#and drawing with our left is slow too

[fallenbratfiction]

Bambi ~ Part one

series masterpost here pedro pascal masterlist

a/n: this is quite long, I hope it keeps you fed while I prepare the next part!! feedback is always welcomed!! i will be gnawing at the bars of my enclosure ok bye!

mentions: post-outbreak / apocalyptic setting, dubcon/coercion themes, blood mention, obsession/possessiveness, power imbalance, reader is of age (above 18), naive reader (soft/innocent/inexperienced), fingering, non-explicit violence & threats, gun use, manipulation & emotional control, possessiveness, praise kink, possible other kinks, punishments,, “daddy” kink, shared reader (Joel x Reader x Tommy), pet names (Bambi, sweet girl, good girl, our girl), domestic elements turned dark, mental confusion & emotional overwhelm, morally gray to fully unhinged dark Miller brothers

Reader discretion strongly advised. Dark themes throughout. Minors DNI ❌ This is a work of fiction and does not reflect healthy or ideal relationships!!! 

Do not copy, translate or claim any of my work as your own. 

⟡━━━ ✦ 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗳𝗶𝗰 ahead ✦ ━━━⟡

The forest is quiet at night, too quiet for its own sake. There used to be more life out here. Crickets chirping. Frogs croaking. Birds or bats darting through the dark sky. Now there’s nothing. Just still trees and dead air, like the whole forest is holding its breath.

“You know what I miss the most about the woods?” Joel asks, voice low as he walks beside his brother, their shotguns slung across their backs.

 Tommy turns to him and huffs, waiting for his brother to respond to his question.“Deers” Tommy hums in approval, “Used to see ‘em all the time, this time of night.” 

“You miss watchin’ ‘em or huntin’ ‘em?”  Tommy snorts, Joel huffs a quiet laugh—

—and then it happens.

A sudden flash of motion cuts through the trees. Small, fast. Barely there.

Both of them stop. 

Silence. 

Alert. 

They are quick to grab their shotguns and scan the shadows with their guns pointed, expecting another movement. Eyes sharp, bodies tensed. 

Joel’s voice drops, almost amused. “Well, speak of the devil…”

Tommy steps forward, eyes narrowed. “You saw that?”

Joel is already scanning the brush. “Yeah. Could’ve been a rabbit. Could’ve been somethin’ else.”

Another motion. Left this time. Farther.

They both turn, guns half-lifted.

Joel mutters, “Whatever it is, it’s movin’ smart.”

Tommy nods. “Too smart.”

A beat passes. Then Joel speaks.

“Split?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, already turning to flank. “We circle the woods. If it’s still out here—we’ll find it.”

They part in silence, each splitting through the trees like they already know the drill, they’ve done this a hundred times by now. 

Joel moves through the right,  slow and deliberate, each of his steps deliberate. Meanwhile, Tommy veers to the other direction; his steps are lighter and his eyes cut through the dark like a blade, scanning everything in sight.

You’re out there moving fast, barefoot and running out of air. Your legs are tired and bruised from all the times you’ve tripped. You don’t know how far you’ve gotten by now, but you can’t risk it, you can’t risk being found by him. 

You’re trying your best, but panic keeps you clumsy, and every snap of a branch is louder than it should be. The leaves rustle with every move you make, which guides Joel closer to your location. 

You don’t know they are close. 

They don’t know if you’re a wild animal, a person, or just an illusion. 

They’re not here to hurt you, but you don’t know that. They are just as curious as you, and just as cautious. 

They keep circling you, it’s like a never-ending game. They move, you move, they move again. Joel on one side, Tommy on the other. Each move draws the noose tighter, but they don’t know how close they are yet; they just feel it. 

You’re not trying to be found, but you’ve been on the run for long enough now. Your body aches, and your vision is blurry from the adrenaline and the fact that, along the way, you had lost your glasses. You weave through the trees, ducking under branches and trunks of trees, your hands in front of you leading the way until your foot catches around thorns. 

You don’t scream or cry, but it’s evident you’ve fallen due to the solid thud of your body hitting the ground. The game is over; they’ve found you. Joel turns and runs in your direction. Tommy, though a bit further, hears the sound as well and freezes. 

Branches hit Joel’s body as he pushes forward through the forest, deeper into the darkness, with only his flashlight in hand, his shotgun lowered in his other hand. 

And that's when he finds you curled on the ground, legs smeared with dirt as well as your clothes, and your hair is a tangled mane with leaves. You stare at the figure of Joel like a deer caught in the headlights. Your eyes are wide, frozen. 

He just stands there looking at you, neither of you says a word. A part of him relaxes, you’re just a girl. His eyes then trail over your shape, too small, too soft, too human. 

“Huh, not exactly what I expected to find.” He murmurs mostly to himself. 

Joel keeps the flashlight on your face just enough to keep you stunned, your eyes don’t leave the light, too afraid to move, and quite honestly, too blinded to know what to do next, but your body remains tense, muscles twitching like you’re ready to bolt and run in any direction.

You watch him as he moves two fingers close to his mouth and lets out a specific whistle, alerting someone else that he has found you. Low and controlled, he repeats it for Tommy to hear and waits for his response. 

Tommy whistles back as he makes his way to Joel, and to you now as well. 

Joel crouches slowly as if he were face to face with a wild, wounded animal. You don’t move at all. You don’t know who or what he is or what his intentions are. Joel is checking to see if you were infected. Thankfully, your short dress allowed him to inspect your body without getting too close. He’s seen enough infected people by now to know what to look for and how they look alike. He also looks to check if you carry any weapons on you, investigating what kind of girl you are. 

Were you a savage? 

Were you running from danger? 

Were you lost? 

“You gon bite me if I touch you?” he asks in a low voice. You don’t answer, just shake your head, barely breathing. “Alright then, let’s see what you are.” 

He gets slightly closer now, you can feel his breathing close to yours, and the warmth that radiates from his body. Joel kneels right in front of you, flashlight set on the ground gently. He scans your body, not touching yet. 

“Were you hurt?” he asks softly, afraid to scare you off. “Can you tell me your name? Where you come from?” 

You don’t make a sound, just blink up at him slowly, your chest rising and falling like the adrenaline is coming down. He watches your face, tight with fear and filthy with dirt, and he reaches out to you with his arm slowly. His fingers are rough, but he remains gentle nonetheless. 

He moves the hair from your face, gently cradles your chin as he looks into your eyes, before lowering his sight to check for scratches.

Your eyes are clear. Not infected, checked. 

Lips are dry, but no blood or foam in sight. 

No signs of a bite. 

Joel shifts closer, now checking your arms, elbows, and shoulders as he scans for any wounds or shivers. You don’t move at all the whole time. Too scared to try anything or make him think you would do something. 

“My name is Joel,” he says, meeting your eyes again, “I’m not here to hurt you, understand me?” 

You stare at him for a beat too long, Joel wonders if you can even speak at all. 

You nod once, small but enough for him to catch. 

Joel exhales like he’s been holding his breath this whole time. Encountering you feels like an encounter with a deer, wide-eyed, silent, frightened and too delicate for this kind of world.

Yet still alive, and perhaps willing to be led. 

The moment is interrupted by the appearance of Tommy. 

Branches crack under his boots as he pushed through the brush, eyes sharp and his gun still raised. His flashlight lands on Joel, then on you. 

“What the hell?” 

Joel lifts a hand. “Easy. Put it down Tommy” 

Tommy doesn’t move at first, his gaze set on your dirt smeared wide eyes as you stare back at him. 

“She infected?” he asks, voice low. 

“No” Joel says “Not infected, not hurt either. I checked” 

Tommy hesitates and Joel asks him to put down the gun again. He obligues, slow and careful like defusing a bomb. 

Joel turns back to you “C’mon sweetheart, let me help you up” 

He reaches for you, carefully. You hesitate and after a pause you take his hand.

Tommy watches your legs tremble as you rise, body sluggish, muscles weak from exhaustion but you don’t stumble. It’s like watching Bambi trying to stand. 

You move behind Joel. 

Your hand curls tight around the fabric of his sleeves, fingers digging into his forearm enough to anchor yourself. You watch Tommy as you hide behind Joel’s shoulder. 

Joel doesn’t flinch but Tommy watches you closely. 

“You trust him already?” he asks. 

You don’t respond, but Joel does. 

“She doesn’t know me,” 

Yet still you stand right there, behind a man you just met.

Joel feels the way your figure warms his back, looking for warmth yourself, your fingers digging into his arm and hears your staggering breaths. 

You don’t know him at all, but you know he’s not the one you’re running from. Neither is Tommy, although you’re just as skeptical as him. Your nose twitches slightly catching smells. The men scent, wood, sweat, trees and dirt.

They smell like the woods, like safety in a way that confuses you. 

You don’t know why you lean into trusting them, but you do. 

“Well shit, what did we just find?” Tommy mutters finally “What do we do about her?” 

Joel doesn’t answer. His hand rises, steady and low and rests over yours on his arm. You feel the calloused rough palm set on top of your frozen hand. 

It’s not spoken, but they both seem to have agreed to take you back to their cabin. 

They lead you through the forest path, Joel at your side while Tommy walks behind watching the two of you. His gun is still lowered but his arm remains tense. 

The flashlight leads the way and cuts forward, flickering over roots and moss. The arm that’s not gripping Joel presses against trees, guiding yourself through your senses like you don’t trust the flashlight enough. 

Joel keeps a close eye on you, glancing over in case your legs give out and he has to carry you himself at any given moment. The two of you are silent, but Tommy though, he’s certainly not quiet. 

“So where do you come from?” he starts, voice firm as he asks a thousand questions. “You got family out here? Camp nearby? You run off from someone?” 

You turn your head to look at him, your lips parted but you don’t emit an answer. You neither shake or nod your head. 

Tommy keeps asking questions. 

“Why were you running?” Still nothing. “You look like you’ve been out here for a while, someone chasing you?” 

You swallow hard, your steps falter and you almost trip. 

You turn your head forward, focusing on your steps that you barely see. 

“I’m talkin’ to you” Tommy says now louder. 

You flinch at the tone of his voice. Head ducking and your body curling to Joel’s looking for a sense of protection. 

“I–” you don’t remember a single thing, memories blur as you try to think of what to say. “I– I don’t know” 

“You don’t know?” He scoffs and stops walking. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You don’t know?” 

You shrink back instantly. His tone, the pressure of his questions and the rapid fire of them banging at the door. If you weren’t holding yourself so tightly to Joel right now, you’d flee like a scared deer. 

“Enough questions now, Tommy” Joel cuts in, exhausted from the scene. “Let’s get her inside and we can keep going at this there” 

“Oh so we’re bringing complete strangers into the cabin now. That’s great” 

“Tommy–”

“What if this is a trap, huh? What if she’s not alone? What if there’s a group of people expecting for us to be at the door and storm in? What if they’re waiting for us to drag her inside?” 

Joel hesitates. 

He doesn’t want to believe a word he says, he doesn’t think any of it its true. 

They both turn to you. You’ve gone silent again with the tone of Tommy’s voice. 

Their flashlight catching your face again. 

Lips parted. Eyes glossy filled with fear. Trembling breaths.

Not the kind of fear you feel from hiding something, rather the kind of fear when you’re about to break. 

You’re a deer caught in the headlights. Too scared to breathe, lie or even run away.

If you knew anything or had any kind of information, you’d spill the second they push harder. 

“Let’s just get her inside first.” 

The door creaks open and you step into a bubble of warmth. Your leggs stutter as you cross the threshold. Fire crackles somewhere in the corner, inside a black box. 

Their scent is so much stronger inside the cabin, it smells of pine, smoke and whiskey. 

There’s a couch sitting under a large window, it’s covered with a few worn in blankets and a jacket lays in the arm rest. There’s a small kitchen good enough for both of them to make use of it  and a wooden table with four chairs. 

Tommy shuts the door behind you and stays near it. Joel on the other hand, moves slowly, guiding you over to the couch. 

“You can take a seat” he offers “You’re safe” 

You hover over to the couch but you don’t sit just yet. You’re not sure what to do with all this warmth, the cushions, the blankets. 

Joel sighed and heads to the kitchen, you watch as he takes a can and sets it on the surface. He pours into a bowl and brings it back to you. The smell of stew becomes more intense with every step he takes in your direction. 

You stare at the bowl in his hands like it’s a test. What even is it? Is it really for you?

“You should eat something” he says gently. 

You look up at him, then back at the bowl, then at him again before taking the bowl from his hands slowly. 

Tommy watches the whole scene and mutters under his breath. “Yeah, totally not suspicious” 

“Tommy” Joel shoots him a look, “She’s probaby  in shock” 

“She’s in something”

You flinch again and Joel catches it. He takes the bowl from your hands and sets it on the coffee table in front of the couch. 

“Alright, you can eat when you’re ready” he murmurs “We will give you space.” 

He backs away, nodding toward the kitchen. Tommy hesitates, then follows—just a few meters, not far. Not out of earshot. Definitely not out of sight.

Joel opens the fridge with a soft creak, pulls out two beers, and offers one wordlessly. Tommy takes it, eyes never leaving you as he brings the bottle to his lips.

No one speaks.

The fire crackles quietly, casting dancing shadows along the floor. Somewhere outside, the wind brushes against the cabin walls like a whisper.

You hear your own breath, and then – your stomach growls. Loud. Desperate.

The sound feels foreign, you hadn’t heard it in a while and it seemed your body just remembered it needs something. 

Legs folding beneath you as you sink onto the edge of the couch, cautious and unsure. Your fingers reach for the bowl Joel left behind. 

You inspect the bowl before you take a bite, stirring the thick mixture—bits of potato, carrot, some kind of meat. You don’t care what any of it is. The stew hits your tongue, a warm salty flavour that seems to wake up a memory. It’s so distant in your mind that you can’t reach it. 

They both watch you as you eat from the bowl, Tommy leans on the counter, his expression unreadable. Joel is less obvious as he drinks his beer.

You finish the last bit of stew and the spoon clinks softly against the bowl. You set it back on the table and Joel takes it as a signal to move closer, perhaps you’re ready to talk now. 

You clean your mouth with the back of your hand and rest it on your lap, anchoring yourself to the couch. 

Joel’s boots step closer, slowly through the wooden floor. He crouches down beside you at eye level while Tommy watches from the kitchen. He’s still suspicious—but something in his gaze shifts. Just a little. Less predator. More puzzled. Curious.

“You remember anything yet?” 

You stay in silence and shut your eyes tightly. As if you could squeeze the memories, look through your skull for any piece of information. And it does, but its not what you want. It’s far too painful to open that door inside your memory lane. 

There’s a shotgun, your mother screaming, crying in pain and lots of blood. And then running endlessly. Your breath tearing through your lungs, your barefeet raw agains stone and soil. Your glasses fall somewhere in the middle of the road. 

You gasp and your eyes open – wide and glassy. 

Joel doesn’t move an inch. 

Tommy straightens, his jaw tightens. 

“What was it?” he asks gently. You shake your head. 

“I don’t…I don’t know” you whisper, your voice hoarse from not having spoken in so long. 

“Try” Tommy says from the kitchen, you both turn your heads to him and you nod. 

“There was…blood. And someone crying. I think—I think it was my mom” 

Joel’s gaze darkens but his voice stays at the same level as before. “You remember a name? Yours? Hers?”

You shake your head again, frustrated at the lack of memory. 

Tommy shifts his weight and rubs his hand along the back of his neck. “Jesus, what happened to you?” 

You look down at your lap, Joel interrupts. “You’re safe now, that’s what matters”

But are you really safe? With them? 

You want to feel safe, a part of the warmth allows you to. 

But there’s something left unsaid, something you quite haven’t figured out yet. 

Joel takes the blankets without saying a word and moves slowly over you. You’ve curled yourself on your side, he set a cushion under your head. He tucks the edges so the blanket doesn’t slip when you turn. 

You don’t move at all. 

Not when his hand pauses near your shoulder, not when he lingers too long watching your face in the soft flicker of firelight. Joel pulls back, leaving you alone on the couch and you heard the floorboards creaking under his boots. He turns to Tommy and signals to go outside to talk in private.

You can’t sleep. 

You should be exhausted due to all the running and the adrenaline rush, but your body remains alert. You hear them talking somewhere near the window, their voices low like the things they’re saying are not meant for your ears. 

Your eyes stay shut, breaths slow and steady. 

“What are we going to do with her?” Tommy murmurs. 

Joel doesn’t answer right away. 

“You saw her,” he says after a beat “She’s got no one. Not a memory, not even a name” 

“Yeah, not even a single survival instinct” he scoffs. Joel nods slow, agreeing with Tommy. 

The silence stretches long enough for both of them to sigh. 

“We’re keeping her” Joel says after a beat. 

“You serious?” Tommy turns to him “Joel, this isn’t some dog we found in the woods” 

“No, it’s not a dog, it’s a deer if anything. You saw her wide-eyes staring at our flashlights like a deer caught. She’s lucky we found her first” 

Your chest tightens as you listen to Joel’s voice. 

“The way she followed me, grabbed my arm. Like i was hers, like i was her anchor if something bad were to happen” he pauses “It means everything” 

“You like her?” Tommy turns to Joel, their eyes meet. Joel doesn’t answer. “I do too”

More silence. 

“We’ll take care of her” 

Joel flicks ash off his cigarette and says nothing, he turns to look at the cabin as if you could hear them through the walls. He wishes you could. 

You curl deeper under the blanket. The fabric still smells like firewood and soap and something faintly like him.

And behind your eyelids, all you can see is that shotgun again. The blood. Your mother’s scream.

And their voices now too. 

Eventually your body gave out. Not from safety but pure exhaustion that had clawed its way through your body. You didn’t dream of anything. Didn’t make it to the edge of a nightmare. 

Just completely blacked out. But before sleep took you, you’d felt them. 

The cabin door opened and you could hear quiet steps across the floor. You remained still with your eyes closed. Joel stood near you, close enough to feel. Then Tommy did as well. Neither of them touched you but you could feel their gaze before they each went to their rooms. 

Next morning 

You wake up to the smell of bacon. 

Salt and smoke and something almost sweet. Maple perhaps? Your eyes flutter slowly, vision still clouded with sleep. 

Joel is in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up, a pan sizzling in front of him. The morning light cuts through the window in long slats casting a golden color over the room. 

Tommy is already awake. He’s sitting at the table, leaned back in the chair, a mug in hand. He’s not drinking, just holding it. Watching you. 

You sit up slowly and the blanket slips off your shoulder, pooling down your side. His eyes follow and look at your bare skin. He doesn’t look away, just looks harder. He’s not being subtle in the slightest and he knows it. 

Your throat tightens and you shift, you pull the blanket back like an armor and Tommy watches as you do. 

Joel glances over his shoulder as he serves the bacon in three different plates. “She’s up” 

“She sure is” Tommy’s gaze lingers for a moment before taking a sip. 

You feel uneasy, not unsafe but the way he’s staring at you like he could eat you right there and then was disturbing.Just yesterday, he didn’t want to let you inside the cabin. Now, you can feel it in his silence:He wouldn’t be able to let you out.

Joel, on the other hand, moves like nothing’s wrong.

He sets two plates on the table, one in front of the empty seat—yours. He nods at it casually, then looks down at you with a faint, unreadable smile.

“Here you go, Bambi.”

Your brows pull slightly. “What?”

“Figured since you don’t remember a name,” he says, setting down a mug of something warm—tea surely—“we might as well call you somethin’.”

You blink at him. Bambi. You should protest. But you don’t.

“That alright with you?” Tommy smiles at you. 

You just nod, slow, your stomach fluttering in ways you can’t explain.

The nickname clings to you like smoke. Innocent, sweet—and completely theirs.

You pull out the chair with a soft scrape and sit down, directly across from them. Tommy starts eating his plate of bacon while you stare down at yours as if trying to figure out what it is. 

“So we talked last night,” Joel starts as he takes a seat and relaxes back into the chair, chatting like its an everyday breakfast. You glance up at him, his voice is warm and calm.

 “You’re going to be staying with us,” he adds “if you want to, of course.” 

He lets the words sit there, lets you feel the kindness in them. Like you have a say.

But the truth seeps in anyway.

Where would you go?

Who would you find out there? Would you have food? A warm place to sleep? Would anyone keep you safe the way they would?

You hesitate.

Not because you’re unsure of the answer.

But because you know you’ve already lost the choice.

Joel watches you with a steady, comforting gaze—like he knows you’re working it all out. Like he’s giving you time to accept the truth.

And then Tommy speaks.

His voice is quieter this time. Measured. Different from the way he barked at you in the woods.

“Look,” he says, leaning slightly forward, elbows braced on the table. “I know I was... rough yesterday.”

You don’t meet his eyes.

He notices. He softens further.

“I get it. You’re scared. That’s fair.”

Tommy’s voice is lower now, softer than you’ve ever heard it. No edge, no sharpness—just quiet understanding. He offers the faintest smile. 

Trying to shape himself into something gentle. Something safe.

“But you don’t gotta be scared of us,” he says, eyes fixed on yours. “Ever.”

You glance away, uncertain.

He leans in just a little, voice dropping further—soothing, almost tender.

“We just want you to feel safe. That’s one of the many things we can offer you, if you let us.”

You swallow.

The words settle deep. Deeper than you want to admit. There’s no threat in them—but somehow, they still hold weight.

If you let us.

As if there’s a choice.

As if you haven’t already been folded into the center of their world without even realizing it.

Joel stays quiet, letting Tommy do the talking. But his eyes are on you, steady. 

The air feels thick.

You grip your fork tighter. Your eyes burn, but not with tears—just heat, tension, exhaustion.

And still—something in you wants to believe him. Wants to believe it could be that simple.

You nod, barely.

And your voice—quiet, hoarse, uncertain—slips out before you can stop it.

“...Okay.”

Just one word.

But Joel shifts when he hears it.

His eyes flick toward Tommy, then back to you. There’s something unreadable in his expression—something settled.

Tommy leans back slightly in his chair, but not far. Like he’s giving you space, but not too much.

Like he’s proud of himself.

Joel speaks next, quieter than before.

“Good, Bambi,” Joel says, voice low and easy. “Happy to have you on board.”

You give him a small smile—tight, unsure. But you offer it anyway.

And that’s more than enough.

He sees it. Feels it.

That flicker of willingness, of trust—however faint—is all he needs.

His hand brushes his thigh as he stands. “Why don’t you finish your breakfast,” he says, gesturing to your full plate, “and we’ll find you something clean to wear.”

You glance down at your clothes—mud-streaked, torn at the hem, dried blood in places you don’t want to think about.

You nod, quiet again. “Okay.”

Tommy stands too, stretching his arms, voice light. “Reckon we got some stuff she can use in the back. Closet’s got a few things.”

Joel takes his and Tommy’s plate and heads to the sink to clean up while you dive into your bacon and eggs. 

“How’s the taste, Bambi?” he asks, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

You pause, blinking at him. Chewing.

“It’s good,” you say softly, then add—because it feels expected—“Thank you.”

His smile deepens. Not smug. Not proud. Just… satisfied.

“Good girl,” he murmurs under his breath as he turns back to the sink.

You’re not sure if he meant for you to hear that. But you do. And it settles deep.

Tommy returns from the hallway with a modest pile of clothes in his arms—folded, clean, and smelling faintly like cedar and something deeper beneath it.

“There weren’t many options,” he says, setting them down neatly on the couch, “but it’s more than I thought we had.”

You glance at the stack. An old flannel. A plain black hoodie. Two shirts. Pants. Sweatpants. Even a pair of underwear—too big, but clean.

You blink. It’s more than you expected. More than you’ve had in a long time.

Tommy takes a step back and gives you a quick once-over—not leering, but assessing. His gaze lingers just enough to make your stomach tighten.

“Think you might wanna get cleaned up first,” he says, tone still easy. “When’s the last time you took a shower?”

You look down at yourself—dirt-streaked skin, dried blood on your arms, your clothes stiff with sweat and earth. Your face grows hot.

You’ve been so focused on their scent. So taken by the safety, the fire, the comfort of not being alone—

You forgot your own.

Do you stink?

You shift in your seat, suddenly self-conscious. You don’t meet his eyes. You just shake your head slowly.

Tommy nods once and gestures down the hallway. “Bathroom’s the first door on the right. Hot water still works. Use whatever you need.”

Joel speaks up from the sink. “We’ll keep your breakfast warm.”

You stand, hands curling around the blanket at your chest.

Still watching. Still being watched.

The hallway is dim, the floor cool beneath your bare feet as you move toward the door Tommy pointed out. You clutch the pile of clothes against your chest, the blanket slipping away behind you.

The bathroom is small but clean. A mirror above the sink, fogged slightly from earlier use. You can still smell them in here—soap, cologne, cedarwood.

You lock the door.

Not because you think they’ll barge in.

But because it’s the first time since arriving that you’re alone.

You exhale shakily and set the clothes on the edge of the sink. There’s a towel waiting for you, neatly folded on a stool. A bar of soap. A bottle of shampoo that smells vaguely like pine and smoke. And draped carefully over the hook behind the door— a shirt.

Too big. Soft cotton. Joel’s, clearly.

You know it before you even touch it. You’ve smelled it on him, in the air, in the kitchen. It's clean, yes—but it carries him.

Your hand trembles as you reach for the hem of your shirt. You strip slowly, peeling away the days-old clothes, layer by layer, like skin that no longer belongs to you.

You avoid the mirror.

You don’t want to see yourself like this—hollow-eyed, bruised, thin.

You step into the shower.

When the water hits you—hot, real—it almost breaks you. You brace a hand on the wall, forehead pressed to cool tile, body trembling under the weight of heat and memory.

You don’t cry.

You just breathe. Shallow, shaky. Like you’re still hiding in the woods.

When you finish, you dry off and reach for the clothes. You pull on the underwear—too loose. The sweatpants—soft, drawstring pulled tight. And then…

Joel’s shirt.

It slips over your body, down past your thighs, sleeves hanging low. You wrap your arms around yourself instinctively, inhaling the scent baked into the fabric.

You step out of the bathroom, warm skin wrapped in softness—Joel’s shirt, pulled from the hook behind the door. It’s not the one Tommy had folded for you. It’s not even one either of them offered.

You just… took it.

It hangs loose over your frame, the sleeves swallowing your hands. Paired with the sweatpants—drawstring cinched tight at your waist—you feel strangely small. Hidden. Safe.

You walk barefoot into the main room, fingers tucked into the hem of the shirt. Your hair is still damp, clinging to your neck.

Tommy’s sitting at the table, lacing up his boots. Jacket already on. About to leave.

Joel is leaning back in his chair, cradling a mug in one hand. His gaze finds you the moment you walk in—and stays there.

Not moving. Not blinking.

Tommy glances up at the sound of your footsteps. 

You hesitate, arms tightening around yourself just slightly. “It’s… all a bit big but…” you say quietly, eyes flicking to him. “Uhm… thank you, Tommy.”

His gaze dips over the outfit—familiar fabric. Joel’s shirt. “No problem, Bambi,” he says with a soft smile. “We’ll find you proper clothes real soon.”

Joel doesn’t say anything.

But you feel his attention settle on the shirt. The way it drapes over your frame. The way you picked his without being told. Something shifts in his eyes, he’s got that look again—like you’re already his, and now you’ve confirmed it.

He sets his mug down and rises to his feet slowly.

“You hungry?” he asks, voice calm. “We kept your plate.”

You nod.

And when he walks past you to reheat the food, his hand brushes gently along your back. Barely there.

You eat slowly, the warmth of the food grounding you more than you expect.

The cabin feels quiet this morning. Still. The kind of stillness that hints at routine, at repetition. You watch as Tommy zips up his jacket, slings a rifle over his shoulder like it’s second nature.

He moves with practiced rhythm. Comfortable. Like he’s done this a hundred times before.

And you wonder—what is this?

What do they do all day?

How far do they go?

Where do you fit into that rhythm?

You swallow your bite, fingers tightening slightly around your fork.

“Tommy?” you ask, voice quiet, gentle—like it’s not even your place to know where he goes. 

He turns, halfway to the door. “Yeah?”

You hesitate for a moment.

“Where are you going?”

He pauses, then lets out a small breath, turning fully to face you.

“Just out on a run,” he says. “Checkin’ the perimeter, makin’ sure the traps are still set. Gotta keep this place safe.”

You nod, looking down again.

It’s not the answer that matters. It’s the fact that you asked.

Joel glances at you from across the room, something flickering in his expression. You don’t see it—but Tommy does.

“Joel’ll stay with you,” Tommy adds after a beat. “You’ll be alright.”

You nod again, smaller this time.

Joel, still watching, sets your reheated plate down in front of you and murmurs, “You can ask things like that, y’know.”

You blink up at him.

Joel’s voice is warm. Steady. But there’s a weight under it.

“You live here now, Bambi,” he says. “That makes this your place too.”

And something about that… feels final.

The door clicks shut behind Tommy, and for the first time since last night—it’s just you and Joel.

The quiet returns, thicker now. It settles in the cabin like fog.

Joel clears his throat as he moves to the sink, rinsing your empty plate. “You eat good?”

You nod. “Yeah. Thank you.”

He glances at you over his shoulder. “You’re polite. That’s good.”

You don’t know how to respond to that.

He dries his hands and leans against the counter, just watching you for a moment. Not in a way that makes you shrink—more like he’s thinking something he’s not saying.

Then, his voice lowers slightly. “You look better.”

You blink up at him.

“In clean clothes,” he adds, gesturing to the shirt you took. “In mine.”

Your face warms. You hug your arms across your stomach.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to take it.”

He shakes his head, stepping toward you. “Don’t be sorry. I like it.” 

Joel’s closer now, only a few feet away.

The fire cracks gently. Rain starts tapping at the windows. The outside world dulls, disappears.

“You tired?” he asks.

You shrug. “A little.”

Joel nods toward the couch. “Wanna rest? I’ll sit with you a while. Won’t talk if you don’t want me to.”

You hesitate.

But you nod.

He sits first, leaning back on the cushions, legs spread. He pats the space beside him.

“C’mere.”

You sit beside him slowly, careful not to brush too close. But the couch is small, and your shoulder rests against his bicep.

His warmth seeps into you.

His scent as well.

You don’t speak. You just sit there, soaking in the quiet.

And then—Joel shifts slightly.

His hand lifts. Not fast, not forceful. Just rises and curls gently over the back of your neck. His thumb brushes the edge of your jaw.

You turn your head slightly, looking up at him.

“You okay?” he asks, voice lower now. Almost a whisper.

You nod. “Mhm.”

And you mean it.

For the first time in a long time, you feel okay.

Joel leans in just enough that you feel his breath against your temple.

“You don’t ever have to be scared with me.”

He presses a kiss to your temple. Barely.

And it lingers longer than it should.

Joel's hand remains at the back of your neck, thumb brushing absentmindedly at your hairline, slow and steady. The kind of touch meant to soothe. But it does more than that.

It roots you. Tethers you. Pulls you closer to something you don’t quite understand yet.

You don’t think about it when you shift. Just a soft movement—turning into him, resting your temple against his chest.

You didn’t mean to invite anything.

But Joel took it as one. 

Then his arm wraps around your waist, firm and deliberate, pulling you the rest of the way in until you’re practically in his lap.

Your thighs straddle his. His palm spreads across the small of your back.

You freeze for a moment—not out of fear, but surprise. Your hands rest flat on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath them.

Joel doesn’t move.

He just watches you. His eyes low. Lidded. Dark.

“You okay?” he asks again, voice like gravel and smoke.

You nod, slower this time.

“Good,” he says.

His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, thumb brushing just under your eye. His gaze flicks across your face—your lips, your throat, your lashes. He’s not pretending to be subtle anymore.

“You’re so soft,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

You swallow.

His fingers trail along your jaw, then down to your collarbone—his shirt hanging off one shoulder, slipping just enough to expose skin.

He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t push, but his grip on your waist tightens.

And when he leans in again—closer this time, his nose brushing your cheek—he whispers,

“Feel good, don’t it? Bein’ taken care of?”

You nod before you realize you’re doing it.

Joel smiles at that, knowing what he’s causing you while you’re sitting on him. The second your body suddenly starts reacting, he clocks it. 

Not to mock you or shame you. He uses it to train you. 

You feel… safe. Anchored.

But also— Something else.

A pressure. A warmth that’s begun to build under your skin. Between your thighs. Inside you.

You shift again, just a little.

And that’s when you feel it.

Him.

Hard. Solid beneath you.

Your breath hitches, and your thighs instinctively press together over his. Your body feels strange—hot, sensitive, like it’s humming. And you don’t understand it fully. But it’s there.

Joel doesn’t move. 

His voice cuts through the silence,  his voice—low, rough around the edges- curls into your ear like smoke. “Somethin’ bothering you, Bambi?”

You blink slowly, your brow furrowing.

You don’t want to lie.

So you nod. Just once. Tiny.

Joel hums quietly as his palm strokes slowly down your spine.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I thought so.”

You shift again, uncomfortable, but not wanting to leave. Wanting something else. Something you don’t have a name for.

Joel tilts his head, eyes dragging over your flushed cheeks, parted lips.

“Need me to take care of that, Bambi?”

You glance up, eyes wide, searching his face for the answer—because you’re not sure what’s happening to your body, only that it feels overwhelming.

You’re hoping he knows the answer.

Because you surely don’t.

So you nod again, causing Joel to smile.

He takes your hand gently and guides it down, resting it over the hard line straining beneath his jeans. The heat of him throbs through the fabric, solid and undeniable.

“Feel what you do to me?” he asks, voice low, roughened with restraint.

You blink, fingers twitching slightly against the pressure. You can’t speak. You just look at him—uncertain, dazed.

Joel’s hips roll up, slow and heavy, grinding against your palm as his grip tightens on your wrist.

You gasp—sharp and surprised—and immediately drop your gaze, cheeks burning.

He catches your chin with two fingers, tilting your face back to his.

“Uh-uh,” he murmurs. “No shame in that.”

You look up at him, breath shaky, and he smiles again—gently, reassuring.

“Your body’s reactin’ the same way to me. That’s a good thing, baby.”

His hand drifts lower, slipping beneath the hem of your shirt, fingers tracing over your bare stomach. Then lower past the waistband of your sweatpants.

“You’re not doin’ anything wrong. You’re just learnin’. I’ll teach you everything—nice and slow.”

He moves slowly. 

And when his fingers slip past the edge of your panties, you tense—not from fear, but from something deeper. Something pulling.

“Shhh,” he soothes. “That’s it. Just let me.”

His hand finds the warmth between your legs—already sticky, slick, and aching. And he groans under his breath.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “You really needed this, didn’t you, Bambi?”

You whimper. Your hips twitch without your permission.

He strokes you slowly, just enough to build the pressure. Drawing circles with enough pressure.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he whispers against your temple. “Told you I’d take care of you.”

Your hands clutch his shoulders, and your voice breaks on a breathy plea:

“Please—Joel—please…”

And god, he loves it.

His lips curl against your skin.“There she is,” he murmurs, picking up the pace just enough to make your thighs shake. “Beggin’ so sweet. Didn’t even have to teach you.”

You press your face against his neck, trying to stay quiet, but every touch burns. Every movement tightens something inside you that you didn’t know was waiting.

Joel keeps whispering.

“That’s it, Bambi. Doing so good for me” 

His fingers slide lower—slick, wet, so sensitive that your hips jolt. He strokes you slowly, gently, like he’s memorizing your every twitch.

“There you go, baby,” he whispers, “You just stay with me. Let me feel how good you are.”

You make a sound, quiet and shaky at first. But when his fingers circle just right, a soft moan escapes before you can stop it.

Joel groans at the sound. “Goddamn.”

You press your face against his neck, biting your lip, but the sounds keep slipping out—wet, breathless, desperate little whimpers that only make him touch you deeper, slower.

And outside—

Tommy freezes halfway up the porch steps.

He hears it.

Muffled, but clear.

Your voice.

High and soft and needy.

A moan. Then another. The kind of sound no one makes unless someone’s got their hand deep between their legs—and Tommy knows exactly what Joel is doing with you

He stands there, jaw tight, heart pounding. Heat spreading beneath his ribs… and lower.

Joel beat him to it.

He fucking knew it would happen. Knew Joel was soft on you the moment you stepped out in his clothes, all wide eyes and soft thank-yous. But he didn’t think Joel would take it this soon.

And now, standing on the other side of the door, Tommy hears you cry out softly again.

He presses a hand against the wall beside the door. Breath heavy. His cock throbs behind the zipper of his jeans.

Fucking Joel.

A growl curls in his chest, low and frustrated. He wants to be the one inside. He wants to see your face. He wants to hear you say his name like that.

And next time— He will.

⟡──────────────⟡

Guess next time it's Tommy's turn...

✧ reblogs, likes & comments are deeply appreciated ♡  

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[emchante]

kinktober | seed of desire - l.n.

day 3 - breeding kink | kinktober masterlist

summary: after seeing you playing and looking after kids in the paddock, lando can’t shake the thought from his head. after heading back to the hotel and having a heated night-in, lando is driven by his fantasy.

WARNINGS: 18+ content, rough sex, p in v, unprotected sex, dom! lando, breeding kink, praise kink, dirty talk.

w.c: 1.3k

a/n: welcome to day 3! never really written for lando before, so i enjoyed writing this one, and i hope you all enjoy it too. let me know your thoughts via reblog, comment or ask, i love hearing from you guys.

lando’s body presses into yours, his hands gripping your thighs as he thrusts into you, with slow, deliberate movements. his face hovers mere inches from your own, flushed cheeks and swollen lips from the night so far. 

“couldn’t get you off my mind today,” he panted, smashing his lips against yours again; drawing another moan from you. “watching you with those kids… how happy you were with them..” his voice faltered as he thrusted into you even deeper, trying to keep himself together. “fuck— how good you were with them..” he trailed off, hands gripping your thighs even tighter. 

the noises of pleasure that escaped you only encouraged lando on, as he kept thrusting deeply into you. he moved to your ear, panting against it before leaving a kiss below your earlobe. “made me think of how perfect you’d look with mine.”

lando felt the way you clenched around him as the words left his mouth, and his lips upturned into a smirk. he leaned back into your ear, lips brushing against it as he spoke up again. “yeah, you like that idea? you’d be so good for me, wouldn’t you?” he asked you, trailing kisses from behind your ear and down the nape of your neck. “all mine, carrying our family..”

you whined as you nodded furiously, choking on your words. “i— fuck, lan— yes,” you managed to get out, eyes fluttering shut as the vibrations from lando’s low groan coursed your body. 

“good girl,” he praised gently, his lips continuing to move down south. you brought your hands to his head, fingers gripping his curls as you pushed him into your breasts, silently asking for him to continue his actions there. 

lando was happy to oblige, his tongue flicking over your peaked nipple causing you to arch into him. he groaned against your skin, the sound vibrating through you as he kissed and nipped at the soft flesh, one of his hands coming up to your other breast, squeezing it softly. 

lando’s lips continued to worship your chest, his hot breaths sending shivers through your body as he murmured between kisses. “you’d look so good, carrying them for me,” he told you, interrupting himself to place a flurry of more kisses. “my pretty girl, aren’t you?”

lando was looking up at you now, still at your chest but his eyes were boring into your own, waiting for you to answer him. you nodded, too flustered to speak but that wasn’t good enough for him. he moved from your chest now causing a needy whine to escape you, but you cut yourself off with a gasp as lando grabbed your chin, forcing you to look him in the eyes. 

“i want an answer, baby,” he told you firmly, taking you in for a hot kiss, continuing to dominate it as his tongue slipped into your mouth. it felt like it was over as fast as it began though, as he was pulling away to look at you again. he licked his lips, breaking the string of saliva that was connecting you both together. “answer me, c’mon.”

“ ‘m your pretty girl, lan,” you panted, breathless from his kisses and his continuous thrusts. lando smirked when the words fell from your mouth, nodding happily. you were praised with another “good girl” before he focused on his thrusts again. 

his hips snapped forward, thrusting deeper, more purposeful. “i’d fill you up with every chance i got,” he growled, forehead now pressing against your own, eyes locking onto you again. “make sure you’re dripping with me.”

you gasped at his words, nodding against him to let him know you were into this, liking the dirty talk. “yeah? you’d love that wouldn’t you?” he groaned, his hand moving back to your thigh, gripping it as tightly as before. “you’re perfect, so fucking perfect for me, baby. giving me everything.”

your back arched into him, his praise and dirty talk driving you closer to the edge. he slowed his thrusts for a moment, wanting to drag out the tension a little longer. leaning closer, his lips were centimetres away from your own. 

“im gonna fuck a baby into you,” he whispered against your lips, attentive eyes watching as yours rolled back, savouring the pornographic moan that left your mouth. “can’t wait to fill you up,” he finished off, before his lips were on yours once more. 

lando’s pace picked up again as the both of you continued to share sloppy, yet heated kisses. each thrust was deep, pressing his body into yours as his hot breath hit your skin. 

“god, you’re so fucking tight,” he groaned, voice thick with desire as he pulled away. he leaned down, placing kisses over your neck again –as if the kisses he had left before has vanished –  having to remark his trails. this time he added nips and small sucks in, dark blotches of purples and reds appearing on the skin he attacked. “i could stay inside you forever,” he mumbled against your neck, panting as he regained his breath. “fill you up as much as i want.”

you whimpered at his words, feeling them sink deep, your body already on edge. lando felt the way you clenched around him, your breathing becoming more erratic, and it only fuelled him more. 

moving back, he watched you for a moment. you were dazed, the pleasure almost overwhelming but you were still hanging in there, just for him. he leaned closer, placing a kiss on your cheek to get your attention, your clouded eyes focusing in on him, slightly tilting your head. 

“want me to cum in you?” he teased, his voice a low whisper. his words and the tone he spoke them in went right through your body, jolts of pleasure sparking in every direction. his hips suddenly started to move torturously, keeping you on edge. “want me to fill you up, baby?”

your moan was needy and desperate, your body trembling beneath him as you tried to buck your own hips to try make him pick up the pace once more; though to no avail, you couldn’t form words, only nodding frantically as your hands clutching onto lando’s back, nails digging into his flesh. the only words you managed to pant out were “please lando—”  before another moan got caught in your throat. 

lando chuckled darkly, clearly enjoying how gone you were. “i know you want it,” he whispered, his lips right against your ear like earlier. he nibbled on your earlobe, causing a whine to escape you, but it quickly turned into a gasp. lando smirked against your ear— you could feel it— he knew what he was doing. his hand had slipped between your bodies, nimble fingers finding your clit as he rubbed slow, teasing circles. “i need to hear you say it, pretty girl. tell me you want me to cum in you.”

you were overwhelmed and couldn’t think straight, but you knew lando would deny you your orgasm if you didn’t do as he said. “i want it,” you cried out, voice trembling with desperation. “i want— need you to fill me up, lando.”

that was all it took. lando’s thrusts became erratic, harder and faster, and the desperation in his movements was mirroring your own. “fuck— i’ll fill you up, baby. you’ll be dripping. and i might need to fuck it back into you with my fingers,” he growled, his dirty talk pushing you over the edge as your body tensed, before the orgasm crashed throughout you. 

lando wasn’t far behind you, his hips snapping forward as he buried himself deep inside you. a guttural moan left his lips as he spilled inside you, fulfilling his promise and bringing his fantasy to life. 

[ashthesalamipiece]

“Hot Sand, Hotter Boyfriend – : Busted”

Setting: Bakugo’s dorm, late at night—door… not locked. Oops.

You didn’t mean for it to happen. Not like this.

But after a long day, some teasing kisses, and Bakugo pulling you into his room with that look in his eye—yeah, things escalated fast.

Clothes hit the floor. Your back hit the bed. His mouth hit your skin like he was starved.

He had you pinned under him now, hands holding your thighs apart as he moved between them, every deep, slow thrust drawing the kind of moans you couldn’t bite back. Sweat slicked your skin, your nails raked down his back, and his mouth was at your ear, whispering filth.

“You feel that?” he growled. “How fuckin’ deep I am inside you?”

You whimpered, gasping his name.

Then—click.

Neither of you heard the door open at first.

But you definitely heard the screams.

“WHAT THE—”

“CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT!!”

Bakugo’s head whipped around just in time to see Kirishima, Kaminari, and Mina standing in the doorway like deer in headlights, jaws on the floor.

You shrieked and grabbed the nearest blanket, yanking it over your chest while Bakugo shoved himself in front of you, completely naked and fuming.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!”

Kaminari tried to cover his eyes and still managed to trip backwards out of the doorway. “I didn’t see anything—I SWEAR—except everything—I’M SORRY—”

Mina was frozen, wide-eyed. “Oh my god. I saw Bakugo’s ass. It’s sculpted.”

Kirishima yelped and slammed the door shut, voice cracking. “WHY wasn’t it locked?! WHY?!”

You were hiding your face behind Bakugo’s back, skin burning with embarrassment.

“We are never surviving this,” you whispered.

Bakugo grumbled, running a hand through his messy hair. “I’m gonna murder all of them.”

“You left the door unlocked!”

“You distracted me!”

The hallway outside erupted in chaos—screaming, laughing, someone (probably Sero) shouting “They were going at it like R-rated rabbits!” and Uraraka crying, “I can’t believe I SAW that!”

You pulled the blanket tighter around yourself and groaned. “Do you think it’s too late to fake our deaths?”

Bakugo looked back at you, then down at himself, and sighed. “Guess they know I’m good at my job.”

You smacked his arm. “Not. Helping.”

[woniwontons]

dead end - CHAPTER TWO

bob reynolds x therapist!reader

summary: after being assigned to monitor bob reynolds’ recovery inside the new avengers tower, you try to keep your fears hidden. but between quiet training sessions and unsettling therapy logs, you start to realize he’s watching you more than he should—and that something inside him never stops whispering.

w.c: 2.1k

warnings: abuse by parent, psychological thriller, inaccurately depicted mental illness, emotional manipulation (by void), nightmares, slow burn, possessive themes, combat violence, unreliable realities, hallucinations, left some yearning crumbs for y'all in here since its shorter...

chapter nav: one | two | three | four | five (coming soon)

⋆｡°✩⋆｡°｡⋆

ANONYMOUS POV

Transcript Log | INTERNAL FILE [REDACTED] Access Level: TOP SECRET Date: [REDACTED] Location: Off-site - Audio Transcript Only

Scientist 1: “Vitals?”

Scientist 2: “Stable. No unexpected rejection so far. Slight fluctuations during REM, but within limits.”

Scientist 1: “Neurological?”

Scientist 2: “That’s where it gets interesting. Her activity spikes in proximity to ▇▇▇▇▇.”

Scientist 1: “And the Void?”

Scientist 2: “We can’t detect it directly. But ▇▇▇▇'s energy readings dropped 17% during yesterday’s session. That’s the first time we’ve seen a suppression event without sedation or one of the New Avengers present.”

Scientist 1: “▇▇▇▇ doesn’t know?”

Scientist 2: “No. She thinks she’s been ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇. She was flagged in her old unit. High trauma index, low emotional volatility, adaptable but guarded.”

Scientist 1: “Are you saying ▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇ is working?"

Scientist 2: “There's too many variables here to know for sure, but I would say we're working towards a successful run.”

Scientist 1: “Continue observation. Let's try to introduce physical contact. If ▇▇▇▇▇ starts to escalate, we’ll pull her.”

Scientist 2: “And if he doesn’t?”

Scientist 1: “Then we’ve found the answer to our biggest problem.”

End of File

READER POV

You were barefoot.

The floor beneath your feet was sticky with something—beer, grease, maybe both—and the carpeted hallway stunk of cigarette smoke that had long since stained the drywall yellow. You knew, instantly, this wasn’t your memory, or at least nowhere you had ever been before.

You turned your head slowly.

A battered recliner sat in the living room, worn through at the armrests, facing a television that loudly blasted a wrestling match. The broken blinds cast sunlight across the floor. Outside, you could just barely make out a patch of dying grass.

"Where am I?" you asked yourself, feeling so lucid in this dream.

Down the hall, a door slammed.

"Useless piece of shit!" a man's voice roared from the other side of the house. You froze.

A crash. Glass shattering against the floor.

"You thought I wouldn't find out what you said to your uncle about me? Fucking liar, can't even man up and say it to my face."

Heavy footsteps approached the room you were in. Fear shot up your chest as you held your breath, slowly backing away from the hall before running to the nearest door. A set of steps appeared before you as you yanked the door open, and you ran upstairs to escape whatever was coming in your direction.

An attic.

You creeped quietly inside, looking for somewhere to hide if the footsteps continued to follow. It was a mess up there, filled with boxes and old furniture.

A broken patch in the floorboards appeared itself to you, drawing you to it. You crouched onto the floor and took in the scene underneath.

It was a small bedroom. On the floor, hunched near the edge of a mattress stripped bare, sat a boy. Knees to chest. Head down. Breathing shallow.

You recognized him.

Even this young, even under a mop of sweat-drenched brunette hair, you knew it was Bob. Thin. Shoulders curled inward, ready to disappear.

And across from him, towering in the doorframe, was his father.

Drunk. Flushed red. Breathing hard as he held a folded belt in his grasp.

His hand balled into a fist and slammed the doorframe hard enough to splinter it.

"Look at me, boy! Have you got something wrong with you in the head now?"

Bob didn't move. He didn't even cry, and you felt your heart throbbing in pain at the sight.

You leaned back from the floor as you felt a change in the energy of the attic, your senses screaming in paranoia.

A presence.

Your body swung around and your eyes met with your reflection in a mirror propped up in the corner of the attic. The air around you dropped in temperature, and behind you, stood a proper reason to shudder.

The Void.

He didn’t speak immediately, only stood at your back—close enough that you could feel the shape of him. His voice came low and deep, curling beneath your skin.

"No one came for me then."

You made in a sharp intake breath, unsure of what to do about such a powerful being standing right behind you. The crack of a whipped belt stung your ear from the room below you, causing you to wince at the following sound of younger Bob's cries.

"Why... why am I here?" you whispered, your voice cracking.

"I remember every time I wished I could simply burn this house down to get the peace I wanted. Every moment in this house turned me further into this."

You watch him reach toward you in the mirror, and you shut your eyes in horror, squeezing them in a grimace. But the touch that came was not in aggression, but a gentle grace of your forearm that made the hair stand up in goosebumps. You felt the tingle of his exhale meeting the back of your ear as he bent down to whisper.

"Is it wrong to want you to see it all?"

Your voice trembled. “This isn’t my memory to have, I shouldn't be here.”

"Well you've already seen it now, haven't you?"

You opened your eyes again to watch him. He tilted his head further forward, his gaze sweeping over the outline of your side profile. Refusing to look over, you held your gaze to the mirror, ignoring the sight of his blurred face in your peripheral. Examining you.

"You make it so quiet, I ought to consider you a threat." His hand on your forearm creeped downwards, his finger tips sliding down to the back of your palm. "But I can't help but to feel so intrigued."

You couldn’t breathe now. Your heart beat so loudly, you swore he could hear it hitting the inside of your chest.

"Let me keep you, y/n."

The training room on Sublevel 3 was colder than you remembered.

Bright, clinical lights shone down from above, reflecting off the polished floors. In the center of the mat, Bucky stood with his fists raised, sweat darkening the fabric of his T-shirt. Across from him, chest heaving but posture composed, was Bob.

He hadn’t seen you enter.

Neither had Bucky. But Yelena had.

She sat on the edge of a supply crate, legs crossed, examining the scene in front of her with careful precision. Her eyes flicked to you the moment you stepped inside and she swung her legs over the wooden crate to talk.

"You weren't on the schedule for today," she said, voice low.

“I’m not here officially,” you replied, watching as Bob ducked a punch and countered with a clean elbow to Bucky’s side. “Harding asked me to monitor some responses.”

That was a lie, but you needed to see Bob again. Or rather, you felt a strong, impulsive urge to do so. Especially after the dream.

“Again,” Bucky barked.

Bob nodded once. Then lunged.

The fight seemed brutal to you, all just weight and momentum. Bucky dodged the first blow and swept Bob’s leg, but Bob twisted midair, landing hard and kicking upward in the same motion.

You stepped closer to Yelena, clipboard clutched to your chest more out of reflex than necessity.

"Always with the clipboard, do you carry that around with you 24/7?" Yelena asked sarcastically. You scoffed back a laugh, realizing how nerdy you likely looked at all times. She eased your nerves a bit and you relaxed, letting your shoulders down as you watched the show.

Except, you couldn't help but notice that Bob was holding back. You could feel it.

Each punch he threw stopped just short of full force, like he was afraid of what would happen if he let go. But every time Bucky hit him, especially when it was hard, sharp, or unexpected, you saw it.

His eyes.

Brown. Then gold. Then back again.

A flash. So quick, you might’ve thought you imagined it. But the next time it happened, his hands changed too.

From flesh to something blacker than shadows, a smoke crawled up his wrists. Then, flickering back to normal as if nothing had happened.

Bucky didn’t flinch. He just kept pushing him.

"Does that always happen? It's in the notes, but I've never seen it with my eyes before," you question Yelena.

She shrugs, looking at you curiously. "Usually it's a little crazier than this. I'm getting a bit bored if I'm being honest."

Your reply is interrupted by Bucky's shout, “Focus, Bob. Control it.”

Bob gritted his teeth, catching Bucky’s next blow with a forearm. “I am.”

The room felt like it was vibrating slightly. Just under the surface.

You took another step forward.

"Let m̷̻̑e̸͔̍ ̵̙͋o̸͖̕u̵̡̓t̸̫͛."

The hairs on your arm sparked up again in shock. It wasn’t spoken aloud, but you felt it. Like pressure against your ribs. A whisper from inside someone else’s lungs. Something that had never occurred to you before. You looked to your side, but Yelena didn't seem to have heard the demonic voice that you had.

Bob swung wide and missed.

Bucky came in low and landed a blow to his ribs.

Bob staggered—and his eyes flared gold for just a second too long.

CRACK.

The floor beneath his foot cracked outward like broken glass.

Bucky immediately backed off, hands raised. “Bob—”

Bob doubled over, clutching his head.

“I’m fine,” he growled through his teeth, though his fingers had turned black again, wrists trembling. And simultaneously, a pressure grew in your own chest as he slowly lost control.

Bucky didn’t move.

Yelena stood, walking closer to the center of the room where the boys stood still. You followed closely behind her, ready to assist in any way you could.

"Bob?" Yelena spoke as she stopped in front of his crouched form.

And that was when Bob’s head snapped up, golden eyes searching the room like an animal sensing something off.

Then he saw you.

His posture stilled. His chest heaved once.

All of the blackness in his hands retreated at once.

“Did I lose control again?” he said softly, voice raw. It seemed like a question for the room, but he was staring directly at you. "Why do you make it so... quiet?"

You felt pathetic as your heart dropped as the memory of what the void said to you in the dream. "What?"

Bob straightened up quickly, smoothing the bottom of his shirt.

"Nothing," he exclaimed quickly, walking off to retrieve his water bottle at the corner of their training room.

Yelena looked between the two of you, confusion knitting her brows together. "What the hell was that?"

"Also nothing," you say curtly before spinning on your heel and walking away, noting the event on your clipboard.

The walls of Dr. Harding’s office were too white. The kind of professional warmth that pretended it wasn’t designed to contain people.

The artificial daylight panels made you squint as you sat in the stiff-backed chair across from her desk, hands folded politely in your lap. Your ridiculous clipboard rested beside you, useless for once.

Harding looked up from her tablet, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “Thank you for coming by on short notice.”

You gave a small nod. “Of course. Is this about yesterday’s training observation?”

“Partly.” She adjusted something on her screen. “I just wanted to check in personally. After all, this assignment came with… heightened expectations.”

That was her way of saying: You aren't meeting them.

“I’ve been logging everything daily,” you said quickly. “Vitals. Verbal behavior. Motor regulation. There’s nothing I haven’t reported.”

Harding smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know. Your notes have been thorough.” She paused, then added, “Surprisingly intuitive, actually.”

You sat up a little straighter.

She tapped her stylus once, then looked at you again. “How have you been sleeping?”

You blinked. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Any dreams? Emotional disturbances?”

You hesitated, just a second too long.

Harding noticed.

You cleared your throat. “I really don’t remember most of them.”

She smiled again. “That’s normal, especially under cognitive strain. The stress of being near dangerous people can elevate cortisol, even unconsciously.”

You gave a tight nod. “I’ve managed worse.”

“I’m sure you have.” She leaned forward slightly. “Still, Reynolds is… uniquely sensitive with his emotions. His feelings vary amongst the different staff members. But with you,” She gestured idly. “he seems to have a preference for.”

You looked at her. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Harding hummed. “Mm. That’s what makes it so effective.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. Your hands folded tighter in confusion.

“Have you noticed any… changes in your own behavior since starting the assignment?”

The question was clinical. Neutral. Like she was measuring you against a standard you weren’t aware of.

“No,” you said, but your voice came out flatter than intended.

Dr. Harding didn’t argue though. Just tapped her stylus again.

The silence dragged.

You stood a little too quickly. “If that’s all, I have reports to finish.”

She nodded, but you could feel her eyes following you even as you turned.

“Thank you,” she said politely. “And y/n? Please let me know if your dreams become more memorable to you.”

You sincerely hoped they did not become more memorable than they already were.

link to chapter three

hi everyone! a bit of a shorter update that i think is a good segue into the events of chapter three. i wanted to get this one out quickly since i know we're all starving for more bob content... or at least i am.

if you have any requests for bob one-shots, please feel free to let me know! link to my requests is in my pinned post <3

ALSO: if you are not currently on the taglist, please comment down below if you want to be! if you already commented on chapter one, don't worry because i've already added you :)

[youthguk]

Terms & Conditions: Part 2 (Final Act)

when the suit comes off, the truth does too.

pairing: CEO’s son!Jungkook x assistant!Reader

summary: You swore you came here to build a career — not fall apart in the hands of the CEO’s son.

warnings: power imbalance, office tension, explicit sexual content (oral sex m. receiving, unprotected sex, rough sex, dirty talk, possessiveness), infidelity (both parties), arranged engagement themes, physical violence (fight scene), public scandal, emotional manipulation, toxic power dynamics, angst, some hurt/comfort.

w.c: 10k

Part 1 is required reading. This is a finale part 2.

You don’t even wait until the floor clears for lunch.

There’s no strategy left in you anymore — no calculated timing, no softened voice. You step into the corridor just as the meeting room doors close behind him, your clipboard still clutched in your hand, the adrenaline already humming in your ears like static. And when he sees you, he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pretend to be surprised. His gaze settles on yours with that same maddening calm — like the night he spent inside you meant nothing, like the woman draped over his arm the next evening wasn’t wearing the exact same shade of lipstick you left smeared across his throat.

Drawing in a single breath, you face him. "You're engaged."

It's not a question - it doesn't need to be. The silence that follows hangs heavy between you, thick enough to suffocate.

He releases a long sigh and, unusually, drops his typical facade of sarcasm and control. Meeting your gaze with unreadable eyes, he stands with hands in his pockets like a defendant who knows the verdict won't matter.

"Yes," he says simply. "I am."

You remain perfectly still, fingers tightening around your clipboard as you deliver your next words with razor-sharp precision. "So what was I, then? Disposable? Or just free?"

Your words strike true - you catch the flicker in his eyes, the subtle clench of his jaw, the shallow breath he takes. Yet he offers no apology, no explanation. Instead, he responds with the detached tone of a business presentation.

“It’s not like that.”

“No?” You step closer. Not much. Just enough to make him hold your gaze harder. “Then explain it. Explain why I was bleeding wine in front of investors while you stood there with your fiancée, saying nothing.”

He exhales through his nose, slow and tight, voice lowered now, like the weight of the conversation is finally dragging his composure down with it.

“It’s a business arrangement,” he says, words deliberate. “Old money. Shared capital. Our families have been connected since we were teenagers. This isn’t about love, or lust, or even choice. It’s about control. It’s about deals with names older than either of us.” A pause. “It’s expected.”

You laugh — short, bitter, too empty to sound like anything real.

“Expected,” you echo, your voice cracking on the word like it’s poison in your mouth. “And I was… what? Unexpected? A glitch in your system? Something to delete once the ink dried?”

His silence and downcast gaze speak volumes.

Your breath catches unsteadily as your heart pounds against your ribs. "You could've said something," you whisper, the words barely audible. "Could've stopped. Didn't have to kiss me, didn't have to stay."

His voice takes on a sharp edge. "And you didn't have to let me."

The accusation hits you like a physical blow, leaving you frozen in place. When you finally find your voice again, it emerges quiet and glacial. "I wasn't the one promising anything."

He meets your gaze, his expression unreadable but his voice carrying notes of both defense and warning. "You had a boyfriend."

The words strike deep - not because they're false, but because they expose the very wound you'd hoped he'd forgotten. He catches every micro-expression that crosses your face: the catch in your breath, the clench of your jaw, the momentary downward flicker of your eyes.

"You think this was one-sided?" he murmurs, drawing closer. "That I seduced you from nowhere? You kissed me back, begged for it, moaned my name while your boyfriend's contact was still in your phone."

You flinch but hold your ground, because beneath all the anger lies an unbearable truth: he's right. And that very fact feeds both your hatred for him and your self-loathing.

✓

You cut him from your life completely. No acknowledgment when he stands at the printer, no response to his comments in campaign threads, no glance during Monday syncs. You give him nothing - not a breath, not a look, not a hint of the woman who once surrendered to his touch.

Though you refuse to meet his gaze, you can feel it following you - heavy and deliberate, as if trying to summon back the version of you who trembled at his voice. Instead, you present him with a carefully crafted facade: high collars, red lipstick, clipboard held like armor. This version of you is untouched by memory, unmarked by the intimacy you once shared.

Two weeks later, she arrives. Nami. Her visit is mentioned casually in a morning brief about corporate guests from London, but the moment the elevator doors open, you understand. She embodies effortless elegance - her cream suit perfectly tailored, her heels precise, her smile polished to perfection. She and Jungkook move together with practiced grace, his arm hovering near hers without quite touching, their matched presence speaking of wealth and careful calculation.

Your stomach twists as you try to ignore them, but when his burning glance finds your desk, something shifts inside you. As Minho from strategic ops approaches with coffee and a smile, you seize the opportunity. Your fingers brush his arm, your laughter flows freely, your gratitude comes with lowered lashes and a voice too sweet to be genuine.

When you finally look across the space, Jungkook stands with Nami but his eyes are fixed on you. He remains motionless except for the tightening vein at his temple and the slight shift of his jaw. In that moment, you discover something colder than satisfaction blooming in your chest - the realization that you could wound him without a single touch, just as he wounded you.

You maintain your performance with Minho, your laughter pitched just loud enough, your proximity carefully calculated. Though you don't look Jungkook's way again, you can feel his unwavering attention. When you finally return to your desk, your smile falls away like a discarded mask. You press your lips together and resume working, knowing that if you must bleed, at least you're making him feel every drop.

✓

It’s late when he finds you again — not by accident, not by fate, but with the kind of deliberate intensity you can feel long before you hear the footsteps approaching from behind. You’re the only one left on the floor, most of the office dark now except for the hallway lamps casting low, golden streaks across the concrete, and the single strip of cold light above your desk where you sit, pretending to finish the expense report you opened twenty minutes ago but haven’t touched since.

You hear him before you see him — the soft thud of his shoes crossing the carpeted floor with just enough pressure to announce him and no one else.

He doesn’t speak your name — not at first — just lingers behind your chair for a moment too long, his presence as heavy as ever, a pull you can feel at your back like heat from an open flame.

When he finally moves, it’s slow — fingers brushing the edge of your desk, not touching you yet, just hovering like memory, like warning, until he steps closer, his voice low, already rough, already wrecked.

“You’re ignoring me.”

Silence is your only response as you click aimlessly through a spreadsheet, your eyes fixed on meaningless numbers while your throat constricts with the weight of everything left unsaid.

“Say something,” he pushes, his voice darker now, not cruel, but desperate in a way you’ve never heard it. “Or do you only speak when you’re on your knees?”

His crude remark ignites something in you. Rising with controlled fury, you send your chair rolling back with a sharp clatter. Your body turns to face him in one fluid motion as you shove his hand off your desk, stepping into his space until you're toe to toe, your carefully maintained composure finally shattering.

"Don't touch me." The words cut through the air between you, crystalline and absolute.

He remains rooted in place, breathing hard with stormy eyes and hands flexing at his sides - a man struggling against the magnetic pull between you, fighting the urge to close those final inches.

"I can't stop wanting you," he confesses through clenched teeth, each word brittle and raw. "You know that, right? You feel it too. Don't lie to me."

"You don't get to want me," you counter, your voice trembling with the effort to maintain your resolve. "Not while you still belong to someone else."

A soft curse escapes him as he reaches for your wrist, seeking something solid to anchor himself to - but you wrench away before his fingers can find purchase, your next words slicing through the tension like a blade across silk.

"Break it off."

He freezes as you fix him with an unwavering stare, your eyes blazing not with tears but with a fury that threatens to blind. "If you want to touch me again, if you want me at all," you continue, each word deliberately cruel and precise, "then end it. End your deal, your arrangement, your legacy contract or whatever the hell you call that woman, and choose me."

His jaw flexes, shoulders rigid, a muscle ticking in his cheek like the last thread holding him together. "It's not that simple," he manages finally - a hollow defense from a man suddenly realizing how little control he truly has.

Your voice drops to a whisper, steady and final. "Then this is over."

You leave him there, your heels clicking against the floor as you walk away without pause or backward glance. Your exhale trembles in your lungs as you disappear down the corridor, leaving him frozen in the harsh fluorescent light. The message is clear: if he wants you now, he'll have to earn you.

✓

You download the app that same night, your thumb hovering over the red-pink icon for a full minute before you tap it — like even that act alone requires courage, like even pretending you’re ready to move on might tear something inside you loose.

You don’t tell yourself it’s a statement. You don’t pretend it’s casual. It’s not about hunger or curiosity or trying to bury the feeling of Jungkook’s body still inside yours. It’s about escape. About choice. About quiet rebellion in the form of swipes and curated smiles and profiles that don’t mention empires or legacies or what their family owns in London.

Dan is the first to reach out, a welcome change from chasing someone else's silence. You like the fact that he doesn’t make you chase, doesn’t smirk behind every word, doesn’t leave you staring at your phone for three hours wondering if you imagined the weight of his silence. Dan is polite, easy to talk to, refreshingly available — a man who replies in full sentences, asks about your work with genuine interest, doesn’t look at you like you’re the puzzle he wants to solve before he breaks it.

You go on your first date with him the following Friday — a corner booth at a rooftop bar, not flashy, not elite, but just nice enough to make you wear a dress that hugs your waist and lipstick that isn’t red. Dan compliments you the second you sit down. He doesn’t stare at your mouth when you speak. He orders a whiskey neat, listens when you talk, smiles when you laugh. When he walks you to the curb and asks if he can see you again, he doesn’t linger too long or press too close. He just touches your elbow, soft and brief, and waits for your answer.

You say yes, though you're unsure if it's attraction or desperation driving you - if you're trying to forget or simply reclaim ownership of your body. That night, lying alone in bed, untouched by choice, you realize it's the first time in weeks you haven't dreamed of chains against your collarbone.

Dan becomes a steady presence. Your meetings increase from weekly to twice that, each time marked by thoughtful gestures - good morning texts before important meetings, unexpected coffee deliveries, genuine interest in your work and opinions. He never mentions your past, and Jungkook remains unspoken between you. Dan represents something fresh - no complicated history, no clandestine encounters, no sin-stained conference rooms. While love hasn't bloomed, you're finally open to its possibility.

The revelation comes naturally one morning, neither planned revenge nor calculated provocation, but something far more potent: simple truth. You're standing by the design team's table, adjusting files while half-listening to Lisa, the new junior manager from strategy, chat about Gangnam restaurants. Her perfectly manicured hand curls around her cold brew as others hover nearby, feigning work while eavesdropping.

When Lisa turns to you, eyes bright with curiosity about your upcoming second date, you feel your throat tighten. Across the floor, Jungkook stands with his back partially turned, close enough to overhear. Something reckless and wounded inside you makes you straighten your spine as you answer with practiced casualness, as if your voice had never caught in his throat.

"Tomorrow actually," you say, matching Lisa's enthusiasm when she comments on Dan's apparent interest. You offer a practiced smile - the kind reserved for men who don't leave marks on your soul. "He's nice. Stable. Makes plans, follows through."

Though you don't look directly at Jungkook, you notice the shift - his fingers gripping the desk edge with barely contained violence, his jaw tightening, shoulders tensing with unspoken words. His silence speaks volumes, and you savor this moment of control, cold and satisfying like salt in someone else's wound.

The smile remains fixed until you reach your desk, where reality spins slightly behind your eyes. You remind yourself of your choice - if he claimed it wasn't simple, you're making it elementary. You're moving forward, even if the progression feels like dying.

✓

It's been a month since you first let Dan in - not into your heart or the part that still twitches at Jungkook's voice, but into your space and body. When it happened, it was slow and considerate, with gentle hands and a mouth that didn't demand. You told yourself it was the right decision, even if it wasn't passionate or dangerous.

Dan had stayed the night, his chest warm against your back as he slept peacefully. You laid awake counting the ways his touch failed to ignite you, wondering when settling for "good" had become your compromise.

Now in the break room with your coworkers, you wear practiced casualness like armor as Mina leans in with a conspiratorial smile. "Are you still seeing that guy? The tall one?"

"Dan?" you ask, lifting your coffee cup.

She nods while Jiyoon from HR chimes in, "He's hot. Quiet, but... the good kind of quiet."

You could deflect, but something defiant stirs within you. "We've been seeing each other for a while now," you say evenly. "We slept together last weekend."

Their heads tilt forward as soft oh's and knowing mm-hmms fill the air. When Mina grins expectantly, you offer a measured laugh and a simple "He's good. Very... attentive."

It's just a casual comment, but the sudden silence behind you - where the automatic doors whisper open and closed - speaks volumes. You don't need to turn to know it's him. His presence pulses like a second heartbeat as you calmly sip your coffee, letting your words linger.

He stands frozen, tension radiating from his rigid frame, before walking away without a word. Though he doesn't speak, his silence echoes through your veins for hours as you approach the end of your workday.

You’re five minutes from slipping into your coat, catching the last train, and crawling into your apartment where Dan texted that he might stop by, and where your body aches more from stress than arousal. Your eyes are dry. Your shoulders sore. You’ve done nothing wrong all day, and yet the tension hasn’t left you since that moment in the break room — the quiet that trailed behind you like perfume, his silence thickening the air every time he passed.

The email lands in your inbox at 7:52 p.m. sharp.

From: Jeon Jungkook

Subject: Campaign Budget Review – URGENT

Need your eyes on the attached. Need edits by tonight. Stay.

The email lands without greeting or explanation - just a demand to stay late and review the campaign budget.

Though you could decline with a curt "will handle first thing tomorrow," you find yourself staying, unable to break free from the pull he still has on you after these past months. The numbers only need minor adjustments, but you meticulously revise each cell, turning the task into an act of quiet defiance.

By nine, the office falls silent save for your typing and the occasional sweep of headlights through the glass. His arrival comes not as a sound but as a presence - a shift in the air like an approaching storm. You maintain your focus on the spreadsheet, refusing to acknowledge how your pulse quickens under his gaze as he approaches your chair.

"You're sleeping with him." His words cut through the quiet.

You turn slowly, deliberately calm as you meet his eyes. "I'm sleeping with someone who isn't engaged," you say coolly. "Something new after you, I like that."

Though he doesn't flinch, his hands curl into fists. "Why?" The words strain like fraying rope. "You're bored. I know you are."

"And yet," you murmur, rising to face him, "I'm still choosing him over you."

He moves with sudden intensity, reaching for your waist with an instinctive need. You shove him away hard, your voice sharp with anger. "Don't you fucking touch me."

Instead of apologizing, he advances again, eyes burning. "You think I'm okay seeing you with someone else?" he hisses through clenched teeth. "You think I'm sleeping well at night, watching you walk around here like none of it meant anything—"

"Good," you cut in, breathless but unflinching. "Now you know how it feels."

His silence speaks volumes as he stares at you, finally understanding that what lies between you has transformed from seduction into consequence. You walk away first, knowing that this time, he has no right to follow.

✓

It’s the kind of evening that doesn’t tolerate mistakes — an annual investor gala held at the Seoul Grand Marquis, a glass-and-marble beast of a venue tucked into the heart of the business district, where every chandelier costs more than your rent and every napkin bears the weight of legacy branding. This night is about power, about vision, about shaking hands across glass tables while making eye contact that means money, and you’ve known since the moment the invitation appeared in your inbox that this would be a war disguised as a party.

Every department has representatives attending — not just for visibility, but for survival. The gala is where acquisitions are hinted at, expansions teased, internal stars subtly ranked by who they’re standing next to and how loudly the room stops to listen when they speak. It’s also the one night each year when employees are permitted to bring a date — a silent status symbol more than a courtesy. It’s the company’s way of saying: show us who’s beside you, so we know who you are outside of your salary.

Dan had offered without hesitation. He’d even asked what color you planned to wear before choosing his tie, showed up to your apartment early that evening with flowers wrapped in white tissue and a nervous smile that looked too genuine to ignore. You’d let him help with your zipper. You’d let him kiss your shoulder as you stepped into your heels. And you’d told yourself, not for the first time, that normal wasn’t boring — that stability could be seductive in its own quiet way.

You arrive just past seven, hand resting light against his arm, your dress a sleek, open-backed slip of black satin that clings at the waist and falls like smoke to the floor, elegant but not attention-hungry, chosen precisely for its control. You wear no necklace, just earrings — thin, delicate, silver — and your lipstick is not red. You’ve been careful with every inch of yourself tonight, each detail designed to say: I am not here to play the game. I am here to win it.

Dan’s hand lingers on your lower back as you’re escorted toward the mezzanine ballroom, his voice soft, full of small compliments, polite jokes, quiet awe at the decor. You listen, you smile, you nod — and yet even as the champagne flute settles between your fingers and the soft strings of a quartet unfurl through the air like silk, there’s only one thing you’re aware of beneath your skin.

The anticipation coils within you like a rising tide. You feel it the way sailors sense an approaching storm - not with fear, but with the quiet certainty of something inevitable approaching.

The air shifts, almost imperceptibly, but with unmistakable weight.

Conversations pause mid-sentence. Laughter drops in pitch. Heads begin to turn in one slow wave, like a tide drawn toward something gravitational. And you know — before you turn your head, before you finish your breath, before you even dare glance — that it’s him.

Jeon Jungkook arrives with all the ease of someone who has never had to ask permission to exist. His suit is black, tailored within a millimeter of precision, cut to showcase the width of his shoulders and the power of his frame in ways that were never accidental. His shirt collar is open. His watch is new. His posture is effortless. And beside him — arm tucked lightly through his, gaze serene, steps measured like choreography — walks her.

Nami.

Her dress is a shade between champagne and cream, expensive in the quiet way only generational wealth understands, cut high at the neck but low at the back, revealing the smooth curve of a spine trained to never flinch. Her hair is swept into a twist that probably cost more than your entire outfit, and diamonds gleam at her ears, her throat, her wrist — no single piece overwhelming, but together they form a statement louder than any introduction.

Together, they look untouchable - a picture of perfection as she leans into him with the quiet confidence of someone who belongs there. Her fingers brush his sleeve with practiced familiarity, each gesture speaking of countless moments shared and countless more to come.

While Dan remains absorbed in conversation beside you, eagerly trying to charm the executive before him, you feel yourself drawn across the ballroom into Jungkook's unflinching gaze. The man who once whispered promises against your skin now stares at you with an intensity that makes the rest of the room fade away.

His eyes find yours deliberately, purposefully.

He looks at you — all of you — and his stare does not flinch. His gaze traces your neckline, lingers at your mouth, dips to the curve of your waist where Dan’s hand rests lightly like a placeholder. And for a long, long moment, he says nothing.

His eyes speak volumes in that moment - a dark intensity that matches your unwavering stare. When you finally break his gaze, it's not from fear or weakness, but because you've seen enough. This carefully crafted facade - the ballroom, the elegance, the man himself - has lost its luster, and you're no longer interested in maintaining the illusion.

He doesn’t come near you, not once, not even when protocol would have allowed it, not even when the polite mingling between departments would have excused a nod, a half-smile, a harmless comment about the wine or the music or the work you're both supposed to be doing — instead, he remains at a distance all evening, and yet you feel him watching you like heat from a closed door, like the memory of being touched in a place no one else can see.

There’s no space between your bodies anymore, not truly — not with how often his eyes find you across the ballroom, always in the quiet between speeches, always in the hush just before applause, in the breath before someone says your name — his gaze never lingering long enough to be obvious, but never glancing away quickly enough to be innocent, always returning, always waiting, as if his vision can reach through fabric and skin and hours of practiced indifference.

You don’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.

You smile at Dan’s quiet jokes and accept the compliments from passing executives with a grace that feels like performance, not for the company, but for him, because everything about tonight has become a silent refusal to be anything less than composed — and if your spine is rigid beneath the satin of your gown, if your glass trembles slightly in your hand when you sip your champagne, no one else seems to notice.

Dan remains effortlessly attentive, not pushy, not overbearing, his presence beside you gentle in the way a safe harbor is, the kind of man who places a hand at the small of your back only when necessary — never to mark, never to command, only to anchor — and it’s during one of those moments, when you’re leaning in to listen to a conversation about the new China expansion strategy, that his fingers slide across your waist and settle low, pressing with the faintest pressure at the curve of your spine, grounding you without even knowing he’s touching a live wire.

You feel it instantly — not Dan’s touch, but the reaction it causes. Across the ballroom, Jungkook’s body shifts — subtly, almost imperceptibly, the kind of movement only someone who knows him too well would recognize — and even while mid-conversation with a group of executives near the bar, you see it, the sharp turn of his head, the flicker of his eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders the moment Dan’s hand settles exactly where Jungkook’s had once rested just before pushing you against his office door.

He doesn’t make a scene — he never does — but you see the way his jaw tightens, the way his hand flexes at his side like it’s fighting the need to close into a fist, the way his attention fractures mid-sentence as though his entire body has just become too tight to contain what he's feeling.

And then he walks away — not excusing himself, not smiling, not even pretending to maintain appearances, simply turning his back on whoever is still speaking and disappearing through the crowd with the kind of cold, singular focus that only ever means one thing when it comes to him: he’s going somewhere he isn’t supposed to be, to do something he’s no longer allowed to want.

Dan leans closer, says something about the main course arriving soon — something warm, something ordinary — and you nod, forcing a smile as if you’re still listening, still present, still in control.

But your body is already moving, your fingers setting down your glass, your eyes flicking toward the hallway behind the reception arch where the corridor leads away from the chandeliers and the silk and the curated spectacle of luxury, into the dim space lined with marble and mirror — a place built for privacy, for reapplication of lipstick and last-minute touch-ups, and, tonight, for whatever this has become between you and the man who just walked into the dark.

Without a word to Dan, you slip away into the shadows - drawn, as always, by a force stronger than reason.

The hallway behind the ballroom is dimly lit, lined with gilt-edged mirrors and low recessed sconces, the carpet thick enough to muffle footsteps, the air faintly perfumed with expensive citrus and something sweeter beneath it — and when you step past the velvet curtain that separates noise from silence, laughter from lust, you already know exactly where he’s gone.

The restroom is a cathedral of indulgence — marble floors, gold-trimmed stalls with private doors that close to the floor, velvet-paneled walls that swallow sound, plush settees for resting, reapplying, restrategizing. It’s the kind of room built for discretion. The kind of room that hears things and never repeats them.

You find him by the mirrors — his jacket off, sleeves rolled, chest rising a little too quickly for someone who claims to be fine. His eyes meet yours in the reflection first, and for a moment, neither of you speak. You stand there, inches apart and centuries away, the silence between you thick enough to drown in.

And then he turns.

“You need to stop,” he says, not as a command but as something closer to a plea, his voice rough, ragged at the edges, like he’s been holding it in all night and it’s finally breaking loose. “You can’t keep looking at me like I didn’t fuck you against a glass table and promise you it meant something.”

You don’t move. His steps are slow but certain as he closes the distance between you, and when he reaches you, his hands hover — not touching, not yet, just suspended at your waist like he’s begging your skin to remember him.

“I can’t do it anymore,” he breathes, softer now, just for you. “Not with you pretending he’s enough. Not with me standing there next to her, tasting you every time I close my fucking mouth.”

Fire burns in your gaze as you meet his eyes, wordless. Without hesitation, you pull him into a kiss.

Not gently. Not sweetly. You kiss him like punishment, like hunger, like you want to taste the lie in his throat and make it yours. His hands crash into your body the second your lips part — one gripping your jaw, the other dragging down to your hip, to your ass, squeezing hard enough to bruise. You pull him in with both fists knotted in his shirt, teeth clashing, breathless and furious and starving.

He breaks the kiss to bite at your neck, dragging his mouth down your throat as you walk him back into the furthest stall, slamming the door behind you with a force that makes the hinges rattle. He’s already unbuckling, already reaching for you, already so hard it’s like his body’s been waiting for this since the moment you left him standing in that empty office.

You sink gracefully to your knees before him, hands sliding up his thighs with deliberate intent. And when you look up at him, lips parted, breath hot, eyes blazing, you don’t need permission. You wrap one hand around his cock — flushed, thick, dripping at the tip — and lick a slow, deliberate stripe up the length, your tongue flat and obscene, your stare never wavering. He groans, low and choked, one hand flying to your hair, the other gripping the stall wall like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.

You start slow — lazy, teasing, letting him feel every inch of your mouth as you take him in, lips sealing tight, jaw relaxed as you begin to move, your hand following where your mouth can’t reach.

“Fuck—” he gasps, eyes falling shut, hips jerking just slightly. “God, your mouth—fuck, I missed this—”

You hum around him — deep and wicked — and he moans so loudly it vibrates through your chest.

He can’t stay still.

He starts moving with you, thrusting gently, then harder, until one hand’s cradling the back of your head, the other buried in your hair, guiding you with slow, rough pressure as your lips slide wet and filthy down his cock again and again, saliva spilling at the corners of your mouth.

You let him take control, wanting him to come undone beneath your touch. And when you suck harder, faster, your throat relaxing, his rhythm stutters — his hips twitch, his breath breaks, and he pulls you off with a sharp, wet pop, panting, dragging you up into his arms, kissing you with his cock still hard between you, his mouth crashing into yours like he needs you to taste yourself on his skin.

The kiss deepens into something raw and primal, tongues and teeth clashing as their hands grasp desperately at each other. He spins you, presses you against the velvet-paneled wall, his hands yanking up your gown, dragging your panties down with such urgency that you nearly fall forward — but he catches you, hoists you up, lifts your thigh, and sinks into you in one deep, punishing thrust that knocks the air from your lungs and sends your moan echoing off the polished gold.

There's nothing gentle about the way he takes you - it's raw and primal, the way it's always been between you. Not when months of silence and pride and punishment collapse into a kiss against velvet and gold, into the way his hand cradles the back of your thigh and pulls your leg higher so he can fuck you deeper, so he can hear exactly how soaked and wrecked you already are for him.

He fucks you with a fierce desperation, like you're both his salvation and destruction - a sacred thing he worships even as he breaks you apart.

Every thrust is rough, brutal, breathtaking — the kind of rhythm that feels almost angry, like he’s trying to rewrite history with each snap of his hips, like he’s punishing you for every night you kissed another man and didn’t come apart like this, for every time you smiled at Dan like your body didn’t still ache for his hands.

He grunts low in your ear, hips snapping up as your back arches, as his fingers dig into your thigh so hard you know it’ll bruise, but you don’t care — not with the way he fills you, the way his cock drags inside you with punishing precision, not with the way your breath hitches every time the base of him slams against you and makes your whole body jolt.

“Fuck—” he groans, voice breaking at the edges as his forehead presses to yours, sweat beading at his temple, “You feel—fuck, you feel better than I remember.”

Your answer is nothing but a moan — low, ragged, your fingernails tearing down his back through his shirt, your teeth clenching around the chain that hangs against your throat now, heavy and swinging with each thrust, catching between your lips as you pant, as you let it cut into your tongue like it’s his name.

He grabs your hips and pulls you down harder onto him, hips pistoning now, his thrusts deeper, meaner, his teeth grazing your neck, your collarbone, biting the slope of your shoulder until you gasp and clench around him so tight he curses again, voice rough in your ear, all breath and gravel and loss.

“You miss this?” he growls, dragging his lips across your jaw, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear as his pace falters, then sharpens again, somehow harder, somehow deeper. “Miss me fucking you like this? Filling you up so deep you forget your fucking name?”

You whimper — not a word, not an answer, just the kind of helpless sound you make when there’s no more room in your head for anything but him. Your hips roll instinctively, chasing friction, clinging to him as the coil inside you twists tighter and tighter, unbearable now, heat flooding low in your stomach.

His pace never falters, his rhythm relentless and demanding. One hand leaves your thigh and slides up to your chest, yanking down the top of your gown just enough to expose the curve of one breast, and his mouth is on you instantly — tongue hot, lips sucking hard as his teeth graze over your nipple, as your head hits the wall behind you and you cry out, desperate now, pleading.

“Please— Jungkook, please—”

He groans against your skin, teeth grazing your chest, voice shaking with the effort to hold back.

“Say you missed it.”

“I— fuck, I— I missed you,” you gasp, your voice breaking as your nails dig deeper into his back, as your thighs start to tremble around his hips. “Missed this— I need— please, don’t stop—”

“I’m not gonna fucking stop,” he snarls, his pace suddenly brutal, unrelenting, his body crushing into yours, one hand tangled in your hair now, the other still fisted in your thigh, his breath hot against your lips as he kisses you again — filthy, wet, tongues colliding, teeth scraping, nothing left of restraint or dignity, just hunger clawing out of both of you like it had been caged for too long.

You come undone with a sob, your entire body trembling as your climax rips through you like fever and lightning, your hands fisting in his shirt and lips parted around his chain. Your thighs lock around him as your nails dig half-moons into his shoulder blades, marking him as yours in this moment of blazing truth.

And when you bite down on that chain — hard, trembling, gasping his name like a prayer — he follows with a broken moan into your mouth, his thrusts growing erratic, then jerking once, twice, deep, as he spills into you, his whole body shaking with it, his mouth crashing into yours like he can’t bear to come without you swallowing it whole.

You stay like that — still joined, still breathless — forehead to forehead, hearts galloping in sync, the air around you heavy with sweat, sin, and something too quiet to name.

Outside, beyond the velvet walls and marble doors, the music drifts on, while inside this sanctuary, you remain locked in an intimate silence with him, neither of you ready to voice the weight of everything left unsaid.

Your breath is still tangled in his mouth, his forehead still resting against yours, the weight of what just happened settling over you like the hem of your gown, rumpled now around your hips, clinging to sweat-slicked skin. Your heart is still galloping in your chest, still racing from the pace of him, the sound of him, the way he said your name like it had always been meant for him to say.

And Jungkook is still inside you.

He doesn’t pull out immediately — just holds you there, both of you trembling, breathing hard, his hands gentler now, soothing, one trailing down your thigh, the other brushing a damp strand of hair away from your face.

And then he smiles - not with triumph or victory, but with the resignation of a man who's accepted losing everything else just to have this moment.

“You’ve got glitter on your nose,” he murmurs, voice thick and wrecked, and when you frown, confused, he leans forward and kisses it. Just once. Softly. Playfully. As if the gala still exists somewhere far away and the only thing real in the world is this ridiculous little smear of sparkle and the woman beneath it who just broke him open all over again.

You laugh — a small, incredulous sound, still breathless, still shaking, and he grins like the sound of it is the only thing that’s ever mattered.

“I hate you,” you whisper through your smile, biting back another laugh as he kisses your jaw, your cheekbone, your collarbone where his chain left a faint indentation in your skin.

“No you don’t,” he breathes, adjusting the strap of your gown with slow, reverent fingers. “If you did, you wouldn’t still taste like yes.”

You hit him lightly on the chest, and he catches your wrist mid-slap and kisses the inside of it, then your palm, then your mouth again — slower this time, almost delicate — before you finally push him back with a grin.

“Get dressed,” you murmur, already reaching for your panties, smoothing your gown down, fingers trembling just slightly. “You look like someone who got exactly what he wanted.”

“I did,” he says simply, tucking himself back into his slacks with only half a care, his eyes never leaving you, even as he buttons his cuffs again. “And I’d look a lot worse if you hadn’t.”

It’s absurd — how easy this feels, how light, how young. How it almost resembles happiness.

You fix your lipstick in the mirror above the sink. He watches you like a man watching a storm recede, like he’s not ready for the calm yet but knows it’s dangerous to ask for more.

And then, as you open the door together, walking into the velvet-lined hallway with your shoulders back and your smiles just barely still in place — you see her.

There she stands - Nami, waiting with crossed arms and perfect posture in her immaculate dress. Her expression remains composed, but her eyes slice through both of you with devastating clarity, as if she's been anticipating this moment while hoping you wouldn't be foolish enough to make it real.

When she speaks, her voice carries a quiet, lethal precision: "Of course it's you."

You and Jungkook freeze in unison, but Nami simply turns away with the elegant dismissiveness of someone brushing dust from silk. The deafening silence lasts only a heartbeat before you both lurch into motion - Jungkook cursing under his breath as he adjusts his jacket, you stumbling after him on trembling legs, your hand reaching desperately for his sleeve as you call out her name. But she continues down the endless hallway, refusing to acknowledge either of you.

✓

You’re still walking side by side, your steps nearly in sync but your heart thrashing beneath your dress like it knows this illusion of calm is already burning at the edges, when the sound of raised voices cuts through the ambient hush of the ballroom and makes you stop cold in your tracks.

At first, you can’t quite place the tone — it’s not yet shouting, but it carries the kind of tension that doesn’t belong among canapés and champagne, and it wraps around your spine with the certainty of something about to go very, very wrong.

Then, through the ambient hush, your name echoes through the hallway, followed immediately by his in a voice that makes your blood run cold.

You turn the corner just in time to see Nami standing beside your shared table — poised, polished, untouched by the unfolding storm — her flute of champagne still untouched in her hand, her expression unreadable in the way only women raised in legacy can manage, as if nothing happening around her is worth acknowledging. She doesn’t look at you. She doesn’t look at Jungkook, either. She looks directly at Dan, with her chin tilted slightly upward, her voice smooth and composed, as if she’s merely answering a question no one had the nerve to ask.

“I thought you should know,” she says, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly, not enough to be called a smile, but enough to make the accusation feel like a verdict, “she’s been fucking Jungkook.”

And there is no gasp, no cinematic moment of a dropped wine glass — just the collective breath of the room catching and holding, suspended like a violin string pulled tight, waiting for someone to cut it loose.

Dan stands still at first, not blinking, not reacting, just staring at Nami like he’s trying to decipher whether what she said was real or a very cruel joke told far too well. The silence that stretches in the beat that follows feels sharp enough to slice clean through your skin.

Your throat closes around his name as you take a step forward, not fast, not frantic, just instinctive — as if proximity alone could soften what he’s already begun to believe.

“Dan—”

His head snaps toward you. And in that moment, his expression — the confusion, the hope, the disbelief — shatters.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he says, and the volume of it is enough to silence every conversation within earshot. A few heads turn. More follow. By the time he takes a step back from the table, every gaze in your radius is fixed directly on the three of you.

“I defended you,” he says, voice shaking now, but loud, too loud, and cracking under the weight of humiliation. “I told people you weren’t sleeping your way up. I fucking trusted you.”

Your skin goes cold as shame washes over you, leaving you frozen and mute in its wake. His words hang in the air like smoke after a fire, and though he hasn't said it outright, that one cruel word - slut - vibrates beneath the surface of his tone, threatening to break free. Just as you brace yourself for what comes next, you feel him.

Jungkook — behind you now, still close, but his presence shifts, sharpens, becomes something solid and storm-dark in the space between your shoulder blades. You don’t even need to see him to feel the change in him — how still he goes, how quiet, how charged.

Dan sees him too. And the second their eyes meet across the chaos, Dan’s lip curls into something bitter and ugly and furious.

“Oh, now you want to show your face?” he spits, his voice rising, unhinged now. “She fucks you in secret and I get to be the dumbass holding her coat like a goddamn idiot?”

And maybe that would have been the moment it ended. Maybe if Dan had stopped there, if he hadn’t gone further, if he’d swallowed the rest of what he was about to say and let the shame stay between the three of you — maybe then it could have been salvaged.

But he doesn’t. He looks you up and down, then turns back to Jungkook, and with a voice too loud and too clear, he finishes the sentence like he’s spitting blood.

“Enjoy your office slut while she still lets you have her.”

A heartbeat of silence fills the room before Jungkook launches forward with no warning. He just steps forward with a precision so sudden it looks like instinct, his fist connecting with Dan’s jaw in one clean, devastating arc that sends the entire room spinning around them like they were never meant to witness this moment, but now can’t look away.

Dan crashes into the edge of the table behind him, knocking over wine, cutlery, crystal, dragging a stunned gasp from the nearest guests — but before he can right himself, Jungkook is on him again, grabbing the front of his suit jacket, fury carved into every line of his face as he shoves him back and shouts something you can’t even hear over the surge of movement and voices and chairs scraping the floor as people rush forward to separate them.

Someone grabs Jungkook’s shoulders. Two others pull Dan away, blood at the corner of his lip, eyes wild with disbelief and rage. Security is already on its way. The scene is already ruined. The gala is over before dessert.

And all you can do is stand there in the wreckage — exposed, humiliated, heartsick — with the taste of Jungkook still on your tongue, and the entire room watching like they’ve been waiting for this to happen from the beginning.

It isn’t just the party that ends in silence — it’s something deeper, something more private, something inside you that doesn’t know how to keep breathing once the shouting has faded and the chaos has been contained into the shallow hush of luxury’s aftermath, as if the room itself is trying to pretend nothing ever happened.

The moment Jungkook is dragged back by two men in tailored suits — the kind of men who are hired not to be noticed unless something needs fixing — and the moment Dan stumbles upright, unsteady, his lip bleeding and his tie askew like it’s choking him instead of holding him together, is the same moment your body seems to finally register what it’s done, what you’ve done, as if the weight of your choices only now decides to settle across your skin like a second gown, invisible but suffocating.

The tears don’t arrive in any cinematic fashion; there is no gasp, no trembling lower lip, no dramatic collapse to the floor — only the hot, dry sting behind your eyes that refuses to blink away, the slow withdrawal of blood from your fingers until your hands feel foreign, and the unbearable tightness in your chest that makes it impossible to breathe without thinking first, as if even your lungs are ashamed of you now.

Without running, speaking, or begging, you remain still - exposed beneath their stares. You simply stand there, the way shame always does — still and exposed and far too visible — as the room folds in around you like paper, heavy with whispers and half-averted stares, the air thick with what no one is brave enough to say aloud but everyone is already retelling in their heads.

The ballroom, once glittering with laughter and wine and curated joy, has turned into a stage abandoned mid-performance, every guest now an unwilling actor stuck in place with champagne still bubbling in flutes they no longer remember picking up, as conversations die mid-sentence and eyes flick between Dan, Jungkook, and you, tracing the messy triangle like a scandal lit in gold.

And standing at the center of it all — flawless, upright, radiant even in betrayal — is Nami. She hasn’t moved, not even a little; her posture remains exquisite, the line of her shoulders unbent, her hands still folded gently in front of her like this evening belongs to her still, like nothing has been taken from her because she refuses to acknowledge anything could ever be taken from her at all. Her gown is still perfect. Her lipstick hasn’t smudged. Her expression has not cracked.

She does not speak to you, nor look at you, nor shift so much as a breath in your direction — not because she’s uncertain, not because she’s restraining herself, but because there is nothing left in this room that requires her effort, and that includes you.

Her silence carries a devastating weight beyond mere emptiness - it's the crushing finality of everything that's been lost.

And what makes you crumble — not outwardly, not visibly, not yet — is the realization that she never needed to raise her voice, never needed to fight, never needed to defend herself or even retaliate, because she knew all along that you would lose this on your own, that the moment she said your name aloud, the rest would collapse without her lifting a finger.

Dan, still tasting blood, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes wild with disbelief but now clearing, now hardening, and when they land on you, there is nothing soft left inside them — no confusion, no heartbreak, only the sharp glint of something that once trusted and now despises.

“You two deserve each other,” he mutters, his voice no longer raised, but quiet and dangerous in the way a knife is when it rests against skin, and without looking back, he turns and walks straight through the crowd, parting the onlookers like he’s been released from a cage and no longer cares who sees the wreckage left behind.

No one moves to intervene, and Jungkook remains rooted in place, making no attempt to follow. He remains where security left him — his lip split, his white shirt crumpled at the chest, his knuckles smeared with red like ink — and though he does not speak, the intensity in his gaze burns across the distance like a thread that refuses to be cut. He does not apologize. He does not look ashamed. But his eyes, dark and electric, are no longer filled with want — they’re filled with need.

He isn't asking for forgiveness - he's asking you to choose him despite everything. And you stand frozen, breath caught in your throat, unable to form words or even move beneath the weight of this moment.

Because somewhere beneath the soft echo of heels clicking away and gasps fading into murmurs, you finally feel it — the ruin, the humiliation, the spotlight you can’t step out of — and it presses down on you with a clarity so sharp you could almost laugh.

In the wake of shattered crystal and spilled wine, the gala lies in ruins. Dan stands with blood on his lip, while Nami remains pristine and untouchable in her calculated victory. And you - you are the architect of this destruction, having sacrificed everything not for ambition or vengeance, but for that most dangerous of forces: pure and consuming desire.

✓

The night is colder than it should be, air damp and heavy with the kind of post-rain clarity that makes the concrete shimmer like glass, the luxury sedans and town cars lined up in the marble-bricked circle drive outside the venue suddenly looking less like power and more like armor no one can wear anymore. And there, near the far end of the lot, standing with his back to the building and his fists curled loosely at his sides, is Jungkook — breathing unevenly, chest rising too fast, his once-immaculate shirt wrinkled and half-untucked, the corner of his mouth still smudged with blood that hasn’t yet dried.

His knuckles are scraped. His cuff is torn. His jaw is tight in a way that suggests the only thing holding him together is the silence he’s forced to stand in.

And she is already waiting for him.

Nami stands two paces from his side, her arms folded neatly across her waist, her coat draped like a sheath of silk across her shoulders, as pristine now as when she first walked into the ballroom — her expression unreadable, but her voice, when it comes, clear and sharp and final.

“You’ll lose the London deal,” she says, no anger in it, no bitterness, only the practical coolness of someone who has been trained her entire life to count what things are worth.

And for a moment, he doesn’t respond.

Just stands there with his gaze fixed on the ground like he’s trying to burn a hole through the pavement, shoulders still shaking from the tail end of everything he just threw away.

Then he breathes — one long, low exhale — and lifts his head.

“I already lost something more important,” he answers, his voice cracked and hoarse and quieter than it’s ever been.

Nami remains silent, already understanding the weight of his words without needing them explained. When she walks away, her departure is as final as the evening itself.

It’s not until she disappears around the curve of the entrance that you step forward — slow, careful, like your body hasn’t fully remembered how to move yet, like the sight of him under the parking lot lights has knocked all the breath from your lungs again.

In the heavy silence between you, his eyes find yours - wide and bloodshot, rimmed with a shame that asks for nothing but your presence, a silent plea that you haven't turned away. While his hands tremble at his sides, your heels echo once against the stone before falling still. Without hesitation, you reach for him, your fingers finding the bruise blooming along his jaw as your thumb gently wipes away the smear of red beneath his lip.

His eyes drift closed as he leans into your touch. When you finally break the silence, your voice carries a gentle certainty that barely ripples the quiet air between you. "Let me take you home."

The simple nod he gives in response marks a shift - after months of games and secrets and unspoken wanting, he surrenders to your lead. There's nothing left to fight now, and you're the only anchor he has left to hold onto.

.

this is it for this story! please share your thoughts and feelings, your feedback means the world to me.

[hazelira]

little miss grumpy

♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡ ~ ♡

"Jay, I swear, this place is a maze," you groaned, rubbing your lower back as you waddled through the never-ending labyrinth of IKEA. The bright lights and warehouse ceilings seemed determined to drain whatever energy you had left. At nearly eight months pregnant, your feet were swollen, and all you wanted was to sit down and sip on something cold.

"Just a few more things, sweetheart," Jay murmured, his hand gently resting on the small of your back. "Then we’ll head to the cafeteria, I promise. I hear the ice cream’s only a dollar."

You gave him a tired smile, the thought of that creamy vanilla treat motivating you. But there was one more thing — your energetic, headstrong three-year-old daughter.

"Where's our little monster?" you asked, scanning the area.

Jay's gaze softened as he pointed to the corner of the kids' section. There, sprawled out on a tiny IKEA toddler bed, your daughter had tucked herself beneath the miniature duvet, her little body rising and falling in peaceful slumber. The colourful cartoon sheets and plush pillows must've been too tempting to resist.

"Oh, no," Jay whispered with a smirk. "She made herself at home."

"She gets it from you," you teased, thinking of how Jay had stolen the blankets in bed.

"Mm, maybe," he grinned, then sighed. "But I do not have to wake her up."

Your eyes widened. "Oh no, no. You’re on daddy duty. I’m claiming exhaustion rights." You plopped down on one of the display couches dramatically.

Jay chuckled but didn’t argue. He approached the bed, kneeling beside his daughter. "Hey, baby girl," he whispered, brushing her wispy strands away from her flushed cheeks. "Time to get up, missy."

A soft whimper left her lips as she snuggled deeper into the pillow. "No, Daddy."

"C'mon, bub," he cooed, rubbing her back. "We gotta go pay for our things. You can’t stay here."

Her little eyes fluttered open, squinting at him with the most prominent pout. "But it’s my bed," she mumbled, groggy. "Comfy bed."

Jay sighed, his heart breaking a little. "I know, baby. But we have to go now. We’ll get something yummy, okay? Maybe fries and ice cream?"

"No!" she wailed, her face scrunching in frustration. "No fries! No ice cream! Just bed!"

Her cries grew louder, drawing a few curious glances from nearby shoppers. You rubbed your belly, fighting the urge to step in, but Jay gave you a reassuring glance. He could handle this.

"Alright, little miss grumpy," Jay murmured, scooping her up despite her flailing limbs. "I’ve got you. Daddy’s got you."

"Daddy, no!" she sobbed, her tiny fists thumping weakly against his chest. Tears streamed down her face, her tantrum in full force. "I want a comfy bed!"

"I know, I know," Jay soothed, rocking her gently as he carried her. "But we’re almost done, princess. I promise."

Her cries didn’t stop, but Jay didn’t falter. His arms stayed strong, his voice low and calming. Even as her wails echoed through the store, he remained patient — the picture of a loving father.

When you reached the cafeteria, you had already claimed a table, resting your aching feet. Jay approached with your still-sniffling toddler in his arms. He kissed the top of her head before setting her down into the chair beside you.

"Hey, baby," you cooed, brushing the damp curls away from her face. "Guess what? Daddy said we could get ice cream and fries. Doesn’t that sound yummy?"

Her red-rimmed eyes blinked up at you, her lip still trembling. "Ice cream?"

Jay crouched to her level, his large hands cradling her tiny ones. "Yeah, bub. The best vanilla ice cream. And we’ll get fries, too. Only if my big girl feels better."

Her pout lingered for a moment longer before she gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Okay... but I want the biggest one."

Jay chuckled, ruffling her hair. "Deal, baby girl."

Soon enough, Jay returned with a small cup of creamy vanilla ice cream and a side of golden fries. The toddler’s tears were forgotten as she happily nibbled on her fries and licked her ice cream with a satisfied hum.

"Yummy," she mumbled, her earlier meltdown now a distant memory.

Jay smiled, reaching over to squeeze your hand. "We survived IKEA," he said, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Barely," you laughed softly, leaning against his shoulder.

As your daughter giggled through sticky ice cream fingers and salty fries, you couldn’t help but think—chaotic as it was—these moments made life so sweet.

Jay brushed a few stray crumbs from her cheeks as your little girl contentedly munched on her fries. Her face was still slightly puffy from all the crying, but the joy of ice cream had done wonders. The IKEA cafeteria buzzed around you — chatter from other families, the clinking of trays, and the soft hum of the coffee machines.

“You’re doing okay, sweetheart?” Jay’s voice was low, soft, just for you. His thumb traced lazy circles over the back of your hand, the warmth of his touch grounding you.

“I’m okay,” you answered, though your body told a different story. Every inch of you ached, and the pressure from carrying your second child was almost unbearable today. But even through the exhaustion, you felt grateful. “Just tired.”

Jay nodded, his eyes full of understanding. “I should’ve carried you, too,” he teased slightly.

“Oh, yeah? Think you could handle carrying both of us?” You gestured between yourself and the little girl, joyfully dipping a fry into her ice cream — a strange but adorable mix of salty and sweet.

He chuckled, though his gaze softened. “I’d carry all three of you if I had to.”

The words lingered for a moment, warmth spreading through your chest. Even when things got chaotic — like tantrums in IKEA — Jay was your anchor.

"Mommy, look!" your daughter exclaimed, her sticky hands thrusting her cup forward, a small glob of melted ice cream dangerously close to tipping over. "All gone!"

“You finished it already?” You gasped dramatically, making her giggle. “That was fast, baby!”

She grinned wide, though her face was still smeared with traces of vanilla. Jay shook his head with amusement, grabbing a napkin to wipe her face gently.

“All clean,” he announced with a proud grin.

“Daddy,” she giggled, wiggling in her seat. “I’m not a baby.”

“Not a baby? Says the little miss who cried for her comfy bed like one?” he teased, raising an eyebrow.

Her mouth opened in an exaggerated gasp. “I was not a baby! I was a… a big girl!”

Jay leaned closer, poking her belly playfully. “A big girl, huh?”

She erupted into laughter, her earlier tantrum now just a distant memory. Moments like these — the laughter, the sweetness, the unwavering patience — reminded you why Jay was such an incredible father.

But the day wasn’t over yet.

"Okay, little miss grumpy," Jay said, lifting her effortlessly from the highchair. "We’ve got one more mission."

Her eyes lit up. "Mission?"

"Yup. Help Mommy and Daddy get to the car without any more meltdowns. Think you can do it?"

She scrunched her nose in determination, her arms wrapping around Jay’s neck. “I can do it!”

You chuckled as you slowly stood, the weight of your belly making even the most minor movements feel like a marathon. Jay was quick to steady you, his hand never leaving yours.

"Lean on me, babe," he murmured.

"I always do," you whispered back, a small smile tugging at your lips.

With your daughter happily perched on Jay’s hip, you made your way toward the IKEA exit, the remnants of a long shopping day following behind. Bags of flat-packed furniture, a half-empty cup of ice cream, and the echoes of a tantrum that would become a funny story one day.

And through it all, Jay’s hand is yours. Always.

requested by @jalicecookie

my perm taglist<3 <- request here

[thewickedjazzy]

Level 3: “Stay Still!” [Dry humping] for Kinktober.

⤷⊹₊fyodor d. x afab! reader.

⊹₊Synopsis: it's your own roman empire, where you and fyodor continually indulge in lust-fueled escapades during important meetings.

⊹₊Warning: ņsfw, mdni, smųt, dry humping, agoraphilia, risky sex/secret sex, orgasm control, praise kink..etc.

⊹₊Word count & a/n: 1k, animated lines by @/cafekitsune. this was a very fun level to write honestly, a sweet thank you to bb rem @remlionheart for beta reading, ilysm<3

“stay quiet, дорогая (dear). if they notice, i’ll stop, and you wouldn’t want that, right?”

that might be the last coherent thing you hear before fyodor starts his meeting with nikolai and sigma. you’re face-down on the cold, rough metallic table, wobbling body pressed between him and the edge, feeling a familiar, simmering need flooding through your senses. three agonising months of work have kept him busy, and you’ve missed him terribly. so, if this is the closest you can get to feeling him? then fucking be it.

you grind your bare folds against his clothed bulge, the friction sending your whole body numb with pleasure. it feels too good, almost overwhelming, and you can’t hold back the quiet whine that escapes your lips.

“...we'll need a distraction, something to divert their attention while nikolai can execute our plan.” the russian states calmly as if your pussy is not soaking the hell out of the fabric of his trousers at this very moment. honestly, you can't fathom how he maintains such composure while you squirm beneath him, desperately trying to stretch out the pleasure that’s building quickly in your lower belly. maybe you can hold out until the meeting is over.

you’re doing your utmost to hang in there.

“the weretiger is an easy target...”nikolai exclaims, on the other hand, sigma is already rolling his eyes in boredom, clearly frustrated that they still haven’t addressed his casino issues yet.

you squeeze your eyes shut trying to drown out their conversation, focusing solely on the one command fyodor has given you: “don’t cum until I say so.”

such a cruel man he is. why? because he's slowly grinding his hips back against you, he knows that you're desperately close, it's in his nature to push all the right buttons, only to leave you mourning the loss of his touch afterwards.

you do your best to stifle a moan, but a soft whimper slips past your lips instead.

his slender fingers tighten in your hair, tugging just enough to make you tilt your head back, forcing you to meet his devilish gaze as he shoots you a warning glance, seeing you nod obediently, trying to stifle the needy whimpers that escape as you force yourself to slow down, biting your lip to keep quiet.

“their unity is what gives them strength; without it, they're weak,” fyodor continues, his left hand tightens around your hips, guiding your rhythm with maddening control, while his other hand slides down to tease your aching clit, circling it with deliciously slow, torturous strokes.

your eyes roll back, vision blurring from the overwhelming pleasure, and you’re caught between trembling restraint and the impossible need to let go. fuckーhow can he expect you to hold back when he’s sinfully pleasuring you like this?

It's been half an hour, and you’re not sure how much longer you can hold out. an aching need swells within you as you clutch his hand, fingers intertwining with his, silently begging him to quicken his pace, desperately craving that sweet, sweet release that feels just out of reach.

once the russian has his mind set on something, no amount of begging, sweet words, or tears will sway him. his long, pale fingers slip between your folds, thumb tracing lazy circles over your clit hood to add to your mounting pleasure and you can’t help but roll your hips against him, grinding harder with each passing second. you're acutely aware of the risk that his body might jolt, drawing the unwanted attention of his oblivious subordinates.

you can't hold back anymore, the pleasure has woven itself tightly within you, each pulse layered like bricks in a tower that only fyodor’s permission keeps standing, until the same bricks of bliss snap at the base of your spine once his hand, which had been gripping your hair, taps against the cold metal table twice.

it’s the sign you’ve been begging the heavens for. you're now rolling your hips faster against his hard cock, finally riding out your long-awaited release—jaw slack, eyes rolled back, a trace of drool slipping from your parted lips as you soak his fabric, bliss coursing through you like the light of a thousand stars from the milky way.

as you shudder in ecstasy, the three of his fingers continue bullying your swelling clit—coaxing you through the rest of your release as he draws sharp shapes on the puffy nub.

“that’s it, my love keep that orgasm going for me.” he leans down out of the camera's field to pressing searing kisses to the nape of your neck.

ironically, the meeting continues, oblivious to your plight.

nikolai’s enthusiastic breaks through your sweet bliss. “...and that’s how i’ll handle the weretiger situation.”

while sigma rolls his eyes, clearly unimpressed. “can we move on? i still need to discuss my casino issues.”

clearing his throat, fyodor straightens up, his trademark icy professionalism settling back into place once more. “then let’s wrap this up. we’ll reconvene later to finalise the plan.”

you try to regain your composure, still feeling the aftershocks of erotic pleasure, as the meeting draws to a close. fyodor casts you a sidelong glance with a small loving smirk as he adds, “i trust everyone will stay focused now.”

frankly, you can’t shake the feeling that your relationship won’t stay a secret for much longer. especially given how risky you both are being by engaging in sexually-driven activities like this.

TAGS: @a-smol-bean @violetbutterflix @amanoava @falloutjuli @embersweapons @warriordemigosworld @cathias @v15aexe @vasarii @pe4rl-diver @sukidenks @dazaifavbandage @chuuminn @fyodorsprettynun @ace-0fspades69 @irasamu @trippyserval @alyszuha @bittysuguru @writingandmusing @corruptedwrathkitsune @thedamselzelda @fyodorssimp1 @vikkinakahara @laylabuurr @perlaslibrary

[sovksluv]

seven minutes in hell

𖤐 . pairing - fratboy!Luke Castellan x fem!reader

𖤐 . summary - a stupid game of spin the bottle/seven minutes in heaven gone… wrong?

𖤐 . content includes - smut MDNI🔞, bad interpretations of frat parties/boys

𖤐 . word count - 1014

𖤐 . taglist - @perseus-jackass @niktwazny303 @st4rzl7

𖤐 . a/n - i randomly got this idea and was very motivated idk why. anyways, hope you enjoy !!

“you are so. mph~ infuriating,” you struggled out.

he chuckled, speeding up his erratic movements, forcefully slamming your body into the wall with each thrust.

“yeah, keep saying that like my dick- fuuck~ like my fuckin’ dick isn’t in ya’ right now,” Luke teased, slowing his movements to add to the annoyance, protruding a half whimper-groan from you.

he scoffed, a dumb smirk on his face as his hips resumed their work, thrusting his fat cock into you even faster — desperate to finish you both off before the timer finished.

his sudden pounding forced a choked moan from you, panic flooding your eyes. Luke’s smirk widened, he motioned to one of your hands with his head.

you took the sign, gratefully covering your mouth the second his calloused fingertips met your clit, which erupted yet another squeak from you.

he practically had you bent in half against the closet wall, the tight space not leaving much room for the two of you.

you were at some stupid frat party — which you did not want to go to. your friend Silena insisted you needed some time out, and just about dragged you to said party.

with a few drinks in, you were grumbling as she dragged you to a cliché game of seven minutes in heaven, consisting of a circle of other students all drunk or high or both.

despite your tipsy state, you recognized a few people;

Charles Beckendorf — aka Silena’s never-ending crush that is too sweet for his own good.

Clarisse La Rue — aka the girl that typically wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near a frat house, yet here she was.

Chris Rodriguez — aka the lame douchebag with hopeful heart eyes towards our dear Clarisse, and who also happens to be best friends with the boy that’s pounding your pussy into oblivion.

of course, the second it’s your turn to spin the bottle, it lands on probably the worst person in the group — Luke Castellan.

thank the Gods that the blaring lights of the party hid the blush on your cheeks, with a little help from the annoyed groan that left your mouth.

Silena giggled into her red solo cup, pushing you to stand up next to Luke, who was already standing, a smirk on his stupid face.

and that’s how you got here — folded in half against the closet wall, knees by your face and calves hanging over his shoulders, desperately screaming into your hand as Luke drilled his cock into you.

the fact that you got in this position during a seven minute game should’ve been on your mind, but the feeling of his cock head poking around your cunt had your eyes rolling back, head empty.

you wrapped your other arm around his neck, bringing him closer to you. uncovering your mouth and wrapping your other arm around him, your lips were close — but not touching.

you moaned into his mouth, feeling his warm breath as he pounded you, his own groans only fueling your arousal.

your eye trailed up, left hand coming up to knock away his stupid backwards cap, fingers immediately running through his curls, pulling and scratching at them.

he almost whimpered, lips trailing around your collarbone, moving up with kisses and leaving marks in his path.

“w-why do you we-ar that stupid c-cap?” you stuttered out, moaning breathlessly as his lips ceased their attack.

he chuckled again at you, hips stuttering and eyes fluttering. “will you shut up? m’ trying to fuck you.”

you moaned out, head falling back against the wall, his cock and fingers together draw you closer to the edge.

warmth spills and spreads through your bodies, feeling the effect of both your orgasms hitting at the same time.

you forced Luke’s head to yours, shoving your lips on his as you moaned in each other's mouths, sloppy and wet kisses following his slowing thrusts.

Luke carefully let you down, a hand on your waist to keep you up right. he hastily pulled up his jeans, putting himself away as he helped you redress.

you kept your arms around his neck as he pulled your panties up, fixing your dress and your hair.

face flushed, you watch as he bent down to get his cap, instead placing it backwards on your head, laughing at your annoyance.

moving to take it off, he gently grabbed your wrist.

“keep it.”

you raised your eyebrows but listened, lowering your hand. you went to speak again but were interrupted by a knock at the closet door.

in frantic movements, Luke had you shoved against the wall, breathing heavily as his head was turned towards the door, his tall frame blocking you from being seen if it were to open.

“seven minutes are up!” shouted Chris through the door, rustling could be heard from the other side as he moved away the chair that locked it. “you guys can come out now!”

Luke turned towards you, using his finger tips to tilt your chin up. with his fingers still touching you, he slightly bent down to capture your lips again in a searing kiss.

when he pulled away you were left almost breathless as he took your hand, opening the door and leading the two of you out.

whistling was heard from the game circle as you guys exited the smaller space. instead of going back to your spot next to Silena, Luke pulled your sore body down with him, sitting you right on his lap.

you made eye contact with Silena, who raised her eyebrows with a knowing smirk on her face.

everyone in the group knew what you had done in the closet, the stumbling of your walk, flushed face, and Luke’s stupid cap on your head hinted at it.

also the fact that you were sitting on his lap, head on his shoulder with his arms around your middle and his hickeys littered on your neck.

no one said anything though, they all just smirked into their own cups, continuing to play the game.

you still hated frat parties though. just maybe not this one.

© sovksluv 2024, please do not repost or translate my work!

[chrissv4mp]

october 27

"please, bi—billie..! so.. mmh, gonna cum." you murmur, trembling beneath her relentless touch as your head falls back against her shoulder, moans shaky and falling right into her ear. billie just giggles softly, eyes darting to her phone that was the only source of light in the room. she left a wet kiss on the side of your neck, tongue drawing a stripe up to your jaw before she gave the livestream her full attention, your pretty pussy being the only thing they could see right now. she watched as her own fingers pumped in and out of your wet cunt, thumb rubbing tight circles on your swollen bud.

the comments flood in rapidly, multiple donations of large amounts of money coming in every other second with all different types of messages. they were going by too fast for either of you to read them, though. until a larger donation came in and stayed on the top right for longer than the rest. billie's free hand came up to tilt your head forward, letting you see the own donation for yourself, "melissa t. sent $300 to keep edgin' you, mama." she snickered, but your stomach only dropped, a low whine emitting from your throat as you bucked your hips, shaking your head.

her hand left your chin, instead going to grab the phone and move it right in front of your face, tears streaking down your cheeks, lips pouty and stray hairs sticking to your sweaty forehead and neck. your whole body trembled as you struggled to read the donations through teary eyes, a relieved breath leaving your lips as a $400 donation came in just to see you cum. billie's eyebrows raised in surprise, a short gasp coming from her part as she spared you a glance, "really wan' her to cum, don't you guys?" she asks rhetorically, biting her lip as her fingers quicken their pace.

the comments only come in quicker, small donations being unnoticed in the huge sea of larger amounts of money. another donation came in, probably twice the amount that was just sent in, "$850 sent in by—holy shit." she stumbles over her words upon seeing the name, eyes widening and hear fluttering, "by none other than madison b... to make you cum." she whispers, her smile only growing at the new knowledge that madison, one of your closest friends, was watching this. billie's eyes snap back to you, fingers moving faster and deeper in your needy cunt, "even mads is watchin', babygirl."

"please mommy, please!" you cry out, slurring your words as you buck your hips against her fast-moving fingers, her phone catching the way your eyes roll back as you bite your lip harshly. your back arches away from her body, her fingers curling against your sweet spot and almost making you cum without a proper thank you. her fingers halt to a stop, setting the phone back down and zooming out so your viewers could see both of your bodies and faces, "where's your manners, mama?" her fingers tap against your abdomen, making your body shake momentarily as you beg quietly.

you fist at both her shirt and the sheets, head hanging low and eyes barely staying open as you try to look into the phone camera, body shaking weakly as you finally utter those two words that would grant you euphoria, "th—'ank you, mm.." your words are quiet, and you're sure the phone speaker barely picks it up, but billie takes it anyway. her fingers slam into your pussy at an almost animalistic pace, thumb circling your clit faster as her eyes carefully examined your facial expressions and your body language.

her eyes take one last glance at her phone, an evil smile taking over her once sweet face as her fingers slow to a stop inside of you. your thighs tremble around her torturous hand, crying out loudly as you throw your head back against her shoulder for the millionth time that night. she'd been edging you non-stop for the past hour and a half, and all because of the stupid fucking donations, "finneas o. sent in $1000 to keep edging you," she ponders for a moment, head turning back to you with a mischievous smirk on her face, "our friends love you, sweet girl." she giggles and shrugs her shoulders, and by the look on her face, you know damn well things won't go your way tonight.

KINKTOBER

@mseilishmwah @sophloveswomen @mxqdii @livialifesblog @devynscomet @her-favorite @cannibalsclass @wiidfi0wer33 @loving1dsworld @tan1shere @fallingforfalll2 @cierraonline @dandelions4us @scarlittt @ifwdominicfike @hrtsdollie @zayluvss @xoluvx

[13tinysocks]

My Dead Girlfriend

Surrounded by Marks, but you still yearn for him. You take soul-sucking measures to dull the pain, and get someone on your side to hunt down Phantom.

NSFW. Shlorp shlorp!

[Invincible Variants X Reader]

[Part one]  [Ao3]  [15] [17]

16 * Hindbrain [8.8k]

"Outside your house,

Down on my knees,

Swollen with doubt and animosity."

Mercy - Sir Chloe

        Gray didn't turn around when he entered. Back to you, sat ridged, trying to rest and conserve what energy he had left. "What do you want?" 

        Tracksuit set you down on the corrugated metal sheet flooring as Maskless touched down beside him. "Wow dude, I come bearing gifts and this is the thanks I get?"

        Gray turned, "What-"

        Surprise wasn't an expression he was used to wearing. Foreign. Alien as his blooming feelings for you that he thought had been snuffed out with your apparent death. But there you were. Standing, leaning on a crutch. Dirty and miserable, but alive. 

        He looked nearly identical to the last time you saw him. Suit knicked, scratched in a few places. Hair undone, slightly longer. Strangely, no stubble grew from his cheeks. Somehow not a degree tanner or paler.

        He swallowed back the urge to rush forward. He approached slow, measured. "My compatriot will be pleased at your return." He made himself say as he scanned clinically over your body. You weren't rapt with starvation and your skin was unburned by the sun. Curious. Then there was the mystery of the crutch and your wrapped and splinted leg. He didn't like the look of misery on you. Didn't like it one bit. "He will be returning from scouting soon." His eyes flicked to the others, hovering nearby. "You can go."

        Tracksuit blinked. "Go?"

        Gray nodded a tight solider's nod. "You've done well brining her back. Am I wrong assuming you would rather be rid of her?"

        "What the fuck?" Tracksuit had to do a doubletake at the pure audacity. "I know I said gifts but that was a joke, man. She's like- a person."

        "I am aware." Gray said, hovering around you in a loose circle, getting a better idea of your condition. The bruises made him rather unhappy, he had to suppress the urge to reach out. "She is a person safer in our care than anyone else's." 

        "Uh, yeah, that's not happening." Maskless said though it wasn't aggressive. This move wasn't a trade, it was an olive branch. An acknowledgement they trusted one another even after the shitshow. 

        Gray didn't understand the concept of life not being tit or tat. He'd rather barter now than feel he owed the duo something later on. He was also not too keen on expanding the camp by three people. It would draw untoward attention from the others, make you less safe. 

        "I doubt we'll have anything worth your time." He said, implying the idea of trading. He knew a human wouldn't like that word in regard to their autonomy. 

        "We're not trading." Maskless said with an annoying lack of tact. "Think of this as a favor." He moved to the center of the room where a fire pit better than anything he could build waited. 

        Gray eyed you. Were they really going to give you up? Just like that? When he and/or Omni could double-cross them at any moment? What was the angle?

        You hobbled to the fire, sat by it when you were close enough. Bad leg stretched in front of you with a grunt. Maskless had a growing fire and the rudimentary cookware set up by the time you were settled. Arms lifting out of the cloak, little bugs crawling up and down your forearms. You picked one off, killed it with a flick to the chest, and popped it out of its exoskeleton.

        Gray watched on. Tried putting together the few puzzle pieces he had. The bruises. The bugs. The misery on your face. The story he put together in his head wasn't too far off from the truth, though it was missing some key points. Leaving him to calculate risk versus reward. Give up his healing accelerant and get... Nothing. You could aid in his survival with a healed leg, yet you were a crutch yourself, especially when you could not give him children. But despite this, when he saw you it had his immediate thought, to heal your wounds and any burden that would come. But there was no need, you were already giving him food and according to Maskless it was for no trade. He didn't need to barter when provided with everything he needed for survival- bet he still wanted you better. Seeing you hurt, the way your eyes were hollowed out- it shifted something solid within him. Perhaps this was what father described feeling for mother. Caring? Affection? 

        Maybe he didn't need to get something out of helping you- when helping you was fulfilling enough. Was this...

        Gray's stomach growled. Thankfully, you didn't look at him in his embarrassment. You went on, picking bugs off your skin, killing them, and shucking them as the water Maskless brought in the basin started to boil. 

        Maskless had explained the plan on the way over, though you weren't listening. Feed those two and they'd have two more allies who weren't about to die. By no means did he want to have more buddies or to share his newfound food, but the tortured screams during the night had shook him. He was terrified Lensless and Scars would come for him next. Make him scream while everybody listened and nobody helped. It was better to have people to throw at them first. People who were strong enough to not immediately die so he could get away. Live on for William, for the world lost to his father. 

        Gray would parse his intentions out later, but in the moment he was focused on you, his mind made up. His heart fluttered as he knelt down, pulling a vial out of his pocket that meant more to him than you could know. 

        Especially when his voice came out as flat as usual, "Here." 

        You vaguely remembered him showing them off on one of the first nights. You didn't take it, not quite remembering what it was. Cologne? Plasma from a spine? No, that didn't sound right.

        "For your leg." His flat words make you remember. Wound something or other.

        You snatched it out of his waiting fingers. He relished the moment of contact but his face gave nothing away. You snapped the top off and threw your head back. His hand is back on the vial, over yours. 

        "No." He says sharp. Maskless and Tracksuit tense. Not quite willing to fight for you but not quite willing to give up a bargaining chip either. "You have to directly apply it to the skin." 

        Your hand fell, your companion's shoulders relaxed. Imagination running wild with what would've happen if you drank the stuff. "You're only telling me this now?"

        "An oversight." 

        Tracksuit laughed to himself, "Oversight. Who the fuck says oversight?" He went ignored.

        You started to bend forward to undo the tight cloth wrapping only to cringe. A pulse of pain shooting up your leg. "Shit."

        Gray didn't think, just moved. Propped up your leg with a rock he zipped away to find before you even noticed. Unwrapped it and laid the bandages and splint to the side. It was... Not good. Your skin was discolored up and down your shin with a noticeable lump in the middle where your bone had snapped. The only good thing was that the skin didn't break. 

        He held out his hand for the vile, "May I?" 

        You eyed him suspiciously. His intentions were always hard to read, he was short and acted without explaining. But you had no idea what you were doing in regards to self care beyond stitched up gut wounds. No choice in the matter, you returned the vial. 

        "I need to make an assessment first." He said, "This will hurt." Before you could protest, his hands were cupping your leg, pressing down gently but sending rockets of pain shooting through your body. You gasped, flinched back, jostled your leg and flinched again. Gray steadied you, voice neutral, "Don't hurt yourself."

        You straighten your leg best you could and let him continue pressing, lifting, assessing the damage. The only sounds were the water hissing and fire crackling. It reminded you of the cave. Of Mark. Suddenly you are on the verge of tears, blinking them back.

        "How do you know how to do this?" You make yourself say, voice calm but wavering. You needed to think of something else but every time you tried you saw Mark's face in the pale firelight. Then blackness, hearing echoes of his voice. His dying gasps. 

        Gray notices but doesn't pause. "Viltrumite and human biology are almost identical." He says, "The key differences are in our muscle tissue, much denser than a human's. Our brain tissue as well is denser, allowing for better senses, especially in battle."

        "Doesn't make sense why so many of us are so stupid then." Tracksuit said, sitting feet away, idly watching. Ears perked for Omni's arrival. Wondering if he'd kick Gray's ass for weirdly massaging your leg. 

        Again he is ignored. "As part of the World Betterment Committee, we must be prepared for all sorts of resistance. Many worlds fought against our occupation. Many had no chance but some were clever. We are trained to assess physical damage and minimize the time needed for healing." He flipped the vial, spilled a few drops onto his hands and lathered them together. His hands came down, encompassed your leg best they could. You hissed, pained, but the liquid made his hands a cool relief in the sweltering heat.

        "You really are one of them." Maskless said to himself- literally.

        Gray didn't reply. Focused on rubbing the slick into your leg. "This is agent fourteen. It enters through the skin into the bloodstream. It targets damaged tissue throughout the body but is faster acting when applied to the-"

        "How can you live with yourself?" Maskless said, a little louder this time.

        You winced while trying to relax into his cool, gentle touch. His hands were calloused, movement rigid and precise. He was distracted by everything happening around him, the smell of soup wafting on the hot wind, making his stomach lurch and his mouth go dry, unable to salivate with the lack of water in his system. The feel of your skin under his own, the way your heart was beating erratically from the pain. But he didn't stop. "I'm almost finished."

        Tracksuit snorted. Maskless snapped, "How could you turn your back on your own people like that?"

        "Earthlings are not my people." Gray said coolly because clearly this man-child would not stop pestering him until he answered, "The Viltrumites are."

        "Your mother is an 'Earthling.'" Spat like a slur.

        "Yes, she's proud of her heritage, but recognizes that Earth was primitive compared to the empire. She has long since accepted what became of it." 

        Maskless's lip twitched. "And what became of it?"

        He had to wait for a reply. Gray only truly cared for your comfort. "You should be able to put some weight on it in a few days. Though it may be a week or so until it's fully healed. It's the best I can do."

        "I'm talking to you."

        But Gray doesn't hear his poisoned words, focused on the way you mutter, "Thanks," under your breath and look away.

        "You are welcome." Said more robotic than usual.

        "Hey."

        Ah yes, the other one was still speaking to him despite his disinterest. "Most of Earth's population had to be culled to quell any resistance." Despite this resistance was rampant on the colony. The human spirt was a strong, burning flame that'd never go out. Much like the Viltrumites, but they didn't have the strength to back it up. That's why he took you. You burned bright despite your circumstances and it helped he found you rather pleasing to the eye. "Last Father reported, the population had been growing." Gray didn't bother meeting Maskless's hard stare. Attention set upon your leg, now lightly glistening. "Earth's occupation was a success."

        Your skin tingles as his touch leaves. 

        "A success?" Maskless fists ball and unball. Body undecided as his mind was ready for blood. Attack and quell some shred of vengeance. Don't and let that abomination with his face continue to exist. "You call killing thousands a success?"

        "We killed millions." Gray corrected. "I don't see your point. You did the same thing working with Angstrom Levy." Gray rose, padding to a stockpile of potentially useful garbage. Looking for something clean enough to wrap your leg in.

        Maskless's hand went to his chest, "So I could fix things."

        "Millions had to die for the betterment of Earth. It's the same thing." 

        Maskless's body twitched. The idea of attack clear in his movement. Yet he made no move to hop over the fire and give Tracksuit the drama he craved. Gray waited for him to make a move, back to him, sifting through the materials, body relaxed purposefully. Almost a taunt. He wasn't worried. Which made Maskless want to kick his ass even more.

        "I can't believe we're the same person." Maskless rose to his feet. Purposeful. Gray pulled out the longest stretch of dry canvas he could find in the pile- a faded white and green ad for some long dead company. He passed by Maskless, paying him no mind as he began to rewrap your leg. Purposeful.        

        "Neither can I." Gray's eyes left your leg to flick up and down Maskless' blood-crusted suit. Hoping he'd get the message, that he was a hypocrite- All that death, not for the greater good or the Empire, but for personal reasons. Pathetic. He fought for nothing. Unlike Gray, who finished wrapping your leg. Setting the splint firmly as you'd allow- fighting for something he didn't yet understand, and the Empire, of course.

        Maskless stepped around the fire, stood before Gray. Fists twitching. Gray stood, body a shield in front of you. Maskless's gaze flicked to you- his apparent Achilles' heel. "If you don't care about us Earthlings, why do you care about her so much?"

        "Keep me out of this." You grumbled.

        Maskless went on, chest puffed, feeling emboldened with rage and memory. "Is she different because she was some sort of slave to you? Did you tie her down and force her to have your kids?"

        The thought had occurred to him but mother insisted he try things the human way- after he kidnapped you. Despite his attempts, Viltrumite ideology rang true, "Viltrumites choose their mates. If the selected can not fight off their prospective mate, procreation occurs."

        A collective cringe crossed your faces. You were thankful for Gray, for the balm, already feeling like the pain had ebbed. But the idea of you as some baby-birthing machine to an alien empire made you look at him differently.

        He sensed the shift. "I did not do things the Viltrum way. I courted her." He said carefully. "Mother said humans like to have a choice." She hadn't had one, but you didn't need to know that. "My comrades looked down on me for it but I enjoyed our time together." Much as he'd allowed himself to with the perpetual stick up his ass. "It was a shame when she passed." He snapped her neck like one kills a sick pet rabbit. You were sick, too poisoned by the rebellion's ideologies. Ungrateful for the second chance. Yet he could never bring himself to return to Earth for another mate. Strangely burned on the inside, like something had been lost. He had enjoyed when you were more docile with fear. When you talked with him of inconsequential Earthly things. It was nice, but you were not. So that you had to die. This time he'd do things different. Even if you hated him for it, you would not die so long as he drew breath.

        This you didn't need to be so scared. You should be afraid of him, yes, fear would keep you in line, but too much and you'd reject his advances again. Because he wanted to try again, to soothe the burn that ate away at his insides.

        Gray thinks he's done well curbing your idea of him. He had, all save for that last part, said with too little care. Like you were a childhood pet, remembered fondly but inconsequential. Maskless opened his mouth to jab at him.

        The barely secured floor shook as Omni landed. Suit torn at the knees and fingers. Cape shreds of what it used to be. He stepped into the tent, pulling his mask off his face, blinded by the switch to shade after hours in the bright desert. He was so tired. So frazzled. So grief stricken he didn't notice anything but your loss. "There's no sign of-"

        His mask was freed from his sweaty face. Black lenses glinting sunlight. Tanlines softer on his face than you'd expect. Stubble a solid shadow on his jaw, though not as dark as the circles under his eyes. Light and honey-toned but flat with despair. 

        Until they land on the sliver of you visibly behind Maskless and Gray. They would've been toppled over if they hadn't moved. Quarrel put aside, for now as Omni barreled past them. 

        He stopped at your feet. Standing close but not touching. Scared you and the food were a mirage. "Is it really you?"

        You looked awful. Tortured. Not as bad as he'd let himself hope late in the night- wishing he could see you one last time. Assuming that last time would be holding you dying again. If he ever got to see you, bones lost to the dunes.

        "Yeah." You were not enthused by his presence. By any of their presence. You missed Mark, missed being held and kissed. Missed the cool cave but couldn't imagine going back.

        "You.." He knelt, hovering over you a moment before lunging. Hugging you flush to his chest. Feeling your skin, your raggedy clothes, your breath and heartbeat against him. "You're really real." He at least avoided your leg, seeming to notice the splint. To be asked about later, but forgotten for now.

        You could have shoved at him and he'd have let go. But you didn't. Even as Gray eyed Omni's back, as Maskless stared in mild disgust, as Tracksuit watched the others for their reactions. The contact felt like a missing puzzle piece. You had missed being held, arms like a vice keeping you together in this fucking wasteland.

        "I thought you were..." He can't say it. Can't say it because then you'd dissolve in his arms.

        You felt that. Deeply. Too deeply. 

        Your arms came up and held him back, hard as you could. Pressing your body to his like you were trying to become a single whole being. You needed to be held. Needed to be comforted. Hated it at the same time. Hated yourself for throwing yourself into it like a sad puppy. You wanted to scream and cry and puke just as much as you wanted to hold him until everything was better. 

        Omni pulled back, hands sliding up your sides and to your face, holding your cheeks. He sees it then. The bruises, dark and puffy where Mark had held your mouth shut, where he'd tied rags around your face for days. Your hands come up to push his off, wincing from the pain. Which only lets him see your wrists. The rubbed raw indents, just starting to scab over where the rebar had been for days.

        He was absolutely murderous. "Who did this to you?"

        Mark. 

        Mark was right in front of you. Mark was beside you. Mark was watching over the fire. Mark was happy without you in another dimension. Mark was dead. Everything was Mark's fault.

        You hated that you couldn't stop the tears. The way his dark brows knit together and his lips fell when the tears came and didn't stop. He reached to wipe them away but it reminded you too much of Mark. You flinched back, covered your face with your hands.

        "Eat." You managed. "We brought food."

        Omni doesn't want to be away from you. Still partly terrified you'll vanish. He sat beside you, thigh grazing your own as Maskless reluctantly served them both bowls. You were aware they were eating. Talking. You were too busy trying not to lose your shit more than you already had. When the tears and sniveling were done for good, you removed your hands the best you could. Face stinging with shame as wet friction. Palms slobbery with snot. The fire only made your misery more apparent. 

        Omni had long since finished his bowl. Watched you quietly convulse. Wondering what happened to break you down like this. What stroke of luck brought you back to him. He held out his cape to you. You took it, wiping off your hands. Nodding a tight lipped thanks. He tried catching your eye but you looked away. To the desert and the gray sky. 

        Maskless told Gray and Omni some of what he knew. The cave, the bugs, how he found you. He left out the rebar around your wrists, the dead body. He hated talking to these assholes enough as it was, that part was yours to tell. But you didn't start talking, just looked into the sandy nothing while they stood around, dicks in hand.

        "If there's anything else down there we don't know about, now's the time to tell us." Maskless tossed the ball in your court.

        Only for it to bounce, once, twice, then roll to your feet. You hadn't been listening to him anyways.  "The bugs. These are the last of them." You said. "Unless you can dig out the nest and save the queen larvae, but they're probably all dead. There's a mold farm too. I think you said it was also collapsed but maybe you can recover some spores from it." You knew what they wanted to hear but couldn't bring yourself to say.

        Gray thinks those resources could be recovered but he cared more about, "The prisoner- that's his blood on you, correct?"

       You don't say anything for a moment.

        "The bugs will last us awhile. Don't make me eat him." An acknowledgment, but the most you were willing to do.

        Omni's leg pressed more into yours. "He's gone then."

        "I don't want to talk about this."

        Tracksuit scoffed, drawing annoyed glances. "Oh, boohoo, your crazy desert boyfriend died. News flash, sweetheart, you've got like a bazillion boyfriends who aren't as crazy right here. So why don't you fess up n' tell Daddy what's wrong?" At Omni's expression, he quickly added, "Not countin' myself or my good man 'ere." He wasn't scared of Omni but he'd rather watch the drama unfold than be part of it. He wasn't good with other people's feelings, let alone his own.

        "Did you see the body?" You asked, remembering in flashes. The dark, the blood stench, the sound.

        He seemed oblivious to the shift in your tone, the way the others had stilled.

        "Nah, but my boy here said it was nasty."

        The response made you want to scream, to tear him apart. You turned on him then, hollow eyed, "I could do that to you. I'm stronger now."

        You meant it. Wanted to do it. But you were scared of feeling another Mark's body heat dissipate beside you. You knew you wouldn't, but the threat felt good. 

        "Meeee-ouch! I thought we were friends but apparently not. Okay, cool, I get it. I'd hate me for being chill and normal too since you like 'em crazy." Clearly, Tracksuit wasn't taking you seriously.

        You clicked your tongue a few times and tiny bugs began crawling up his legs. He batted a few off but some make it under his collar, crawled under his clothes while he shot up and danced around, trying to swat them all. "Call them off! Call them off!" Bugs were no big deal, they weren't even biting but he hated the little fuckers. 

        "We ate their queen and lived in her exoskeleton." You say, "They listen to me now. Do you know how many of them there are left?"

        "I don't fucking care! Get these things off me!"

        "I tried counting before. Lost my place after a thousand." Though there were way more than that and counting had been an exercise in boredom. You couldn't tell one bug apart from another. "I could make you tear yourself open and let them eat you. Think about that before you say rude shit about him again." A few clicks later and the remaining bugs crawled out through his sleeves and dropped to the sand where they burrowed before he could stomp the life out of them.

        You regretted calling him crazy, regretted so much you had done. But you didn't regret your freedom, being in the sun, horribly hot as it was. You missed Mark so much your chest ached.

        "Wasn't bein' rude." He shivered, still feeling the little legs on his skin.

        "If she said you were being rude, you were being rude." Omni said but still, he needed to know, "We need to know what happened to you down there, we want to understand. What happened?"

        Nothing. Everything. A lifetime in two weeks. You didn't want to talk about it, but you knew they were like dogs with a bone.

        "He took me down there and I let him. Told me how he was going to fake the disappearance and everything."

        "You assholes cut us out?" Tracksuit huffed.

         "Would you have taken everybody?" You asked.

        That stung. Tracksuit thought you were cool before but... you were sort of traumatized now more than you already were. He could almost give you a pass for being a massive bitch, and you were right. He probably wouldn't have taken you. "Should've never let you smoke my shit."

        Omni eyed him quizzically but looked back to you when the story kept going. "Phantom found it first. Showed Mark and Mark showed me." Omni and Gray should've felt insulted you called that prisoner their shared name, but oddly they didn't. Omni knew you knew his name- Markus, though you hadn't said it again. Gray was content with your nickname specially picked for him. The dead man could have the title Mark. 

        "He was supposed to stay long enough to convince you all I was gone, then he was going to come back. Help us make a tunnel out that you wouldn't find so we wouldn't get cabin fever down there but-" You thought about the screaming in the night but remembered he's fucking Invincible. He should've been able to get away to tell someone else where you were. He'd had all the power in the world to help you and had done nothing. "-Man, wha'dya do when you got two ex-cons and want 'em to hate each other?" Looks of concern were shared but nobody said a word, "That's right! Leave 'em in a dark cave for two weeks until one of them..." The word stuck in your throat, you couldn't say that he killed himself. You'd made him do it.

        Omni leaned in soft-browed, fingers hovering over your wrists, "He did that to you?" He was partly horrified Mark Grayson of any variation could torment you so. He had killed you sure, but it had been quick. 

        "No shit." He doesn't move back despite your venom, "I answered your questions. Answer mine. Where is that screaming asshole?" 

        Omni hesitated. Gray doesn't. "They're close enough to be a threat."

        You leaned in, blood in the water. "Where?"

        "If you're trying to get me to take you to him- it won't happen. He is constantly surveilled by those pests." Scars and Lensless in their yellow suits.

        You felt the need for revenge pulsing in your scabs, under your bruises, in your heart. "Take me to them."

        You cast the net too wide. Connect weakly with Maskless and Tracksuit, but Gray's mind is like a steel trap and Omni had always been difficult to control. Maskless and Tracksuit come for you, held off by the others a few moments until you control snapped back in your face like a bungee cord. Their expressions hard, daring you to try again.

        Blood trailed down to your lip. "Fine. I can wait." Until you were stronger, strong enough to get a ride and kill all three of those assholes. A few days was all you needed. 

        You don't say it but they feel your intent. An uneasy undercurrent passed between them. You were weak, but controlled two of them at once. Being strong enough to survive this long wasn't a small thing. You were a real threat to yourself and to them.   

        "Don't do that again." Omni warned, though it was soft as he reached to wipe the blood dripping down your nose. "You don't know what you'd be getting into. Those two are a problem but don't push yourself for revenge. It's not healthy." Said the psychosexual, emotionally-incestious-daddy-issue-having freak. 

          You let him touch you. Smear the hot blood away. Fractionally leaning into his touch. Missing Mark. But knowing, "I can wait." 

        "Whatever." Tracksuit's feet left the floor. Head shaking off the cloud you'd laid over his brain. "We did what we came to do. We're gonna head out if you're all powered down."

        You had some dregs left. You don't tell him that. Thinking it'd be good to always keep a little power in your back pocket. It was safer that way. "I am."

        He turned to Maskless, "Cool. You carry her this time."

        Light early-life wrinkles the rest didn't have deepened on Omni's brow. He opened his mouth.

        "You haven't shown us the cave with water." Gray said first.

        "Fine. We'll show you, then we leave." Tracksuit jutted his head toward you, Maskless approached but Omni was in front of him.

        "I can carry her." He said.

        Maskless narrowed his eyes. "How do we know you won't just take her?" He didn't care about you, not at all, but he recognized you were the glue keeping things together before. Best case scenario, the others would flock to you, kill each other to get in your pants and he'd have more meat. Worst case scenario, you could be traded for his own life. 

        "How do I know you won't take her away and never let me see her again?" Omni retorted.

        You weren't waiting for them to hash this out, "I'm not going down there." You said.

        Tracksuit crossed his arms, little more than tiffed with you and your emotional outbursts. He'd been baking in a desert, starving and thirsty while you were cool and fed, and probably getting dicked down. 

        "Oh yeah? Whadd'ya gon do to stop us?" He was above ground, where the bugs couldn't get to him.

        You should save the power but the rage boils out, unexpected and deeply hateful, "Hit yourself."

        Tracksuit's fist came up against his will. Reeled back to the shoulder blade before springing forward, cracking against his jaw. Not as hard as Mohawk, but hard enough to send his flight off balance. You caught a look at his face before his mask fluttered down, lip smearing blood cross his teeth. 

        He doesn't attack as he stabilizes himself. Omni was in front of you like a Viltrumite-human shield. So he spat out a wad on blood onto the corrugated floor, "Touchy, but I'll admit you got me there."

        "I'll do worse if any of you think about taking me back down there." You said, weak and weary, "You all go. I'll wait here."

        "No." Gray and Tracksuit. 

        "'S just asking for those other guys to snatch you up then boom! There goes the food-lady." Tracksuit alone this time. "One'a you assholes stay with 'er."

        "I will," Gray said before Omni could. Omni wanted to protest, but he needed the building trust between him and Gray to stay. Gray had been the only one Omni semi-tolerated in the caves. The only reliable ally he had. So he'd allow it, remembering he'd get his turn alone with you in time.

        "Not alone," Maskless added. "You stay too."

        Tracksuit spluttered. "What- No way, man!"

        "You got lost on the way here." Maskless deadpanned.

        "Only a little!"

        "Fifteen miles give or take."

        Tracksuit didn't argue that. 

        And so it was. 

        Maskless led Omni into the dusking desert, leaving you, Gray, and a pissed off Tracksuit alone. Leg tingling with numbness.

        "Hey," Tracksuit was first to talk in the minutes of long quiet. You sat by the fire, the same way you had in the cave before things got bad. Gray stood by the edge of camp, hovering an inch over the sand, straight postured with hands behind back like always. "You're not gonna kidnap her if I take a s-"

        Gray held up his hand. "There's nowhere for us to go. This alliance is worth too much to put at risk anyway." 

        "Cool, cool. Uhm, others shouldn't be back for a bit if they-" He doubled over clutching his stomach, "come back before me tell them to suck it." Tracksuit was gone in a flash. Too much food after a period of starvation making his stomach a roiling mess. 

        You were alone.

        Two days after your... after Mark died. Aching stupidly on the inside, the dark of the desert whispered memories you tried to drown out. Trying to turn your thoughts to Phantom. Where he and the others were, if he was truly suffering or not. If Phantom was already dead, if you'd get revenge or not.

        "Where are the others?" You ask.

        "In the cave that you-"

        "The other others."

        "Ah." He's quiet a moment. Deciding weather or not to tell. You didn't exactly need to know. But it wasn't like you could fly or walk. 

        "Gray." You turned on him, find his expressionless mask cracked by a single word. "Where are they exactly? I need to know."

        He knew that look. Saw it on his mother all the time. When father was following Viltrum's customs a little too closely. You'd given him the same look, the other you, when you told him how you hated him even though he brought you to a utopia. Emotional determination that perplexed him so. Father would give into mother, but he never gave in then. He should now to win you over- but you had powers. You cried in front of him and clearly hated it- you were unstable, unreliable. You had plans in mind, ones that'd get you killed.

        "You can not make me tell you where they just like you couldn't make me take you. You are powerless."

        Stubborn insistence, you knew better. He tried to stay impartial, but he cared about you like the others. He just needed a push and you needed to forget.

        "I controlled that asshole." You scooted toward him on your ass, using your good leg as leverage. "You don't know how much shit I got stored up."

        He watched you, confused as to why you were trying to pick a fight with him on the floor. "If I were to attack, you're making it much easier for me."

        "You won't." You grunted with effort, pulling the last few inches you needed to be by his feet. Sat splayed by his legs like a good dog, looking up at him from under your lashes. "You're right, though, I probably couldn't control you, not for long anyway."

        His gaze hardened, understanding you had ulterior motives, "Don't make me restrain you."

        "I'm not doing anything." You said as your hand moved to his leg. Feeling up his calf that tensed at your touch. 

        You knew Gray wanted you. Knew he was some repressed alien freak. People who say 'courting' have never came in their entire fucking life. These over-protective assholes wouldn't give you what you needed, not like this. But if you leaned into their underlying carnal desires- they'd be putty in your hands. Revenge would be yours for the taking.

        And Mark. You could hold Mark again. Not your Mark but a Mark and for now, that was enough.

        "What are you doing?" Gray watched you feel up and down his calf. 

        Your hands traveled further up. Over the knee to his strong thighs that unwillingly flexed at your approach. He didn't move away. "Just admiring the view."

        Viltrumites didn't do such things. He'd walked in on his mother and father, sure, but not in the light touches of pre-sex, pre-foreplay. He didn't see the bait you were holding.

        "You need to touch me to do so?" Your fingers were feather-light. Tracing then cupping much of him as you could in your palm. It sent tingles down his back, electrical shocks to his abdomen. Made something within him that had been in a lifelong slumber, open its eyes.

        "Gotta get the full picture." You lifted onto your good knee. Leg numb but scared you'd hurt it. Hands splaying the expanse of his legs, up the to creases his hips not hidden by his stupid skirt. You press your thumbs in and he shuddered. You saw it, how the usual lump in his skirt was a little larger than you remembered. Easy, just like Mark had been. A distraction from your situation, just like Mark had been. 

        Your touch moved up, to his lower belly. Up the muscles, tightly packed in white clothes. "Very nice."

        You weren't just buttering him up. The man was drool worthy. Part of your plans, yes, but a distraction you desperately needed. 

        He watched you, expressionless, gaze intense. You think he's going to crack. So you snatch his forearms and use them to pull yourself up. He gets the memo, ends up pulling you up himself, feet coming to the ground. "You shouldn't be on your feet for long." He said as you leaned in. Pressed your chest to his, arms going around his shapely waist, hands skimming across his broad back, head crooked in his shoulder despite the height difference because he was so much (taller/shorter) than you. His arms refolded behind his back. Heart hammering oddly in his chest as blood rushed low in his body. He knew what was happening but feeling it was another story. Territory he had never crossed into with the old you, too afraid to touch him in any capacity.  

        "I won't be." You grabbed the hammer and swung it down- pulling his stupid collar to the side and kissing his neck.

        He tensed. Crack. You kissed lower. Crack. He white-knuckled gripped his elbows. Crack. You trailed kiss, kiss, kiss, until you reached the nape of his neck where you sucked. He let out a nearly inaudible sigh. Crack.

        Gray knew he should make you stop this nonsense. But when you lathed your tongue up the side of his throat, groaning into his never-before-worshiped skin, his resolve disappeared. He wouldn't stop you, but he wasn't stupid. "He will return soon." Your husband. Technically not, but still he claimed the title. Humans took that title very seriously. Except you.

        You kissed his jaw, felt him swallow. Pulled back and looked at his embarrassingly flushed face and apparent hard-on. "I won't need much time."

        "Time for what?" He knew what you meant but... why? Why him? Why now? Usually he could think, figure you out but his mind was a haze tunneled on you. The questions quieted when you pressed your lips to his. Chapped and rough. The pressure was pleasant. 

        You pulled back, ending the feeling too quickly. "You gonna just stand there the whole time?" 

        He tilted his head. Wracking his brain. He'd never been kissed like this before, his mother had pressed them to his forehead and cheeks when he was young. He had seen mother and father kiss quick morning pecks, but that was no tutorial or training with his mentor. 

        You breathily laughed at his expression. "What? Big bad alien boy doesn't know how?"

        "There is no use for mashing lips together on Viltrum." He wanted his voice to be even but it warbled. Palms sweaty behind his back. 

        Your hand came to his neck, pressing gently, "Tilt your head like this." He did and went too far, you had to adjust him again. "Good, and I'll come in like this. Just follow my lead, okay?"

        He mirrored your parting lips. Was robo-stiff in the kiss while you moved, lips, jaw, and all. Teeth came down on his lip and made his hands slip behind his back and his cock throb in his uniform. When you slipped your tongue past his defenses, he had to reinforce his knees as not to fall. You did all the work while he let it happen. Trying to take mental notes, trying to commit the moment to moment while living in it. So unreal, so good. 

        When you pulled back, his lips followed yours. Pressing tentative kisses to your buzzing mouth. You chuckled, grinding your tongue against his just to hear his soft whimper. Then you left him, red faced and wanting, looking absolutely fucked-out from a little light kissing. "You've got a lot to learn." 

        "Activities like this were not part of my training regimen." Gray was unsubtly looking at your lips. Hands hovering, wanting to take your sides and press you to him but he didn't know if that was the right thing to do. He wanted you, but wanted it to be good, worthwhile the way you'd made it for him.

        You laugh. "That's fine, you're a fast learner."

        Which was true. Heat pulsed hard between your legs. You'd like to take him to the floor. Like to teach him a lot more, but you didn't have time to teach him to get your rocks off. You knew however, you had more than enough time to take care of his straining hard-on which had been delightfully pressing to your thighs. He had twitched, but hadn't dare truly hump your leg. 

        Your hands go from his sides, down the hard planes of his chest, over the needy bulge. He gasped, shuddered into your hand. "What are you-"

        "I think it's pretty obvious." You ran your hand slowly up and down. Watching his face tic and contort. "Do you want me to stop?"

        Gray's throat twinged as he tried to find breath, find words as you squeezed him ever so gently. "Don't." He just barely managed to sound composed.

        You grinned, touch leaving him a moment to move his skirt to the side. Without the gray fabric, you got a better idea of how pleased he was with his current predicament. Dick straining against the alien white cloth. "I've barely done anything to you, and you're this hard." Your teasing touch returns and his eyes go misty. "Are you sure you're the same guy who conquers planets?"

        "Yes." He replied stiffly.

        "I'm having a hard time believing that."

        "I was a part of three large scale invasions and countless solo scouting excursions-" You palmed at him harder now. Every tense of your fragile human fingers had the composed solider gasping and twitching. 

        "Wow, great dirty talk." You smiled as you sank to your knees. You paused, pulling hard at his pants that didn't seem to have an obvious fly. "How do you open this thing?" 

        He slid his thumb into an invisible seam beside his crotch but paused, "The others..."

        "Trust me, you'll be done before I even get started." 

        Still, Gray scanned the horizon. Nobody. Plus, you were... humiliatingly right. He'd never cum before but knew of the function. Knew his heart was hammering, his lower belly coiled tight, cock aching were all signs of what was to come. It'd be better to take care of his problem before anyone saw anyway. He pulled the fabric apart, held together by an invisible magnetic strip. 

        His cock sprang free in front of your waiting face. Thick and defined as the rest of him. Precum wept out the tip. Slippery and shiny on your hand as you brought it down, from tip to base. Gray had to actively prevent himself from thrusting into your palm as not to hurt you. He watched you, lips parted, gaze burning as you admired him. Jerking him off slow.

        "We," his chest heaved, fingers twitching, feeling pleasure he never had, "we don't have much time."

        You hummed, pressing a kiss to the side of his cockhead. Eyes looking up at him as your lips slowly captured him. Tongue lathing unhurried over the sensitive skin. Your jerked him off lazily from the thick base. Pushing and pulling his skin back but never enough to fully expose the flash of pink you saw. Not yet. You had to build him up. Make the chance for another blowjob like this worth risking his life.

        So you jerked him off, pushing more of your head down his cock. Bobbing lazily, eyes always locked on his. Moaning at the stretch of your lips around him. So big it was hard to swirl your tongue around anything but the bottom of him. Veins pulsing on your tongue. Tasting of salt and sweat. 

        Gray doesn't know what to say. Can't speak at all. All he can do is try to repress the moans that escape him, foreign as they sounded on his lips. Your mouth was wet, and warm, and so inviting. Lips good on his but so much better on his dick. Looking up at him like you needed this, not the other way around.

        His cockhead started to stretch the back of your mouth, soon to hit your throat. You moaned. Feeling a phantom of him in your cunt. Not really there but the thought of him inside you drove your head up, down, up, down until the only thing separating you from his pubic bone was your own hand. Which migrated to his thighs, trying to pull him closer, deeper, to fuck your throat. Fuck the pain away. 

        "Too-" He gasped, feeling your throat open up around him, feeling your lips press to his hips. Throat tight and vibrating with your moans, "Too much-"

        You should finish him off. The others could be back soon. You pulled your head back, feeling the regrettable loss of his girth from your mouth. His cock glistened with spit and a wishing well's worth of precum. It was too easy to grab his dick and pull the skin back, expose the lickable pink of his unsheethed head. 

        Your open mouth came down, tongue teasing along the bottom when Gray gutterly groaned. Shooting cum onto your waiting tongue. You paused. You were expecting him to not last long but wow. You hadn't even really gotten going.

        His chest rocked. Never before had someone, even an enemy or his mentor, left him so red and breathless. Then there was the feeling of cumming, so foreign, but like a straight shot of adrenaline after a hard battle. But there had been no battle. Only you and your flushed face and cum coated tongue that slipped back into your mouth. Throat bobbing before your lips reopened. His fluids gone down your tight throat. 

        If he hadn't gone soft, he'd cum again. 

        He could stare at you like this all night long. Wanted to return the favor, though he had no idea how. 

        Except you rocked back, patting his thigh, "Clean yourself up, think I see company."

        He was back in his pants. You were back sat by the fire with him yards away. You looked back at him, lips buzzing, tongue tasing of him, a smile that left him dizzy as you said, "Hey, I'm not doing that again unless those assholes are dead."

        You little...

        "I'll-" He swallowed, watching the figures grow closer but still out of earshot. "I'll confer with your husband."

        You didn't have the energy to be annoyed by the title.

        ***

        He never thought those assholes would leave. Always lurking in the fucked up castle they built. Always indulging in the freshest meat the desert could offer. They had to go out a search for you sometime. Through the madness, it was apparent that they'd lost hope. Looking was just a part of their schedule now. They expected nothing.

        Mohawk slipped inside the ruins. Knew what turns to take, he'd done this before. He'd been watching them for days. Stealing food from under their noses. 

        He's where they left him just... missing another piece. The first time Mohawk saw him, it was his broken forearm. Then it was his calf. Now, they'd taken the rest of the leg nearly up to the hip. Yet he still breathed, shallow in his unconscious stupor. Wounds wrapped tight in bloody cloth.

        He recalls your voice, missing it so much it hurt. You called him, the pathetic, plotting motherfucker- Phantom. 

        So he said it now, hoping the name would goad him into the world of the living. "Phantom."

        His head stayed dropped, chin to chest. Unmasked and sunburned. Scalp scabbed and stubbly from where they'd sheered off his hair with that knife that used to be yours. At first, they kept him masked, seeing their own face tortured was too weird, but the hair got in the way of remasking and the longer you stayed missing, the more they wanted him to hurt. They let his skin blister and peel. Broke his bones unhurried before tearing off the limbs and eating them raw. Mohawk had too grown used to the feel of wet, raw meat slipping down his throat. Had almost come to savor the taste, but never as much as those two.

        "Phantom." A little louder this time. Mohawk wasn't afraid of Lensless and Scars per se, but they could be back anytime. Give up leaving any day, eat Phantom whole and let their fragile brains collapse even further into ruin. "Hey."

        Phantom's head bobbed. "Whhaaa?" Mohawk was in front of him, holding him hard by the chin, forcing him to look up with those disgustingly blue eyes. Cloudy with hardly held on lucidity. 

        "Where is she, shithead?"

        Phantom hadn't told Scars or Lensless where you were despite the torture, so there was no way in hell he'd tell Mohawk. Would rather go to the grave then let them find you. But he wasn't planning on it. He told himself he'd escape sooner or later. He'd get back to you. Take care of Baldie. Be with you the way he had planned. Delusionally sure since they made the first cut.

        Phantom smiled before his body slumped. Unconscious again. Dying. 

        "Hey." Mohawk shook him. "Hey!"

        The building shuddered as one of them touched down, then the other. "Did you hear that?" Lensless. Home earlier than usual.

        "No."

        "I swore I heard something. Do'ya think he got loose?"

        Boots crunched glass and gravel as they made their way through the winding halls. Mohawk looked to Phantom, still unconscious, useless. Mentally promising to be back, to get answers, and if he didn't? He'd kill the fucker himself.

        Mohawk slipped out the busted window, flying low and thanking Art for his suit that melted into the night.

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

Ludos Imperiales 6

Summary: More battles and more bargains come into play as things go from bad to worse.

Content Warnings: Blood and Gore, Violence, Character Death (Unnamed); Mentions of Slavery/Assault/Incest (the twins are back)

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

-------

I’ve aged a decade in the time it takes to get inside the Imperial Palace. The blistering heat makes sweat bead down the back of my dress, every inch of heavy fabric feeling like it’s plastered to my skin. Everything feels too heavy on my body. I need to get home and into the tub, maybe with enough soap and water I will be able to purge the oppressive weight that clings to my skin.

Though I have my doubts. It’s not just the heat or the dirt, it’s this whole place. Everything I have known and loved about the city feels like it has been stripped down to nothing but the oozing, wretched thing that has been hidden beneath golden arches and layers of stark white marble. It reeks of a decay that has nothing to the crucified bodies hanging outside our doors.

Senators and Commanders mingle, wives dripping in expensive jewels hanging from their arms, laughing and talking about how magnificent this celebration for Amarantha is. I’d be shaking with the rage I feel clawing up my insides were it not for the way Rhysand still held me in his mental grip.

“Steady,” he warns for what feels like the fiftieth time today. I don’t know how he’s managed to stay so calm, especially when his men have been taken through the back streets of the city. There is a prison on the outskirts of the capitol, on the eastern wall, hopefully there will be less cruelty on the streets now that they’re away from the parade, but it is still a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It cannot be easy to be forced to stay here, with the enemy at every turn, while your men labor in a dungeon, yet he and Cassian, stand with their heads high behind me.

One of the guards untethered them from the back of my horse, but holding their chain in my hands is just as bad as leading them on horseback. Cassian gives me a wide berth, far enough away that if I take two steps ahead I’ll drag him by the throat. Azriel, however, hovers near my left shoulder, head down like he’s trying to hide, even as I watch his shadows slither down the back of his legs and scatter across the floor in search of something. One still remains coiled around my ear, hidden by my hair.

“Be careful around the twins,” I warn as my cousin catches my eye and makes her way towards us. She’d been too far behind us in the procession for me to see her reaction to the horrors, but, judging by the grin on her usually stoic face, I’d say she enjoyed it. 

Rhysand shifts so he’s standing behind my right shoulder, so I’m framed on either side by a towering Illyrian. Their presence is soothing, especially when Brannagh’s grin could peel paint. She obviously wants trouble. I’d be a fool to think the bloodshed outside was enough. She’ll need something to sink her fangs into before the night is over to be satisfied with the day. 

“There you are, cousin!” We have the same slate colored eyes and that is where the family resemblance stops. Everything about her is rigid and uniform and for so long being near her had made me feel like a lamb being watched by a lion. Yet, with the males at my back, I don’t feel so small anymore.

“I’m surprised you made it,” she says, eyes raking over Rhysand, then Azriel, then Cassian, sizing each of them up to see which would be an easier meal.

I’m suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to punch in her teeth. 

“First the Games, now this,” Dagdan says as he abandons an attempt to woo one of the Senators with his bullshit war stories, and joins us. “Maybe we are related after all.”

Rhysand withdraws his mental presence from my head and I draw my mental shields back up to make sure I keep the twins out. 

Brannagh walks a slow circle around us, tongue running over her lower lip. “I really didn’t think you were capable of this.” Her bony fingers reach out to flick the chain looped around their throats. “It’s a little… what’s the word you always throw at us? Barbaric for you?”

“All it took was Mommy Dearest to lose her head for you to grow a spine, huh?” Dagdan sneers.

Azriel’s shadow hisses angrily in my ear as his head jerks up off his chest. The glare he throws over my shoulder could melt a glacier, the heat in it seering across my skin. 

“This one’s pretty,” Brannagh coos at him, her fingers reaching out to brush across his cheek.

“Don’t touch him,” I bite out through my teeth. 

“Careful, we bite,” Cassian snarls.

This only makes Brannagh grin further and my first instinct is to draw all three of them behind my back, as if they were small children in need of protection and not three fully grown warriors. As if I had not seen them kill a Giant and a handful of Wargs in the Arena just yesterday. 

“Were they fun?” Brannagh teases, making another circle so she can draw her nails over Rhysand’s nearly bare chest.

Red tints my vision. 

“They look like they’d be a good fuck.”

I clench my hands into fists to keep my power from erupting and taking out everything in the room. Rhysand can’t save me from this one, not without them sensing his mental presence. And if we are to play this game, I need to be able to stand on my own two feet. I might not be the most skilled fighter in this room, but I have plenty of other weapons in my arsenal. 

“How would you know? The only thing you’ve ever fucked is Dagdan.”

She flinches like I’d punched her right in the stomach. It was all rumors of course, but the whispers were there. The twins still insisted on sharing a room; still went everywhere together. They were toxically co-dependant and on more than one occasion they’d mentioned old practices of keeping bloodlines pure. I knew it was a sore spot, I didn’t care very much if it was true. As long as the blow landed; as long as I had something strong enough to cut her, so the bond screaming in my ears didn’t prompt me to cut off the hand still lingering too close to my mate’s skin. They were not hers to touch. 

Cassian chokes out a cough, trying to keep back a laugh as Brannagh’s face twists. 

Dagdan’s teeth flash in a snarl.

I merely grin as I give the chain in my hands a very subtle tug. “I think we’re done catching up, cousin. Do enjoy the rest of the celebration.” I do my best to leave them in the dirt as we head deeper into the palace. I’m sure she’ll find a way to make me pay for the remark later, but for now, I’ll count it as a victory. 

The exchange took place in the open foyer, the roof held up by pillars and the outside world only separated by billowing sheer curtains. I mount the steps that lead us into a secondary foyer, where bubbling fountains and a pool of multicolored fish take up much of the space. Standing guard atop the fountains are twin statues of our gods of war and victory; the golden bowls at their feet overflowing with coins left by worshipers as they come and go from the Palace. We need more than a little luck and victory on our side and I leave a handful of coins on Victory’s altar. I will go to the Temple later and beg the Mother for forgiveness for how blind I have been, and seek a Priestess to make an offering for her blessing in what is quickly becoming an act of outright treason.

I feel Rhysand’s violet gaze on me as I make the offering. 

“The twins really are… like that?” Cassian asks as we round the fountain. It has to be morbid curiosity that prompts the conversation, but the fact that he’s speaking to me at all makes my heart race in my chest. I’ll take whatever scraps he’ll throw my way, if it only means he doesn’t hate me as much as he did yesterday.

“I’d be more surprised if they weren’t than if they were,” I say, unable to suppress a shutter when thinking about it. “They’ve always been… together… and weird about it.”

“Sure, and we’re the animals.”

I can see the back of Amarantha’s blood red head as the inner circle makes its way towards the atrium for food and whatever entertainment could be dragged into this den of vipers for the afternoon. Servants carrying goblets of wine drift through the clusters of visiting dignitaries and soldiers. There’s more than a couple armored gladiators, acting as guards for their sponsors, in attendance. I try to keep track of who belongs to who as we go, in order to give us an edge for the next match. Senators Beron and Tamlin, former lords from Prythians courts, now given new titles within the Empire for merging their kingdoms, both have sponsors shadowing them. The males have to be half Giant, with arms and thighs thick as tree trunks. Their armor has to be custom made to be able to fit them. I don’t know the names of either males, only that they’ve been employed long enough for their conditions in the Arena are they don’t fight Amarantha’s Attor. Too much money has been put into them to let them get torn to ribbons by that beast. 

I slide my way through the throngs of people to get closer. To play this game, there is no doubt that they will have to go back into the Arena a couple times. I need to start finding ways to give them an edge. I can start by seeing up close just how much taller they are then Cassian. If they have to go hand-to-hand in the future, I want to see how they compare next to each other so I can plan to get around it. 

The gladiators have at least two feet on Cassian, which makes me basically an ant in comparison. I already have to tilt my head up to look my mates’ in the eye, these males make me have to keep distance between us to be able to see anything other than they’re stomachs. 

Cassian is fairly nimble, from what I’ve seen so far, as long as the wound on his leg is healed by the next match, he can use that to his advantage. But the thought of having to watch him fight males this size makes my stomach twist. I’m going to need to do more than size up the competition. 

Beron is accompanied, as always, by several of his sons, but it is always Eris by his side. The well dressed male turns a grin in my direction when he catches sight of me. “Highness,” the bow is graceful, fox-like in a way that reminds me of Lucien, wherever he is in the crowd to avoid his Father. It’s not like him to leave Tamlin alone in these situations, they’re usually joined at the hip.

“It does me good to see you outside,” Eris continues, as he reaches out to take my hand and press a chaste kiss on the back of my knuckles.

Azriel’s shadow hisses in agitation in my ear as something hot flickers down the bond.

“It’s been too long since you’ve graced us with your presence.” I’ve known the Vanserra’s for a long time, Eris is not quite the flirt Lucien is, but he has no shortage of sway over females, males too for that matter. It had always surprised me that Father hadn’t tried to arrange a union between us. Eris was known, from time to time, to share the same savage brutality the Emperor valued in his court; it should have pleased him to have Eris for a son in law. 

“Are you finally feeling better?”

“It took longer than I expected to recover,” I say honestly. Better to not oversell anything; all lies have a little truth woven in. “But getting some air has been good.”

His russet gaze jumps to the males behind me, and the grin I’ve known for decades turns serpentine. “And profitable, I’d imagine?”

“For the Empire, of course, all earnings will go to aid the far reaches.”

“So I heard,” he nods, still studying them. “You always did have a bleeding heart, Highness. It is good to see it benefit you.”

The compliment feels underhanded, but so do most things around here. 

“When will we get to see them in action again?”

Talking about them like they’re not standing here makes me want to start smashing things, but I reign in my temper. “I was just about to ask you the same about your Father’s gladiators.”

He glances back at the male and shrugs. “Felix is always ready, but we’ve gotten no summons.”

Interesting. The Gamesmaker should already have a match-up in place, even if the Arena will be closed for repairs for a few days still. 

“How unfortunate, it’d be quite the fight for Cassian.”

I feel Cassian shift a little closer, the scent of sandalwood and snow-capped mountains invading my senses. It is an effort not to step back and lean into him, he’s never dared be this close before. 

“It would be quick,” he states.

Eris huffs a laugh. “For your neck to be broken, brute? Yes, we’d be in agreement.”

There’s a snap as Cassian’s wings ruffle and whip closed again, his agitation so clear I can taste it. The frayed edges of our bond simmer, but I can’t tell if the rage is his or my own. We are alike in that aspect.

“Who was summoned, then?” We can’t linger too long here, especially not for information I do not yet need. Rhysand still needs to get a better look around and we’re starting to linger on the stairs, people clustering behind us.

“Not Tamlin’s man either,” Eris says with a shrug. “I’m as in the dark as you.”

“You?” I force a teasing smirk to my features. “I thought you knew everything around here, Eris?”

His russet gaze darkens as his perfect teeth dart out to bite his lower lip. It’s a move I’ve seen thousands of people swoon over. “I’ll happily find out for you, Highness.”

Azriel’s shadow snarls in a language I can’t make out, but it is Rhysand’s side of the bond that ripples with promised violence. Is that jealousy I feel? I try to shove the thought aside; hoping that they feel this thing between us is too much to ask for. I will only hurt myself if I start to hope that I am more than a means to an end.

“Please do. I’d be indebted to you.” That’s all it takes for the Autumn male to bow and disappear into the crowd.

Senator Thessian and his large entourage of guards pushes past us on the stairs, the armored guard slamming into Rhysand from behind hard enough that he stumbles forward, hands reaching out to catch himself on my hips before he can take both of us to the floor. My whole body freezes under the contact, the warm press of his body against mine enough to make all rational thought fly out of my skull.

He leans in, like he might offer an apology, breath ghosting over my neck as his lips brush the shell of my ear. My whole body shivers in anticipation. “Clever, little vixen.”

The low baritone of his voice makes heat rush between my legs, something hot coiling in the pit of my stomach. Now the citrus and jasmine scent of him invades all my senses and I really, truly have no thoughts left in my head. 

My knees wobble as he gives my hip a squeeze, even as the bond roars at the loss of contact as he steps back. Maybe it’s just been awhile since I’ve been intimate with anyone, but that small amount of contact feels like an electric current beneath my skin. It is an effort to keep moving up the stairs and not turn and do something foolish, like press my lips to his and slide my fingers into his hair. 

The atrium is a wide, open room with tables piled with food lining the far walls. On the left are floor to ceiling windows, thrown open to let in the warm summer breeze, a few Praetorians standing at attention amidst the billowing curtains.. There are low couches along the walls, some of which are already taken. If not by anyone with a gladiator, I don’t linger on who sits where. 

A servant with a tray of wine passes and I snag one to try and calm the sizzling beneath my skin. I didn’t realize one of today’s many battles would be trying not to throw myself at my mates. 

There is a raised dais against the far wall, the couches and lounge chairs far more plush and ornate than the rest. Father has found his seat, a slightly less gaudy throne than usual, and reclines as a servant fans him with a palm frond. Amarantha has taken her usual seat on his right, reclining against one of her pleasure slaves. The male wears little but a strip of crimson fabric between his legs, every inch of bare skin lean and smooth. There’s another perched on the armrest of her chair, holding a goblet of wine for whenever she needs it; a third sitting at her feet, running idle fingers up the side of her calf. All that attention, and yet her dark gaze still tracks the males behind me with enough hunger I debate how much trouble I’d be in if I threw my own wine glass at her head.

She is not the only one who pays such close attention to the Illyrians. A couple dignitaries’ wives and high ranking soldiers gawk blatantly at how much skin they have on display. More than one head turns to get a better look at Rhysand’s ass in this get-up.  He neither cowers or preens under the attention; it’s like he doesn’t even register it. I can’t help but wonder if that was the point: Everybody is so busy ogling him, they’re not really paying attention to what he’s doing. It’s a good mask, it shields his intentions and lets him observe without it being obvious, but the way they look at him, like he’s a piece of meat makes me wish I had claws to scratch out their eyes. 

I take another sip of wine, trying not to look too desperate for the emptiness it’ll bring as I head in the direction of the dais. 

“You’ve surprised me,” Father says as we approach. It’s the first real acknowledgement he’s shown me all day.

The shadow curled around my ear burrows a little deeper under my hair to avoid detection, the soft ether brushing against a sensitive spot on my temple that has me gripping the wine glass a little tighter to keep from reacting.

“As I said, I am trying to do better, Father.”

His gaze flicks to the chain in my hand, down the length of it like he’s inspecting the strength of each wrung before finally arriving on the occupants tethered to it. He grins in triumph as he takes in their attire. Maybe they were right to ignore what I’d brought out. It certainly looks like I’ve intended to humiliate them by dressing them in the same attire many of the Senator’s slaves are sporting. 

“Tell me how you managed to bring the three of them to heel when Amarantha couldn’t?” 

Amarantha bristles in her seat, her perfect teeth flashing in her pale face.

Another small victory. 

“Tell him you instructed the healer to give us a sleeping drought in our wine.” The twins haven’t reappeared and his sudden return in my head nearly makes me jump out of my skin. “And faebane in the water this morning.”

I repeat his instructions as I move to take the seat that is mine on his left and force myself not to think about how it’s a couch instead of a chair like his because it used to be shared with my Mother. 

“You’re hoping to acquire mirthroot in the city to keep us docile until the next match.”

I repeat that too, making a mental note to ensure that I follow through with it. He will monitor my every move in the city, if I don’t follow through, he’ll know it and then we’re dead. An issue that seems far less pressing when Rhysand’s hand brushes over my wrist. Watching him in the Arena did nothing to show just how agile he is, not when he expertly maneuvers my hand towards his chest, the chain blocking his part in this. The next thing I know, I’m moving to sit and he’s falling into the couch behind me so it looks like I pushed him down into the seat so I could recline against his chest. The motion takes him seconds, it looks like he rehearsed it down to the exact placement of the chain to hide the fact that he’d been the one moving me and not the other way around. 

Azriel seats himself on the armrest wordlessly; Cassian grunting as he sits on the floor with his back against the couch. I get the distinct impression he is only keeping his shoulder against my knee because being any farther away would mean his wings were in reach of Father’s hands. 

It takes me a minute to find my bearings again as my brain short circuits over how close they all are. Rhysand’s heartbeat is steady against my back, his skin warm even through the fabric of my dress. He lets his head lean back against the back of the couch, feigning exhaustion or maybe repulsion from being “forced” to be this close to me. I’m close enough that I could run my hand up Azriel’s thigh if I wanted, and damn me do I want to. Or close enough to Cassian that my fingers itch to brush through the thick strands of his hair. It is a cruel trick of fate that my mates are close enough for me to touch and I can’t.

At the mention of the mirthroot, one of Amarantha’s males leans around the Emperor to offer a rolled cigarette, even dried the hint of mirthroot is obvious. The male’s eyes are glassy, shining under the effects of it himself, the grin on his features lazy and unbothered. Far too soft a male to be shackled to Amarantha. 

I tap Cassian on the shoulder to prompt him to take it. A mistake because he flinches like I hit him and I think I might have undone any effort I’d made to get him to at least tolerate my presence. He snatches the offered cigarette, and the liter that follows and passes it back to me with a huff.

The Emperor watches the exchange with more interest than he’s ever shown me in my life. “What would you have done, Amarantha?” He asks.

“The same,” she says through her teeth. 

I take a deep breath through my nose to keep from making a disgusted face at her. “Ember said that’s what she used to do for Amarantha’s slaves before she came to my keep, so I simply took a page out of her book.” 

I pass the cigarette and liter to Azriel, and pray the sight of the flames doesn’t cause the same reaction it had when he’d been branded. He grits his teeth, but there is no angered flash down the bond or hiss from the shadow to indicate it’s anything other than a show as he lights it and takes a long drag. 

“I’m glad to see that in your seclusion you’ve finally grown half a brain,” Father says. “I was beginning to worry that your Mother’s poisoned tongue had gotten to you.”

I flinch despite myself and all three of the males tense around me. Cassian’s jaw ticks, the flutter of movement brushing across my knee. For the first time all day, his hazel gaze flicks to me, and  maybe it’s a trick of the light, but I swear I see a flash of pity there.

“No, it didn’t,” I whisper, unable to put any feeling into the words. I haven’t been back here since the execution. I’d found every reason to avoid it. Being back feels like peeling a scab off the wound and letting it bleed all over the floor.

Azriel takes another drag and I wish more than anything to take a hit of it myself and numb this feeling in my chest. What I would give for the empty numbness that had filled me in the early months of my grief. There are so many tangled emotions here, between the loss and my mates and the horrors of what we just witnessed outside. I cannot pick just one to focus on; can’t find some outlet to expel the building pressure. It all tangles and lodges itself in my throat like it's trying to drown me.

Rhysand’s fingers brush over my arm as he draws his hand up to take the cigarette from Azriel. To an onlooker it looks accidental, maybe it is, maybe I’m just reading into it, but even that faint brush drags me back to the surface for a bit of air again. At least I am not alone in the water anymore. Mother had always been emotionless, nothing got to her. I was always the one that felt too much. At least now the emotions can be shared.

“Your actions yesterday inspired me,” the Emperor says after a beat. 

Apprehension licks its way up my spine.

“I haven’t taken a champion of my own in a long time. It’s become dull, betting on someone else’s man.”

Shit!

Azriel’s shadow dares to peek out around my bangs, observing the crowd as they begin to settle in their seats with plates of food, as if on some silent command. Brannagh and Dagdan join us on my left, on the seat closest to the dais, the stare they level at me hot enough to melt glass. So much for Rhysand being in my head the rest of the evening. 

With a wave, the Emperor motions over a creature I have no name for. It walks on two legs like a man, but is covered head to toe in thick, brown, fur. Horns curl from the top of its head; a beak with a hooked tip jutting from its face. Its hands end in talons like that of a bird, but there are five on each hand instead of three. Its tunic has been folded down around its waist, leaving its chest bare, revealing a spider web of scars gouged through the heavy layer of fur. A thin, whip-like tail ending in a spiked tip flicks back and forth behind it as it walks, each step sending a shutter through the Palace. 

My skin pricks with goosebumps. Some strange sort of alchemy made this thing.

“I was hoping to test it in the Arena, but with the repairs in order, I thought a smaller show would do just as well.”

My stomach hurdles into my throat.

“Why don’t we pick one of your champions to break it in, daughter?” The Emperor suggests as if this is a thought that just came to him and not something he’s been planning from the beginning. 

I take another sip of wine as I turn to look at him, trying to steady the rapid pounding of my heart. I can’t let one of them fight this thing! Its maw opens and snaps shut with a clack as it stands before us, growing impatient.

“I’d personally like to see Cassian’s thick skull get crushed like a watermelon,” Amarantha chimes in from her seat.

I’m really going to throw up right here in front of all these people.

“A splendid idea from our woman of the hour, don’t you think?” He grins like he’s caught me, like he knows I’ve been playing games and have walked right into his trap.

“Nothing can be as bad as listening to you speak, Amarantha,” Cassian snarls as he gets on his feet, effectively making the decision for me.

He cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders, wings ruffling behind him, but before he can step into the center of the room, he turns to face me, much to my surprise. Hands scarred from swordplay reach out to give the chain around his neck a little tug. “Mind letting me off the leash, Princess?”

One of the Praetorian steps forward to unchain him but I stand and snag the key from his hand instead. I’ve seen enough males get stabbed or injected with something right before a fight to give the opponent an upper hand to know I can’t trust anyone near him. And, maybe, just maybe, the act of giving him a little relief from the chain might make him not hate me so much.

My hands shake as I reach up to his neck to unclasp the chain. I know better than to take the whole collar off while there are so many people watching even if I wish I could. His breath is warm on my face as he watches me, waiting for his moment of freedom. The urge to stretch up on my toes and kiss him for luck is overwhelming; maybe in another life we could have. 

I step back with the chain in my hand and return to my seat before I can follow my impulses. 

Cassian turns to face his opponent and even though I saw him perform yesterday, I can’t shake the sinking feeling that I have just sent him to his death. The creature sizes him up like it's calculating the best spot to take a bite out of him and its beady eyes settle on the bandage tied around his bare thigh.

Rhysand leans forward, resting his chin on my shoulder to watch, arm loosely looped over my waist. It looks casual. No one bats an eye at the gesture, but I am pretty sure he’s done it so he can keep me from jumping off the couch.

Azriel leans forward, bracing himself with his knees on his elbows, hazel gaze tracking the steps of Cassian’s opponent as he also calculates its weak spots. 

“Let’s make it interesting, shall we?” The Emperor asks, leaning over to be heard over the rush of excitement the audience gives to the challengers.

I tear my gaze away from where I’m trying to memorize every line in Cassian’s wings, every curve of tattoo over his back and shoulders, just in case. “How so?”

“Cassian wins and I’ll let you pick their next opponent in the arena,” he suggests. 

I like the offer; it gives them a better chance at surviving. 

“Cassian loses, and you give Rhysand to Amarantha.”

The world flips and spins and the roaring in my ears has me clutching my hands in my skirts to keep a surge of power from destroying the room. My power singes the fabric, only the smoke from the mirthroot hides the smell. 

There is no way in Hel I am making that kind of bet!

Rhysand stiffens behind me, heartbeat skipping for half a moment before he pretends to be unbothered by the comment and takes another drag of the mirthroot. 

I’d rather throw myself on a blade than chance that. Cassian is an exceptional fighter, but I cannot take that risk. I am already risking his life by letting him fight like this, how can I risk both of them?

My chest aches. There are too many opportunities to lose them. Too many things that can go wrong. 

“And let our people think I am weak and incapable of following through on the deal we made yesterday?” I challenge. My voice trembles as I fight to hold his gaze steady. 

Azriel’s shadow hisses what sounds like a warning in my ear.

“You know if we split them up now it makes me look as if I can’t handle them.”

“Attached, are we?”

“No, but I am tired of looking weak,” I hiss. “If Amarantha wants them, she can challenge me for them herself.”

Rhysand stiffens behind me. The twins are too close for him to slip into my mind again, but I can practically feel him shouting at me down the bond.

She huffs a laugh around the other side of him, “As if you’d stand a chance in that!”

I ignore her as I hold my ground with my Father, “You have always thought so little of me.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“So if you really want to make this interesting, then fine. If Cassian wins, I pick when and who all their matches are with. And if he loses, well, you’ve already chosen a husband for me I’m sure, so you can speed up the process and I’ll provide them the heir you so desperately want by the end of the year.”

The bond shakes so hard in my chest it feels like Azriel’s screaming in my ear. Rhysand has gone still as death behind me and I didn’t think I said it that loud, but Cassian’s head whips in our direction, eyes wide.

Father throws his head back and laughs at that. “This new found confidence is amusing. I will allow you to pick the next two fights, but not all.”

Better than nothing.

“Deal.”

I think I can hear Azriel’s teeth grinding together beside me, so I force myself not to look at him. The bond thrums like he’s in physical pain and I hate that I have caused it, but I will not barter with their lives.

“To first blood!” The Emperor calls to the room.

“To the death!” Brannagh chants instead. 

When this whole Empire goes up in flames, I’m pushing her in first.

The crowd begins to murmur to themselves, debating. “I’ll put some money on it if they fight to the death,” Tamlin tosses out. 

“As will I!” Shouts a commander whose name I’d never learned.

The motion goes around the room in a full circle, by the time the Emperor concedes, I’ve drank my full glass and abandoned it on the couch. Didn’t we just do this?

The Praetorians provide blades for the two males, but the Emperor’s creature can’t hold the blade with its claw tipped hands and tosses it to the ground with a screech. Its barbed tip tail draws back behind it as it drops into a defensive stance. 

I forget how to breathe as Cassian drops into his own.

Time slows in a familiar sensation of undiluted horror as the creature moves first, striking forward with its tail like a spear. Cassian pivots back a step, rearranging his feet as he blocks with the sword.

The crowd cheers excitedly and I distantly recognize coins changing hands as they take bets, but cannot tear my eyes away enough to watch who is participating in it. Cassian remains on the defensive as the creature rears its tail back and attacks from the other side of its body this time, testing the Illyrian’s reaction time. When the strike is blocked a second time, it switches tactics and goes for a punch, talons extended towards Cassian’s face.

While the creature is taller, it is not as agile, and Cassian side steps out of the way of the blow, using the momentum to lunge into the next step and strike the tip of his sword across his opponent’s stomach. Its ear shattering screech shakes the room as the blade makes contact, drawing black blood. If it wasn’t for Brannagh, the challenge would be over, Cassian would have won. It would have been easy for once.

Enraged, the creature strikes with its talons again, missing a second time, but catching Cassian in the jaw on the backswing. The whole room can hear Cassian’s teeth clack together as he stumbles backwards.

It takes everything in me not to squeeze my eyes shut, not to wince and react to every blow. I have to keep telling myself that this is part of the game and I cannot give them away, but by the Mother it is harder and harder with every passing second!

Rhysand remains with his chin propped up on my shoulder, the bulk of his weight keeping me in my seat. I so desperately want to reach out and take his hand, give myself something to ground in, but I can’t. I have to accept that this might be all we’re ever allowed to touch, especially after today.

The creature strikes again with its tail, once, twice, a third, each like a punch. The third blow shatters Cassian’s sword into pieces and my heart plummets into my stomach as he dodges a fourth assault. He’s not so fast on the fifth and that barbed tip punches right through his bandaged thigh! Blood splatters as the tips hurdles through muscle and sinew until it pushes through the back of his leg.

One of the dignitaries' wives reaches for a bucket and wretches as Cassian’s roar of pain rattles my teeth. 

Azriel flinches, looking like he might just jump into the fight and stop it, but then catches himself. 

The bond screams and bashes against my insides as my powers flare again, singing more of my skirts as I hold them in a death grip that only worsens as the creature yanks the barb back out of Cassian’s leg, bringing him to the floor. Blood pours from the wound from both ends, cascading down his calf to make a puddle on the stark white tile.

There’s enough of my skirts to hide the motion, Rhysand buries his hand beneath them to hold onto my hip tight enough to bruise. I don’t know if that’s to keep me in place or himself. 

The creature snarls out a noise that sounds like triumph as it pulls its hand back, aiming to use its claws to sever Cassian’s head.

Not again! Not again! Not again!

I have to stop this! I have to do something!

At the last second, Cassian throws himself out of the way, knees tucked to his chest as he rolls out of reach, right to where the creature’s discarded sword lies. He snags the blade with a grunt, one hand pressed to the gaping wound in his thigh as he pushes himself back onto his feet. His face twists in pain at the slightest movement, but he manages to stay upright. 

Rhysand breathes a little easier behind me, but his grip on my hip hasn’t let up.

The Emperor frowns beside us, displeased with the outcome thus far no doubt. He really expected this to be easy. 

The creature strikes again, sticking to what it has found successful, and it becomes a mistake. Cassian twists at the last second, blade raised so when the strike comes, he doesn’t need to block it. At this angle, not only does it miss him, he has a height advantage and he brings the sword down as hard as he can, cleaving the tail in half. The barbed tip hits the floor twitching as the creature reels backward and wails.

Holy shit! I’ve seen a lot of warriors in my life, but I don’t think I’d ever describe them as beautiful until now. Each move is calculated, backed with training and muscle. His tattoos seem to come to life with his body as his muscles shift and strike. 

He doesn’t let up as his opponent stumbles back either, he uses the distraction to his advantage and plunges the sword into the creature’s shoulder. He might have been aiming for the heart, but the wound in his leg gives him too great a limp to lunge far on. The blade catches in bone, the resounding crunch deafening in the domed ceiling, and when he reels back to pull it out, he twists it just enough to make his opponent’s arm absolutely useless.

With two of its preferred methods of fighting gone, the creature bends at the waist and charges with a roar, hoping to use its horns like a battering ram into Cassian’s chest.

An otherwise horrifying sight, if Cassian didn’t laugh and step dramatically out of the way so the creature rams right into the wall. “Is that really all you’ve got?” He taunts as a rain of dust falls on his head. 

The creature screeches as it yanks itself free from the wall and shakes its head, clearing the debris from its beady eyes. 

Cassian spins the blade in his hand, adjusting his grip, and I think it might be one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

He can’t crouch with his leg, but he doesn’t need to. The creature tries to ram him again and he dodges and brings his hilt down on its neck, knocking it to the floor. He wastes no time in rearing back with the blade and bringing it down, easily cleaving the creature’s head from its shoulders. 

Amarantha throws up her hands in a huff at the sight.

I finally take what feels like my first breath in an hour as Cassian tosses the blade on the floor. He did it! He won!

Azriel removes his elbows from his knees and reclines back against the armrest, clearly satisfied with the outcome. 

“Excellent! Excellent!” Praises the steward as he goes about helping anyone who placed bets collect their proper earnings. 

I tear my gaze away from the carnage to the nearest guard, “Find him a healer, now.” Before he bleeds out on the floor or Father decides he has another champion he wants to test. 

The Emperor takes a long drink from his goblet, eyes narrowed on the severed head the staff has to now clean off the floor. Around him, his dignitaries drink and argue over why they bet the way they did. It is business as usual, completely unbothered by the blood around them. 

When he finally turns to me, I have to brace myself against the anger simmering in his eyes. This is usually the part where I put my chin to my chest and try to make myself as small as possible. Usually. But not today. 

“It seems I’ve underestimated their talent for bloodshed.”

Cassian hobbles back over to us and I make a show of telling Azriel to help him before he gets blood everywhere, so no one thinks I just let them wander off on their own. 

“The Games will continue at the start of next week,” the Emperor continues.

That gives us days. I try not to look at the gaping hole in Cassian’s thigh. Thank the Mother it looks like it missed bone, but how is he supposed to participate with that? There’s no way it heals in time, even if I have Ember work twelve hours a day on him.

“I expect you to have their opponent picked out by the Senate meeting in the morning. You still have that end of your bargain to uphold.”

This victory will not be without repercussions, but it is still a victory nonetheless, and we have to take what we can get.

--

Managing to procure the mirthroot I need to trick my Father into thinking I’m following through with the regime I’d given him, as well as finding horses for the Illyrians to ride back on takes longer than usual, given the massive partying happening in the streets. We have to take the backroads home to avoid being pelted with more rocks, or outright mobbed. Compared to the rest of the day, the journey is uneventful, spent mostly with the others ensuring Cassian doesn’t pass out on the horse. 

The sun is already changing colors by the time we return to the River House, but I know if I try to prepare for bed now I’ll never sleep. Instead, I leave Anise with instructions to look into potentially safe opponents in the Arena, so when I see Eris again tomorrow I can compare their notes, and then set out for the Temple built on the edge of the property. 

I doubt there are enough blood offerings and animal sacrifices to cleanse the sins of this Empire, but I offer as many as I can in apology for my part in it. I don’t know how I’ve been so blind to all of it. I can’t stop seeing it now, it should have always been so obvious to me.

The Priestesses do not ask why I linger for over an hour, praying long past the time it takes for my offerings to burn atop the altar. I’d hoped that, if I said them hard enough, the weight of the day would slip off my shoulders. I’d thought, with enough sacrifices, the guilt would ease, but I can still feel my mates’ agitation and pain clearly through the bond. 

I return to the House as weary as before. Tomorrow will be a whole new set of problems. I cannot put it off by lingering in the Temple. 

The walk doesn’t clear my head, or loosen the tension, and I climb into the tub with that same heaviness still clinging to my skin. I heat the water as hot as I can, hoping it might cleanse me in a way my sacrifices couldn’t.

Exhaustion creeps its way in as I scrub and scrub and scrub until my skin is pink. Every time I close my eyes I can see the crucified bodies, gasping for air as they slowly suffocate under the weight of their own body pinned to the wood. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that sight; I can only imagine how it would feel to know each of those males before this. The bond still swirls beneath my skin, heavy with agitation the hot water can’t touch. 

I wish there was a way to take that from them, but how can I do that without calling attention to the mating bond? 

I give myself a few extra minutes in the blissful heat before dragging myself out and tossing a silk robe over my waterlogged skin. My brush is on the vanity where Anise left it this morning and I have just started to brush the knots out of my hair when I hear the bedroom door open. My hand stills halfway through my hair; it is unlike Anise to not announce herself when it’s this late. 

The door clicks shut again, the eerie silence that follows enough to make my heart drop into my stomach. The darkness of the room makes it hard to see beyond the candlelight that fills the bathing chamber and my hand goes instinctively into the vanity drawer, where my Mother had always kept an extra knife. The blade is cool in my fingers, the handle smooth and undamaged from never being used. The benefit of having constant guards is you usually never see the threats against you, though there are always exceptions.

There’s no footsteps on the carpet, but I can practically feel movement next to my bed. 

I’m a sitting duck here among all the candlelight, but if I step into the darkness beyond I’ll be totally blind. Better to wait for something to make itself known. 

I suppose there’s enough guards around, I can always start screaming for help if it comes down to it.

A heartbeat passes before something dark and snakelike comes slithering across the floor. The ether loops itself around my ankle and crawls up my thigh like a purring cat before the shadow takes its perch behind my ear.

I set the knife on the vanity with a sigh of relief as Azriel steps into the light. “You scared the shit out of me!”

His shadow caresses the back of my ear in apology, far more expressive now than it was earlier. “Sorry.”

He side steps out of the doorway, but not in my direction, which is odd until Rhysand steps out of the shadows behind him.

“How did you two get in here?”

“Found the lever on the door to your secret tunnel,” Azriel says as his eyes trace up my bare legs, brazenly taking in all the damp skin I have on display.

Heat flushes up my cheeks and I have to look away from him. The candlelight and the hour of the evening makes this feel more intimate than it should, given the way Rhysand looks like he might burst out of his skin. I certainly shouldn’t be entertaining the idea that Azriel would look at me as anything other than a means to an end. Hope is too dangerous a thing to have right now. Just because we agreed to do this, doesn’t mean they’re anxious to accept me as anything other than help. Besides, I need to remind myself that it will be even more dangerous for us than it already is if we were to acknowledge the bond.

 “We were careful, no one saw us,” Azriel assures.

I should be relieved that they’re being safe about it, but the frown on Rhysand’s face makes me rethink it.

“What the hell were you thinking back there?!” He snarls.

Normally, that kind of outburst from a male would make me jump back in surprise, but at this point I’m too exhausted to move, let alone figure out what the hell he’s referring to. “I’ve had a lot of thoughts today, Rhysand, you will have to be more specific.”

The chain rattles around his neck as he steps further into the room, like it's fighting to hold back his powers. “Your bet with Hybern!”

Ah, right. That. “What of it?” Is he really still upset about that? Cassian won, nothing was lost.

Azriel winces and the shadow at my ear hisses in warning. 

“What of it?” He repeats, his voice rising to an octave just shy of shrill, like he can’t believe he heard me right. “You can’t just offer yourself up like that!”

“And what was my alternative?”

“He gave you an alternative!” He seethes. “All you had to do was say yes!”

I fold my arms over my chest in irritation, but I don’t miss the way both their eyes dip to my chest at the motion. “Oh so it’s ok for you to put your body on the line, but I can’t do the same with my own? Seems a little hypocritical, if you ask me.”

“That’s different!”

“How so?”

He’s inched his way into my space step by step, until I’m very aware of the jasmine and citrus scent of him. Sometime after he returned home he’d changed into the clothes I’d had laid out for him, the swirl of ink along his chest just barely poking out around the dark collar. Even hidden, the urge to reach out with my hands and trace the swirls with my fingers remains. 

“Because,” he says through his teeth. “It’s not a deal I can live with.”

“You don’t have to live with it because Cassian won anyway,” I retort, tearing my gaze away to look at Azriel. Rhysand is too close to me like this. I can barely think past the urge to touch him, let alone hold the argument like I need to. “Tell him he’s being ridiculous.”

Azriel folds his arms over his chest and frowns. “He’s not. You shouldn’t have made that deal.”

I throw my hands up and push past Rhysand, trying to give myself room to breathe. “You two are impossible!”

They follow like I’m still holding onto their leashes, footsteps somehow impossibly silent despite their size.  

“You’re honestly going to stand there and tell me you’d rather I offered you up to Amarantha?”

“If it meant you were safe,” Rhysand snarls. “Yes.”

I find myself gritting my teeth, a snarl working its way up my throat. “Well that’s not a deal I could live with, Rhysand.” 

Their legs are a hell of a lot longer than mine, Rhysand manages to snag my arm and turn me back around to face him before I make it more than three steps into the darkness of my chambers. 

His face looks strained, eyes rimmed red. He has to be exhausted. The bond feels fragile, strained from all the emotions that have been blared down it today. “I need you to find a way to deal with it,” he says, voice verging on pleading. 

I hate myself, but I can’t help but wonder what the hand holding onto my bicep would feel like travelling down the rest of my body. 

“Whatever you have to tell yourself, whatever you have to do, I… We need you to find a way to live with it.”

Azriel comes to stand on the other side of him, so they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder. “If Cass had lost and you had to…” even in the dim light coming from the bathroom I can see the heaviness in his eyes. 

I glance back and forth between them. ��You’ve all suffered enough, I can handle myself. I knew what I was doing.”

Rhysand shakes his head, “I can bear a lot of things, but not that.”

Hope is a cruel bastard, and I’ve never learned to master it. “Why? What does it matter to you?”

He lifts the hand not holding onto my arm, fingers just barely brushing over my damp cheek and my heartbeat is suddenly very loud in my own ears. His mouth opens like he might say something, and then he clamps it shut again, debating with himself over the words.

While he can’t seem to find the words, Azriel’s scarred hand reaches out to gently grab my chin and tilt my face in his direction. “It matters,” he huffs, voice low and rich and the reverberations of it send shivers down my spine. “Because you’re our mate.”

------

Author's Note: Hehe was gonna wait for the reveal at the end but couldn't bring myself to do it. Let me know what you thought about it! And as always, if you want to be added to the taglist, let me know :)

@sirenpearldust, @saltedcoffeescotch, @littlemissfix-itfic, @waka-babe, @raisam

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@anainkandpaper, @rafeecameronsbitch, @whothehelliskayleigh, @lifetobeareader, @blimpintime,

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@hjgdhghoe, @krowiathemythologynerd, @urfunnyvalentin3, @mack234-blog1, @kissfromnovalie

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@of-outerspace, @erencvlt, @corvusmorte, @lindsayjoy444,

[ghoulmore-girl]

🌟 Pick a Jiji & I’ll Tell You What You Need More of in Your Life 🐾✨

(aka: hobbies, joy-sparking things, little rituals to make your soul feel less like burnt toast)

Hey sweet bean!🐱💕 This is a cozy lil Pick A Card (or… Pick a Cat) reading where each pile is represented by a different photo of our favorite sassy familiar: Jiji, the iconic black cat from Kiki’s Delivery Service. Big eyes, big attitude, big guidance energy!!👀🔮

🔮 How to choose: Take a deep breath, exhale your last three intrusive thoughts, and look at the lil Jijis below. Which one is silently judging you in a supportive way? Which one gives you "you know what you need?" energy?

That’s your cat. That’s your pile!!!🐈‍⬛✨

This PAC is focused on the vibe of: “What’s something you should add into your life right now?”

Whether it’s a new hobby, a cozy routine, a mindset shift, or just something fun for your inner child — we’re getting messages from the universe (and a cat with eyebrows).

Take what resonates. Leave what doesn’t. Pet a cat if one is nearby. You deserve joy!!!

Pics order, from left to right: Pile 1 - Pile 2 - Pile 3

Pile 1 — Hiding Jiji 🐾 "ouch, baby. very ouch." 😔💥

Your Cards: The Tower (x2!! including Lenormand) - Two of Pentacles (Reversed) - Queen of Cups - Seven of Pentacles - Ten of Cups - Page of Swords - Ace of Cups - Ten of Pentacles - Five of Pentacles (Reversed)

Lenormand: Tower, Ring, Stork

Your Message: Okay. Let’s start with a soft hug. This pile is big emotional reboot energy. You’ve either just gone through something that felt like everything suddenly breaking open… or you’re in the aftershocks of it. That double Tower? Yeah. The universe flipped your table. Messy, loud, dramatic — and maybe a little overdue.

The Reversed Two of Pentacles says you’ve been juggling too much or just trying to hold everything together with duct tape and “I’m fine” energy. Bestie, you don’t have to be fine right now.

BUT here’s the thing — there’s so much healing, growth, and love in this pile. Like yes, you’ve been cracked open… but now there’s room for real joy to sneak in!!! The Queen of Cups, Ace of Cups, and Ten of Cups are all saying: Let your heart breathe again. You're safe to care. To connect. To dream of beautiful things again — even if the past made that feel risky.

The Page of Swords shows that your brain might be on alert right now — super watchful, maybe a little anxious. That's okay. You're just trying to understand things before you trust them. But it’s safe to be curious without assuming the worst.

And oh my stars — Ten of Pentacles + Reversed Five of Pentacles?? You are not as alone as you think. You are calling in security, belonging, community — even if it's slow. Someone (or something) real wants to stay. It just might look different than what you expected.

What You Might Need More Of Right Now:

Something grounding + creative. Try hobbies that build over time: journaling, scrapbooking, painting, baking, even learning about home design or slow fashion. Let yourself nest, emotionally and literally.

Rituals of safety. Tea-making, playlist-making, night walks, tending to plants or a pet. Create tiny anchors of stability.

Something emotionally expressive. Cry to a movie. Make a playlist that understands you. Try writing or drawing the “before and after” of how you’ve changed. Maybe dancing could help too?

Connection. Even if it’s soft and small. Book clubs, comment sections, Discord servers, making a silly Pinterest board about your dream future. Let others witness your joy — not just your pain.

And the Lenormand is so sweet:

The Ring says you are meant for meaningful connection. Something long-term and soul-nourishing is possible.

The Stork (with that lil nesting couple) says it’s okay to want softness, home, and comfort. You’re allowed to build a cozy life — and you don’t have to do it alone.

The Tower here isn’t scary — it’s boundaries, structure, a fresh foundation. You’re rebuilding with care now. Not from fear, but from knowing what you actually need.

🌸 Final Vibe: You’re not behind. You’re becoming whole in a new way. The fall was rough, yes — but now you get to grow toward things that are actually stable, soft, and sacred. Let joy feel safe again. Let comfort be enough. You’re allowed!!!!💖

Pile 2 — chaotic Jijij 🐾 "I don't need help — [narrator voice] They needed help. "😌⚔️

Your Cards: Knight of Swords - Three of Pentacles - Justice - Six of Cups (Reversed) - The Emperor - Five of Pentacles (Reversed) - Eight of Swords - Ten of Swords - The Sun - Ten of Cups - Nine of Wands

Lenormand: The Man, The Tower, The Ship

Your Message: Okay. First of all: this pile is giving “I can do it myself” but also “why is no one helping me??” vibes. Sweetheart. You don’t have to carry everything on your back while sprinting toward a goal and ignoring the emotional chaos in your rearview mirror.

The Knight of Swords starts us off like: “Go go go — no time to feel!!” You’ve got drive, ambition, and maybe even a touch of urgency. But paired with cards like the Eight of Swords and Ten of Swords? It feels like you’re mentally exhausted. Possibly overwhelmed. You might be pushing so hard forward you haven’t stopped to check if you’re dragging old pain behind you like a suitcase full of bricks.

The Three of Pentacles and Justice are saying: "Hey. You need support systems. You deserve fairness." This might be about work, family, relationships — but it’s saying you don’t have to do everything alone to prove you’re "strong". Real "strength" is in letting someone in. Even a little. Even imperfectly.

The Reversed Six of Cups is interesting. You might be holding onto an outdated version of yourself — or maybe you’ve been defining your current worth by your past struggles. Babe. You’ve changed. You’re allowed to change the story, too.

The Emperor + The Tower (Lenormand) give this pile Big Boundary Energy™. You’ve been holding it together. You’ve built your walls. You run things. But at what cost? Sometimes a soft boundary is stronger than a brick one. You can still be in charge without being alone.

Now, let’s talk Ten of Cups + The Sun real quick: YES. These are here. There is so much potential for joy, peace, and genuine emotional fulfillment. You’re not broken. You’re tired. And that’s a huge difference.

The Reversed Five of Pentacles says: help is closer than you think. But you might have to actually ask for it. Or let yourself receive it without guilt.

The Nine of Wands is giving “battle weary but still standing.” You’re a resilient little raccoon and I respect that. But let yourself rest. Seriously.

What You Might Need More Of Right Now:

Collaborative hobbies. Try something where you’re not the only one in charge — like joining a group class, playing co-op games, doing D&D, or even sharing a creative project online.

Structured creativity. Coding, building LEGO kits, embroidery, puzzles, bullet journaling — stuff that uses your brain and gives it focus without stress.

Connection that doesn't drain you. Online friends, quiet quality time, sharing memes, sending voice notes. Let yourself be seen, even in small ways.

Something slow and sunny. Gardening, sketching outdoors, long walks, making playlists for your ideal cottagecore life. Napping in the sun. Meditating on the grass. Make a flower crown. Build a bouquet. Rewire your brain with softness.

Lenormand Time:

The Man might represent someone significant — maybe a masculine presence that’s challenging, supportive, or about to show up with A Lesson™.

The Tower again = boundaries, solitude, sometimes even isolation. Consider: are your walls keeping you safe or keeping you stuck?

The Ship = movement. Forward motion. Exploration. You are heading somewhere better. It’s okay to pause and recalibrate, but don’t anchor yourself to pain that already taught you what you needed.

🌻 Final Vibe: You don’t have to fight every battle alone. Let joy be a part of your strategy. Let softness count as strength. You are allowed to feel safe without having to earn it through constant effort. The sun is still shining, even when you’re not looking.☀️

Pile 3 — jumping Jijij 🐾 "I got this!" — [narrator voice] …They did, actually. But wow, they’re tired. 😅💖

Your Cards: Queen of Wands - Eight of Pentacles - Nine of Wands - Page of Cups - Ten of Wands - Justice - Two of Wands - Seven of Pentacles - Ace of Cups - Nine of Cups - King of Wands (Reversed)

Lenormand: The Tower, The Stars, The Heart

Your Message: Okay listen. This pile? Glowing with potential. Radiating “hot girl with imposter syndrome who is secretly doing amazing but feels like they’re behind” energy. If that’s you — hi, I see you. You’re doing so much better than you think.

Let’s start with the Queen of Wands. You're magnetic. You're creative. You have something in you that lights others up — whether that’s your sense of humor, your ideas, your vibe, or your ability to push through even when you’re fried like a crispy little hash brown.

But with the Eight of Pentacles, Nine of Wands, and Ten of Wands? You're working your butt off. Maybe physically, maybe emotionally, maybe both. This is your reminder that it’s okay to want rest without guilt. You don’t have to “earn” a break — you’re already worthy of one.

The Page of Cups shows you’ve got a big, beautiful heart. But maybe you're a bit guarded with it right now. It's okay to want to protect your softness — just don’t hide it from yourself. That childlike wonder, those silly dreams, the love you still believe in? That’s sacred stuff.

Justice, Two of Wands, and Seven of Pentacles are shouting: “You’ve been making better choices. You’ve been planning. You’ve been patient.” And the universe sees that. You’re planting things now that will bloom — just maybe not on the schedule your inner perfectionist was hoping for. (Tell them to chill. It’s coming.)

And then — boom — Ace of Cups + Nine of Cups?? The emotional fulfillment, the self-love, the creative inspiration, the damn-I’m-proud-of-myself moment? It’s all on its way. You’ve done so much internal work already. The next chapter? It’s about receiving. And letting yourself feel good without immediately wondering if it’s too good to last.

The Reversed King of Wands might be a lil caution about burnout or control — don’t let your inner bossy-pants override your joy. You don’t have to be the hero in every scene. You’re allowed to delegate. To rest. To do things just for fun.

What You Might Need More Of Right Now:

Creative hobbies that don’t have a “goal.” Think: painting with no plan, dancing like nobody’s watching, writing fanfic, DIY crafts, messy collaging. Just for you. No pressure.

Romanticizing your own effort. Cute coffee for study time. Dress-up for chores. Make playlists like you’re in a Ghibli montage about reclaiming your life.

Self-reward rituals. Finished something? Light a candle. Get a pastry. Brag to your journal. You’re allowed to be proud of yourself.

Something heart-opening. Poetry. Romcoms. Sending snail mail. Learning to cook something your inner child would be hyped about.

Lenormand Time:

The Tower here is your personal empire — structure, solitude, the beautiful boundaries you're learning to set.

The Stars are hope, inspiration, divine guidance — you’re not lost. You’re dreaming bigger, and the universe loves that.

The Heart says this is all leading to more love — for yourself, for others, for life. Don’t be afraid to let it in. You’re ready.

🌷 Final Vibe: You’ve done so much hard work. Now let yourself have some heart work. Reconnect with softness, joy, silliness. Let love (in all forms) be part of your glow-up. This next chapter? It’s not about surviving. It’s about thriving in a way that feels like you.💕

Final Thoughts from Me (and Jiji):

I simply cannot believe… all of the piles had some flavor of a TOWER moment 😭 like?? Why are we collectively crumbling and rebuilding like emotionally intelligent phoenixes with imposter syndrome?? Who approved this arc???

If you picked a pile: I’m proud of you. You’re doing amazing. You are allowed to rest, play, dream, scream into a pillow, fall in love with soup, start a hobby just because it looks sparkly, or say "no actually I don’t want to be perceived today."!!!!✨

Whether your Jiji was judging you, leaping into chaos, or just quietly carrying all your mental burdens in his tiny cat body — I hope this brought you a bit of clarity, softness, or at the very least, some ✨divine cat energy✨!

As always: take what resonates, leave the rest, and remember you are very lovable and very much not behind in life.

Love you. Be weird. Drink water. Pet something fuzzy!!!🐈‍⬛💖🌟

[getaapologist]

Draw Slow When You Take From Me

Pairing: Vampire!Geta x female!reader

Warnings: 18+ only, MDNI. Seriously. Blood! (this is about vampires, so), mention of the menarche, consumption of the menarche, sex.

Word Count: 4.0k

A/N: It's finally here. This is just my immediate thoughts that poured out when I first started thinking about this AU. I would always be willing to explore different things, perhaps pre-wife, or even other household members. Mine is sweet, mostly. If you're looking for something more... well, more, check out @prettycalla 's contribution. I promise it's so amazing (better than mine!). I also owed some people a Geta period thing, so I combined the two. I apologize in advance.

Geta looked down at you as you slept. He could hear every heartbeat, each individual ventricle pulsing, valves closing, a wet symphony. Waves breaking. Your steady breathing filled the room. He could smell the jasmine oil you dabbed behind your ears, at your wrists, between your breasts.

He was far too hungry to linger tonight.

“Mmm, come to bed,” you spoke sluggishly, reaching out to tug on his robes. 

“Later, mea lux,” he smiled, a deep pit in his stomach. It grew the closer he got, but he shoved it down so he could lean over and nuzzle at your cheek. He could smell the sunlight soaked into your skin. So tempting. “After our meetings.”

After the feed. While the bloodlust raged.

“Please,” you begged, your hand gripping the back of his neck to try to keep him there.

A brief flash of panic. His mouth watered and he swallowed it down. 

“I am busy, and you are…” He gently pulled your hand away and lifted his head, his eyes dark. “Distracting.”

Eyes dark, but unmistakably full of love for his new blushing bride.

A tamed shark.

“You will keep your word?” You smiled up at him, tone playful. “I do not care the hour.”

He kept his smile soft, lips shut tight. A nod. As he moved away, he allowed his mouth to open, the sign of his affliction not visible to you.

“I will keep it.”

Geta grimaced, looking down at the woman currently slung across his lap. He could see her impatience, staring up at him out of the corner of her eyes, stretching her scarred neck out. 

Inviting his thirst. Yet his stomach soured.

“Brother, are you alright? You’ve hardly touched your meal,” Caracalla giggled, pushing yet another of his concubines from his lap, blood fully covering the lower half of his face, his neck, staining his robes. He feasted like he was starved. “You keep on like this and you will slip up.”

A mocking laugh at Geta’s efforts.

Geta let out a frustrated growl, his anger at his brother’s suggestion pushing his muscles into action. The woman let out a panicked yelp as Geta hauled her up to his mouth, his teeth sinking in unkindly. 

As the hot, sweet liquid slid down his throat, he gulped eagerly, forgetting his earlier apprehension. He clung to her, his grip so tight it would leave marks. Even though the concubine occasionally winced, her face soon settled into a soft, blissful expression.

A nice trick. A gentle fever. A distraction from the threat of impending death.

The woman’s hand slid up his thigh, hoping for more from him than his hunger for her blood. A jolt of revulsion twisted his spine and he pushed her down to the marble floor, her neck still weeping. 

“E-Emperor?”

“Leave us,” he ordered, waving her away. She left reluctantly.

“You know, maybe you should give some more thought to turning her,” Caracalla suggested, moments before sinking his canines into another waiting neck.

A relieved sigh. A hand gripping his robes.

Geta turned away, Caracalla’s words echoing in his head.

No. Never.

The thought of never hearing your heart race for him again, never being able to leech the warmth from your skin into his?

Unthinkable. Not worth considering.

“Try not to kill anyone tonight, please,” Geta stressed to his voracious twin. “Silence is expensive.”

“I make no promises, brother,” Caracalla grinned, looking every bit a monster as he lapped at a still-bleeding neck. “That dreadful meeting worked up a mighty appetite.”

Geta stood, wiping at his mouth, feeling ill and far from sated. But he would not feed on another. He could handle himself just fine.

Discomfort. Cramping low. A glance down confirmed your fears. 

There would be no heir this month. 

It was hard not to grieve, even if it never existed. It was your one responsibility now, and you had hit your first stumbling block. 

Juno had not given you her favor.

The realization was uncomfortable, but there wasn’t anything to be done. Perhaps your offerings were not enough, too humble to wish for the child of an Emperor to take root.

For a moment you allowed yourself to lay there, knowing that getting up would be an ordeal in and of itself.

Geta could come back at any moment. He would surely want a clean bed to sleep in. It needed to be stripped. You needed to bathe. So you moved into action, despite the late hour.

As you worked, you wondered what Geta would make of this. Would he be upset? You honestly weren’t sure.

During your short time here at Palatine Hill, things were certainly unusual. People warned you that there was illness festering in the palace. That there was something strange going on. Dark rituals, or illicit affairs. The usual fantastical gossip. They told you that your husband-to-be was slowly being driven mad by his brother’s shocking antics. 

That at least seemed closer to the truth.

But you didn’t believe any of it until you were forced to marry under the moon, a quiet ceremony with minimal guests. Your new brother had been irritable all evening, Geta having to pause his conversation with you to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. More than once, he himself had disappeared to retrieve Caracalla more wine, instead of asking a servant nearby for a topping off. 

And there were these late night meetings every few days, meetings that you were not to attend. Meetings that lasted quite a while. It would be enough to worry any new bride.

Adultery was forbidden, yes, but would that truly stop an Emperor?

No. He’s shown you nothing but love and devotion. Even if he sometimes grows irritable, or will not walk in the sunlight, he has fulfilled all of his husbandly duties, quite well. And on the nights he returns from his meetings, he is insatiable–

No. Focus. Change your clothes. Strip the bed. 

All the ruined linen was carried off by a waiting servant just outside the door, replaced with clean, fresh bedding. 

Now, to bathe.

As you turned to leave, Geta stepped into the room, his dark eyes big and searching. Nostrils flaring.

“Mea lux, are you alright?” His voice was strained. Muscles tensed in his neck as he took slow steps closer.

“Yes,” you answered, building up your nerve to tell him there would be no heir this month. “Geta, I–”

He interrupted you, eyes raking over you, voice frantic and unsteady. “Do you have a cut? Where is it coming from?”

Your face felt hot as his hands tugged and pulled at your limbs, inspecting your skin. “My love, what?”

He sank to his knees before you, hands bunched up in the fabric of your slip. A moan fell from his lips and he pressed his forehead into your belly, breathing heavily. Your hands attempted to bring his head up, but he fought you. It was like trying to bend a metal bar. 

“Geta?”

A low rumble in his throat. Hunger stirring. Salivating.

He did not consider this.

“You bleed.”

Heat traveled up your neck, to your ears, your face. “Yes. I’m sorry, Geta.”

“I do not care about heirs,” he muttered, his face pressing into the fabric of the slip, his inhales deep and languid. 

Large hands released the fabric, sliding around to grip the back of your thighs, hauling you in closer, if that was possible. 

Your hands found his shoulders and you very nearly fell over. “Geta!”

He hugged your legs, his face dipping lower, and suddenly you were trying to fight him again, your self-consciousness not able to tolerate this.

“Geta, let me go, I am unclean,” you hissed at him.

“I cannot,” he whined.

“What do you mean? Let me go!”

His grip only grew tighter as you squirmed, his face pressing closer. Testing his will. 

He promised himself he wouldn’t ever let this get to you. He wouldn’t allow Caracalla’s carelessness to infect you. You were pure, his. He loved you.

And yet here you were, able to give him such a gift. 

He needed it.

Each inhale full of iron sent a buzzing through his brain, a wave of pleasure he felt all the way down to his toes. Even when he fed, he never felt like this, so lost to it.

Weak.

“I cannot control this urge, I am sorry, mea lux.” Pain was laced through his voice. “Please, you must go.”

“Geta?” Soft hands pressed at his cheeks, his shoulders. 

“Go!” he yelled, pushing you away from him. 

Mild fear gripped you, not used to seeing him like this. Something was very wrong. But he was resolute, unable to look you in the eye. You obeyed your husband, taking a few steps back towards the door.

“Wait,” he begged, reaching out for you. 

As you neared him, he struggled to breathe, opting to instead open his mouth, the smell overwhelming.

Clarity, then. 

His hands shot up defensively. “Do not listen to me. Go, get out of here. I cannot be trusted!” 

He could hear vividly how your heart raced, a different rhythm than what he was used to. Too fast. Uneven, as if it were scrambling to escape your chest.

“Geta, are you alright? Do you need–”

“Go!” he roared, getting to his feet.

“I-I will go get Caracalla–”

You were swept up and dropped unceremoniously onto the bed.

“No,” he growled, his eyes black as pitch. “You will not go near him.”

“I won’t,” you placated, hands on his arms.

Guilt coursed through him, even as he enjoyed the erratic racing of your heart. It was a miracle he hadn’t already fed, the aroma enough to seriously strain his convictions.

“I am sorry,” he sighed, his nose pressing against your cheek, moving down, pausing over your pulse, tongue slipping out to lick your skin.

No.

“Geta, are you unwell?”

A pained sound was torn from his throat, but he did not answer. His hands slid down until they reached the edge of the slip. He parted your thighs easily, fingers sliding up, your mumbled warnings not heard by him.

Wet. Warm. Viscous. 

He pushed off the mattress and brought his fingers in front of his eyes, his breath leaving him in delight. 

A relieved moan poured out of him as he slipped his red fingers between his lips, eyes falling shut.

Heat filled your face at the sight. You had always been told that the Emperors were a bit… unusual. But surely they didn’t mean this.

“Mea lux,” he drawled, bliss easing the stress from his voice. He looked quite satisfied. “This is… divine.”

Licking his lips, his dark eyes fell down to you. As his lips parted, you saw them. Long canines, not unlike a wolf’s, but perhaps more pointed. 

Unnatural. 

He tongued at one of them and a deep-seated hunger filled his eyes. “I need more, mea lux,” he spoke, lowering himself until his nose pressed against your soft belly again.

The fabric of the thin slip was pulled taut, up off your abdomen. He bit through the linen, the sharp canines making easy work of it. A loud ripping sound filled the room and cool air washed over you, now laid bare for him.

“Geta,” you flushed, nerves worming into your gut. “This is–”

“Please, mea lux, I am still so hungry…” he whined, lips brushing low, his tongue leaving behind a wet line. “You would not deny me this, would you?”

His voice was all sweetness, but edged with mania. 

“I have not bathed–”

“Good,” he growled, hands firmly pushing your thighs apart. 

He heard the transition, the moment when fear left you and your heartbeat settled into a more familiar rhythm. It made him salivate, his breathing matching yours, his desire growing for more than just your blood.

Your embarrassment only lasted until his tongue met the skin of your inner thigh.  

Soft, satisfied sounds rumbled from his throat with each stripe of skin he cleaned. He was immersed in it, each little taste making him stray further and further from himself.

Your hand gripped his shoulder.

Slow. Or you will frighten her, he told himself, his desperation only barely restrained. There was something about you that always made it easier. 

The blood alone was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, but mixed with your own desire for him? Truly a gift from the gods. He would not let a bit of it go to waste. 

Dark eyes met yours. 

“Do you have any idea how delicious you are?”

“Me?”

He made a sound of assent before pushing his face into your warm, wet center, eyes shut in relief.

Eyes rolled back. Sighs full of relief from both of you.

Geta wondered if this was what his victims felt, what kept them coming back for more. If it was anything close, he could understand. He could live here.

There was no room for cleanliness or concern for anything other than the taste on his tongue. The sounds ripped from his throat were obscene, the sounds he was making, even more so. 

Wet smacking, deep grunts, the slick pop of flesh leaving his suction.

His hands gripped your thighs hard enough to bruise.

It didn’t matter. You were seeing the stars. It was almost too much, the way it felt. So wonderful, in fact, that you couldn’t even begin to spare a thought for how loud you were. It was everything you’ve ever needed. 

Tremors in your muscles, all down your legs. That was all the warning you were able to give before your body seized, your thighs attempting to clamp shut around his head. 

Wave after wave pushing out low moans until they finally stopped.

“Geta.” 

You pushed at his shoulder. The sensations were too much to bear.

“A moment longer,” he mumbled, lapping up anything else he could.

When there was nothing left, he resurfaced. It should have been horrifying. Streaks of blood spread over the bottom half of his face. His tongue was already swiping at his bottom lip, collecting what was within reach.

But you weren’t scared of him.

“Are you feeling better?” you asked, watching him closely.

His eyes were still dark, but there was some light returning. He wiped at his cheeks, licking away any remnants from his palm.

“Geta?” You moved over to him. 

He caught your wrist as you reached for him, his grip tight. “Not… yet.”

You waited, wrist still in his hand, watching him lick his fingers completely clean, his face almost entirely back to its usual state.

“Geta,” you spoke, your voice merely a whisper. “What happened to you?”

“I am the monster you married.” He looked up at you, eyes shining in the warm firelight. 

A monster. Surely not. Yet the proof spoke for itself.

“How did this happen?”

He took in a deep breath, let it out. “I’m not exactly sure. I didn’t see how it started. I just… I went to check on Caracalla, and the next moment I was sitting up from the floor, and he was crying over me, his wrist in my mouth. That was a few months ago.”

“And now you…”

“Feed.”

You felt dizzy.

“At first it was awful. You know what my brother is like. Unrestrained in everything, including this new appetite. I was having to pick up after him, to protect him. I think he understands now, the value in keeping his food source alive. At least, I hope he does.” 

“So tonight, your meeting…?”

He nodded, pulling your wrist into his lap. “I don’t take pleasure in it. I want you to know that.”

“Is that why when you return, you are…” Heat filled your cheeks.

His full lips curved into a grin. “Yes.”

Relief. Concerns stuffed down deep melted away. He noticed.

“What is it?” Damp fingertips smoothed circles over your wrist, your pulse.

You drew up your knees, holding them close. “I thought maybe I wasn’t enough, or you were still set in your ways…”

He sighed deeply. “Not a chance, mea lux. Do you know why I still married you, knowing what I have become?”

You met his eyes, intensely curious.

“I am selfish. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And so graceful. I resolved to make it work. I have made it work, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” you admitted.

“Tonight was… I was reckless.” His other hand smoothed up your arm, to the crook of your elbow and back, slowly exposing himself to more of you, testing his hunger. “I did not take enough. It was stupid of me, I put you in danger.”

“But I am fine.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Are you… you’re still…?”

A nod.

His eyes raked up your arm, to your neck, staring hard at the pulse there. He could feel it beneath his thumb, at your wrist, a millisecond delay. If only your heart didn’t beat so nicely. Hard and strong, not a lullaby, far worse, the opposite. A siren call. Normally tuned out, but now…

“Mea lux, I need more.” His grip on your wrist tightened slightly. “Can I have more?”

You would give him anything he wanted. Yes, even that. Your imagination filled in the gaps. You understood what this was. What would happen.

Why did it excite you?

“Yes.”

He moved over lightning fast, immediately nuzzling at your neck. Only seconds passed between giving him permission and his teeth slowly sinking into your skin.

Like he was trying to be careful.

They were sharp, piercing. Forcing a gasp from your lips. 

Your hand pushed at his head until a soft, warm wave washed over you. Your fingers tangled in his hair instead as you let out soft, relaxed breaths.

Dreamlike. The lights all had halos, radiant like stars. 

 A sound you felt, each of his steady gulps, his grip on you tightening. 

And then you felt that warmth spread out, your free hand sliding down his clothed back.

A warning growl. 

Heat like the sensation of the sun on his skin filled him as the fresh, rich blood poured down his throat. But yours was sweeter, like what he remembered honey tasting like. Even better than that. 

He would take his fill, and absolutely not a drop more, he promised himself. 

He couldn’t afford to get carried away, or distracted, even as your hand sought his hip. Even as it pulled him in closer, even as he settled between open thighs.

Open, inviting, warm, soft, plush, velvet–

Your gasp woke him from his trance. 

He was already buried deep, so lost in you he didn’t even realize. 

He moved to lift his head from your neck but your hand pushed him back down, pressing his lips to the wound as your thighs squeezed at his hips, urging him to continue.

The blood smeared over his lips until he opened his mouth, lapping at the trickle. And then his hips began to move. 

The Elysian fields. He could see them. The closest he would ever get to them was right here. He never wanted to leave. But he knew he had to. 

One final drag of his tongue and he moved to your lips, pressing his mumbled gratitude against your mouth as his hips continued to move. 

He tasted of hot metal but you didn’t care. Never before had you felt this good, this free. You already wanted a next time. And there were others that felt this? That got to experience this? 

No. Only you.

He lifted his head. Looking down at you, watching you so relaxed, so blissful, coming apart. He felt such relief.

A squeeze at his hips, your thighs tightening. A whispered “more.”

It was all the urging he needed. 

He let his hands move to your hips as he sat up, drawing you in along with each thrust. Your legs were unable to hold on, giving up their grip, your hands covering his, back arching. 

Your sounds could probably be heard out in the hall, or down in the gardens, not that anyone would be out at this hour.  

It didn’t take much more, especially at that pace, that angle– 

A great tide. 

It was brutal as it crashed over you, leaving you gasping, trembling, clinging to what you could reach of him. Clenching firmly around him.

And he followed you. Collapsing. Gasping. Pushing in even deeper. Cheek smearing blood as he buried his face in your neck. Not to bite.

More than a minute went by.

He finally pressed a gentle kiss to the marks he’d left behind before sitting up, pulling the tunic up and off, revealing the smear at his collar, the rest of his torso.

“We’ve made a mess,” you commented, your eyes following the trail down from his mouth, his chin, his neck, even a little on his chest. 

“We have,” he agreed, eyes fixed to your neck, the stain in the fabric beneath you.

“I need to–” 

As you moved to sit up, Geta was there, pushing you back down. “Rest, my love. I’ll take care of it. The rest can wait until tomorrow.”

A nod.

And so he got to work, cleaning up his mess. A moist cloth wiping you clean, strong arms moving you to the other half of the bed. Smoothing your hair out of your face. Then he cleaned himself. Full, sated, he gave no thought to any lingering traces, the washbasin now reddish-pink. 

Geta returned to your side, resting a hand on your cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m tired,” you confessed, pressing a hand to his, eyelids already only half-open. The blood loss didn’t help things.

“Sleep, mea lux. I will look after you.” He meant it.

A soft smile. “Thank you, my love.”

It didn’t take long after that for you to slip into a steady slumber. 

Geta allowed himself a moment to study you, to admire you, before he was up, walking over to the door.

He shrugged on a robe and held it shut before opening the door, eyes falling to a young servant who immediately turned bright red.

“Please, bring breakfast, fruit, whatever is ready.”

The servant nodded, walking quickly down the long hallway. 

Geta slid the door shut quietly, looking to where you slept. You looked so relaxed. You were a vision, the only thing marring it being the wound at your neck. 

Guilt crept up on him until he could hardly breathe. The one thing he told himself he’d never do, and he caved as soon as it was offered to him. He should have put up more of a fight. He should have left the room the moment he realized. 

But he didn’t. And he had unburdened himself of a big secret. It did feel better not having to hide it from you, but there were other things that now needed discussing. 

A gentle knock. 

Geta took the tray and shut the door up tight. He set it down on a small table at your bedside and got to work straightening the thick woven tapestries now used to cover the archways that led out onto the terrace. Once he was satisfied that no sun would be breaking through as he slept, he climbed into bed, pulling you in against his chest. 

He listened to the steady rhythm of your heartbeat.

'Mea lux' translates to 'my light.' Get it?

Taglist: @prettycalla ; @europixie

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[avocado-writing]

Kinktober #20

20. Infidelity - Cuckolding // Cunnilingus // Threesome (Logan Howlett x Reader x Wade Wilson - this is for you, that one anon)

You’re at orgasm ten and they aren’t slowing down. 

That’s the problem when you have two not-quite-human lovers: their stamina is fucking insane. Barely any refractory period either. All you can do is hope that you can keep up with them… and that your body doesn’t goddamn give out.

It kinda is giving out, though.

“One more…” Logan growls, moving his way up your prone form like an animal. You choke on the idea of wringing any extra pleasure from yourself. Your cunt is leaking with a mix of cum: yours, Logan’s, Wade’s; a sinful cocktail soaking into the sheets. You can’t keep anything inside you any more. You’re full. 

“Logan, no,” you say, firmly, slapping his shoulder with as much effort as you can muster. He looks down at you, and those soft puppy eyes remind you why you see him as such an obedient dog at times. 

“You okay, baby?” he asks, backing down immediately when he is chastised.

“I’m gonna die on this bed Logan. You’ve made me orgasm my soul out,” you sigh, relieved for your poor pussy that he’s so willing to listen. Next to you on the bed Wade is half-hard again but even he looks exhausted.

“Now normally my rampant machismo would require me to see this through until one of us had jizz leaking out our nose, but for the sake of our pookie here I’m happy to call it a draw.”

It had been so stupid, the lead up to his. The three of you lazing around, enjoying each other’s company and watching a movie. A sex scene had come on and it had got the three of you talking, which had got the two of them arguing. Who did you most enjoy making you come? It was a conversation you didn’t want to get in the middle of but apparently you didn’t have a choice. 

“C’mon, one of us has gotta get you wet and wilder than the other,” Wade had said, walking his fingers along your leg. You’d rolled your eyes.

“I like fucking you both, boys. Can we finish watching Australia now?”

“That means it’s me,” Wade had whispered, and Logan hadn’t wanted to take that lying down. Well… without you lying down, anyway.

So they took you to the bedroom and tried to make you compare. Fingers, mouths, cocks, all of it; and now your poor cunt might have friction burn. At some point it stopped being who could fuck you better and who could fuck you more, eke orgasm out of orgasm from your exhausted body and have you moaning for it. You’re not sure how they can keep going. How have they got any goddamn cum left in them, you’re sure it’s all over your cunt and abdomen at this point.

When Logan runs a gentle finger between your folds you hiss, part because of the sting and part from delight. You’re so high on a cloud of pleasure you can’t imagine anything else now.

“Look at you baby, you’re a mess…” he sighs, gravelly voice full of affection as he sees the canvas they’ve made of your body. If their skin could hold scars they’d be covered in your scratch marks, your bites, your slaps as you grabbed handfuls of muscle and held on while they fucked you. Wade grabs Logan’s hand and licks the mixture of the three of you off his fingers, humming in contentment.

“Is it too much that I like licking stuff? I did it in the period sex one too, is it becoming an endearing habit, or…?”

“If the two of you still have a point to prove, why don’t you fuck each other?” you chuckle, trying to get comfortable on the mattress and only succeeding at having another squirt of come drip from your hole.

Their eyes lock over your body. You’ve set a challenge neither will back down from, and when Logan goes in for a fierce kiss Wade meets it with vigour.

“Good grief…” you chuckle, moving onto your side to watch them go at each other. You’ll enjoy not being the centre of the show for a while.

[rootedinrevisions]

In His Arms

A/N: Just a little aftercare fluff with our favorite cowboy. Not much of a plot and this is kind of more of a drabble than a one-shot. But I was struggling to write anything else so this is what my brain wanted to think about tonight

WARNINGS: Implied smut, maybe cockwarming? (not sure if that's the right label for what happens here.)

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The room was steeped in warmth, the kind that only came from the perfect combination of love and passion. The soft hum of the ceiling fan mixed with the distant sound of crickets outside the window, creating a soothing backdrop to the slow return of your breaths. Tyler was beneath you, his broad chest rising and falling steadily as your own heartbeat began to settle. He’d only been home an hour, but already, it felt like the days apart had been nothing more than a distant memory.

You lay sprawled over him, your body molded to his like it belonged there—because it did. His arm rested lazily above his head, his fingers occasionally flexing against the pillow. The other was anything but idle, his roughened palm drawing a lazy path up and down your spine. His touch was featherlight yet deliberate, the tips of his fingers brushing over every curve, every dip of your body like he was memorizing you all over again.

Neither of you spoke at first. Words weren’t necessary—not yet. The moment was too raw, too precious to break with conversation. He was still buried deep inside you, his body unwilling to part from yours. You felt his heartbeat against yours, steady and sure, as if tethering you to him.

"You okay, darlin’?" His voice was soft and gravelly, thick with exhaustion and satisfaction.

You nodded against him, your cheek resting against the firm plane of his chest. "More than okay," you murmured, your words muffled but still clear enough to make him chuckle.

"Good." His hand slid into your hair, fingertips massaging gently at your scalp. "I missed you so much. Felt like I was out there forever this time."

It wasn’t the first time he’d been gone chasing storms, but this week had felt especially long. His absence left an ache in your chest, one you hadn’t realized had grown so deep until he was back and holding you like this.

"Me too," you admitted softly, your lips brushing against his skin. You felt the way his body shifted beneath you, his arm tightening around your waist like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go.

“You have no idea how much I missed this,” he finally murmured, his deep voice a low rasp that sent a ripple of heat through you. His words came with a soft kiss to the top of your head, his lips lingering there for a moment longer than necessary.

You nuzzled into the curve of his neck, your lips brushing against his pulse. He tipped your head back slightly, just enough so his gaze could find yours in the dim light of the room. His green eyes, flecked with golden warmth, held a look so tender, it nearly stole the breath you’d just regained.

"I thought about you every night," he murmured, his lips brushing against your hair. "Every damn minute. You don’t even know what you do to me."

His free hand began its slow path down your back again, fingertips trailing over the curve of your spine. When he reached the small of your back, he paused, pressing his palm flat against your skin and holding you there. 

"This," he said softly, "this right here is what I needed."

A flush rose to your cheeks, and Tyler’s lips curled into a soft smile as he felt the heat of it against his neck. 

“There it is,” he teased, his voice dipping into that gravelly tone that always made your heart stutter. "That blush I love so much."

He shifted slightly beneath you, his arm tightening around your waist as he pressed you impossibly closer. You could feel every inch of him, the heat of his body wrapping around you like a blanket. He didn’t stop touching you, his hand tracing slow, deliberate paths that left trails of goosebumps in their wake.

“You feel so damn good,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your temple, then down to the corner of your mouth. “I swear, nothing else compares. Nothing else even comes close to having you like this.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but he beat you to it, his lips capturing yours in a slow, searing kiss that left no room for doubt about how deeply he meant every word. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breath mingling with your own.

“Stay with me like this a little longer,” he said softly, his hand coming back up to cradle the nape of your neck. “I’m not ready to let you go yet.”

His fingers trailed down your spine again, his touch firmer this time, as if grounding you both in the moment. His lips found the shell of your ear, his breath hot against your skin as he continued in a hushed voice that sent shivers racing through you.

“I missed you so much,” he said, his tone rougher now, edged with the kind of desire only he could make feel like a promise. “And I’m not done with you. Not even close. I want you again, sweetheart. Over and over.”

His words made heat bloom low in your belly, and you couldn’t stop the way your body shifted against his. Tyler’s hand on your waist tightened, holding you still as his eyes darkened. 

"Easy, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice low and teasing. "We’ve got all night. No need to rush."

He let his hand drift lower, tracing the curve of your hip before sliding back up to the small of your back. 

"I’m gonna show you just how much I missed you," he whispered, his lips grazing your jawline. "Gonna make sure you feel it—every inch of it."

You shivered as his words washed over you, his breath warm against your skin. He shifted beneath you, his body a comforting weight as he pulled you impossibly closer.

"I love you," he said softly, the words catching you off guard even though you’d heard them before. There was something different in the way he said it now, like it wasn’t just an expression but a vow.

Your heart swelled, and you leaned up just enough to kiss him again, pouring every unspoken feeling into the connection. He responded in kind, his hands roaming your body like he couldn’t get enough, like he was memorizing every curve and dip.

The world outside didn’t matter—not the storms he chased, not the time apart, not anything but the two of you in this moment. In his arms, you felt it all: desired, cherished, and deeply, irrevocably loved.

And as the night stretched on, Tyler made good on his promise, showing you again and again just how much you meant to him.

[hiraethwrote]

LAWS OF MAGNETISM

pairing : suguru geto x f!reader summary : magnetism is one of the most interesting natural phenomena. a fundamental force of nature that plays a critical role in our everyday lives — amongst others, relationships between people. and this was the only way to describe whatever was the force between suguru and you cw [MDNI] : modern au, angsty suggestive content, insinuation to sex, partying, drinking, smoking, situationship, arguing, cursing, toxic behaviour, manipulation, arguing, addiction metaphores, some feminine descriptions of reader, slight self-insert when it comes to being unable to be casual hehe, horribly written ending, no use of y/n word count : 6.2k

You’d always thought Suguru to be magnetic.

From the very first moment your eyes were unexplainably drawn towards the tall, dark and handsome presence that entered the party. His energy tugged at your curiosity immediately, how he swerved smoothly into the crowd, greeting people left and right, all clearly familiar with the stranger.

And you kept your admiring gaze on him, having to count the seconds in order to ground yourself in reality, feeling as time moved so incredibly slow. Someone could have told you time stopped, and you’d believe them, waiting — hoping, he too would find you.

It was the longest seven seconds in your life before you eventually locked eyes with a pair of deep pools of unique purple that seemed to hold so many unspoken secrets.

He happily held your stare, your breath catching when the right corner of his lips tilted into an alluring smirk, the oxygen only returning to your lungs once he let your stare free to fully engage in some conversation with the friend he came with.

Whoever he was, he had his claws in without even knowing his name.

All throughout the night, you kept feeling that magnetic pull drawing you in. You found yourself always looking for him in the crowd, hoping to catch just a glimpse of him that would supply that strange urge you felt.

And it seemed like some higher power had decided to do you a favour this one time, because he stuck out to you more often than not.

Dressed in a loose, black shirt with the top three buttons undone, he looked godly as he towered over most of the individuals he surrounded himself with. He always had to hunch over ever so slightly to hear them clearly, which somehow only made him even more attractive.

Then — a blazing heat of embarrassment came rushing throughout your body when he, once again, found your gaze, greeting you with that same smirk. You quickly snapped your head away, hoping he didn’t catch the longing looks.

Still there was this force — a force that had your gaze flicker in his direction again, surprised to see he kept letting his gaze jump graciously between his friend and you, hiding his mischievous little grin behind his cup.

It felt ridiculous to admit he was making your heart flutter with giddiness, a feeling you couldn’t remember feeling since your high school years. And here you were, nearly twirling your hair at the good looking stranger you were sharing stolen glances with across the room.

You really wanted to talk to him, curious what his voice would sound like. While your feet mindlessly inched you closer to him, you tried to come up with the best way to introduce yourself in order to give of the best impression. Just based on the magnetic pull, you knew it would haunt you forever if you were in fact given the opportunity to talk to him, and blew it.

But your despair mixed with the alcohol in your system had your mind run blank, only able to picture a scenario where your mouth ran dry the second you were to speak your name.

Yet you needed to be near him — one way or another.

“It’s quite fascinating,” your friend snickered, managing to pull your attention to her for a second before shooting the stranger another look. “It’s not often we see someone catch your eye.”

You spared him another shared gaze, served along with an ever so seductive smirk before turning to your friend. “I don’t know, there’s just something about him that reels me in. I can’t explain it though.”

“He’s definitely easy on the eyes,” she smiled as she let her gentle stare travel him head to toe.

“You don’t know his name by any chance?”

She shook her head no as she finished her sip before answering. “No, but I think he’s friends with Shoko.”

Your eyes lit up with excitement, a bright lightbulb appearing over your head as you were offered the perfect opportunity for a natural introduction to the man who had the potential to be your new fixation.

You didn’t necessarily know Shoko well, but well enough for it to be plausible for you to approach her without any ulterior motives — not to mention, it would be nice to catch up.

“I’ll be right back,” you rushed to excuse yourself, only hearing your friend scoff tauntingly as you disappeared to find Shoko.

It didn’t take you too long, finding her stood in the backyard. She spotted you just as she took a drag from her cigarette, eyes widening with pleasant surprise.

“Hey you,” she said excitedly. “Haven’t seen you in a hot minute.”

“Yeah, it’s been too long if you ask me,” you chuckled, stretching your arms out to pull her in for a quick hug. “How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain,” she nodded, a smile stretching across her face. “And you?”

“Wish I had anything new and exciting going on to tell you, but it’s the same as always really.”

She let out a small laugh, telling you she could relate. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

The small talk continued to flow smoothly for another ten minutes, making you realise you actually found your little reunion with Shoko more delightful than anticipated. You almost forgot all about your mysterious stranger until his looming presence snuck up behind her, his tall frame catching your eye the second he appeared.

Without an ounce of hesitation, he lazily draped his arm across her shoulders as he let his gaze rest on you.

Somehow his invisible grip on you grew stronger by the intensity in his eyes, your lips parting with the smallest, inaudible gasp.

“Want to introduce me to your friend?”

That voice.

Oh lord, that voice. Nearly angelic, and not at all how you had imagined it. It somehow managed to surpass whatever it was you had pictured in your mind, as there was an unexpected sweetness to his tone — one that traveled so satisfyingly through the air, soothing you like a sweet melody through all the loud noise of the party.

He kept his focus on you, never turning to his friend, not even when she tauntingly rolled her eyes while exhaling the cigarette smoke.

A sneaking warmth blossomed beneath your skin as Shoko begrudgingly introduced you to him — still never letting his eyes leave you.

He removed his arm from her shoulders to let it hover in the air in front of you. “Suguru,” he spoke softly as you accepted his hand.

You subtly drew a breath, the hairs on your neck standing straight up at the feeling of his index finger slowly traveling back and forth the inside of your wrist. Something about the small gesture, one that might be subconscious, just felt so intimate. A secret shared between just the two of you that caused sparks throughout your body.

“Pleasure,” you said, satisfaction lacing your voice as you let your eyes swipe him from top to toe.

Shoko had seen this scene before, and knew her presence wasn’t needed now that the introduction of you and Suguru had created a whole new atmosphere. As a goodbye, she gave your forearm a soft squeeze and said “don’t get too swept up, honey,” before scurrying away — a warning you were too distracted to pick up on.

“What a coincidence that you’re friends with Shoko,” Suguru said. He quickly towered over you as he spoke, just slightly hunched, exactly how you had observed him earlier that evening.

“The universe works in mysterious ways,” you shrugged.

You wished you were different — that you wouldn’t be as easily charmed by Suguru as you knew every person he interacted with was destined to be.

But you were as spellbound as the rest, trapped under his special ability to just draw one in. It was in the way he stood, the way he talked, the way he moved — all part of the appeal that so quickly sunk its claws in you.

And you could bet he was aware, wielding his charm with accuracy that had you in the palm of his hand.

He was attentive in a way you had never experienced before — he didn’t just look at you, he saw you. He didn’t just hear you, he listened to you. He didn’t just speak, he talked to you.

And it caused everything to develop at the speed of light. Before you knew it, you were wrapped up in each other’s life. Not a day went by where you didn’t at the very least talk to him.

That’s how you learned Suguru wasn’t just magnetic — he was addictive.

When you were together, which was more often than not, you had to constantly fight the urge — the need — to be as close as possible. You were petrified he would find you needy or clingy, but you just couldn’t help how your skin itched to be in contact with him. That magnetic pull you had felt the first time you met him was just as strong now, subconsciously gravitating towards him. So when you weren’t latched onto each other, you tried to feel satisfied with just having your fingertips graze his skin.

When with him, you were too high on his presence to even reflect over your behaviour. When apart, however, it was a different case entirely.

It was embarrassing really, that you found yourself counting the minutes until you were able to see him again, or how you constantly checked your phone in hopes a notification with his name attached would look back at you.

You groaned quietly, thinking none of your friends even heard, as you once again put your phone down with the screen facing the table, disappointment washing over you.

It was only when you heard them snicker you looked up to see a look travel between them, that you realised they heard — not only that, but they were fully aware of what had slowly turned into an unhealthy obsession, and they even found it amusing.

“What?” You asked, trying to play dumb.

“So, you’re dating then?”

“No!” You quickly protested, fingers tapping lightly against the back of your phone, itching to check it again, just in case.

“You’re not?”

“I’m mean-“ you cut yourself off, hoping a reasonable answer would find you.

But if anything, the slight judgemental tone in their voice only had your mind start to churn the questions you hadn’t dared ask yourself.

Were you dating?

No, you could confidently say you weren’t a couple by any means. But what did your relation really embed?

In your head, you’d just sort of assumed you were exclusive. You certainly acted as if you were. There was not any part of you that had the tiniest desire for anyone but him. But neither of you had stated so.

And what did he think? Did he consider you exclusive?

When you were with him, he gave you no reason to believe otherwise. One could even argue he was just as devoted as you were — it certainly appeared that way at least.

It was only when you were separated that an uneasy feeling welled up inside you, that this wasn’t even close to anything special to him.

When he took hours to reply, your mind had ventured down the most comfortable path of “he’s just not that big of a fan of technology”.

But you knew Suguru was fully aware of the effect he had on people. Not to mention he liked it, how he so subtly had people wrapped around his finger.

And the devastating thought hit you like a train — what if he did it on purpose? You wouldn’t put it past him to play a game that had you constantly on your toes. He would give you just enough to continue to have you hooked on him, only to go off the radar for a short period so you’d come back stronger to feed his ego.

All hell broke loose when you decided to ask.

Tired of beating around the bush, you had asked bluntly what this entire ordeal was to him.

Then the fury started to burn inside you, watching how he ran the tongue along the inside of his cheek, a small smirk tugging at his lip before his shoulders raised in a casual shrug.

“Having fun?”

You held his gaze as your breathing slowly grew more rapid.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You not having fun?”

Oh, he was cruel.

Of course you were having fun, and he knew that which is exactly why he asked. He knew you’d be lying if you said anything else.

But you weren’t just having fun. You found yourself enjoying his company, even preferring it to being alone. And suddenly, when having him ask such a silly question, it hit you just how badly you were entangled in the vines of his charm.

You knew you should leave, spin around on your heal and slam the door behind you as you left him standing — but there was that pull again, keeping your feet planted in place despite the fury bubbling up inside you.

Even when he was being so inconsiderate with your feelings, you wanted to be around him. You wanted to feel his chest vibrate against your back when he spoke while you were leaned up against him, or let his fingertips travel teasing lines just under the edge of your shirt.

“Don’t dare put words in my mouth, Suguru,” you fought to keep your voice stern. “But why spend so much time with me?” You hoped the hurt you felt wasn’t too audible.

He shrugged. “Because I’m having fun with you?”

You let out a huff of disbelief, hating how nonchalantly he stood all of a sudden — shoulders slightly slumped forward and his hands stuffed in his pockets, appearing seemingly unbothered.

“I hope it’s not crazy for me to assume that’s what this was considering it all started with a hookup at a random party.”

His statement sent you whiplash back to that night.

After having flirted shamelessly for some time, you had hurried away to delve into an intimate night spent together, no idea on what it was about evolve into.

From the moment the door closed behind you, his sole focus was on worshiping every inch of your body. He was gentle where he needed to be, and rough where he needed to be. Manoeuvring with perfect precision, he gave you a night unlike any other.

What felt better, was waking up and for once not waking up with the feeling of a regretted experience — no, the regret hit now instead.

“No. No, of course not but why would you hold me like that if you were just having fun?” You couldn’t conceal the sadness in your voice anymore.

“Like what?”

“Like you care?” You asked, words falling past your lips so quietly.

He sighed deeply, and licked his lips before answering. “I do care. Just… not the way you seem to care.”

“You’re an asshole,” you said under your breath, using all the power you had to fight the pull he had to break the eye contact, turning it to your feet.

“I’m sorry if I made you believe that this was anything more than casual.”

There was that word you hated — casual, something you had distanced yourself from. Nothing you did was ever casual, always going in with your full heart in whatever you did, being both a curse and a blessing — the former being relevant right now.

“If you want to end things-“

“I do,” you cut him off, quickly tilting your head back up to look at him with glossy eyes.

“Okay,” he said softly, never stopping the act he had maintained throughout it all, that he had been genuine. “Then we end things.”

Despite everything you had thought, after having him do a full 180 and suddenly serve you such a carefree attitude, his pull on you was still strong. The grasp was still latching on, no matter how hard you tried to wring out of its grip.

It felt nearly as you had withdrawals as it started to plague your days — foot tapping quietly against the floor during class, your screen time increasing just waiting for three bubbles to pop up at the bottom of your messages, tossing and turning in bed on a Saturday evening as you pictured him sweet talking a new girl into his arms.

And it took exactly nine days for you to cave and reach out.

You felt somewhat pathetic, that the mere thought of him was enough for you to succumb to the need for him despite being so careless with your emotions.

You: wanna watch a movie?

He probably already had plans for the evening. Guys like him rarely had a Friday night without somewhere to go — however it only took a minute for the response to chime in.

Suguru: I’ll be there in 30

You drew a sharp breath at the unexpected response. Quickly jumping out of bed to clean up as nicely as you could before he arrived, because you knew he would be true to his word and stand at your door in exactly half an hour.

You just about managed to feel satisfied with yourself and your apartment before there were four rhythmic taps on the door, followed by the sound of it creaking open.

Spinning around on your heel, your heart pounded against your chest like a hummingbird once reunited with him.

“Hey,” he said as if nothing had happened. As if you hadn’t just broken zero contact after having grown dependent on it.

You cleared your throat, “hey.” Your eyes followed him as he threw his jacket over the closest chair and walked over to your couch, sitting down and making himself comfortable.

Snap out of it, you thought to yourself. He was in a way doing you a favour by pretending as if everything was smooth sailing between you, not bringing attention to how you had let his hold on you get the best of you.

“Hope I didn’t pull you from an exciting Friday evening,” you tried to joke as you fixed a bowl of chips.

“Not anything that can beat a movie night at least,” he breathed, giving you the impression that he was genuinely relaxed.

“Thriller?” You asked, knowing the answer already.

“You know it,” he smiled as you sat down beside him and placed the bowl in his lap, falling into a familiar sense of comfort.

After twenty minutes of staring at the tv, not really watching the movie, your body won over your brain. You didn’t say anything, simply nudging his arm — he obliged, and made room for you to move close and lean into his frame once again.

A wave of peace traveled you from head to toe, nearly feeling as if your body had suddenly stopped vibrating after all these days separated.

You felt calm for the first time since you had seen him last, and now knew you were doomed in a tragic cycle.

You knew you only had yourself to blame, falling into a routine one could consider unhealthy.

It played out the same way every time — given enough time, you grew impatient with his behaviour and ended up confronting him about it. He would feed you the same sorry excuse that it was all casual to him, and he acted accordingly.

Each time he spoke the word ‘casual’, you despised it more and more. You had sworn to yourself you never wanted to be involved in anything that would be considered ‘casual’. And each time you exploded with emotions before storming out, ending things yet again, you desperately tried to cling onto that promise.

Then, when you once again caved to the need to see him, you would feel so extremely pathetic, a hopeless victim to his charm.

You would send an innocent text asking to meet up again, and the evening ended in his warm embrace — and for that evening, when his body soothed you into a comfort you had sorely missed, you let yourself forget for a split second what it had cost you, but before too long the cycle would start over.

You couldn’t help it, that unexplainable force that held you captive in his orbit was as strong as the first moment you spotted him all those weeks ago.

It was all made worse by the fact that it was always you who gave in. Never him. You gave him exactly what he wanted, which was also what he deserved the least.

Was the self loathing worth the bliss he provided? Up until now you hadn’t been able to decide — but he had finally managed to run you dry of patience.

“This is the last time, Suguru.” You surprised yourself by how determined you sounded, nearly certain you could rely on yourself that you were serious this time around.

“Okay, if that’s what you want,” he said, making it sound earnest — but both of you knew he was positive you’d pop up in his messages in about a week.

“I mean it!”

“I believe you.” He didn’t.

And it was in that moment, when the sound of your heart breaking echoed in your ears, you were finally able to let Shoko’s warning sink in. The very one that had flown right over your head that night — don’t get too swept up, honey.

You’d been played for a fool, and you had let it happen. This was his MO, his pattern, and you had ignored any toxic signs because you simply couldn’t go a day without him.

“You know, you really make me feel crap about myself sometimes,” you swallowed, hindering the sob that harboured in your throat to erupt.

For a split second you could have sworn you saw guilt washing over him and causing his jaw to clench with discomfort. But it disappeared as quickly as it had spawned, switched out with that softness that resided in his eyes that you had come to learn was nothing but an act.

“That’s never been my intention.”

You scoffed the second his “apology” was uttered into existences. “Whatever,” you sniffled as you picked up your bag and tossed it over your shoulder.

He waited for you to say something else, like another mean comment or at the very least a goodbye — anything he could bounce off of.

But it never came, and he simply watched you turn your back to him, walk away and leave him alone in his apartment.

Suguru felt small after you left. He always did. When you weren’t there to accompany him, his home suddenly became too big for just him and he felt a strange sensation of loneliness.

He tried to shake off the feeling and settle into the safety of your routine. He was positive you would come back to him and you’d sleep next to him again.

It had intentionally gone completely unsaid that Suguru found you to be just as addictive as you found him.

He had been aware of the fact since the party, but he’d had the privilege of ignoring the itching feeling because you always caved first.

You didn’t know how he, much like you, picked up his phone a dozen times an hour during your separations, only to put it back down while his leg kept bouncing with agitation.

You didn’t know how the simplest of things reminded him of you, like when he turned the tv on and the volume was always louder than expected because you’d had to turn it up in order to hear it over your conversations.

You didn’t know how he had found one of your hair ties on his bathroom sink one day when he was cleaning, and he had slipped it on around his wrist without a second thought, ready to go whenever he put his hair up.

There had been a satisfaction — a contentment — when you ended up returning, giving him exactly what he so desperately craved just moments before he was about to give into his desires.

Now, when you finally decided to stay true to your word, the loneliness he felt had come to stay, residing deep in his bones when his phone never chimed with the familiar sound of your personalised notification.

Never before could he remember truly wanting someone else’s attention like he did yours, and you had spoiled him by giving it to him without him having to ask. But now the request for you to spare it to him was threateningly close to becoming a reality.

The yearning for your focus on him again had his fingers type out message after message, which all ended up deleted before ever hitting send.

He felt the same sense of patheticness you had felt throughout the entirety of your relationship. And he hated it.

He was perfectly fine with letting previous conquest go, having indulged enough in the attention he bathed in while they were around by the time they grew tired of his behaviour. Somehow he had found a balance he could live with.

Only for you to offset said balance with longing gazes thrown in his direction across the room, the palpable tension nearly suffocating whenever you shared the same space. A new sensation had started to spark throughout his body when being near you, and yes, he had become dependant on it.

Was this how you had felt every time? Growing so restless for his touch that you threw any self restraint out the window just to have that feeling again? Did you feel it now, in this very moment?

The answer was no — not this time around.

Every other time you had so abruptly left him, hoping your words would lead him down a path of reflection, you had definitely grown antsy. You hadn’t been able to keep still for a single second.

This time, however, was a whole lot different.

Instead of checking your phone religiously, you let it lay face down on your desk.

Instead of pacing around your room in a desperate attempt to not contact him, you rotted in your bed under your covers.

And instead of thinking of him with annoyance tainting your opinion, you thought of him with silent tears.

This time around, you would dare say you were genuinely heartbroken.

Determined to stand your ground, a newfound melancholy decided to sprout inside you. Despite hating yourself a little every time you had decided to return to him, it had lured you into a false sense of comfort. When you knew you’d eventually find yourself back in his embrace, you never gave the sadness enough time to set proper root.

Once surrendered to the reality, it didn’t take long for the sorrow to envelop you the way his arms used to.

It was a Saturday evening, and during your time with Suguru you would usually have retreated to yourself by this hour. And now you were just lying in your bed with your headphones on, the music playing and taking you down memory lane.

When that song came on shuffle, it immediately catapulted you back to an evening not too long ago.

It was one of his favourites, and it played softly from the speakers throughout his room. He was lied on his back on his bed, bare chested while you straddled him, wearing nothing but panties and his oversized t-shirt.

His big hands were resting on your thighs, while your dainty ones were slowly drawing lines along his muscular chest.

“Looks good on you,” he said nodding towards his shirt.

“Think so?” You mused, trapping your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Mhmm,” his long fingers squeezing the plush skin of your thighs.

“Thought you were more of the lingerie kinda guy,” you shrugged playfully. He was already shaking his head no before your sentence had come out in full.

“No. No, this is better,” he breathed, eyes traveling your body as he adjusted under you, pulling a soft yelp from your lips. “A lot better.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Because it’s mine.” Heat spread across your cheeks, a giddy smile stretching in response. His fingers came up to capture your chin, slowly pulling your face closer to his. You could feel his smirk as his breath fanned your lips. “And so are you.”

Pulled from your memories, your breath hitched in your throat at the sound of the door bell.

Nowhere inside you did you have the willpower to answer, only groaning to yourself and pulling the duvet over your head. Not even a minute later, it rang again, followed by three loud knocks.

You ignored it, hoping whoever was at the door would eventually assume you weren’t home. But when determined knocks were heard a third time, it became evident your visitor wasn’t going to leave until you opened the door.

Begrudgingly stumbling out of your bed, you slowly shuffled in the direction of the front door, taking your time which made the stranger knock both a fourth and fifth time.

With your hand on the handle you took a deep sigh as you prepared yourself to meet another human being. You swung the door open, Suguru’s fist hovering in the air as he was about to knock once again.

His entire body released tension he wasn’t aware had been stored there once he was reunited with your sight, lips parting with a quiet breath of relief.

“Suguru,” you said. It was so airy he nearly missed you saying it at all, but it was enough to set of a spark of euphoria — however, it was cut short when you once again opened your mouth only to say “I don’t want to see you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he responded with nothing but sentimentality in is voice.

Your mouth shut abruptly, any protest being trapped behind the back of your teeth — because of course you were lying. There wasn’t anything you wanted more than to see him. And he saw right through you.

“Please leave.” It came out as a sad plea, tainted with exhaustion and Suguru started to understand just how badly he had hurt you while he was busy living in denial. “I need you to leave.”

“I can’t,” he said in a low voice.

You let out a deep sigh in frustrated. “Suguru, I am asking you nicely to turn around and leave.”

Your heart was pounding against its cage, body growing tired as you yet again used all your strength to fight the pull.

“I’m telling you I can’t.”

Was he trying to be cruel? Being difficult for the sake of being difficult by taking advantage of your pain? Or had he just missed the attention?

You let your hand slide up the door, hoping the grip you had on it would give you some sort of support in the emotionally turbulent scene that was about to take place.

“You have no idea,” another frustrated sigh, “how hard it is for me to not just… surrender to you again.”

“But I do know.”

“Oh, do you know?” You couldn’t help but scoff tauntingly. He really was just having a laugh, showing up at your door to confirm that you were still wrapped up in the gorgeous package that was Suguru Geto so his ego wasn’t bruised.

He straightened his posture to stand taller, more confident. “Can I come in?”

Say no, say no, say no.

“Okay,” you croaked, hesitating to step aside to let him in. It felt like such a defeat. You had actually managed, against all odds, to fight the invisible leashes that had dragged you closer and closer — but in the blink of an eye, your defences were wearing down.

You closed the door behind him, eyes following him as he walked further into the room before turning around to face you and suddenly it looked as if he was a little at a loss on what to do or say.

Once inside, he had the opportunity to see you fully without hiding behind the door, and he hated what he saw.

You appeared nearly timid — swimming in your huge hoodie, you had your arms loosely wrapped around yourself, big eyes staring up at him with a delicate red rim and your nose the faintest tint of pink, all evidence of sadness — sadness caused by him.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I can’t stay away.”

“Are you making fun of me?” You sniffled, blinking away the tears that had started to form.

“Never,” he responded immediately.

A sad smile painted your face, because you simply didn’t believe him. How could you? When reflecting over your relationship in the light of your heartbreak, you couldn’t see how any of his words or behaviour would lead you to believe he was genuine. Then he said your name in a way that nearly convinced you otherwise.

“I can’t stay away,” he repeated calmly.

“Yeah, so you said,” you hugged your arms tighter around yourself. “But I don’t believe you,” you stuttered.

“There’s this unexplainable pull-“ your breath hitched once again as the start of his confession sounded a little too relatable for your liking. “I can’t help but crave your company.”

“This isn’t funny, Suguru,” you forced out.

“I’m not trying to be, either,” his voice was still calm, as if it would somehow trick him to think he was in more control of his own emotions than he really was. “You have this power over me, and being away from you is suffocating.”

“Then why’d always let me leave?”

The question caught him off guard. It wasn’t what he had expected to leave your mouth next, and now he was desperately searching for the right thing to answer.

“I didn’t think I’d want you to come back. I never have before.”

It probably wasn’t his intention, but his words stung, cutting oh-so-deep and leaving open wounds in their wake.

“So, really, you’re just an asshole?”

Again you surprised him, eyebrows narrowing in confusion. “What?”

“All this time, you’ve needed my company the way I have yours-“

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say.” It nearly went unnoticed, but there was a hint of desperation to his statement.

“I’m not finished,” you huffed, steadying the quiver that had found its way into your voice. “You’ve needed my company like I need yours, and yet you let me believe you were only pursuing this casually. That you were basically using me.”

“But I wasn’t using you. Not ever.”

“But you pretended as if you were.”

With a sigh he pressed his lips together as he knew he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. You were absolutely right. He had, without hesitation, let you believe he didn’t care due to his own pride and selfishness. And he had watched you throw your dignity out the window every time you came crawling back, just because his desire was fulfilled.

“I’m here now,” he breathed, desperately hoping you could see how severe his yearning truly was.

Your eyes flittered across his face carved by the gods, before letting your gaze travel to his arms. It was so tempting to step forward so they could pull you into a warm embrace, a feeling your skin burned to feel again.

I’m here now — his words echoing in your mind. Everything about this moment was pulling you closer and closer to falling over the edge again. You had almost started to believed you possessed a strength you never knew you had when you’d managed to keep a safe distance from that edge, but it didn’t take more than tiny sprinkles of his attention to have you stand with your toes off the cliff.

You opened your mouth to speak, a decline fighting its way up your throat. But you closed your mouth again when you realised the sentence wouldn’t be spoken into reality.

“Every time we took a break from… whatever this has been,” he said gesturing between you, “I grew restless, I didn’t sleep. I was so close to contacting you, but I was just lucky you always reached out first.”

“So what is it you want from me?”

“You.”

Silence fell between you. You could feel it, how you were about to lose all restraint again — and how scared it made you.

Was everything he said now all a lie in order to have you return to him, just so you could scratch that itch he had to be wanted, desired, above all else? If you gave in now, would you ever be able to pull away again?

But god forbid he was earnest. That thought was more terrifying.

You could only begin to image what that would look like. If you both gave into your true feelings and cravings, not hiding behind any facades anymore, the passion would be all consuming. There was no escaping his orbit then.

You took a deep breath through your nose, before breaking the silence.

“Tell me again.”

“I want you.”

author's note : suguru my love... giving him some well deserved attention. this took a whole lot longer than anticipated as it also turned out longer than i thought hehe comments and reblogs are appreciated

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