John’s fast lips are on the top of your head, muttering and trying to make his voice as even as possible. “That’s it, then. Doing good, don’t move until I say so, alright?”
When you don’t answer, only shoving your visage deeper into his neck, his spine-breaking-hold squeezes once, and his pounding heart bounces opposite yours. You don’t have to say you know him to understand that he’s only holding onto a thread of good manners, and that was certainly only for our own sake.
Otto was dead.
John leads you out, the gold and emerald of your ring glinting in the moonlight as he holds your body to his, the powerful make of his tail doing the work as it shines in the water. He leaves you outside, where the still running form of Noah is visible, yet the only person noticing is John himself. Your hands are so shaky that it would be impossible to hold your sketchbook, let alone a pencil. 
John takes one of them as Mr. Moore gets too close to the shoreline, slipping and getting his foot caught in between two stones. He panics, yelling loudly, as water is lapping up to his knee.
“Hey, hey, you hear me?” John asks, uncaring to the man, as he sets you down softly on a flat rock shelf. Fingers move to sit at your chin, and, through tight sniffles, you make delicate eye contact. He blinks, trying a tight smile—a flash nothing more. “There she is. Good...I need you to listen one last time, yeah? Just like before; don’t look until I say so.” Your face creases lightly, blinking through a haze of senses and horror. Otto was dead. 
The man that brought you out on his boat—the man that cooked you fish and acted as if a guardian to you. His cat, who would take care of her? It seemed a silly thought given the circumstances, but you can’t stop your mind from running. The house, the boat, the cat. The blood. 
“There’s nothing out here that can hurt you,” John grunts, grasping your hands and holding them, letting calluses and scars speak. “So long as I’m here, I won’t let it.” 
He nearly growls out the words. In one movement, he puts your hand to his heart, and your brain latches onto the rhythm as your own rampages in your ears. 
Noah is still screaming, but now it’s for help.
John’s voice lowers as he utters, “Hey,” the man licks his lips, eyes dancing to the side every once and a while. You stare, swallowing down bile. He says as fluidly as possible, keeping constant locked gazes. 
“Stay here. I won’t be long.”
Fingers glide down your neck again, feeling that swelling, and just as you register the kiss that’s leveled to your hand, to that gifted ring, John’s already away; his tail slipping over your flesh, fins gripping, writhing with their film. 
Yet, you have no trouble following his advice. 
The rising screams from Mr. Moore are numb to you, and the following wave of water that swallows him is only accented by the hand that grapples for his neck. 
John always seemed the one for revenge.
With the Librarian's newfound cooperation, the story became simple. 
Mr. Moore, distraught over the death of his wife, had finally lost it all when down on the beach with Otto, yourself, and the local Librarian—attacking and killing the old man in response to being so near to where he and his wife always traveled to. Afterward, he’d walked into the sea and had taken his own life. 
The authorities weren’t going to dispute it. 
You sold Otto's house a week after his death, seeing as he’d named you the sole inheritor of his estate and belongings. There was no need for two properties, and sitting in that small place was akin to torture. After all, he’d been doing what he thought was right, and dying for a lie is nothing short of cruel to those left behind who knew the truth. 
Harriet stays in the shop with you, where she’ll probably live out the rest of her nine lives peacefully. She’s quite fond of the fireplace. 
Most days, people find you near the water, and it’s something that wasn’t going to change even after Noah’s body was found in the rocks—freakishly close to where Eleanor’s had been. Some were calling it poetic and you’d have to agree…but for different reasons.
“You shouldn’t be giving me all of these,” you huff months later, sitting on the rock looking out over the water. A large collection of John’s trinkets is piled high in a wrapping of seaweed, shining bright as you mess with your pencil, leaning to stare at him.
John’s lips flicker into a smirk. He hums, content to watch you, from where he rests not an inch away. You lean into him, sighing, as the innumerable glinting rings on your fingers shimmer. 
“Want to,” he grumbles. 
Rolling your eyes, you look back down to your book, three of four replicas of the man’s scale pattern sitting, shaded and duplicated—lifelike. His tail sways with the water, half of it lost below. 
Your hands reach for them now, the scales closest to you, and you lightly poke and prod as John grunts above you, silent but willing in a way that speaks volumes. He’d let no one else touch him like this for the rest of his life—the softness of your fingers and the care on your face more precious than gold. You revered that tail of his; as if it gave over magic like a wishing well. 
Shivering, John’s breath hitches as your exploring moves, pushing lightly at where the top of his hips would be.
Your talent was fascinating to him, just as you were. If you wanted to ‘paint’ him, he’d allow you to do all the studies needed. Not only to give you a distraction….but because he can’t bear to be away from you anymore. It makes him nervous, and that in itself is an incredible feat.
“Where do you come from, John,” your question moves the air, and the man moves to pull your jacket higher up your body to stave off the chill. You glance at him, smiling, before your attention returns to your drawings. Sketching more, John resets his lips and tries not to stare at your face. It was getting harder to deny that pull. 
That near kiss.
“No answer, Love.” You stare as he quirks a lip, voice lowering. “I won’t be going back to distant waters anytime soon.”
John glances down at your sketchbook, seeing every scratch and bend of care. The both of you were strange creatures, perhaps. Unique—made for one another despite the obvious. 
He nods his head to it softly. The water laps at your boots from below, but you care little before John shifts your feet carefully further up with a push from his tail. You chuckle at him breathily, face heating.
“Getting water on you, Love,” he breathes. “New painting soon?” John asks when the silence settles once more, with you shifting your legs to sit under you. He still isn’t sure what painting entails, but you had told him that you would show him soon, so he knows to be patient. But yearning for anything regarding you is ingrained into his mind now—instinct.
“Mhm,” you smile softly, sending a look at your paper and the images. A huff escapes your mouth. “I think I’ll make this one a portrait.”
John blinks, tilting his head slightly. “Portrait? Why’s that?” 
Your lips find his, moving back up in an instant. 
For a second, the man’s surprised eyes pull back; only lowering as he hums moments later, fingers curling up under your chin as he sags. Lids flutter closed, and his tail twitches lightly.
“I have a subject that’s caught my eye.” You mutter into his flesh when you pull back, face burning as deep blues sear your mind, turning it into mush. Your skin tingles as chilled digits trail your chin, dripping water down your healed throat.
John watches, lips parted, as you continue on. 
“And I’d be a fool if I let him swim off.”
The both of you were going to be perfectly fine.
Tumblr media
TAGS:
@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting, @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot
2K notes · View notes
vanderilnde · 2 months
Text
slobbering and whimpering at the thought of butcher!simon who also happens to be your socially inept neighbour <3
It’s the seedier side of Manchester you move to. To a flat with wet rot between each brick and the peal of police sirens on every other street.
Crammed into the corner of your block is a little gem found between flats and markets: a well-loved butcher shop.
It’s suffocating when you walk in. Dewy and damp and misty and permeating with the angry odour of metal, poorly offset by an overripe air freshener hanging above the entrance.
A man lurks behind the counter. He’s big. Huge. Demands too much space as the coarsely-sewn sheers of his shirt look like they’re about to burst at his biceps. His hair is tamed under a Man Utd cap, but a few odd-angled curls peek out. His arm, swathed in tattoos, flexes as he hacks at a red piece of meat, slicing through the tendons, as you meagrely clear your throat for his attention.
His eyes, sunken in his sallow sockets, hinge upwards to stare at you.
“Um, hope I’m not interrupting you.”
His eyebrows purse because obviously you are. He steps away from the counter, wiping his big, bloodied hands against his apron.
“Could I just-“ you sharply inhale, then belatedly regret it as the smell of raw meat invades your senses. You suppress a cough as to not offend him. He stands with his arms crossed, the papery crows feet of his eyes folding as he stares at you above his mask. “Ah… lamb shanks?”
He grunts. It’s curt, but it doesn’t seem rude. More like socially inept in the ways in which he regards you, and how he prepares your order in sparse, quick movements.
“£6.00.”
You fish in your pocket and bring out a thin handful of coins. He swipes it, doesn’t bother to count it, for some reason, and slides the lamb into a repurposed Tesco bag, handing it over the display.
You reach over, your gaze flitting to his name tag which features only the tail-end of his name, the rest of the ink smudged and washed away from years of hard work.
As you swipe the bag from his hold, his finger brushes yours. A gossamer-thin layer of blood stains your forefinger and marinates your skin in the middle of the exchange.
You pivot, throwing a soft thanks over your shoulder, and rub your thumb into his vestigial warmth on your finger.
It’s after dark when you slip outside your flat, bin bag slapping against your thigh. You’re in a large sweatshirt and some shorts, chucking the trash down the disposal, when the tinny, grating sound of metal-against-metal peals from the elevator.
You throw a cursory glance over your shoulder, but freeze as you spot a familiar figure ducking under the roof of the lift and stepping onto your floor. The butcher.
He is clad in a filmy jacket, arms laden with shopping bags as he helps an elderly lady into her flat.
She says “Thank you, Simon,” and Simon nods, closing the door on his way out.
He fishes through his pockets for his keys and shoulders past you. You think he doesn’t recognise you, or worse, pointedly ignores you.
And for some reason, the latter thought causes a pang of sadness to seize you.
However, halfway down the corridor, in front of the flat next to your own, Simon turns around.
“You’re the new neighbour? Room 146?”
His eyes flicker from your legs to your face. A film of recognition glosses his eyes. Your mouth suddenly feels dry and you dumbly nod, preening under his intimidating eyes.
“Walls are thin,” he says, jamming his keys into the lock, “try keeping quiet, love. Some of us’ve got work in the mornings, yeah?”
Before you can reply, the conversation is already over with the slam of Simon’s door swinging shut.
1K notes · View notes
politemenacephd · 2 months
Text
Rainy morning (18+)
Miguel O'Hara x GN!Reader
Contents: Sleepy sex, overstimulation, Squirting/multiple orgasms, PinV sex, Spooning position, fluffy talking.
Tumblr media
Word count: 1370
‘Mm- can I just, fuck—just a bit more, please—’
You squirmed as Miguel squished his fingers a little deeper inside you, gently circling them to get a perfect feel of your tight insides.
It was cold outside, the kind of cold that sent goosebumps up your arms the moment you lifted the sheets. The rain didn’t help either. It was cascading down in buckets, thick enough to blot out the morning sun, and your bedroom had been left in a soft, shadowy haze. The distant window was misty beneath the half-closed blinds, and the heavy patter of raindrops was the only sound.
Or, at least, it was the only sound, but now it was serving just to muffle the soft wet slap of skin from the neighbours.
It was the perfect morning to stay in and keep warm, Miguel had sleepily whispered when you'd offered to get coffee, the perfect morning to pamper his favourite person.
He’d already coaxed you to cum on his hand at least three times, but he clearly didn’t think you were warm enough.
You were trembling slightly as he fucked you with his hand. You were overstimulated to the max and yet you couldn’t bring yourself to stop, riding out the ache for that undeniable pleasure.
His fingers were huge, calloused and hard from constantly climbing and grappling. You could feel every scar, every ridge on his skin as he stroked the soft folds of your cunt from inside. They were delicious, and besides, you were too lazy to get up.
‘Fff- mm, fuck, that’s it’ you whimpered. He pumped them a few times just to see you sleepily mewl and wriggle on his hand.
‘So pretty’ he murmured to himself.
You’d stayed in the same spooning position you’d fallen asleep in, with one thigh slightly raised for easy entrance and his body at your back.
He looked obscenely lazy, naked in bed with his head in his hand, his red eyes roaming over your face as he moved his hands beneath the sheets.
He was all focused on you, but you could feel his erection on your lower back. He’d been eager to play with his precious pussy but wouldn’t let you touch him yet, and so he’d been throbbing against your spine for nearly half an hour now, utterly coating your skin in his pre-cum.
It was slippery and warm, and every so often you did feel him snap and start gently rubbing himself out against you.
‘So pretty. It’s so cute when you move like that’ he whispered.
‘Move like- mm- like, what?’ you panted.
You saw his eyes narrow over your shoulder. With a soft chuckle he angled his hand, perfectly nestling his fingers up against the ribbing of flesh that indicated he’d found your g-spot. He stroked it, lightly, and relished the way your hips jolted and bucked.
‘MM- Fuck, oh god, fuck—be, gentle, please’ you sleepily whined. He pressed an apologetic kiss to your cheek.
‘Okay, okay. Sorry. Just, one more orgasm and then I’ll fuck you, mm?’
He withdrew his fingers with a wet little pop. He kissed them first before slipping them back down to your clit, and after just a few stimulating circles on that swollen and overstimulated nub you orgasmed for him again.
‘Sigue así, mi amor, por Dios’ he breathed. Even he was surprised at how easily he’d tipped you.
His whispered praise barely reached you as those sweet pulsing ripples ripped through your clit to your core and beyond. It was pure heaven, but the moment it was over you collapsed. You were utterly exhausted.
Your breath was warm on your face as it hit the satin pillowcase. You were too tired to even shift your head.
As Miguel slipped his fingers out, he took the chance to indulge. He held up his hand and admired the strings of click on his fingers from where you’d cum. They were thick and long, perfect little pearly strings that clung to his fingers as he spread them, daintily glimmering in the dim streelight that filtered in. He greedily licked his index finger before squeezing the fat of your thigh with his used hand.
‘Mi amor?’
His soft words earned just a sleepy grunt from you.
‘Not asleep already, are you?’ he teased. His breath hit the little hairs on your nape, forcing you to shudder. That was proof enough for him that you were awake.
‘I think my baby’s ready’ he purred. ‘Would my pretty little thing like me to fuck them now?’
You let out another grunt, gently grinding your rear against his erect cock. He couldn’t help but groan at how wet you were, as his bulbous member slid easily between your cheeks and down into your thighs from the copious slick.
‘Mm—mm, you sure? You’re not too sore?’ he whispered.
‘Mm… please, please just fuck me, Miggy.' Your words were a little slurred, as you’d drooled all over the pillowcase, but Miguel heard them just fine.
He gave you one eager kiss on the shoulder before mounting.
With Miguel spooning you from behind he was half crushing your little body beneath him. The warmth and the weight was a comfort, as was his heartbeat thudding hard against your head, and in that sweet embrace you began to lull.
But then he entered you.
That cosy relaxation was disrupted by the familiar pinch of his cock as it impaled you. He was being as gentle as he could, just barely rocking back and forth inch by inch as he spread you wide, but it was still a tight squeeze. You felt his member circling the thick, velvet ring of your opening before stretching it out and pushing inside, and with one final wet slip he pushed right up to your guts.
You let out a small squeak, prompting him to sleepily nestle your cheek.
‘Shh, you’re all good. Well done. You did so good, mi corazón, now just relax. Just relax.'
You slowly settled back down as he gave a few test pumps, gently easing you out so that he fit more comfortably. You could feel his hefty pecs snuggly fitted around your head, and his abs had been stuck hard to your back from the pre-cum still smeared there.
You felt his biceps tense as he shifted his weight, his enormous, toned thighs easily wrapping around your own to pin them in place. You were soon tangled up in his limbs beneath the sheets.
Fuck, it was so wet.
You could feel yourself drifting off as he started to pump. That rhythmic rocking was perfect for lulling you back into blissful relaxation, as was the warmth and the pressure of his body. You felt your head sinking into the pillows as he fucked you slowly.
‘You feel, heavenly’ Miguel murmured to himself.
He nestled his head into your neck and yawned mid moan, his full lips lazily tracing from your collarbone to your jaw. You tilted your head to gentle bump his forehead.
‘Ah—fuck, that’s it. That’s it.’
Your joint pants merged as you nestled in together. You could feel each other’s breath, each other’s bodies moving in a messy synchronicity, as each pulse from his cock prompted a fluttery throb from your cunt.
‘You okay, mi amor?’
‘Mhm.’
At this point your eyes were closed, and you were savouring that sweet space between wakefulness and dreams. You were lost in a point where all you knew, all you would ever know, was the sweet sensation of him filling you. All you could hear was that wet thwap, that light smacking, and all you could feel was his girth sliding in and out of your thighs.
‘Mmm.’
His lips on your temple forced you to blink yourself awake.
‘No, mi amor, up you get’ he tenderly whispered. ‘I’m not done yet.’
He angled himself then to slide right up against your sweet spot. He moved his firm hands to lift your thighs, helping him reach your g-spot, and with just half of his shaft inside he started to lazily thrust back and forth. He was moving barely an inch each time and it was unbearable.
Soon you were just awake enough to start moaning again.
‘Oh—f-fuck, fuck that’s it, oh—Miggy, MM—’
‘There you go, that’s better. Gotta wake my sleepy baby up’ Miguel purred to himself.
With your bodies intertwined you let him lazily fuck you to his hearts content, all under the cover of the pounding rain outside.
1K notes · View notes
saetoru · 11 months
Text
✩ ‧₊˚ ✩。THE SAME — GOJO SATORU.
✩ — contents ⋮ fluff, gn! reader, established relationship, recent chapter spoilers, just gojo coming home and reuniting with you :(
Tumblr media Tumblr media
when gojo comes home, everything is still the same.
that picture on the wall that’s too high for you to reach is still crooked, no matter how many times you’ve asked him to fix it. the pile of shoes you keep by the door is still there for him to step over, no matter how many times you swear you’ll clean it up. that blanket on the couch is still draped messily over the cushions, no matter how many times you both agree it should be folded. and that bowl of candy on the coffee table is still filled to the brim, no matter how many times you claim you won’t keep buying sweets if he finishes them too fast.
everything is still the same, like you’ve left it all there waiting for him, hoping he’ll come home. and just like always, the way you run up to him and greet him by the door is also still the same—even though right now, your eyes are a lot more teary than usual.
“oh,” you breathe, “oh, satoru,” you say gently, like saying his name too loud will make him disappear. he pushes his blindfold up to his forehead, meeting your eyes as he’s opening his arms for you to fall into. if his eyes are a little misty too, you choose not to mention it, and he’s grateful.
“i’m home, sweetheart,” he grins, plastering that easy grin on his face. “miss me? you didn’t replace me already, did you?”
your face is buried into his chest before he can finish speaking, tackling him into a tight hug. gojo wraps his arms around you tightly, grounds himself with the weight of your arms as you clutch his shirt. you still feel the same too, still feel like that familiar warmth in his arms that feels like holding the sun, that feels like he can get too close without burning.
it’s not hard to see that you’ve missed him.
it’s been nineteen days without gojo satoru. four hundred and fifty six hours. twenty seven thousand three hundred and sixty minutes. it’s a long, agonizing period of time—one that makes you realize how accustomed you are to gojo’s presence—even when he’s not always beside you.
you’ve missed his whiny voicemails to pick up his calls in the mornings as you try to get ready. you’ve missed the bathroom mirror he manages to get completely wet when he washes his face after shaving. you’ve missed the socks he always keeps laying around the bedroom floor. you’ve missed the coffee mug he leaves for you to wash before he leaves for the day. you’ve missed the empty gallon of milk he puts back into the fridge instead of throwing away.
it’s lonely, you realize, when there are no voicemails to delete, no mirrors to wipe, no socks to pick up, no mugs to wash, no milk cartons to throw away.
you’ve missed gojo—even in the ways you swore you never would, in the ways that are imperfect, but not hard to love.
“no one can replace you,” you say teasingly through sniffles, pretending you haven’t stained his shirt with a wet spot, “you’re the only person who could be this big of a headache.”
“i’m the only person who could be this handsome too,” he insists, squeezing you tighter.
“don’t know about that one.”
“c’mon, just look at me,” he whines, squeezing your hips with his hands. you’ve missed them, missed the way you fit in between them, missed the way they find your body for a touch, even if it’s quick. “i’m the cutest.”
you pull away enough to cup his cheeks, pressing your forehead to his as you scan over his face. you could count every lash, stare at every curve, relearn every inch of skin if you could. now that he’s here, you can.
“i’m looking,” you breathe, pressing a kiss to his cheek. he closes his eyes at the feel of your lips, at the sear of your love melting through the skin and into his bones.
“like what you see?” he hums, making you chuckle as you nod.
“i suppose,” you murmur. “did you come back to me in one piece?”
“just who do you think i am,” he pouts, “course i did.”
“got all your fingers?” you raise a brow.
he grabs your hand, lacing your fingers together as he hums.
“all ten,” he confirms.
“both kidneys?”
“fully functioning,” he nods, making you grin.
“you seem to have both of your lanky old legs,” you chuckle, making him gasp a dramatic hey! “got all your toes?”
“you’ll have to pay me to see those,” he wriggles his brows, making you scoff as you swat at his shoulder.
and you’ve missed him like this too—in his laughter you feel through his chest, in his dramatic pout when you playfully smack his arm, in his finger he points to his cheeks for a kiss to feel better.
something tells you he’s missed you too, if the way he keeps his arms tight around you means anything.
because what is a god without his creations? and what is gojo satoru without the gentle love he’s built with you, created carefully between rough hands and the worn out knuckles? he holds you like you’re the answer to his prayers, like he’d kneel before you if you asked him to, like he’d rebuild the gates of heaven before your feet if it meant keeping you here in his arms for a bit longer.
gojo satoru is home. nineteen long days later, he’s home. he’s back in your apartment, the one with that crooked photo and pile of shoes at the front door, the one with the blanket on the couch to hold you under as he eats the candy you keep just for him on the coffee table.
he’s home, and he thinks he’ll never spend another night without you again.
“i missed you,” you say through a watery voice. he hums, wipes your tears with delicate thumbs that trace the lingering ache away.
“yeah? how about now, still miss me now?”
he smiles when you nod, kissing between your brows and swaying your body gently.
“always miss you,” you say with a teary pout. “don’t do that again.”
“i missed you too, sweetheart. don’t worry.”
“i love you,” you say, tasting the words on your tongue after so long.
and he lets his head fall to your shoulder as he hears them, lets out a shaky breath at the way they sound when you say them like that. like you missed him. like you need him. like you can’t lose him. like he’s all you have left. like he’s your past, present, future, and everything beyond that. like he’s yours in this life and the last, and always the one that comes next.
“love you too, sweetheart,” he says against your ear, kissing your skin gently, “i’m home.”
Tumblr media
i love him painfully
3K notes · View notes
imperihoe-writes · 6 months
Text
"Your hands around my neck."
Tumblr media
Colonel Alejandro Vargas / fem!Reader
Summary:  After a mission goes south, Alejandro finds himself stuck in a cabin with the most infuriating and tempting person he knows.
Content:  (fr)enemies-to-lovers, mild jealousy, protective Alejandro, blood and injury, lots of bickering, sex dreams, kissing, finger sucking, masturbation, consensual throat grabbing, he's so mean in the best way :(
↳ callsign for the reader is Schwalbe (swallow, like the bird, German)
Word Count:  6.8k
Notes:  The Alejandro Tales continue once more! This request ran away from me, and I wanted to make sure to do it justice. I haven't written smut quite like this before, but I thought it would fit within the context of the injuries mentioned. 🥀🖤
NOT SUITABLE FOR MINORS.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," she hissed, back pressed to the Colonel's as they fired round after round into the misty forest, tree bark splintering as bullets hit them. Night was falling fast and their line of vision was poor, the number of enemies remaining unclear.
"This," Alejandro ground out between clenched teeth, pushing into her further as they kept on wading through shin-high snow. "Is your fault."
"My fault?" Her voice rose several octaves, almost hysterical. "You were the one that left our only comm device in some random diner like a complete rookie!"
"Because you had to go and-"
They both ducked as another hail of bullets flew past them.
"-pick the only guy in that town to flirt with who works for Ivankov and is smart enough to tell that they're being hustled for information!"
"For the last time: I was not flirting with him! You charging up to us with zero knowledge of Russian in a never-heard-of town in the middle of nowhere was probably more of a giveaway that we don't belong than me vaguely asking about the mines!"
"He was about to draw a gun on you, niña zonzo. Which you would have known if you weren't so easily distracted by some pretty eyes and an easy smile." 
The sneer in the Colonel's voice was clear, and Schwalbe snarled. How dare he pin this on her! 
"What did you just call me?"
Alejandro reloaded his gun with quick movements, then pushed Schwalbe onwards. It made her stumble, and snow found its way into her hiking boots for the hundredth time and oh yeah, she was definitely going to kill him when all this was over.
"Never mind." 
"Respectfully, sir, be quiet then. This is your fault, and you know it."
Of course, he did. Alejandro felt stupid, like the rookie she'd accused him of being but seeing her leaning against the wooden counter, eating blini and smiling up at that blonde prick had lit up every single nerve ending in his body. 
The way her jeans hugged the curve of her generous thighs and butt as she shifted from one leg to the other, the heavy black sheepskin jacket hiding her chest harness full of knives and emergency supplies. She looked like a regular young woman enjoying a meal with a stranger, blending in with her open smile that made her cheeks puff in that annoyingly adorable way.
For a moment, he hadn't been thinking straight, and when the guy reached inside his coat in the same spot that Alejandro carried his own firearm, well. 
It had led to them speeding out of town in a rush, two black jeeps trailing them and one heavily bleeding Russian slumped over the counter. His bag, which contained the emergency radio, their fake passports and money had been left behind in the booth he'd occupied.
"I knew it was a mistake to go on this mission with you," he panted, groping for her hand as they ran along through the quickly approaching darkness, their car long abandoned in an icy ditch somewhere. Alejandro hoped they would find their way back to it in the morning. "Trouble just follows you like the plague."
Her fingers twitched and twisted out of his, teeth bared and hair wild as she whirled on him, exasperated. The sight stole the breath out of his lungs for a moment. 
"Then do us both the favor and request literally anybody else next time, Colonel! I'm so sick and tired of you acting like you're somehow better than me every time we cross paths!"
"That's not-"
A loud shot rang out from somewhere to their left, and Alejandro felt the warmth of blood soaking his side way before the pain hit. 
Schwalbe's eyes widened with shock, then she pressed him down by the shoulder in an often-practised move. With a grunt, he let himself fall to his knees in the snow, clutching the wet fabric of his sweater and pressing inwards against the bullet wound. 
She used his slumped body to steady her aim, then fired off three quick rounds. The silencer muffled the gunshot sounds, and suddenly, there was no more shouting, no more movement around them.
Gun still raised and eyes trained on somewhere behind him, she reached for his hand this time and Alejandro gripped her forearm with a hiss, pulling himself back up on unsteady feet. 
"Bastards," she swore and then glanced over at him. "You alright?"
"Never been better," he grunted sarcastically but didn't protest when she wrapped an arm around his middle and draped his right arm over her shoulders. 
"We need to get you somewhere safe, so I can assess the damage properly. Can you walk?"
"What if I said no? Will you carry me, little bird?"
"In your wildest dreams. I'd just leave you here for some wolves or bears to find as a midnight snack."
But despite his snark and the venom in her voice, they swayed onwards, tiny red droplets of blood on white quickly covered by evermore falling snowflakes. 
The hunting lodge was small, barricaded and looked like no one had come this way for months, perhaps years. 
A lucky find, truth be told, and Schwalbe left the Colonel panting and leaning against the side of the house as she pried away the rotting wood panels that crisscrossed over the entryway. 
Once inside, her boots trailed in a thick layer of snow, and only the tiny emergency flashlight around her neck provided them any light in the darkness. The lodge was tidy but smelled of dust and furs, an old table next to the cold fireplace, a tiny kitchenette and a singular bed pushed into the corner of the room. 
"Charming," she said drily, then turned to find Alejandro breathing hard behind her, shoulder against the doorframe. 
"Light the fire," he grunted, then shuffled over to the stained table. The old chair creaked ominously under his weight, even though he wasn't even wearing most of his gear. Schwalbe's eyebrows rose so high on her forehead that they almost disappeared. Alejandro stared back at her, dark eyes stormy as his jaw worked. 
"Por favor." He amended.
She huffed out a breath, then knelt in front of the fireplace and got to work. It wasn't perfect, but they'd been trained so thoroughly to survive in the wilderness that having some shelter and wood was a luxury. Schwalbe tried to ignore the pained huffs of the Colonel and the way her heart raced with worry, how her hands shook a little. 
As soon as the fire started crackling, helped along by an old tissue box, she waved him closer and he stood slowly, dragging the chair over. 
Every movement looked pained, but he hadn't lost all the colour in his face and still held his chin up. 
"Strip," she ordered him, undoing her jacket and rummaging through the strips of her heavy-duty harness that had pockets sown into it. It hugged her body tightly, and she struggled for a moment, cold fingers stiff from the ice and snow. 
"You should buy me dinner first, cariña," he drawled, undoing his belt onehanded to have more room to free his sweater and undershirt. "I like to get romanced before I show off the goods, you know."
"Please," she snorted, rolling her eyes. "Keep those goods to yourself. I just need to have a look at that bullet wound, or otherwise, you'll probably die in my care and it will somehow be my fault as always."
"Always," he nodded seriously. She helped him pull off all the different layers as he winced and swore in low Spanish. 
Twisting his torso towards the firelight, she gently prodded at the torn flesh that continued to pump out dark blood with each breath. Thankfully, there was also an exit wound on his back, but it looked even worse.
"Bullet's out," she murmured, then rummaged around the miniature emergency kit for a needle and threat. There was a tiny tube of disinfectant, and his shirt had to suffice as the only clean-enough rag she could find. 
Alejandro suffered through it, clutching his knees so tightly that she thought he might break them and only occasionally exhaling sharply when the thin needle pulled at his skin too much as she weaved him back shut again. 
"Gracias," he bit out as she finished his back as well, the flesh swollen and red. The thin roll of gauze was hardly enough to wrap around his thick torso twice, and Schwalbe held her breath as she came so close to him, trying not to get distracted by the shower gel he must have used that afternoon, or the warmth his skin gave off as she wrapped her arms around him to tie the knot.
"You're welcome," she said seriously, then grinned. "Bet you're glad we're here together now, aren't you?"
Alejandro glowered, dark eyes burning into hers. She swallowed, suddenly hyper-aware of how close their faces had become, and the way she practically knelt between his legs. 
No, no, triple no! She shouted at herself. Not the time, not the place, and definitely the least deserving man to get flustered about!
"I am," he said eventually, brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek and then rose in the next moment, wincing. 
"Where do you think you're going?" She hissed as he made a beeline for the door, unbothered by the fact that he still wore no shirt. 
"Taking a piss," he rolled his eyes, glancing at her over his shoulder. "And then I need time to think."
"About what?" 
Alejandro lazily gestured around the small hunting lodge.
"How we can make this charming place our future home," the sarcasm was dripping out with each word.
He's such an asshole. 
"I hope your dick freezes off," she muttered under her breath as he stepped outside, and for a split second, Schwalbe thought he might have heard. Then the front door fell shut behind him, a cold gust of icy air making the fire stutter before it resumed dancing. 
Schwalbe took the opportunity of being alone to strip down to her underwear, then hung up all the sodden clothes over the back of the abandoned chair and mantlepiece. The wool blankets that were folded neatly on the single bed were scratchy on her cold and damp skin, but she felt a thousand times better already, wrapped up in her cocoon. 
Alejandro barged back into the hut without announcing himself, teeth chattering and goosebumps all over his exposed chest. The look in his eyes was triumphant.
"Good news, I-"
The words died on his tongue as he took in her bundled-up form in front of the fireplace. His dark gaze flitted over to the sodden clothes hanging up, seemingly trying to figure something out before he cleared his throat.
"As I was saying, there is good news."
"Seargent Soap is waiting outside with a hot chocolate and fluffy socks?"
A tiny smile curled up the Colonel's mouth and he rolled his eyes as he came over to her, sitting down on the old fur rug slowly, wincing when he twisted his sides.
"Not that good, I'm afraid. But you left the car running, didn't you?"
"If you're about to start lecturing me about my carbon footprint then let me stop you right there, sir. I wasn't really thinking about the waste of fossil fuels when they shot our tires out."
Alejandro groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. 
"I'm only asking," he ground out. "Because much like the radio, our GPS signal and navigation history is traceable remotely."
"Oh."
"Yes."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the flames.
Schwalbe could feel the shivers going through Alejandro's body and sighed. She undid half of her cocoon of blanket, and draped it over his shoulders and back, with him reflexively holding onto it.
Dark eyes immediately found her face before dipping lower for just a split second, and Schwalbe was glad that her legs and knees concealed most of her exposed pink skin... and that she had left on her underwear most of all. 
"It is not necessary," Alejandro shook his head, trying to push the blanket back onto her and Schwalbe scowled.
"Your lips are blue, and all that teeth-chattering is disturbing my quiet time, Colonel. Just share the damn thing."
"Has anyone ever told you that you need to watch your tone around your superiors, Sergeant Major?" Alejandro grumbled, then scooted just a tiny bit closer until his arm and leg were pressed against hers and he pulled the blanket more securely over them both.
Schwalbe flashed him a grin that was all teeth and dimples.
"You do, sir. All the time."
"Apparently not often enough, eh?"
It made her snort, then she turned back towards the fire that burned the frost-stung skin on her face in the best way possible. After a brief silence, she nudged Alejandro in the side. The sharp hiss that followed made her eyes widen in alarm, and she quickly held onto his thigh as he tried not to curl away from her in pain.
"Oh mein Gott, I'm so so sorry, I forgot, shit, fuck," she swore, and the Colonel let out an amused, but pained laugh.
"You forgot that I was shot?"
Face burning with embarrassment, she continued to fuss over him until his breathing had evened out and he managed to sit up straight again, mock-glowering a little.
"So? What did you want to ask?"
"Just- If they can track our GPS, they'll come for us, right?"
Her voice was unusually small, face open and vulnerable as she huddled against him in the dark hut. 
Alejandro felt himself soften.
"I'm sure they would find it most unusual that we parked in the middle of the woods for hours and are not answering the radio. Rudy or Ghost will send someone, they know where we were from our last check-in."
Schwalbe nodded slowly, biting her lip as she frowned.
"You think you'll be able to hold on until the morning then? You're not in too much pain?"
Truth be told, his back and side ached like crazy, the steady thrumming of pain and wrongness a constant reminder that he'd gotten extremely lucky.
"I'll be fine," he reassured her, bumping his shoulder into hers. "Need to keep going so I can file that formal complaint over your behaviour after all."
Schwalbe laughed and for a moment, all he wanted to do was lean in and steal that sound from her mouth, taste it on his tongue. Which was highly inappropriate, not to mention unprofessional, and he was almost certain that one of her knives would end up between his ribs pretty quickly if he tried that. 
"If they don't come," she said, sobering up and looking up at him through her eyelashes. "I'll get the jeep tomorrow and go for help. We need to treat that wound properly, or otherwise, it'll get infected."
With a shrug, he agreed easily enough and they settled back in, warming their feet and hands as the room filled up with heat and the smell of burning logs. 
From the corner of his eye, he saw her head fall forward multiple times before she jerked back up, awake and alarmed until she realized that they were still safe. After a while, he nudged her and jerked his chin over to the bed, frowning.
"Go sleep, cariña."
To his surprise, she vigorously shook her head with a fierce scowl. 
"Absolutely not. You need to rest, Colonel. I'll keep watch, in case somebody finds us."
Her words had his heart fluttering a little from the worry in her tone, and Schwalbe blushed but set her jaw stubbornly, refusing to back down.
"No one will find us," he replied, brushing a stray curl behind her ear absentmindedly. "And unless you snore like a bear, I doubt they'd be very much intimidated by a sleeping soldier."
"I can stay awake!" She protested, and Alejandro groaned, praying for strength as he rolled his neck and frowned down at her.
"Fine, we'll both stay awake then. But perhaps it'll be more comfortable if you did that over there?"
He gestured towards the bed again, fighting against the smirk over her ever-darkening facial expressions. She looked ready to explode, and Alejandro had always loved fireworks.
But then she took a deep breath and smiled so sweetly that it left him dumbfounded for a moment. 
"Excellent idea. I think you need to stretch out your back and go easy on the stitches, so you should lie down as well."
It was a clear challenge because Schwalbe knew Alejandro would never be caught dead in the same bed as her. 
Which, well. You couldn't blame a girl for being a little salty about that, with Vargas being as infuriating as he was handsome. 
But the more rational part of her had always known that the Colonel lived and breathed his job, took etiquette seriously, and never acted out of turn towards any of the female soldiers in his care. He was a rare gem in this business, solely focused on making the world a better place. And-
"I suppose," he grunted, and was already halfway up in a pained huff before her brain caught up with what he'd said.
She quickly scrambled to her feet, exhaustion making her sway for a moment as she watched Alejandro wince over to the bed, the lack of painkillers clearly taking a toll on him. His back revealed several deep scars where it wasn't covered by the thin gauze, muscular shoulders bunching as he crawled onto the single bed and took up most of the space. 
Schwalbe stood, still clutching the wool blanket around her shoulders. Her heart was beating fast, and she hastily turned around when his dark eyes found hers again. She busied herself with restacking the fire in a way that would hopefully last for a few hours before it needed another batch of wood.
Eyeing her drying clothes, she ran a hand over the shirt, only to find it disgustingly damp still, the same as her jeans. 
Chewing her bottom lip anxiously, she resigned to her fate. Picking up the soft material, she was already slipping into it, one awkwardly positioned arm made sure that the Colonel didn't get more of an unwanted eyeful than he already had that night, when his deep voice rang out in the dark space.
"What are you doing?"
Schwalbe turned, confused, and saw that Alejandro had propped himself up against the wall with the only pillow available, eyes unreadable as he stared at her.
"Getting dressed?" It came out more like a question, even though it should have been real bloody obvious.
"You'll catch a cold, just use the blanket and let your clothes dry," he grumbled, arms crossed. Schwalbe raised one meaningful eyebrow at his own still-sodden cargo pants.
"I don't see you following your own advice, Colonel."
Alejandro rolled his eyes, head thumping against the wall.
"It's not the same, no? Besides, I need you to be healthy and fit tomorrow, in case they don't send an evac."
"How is it any different!" Schwalbe complained, but dropped the shirt back over the chair by the fire and bundled herself up in the blanket again before hesitantly walking over to the bed.
"I'm a man in charge of protecting you," he explained, slow like he was talking to a daft child. 
"And I'm a woman that kept you from bleeding out, so I don't see what your point is."
Alejandro clenched his jaw as she laid down next to him, and adamantly tucked the blanket tighter around her middle when Schwalbe tried to share again. Though he would never admit it out loud, the thought of her soft skin and thick thighs pressed up against him made him panic a little. It had been different when they sat in front of the fire somehow, but lying in the same tiny bed practically naked crossed way too many lines. 
"I wasn't going to bleed out," he grumbled, unable to stop talking as she wiggled around a bit to get comfortable. 
"Well if that's so then I'll just pull the stitches out again and go to sleep," she snarked back, but stilled when one heavy hand settled on her hip over the blanket, halting her movements.
"If you keep squirming you'll keep hurting me," Alejandro said quietly, and big eyes shot up to him full of guilt. "Just relax."
Schwalbe tried, pressed up against the Colonel with her face towards the fire and hyper-aware of every single inch of him.
"I'm not sleeping," she said, even though her eyes were already drifting shut.
"Of course not," he replied, a smile in his voice.
"And if you're cold you'll use the blanket."
"Mhm."
It was quiet then, both keeping an ear out for suspicious noises or movement beyond the single dark window, but all was well. Schwalbe kept nodding off, determined to be a good teammate and watch over the injured Colonel, but exhaustion eventually pulled her under.
Alejandro listened to the steady breathing next to him, and when he was one hundred per cent sure that she had fallen asleep, he let out a shaky exhale. His side and back hurt like hell, and he tried to alleviate some of the strain and pressure by slowly turning.
The only thing he saw of the infuriating woman in his bed were strands of hair, a nose peeking out of the scratchy woollen blanket and long eyelashes that fanned out against her skin. Alejandro looked down at her, feeling like a creep as he admired her round cheeks and the curve of her eyebrows that were relaxed for once.
I wish you would look at me like that when you're awake. But it was a futile thought, considering that the two of them had always been like cats and dogs. 
Pressed up against her as the big spoon, Alejandro finally found some much-needed relief, though his skin pulsated and he was fairly certain that the bandage was a little bloody by now. 
Schwalbe sighed and snuggled closer to him in her sleep, butt pressed against him and Alejandro closed his eyes for a moment, glad that they had a blanket between them and the pain of his gunshot wound was enough to keep him from having an embarrassingly obvious reaction to her proximity. 
Of course, the only woman whom I get a hard-on for these days would be you, he thought exasperatedly, annoyed with himself. And it was true. His last relationship had been years ago, the last casual sex? Lacklustre. He’d missed the sparks, though the one-night-stand had been lovely and eager, giving into him so easily. Which was nice for his ego, he wasn't above admitting that. He gazed back down at Schwalbe.
Bet you'd be a real handful in bed as well.
Before he thought himself into a dangerous hole he wouldn't be able to crawl out of, Alejandro turned his attention to the fire once more, arm resting above the young woman's head so he wouldn't crush her. The dancing flames and smouldering coals had something hypnotic to them, and he felt his eyelids grow heavy, the smell of soot and warm skin and wool oddly alluring.
Alejandro jerked back awake at the first tiny moan that Schwalbe let out, suddenly very aware of the way she was rubbing up against him in her sleep. Her naked shoulder was exposed, small hand clutching the old sheets underneath them. Sweat ran down her throat and, still half-asleep, hungry dark eyes followed the small drop down her collarbone and between her soft breasts, only concealed by the black sports bra. Her position squished them together and up in a way that made Alejandro swallow and avert his gaze, ashamed of himself. 
When she whimpered next, his attention shot back to her in alarm. Was she sick? Hurting?
He put one hand on her side to shake her awake, but then Schwalbe sighed again. 
"Ale-" she mumbled, butt pressed into his lower stomach, head curled up on his bicep. And when did that happen?
The hand on her side flexed, with Alejandro looking down at her flushed face, wide-eyed. She'd sounded so sweet, so- 
"-please."
Fucked out. 
"Cójeme," he swore quietly, trying to put some distance between them, sure that she wouldn't want him to see her like this. But the way she'd said his name like that, all breathless and-
"Harder, please-."
Alejandro watched her, enchanted by the way her lips parted, how her thighs must rub together beneath the blanket, her fast breathing. Is this how you'd look on my cock sweet thing? 
Shit. He had to stop her.
"Little bird," he said, his voice only a croak. "Wake up." 
Schwalbe squirmed some more against him, and Alejandro had to trap her under his arm, face close to her neck, or risk an elbow to his wound again. 
"Wha?" She slurred, slow to take in her surroundings.
"Wake up," he repeated, gently, swallowing. "You had- a nightmare."
"Alejandro?" Her voice was little more than a sigh, and she settled back down on his arm again, eyelids drooping. The sound of his name from her was like a shot of liquid arousal straight into his dick, and he closed his eyes for a moment, praying for composure. 
"Yeah, it's me," he said, voice rough. 
"Why did you stop?" She mumbled, grabbing his hand and moving it up her body and Alejandro thought he must be the one dreaming now. No, no, no, she's still asleep, she doesn't know-
"You were dreaming, it's not real," he murmured, trying to ignore the interested twitch of his cock as their joint fingers brushed over the softness of her breasts. Schwalbe faltered, confused.
"Hm?"
"You must have had a bad dream." Or a really good one, but he wanted to spare her the embarrassment. Alejandro didn't know if Schwalbe had someone waiting for her somewhere, and this was a point of no return. Though the thought of somebody else seeing her like this stabbed him with such a furious sting of jealousy that it made his lip curl.
"A dream?" She echoed, voice much clearer now and her whole body went stiff in his arms. Alejandro sighed. 
The young woman turned around so abruptly that it made him groan in pain from the sudden jolt of the bed. She sat upright, hair wild and chest heaving, blanket somewhere around her waist as she stared down at him, eyes as wide as saucers. A furious blush crept up her neck and chest, and she took in his sprawled-out form.
"I fell asleep," she stated, voice panicked. "Did I- what did I say?"
"Not much," he replied, and that was the truth after all. "You got a habit of sleeptalking?" He grinned, trying to lighten the situation, to distract them both and fuck, he really had to stop-
Schwalbe didn't answer him, face red. Taking pity on her, Alejandro propped himself up slowly, then scooted around her until his feet rested on the cold wood floor.
"What are you doing?" She whispered, and the soft sound reminded him of the way she had murmured his name so sweetly. He stood up slowly, and couldn't resist brushing one hand over her hair as he passed.
"Just putting some more wood in the fire. You should lie back down, the sun will rise soon."
He could feel her burning gaze on his back as he moved around the cabin, air blissfully warm now after hours of heating. He threw more logs in a pile, breathing deeply as he sat down on the chair, wooden legs scraping over the floor as he dragged it closer. Alejandro refused to look back towards the bed, cock still half-hard with shame running through him. This wasn't like him. This lack of control, the sudden hunger at every bit of exposed skin. 
The sound of bare feet coming towards him made him pinch the bridge of his nose, and Alejandro was ready to order her back to bed when a small soft hand brushed just underneath where the gauze dug into his skin painfully now.
"You bled through it," Schwalbe said, then rounded his slumped-forward form until she was standing right between the chair and the fireplace. "Let me have another look at it."
Alejandro stared up at her, unable to stop thinking of the body hidden underneath that stupid fucking blanket. The way the firelight illuminated her skin.
She pushed him back by the shoulder, and he allowed it. Small, deft fingers worked open the knot over his stomach, and then Schwalbe peeled away the fabric, making him wince. Her eyes never left his wounds, dusting some brown powder over it from a small tub, then she reached for her newly-dried shirt. 
"Wait-" he protested, but then she'd already ripped it down the seams with brutal efficiency, uncaring about ruining her clothes. She rolled her eyes.
"Layering up is not as important as keeping this from killing you."
Schwalbe continued to rip small long strips, and Alejandro watched through half-lidded eyes as her shoulders were finally exposed again from all her movements. She leaned forward, apparently uncaring, then circled his waist just like she had done hours ago, gently wrapping him back up. Repeating that same motion three times, Alejandro felt oddly protected and secured with the makeshift bandages.
There was a pause between them, a breath that was held as their eyes met. Schwalbe was still kneeling in front of the chair, gazing up at him from behind her eyelashes and looking like Alejandro himself had stumbled into a wet dream of his own. Thick thighs and soft stomach, smooth skin and dimples, black underwear complimenting her skintone. Fuck. He was so screwed.
"What did you dream about?" He asked, voice hoarse. The fire in her eyes burned brighter, and Schwalbe pushed herself up higher with one hand on his thigh. They stared at each other, then her eyes flickered down towards his mouth.
"I think you know."
"But I want to hear you say it."
Schwalbe's mouth quirked up in a small grin.
"So bossy, Colonel."
His fingers itched from the need to reach out and grab any exposed skin available to his hungry eyes, but he reigned that desire in, afraid he was completely misreading her body language. 
"I dreamt of you," she admitted, face flushing once more but still holding his gaze. 
"Did you?" His voice was barely above a whisper now. She nodded slowly, then leaned in closer. 
Draped over his lap like a cat, with her breasts pressed into his stomach, she rested her chin on his sternum, looking up at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. How she managed to look both submissive and dominant, both sweet and fuckable, he couldn't even begin to comprehend.
They didn't speak, only looked at each other for a heartbeat longer, and then Alejandro surged down just as she came up, mouths clashing messily. Schwalbe whined, hands in his hair as he grabbed her waist and pulled her between his legs more firmly, bending her backwards as they kissed to grab a handful of her ass and knead it.
His side and back hurt and burned like a bitch, but Alejandro couldn't stop, couldn't get enough of her sweet tongue in his mouth. How soft she became for him, the little spitfire that usually got on his last nerve. 
She panted into his mouth, thumbs brushing along his jawline as he devoured her, clinging onto his shoulders. Call it post-ambush crazy or belated combat horniness, but god damn. Schwalbe was aching for him. Maybe it had always been there between them, underneath all the comments and eye rolls and exasperated sighs. 
The last traces of her dream intermingled with the reality of Alejandro against her, his massive hands kneading her butt in a way that made her core ache and legs tremble. When he winced again, she jerked away from his hungry mouth, only to have him attack her neck and shoulders instead.
"Ale-," she panted, eyes pressed shut in pleasure as he sucked into her jaw. "Wait."
His hands disappeared as quickly as he had put them on her, and the Colonel leaned back in alarm, eyes wide as he pressed himself against the back of the chair despite his injuries.
"I'm sorry, fuck, I-"
"Shh," she tried to calm him, rubbing her hands up his thighs as they stared into each other's eyes once more. "I would show you what exactly my dream was about in a heartbeat, but you're hurt. I don't think it's a good idea."
"That wild, hm?" He grumbled, longingly. She smirked back.
Alejandro grabbed her face in between his hands once more, and leaned forward only a little this time, their lips meeting in a gentle kiss. Schwalbe felt her stomach do a backflip at the careful way his mouth explored hers, how he sucked on her lower lip and cradled her head like she was delicate.
He kissed along Schwalbe's cheekbone when he was satisfied with the amount of attention he'd given her, then murmured in her ear.
"Maybe you can demonstrate it, and next time, I'll know what you like."
Next time. She pressed her thighs together at the dark promise in his voice and squirmed on the floor, suddenly just as shy as she had been when he'd woken her up. 
Alejandro followed her shift in demeanour with great interest, mourning the way his body warred between his arousal and pain. His half-chub wasn't going to go away with her looking like this, but he doubted he'd manage to perform for her in the ways he wanted. 
Her small hand wrapped around his, and he was reminded of the way she'd dragged his fingers over her body earlier, how her butt had been pressed against him so deliciously. 
Alejandro had assumed that their journey would end over her tits, that she wanted him to play with her nipples or massage the soft skin there. His mouth went dry just thinking about it, but then she pulled his hand even higher until his index and middle finger rested against her mouth.
Still looking at him through lowered lashes, she licked the tips of his fingers slowly, like a cat. Electricity ran through him at the sensation, the way her pink tongue darted out to taste his skin. And before he had time to beg her for more, she sucked both fingers in. 
Alejandro groaned, leaning back as she sucked his fingers like she would his cock, looking both so innocent and demonic that he knew he was a goner. How the fuck was he supposed to look her in the eyes from now on and not think of how perfect this moment was, despite everything that had happened the previous evening? How badly he wanted to ruin her behind closed doors, or be ruined by her?
Schwalbe's eyes rolled back at the sound of him, and it took him a moment to notice that she had snuck her hands between her thighs. Playing with herself as she bobbed her head back and forth slowly, a little bit of drool running down her chin when he pressed his fingers down on her clever tongue.
"So messy for me, aren't you?" He murmured, kind of glad that he had the pain in his body to keep him grounded, to have him aware of how her hips twirled slowly against her own fingers and not be lost in the desire threatening to take over his brain. 
He lifted his other hand, circled her hard nipples through the thick fabric of her sports bra, then pinched them. Schwalbe squeaked, and arched into him for more. Alejandro grabbed a generous handful, kneading it roughly as she panted and squirmed, still sucking his fingers as her own hands stayed hidden beneath her soaked panties, rubbing at herself with desperation. 
Alejandro's cock twitched, and he hissed as his abdominal muscles contracted. When she arched back into him a second time, he cocked his head with a sly smile.
"Something you want, linda? Mouth too busy for once, isn't it? I think I like you best like this," he whispered against her cheek, pressing a soft kiss there as her breath hitched and she whined. 
But, since it wasn't in her nature to play nice, she surprised him once more by yanking one of her hands free and grabbing the wrist of the hand that was still busy kneading her perfect tits. He vaguely registered how wet her much smaller fingers were, but then she'd already guided his palm to her throat, closing their hands over it.
Alejandro felt her rapidly fluttering pulse under his fingers, how her throat worked and she swallowed around his fingers like an expert.
Schwalbe could watch the shift inside the Colonel in real-time. How his focused gaze became hazy, how the control slipped into greed. And god, his hand around her throat was massive and solid and so fucking hot, she was about to cum just from the exhilaration of it all. 
She'd dreamed of riding him like this, over that exact chair. That he'd let her suck him off until he was close and her jaw hurt, and then made her work for it as he lounged back and held her steady. The memory made her push her fingers deeper inside of her and she used her left hand to balance herself on his thigh, trying to focus.
But then Alejandro started applying the tiniest bit of pressure over her throat, withdrawing his fingers from her mouth only to claim her lips in the filthiest kiss she had ever received. He pulled her closer like that, and the pressure made her mind go fuzzy from the trust and care he put into the gesture. A sharp sting to her butt made her come back to reality, and he swallowed her laugh with his own grinning mouth.
"Didn't say you could stop, did I?" He rasped against her lips, and only then did she realize that the frantic circles over her clit had slowed to a stop, so she renewed her efforts, mewling as he watched her. His eyes had lost all colour in the low light of the fire, and Alejandro looked like a fallen angel, half-naked and bruised and gripping her throat and ass so possessively, she wished he'd never stop.
Her orgasm crashed into her all at once, knees hurting from kneeling so long, thighs trembling and nipples aching to be touched as she cried out, gushing slick all over her fingers. 
Alejandro watched and watched, drinking her in before kissing her mouth sweetly, rubbing over her asscheeks tenderly. She kissed him back with longing, tears prickling the corner of her eyes. 
The hold over her throat loosened, and his hand wandered into her hair instead as they kissed, gentle now. 
The gravity of what they'd just done loomed in the back of her mind, but Schwalbe found that she didn't care. She had never wanted anyone like she wanted Alejandro, in a challenging kind of way. 
He infuriated her, he was condescending, he was capable. She wanted to prove herself to him, wanted him to see her for who she was and never take her for granted, to never see her as just another soldier to go on missions with.
No, if she was going to have him for real, and she really really wanted to, then only if he continued to look at her with the same feral hunger and longing. She wouldn't settle for anything less. 
"Next time," she echoed his earlier words, pecking the corner of his mouth. His mouth twisted in a tiny smirk. "If you behave."
Alejandro gaped at her, then threw his head back and laughed. 
In my imagination you're waiting lying on your side With your hands between your thighs Stop and wait a sec Oh when you look at me like that my darling What did you expect I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck Or I did last time I checked Arctic Monkeys - 505
Tumblr media Tumblr media
TRANSLATIONS
niña zonzo - silly/stupid girl Por favor. - Please. Gracias - thank you cariña - darling/honey Oh mein Gott - Oh my god Cójeme - Fuck me linda - sweetheart
Tumblr media
This was so much fun and a long time coming. Hah. Get it? Like them circling around each other- forget it.
ANYWAY, I would love some feedback on how we all liked (or hated? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻) this dynamic!
If you enjoyed it, you can find my COD masterlist here, and my previous Alejandro oneshot here. I seem to reserve my longer pieces for him exclusively so far 👀
Hope y'all had a great day + night, until next time! - A✨
911 notes · View notes
lunarpeonie · 8 months
Text
life with poly!geto and gojo
poly!geto and gojo argue about which side of the bed they sleep on, always with you in the middle. neither of them ever wants to sleep on the side closest to the bedroom door. satoru complains that it’s because he can feel the draft and suguru wants to be able to see the door if an intruder somehow sneaks in (unlikely).
poly!geto and gojo who like to do home improvement projects within your apartment while you’re away at work, but always make more of a mess than what they started with.
one day you came home to your two lovers in the living room, satoru standing on a ladder and suguru supervising from the floor. satoru was fiddling with the white metal air conditioning vent that was now hanging loosely from the ceiling. (not how it was when you left for work in the morning)
“what are you doing?” you can’t help the words that spill from your mouth, worried that this is going to be another expensive call to the handyman.
“weeeeeell,” satoru starts, “the vent looked a little crooked so suguru and I decided (a subtle protest came from the floor “no satoru decided”) to try and straighten it out, but I accidentally ripped it out of the wall” he says this with a bashful smile with a faint blush on his cheeks.
a sigh mixed with a laugh filters through your lips as you look at suguru. his eyes twinkle with adoration toward satoru, neither of you immune to his antics. he so desperately wanted to be the person that could do it all.
“I already called the handyman, he’ll be here in an hour.” your inky haired boyfriend laughs.
poly!geto and gojo who show their affection in different ways. satoru is touchy feely, always hanging off of you when he’s near. a hand on your thigh, arm resting on your shoulders, arms laced around your waist, somehow someway he’s going to be touching you. suguru likes to show his affection in subtle acts of service and gifts. he’ll buy a case of your favorite soda when he’s grocery shopping (even though he’s been trying to wean you and satoru off the sugar), wash the dishes even though it’s your turn, or let you have the remote when you’re watching tv on the couch.
poly!geto and gojo who are kept up throughout the misty late nights, twilight darkness outside of your windows, whispering over your sleeping form in hushed tones about their fears of protecting you. the title of the strongest duo attracted many dangers and who better to target to injure them deep into the core of their souls than you? you had attended jujutsu high with them, become a sorcerer and continued missions, but didn’t show anything close to the promise that either man did. you were a grade 2, and you were okay with that. your lovers were too, understanding that you had no desire to move up in the ranks. however, they couldn’t stop the visions of fallen comrades, substituted for your face, flashing through their closed eyes after a rough day. those nights, your boys held you extra tight.
I’m absolutely making this a series, this was so fun to write ( ˘ ³˘)♥
1K notes · View notes
bunny584 · 2 months
Text
OBSESSED: NANAMI (PT. II)
A/N: Because our collective husband won the contest. Gege texted me saying obviously Nanami would win. He also said if I don’t post a second part immediately Choso gets the boot next season. So I’m doing this for ALL of us 🤗 (I swear, I swear I’m 90% done with H&H for those of you that follow/have tolerated my lollygagging).
C/W: Fluff, Breeding, Mature, 18+
Tumblr media
“It wasn’t over…it still isn’t over.”
Lines from The Notebook bubble from your lips onto Nanami’s bare chest. You’re curled onto him like a Cheshire cat. Your pretty, flushed mouth pets him. Followed closely by muffled sniffles. You bury your misty eyes and runny nose into his ratty, old college baseball shirt.
The one washed heather grey from the days turned months turned years of your careful handwashing.
I can get you another shirt, my love.
But I want this one, Ken. It reminds me of when we first fell in love.
Your answer is the same whenever he offers. Pouring all of your being into mending the natural little holes, the frays, and strain that comes with time.
His precious girl.
You nurse his shirt back to health, time and time again. In the same way you kiss him on rainy Sunday mornings. And pull him into the kitchen to dance with you under candlelight. And sneak extra food into his packed lunch on days he has to work overtime.
You are celestial.
With you he’s entrenched in the Heavens.
With you he builds the palatial wings of his own personal Icarus. Flying close, nearly too close, to the blinding warmth of your Sun.
“It’s so romantic, isn’t it?”
You shift up higher on him. Torsos melding together. Both your thighs cradled between his pajama clad legs. Nanami drags his fingers along your delicate spine.
God, he revels in you like this.
“It is, baby.”
Nanami catches the glassy mosaic in your eyes. Worthy of display in the Sistine Chapel.
You quickly bury your head into his neck, embarrassed about crying over a movie you’ve both seen over 10 times.
“I’m being so ridiculous, I’m sorry. It’s the stupid, dumb, stupid hormones.”
You press a cloud soft kiss into his chest and it reverberates down to his thundering heart.
Truthfully, Nanami has spent the entirety of the film watching you.
Tiny wrinkles in your button nose during some scenes, giggles and full belly laughs at others. You try to bite back your sobs. Slap away your tears before they splash against his abs — like they don’t correlate with the same points in the plot everytime.
He purposefully chose The Notebook after dinner because of your reactions. Just so he could fall in love with you all over again.
Just like Icarus.
Who fell from flying too close to the Sun.
Because loving you feels like a blissful free fall. With no ground in sight.
“I can’t wait to marry you.” The words flow out of Nanami. He can’t seem to contain it.
A pretty gasp escapes you. You pull away from the TV to shift closer to his face.
“Oh, Ken. I can’t wait to—“
“Kiss me.” His voice is throaty, laced with growing need.
Such an obedient girl.
Your lips are addicting. A fiend’s paradise.
He surges his hands in your hair while his tongue traces and tastes every corner of your mouth. You whine into him. He sucks on your tongue before taking your bottom lip into his teeth.
“Baby,” You breathe against his lips. Gentle pants melding with his.
Nanami kisses a hushed I love you into your mouth, before shifting your bodies on the plush couch.
His cock has been throbbing the entire movie. His shirt has inevitably shrunken over the years. Where it used to fall past your mid thighs, now it rides halfway over your hips.
Your plump, perky ass has been in plain view the whole night. Nothing protecting you from his invasion except for a thin, baby doll thong. Navy. Like the letters on his alma mater’s shirt.
Because your body is in heat, preparing you for a baby, your breasts are noticeably larger.
Filling out his shirt in the most mouth watering way. Your nipples, hard and sensitive, enticing him with every miniscule movement.
God, the way you wince and squeal when you brush your buds too harshly against him. Or whimper when the supple, puffy flesh of your tits push against his rigid body a little too hard.
His cock bucks off his thigh every single time.
The next 3 days Nanami will be reduced to the most rudimentary version of himself.
He’ll follow you around the house like a lap dog. Burying his nose and mouth and lips and tongue into every part of your body. He’ll grope you. Rub his crotch into you at every turn. Cum from just sucking on your nipples, if you let him.
You two have decided to abstain from sex when you ovulate. Until you are ready to create a love child.
He says you, because Nanami is fully ready, eager, to have mini-yous filling his home with life.
And really, he’s happy to let you dictate your family planning.
But the next 3 days will be torture. His needy, oversensitive heavy cock will drive every thought. He’ll jerk off more times than he can count.
Nanami is on his back now, with you perfectly perched on his manhood. Nothing but your thin panties cupping your precious little cunt. His length tents right up against you, begging for entry.
Both of your warm hands caress each hill and valley of his abs. Little crystals line your wide, puppy eyes. Tip of your nose so deeply flushed from all your tears. Cheeks dusted rose from your sex rubbing against his in this position.
No matter how many years you two have been intimate, you always blush, and squirm, and look away and hide your face like it’s the first time.
And it just makes him want to bury his cock in you. And take you. And worship you. And keep you swollen with his cum.
“How did I get so lucky?”
Again, Nanami means to think the statement but it rolls off his tongue on its own accord.
“D-do you mean that?” The way your bottom lip quivers makes his cock drool.
“My love. Your name was etched into my heart from the day I met you.”
Nanami pulls himself up so that your chest collides with his. You whimper at the sudden contact and the sound decimates his brain.
He crashes his lips into yours once more.
Your sweet mouth is blinding. You immediately evanesce into him. Little “ohs” and little “mmms” escape you in the pockets of breath Nanami allows you.
His cock jerks violently against your warm, dewy folds. Your arousal has soaked through your measly barrier. Now mixing with his, staining his sweats.
“Oh sweetheart,” Nanami husks against your lips. His fingers go to move your thong aside and are now drenched.
“So wet for me. Such a needy girl.”
He circles your puffy clit twice. And you buck against his veiny hand.
“Mmnnggh…oh god, K-Ken..” broken little moans kiss Nanami’s neck, while he pets your soaking wet folds.
“My precious girl,” he muses, fully aware of how pliant you become under his sweet words and light touch.
Nanami shifts his hips upward, just to avoid his legs falling asleep. But the sound that emanates from your lips is mind altering.
The friction from his fingers on your sensitive bud and his barely clothed, steel pipe length bullying into your opening drives you to see stars.
You bury your head back into the crook of his neck. So embarrassed about the way your hips start rutting against his cock. Slowly. On low autopilot.
Nanami grips your fleshy ass with his free hand. Pushing you deeper onto his rod every time you hump him.
“Oh yeah, baby?”
He gently teases into your ear. It’s such a fucking turn on. You rutting against him so desperately. Blushing up to your ears. Trying and failing miserably at fighting your body when it’s in heat like this.
Your nails dig little crescents into Nanami’s back. Small little puffs of air feather his skin.
“That’s it, pretty girl.” Nanami huffs.
“Use my cock. Make yourself feel good.”
You mewl at his words. Frustrated that the friction you want, need, is escaping you.
“I-I’m so…” words broken by your sloppy, desperate humping. Nanami grips your ass tighter. He suspends his hips upward to help you.
But his adjustments just make you whine louder. Pulling your face out of his neck to glare at him. Little frustrated crystals fall from your eyes. Your pupils are completely blown. Eyelids heavy. Nostrils flaring.
Fucking hell.
He could cum from just looking at you right now.
You need his cock. It feels criminal not to sink into your begging, decadent, pretty little cunt right now. When your body has worked so hard to prepare you to be stuffed and bred.
“I’m so horny,” another salty tear rolls down your pretty face.
And Nanami has to look up at the ceiling.
Because you say things like that.
While dripping around his dick. With your puffy tits and lips. Wearing his shirt that reminds you both of when you first fell in love.
How can you expect him to maintain any decorum?
“I-I-I love you with all my heart, Kento.”
And, he’s off.
You snap his last remaining string of self control in half.
Nanami takes another bruising kiss from your lips. His hands start dragging his shirt over your head. And you immediately moan into him.
“Be gentle with it!” You scold through delirious groans.
He can’t help but smile against your lips. His sweet, tender hearted future wife. So protective. Even if it’s just a cotton t-shirt.
“Forgive me baby, I’ll be more gentle.”
Willing his hands to move a beat slower. He pulls the prized possession over your head and sets it on the couch ledge behind you.
His eyes instantly drop to your sensitive nipples. And you squirm away from his searing gaze.
“My beautiful wife.” Nanami murmurs.
He places feather light kisses on your sensitive mounds.
Your tiny fingers wire through his hair and gently tug. And Nanami’s cock twitches in return. Leaking more of his arousal onto the mess you both have created.
“Can I make love to you baby? All I need is my tongue.”
Grit in his tone almost sharp enough to nick your skin.
You roll your bottom lip under your teeth. Wanton and utterly fucked out, you drop your hand to his crotch for the first time. Evoking a loud hiss from your soon-to-be husband.
“I want to feel you.” Hot desire woven throughout your angelic features.
Your voice calls to his manhood. The last remaining blood in his brain diverts directly to his groin.
“I…” Nanami pulls in a deep, shaky breath.
“I won’t be able to pull out, pretty girl.”
You take a kiss this time, swirling your sweet tongue around his. Nanami melts into your mouth like chocolate. Palming both of your hips with his large hands.
Pull out? He won’t be able to last more than 5 seconds inside you at this rate.
“You’re my husband,” your dulcet voice absolutely fucking his brain.
“And I want to feel you.”
Nanami has to bite back a pathetic whine. There’s barely 3 seconds left before he’s thrusting into you like the caged animal he is.
“Sweetheart, I could…” No, he knows he will.
“I will get you pregnant tonight.”
He offers you the last warning he’ll be able to mumble before he starts.
You cup his face. Place a chaste kiss on his swollen lips and grind onto his helplessly rock hard cock.
“Then let’s make a baby.”
760 notes · View notes
multi-fandom-imagine · 6 months
Text
« Thank you || Astarion ||
A/n: I watched a scene of Baldurs Gate and it made me sad so now I’m rectifying it. I know these don’t exist in Bauldrs Gate { at least I’m positive but it’s my fic damn it.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Astarion hated it, keeping you from going out in the Sun because of him, you were pregnant, you should be enjoying what the day light had to offer not being stuck in the dark with him.
The others did their best to see you yet the further along you got the shorter the visits came. He couldn’t blame them, not with how tired you often got and yet he still blamed himself.
Because being cooped up in the dark was not good for you. Letting his eyes slip over your sleeping form, he sighed gliding across your cheek until he heard the sound of knocking.
Biting back a scowl, he quickly rushed to the door wanting to be as quick as possible since he’d rather not wake you.
“What?! Oh it’s you.” Frowning, Astarion adverted his gaze when he spotted Gale. “If you are here for sweetness, she is sleeping.”
Titling his head, Gale smiled clasping his hands behind his back. “Oh no! I am here for you my friend, I wanted to give you something.” He stated pulling out a ring. “It is a A Daylight Amulet, also referred to as a Daylight Ring,a piece of jewelry with a lapis lazuli gemstone enchanted by yours truly.” He held his head high.
“I don’t need some gaudy-.”
“Now now, before you turn your nose up at this. Just understand what it does.” Gale continued to smile as he handed the vampire the ring. “It has an enchantment on it that protects your kind from the sunlight, with this ring. You can walk freely during the day.”
“What?” Astarion sucked in some air, he’s heard around about this but he never thought it would be possible. Frowning he sipped the ring on his finger just as the sun started to rise. He didn’t even notice that the sun was shinning on him.
That he wasn’t burning!
Taking a deep breath he took a step out side his door then closed his eyes enjoying the sun beating down on the skin.
he wasn’t burning! He could be with his children in the Sun!
A laugh escaped his lips, it felt too long since the parasite being gone that he’s felt the sun on his skin.
He could dance with you on the sun.
Turning to face Gale with a smile, his eyes Misty from the tears threatening to fall. “Thank you.”
Gale let out a laugh tipping his head to the man then quickly waved him off. “You have nothing t thank me for my friend. I just did not like the thought of you not be able to be with your child….now I am off, still need to find that pesky cure. I did promise after all.”
Giving the man a wink, he then turned it you as you were standing in the doorway. “Have a good morning.”
Watching Gale leave, you took a step out side as your eyes remained glued to Astarion. You didn’t know what to say, so instead you grasped your husband’s hand falling into his embrace.
“Dance with me my love.”
Looking up at Astarion with a watery smile you nodded your head. “I’d love too.”
963 notes · View notes
blushweddinggowns · 11 months
Text
Part 2
Robin Buckley was unfortunately well-aware of Steve Harrington, long before they started working together. He had been the worst kind of popular in high school, the completely effortless kind. And Robin was not looking forward to working with him. 
Sure, he had been better than the other jock dickheads Robin was forced to share space with, but that probably had more to do with his weird Eddie Munson friendship than anything else. Being friends with the town freak kind of forced you to be more accepting. Or in Steve’s case, force you to punch anyone who insulted him in the face. 
And while that was all nice and chivlirous or whatever it didn’t stop the fact that Steve Harringinton was a complete ass who slept with dozens of girls and threw them away immmeidtly after. There was no way that a guy like that wasn’t a dick. 
And after their first shift working together, Robin was convinced that she had been absolutely right. He was a total slouch at work, spending most of his time failing at flirting with girls or yapping to his friends on the phone in the back. He was a complete diva about his hair, and their manager had given him three reprimands in the span of four hours for not wearing the dumb hat. And he was always trying to get out of work early. 
After their first week together Robin was ready to strangle him. The only thing she’d give him is that he accepted being assigned indefinite bathroom cleaning duty with grace, otherwise she probably would have killed him and hid the body in the freezer by now.
Though he was really trying to expedite the process over here.
It was another annoying, Harrington filled day, only for him to once again try and leave early. 
But before he could get to the door, Robin was dragging him back behind the counter, hissing, “Where the hell do you think you’re going? We have inventory tonight.”
She had expected him to whine in response or maybe say something dickish that she could kick him in the shin for, but he just looked horrified.
“Tonight? B-But it won’t take that long right? Like just a few minutes?”
“Try a few hours. They’re making us count the spoons man. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
His eyes got wider with each word, and for a split second Robin was actually worried that he was about to have a panic attack. That was until he opened his mouth again, “I-okay. Look dude, I really can’t do this tonight. I have a thing that I need to go to. But I can make it up to you! Or I can come in tomorrow morning-”
“The manager is going to look at it tomorrow morning,” Robin interrupted, arms crossed and brow twitching, “What is so damn important that it can’t wait till tomorrowow?”
“Does that matter?” Steve asked, oddly defensive for someone who was literally begging, “I just need to leave. But I can make it up to you! I’ll even pay you. You can have all the tips for the week and if that’s not enough then I’ll do the trash for three-no four days. I’ll do anything. Please?”
He actually looked like he was on the edge of tears and Robin had to begrudgingly admit that the puppy eyes were working on her. Christ, she was too good of a person. 
She sighed, “Trash duty for two weeks, and for the week I get the tips I expect you to be extra charming. We clear?”
“Yes! Totally fair!” Steve was already speed walking backwards to the door, and those misty eyes had suddenly completely disappeared. Robin was started to think that she just got played and big time, “Best co-worker ever! Really couldn’t ask for better-”
“Just fucking go.” Robin said as she shooed him off, near snorting when Steve actually started running out of the mall. 
She looked back behind the counter, groaning when she realized that his trash promise apparently started tomorrow. Fucking dick. She’d take out the trash, do inventroy alone, and then curse the Harrington name. 
She started to lug the disgusting trash bags full of soupy ice cream through the backdoor, shivering a little in the cold. The dumpster was right next to the almost empty parking lot, everyone gone except one long running van.
Robin stopped, realziing that two people were making out infront of it, and one of them just so happened to still be wearing his cutsy uniform while he shoved his tongue down the stranger’s throat. Robin stared at them, barely concealed by the dumpster as her blood boiled. 
Steve ditched her to make-out with some chick in the parking lot? Oh hell no. He was not getting away with this. She was just about to come out of her hiding spot to start tearing into him when she heard Steve giggle. Honest to god giggle. 
He was standing in front of the girl, obscuring her face while he played with a lock of her hair, “Aw, don’t pout. I didn’t make the schedule. Besides, I already said I’d make it up to you in any way you want.”
Robin rolled her eyes, wondering if she should include warning the poor girl that whatever two week anniversary they were celebrating would definitely be their last when she called him out. 
“I just didn’t expect to spend most of our four year anniversary eating cake in bed alone,” The stranger answered, their voice instantly recongnizble, “I was supposed to be eating you.”
That wasn’t a chick, that was Eddie.
Robin gasped, a hand going over her mouth. She had heard that voice many times, usually yelling about comforimity while standing on a lunch table. But that didn’t make sense! It couldn’t be-
But then Eddie was spinning them around, crowding Steve against the hood of his car, his signature DIO vest on full display while he ploundered Steve’s mouth, Steve laughing into it all the while. 
Robin felt like her brain was short-circuiting as she watched them. She was actually witnessing Steve Harrington happily shoving his tongue down Eddie Munson’s throat.
Steve pulled away first, holding Eddie back with a hand to his chest, still giggling, “God, that was so lame. Even for you.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” Steve easily agreed, “And I’ll love it even more when we’re home and in bed. Then we can really start celebrating.”
That was more than enough for Eddie. He dragged Steve off of the hood before opening the passenger side door for him, stealing one more kiss before running over to the driver’s side. 
Robin watched as they settled into the van, hands immediately clasped back together over the centerconsole. But it didn’t stop there. No, Steve was licking his lips and looking down muttering something to Eddie that she couldn’t hear. But she could guess, especially when his head suddenly dissapeared right before they drove off. 
Robin stayed hidden behind the dumpster, still trying to comprehend what she’d just seen. She just watched King Steve make out with the resident freak, and maybe start the beginnings of road head, all while giggling and laughing about their fucking anniversy.
What. The. Fuck.
From an unpublished chapter of this fic
2K notes · View notes
doumadono · 4 months
Note
THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME REQUEST can you do mizu x reader smut but where she calls reader a brat somewhere in the mix that scene jst had me head over heels 😭🙏
Tumblr media
Warnings: smut - fingering, 69, rough oral, overstimulation, fem!Reader
Synopsis: you and Mizu enjoy some steamy moments together, having grown deeply fond of each other
OTHER FANDOMS MASTERLIST
Tumblr media
Mizu's days were consumed by the relentless pursuit of her quest for vengeance, her every waking moment dedicated to honing her skills as a swordmaster. The path she tread was a solitary one, until a chance encounter changed the course of her journey.
It was on a misty morning in a secluded training ground nestled among ancient cherry blossoms that Mizu first crossed blades with you, a skilled swordswoman with a spirit as fierce as her own.
Your meeting was a clash of steel and determination, the air buzzing with the intensity of their training.
Mizu, her blue eyes gleaming with a mixture of determination and surprise, locked eyes with you after a particularly fierce exchange. "You fight well," Mizu acknowledged, a rare compliment from the stoic warrior.
You, your gaze unwavering, replied with a smirk, "Not bad yourself. But I've seen the fire in your eyes. There's more to your story than the strikes of a sword. Care to share?"
Mizu hesitated, her guard momentarily dropping. The pain of her past flickered in her eyes before she composed herself. "I seek revenge for a great injustice. That's it, nothing more, nothing less. My blade is my only companion on this path."
You nodded understandingly. "Well, it doesn't hurt to have a sparring partner on such a lonely journey. How about we help each other? I can see the weight you carry, and I've got my own demons to face."
From that day forward, your and Mizu's training sessions became a harmonious dance of steel and camaraderie. In the quiet moments between strikes, you shared stories of your pasts, creating a bond that transcended the limits of your swords.
One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow on the cherry blossoms, Mizu spoke thoughtfully, "I never thought I'd find a companion on this path. You've made the journey less lonely, Y/N."
You smiled, twirling your sword skillfully, hiding it in a scabbard. "Likewise, Mizu. We're stronger together. And vengeance is a heavy burden; it's easier to carry when you're not alone."
Tumblr media
As the weeks passed, Mizu and you journeyed together through diverse landscapes, your paths entwined in a tapestry of shared experiences. What started as a companionship forged in the crucible of training gradually evolved into a deep and genuine fondness for each other.
The road you traveled was not just a physical journey but a shared odyssey of emotions and revelations. In the quiet moments beneath starlit skies and during the challenges you faced side by side, a connection grew, fortified by the understanding that only time and shared trials could foster.
Mizu, with her unwavering spirit, became not just a fellow warrior but a cherished presence in your own journey.
Tumblr media
The moon hung low in the night sky, casting a soft glow over Mizu and you as you sat by a crackling campfire. The dancing flames mirrored the flickering emotions in Mizu's blue eyes as she turned to her companion. "Y/N," Mizu began, her voice steady but with a hint of vulnerability, "we've shared so much, but I've never asked about the demons that haunt you. What burdens do you carry?"
The air grew heavy with the unspoken weight of the past as Mizu waited for you to open up.
The flames flickered, casting shadows on your face as memories resurfaced. "I come from a village that was razed to the ground by marauders. I lost my family, my home. The flames took everything. That's why I picked up the sword, Mizu. I wanted to be strong, to never feel that powerless again."
Mizu listened intently, sensing the weight of your words. She understood well. As you spoke, memories of the burning hut flashed before Mizu's eyes, and an involuntary shiver ran down her spine.
Despite your efforts to maintain composure, a tear traced a silent path down your cheek, glistening in the firelight.
Mizu reached out, gently wiping away the tear with her thumb. "You've carried this burden alone for too long," she whispered. "You're not alone anymore."
Trembling, you nodded, a mixture of gratitude and relief in your eyes.
Mizu pulled you into a comforting embrace, and for a moment, the crackling of the fire was the only sound in the still night as you shared the weight of your sorrows.
You shivered at Mizu's touch. You wanted to lean in and feel Mizu's arms around you oh so badly.
Mizu shook her head. "It's the past, Y/N. And from now on, I'll be protecting you. I'll be by your side."
"You… you'd actually want to be seen with me?" you uttered in astonishment, your gaze fixed on Mizu. "But why? I'm not exactly a sight to behold, and you're so stunning… People might ridicule you for choosing to be with someone like me…"
Mizu chuckled softly, a gentle sound that resonated with warmth. She looked you in the eyes, her ice blue ones stern. "You know," she began, her eyes softening, "I don't see myself as a pretty woman. Beauty is subjective, and in my eyes, you shine in a way that captivates me. Your uniqueness, the way you carry yourself — it's incredibly appealing to me. I see you as someone with a beauty that goes far beyond what meets the eye."
The heat built between your legs. Your nipples strained against the fabric, yearning for connection, as the allure of those soft, ripe lips of hers enticed you. The closeness felt magnetic, and the desire to kiss overwhelmed you. Yet, instead, a deep blush crept across your cheeks, and you looked away, your emotions entangled in a web of confusion.
Mizu gently tilted your face up, leaning in as her lips brushed softly over yours, capturing the taste of salt from recent tears. A soft moan escaped your lips as Mizu drew you closer, fulfilling a secret daydream of yours.
Uncharacteristically eager, Mizu allowed her desires to guide her actions. Her hands explored beneath your attire, caressing your breasts, as the anticipation of pleasure hung thick in the air. With deliberate intent, she undid the ribbon at the back of your garment, letting it slip off your shoulders. Her hungry gaze lingered on your firm, ripe breasts, and Mizu, unable to resist the temptation, lowered her head to eagerly suckle on a taut nipple.
You let out a quiet moan and arched your back and moaned, tangling your fingers in the black tresses that now cascaded over you.
Mizu worshipped your breasts, taking turns licking, sucking and nibbling the nipples in turn, humming quietly as she did.
You pulled back, eyes glowing with passion. "Please, let me taste you, Mizu…"
Mizu grinned playfully and gracefully rose to her feet, treating her new lover to a tantalizing strip tease.
In absolute awe, you observed every move, your body pulsating with desire as she shed her clothes.
Mizu reclined on the futon beside the fireplace, her legs invitingly parted.
Feeling a mix of anticipation and hesitation, you undressed, eventually finding yourself kneeling between Mizu's open legs.
A moan escaped Mizu as she took in the full, lush view of your body. "Oh, Y/N, you are so beautiful," she whispered, the words hanging in the air, deepening the intimacy of the moment.
You spoke not a word. Your touch was the language, as you tenderly caressed Mizu's wetness, delicately parting the folds like the petals of a dew-kissed flower. Your mouth descended upon Mizu's throbbing clit, moving languidly, intoxicated by the explosion of her taste on your eager, flexed tongue.
Mizu responded with fervent writhing and moans, her body arching to bring her wetness even closer to your exploring mouth. With a graceful shift, she positioned herself to reciprocate, her command cutting through the stillness. "Sit on my face," Mizu directed, the bold request hanging in the air, a testament to the unspoken connection that unfolded between you.
Your attention remained solely on savoring her cunt, rendering you momentarily unresponsive to her command. You lapped at her wetness with your tongue, a low moan escaping as her juices cascaded over your taste buds. Sucking on your fingers to heighten the intensity, you skillfully slipped them into her, moving with a swift rhythm that reflected the urgency of your desire.
Her inner walls responded with spasmodic contractions, eagerly clenching around your digits. Mizu huffed with a tinge of frustration and seized a handful of your hair, giving it a gentle tug. "Come on, Y/N, don't be a brat. I asked for something, and I expect you to comply."
Responding with a small kiss to her entrance, you gazed up at her, your lips wet with her jucies, nodding in acknowledgment. Gradually, you positioned yourself, placing both knees on either side of her head, and descended onto her face. Leaning forward, you resumed your passionate exploration of her slick folds with your tongue.
Mizu let out a sultry moan as she felt your lips enveloping her clit yet again, your gentle suction drawing it into the warmth of your mouth. Her gaze wandered to your pussy right in front of her eyes, captivated by the sight of your pouty lips and the glistening juices there. With a bold move, she slid a skilled finger inside you, caressing tenderly, teasingly. Her expert tongue flickered around your clit, leaving you breathless and panting.
In response, you cried out her name, initiating a dance of desire as you pressed two fingers inside Mizu's pussy. Your skilled suction on her clit mirrored the tormenting rhythm of your fingers and occassional rubbing of your thumb against her already swollen clit.
Mizu's tongue glided slowly over your clit, dipping into your slit with a probing and searching motion; its tip constantly hitting your little bundle of nerves.
You moaned in response, enticing her with the movement of your hips, shaking your ass to amplify the friction and intensify the pleasure. "More, Mizu, holy shit!"
You luxuriated in that position for what felt like endless, blissful minutes, indulging in the intimate exchange as you both savored the taste of each other's pussies.
Mizu propped herself up on one elbow, her other hand gently parting the lips of your pussy. With tenderness, she licked you, the tip of her tongue tracing either side of your clit, humming appreciatively at the delightful taste.
Your hands reached up around her ass, pulling her cheeks apart as you wholeheartedly massaged her cunt with your mouth. In the height of pleasure, your actions were instinctual, allowing the waves of ecstasy to roll through you, leaing you moaning like a whore. Your tongue and jaws moved in perfect reaction, each dart of her tongue into you provoking a corresponding spasm of pleasure in your own mouth.
Together, you both writhed in ecstasy, voices merging in a passionate chorus of moans that echoed the intensity of your shared passion.
Releasing your hold on Mizu's ass, you wrapped your arms around her waist, drawing her core closer to your face. Playfully pushing her to the side, both of you shared a moment of giggles, eventually settling on your sides, maintaining the 69 position.
The sensations were nothing short of incredible. Mizu squirmed with delight, her tongue delving deep to partake in your drenched cunny, creating ripples of passion that surged throughout your body.
Unable to contain yourself, you cried out, "M-Mizu!!!" as her quick, skillful licks over your swollen clit sent waves of ecstasy coursing through your entire being, leaving your legs shaking. "I-I, God! T-Too much!!! Oh God, I can't!!!" you whined again, arching your back, trying to grind your pussy against her face for more friction.
She gently spanked your ass a few times. "Shush, you little, horny brat," the black-haired woman grunted lowly. "Let me have my fun with you."
You extended your arm between her legs, skillfully opening her wide, allowing one leg to hover tantalizingly over you. With your other hand deftly maneuvering between the two of you, you spread her pussy open even more.
Her head shifted against your inner thigh, repurposed as a comfortable pillow in the midst of this intimate exchange.
Your face was fully immersed in the warmth of her pussy, while she reciprocated with her face pressed into yours. In a passionate exchange, you both moved and thrust against each other, building up a frenzied rhythm that heightened the intensity of the moment.
Mizu's primal grunts mixed with your fervent whimpers, the symphony of your pleasure rising in frequency and pitch. In the midst of waves and layers of ecstasy, you both reached the climax together, as one. The culmination was so profound, so all-encompassing, as you came intensely, repeatedly, in a cascade of bliss. A deluge of intoxicating girl-cum cascaded over your mouths and faces, seamlessly blending with the ongoing grinding and spasms.
"Oh, you dirty, little brat, you're gonna be a death of me one day," Mizu playfully nibbled on your clit, making you whine pathetically.
Gradually, the sweet and gentle descent from the peak began. Your passion waned, bodies winding down, experiencing little aftershocks of orgasm like sparks in your muscles. Rolling backward, you and Mizu separated, lying prone on your backs, side by side, heads to toes, in a shared moment of tranquil aftermath, breathig heavily.
Soon Mizu, holding you with a newfound protectiveness, traced gentle strokes through your Y/H/C hair and whispered softly, "Did I make you feel good?"
Nestled against Mizu like a contented kitten, you looked up with a happy smile. "Yes… It was perfect."
A tender kiss on your temple followed as Mizu yawned heavily. "I think I fell in love with you… We've shared so much, and being close to you felt so good, so right, as if something just clicked together."
"Indeed," you whispered in agreement, resting your head on Mizu's breasts, eyes slipping closed. The surreal feeling of it all being real overwhelmed you. Sleep embraced you, and this time, there were no dreams; there was no need, as everything you had recently dreamt about was already cradled in your arms.
808 notes · View notes
cocomochicakes · 4 months
Text
I love the way Larian narrates mental health and healing from trauma.
I used to work in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and I saw a LOT of individuals of all ages come in with absolutely horrible trauma that was so unfathomable it felt surreal even hearing the things they went through. Sometimes people learned how to look at their scars, acknowledge them, and move on with their lives. Other times, they did their best but those scars would always be the first thing they saw in the morning and the last things they saw before bed.
Watching the way Larian narrates trauma, especially the way it was written for Astarion, hits home in a way that is almost indescribable after seeing how it manifests in real life. What I can say is that watching the Epilogue for Spawn Astarion made me misty eyed. Not because he got a "happy ending" or me as the player gets to experience it but because there is a single line he says that just encompasses how beautiful and messy the healing process can be: that the last 6 months together has been more meaningful that the last 200 wretched years of his life.
When he says it and goes into detail, we know he's not completely past the visible and invisible scars that he's been left with but in the last 6 months, he's started his journey of healing finding a new normal. For the rest of his existence he won't always have good days when he's able to smile nor days he won't fall back into old habits but what we can glean from this is the following: he's given value and meaning to this new life he's been given and will eventually be able to live his new normal on his own or with whomever he fell in love with, scars and all.
448 notes · View notes