Treasure Seekers 2 go brrrrr
So this sequel... exists :D
Welcome to the second entry in the Treasure Seekers trilogy that I'm gonna ramble about for the next six hours (in me time, in you time it's probably gonna be like thirty minutes or less), if you wanna read it yourself before reading this ramble, here's an Archive copy. Otherwise, enjoy the ride :D
So our story begins with the Thea Sisters locked in a basement in the dark, with Russia's penchant for matches (and the basement's lack of a smoke alarm) coming in clutch. Seems like another vacation's gone awry for them :3 How could it have possibly turned out this way?
Flashback: so the girls are vibing in Moscow, visiting all the cool sights and all that, Pam is wanting to try some Russian cuisine, when they spot this girl that's wearing what appears to be a barrette that used to belong to Aurora's sister Hannah Lane. They follow her a bit, find a THUG JUMPSCARE, follow the girl, Cassidy and co into the building they're heading into, and oh dear door with passcode is in the way. They find this dood Sergei, explain to him the situation, deal with him being like "who is u, and wth are you on about mate" until they hear a scream and oh dear turns out that girl with the barrette is Sergei's sister Irina and she's in trouble.
Sergei opens the door, they go in, walk in on Cassidy, Stan and Max (who I will from now call SM for simplicity) doing their whole thug jumpscare thing and kidnapping Irina in 4K. SM somehow rolls a high enough strength roll (or the girls roll a low enough initiative) that two roughly intimidating guys successfully trap six people into a basement without breaking a sweat get yourself some self-defense classes girls oml, and that's the end of that.
Luke's up to his shenanigans again, and it seems that he's targeted Irina Lenenko for the same reason the girls double-taked at the sight of her barrette: Irina (and Sergei in conjunction) is a descendant of Hannah Lane, and Hannah Lane may or may not have known a thing or two about one of the seven treasures. It's such a shame tho that Irina doesn't wanna spill any of the tea. What's this about a "queen's jewel"?
Oh also Luke has Aurora's third diary. I would like you to pay attention to this detail in particular. Oh and he's keeping Irina ratgrabbed until she tells them what he wants to know from her. Oh naur
Meanwhile the girls infodump all of the TS 1 LANE LOORRREEEE to Sergei in one whole sitting and finally manage to get around to "what the hell does this have to do with my sister". Sergei thinks it's not really possible for Irina to know anything about great-grandma Hannah's involvement with Aurora, but Irina's still in trouble soooo time to solve this nerdy-ass science trivia keypad puzzle to get outa the basement. Irina's nowhere to be found in the lab itself, so they regroup at Sergei's place to use his phone tracker app on his computer.
Bad news, SM dumped Irina's phone somewhere in the lab so the tracker app is useless; good news, while looking for some Lane Lore™ to get some context about the situation, the girls find some Lane Lore™ :D
-
Turns out Aurora was looking for one of the seven treasures again, y'know just updating her sister on that, who'd moved to Saint Petersburg with her husband Ivan.
Seems like Aurora's quest at the time involved "the queen's jewel", which Aurora said she was 1000% down to ramble about to Hannah, maybe when she's done finding all seven treasures and hiding them from Jan.
I would like to take this moment to remind you that Aurora is a British Amelia Earhart, and if you dunno what that means, look up what Earhart was famous for and then look at this with that given context :']
-
With that lead, the girls plus Sergei take a ride on presumably the Krasnaya Strela night train to Saint Petersburg, read some Lane Lore on the way, Peter-Griffin upon realizing that they spent the whole night reading AO3 fanfics Aurora's diaries and it's like 2AM now, land in Saint Petersburg, stop by Nevsky Prospekt Street to have some breakfast (I think they went to Venezia?), and discussion.
(For the rest of this review, please assume when I say "the girls", I'm including Sergei because Sergei tags along with them and helps them out in their entire journey. It's okay, Sergei may be biologically male but he is an honorary female in our hearts /j)
Aurora mentioned the queen's jewel in her diary, and when you're in Russia, the first queen that comes to mind is Catherine II, so maybe something relating to her? Some Lane Lore of Aurora taking interest in Catherine II's Amber Room in her palace specifically confirms their theories, sooooooooo it's time to go to the Amber Room to see if Aurora left any clu--
The girls are about to walk out of the Catherine Palace to Peter Griffin in private when SM JUMPSCARE--
So SM is stalkin' around the Catherine Palace looking for something, so the girls stalk them back and follow them out of the palace, into a car (the girls called a separate taxi to follow them), and to a little gray building in the outskirts of the city. They don't follow SM into the building because it might be dangerous, but Irina's scarf lying around near the premises confirms that Irina was in fact there and possibly being held hostage in the building.
The girls do a little tactic I like to call "the Ding Dong Ditch": Pam and Nicky knock on the door, SM answers it, do a little Metal Gear exclamation point "HOW DID YOU GET HERE", Nicky and Pam book it so SM chases them, and that's literally how the other girls plus Sergei sneak into the building to get Irina out. (You dunno how badly I wanted to make a videogame reference for this but I couldn't find anything so here we are--)
With that, the girls plus the Lenenko siblings book it outa there without SM being none the wiser (seriously it doesn't even cross their mind that there are more than two Thea Sisters, that's how dum they are). Irina books a hotel room at a friend's place and gives them some extra Lane Lore that she never told Klawitz despite the interrogations:
Hannah Lane was once visited by Aurora unexpectedly, a little after Hannah and her husband moved to a house near the Ob River, in Siberia. Possible lead :3c? The girls think maybe, so they decide to head on over to the exact address in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
In Siberia, the girls cross the frozen Ob River in Novosibirsk to this abandoned little house, where they find this little note with a riddle that talks about Cleopatra and an emerald she had at one point, and CASSIDY JUMPSCARE--
Cassidy busts in, snatches the note and books it away on her snowmobile before the girls can even react. You may be wondering, how the hell did Cassidy get there and know where they were? The answer is the same as the reason behind the SM jumpscares in Russia and in book 1, and that is Luke.
Luke Von Klawitz is doing a little segment that I like to call: Luke Touch Grass, where it becomes increasingly clear that Luke's spent way too much time on 4Chan (/j but you'll see what I mean). Luke hears about SM's failure and facepalms. Then he calls his friend Petrovski, who has access to the database of all of Russia's airports, for help tracking down "six mice leaving Saint Petersburg". Petrovski gives him results in minutes: the girls and Sergei are leaving Saint Petersburg and heading for Novosibirsk, Siberia (most likely Tolmachevo Airport). With that intel, Klawitz looks into his own database of Aurora Beatrix Lane, finds a picture of Hannah and Aurora together, and uses his own version of Google Lens to figure out the exact coordinates where the picture was taken, which happens to be in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
No this man does not in fact canonically touch grass on the regular, who's asking
Anyway so he sent Cassidy the coords, instructions and Aurora's diary to go, and that's how Cassidy walked in on the girls in that little abandoned hut next to Ob River. Only thing is uh, she dropped her purse on the way out. A purse that just so happened to contain Aurora's diary that Luke gave her.
So the girls scoop that puppy up and assume that the treasure is Cleopatra's emerald, thus they think it's in Egypt.
So the girls go to Egypt :D (29 and a half hour flight there good god no wonder they conked out in the plane--)
The girls read some Lane Lore, something about Aurora finding the treasure and hiding it somewhere in a desert, in an "expanse pure and white" that a star compass will lead to. First thing the girls think of at the desert bit is the White Desert (Sahara el Beyda), specifically a spot near Cleopatra's pool, so they leave the airport (not realizing Cassidy is following them now) and head over to a market to buy some supplies because might I remind you, they initially went to Moscow, Russia for vacation.
While in the market, Pam meets a guy named Omar. Pam tells him a little bit about them going to Cleopatra's pool in Sahara el Beyda, and she finds out that Omar just so happens to be an Archaeology major in Oxford University who's here on his summer vacation and works as a guide for Sahara el Beyda, and is more than down to give the girls a tour. Talk about lucky :D
The next day the girls take the scenic route and after a while make it to Siwa, where Omar books a room in a hotel for them, and the girls find this interesting myth there about Cleopatra that I will summarize here:
Cleopatra was once given a jewel that maxes out the owner's rizz and the effect is supposedly indefinite. Cleopatra liked the jewel so much that she wore it on her crown at all times... until she grew a bit self-conscious about the gem's maxxed rizz effect and how everyone kept eyeing the emerald a second too long for comfort, so she decided to hide away said rizz in a spot where none of her rivals could get to it. Oh and uh Cleopatra wrote up a dedication to Ra that's hella cryptic too.
One long rest later, the girls go to Cleopatra's pool on a donkey cart. Yes, a donkey cart. It was Omar's idea. Speaking of Omar, prepare yourself buddy because the girls have dubiously decided to give you some Lane Lore to chew on. O-oh you like it a lot. A lot a lot. Well okay cool, maybe you can help out, cool.
The girls manage to figure out the riddle in Cleopatra's dedication, find a little stone coffer that has the queen's treasure and-- SM JUMPSCARE
With a donkey as the girls' only escape method and Omar having suddenly disappeared, a scuffle ensues where the girls play hot potato with the box until SM gets their hands on it and opens it, and here we get a very accurate depiction of what SM and the girls found in the box once it was actually opened.
Description: a hand made of salt shaped in an upside-down "ok" symbol, circa 1920s-30s.
The sheer whiplash of this leaves both sides of the conflict losing enough HP that they're all on red-- SM is blaming the girls for this (how dare >:[) and dip. Omar is gone, and all the girls get as compensation is the empty box and a letter from Aurora telling them that they'll know to read the hidden clues. The girls head back feeling very hollow and dead inside, and this is the one time one of the girls questions how the hell did SM know they were at Siwa. I mean they never get any answer to this (kinda), but it is a milestone! They're aware of it now!
Once they get back to Cairo, they ask around and find that Omar's completely up and vanished, and they decide they'll just head back to Moscow since their investigation has come to a dead end. On the way, Pam comments about the falafel she bought being hella salty, which leads Violet to an epiphany that hey, the Sahara isn't the only desert that exists, let alone the only desert known for how white it is (like how Boracay Beach is known for how white and fine its sand is, but it's not the only white sand beach that exists). A quick Google search (and a long flight (35 HOURS CAIRO TO SUCRE???)) leads them to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.
Nicky reserves a room for them at Hotel Luna Salada (a real place you can book a stay at actually :D), and they make a friend by the name of Adriana, a local waitress in the hotel restaurant. Adriana helps them pick out a dessert, fills them in on some stuff about the Salar since the girls came here 100% out of impulse, and talks about possible itinerary locations to go to, like the Isla de Pescado, Tiwanaku (the "Gate of the Sun"), Lake Titiaca, and Laguna Colorada. Y'know, typical tourist stuff, and Adriana was so kind to show them pictures she took when she visited said places herself! :D
Anyway so while the girls long rest, Luke is mulling about in his base waiting for updates. Someone calls him about the whole Egypt thing, and Luke calls the girls incompetent? Rude, oh and something about the caller being Luke's "secret weapon". Cassidy calls him on a theory she has about the gemstone being in Cleopatra's palace, and since the girls are currently long-resting (which means they aren't doing anything), Luke figures that a little diving trip in Alexandria to search for the gem with Cassidy won't hurt. Besides, he still has his secret weapon.
Oh yeah and he knows the girls are long resting because he has a drone in Bolivia spying on them and showing him their every move. Touch grass, Luke. No, going on a diving trip in Alexandria doesn't count, there's barely any grass there /j
Morning comes in Bolivia, and the girls head out early to search the Salar as much as they can. They look around the flat white desert, eat some late breakfast, toy around with forced perspective camera shenanigans for a bit, and read up on some LANE LOOORREEEEE
So Aurora's been to Pumapunku and Tiwanaku which is cool, she paid a visit to the archaeological site probably and that's really cool. She says something about hiding the queen's treasure in a fish's stomach covered in very fine thorns. Sergei ends up having an epiphany, and that leads the girls to Isla de Pescado, which just so happens to be "Fish Island" in Spanish, and has cacti on it, it's all coming together :D
Oh and the fish drawing Aurora made is coords to the treasure seemingly so that's cool-- OMAR JUMPSCARE
The girls are very surprised to find Omar joining them, and Omar explains that he booked it when SM came over and lost his cellphone as a result. However, he managed to figure out that Aurora's riddle was about salt and not sand, and decided to head on over to Bolivia since he assumed that's where the girls are going. How did he find them? It was just out of pure coincidence, and also the fact that the girls are extremely recognizable. Hm.
Anyway, Paulina plugs the coordinates into her GPS and leads the girls plus Omar to a little cave at the bottom of a little embankment. The girls find that, lo and behold, there's an old tin box containing a bright green emerald!
Meanwhile Luke is not finding anything in Alexandria haha L, LVK L get dunked on Luke, Cassidy girlie that's not a man to simp for find someone else gurl-- oh dear Luke is alerted that the treasure has been found and now he's planning on heading over to Bolivia? Now how could he possibly know that?
In the meantime, I dunno what's up in the air or if it's the Archaeology major speaking in him but Omar's really invested in this treasure, even more so than the girls to the degree that the girls are a little freaked out by it-- RHEA JUMPSCARE-- Paulina calms the big bord down and gets it to not trample Omar please, he's still a friend of theirs. Colette picks up this blue notebook Omar seems to have dropped.
The girls plus Omar head back to the SUVs, and Omar is really trying to persuade the girls that he should bring it back to Cairo. The girls are not jazzed at the idea because Omar bringing it back alone will be too unsafe, y'know with Luke and Cassidy and SM and all. They gotta think about this rationally-- WHOA OKAY OMAR calm your man tits buddy why are you demanding they trust you like you automatically deserve your trust-- ohh that's how Klawitz has known about the girls' whereabouts, Omar was working as a double agent.
So yeah Omar snatches the box from Colette and drives off in his SUV, leaving the girls in the dust. The girls freak out and are feeling that EMOTIONAL DAMAGE, but Colette for some reason is very calm about Omar booking it with the emerald. And that's because SHE HAS IT :D she did a lil' switcheroo so now the emerald's with her while the box is with Omar.
For context about how Colette knew about this, remember the blue notebook Omar dropped? Yeah that notebook was a company LVK notebook, straight from Luke himself. Then after Colette saw it, everything about Omar became incredibly sus, so she performed this precautionary measure.
So now the girls talk to the local authorities about how the whole thing with the emerald is gonna go down, and soon the girls are waiting for a plane back to Moscow.
As for Omar, well, he goes over to Luke's super-fancy hotel in La Paz, Bolivia, and he hands the box to Luke, explicitly stating that he decided he'd let Luke open it before he himself can appreciate it.
Luke opens the box, and here we see an accurate depiction of what Luke sees.
Description: an upside-down "ok" symbol drawn in strawberry pink lip balm, signed Colette [insert last name], circa 2018.
Luke punts the box (prolly with the lip balm still inside it) into the swimming pool, tells Omar to get out, and that's the end of that. Haha Omar L Luke L
The girls head back to Moscow to drop Sergei off when SURPRISE PARTY BY IRINA'S SQUAD :DDD
Then the girls are about to return to Whale Island to presumably Peter Griffin in their dorms, when Colette suggests they make a journal a la Aurora Beatrix Lane, and they do. In a pink notebook because it was Colette's idea so we might as well give her that
And they take a black-and-white group picture of them wearing adventurer clothes like Aurora would've done. The brainrot is real, these girls are mentally ill /j
And that's the book :D
... Honestly it's the most meh out of the trilogy besides the big-brain bits in the middle and the end imo
The writing was so much more stilted in this one, even for Scholastic standards, and everything feels pretty..... kid's book. Even more so than the usual in the book's English translations. I do readings for the books in some of my Discords, and this book did not read well at aaallll. And I haven't even mentioned the typos in the book (they're not a lot, but they exist, and they're kinda egregious :D) and some grammar errors if I'm remembering things correctly. It might just be a translation thing-- I worry a bit for the translator who had to put this together.
Luke's character here is also kinda wonk? For one we see him directly contradict his anti-friendship spiel in TS 1 since he literally greets Petrovski like a friend (maybe it's a "friendship doesn't exist except in 4Chan" thing, I dunno). Then in the middle of the book, he gets... very Disney villain-y. The most egregious example here is the chapter "Lurking in the Shadows", where as you can see
I am confusion?? Luke has been described as a to-the-point brat who hardly cares for the means to his end (unless it will impact his ability to achieve the end) and is so fixated on his goal that he doesn't touch grass. Is this not-touching-grass behavior? Yeah, definitely, but this??? This is too Disney villain???? Why does the man break into an evil cackle in front of Cassidy???? I understood it in book 1 because man thinks he's doing a "You may think you have outsmarted me but I have OUTSMARTED YOUR OUTSMARTING", but this one?? Maybe it's my personal taste, but it's too cartoonish and too... deviated from what we know of him up to this point.
ALSO TWIRLING HIS MUSTACHE? WHAT MUSTACHE IS HE TWIRLING THAT THING IS NOT TWIRL-ABLE
Also time to address the one big plot hole in this book: Aurora's diary.
So in this book there's only one diary, which is infinitely simpler than the two we got in the first book. This diary supposedly contains Aurora's records of her mission in hiding Cleopatra's Rizzmerald, and the details are supposedly vague enough that Luke felt the need to kidnap and interrogate Irina, a Hannah Lane descendant, to fill in the blanks. However, when you look at the contents of the diary itself (which lord knows how many times Luke himself has looked through it), there's hardly any blanks that need to be filled, at least if you're Luke.
The diary itself is mostly in the background-- like I said, not as much Lane Lore here as the previous book, the girls mostly rely on Aurora's letters to Hannah here-- but there's one specific entry the girls read in the latter half of the book that explicitly mentions Pumapunku and Tiwanaku, and how Aurora is there for her mission to hide the emerald. Complete with coordinates hidden in a little drawing! My one question I have for Luke is, why didn't he go straight to Bolivia and started searching there? Why did he go through all the effort of kidnapping Irina, tailing the girls around Sahara el Beyda, letting SM fall for the salt replica gambit, left his base to touch grass and go on a dive with Cassidy in Egypt; all if he could've just gone straight to Bolivia to look for the treasure there? Sure, Aurora did a good job hiding the coordinates in the fish doodle, but someone as observant and as obsessed about the outcome instead of the journey like Luke would rather have sidestepped all the Aurora shenanigans and beelined straight to the goal if he was able to.
Luke hardly has an excuse here because he owned the diary at the start of the book, and most definitely read through it many times (and we know he's the type to do this, see TS 1). The plot hole is plot hole-ing, it seems :/
Maybe it was just an excuse for the girls to get a giant glowing arrow pointing in the direction of the treasure? It certainly feels like it.
Anyway, the things that carry this book and made it memorable when I first read it (and allowed me to ignore the iffy bits) are the gottems and Omar as a character. Aurora setting up a salt replica of the Rizzmerald as a gottem in a time capsule, only to be opened almost a hundred years later to still be as potent as intended when it was made so long ago? That is amazing, like c'mon, pure comedy material.
Even funnier is Colette doing the exact same thing, only with her lip balm. Luke is quaking in his bougie-ass leather boots.
Now for Omar. This may be a hot take of mine here, but Omar's sus-ness is actually at a decent level compared to the girls and what they usually deal with. On one hand, Omar is incredibly suspicious with how incredibly lucky the girls are to find an Archaeology Oxford major working as a Sahara el Beyda tour guide; but on the other hand, the girls had almost the exact same situation with Diego in Mexico (I didn't mention him in the first review, but he came in clutch in TS 1).
The girls met Diego in Merida, Mexico, and he helped them with their research into "the invisible place", which happened to be Uxmal, along the Puuc Route. Diego also just so happened to be a tour-guide-in-training for the Puuc Route, which was the place the girls just so happened to need to go to find Aurora's second journal.
In comparison, the girls meet Omar in Khan El-Khalili while they were looking for supplies for their trip to the Siwa Oasis. It comes up in conversation that the girls are headed to Siwa, and Omar just so happened to be a tour guide for Sahara el Beyda, which was where the Siwa Oasis is, and it just so happened to be where the girls needed to go. When you stack them up together, it made perfect sense that the girls thought they could trust him-- Diego didn't know much about their trip and helped them the best he could (which was a lot), so why wouldn't Omar do the same? He's an Oxford Archaeology major, too, for crying out loud, the girls struck gold in the end!
Gold that was too shiny and too good to be true. Gold that was, in the end, nothing more than pyrite, fool's gold.
Omar is a good case for why you should be careful with who you trust, and when you should start thinking a little bit when you're getting a little too lucky with the people you meet. When the girls got to know him a little more and decided to trust him and tell him the deal with their trip, he got way invested in the gem-- too invested to not be a little bit suspicious. Maybe the girls mistook it for his passion for his archaeology major, maybe they mistook it for something else-- but whatever the case, Omar pulled the cheesecloth over the girls' eyes and really only fell apart near the end, when his alibis and behavior started becoming more and more suspicious; and by then, Omar didn't need to be as inconspicuous, and the girls had gotten to know him too much to readily say to him "okay buddy can you kindly f%ck off, your vibes are not vibing here".
The girls probably should've been suspicious when Omar reappeared in Bolivia out of nowhere, but I guess his alibi was just good enough (and the girls at this point were probably running on adrenaline, caffeine and a brain on 70% capacity at most) to pass the Deception check.
Fr tho there were some bits where the girls should've found him sus but they didn't (him accidentally saying "I did it" when they uncovered the emerald, and also him handling the emerald the way he did), so shrugs. It could be a translation thing, but it could also be something else.
Anyway, kinda meh for a sequel, but it does have its standouts that allow it to somewhat stand on the same level as the first and third books. Kinda.
Hey, at least it's not as bad as Crystal Fairies-- that's the bar of bad-ness I'm setting. It's not as bad as Crystal Fairies and that's what matters--
Also special thanks to @ishmeowwow (it won't let me ping you for some reason bestie <:[) for making the lil' artworks haha
12 notes
·
View notes
Two Idiots in Love
Miguel O'Hara x Reader
Warnings: Sex, P in V, choking, breeding kink, innuendos, Miguel it's fucking hard to talk to.
A/N: Hope you enjoy this, I haven't sleep well for three days trying to get it done, but it's finally here. Love y'all xoxox
━━━━━━✧❂✧━━━━━━
Ok, but what about you becoming an Spider just about a year ago?
You are managing just fine.
Things got nasty for a while, that’s true. Your uncle died, your new responsibilities caught up on you, you almost die fighting some bad guys on your first months… And now you just try to eat three times a day (sometimes it doesn’t happen), pray to get more than six hours of sleep and do good in college.
But then, out of fucking nowhere, just when you were making peace with what your life was now and who you are, your identity, your place in this big ass world where you were completely alone to bear this double life… This giant prick with sullen face and cheeks the size of the moon comes into your life to tell you you’re not alone, everyone here has experienced the same or worse, stop being so dramatic.
So, in a second, your protagonist moment turns to you finding out there were thousands like you out there. And your whole life goes upside down.
Because now you don’t have to protect and look out only for your Earth, your city; but everyone else’s too. You have to travel to the most craziest worlds you could’ve ever imagine and fight horrible creatures you couldn’t even conceive its existence. And to make things even worst, Mr. Wide Hindquarters took an special hold of you to help him out with anything he would be ‘to busy’ to do. Like inform new recruits about their missions, filling out reports, doing research either respecting to what he occupied in the laboratory or to some universe yet to be explored… Whatever he needed, you would be called in to do it.
Some Spiders told you you were lucky, not many could work that close to Miguel, let alone being in charge of so many things without screwing something up and getting ‘their head ripped’. Even Lyla tells you that you’re something special, specially on the hard days, that’s why Miguel trusts you so much. After that you would just smile tiredly at her, whispering it was okay. Then Lyla would go face Miguel and demand him with a raised eyebrow to give you a break.
You manage for a few months, surrendering yourself to this strange routine. And your even more strange companion.
Every day you walk in to his space, every day he is already there. You turn a personal mission to arrive before he does. You never make it. The man apparently didn’t sleep and you aren’t waking the fuck up at 3:00am to prove a point or find out. So you let it be as another mystery to be solved.
“Good morning.” You wave your hand at him, making your presence known with that. Sometimes between a yawn, sometimes still cleaning the sleepiness off of your eyes.
“Good morning…” He always adds your last name to his greetings. It makes you feel like you are being scolded. Most of the time he is at the tables, working through the screens; if he’s not there, he’s at the lab, measuring substances with the help of crystal clear instruments.
Without looking at you, he points with his chin to the steaming coffee under the express machine. Through the weeks he has learned exactly how you like it. The first ones he made you were exactly like his: Awful. That couldn’t be drinkable. But you thought it was nice of him to always have hot coffee for you, so you didn’t say anything. But the faces you made at every sip were worth a thousand words.
Now, as you drink today’s, you cannot avoid thinking how cute that big stoic man must look every morning pouring the exact amount of sugar and cream you like into the cup. Moving the liquid with a tiny spoon until is all mixed.
He doesn’t talk much.
No more than orders and “Go home” followed by a “Good night”. You let him be for the first weeks. Not your business. But after the first month you knew you would go crazy if you continued this way of living.
You needed to talk to him. You needed to make things less awkward. He was your only human contact sometimes for entire days, and you cannot stand the fact of barely talking to him.
You don’t have idea how does the term “coworkers” serves on his Earth, but in yours, Human Relationships are encouraged to happen for the sake of teamwork.
With that very idea well tangled on your mind, one of those long days, you take a deep breath, imagine him naked (which isn’t difficult to be honest), stare deep into the space and say:
“Sohowhaveyoubeen?” Squeaking as fast as you can.
Miguel stops whatever the hell he is doing and turns his head to the right, side eyeing you with a raised eyebrow. You don’t even look at him, continuing to fill the document in front of you with the most unstable smile he could have seen in his entire life. Then, he turns around again, coming back to typing into one of the screens. You almost think he has completely ignored you until he answers in another fast and neutral line:
“I’m good.”
You give him an acknowledging nod, smiling softly and returning to your duties.
You had never wished so much to be victim of a lost bullet. Like right now. Like right fucking now. Please.
For one more week you took another personal mission: making a question a day.
“How was your day?”, “Did you have breakfast?”, “How was yesterday’s mission?”… It would be a good day if you got more than a monosyllable for answer. It was embarrassing, really. And Lyla looking at you with a grimace made it ten times worst.
After that, you just came in the eighth day and remained silent, focused in finishing all your work as soon as possible rather than trying to make your prick boss to talk to you. You felt bad, actually. Maybe he just doesn't like to talk, maybe you were making him uncomfortable, maybe... Maybe he's just an arse. Yeah, that is probably the right...
"Hm? Uh, what... What is this?" You look up from your tablet, facing the broad of his back walking to the desk at the other side of the room. You raise an eyebrow at the small cardboard box in front of you, the one that Miguel just left there.
"Food." He says as answering the very question to the origin of the universe.
"For me?" You tilt your head and he looks at you like you were stupid. You frown. How were you supposed to know that, when he barely even looks at you?!
"I did too much." He explains. "... So I brought you some. You can throw it away if you don't want it."
You look down at the box again, watching it as the weirdest of things, and cannot help the little smile that creeps up to your lips. You knew Miguel didn't eat at the HQ cafeteria, since he owns an apartment close from here, so this was completely homemade. Hm, you never thought he was into cooking.
"Why can't I give it to someone else if I don't like it?" You respond with an easy smile, almost teasing him.
"Throw it." He sentences without even looking back at you.
You side eye Lyla at your left, who winks at you. This is a whole ass victory. And you and the little hologram girl knew internally Miguel did not like the day you decided to stop trying to talk to him.
"Thank you." You finally murmur. "I really appreciate it."
"It's just leftovers..."
You nod, pursing your lips and… Still smiling. Fuck it. It was obvious he was going to dismiss it with something like that.
None of you says anything else for the rest of the day, but you make the choice to keep trying on the small talk every day and Miguel, apparently, started to mess up the amount of ingredients for his meals and brings leftovers almost daily.
You continue with this new routine for another couple of weeks.
With the time passing, you gain more and more confidence to talk to the big guy. Most of the times he doesn’t engage in the conversation, it is just you saying your thoughts out loud and telling him everything about your life at college, 'till the point he has a personal beef with some of your classmates. I mean, he doesn’t say it but he surely grunts under his breath every time you mention their name.
Gwen did asked you at some point if he really listened to you or if he just... Left you. You wondered the same for exactly... two hours.
"... And I handed him my essay, right? And he looks at me and says: 'So are you going to tell me who is helping you with these or am I going to find out myself?' So I obviously told him nobody was helping me, I just like doing them. And he freaking threatened me saying that if he founds out he's going to fail me. Like... He doesn't even listens. Agh, he hates me..."
"Is the same one who got angry because you were late to his lecture about himself and his recently published book?" That was a week ago. And he remembered.
You nod, sighing. Miguel clicks his tongue, shaking his head with disapproval.
He might not be talkative (at least for now) but he listens to you. You have no doubt left about that. He may not say a single word while you drop a hundred for minute, but he would come the next day asking "How was the test?" or would know you have classes with that professor and add to his daily good night a soft "Good luck tomorrow." You even start catching him lifting the left corner of his lips when you drop a bad joke about all the things you need to get done by the end of the day or about something you heard on your way there.
You noticed it when certain Spider came in to a meeting, a Spider two days ago you and Miguel had gossiped about because you were told something by your friends on Wednesday, Miguel heard some more on Thursday and with a final comment you put the pieces together on Friday, looking at him with a wide proud open mouth as he shook his head with a soft chuckle. Talking to the Spider in question Miguel would turn to you with the most neutral and blank expression and you would still fight to hide your smile at the memory of everything you found out during the week. No one ever noticed and you liked it. Miguel liked it. It was like a private joke only the two of you could share.
"But what would happen?" This was the part Miguel didn't like. "Like, how would you know I would fuck up something?"
"You cannot give Noir a kaleidoscope." He sentences, giving you another raised eyebrow.
You were in the middle of the daily session of Instructive and Informative questions, according to Lyla and you. Miguel prefers to call them Destructive and Irritating.
After today's mission you had taken a particular soft spot fo the black and white Spider, to the misfortune of your boss. So the whole session has been about the long shot of taking special gifts from your dimension to him.
"But why? Really, what's the worst that could happen if I just give him a tiny little kaleidoscope?"
"Ay, Dios, dame paciencia... You already gave him a rainbow slinky spring toy, why do you keep insisting on gifting him more stuff?"
He fix his gaze on you as you lower your eyes down to your lap, fidgeting with your fingers. "... He just looks happy when he sees color."
Miguel sighs, pressing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.
"I know, but every one of us needs to respect the natural order of our Earth. He shouldn't keep taking things with him that shouldn't be there, do you understand?"
"But..."
"No more 'but's'. I want those reports done by the end of the day." Miguel returns his eyes back to the screen in front of him, dismissing you just with that action. "Get to work instead of keep losing our time with this."
He hates the way you comply to his orders. Hates the way you leave the space beside him empty to go working at the other side of the room, where he can only see your back. He hates when you refuse him to see your face.
The human part in him hates the questioning sessions because they always end up with your heart too big for your own good, crushed a little bit more. The human part in him is what brings him closer to you after a few minutes, talking you through some trivial topics until he can convince you it is all not as bad a it seems, until you smile again when you insist it's okay, that you just needed a minute, that you understand. And he might o might not tell you can give Noir that fucking kaleidoscope if you want it so much.
But some deep and primal part in him whispers into his veins to walk up to you, take you by your jaw, forcing you to look up at him and order you you better not refuse your face to him one more single time again. That if he wishes to see your eyes, the curve of your nose or your lips, you better fucking show them to him... Every day. Every. Time. He. Wants. To.
He gets frustrated when he catches himself in the middle of those thoughts, of the drives. He has been able to control it magnificently 'till now. But he fears the day he won't.
For another while you enjoyed the 'leftovers' brought to you too. But it also came to happen the one day, they stopped being leftovers:
You yawn as you make your way to the exit of the lab, making sure your alarm for tomorrow is correctly scheduled, you can not afford another harsh look from your professors one more time. The building has fallen silent already; most of its ordinary inhabitants have already retired to their rooms or to their home worlds.
Miguel walks up to you from behind, watching you standing at the door. Neither of them managed to see even a ray of sun today. He didn't care, he had something much better to watch all day… But he can't help but sigh at the thought of taking it from you.
"Italian or Mexican?" You turn to look at him, barely catching what he said. Both of your brows furrow and he glares at you while adjusting the neck of his jacket on. "For tomorrow's lunch. You want me to bring Italian or Mexican?"
"Oh, uhm..." You widen your eyes, surprised by the consideration. Pursing your lips and squinting, you think about it for a second, but the only possible answer comes immediately after: "Mexican."
"Hm." He nods, fixing his eyes to the front again.
Both start walking now towards the exit of the building. You know you can open your portal to go back home now, but you refuse to do so. Miguel knows there's an exit on the other side of the lab that leads him to a closer path to his apartment, but he refuses to take it. Because you always take this one.
"It's getting chilly." You whisper, watching the first snowflakes of the season falling on the other side of the big windows in the lobby. Miguel hums in response. "I like it, though. The first month working with you I had to carry a fan with me everywhere. I am so sorry for the cost of the electricity bill back then."
Miguel tugs at one corner of his lips, but only that. You tilt your head, glaring at him for a second before you take two fast steps to put yourself in front of him. The poor man has to stick his feet to the floor to avoid knocking over you.
He frowns, confused, and you look up at him with those same eyes filled with determination you put on when you look at the cookies he always -purposely- leaves on top of the highest cupboard in his office. He could only describe it as the face of a master plan, because you would always come back with ideas to get them down without asking him for help. And he loved to play guess with what you would do this time.
"Smile for me." You ask as you were some kind of cameraman, and if he was confused before he's into a new level now.
"What?"
"Y'know..." You bring both of your index fingers to the opposite sides of your face and part your own lips into a simple smile, like showing him what he was supposed to do.
"I know what smiling is." He frowns. "Why do you want me to do it?"
You shrug. "I just... I would be really happy to see it."
Miguel's expression remains unfazed, but he prays to every God out there you can't listen how hard his heart jumped inside his chest when your words reached him.
He swallows. His eyes fix on you and he brings both of the corners of his mouth up, exposing bright teeth and two big fangs that brush on his lower lip in the most precious awkward smile you could have ever seen. His brows are drawn together and he looks like he's in pain, and you know that even if a fucking meteor crashed down in the city right now, you still wouldn't be able to look away.
You clear your throat and lament how his smile is gone as soon as it came. You brush your hand at the back at your neck, nervous, fucking ashamed of your imprudence. Miguel raises an eyebrow at your reaction.
"Thank you. That was nice of you." You smile, avoiding his eyes and solely focusing on the snow awaiting for you. "I'm sorry if it was unpleasant for you. I didn't mean..."
Your words get caught up in your throat when you suddenly feel the texture of fabric coming around your neck. You turn back to look at the front again only to find Miguel tugging his scarf on you, with his fingers making sure it hugged every part of your skin your sweater couldn't.
"Miguel, no. It's even colder here than on my Earth. You need this more than I do." You frown with a worried expression washing over your features.
"You'll come back tomorrow pretty early. And it's going to be cold." You could try and argue about you having your own scarfs to bring tomorrow with you, but his eyes tell you he is not asking.
"... Thank you."
Miguel laments the moment your turn around, laments the moment you don't look at him anymore. He is sure the smile from a minute ago hadn't been anywhere near one of his best, and yet your eyes shone with the light of all the moons he's seen in all of the Earths he has visited.
And as you do a little wave when you start walking away before entering your portal, Miguel waves back, slowly and with only two unsure swings of his wrist. It was enough to make you smile anyway. It was enough to keep him standing there even after you were long gone wondering what the hell he was doing.
When Miguel began to bring food made specially to share, you began to bring desserts from your Earth for him to try.
You both started having lunch together after you told him how tired you were of eating while standing. Don't get me wrong, when you first told him he 'offered' you to go eat at the cafeteria if you wanted it so much. But when he dismisses you for the second time the next day with a 15 minute break to go find somewhere to sit, you, instead, sit down reluctantly at the very center of his work space, just a few meters behind him.
Miguel has to do a fucking double take to make sure he is seeing right before turning around at you calmly crossing your legs on the floor and unboxing today's meal with abrupt and resigned movements.
"Could you be so kind as to explain to me what you are doing?" He tilts his head with amusement when you take the first bite of your food.
"Eating."
"Sitting on the floor?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Sitting on the floor." You nod.
"Care to explain why?" He crosses his arms, pursing his lips when you refuse to raise your eyes at him.
"... Because of you." You murmur, taking another unnecessarily aggressive bite.
"Elaborate, please."
You keep on looking down, chewing the morsel in your mouth. Miguel awaits for you with well known experienced patience. By now, he recognizes when you are mad at him or the world, he sees how you fight to keep calm inside of all of this mess, that's why he always tries to encourage you to talk out the things that bother you, because he's there, he can listen; because he likes the way you smile after you let it all out.
And maybe...
"I don't care about eat sitting comfortably at the cafeteria. I want to eat with you. So if you want to stay here be my fucking guest. I'm staying here too."
Because you were the only one who could throw a tantrum at Miguel O'Hara without flinching.
You have earned that right. You didn't know when, because you insist you don't throw tantrums at him; you're a college student, basically an adult, you don't do tantrums. And still...
"Fine, spoiled girl..." He sighs, walking to get his own little box from the table and then coming to close the space between the two with a few long steps. He sits down right beside you, imitating the way you're crossing your legs. "If you want to eat on the floor, we can eat on the floor."
"I'm not spoiled." You hiss, giving him a deadly side eye that puts on a soft, almost unnoticeable grin on his face. Lyla had made fun of him a few days ago about him spoiling you, but instead of getting on his nerves he took a liking for the nickname. And now you suffer the consequences of it all. "And we wouldn't be eating on the floor if you decided to go to the cafeteria for once."
"... I hate talking to people."
You sigh, nodding. That's exactly why you never push him to do anything of that sort.
"I know." You turn to look at him out of the corner of your eye, noticing how he keeps his head low while eating. "Hey" You call for his attention, smiling. He blinks up to you, tilting his head. "It's okay." Your shoulder drops to his arm. "I like being here. I'm not stuck with you, you're stuck with me."
That makes his eyes catch a little bit more of light.
"Thank you." He whispers.
You stare at him for a second more and he fights to put all of the mess inside his head, his feelings, into his tongue... But he can't. You continue eating, and he knows you would never hold a grudge on him for it, and he's so thankful for that, for you being able to understand the way his actions speak when his words can't. But he still aches at the thought of never being able to tell you everything he wants.
The next morning you walk in to find out a new cleared space beside the screens with an elegant glass table and two chairs. It surely looked expensive, like everything he does and has, but for you, it's just the little corner where you can leave that particular cake from your Earth he seems to like so much, and then go to the laboratory to see the cake you seemed to like so much.
After two more weeks enjoying the day-to-day in the usual things in your life, you and Miguel got to a mission which revealed as the true calmness before the storm.
The anomaly you had fought was stronger than expected, more aggressive, more letal. Everyone had run lucky at least two times to escape from its claws, but you can still remember their closeness, the screams, the sirens at the distance. It all almost ends up with another canonic event altered.
"There's always a first time." Jessica had told you when you finally finished off the anomaly. She was worried about you, and you can't blame her. You haven't even registered how bad you were trembling until it was all over.
"Is there going to be a last time?" You replied, looking up at her with big eyes. And Miguel, only a few meters behind you, still trying to give some last orders to every Spider there, felt his heart breaking at the very sound of your words.
Nevertheless, thankfully, the universe remained perfectly fine and just a couple of hours later everyone was back home safely again. Most returned immediately to their Home Earths, but you, Miguel, Jessica, Lyla and a couple more had ten thousand things to do in the HQ before calling it a day.
"I thought I told you to go home an hour ago." Miguel points, coming from behind you.
You turn your head to look up at him and you can't not smile at the sight. The feeling of safeness that floods you when you see his huge figure entering any room hasn't wavered for a single second. He's still that solid ground you can always rest on when the world is to heavy to carry alone.
"I'm serious. What are you doing here?" He continues, grunting in pain when he drops his weight beside you. You turn to him, furrowing your brows in worry again. He had seen that expression in you so often today... And he hates it so much. "I'm okay. Just little scratches here and there."
You withdrawn your feet from the edge of the building where you had them hanging for an hour now and crawl your way to him, sitting down on your knees to try to be eye height with him.
Your right hand wanders to his bruised neck, there where the anomaly had left his horrible mark of the violence it brought within. You follow with your index the way the clotted blood draws on his skin, sending shivers down his spine.
"Does it hurt?" You ask.
"No." He responds in between goosebumps.
He loves the effect your touch has on him. He loves your little hands looking for him, tugging at his clothes to call for his attention, brushing against his when you pass him the tablet, documents, anything. He loves the busy days where he doesn't have time to eat, where he wouldn't eat if it wasn't for you sitting beside him as he works on the screens, you scrolling through your cellphone, taking little pieces of food with a spoon or a fork to bring them closer to his mouth so he could eat without even taking his eyes off the screen.
Ridiculous? Yeah. But he loved the intimacy within. The many forms your soft hands could soothe him.
But his? He hated them. He was scared of them. Their only use was to destruct, to tear flesh apart, not to...
"Show me." He asks, pointing with his chin at your left hand placed softly above your thigh.
"It's nothing."
"Let me see it." He insist and you carefully bring your arm up, placing your fingers against his when he holds out his hand for you. Your whole palm is bandaged, the work the doctor did on you was amazing, but he can still see dried blood on it.
He doesn't say anything when he finds your eyes on him, conflicted, hesitant. There is so much between both of you, so much unsaid, so much still to do. But he sees your doubt, he hates to be the cause of it. He stays still, but he wants to scream at you, to make your little head understand: "How can't you see?! Can't you see how much you mean to me?! You're the only thing in my mind when I'm fighting, because I know I have to win, I have to get out alive to see you again. Eres lo único por lo que mi corazón llama!... Can't you not hear it?"
Instead, the tips of his fingers brush on your skin, his eyes reflecting every single light of the city below.
"Come." It's only a whisper that leaves his mouth, and you need nothing more to jump into his embrace with a desperate sigh, immediately cuddling yourself up on his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck, looking for his warm.
Hold.
He loves to hold you.
His hands serve to hold you.
To hold you against him, to protect you from anyone who wants to rip you away from his arms. To keep you warm, to keep you safe, to let you know you're home.
"Aquí estoy." He whispers.
"I know." You reply.
You breath into his scent for a couple of minutes more, until the screams and the sirens fell low to the sound of Miguel's chest going up and down in a soothing swing, his breathing, turning into the only thing you could listen to.
By the time you got your head out of his neck, he was already waiting for you with a soft smile, smile that puts your attention on the deep cut on his lower lip.
"What happened?" You ask, carefully pulling from his flesh to see the whole extension of the wound.
He sighs, closing his eyes with embarrassment. "I bit myself during the fight."
You smile, shaking your head. Your fingernail taps against the right fang in question, testing the edge by gently pressing the tip into your fingertip.
"I hate them." Miguel breaths out. His eyes are now so dim that you struggle to say where are they looking at in the middle of the night darkness.
"Why?" You whisper, taking your finger back at his lip.
"Because I fear of them. I fear they'll hurt you like they hurt me."
You purse your lips and then take his hand placed on your hip, looking back at him with raised eyebrows.
"Is the same with these?"
He nods.
"They are made to kill. I have done so many horrible things with, caused so much damage and pain, I..."
"Did you know I'm scared of heights?" His trail of words stop at your interruption. You smile, looking down from the edge, turning away form him just a little. "Ironic, for a Spider. But I still fight with it every single day. I always get so sticky when I'm on top of a building for too long it's embarrassing but..." You raise your hand in front of him, waving your fingers with a playful smile. "I'm not sticky now. And that it's because you're holding me." You cup his face. "Those things you're afraid of, are part of the person I love. And I wouldn't change a single thing."
"Mi cielo..."
"I knew what I was getting into when I decided to love you, Miguel, so don't get all soft now. I'm not going anywhere..." You whisper. "Make me bleed."
He would be lying if he said he haven't thought about it, that he haven't succumbed to his most animalistic urges when alone in the privacy of his room, pretending it was you around his cock and not his fist. He wanted to bite, he wanted to fill you. And he wanted to tear apart with his bare talons anyone and anything that got in his way.
A part of him might be scared to hurt you, yes.
But a bigger part of him was actually scared of what he would do to keep you safe. Of what he's capable of... to keep you his.
He feels sorry for you when you cuddle against his chest in your sleep as he stands up and starts walking back inside the building, covering you with his jacket to protect from the cold wind of the city for when he swings back to his apartment with you in his arms.
He feels sorry for the innocence in your love.
Like a beast, that's what he was. A beast who loved the softness in your touch, the kind in your words. But cannot return the same love. The beast is possessive, jealous of the very air that caresses your hair. And it may act vulnerable only to you, letting you get as close to slaughter him, but knowing you'll place a kiss instead. The beast would hold you as his own treasure, a creature that must not be hurt, not even for his own hands. He would cut them off before.
He would cut them off from anyone before they touch you. For no one should ever touch what he decided, that very morning you asked how he had been, would belong to him.
AND EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE CONTINUED ON GOING SO SMOOTHLY... BUT THE DAAAAAAAAMN FINALS, ah, made their entrance.
You barely have time to sleep, to eat, to fucking breathe. Your levels of anxiety are higher than the HQ damn building and your brain is so overworked you cannot do more than what you're asked to in autopilot. You know that you're only going to be like this for approximately another two weeks, but your poor lover has suffered the last four days thinking you're sick, or sad, or worse... Mad at him. No, not in that order.
"Arañita..." He calls for you. Your hand moving over your notebook at one hundred km per hour concerns him.
"The reports are done. Peter from -5266 and Hugh from -1993 are out right now. They should be getting back at any minute. Anomaly #125 was sent to its original universe this morning." You push the tablet to him with your free hand without even looking up or slowing down your writing.
"Thank you, but..." He tilts his head, furrowing his brows. "Are you okay?"
"Yes. I just need to get this done before four. By the way, can I leave early today? I need to study for tomorrow's test."
"Again? Didn't you have one yesterday?"
"Yes. We're on finals, Miguel. We tend to have a lot of them these days. That's why I'm losing my mind over here."
"Just for some tests?" You have to stop yourself to remind you it's not his fault to be smart. It's not his fault being more intelligent than almost every person you knew. It's not his fault he doesn't know what is to struggle on school. It's not his fault, It's not his fault, It's not his fault... "You haven't even touched your food." He says, looking at the little box he got you with the meal now cold.
"I... I know. I'm sorry, Mig." You sigh, looking up at him for the first time in the day. "I'm just really stressed out right now. But I promise I'll take it back home later, okay?"
This was also the fourth day you didn't stay at his place. My man doesn't want to be a burden, but he has attachment issues, ok?, and after the week you spent sleeping in his arms, it may or may not be that Miguel has been having trouble falling asleep without the weight of your body on his chest.
After watching you leave that day, Miguel found himself staying till unreasonable hours of the early morning working in the lab. There was no point on going back to his cold apartment anyway... And he had a lot of things to get done. He didn't have time to...
"Oh, it's you." Miguel jumps in his place at the sudden voice calling from behind. "I thought that poor girl had stayed here, with all the things she seems to be doing these days."
The man shakes his head, ignoring Jessica closing the distance behind him, leaning against the door frame. Miguel can almost make out the little smile on her lips without turning around, and that only infuriates him even more.
"And why do you look like a caged lion?" She mocks. "Trouble in paradise?"
Miguel's first instinct is snap back at her and ask her to leave him alone. He knows she would comply, what he doesn't know is how benefic that would be for his current situation.
"I don't know what's going out with her." He admits, letting his head fall in irritation. "She says she's having some tests right now, but she's just to... Stressed? I don't know. She's so smart I cannot conceive how bad this is affecting her." The laugh that emanates from Jessica's throat makes his ears go red. "What?"
"Oh, babe, when was the last time you went to college?" Jessica puts both of her hands on her waist, pursing the lips to avoid smiling again.
"Why is that important?"
"When, Miguel?" She demands.
"Ugh... I don't know. Like four-five years ago."
"When was the last time you failed a class?"
"Never." He immediately responds.
"When was the last time grades were important on your Earth?"
Miguel frowns. "I don't remember. The path for learning had changed long before I was born. I don't even think I ever had something like a grade. We were judged individually for our skills and our intelligence type. Not memorization."
"Exactly." She claps, pointing at him with a all-knowing finger. "Thanks to that you got the chance to develop your true abilities as a student, but our girl from 2023 it is not beneficiary of this privilege. She doesn't get the chance to strengthen in what she is good, she must memorize and memorize and memorize over and over again. Because the tests on her Earth aren't done with the purpose of just checking how is her knowledge progressing, they are done to see if she's worthy of continuing forward in her very career."
Miguel remains silent for a minute, swallowing all the new information by pieces. For someone so smart, Jessica has never see him seem so lost. The nuts in his brain begin to turn and turn until his eyes seem to light up with the clarity of the light of the new world.
"Hm." He nods. "Thank you."
The woman knows he doesn't need anything more when he turns around, typing into one of the screens something that escapes from her eyes.
During the rest of the two weeks of finals, Miguel tried to do his best to support you.
He even read all of the information about your education system, striving to understand everything in just a couple of nights.
He's a man on a mission: letting you know he's there, that you're strong and smart, and you can do it.
While you study in the lab, he leaves you be. He gets you coffee, or tea, or anything you prefer. He might even hiss at people entering his space (your space) making too much noise, pointing at you with his chin and threatening eyes.
"Hey, girl..." Peter B. comes in one morning, moving nervously under the scrutinizing gaze of your lover. "Don't be so harsh on yourself..." He gives you some awkward pats on the back, smiling. "You're doing great."
That was all it took.
"No, I'm not!" You weep, letting your head fall on the desk, shaking between sobs.
"Great. Ya la hiciste llorar." Miguel pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Here, give it to her." He calls for Peter's attention, handing him an specific chocolate.
Peter takes it with confused eyes, offering it to you, reaching out his arm as if he were to touch you, you'll explode.
"Here." He says. "Look what I got."
You raise your eyes, meeting the little packing. Then, when you look at him, Peter almost thinks he just made all worst.
"Oh, Peter... Thank you!" You take the chocolate, pulling from him to a big hug. "I love these so much, thank you! You're so kind!"
Peter lets you be, looking back at Miguel who just nods at him to let him know this wasn't his first rodeo. He pats your back, soothing you with some more nervous words until you're ready to let him go.
If you're really struggling, Miguel won't think twice to help you. He's smart, it takes him nothing more than a look to his old notes or a quick search on the internet (specially if you're studying something science related or an engineering, if you're on law or arts, oh boy, you're gonna make this man suffer) to know exactly what you need and make sure you're taking that fucking project tomorrow.
Some other days, he just catches you sleeping with your hands crossed above the table and your saliva drooling out to your notes. His jacket would then come over you, after, he would take your pending stuff and start solving problems and making notes for you to have it easier at the memorizing part of the study.
You always wake up to see the edges of your paper full of arrows, little equations and encircled key words. And, sometimes, a tired Miguel sleeping uncomfortably by your side, just waiting for you to tell him it's time to go.
The day, a Friday, where you're finally done with college (at least for a couple of months) Miguel felt it like the day his soul came back to his body.
You are smiling all day again, calling his name, doing a mess all over the whole building. And he can not be more happy about it.
He might never tell you, me might even justify himself saying he had been staying up late working in the lab every time you ask for the bags under his eyes. Because he's definitely not telling you there were nights where he couldn't even close his eyes 'cause you weren't there with him.
"Time to go home." You hum behind him, getting all of your stuff inside your backpack.
"Thank God" He rubs his neck, walking closer to you to give you a soft kiss on the forehead. "I'm dying."
You yawn, nodding. "Me too. These weeks drained me."
"Me too." He repeats, and you don't know how much he means it. "Let's just go to sleep, yeah? Hopefully tomorrow there won't be so much to do."
You smile, leaning into his embrace as you walk out the door, hearing the lights turning off as both come closer and closer to the exit.
"Yeah, that sounds good."
"Okay."
"Okay."
Miguel steadies your body by pressing down on your hips, keeping your ass on the bed. You try to push his face out of between your thighs but he refuses to pull apart.
"Miguel!" You cry out, tears rolling down your cheeks cause of the overstimulation he was putting you in. "Too much, too much..."
His fingers curl inside you one more time, and your arch your back, almost rolling your eyes at the feeling. His tongue flicks over your sensitive bud again, dragging choked moans out of you. You try to squirm away but his hands pull you from your ass back at him as soon as you start moving.
"Easy there, Arañita. I'm almost done." He smiles up at you, letting you see the lower half of his face completely covered in your arousal.
"Mig... Mi amor..." You breath out, trying to push him out again when his chuckle crashes against your folds.
"One more, love, and you'll be ready for me." He sucks on your clit as he speaks, moving his fingers with an slower pace now. "Uno más, mamita, dame uno más."
He pushes his face down on you, working his tongue all around your most needy spot with his digits burying now deep inside you, hitting that soft place between your walls that makes you want to cry. You're a mess of moans and whimpers by now, but when his teeth slowly press on your clit, it's over for you. Your eyes roll back, your thighs tremble around him, encaging him in his favorite prison as he guides you through it, moaning into your skin when he feels your pleasure dripping on him, motivating his hips to hump against the mattress as a fucking teenager would do.
After you get down from your high, you look up at him to find him positioning himself between your legs, dragging the tip of his cock up and down on your folds.
"Miguel, wait, I'm..."
"You know your safe word, mamita, you can make me stop whenever you want." He places your legs on his shoulders and his hands on your hips, keeping you just as he wishes to. "I'm going in, and I want your eyes on me all the time I fuck you, ¿me entiendes, hermosa?"
You nod, watching the point where both of your bodies would join. He enters slowly, giving you time to adjust his size. But after the first hint of your hips trying to feel him even more, he pulls back and thrusts all the way in, making your head fall back as your back arches.
His right hand grabs you by the jaw, forcing you to open your eyes and observe how red his irises had turned.
"Eyes on me."
His pace speeds up, bottoming out with every thrust he makes. Your hands push at his lower abdomen, biting your lip to avoid crying out loud again.
"Too fast, Mig. Too much." You moan, your still overstimulated clit rips another whimper from you every time his happy trail and trimmed hair crashes against it. You were barely holding on, but your lover can't never get enough. His body reaches down, and as he places one hand around your neck, his other thumb toys at your clit in a excruciating pace. "Fuck! No, Miguel."
You tremble under him, wrapping your legs around his waist when you cannot think about anything more than cumming. Your nails bury on the skin of his back, dragging an out of breath grunt out of him.
"I'm, I'm cum-" You try to voice but nothing in your brain seems to work anymore.
"Do it, love. I got you." He keeps up his pace, almost kissing your cervix by now. "Cum for me, mi amor."
His hand squeezes a little bit harder on your neck and you need nothing else to see fucking white. Your mouth opens in a big O before your start trembling, shaking uncontrollably under his body, letting out the sweetest of sounds for him to hear.
He grunts, falling into the crock of your neck when you tighten your walls around him.
"I'm going to fucking fill you." He's out of breath and he curses something in Spanish you cannot make out. "I'm going to put a baby on your tummy, mamita..."
"Miguel..." You were on the verge of tears again, you cannot longer feel your legs but you surely can feel him deep inside you.
"Yes, love. Fuck... I'm cumming. I'm..." He bites down on your flesh, sinking his fangs into your skin when his hips stutter. His talons grow so big they dig into the headboard.
You moan at the feeling, hugging your body to his until he can breath normal again.
When he looks back at you his eyes have returned to that soft brown you're used too.
"Are you okay?" He asks, sending shivers down your spine when he caresses the sore skin.
"Yes." You smile and he traps your lips into a kiss. "And now I'm really fucking tired."
He chuckles, lifting his weight onto his forearms.
"Come here, amor. Let's take a shower so you can rest comfortably." He places another soft peck on your forehead. "I'll wash your hair."
You definitely know he will do more than that.
PD: Tbh with you guys, all I could think about while writing this was this tiktok:
9K notes
·
View notes