#even the supposed reveal he just... was there

[dollyswishingwell]

ᯓ★ˎˊ˗ Pound, Pound, Pound

𝒲𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝒻𝑜𝓇 ˙⋆✮ Rafayel

𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒/𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 ˙⋆✮ Smut obv, MDNI, p in v, nicknames and lot of em, public sex but not really cause no one’s there lol, titjob.

> ࣪𖤐.ᐟ A collection of smut draddles for Rafayel

Rafayel was quiet. Too quiet.

He’d come home late, long after sunset, his jacket thrown carelessly over the couch, jaw tight, pink and blue eyes shadowed with tension. You could tell something was wrong the moment he walked in. His usual teasing air was gone. He didn’t smile. Didn’t even kiss your cheek.

Just stormed straight to the bedroom.

You followed him softly, nervous, dressed in one of his old, oversized shirts, bare legs bare, lips glossed, looking like everything soft and sweet he could never quite deserve.

He was standing at the edge of the bed, shirtless, muscles taut.

“Raffy…?”

His eyes snapped to you.

And in two strides, he had you caged against the mattress, his hand grabbing your wrist, his voice low and strained:

“Take it off.”

“Wh—”

“The shirt. Off. Now.”

You barely managed to yank it over your head before he pushed you back onto the bed, climbing over you, teeth gritted, tension radiating from every inch of him. He wasn’t gentle, not tonight. Not with the way his hands gripped your thighs and forced them open, not with the way he shoved your panties aside like they were a nuisance.

“I’ve had the worst fucking day,” he growled, dragging his cock against your soaked slit. “And the only thing that’s going to fix it is ruining you for hours.”

And ruin you he did.

He slammed into you with a growl, deep and brutal from the first thrust, no buildup, no mercy. Just the sound of skin against skin, your gasps rising into cries as he drove into you over and over, hips snapping violently, hands pinning your wrists to the mattress.

“So tight,” he snarled into your neck, biting hard enough to leave a mark. “Always so fucking good for me.”

Your back arched as he pounded into you, no rhythm except need, every thrust making the bed shake, the headboard slam the wall. You couldn’t even think, his cock hitting so deep it stole your breath.

“Raf—too much—”

He didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down.

His fingers wrapped around your throat, not choking, just holding, claiming, as he leaned down, his hair falling into his face.

“You’re mine,” he breathed, almost manic, sweat dripping down his temple. “You hear me? Mine to fuck. Mine to keep. Mine to break if I want.”

You whimpered beneath him, legs trembling as he flipped you onto your stomach, yanked your hips up, and slammed back into you from behind.

You sobbed into the pillow as he ruined you, pounded you, moaning low and filthy behind you, one hand on your ass, the other tugging your hair so you couldn’t even hide your wrecked expression.

“I’m gonna fill you up,” he groaned. “Keep going until you can’t take it anymore. Until you forget your own name.”

You came hard, crying out as your body gave out, shaking beneath him, only for him to keep going, using you through it, chasing his own release until he finally spilled inside with a loud groan, hips grinding as he filled you to the brim.

It was supposed to be a lazy afternoon.

Rafayel was lying back on the massive velvet lounge in the sunroom, legs spread, shirt half-unbuttoned, messy lilac hair falling into his flushed face. He looked tired, tense, like his thoughts were spiraling somewhere dark again. But then you came in wearing that robe. The sheer, lacy one that wasn’t even really a robe, just an excuse.

He looked at you.

Then your chest.

And sighed like he’d seen salvation.

“Come here,” he said, voice low.

You tilted your head, smirking a little as you approached and climbed onto his lap, straddling him. You let the robe fall open slowly, teasing, revealing your soft, full breasts, warm and plush and made for spoiling him.

He stared, eyes flickering pink-blue in the sunlight.

“Take it out,” you whispered.

He obeyed instantly, almost frantically, undoing his pants and pulling out his already-hard cock, flushed and twitching at the tip. He was so sensitive when he was like this, tired, stressed, wound up from too many hours pretending to tolerate humanity.

You smiled and slipped down between his legs, kneeling on the expensive carpet, letting your robe fall completely. Then, slowly, you pressed your breasts together and guided him between them, his cock twitching the second it made contact with your soft skin.

“Holy fuck,” Rafayel hissed, head dropping back against the cushions, hands twitching at his sides. “Baby, you’re gonna kill me…”

You squeezed tighter, your warm tits wrapping perfectly around his length, slick skin gliding up and down with practiced ease. You looked so soft, so sweet, lips parted as you moved, up and down, up and down, rubbing the head against your collarbone before sliding him back down between your cleavage.

“Look at you,” you cooed. “So hard. Just from these?”

“Of course it’s from those,” he groaned, hips jerking up into your tits, pink eyes glassy. “They’re fucking perfect. Made to be played with. Sucked. Fucked. Just—God—”

You spat lightly on the tip, letting it trickle down, your breasts gliding even slicker now. Rafayel’s thighs tensed under you, his hands gripping the armrests like he didn’t trust himself not to grab your head and fuck your face next.

Your smile turned wicked.

“You wanna cum on them?” you teased. “Wanna make a mess all over your wife’s pretty tits?”

He made a desperate sound in his throat.

“Say it,” you whispered, speeding up, the wet glide of skin on skin echoing in the sunlit room. “Say you’re gonna cum for me.”

“Gonna cum—fuck—I’m gonna—”

His hips bucked sharply as he moaned, loud, raw, and needy, and then his cock pulsed, spurting thick, hot cum all over your chest, painting your breasts, your throat, even your lips in creamy white streaks. You gasped at the heat, at the mess, at how much he gave you.

He slumped back, panting.

You looked up at him, glowing and filthy, letting his cum drip between your tits, sticky and warm.

And he looked wrecked.

“You’re not even real,” Rafayel groaned, tugging you into his lap with slick-stained fingers. “You’re a hallucination. A fever dream. I don’t deserve this.”

The estate’s private beach was silent, save for the rhythm of waves against the shore.

The sun was dipping low, sky painted pink and gold. Seafoam rolled across the sand in gentle pulses. The air smelled like salt and hibiscus.

And Rafayel had you bent over the soft beach towel, your sundress bunched around your waist, hair tangled by the sea breeze, skin glistening in the fading light.

You didn’t know how it escalated. One minute you were walking along the shore with him, barefoot, smiling, your hand in his, walking back to sit on the towel and watch the sunset. The next, he’d spun you around, kissed you like he needed you to breathe, and muttered against your lips:

“Mine. Right here.”

You moaned when he slid inside you, thick, deep, already pulsing with how much he wanted it. The ocean crashed beside you, but all you could hear was the slap of skin against skin as he pounded into you from behind, hands gripping your hips, breath ragged.

“Look at this view,” he rasped. “My wife, ruined on my beach. The only thing I wanna see.”

Your fingers dug into the towel, your knees buckling slightly with every thrust.

“Raf—what if someone—”

“No one’s coming here,” he growled. “I own this beach. Every grain of sand. Every wave. And every inch of you.”

He slammed in deeper, making you cry out.

“You’re soaked, my pearl,” he smirked, voice almost a moan. “You like it, don’t you? Getting fucked where the whole world could see if they tried hard enough.”

You whined as he leaned over you, pressing you down as he rutted harder, cock dragging perfectly along your swollen walls.

He bit your shoulder.

“I should keep you out here all night. Let the ocean hear you scream.”

Your orgasm hit like a wave, fast, hard, overwhelming. Rafayel didn’t stop. He fucked you through it, hand sliding around to toy with your clit while your thighs trembled, sand clinging to your knees.

“Gonna cum inside you again,” he groaned, panting against your neck. “Gonna fill you up and watch it drip down onto my sand.”

You came again, smaller, messier, wrecked.

Then with a deep groan, he pressed as far into you as he could, hips jerking as he spilled inside, thick and hot. You moaned as you felt it leak, your cunt throbbing around him, completely owned.

He held you like that for a moment, both of you breathing heavy, sticky with sex and saltwater.

Then, he pulled out slowly, watching his cum spill down your thighs with a quiet hiss.

“God, I love you so much.”

[ceesimz]

lonely shade of blue.

it was supposed to be just another friday, but it turned out to be so much more.

it's sad, but also very soft and happy, don't let the title and summary scare you🙃 hope you enjoy <3

Fridays were, unexpectedly, nothing to write home about. 

Men in shirts and ties with the top button undone and knot loosened filtered in and out, slumping over the bar with a whiskey, complaining to anyone within earshot about their office jobs with the mindset that they were saving the world with each marketing success. The bartender swore there were only three variations of suits and ties in the world; no one should see that many shades of grey and blue in their life, it was unhealthy on the eye. Women came in with their waterproof mascara that simply never worked, proven by the tears of laughter and the tears of sorrow that raced down their faces after three drinks in streaky black lines. 

The regulars weren’t the ones that sparked excitement, the bartender could bet his life that each person, each stereotype, lived exactly the same routines outside of the bar, as well as within it. It was a rhythm that was only bearable when someone stand-out walked in.

It didn’t happen much, but when it did, it was something to come to work for. Oftentimes, his imagination did most of the work as it filled out the blanks that were left in silences between sips. Some loved to ramble, some didn’t speak. Some were memorable, some… simply blurred into the lacklustre and barely-there memories of past visitors. 

One Friday, just as evening turned to night, the door opened gently, as if the person walking in didn’t quite have the confidence to do it. But they stuck with it and headed to the bar, sitting on the fourth stool from the left. She ordered a dry martini with two olives, before sighing, resting her elbows on the woodtop, and running her hands through her hair. Her black polo shirt was slightly creased. There was a faded tattoo on her hand. But the detail that stuck out most to the bartender, that one singular thing that hooked him in, was the perfectly circular tan line that wrapped around her left ring finger. 

She wasn’t a one-time visitor either. Every Friday at the same time, the door opened to reveal her again, each time looking more and more comfortable in her surroundings. She ordered the same drink twice, sat in the same chair. Stayed for roughly the same amount of time. Though, she didn’t speak, nor give much away about herself.

Not until another person that piqued the same intrigue entered a few weeks down the line.

You walked in with a little more certainty in your surroundings than she did. The bartender didn’t recognise you, though you entered like you owned the place. You threw yourself down in a stool three chairs down from the other woman, crossed your arms, and leaned forward to get the guy’s attention. You ordered a bottle of Estrella Galicia, taking a swig from it like it was the antidote for whatever was happening in your life. The woman on your left watched in amusement, taking a sip of her own drink but with a bit less desperation, and had to hold in a laugh at the grimace on your face when you finally put the bottle down.

Why you ordered beer, you didn’t know. It wasn’t your favouri– actually, you did know. You just didn’t have the strength to admit whose favourite it actually was. 

So the two of you, metaphorically worlds apart in your lives, physically only about three metres away, were both none the wiser to what was in store. The bartender, however? He knew by now that the universe often had things in store that no one could foresee.

—

It became routine, at this point, and you weren’t sure why. Maybe because there was no one to go home to anymore. Fridays used to mean something when there was warmth, laughter, and leftover homemade food waiting for you. Now it was nothing but a sofa with only a one-sided dent and a bottle of wine waiting for you, as well as the most sickening silence you couldn’t stomach anymore. You got sick of wilting in it, so you started showing up at the bar.

When you were there, you were in your own world, not paying a single mind to who was in there apart from the bartender when he placed a drink in front of you. Even then, it was just a quick smile and a quiet thanks. Other than that, you just sat there, with nothing but the drink in your hand and the longing memories that ran rampant still, two years on. They were fading, slowly, and it broke you. The feelings got weaker, the moments turned blurry. More importantly, more devastatingly, you’d lost her voice. Couldn’t remember it like it once was.

The bar held no importance to your past, and that was its entire appeal. There wasn’t a single part of it tethered to your old life, it was just neutral. Safe in all its unfamiliarity. It was the same for Alexia too. 

Dry martinis hadn’t been on her radar until the love of her life ordered one and demanded she try it. Since then, she didn’t drink anything else when it came to alcohol. The only thing that changed was the sharpness of the gin each time she took her first sip; not just the strength of it, but the dagger-like pain that nostalgia was. How easier things were back then. How much happier she was. How much brighter the days felt, and how getting out of bed didn’t seem so pointless like it was now.

It wasn’t just a routine, it was a dance. The two of you never drifted far; whenever you were there, she was there. Friday evenings. She arrived first and you followed, without realising, shortly after. You didn’t speak– hardly shared a glance, actually. But the company you shared didn’t need words.

Apart from when that company was broken.

One week, you didn’t show. And Alexia, when she got there and waited her standard half hour before you usually came, felt… empty. It didn’t make sense to her, she didn’t even know your name. She knew absolutely nothing about you apart from your standard order, which was not beer, but instead a strawberry daiquiri. It took some trial and error, a string of three visits to the bar where you tried just about every cocktail on the menu before finding one you liked. She sat there and watched every reaction you had, smiling and holding back laughter at not only your winces and sour faces, but the unimpressed look on the bartender’s face too with every failure. That was over a month ago, four visits since, and the strawberry daiquiris were officially the one.

But that day you didn’t show, something felt amiss within her. She found serenity in your company. She didn’t know why you were there every week at the same time as her, nursing a single drink and not saying a word. All she did know was that it calmed some part of her that hadn’t been reached in a long while. You, sat three seats down, gave her peace and made her feel less… alone. Sure, there were plenty of other unsuspecting suspects she could have randomly grown attached to, but there was just something about you. She couldn’t put a finger on it, apart from the fact it made her sound a little weird and stalker-ish. Something she’d learnt in the past three or more years, however, was that any internal peace she could find was good for her. She didn’t find much of it anymore.

Even though you weren’t there, because you weren’t there, she stayed longer that night. Her eyes drifted back to the door more times than she could count or care to admit. The only company she had was the new, aching, hollow feeling in her chest. Different to anything she could recall. And god had she spent so long in therapy identifying every single fucking emotion that’d ripped through her over the years, so she really knew what she was talking.

When she finally decided to leave, an hour later than she normally did, she walked a little slower in hopes of catching even just a glimpse of you, somehow. Then she got to the door, grabbed the handle, and hesitated. The bartender saw her look back at your empty chair, and it might’ve been the most exciting thing to happen to him in months.

—

The next week, things are different again. Alexia can’t stay this time, duty calls with the national team. She’s a senior player now, two decades older than the youngest ones at Barca, but still enough of a difference maker for there to be a notable absence on the pitch when she isn’t there. 

The bar, however, is still a priority for her before she goes. The thought of leaving you there, even if you didn’t think about her the same way she thought about you, set something amiss within her. She didn’t want you to feel the same way she felt when you were gone. So she showed up over an hour earlier than she normally would, even earlier still than the time you would, and spoke to the bartender for the first time. But, of course, it wasn’t about her, or him for that matter. 

It was a short conversation that led to the outcome of there being a freshly prepared cocktail waiting for you, set down only a few seconds before you walked in. Still perfectly chilled and hardly melting at all. You walked in the sound of the gentle notes of jazz that always played, went straight through the bustle of conversations and laughter, and headed towards the little pocket of tranquility that the bar offered you. Except this time, things weren’t the same. The stool that was always occupied at that time was empty, and there your drink was, waiting for you. 

You looked around in confusion, eyes flicking between the space to your left, the drink in front of you, and the bartender who whistled quietly as he dried some glasses with the flannel always on his shoulder.

“Sorry, did you get me this?” 

He didn’t seem startled in the slightest. He turned to you, shrugged a shoulder, a tiny quirk to the corner of his lips.

“That woman bought it for you. She came in a while ago, said she couldn’t be here tonight. So she bought your drink as an apology.” 

With that, he turned back to his task. He didn’t need to see you to know you were a little flustered, though you tried to brush it off and cool your face down by taking a sip of your pre-paid, pre-ordered, strawberry daiquiri. 

So when she, the unnamed drink-buyer to you, was there and waiting the week after like normal, it was about time you said something. You were a little reluctant to do so, not because she was intimidating or scary, but because it would make these strange meetings where the two of you were nothing but two ghosts coexisting into something more. Something where you had to be human and sociable, rather than being someone sitting with their grief.

“You bought my drink last week.” You stated simply, attention focused on where your fingers mindlessly traced shapes in the condensation of your glass. 

For the first time, properly, Alexia let her eyes rake over you. Your shoulders that tried to hold themselves up but were weighed down by burdens you didn’t have the energy to share. The bags under your eyes. The downward turns at the corner of your lips you didn’t mean to leave there. All these things, she knew like the back of her hand, because she adorned them too.

She thought you were beautiful.

“I did.” She replied with ease, a gentleness to her voice.

“Why?” You glanced over at her then, the end of your question dropping off when you saw her face and the way she looked at you. Her voice, paired with her gaze, made it feel like she was the only person in the room with you. 

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

That, there, struck a chord in your chest which hadn’t been played in years.

All you could do in reply was nod because you weren’t sure you could get through a sentence without your voice cracking in two. Instead, you moved on, and decided to say something that could have possibly ended with you getting a drink thrown in your face.

“How long since that happened?”

Alexia briefly pulled a confused face, until you gestured at your own ring finger in reference to hers. Then she frowned, her right hand going to fiddle with a ring that didn’t sit there anymore.

“Three years.” She mumbled. You were about to apologise for overstepping due to her dejected reaction, but then she spoke again. “How did you know?”

The way her eyes looked at yours, it was like having a mirror put in front of you. They were delicate, reserved, and held so much vulnerability, you felt obligated in a tender way to match it.

“Takes one to know one.” You smiled sadly. “Two years last month.”

You caught the way she glanced at your hand and noticed the lack of ring too, not impressed as such that you took it off sooner than she did, but surprised by the strength you showed, even if you didn’t realise it. 

“What did you do with yours?” 

There was no exchange of ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or awkward pauses where neither of you knew what to say because no words could amount to the pain of what’d happened. But that was only because you both knew it too well to waste time apologising for the other. 

“Both of ours live on a jewelry dish on my bedside table that she made at a pottery class we went on a date to for our first anniversary.” 

Alexia smiled at the memory, not only because it was bittersweet, but because she had her own stories from her relationship just like that. It also made her smile because she could feel the happiness exuding from you even as you just briefly retold the story. She related to that more than anyone but you would understand.

You waited for her to answer it too, which came in the form of her getting her keys out her pocket and sliding them across the bartop towards you. At first you were confused, until you saw the rings, and your heart ached for her.

“I keep them there, tied with the ribbon that was around the napkins from our table on our wedding day.” Your melancholic smile sunk deep into your face at such a beautiful sentiment. You didn’t know her but it seemed like the most her thing to do. “I only took mine off last week. That’s why the stupid tan line is still there.”

A breathy laugh left your throat, and Alexia hummed her amusement too at the cruelness of it; she finally found the strength to take it off, just for her to be reminded of what she’s lost, again. It was a harsh joke the world had pulled on her. The whole thing was a harsh joke on the two of you.

“Well,” You started, grabbing your glass and raising it. “Cheers to us then.”

What you were cheersing to was left unsaid, but you both knew.

Alexia raised her glass with you, before you both took a sip of your drinks. 

After that, you didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. Only when Alexia stood from her stool and slipped on her coat, firing a farewell smile your way, one that looked like it held an awful lot of gratitude in it, before putting some cash in the tip jar like she always did, and walking away.

…only to come walking back gingerly no more than a minute later to ask for your name. You gave her yours, and she gave you hers. She said it, tested it out on her tongue, before tapping her knuckle twice on the bar in thought and heading out for a second time.

You tested out her name too, later that night where you lay in bed on your side, hand outstretched to the empty space left, talking out loud like you often did. You retold the conversation that you and Alexia had, said I love you, and rolled over to go to sleep. For the first time, it wasn’t just one face you saw as you closed your eyes, but two.

—

Fridays were still nothing to write home about. Yet, lately, the bartender found himself lingering a little longer when the two of you were in. 

He wasn’t in the business of interfering, but the job did ask for the habit of noticing. And now, there was a lot to notice.

He had seen a lot over the years he’d worked there, but nothing like the two of you. Not total strangers that seemed to have their own language. Could be the language of grief, sure, which wasn’t all that uncommon. But whatever was brewing between the two of you was something of its own. 

Not much changed after that first conversation– the routine continued with the arrivals and the stools and the drinks. The bartender, on the other hand, he noticed the air between you both was lighter than it was before. Conversation wasn’t a feature of every week, it was still smiles shared and contentment in company, but there were more subtle glances. At one point, you could feel Alexia’s gaze on you, goosebumps rippled along your skin and there was the slightest of shivers down your spine. When you turned to catch her, she was already looking away again. 

The reason being; there were boundaries you were both afraid to cross. It didn’t feel like the start of a friendship, it felt like something more. Neither of you had ever prepared yourselves for that possibility. So for a little while, you danced around this new territory.

Until there was one night that called for it. 

You arrived after her, of course. Got yourself settled in your stool, ordered your drink, shrugged off your jacket. Then you looked over at her and smiled at first, before you noticed the redness to her eyes and the pain on her face that resonated so deeply with you, you swore you felt it too. 

She had been crying, anyone could tell that she had. And it didn’t take you any time at all to wonder what had caused it.

You took a couple moments to think, during which your drink was placed in front of you. She needed cheering up, you decided, so that’s what you dedicated that Friday night to.

“Have you ever tried this drink, Alexia?” You hummed, mixing it with your straw. She looked over, chin resting on her hand, fingertips pressing into the skin of her cheekbones, and shook her head. 

With a sly grin, you moved up two stools, leaving just the one between you as your drink left a trail of condensation along the varnished wood that the bartender swiftly wiped away. Alexia eyed you in her peripheral, suspicious about your behaviour, until you nudged your drink closer to her. You reached over to get another straw from the box in front of you and placed it in your drink.

“Try it.” 

The athlete within her grimaced.

“I’ll get cavities.” Her voice was hoarse and cracked slightly as she spoke.

“Shut up, no you won’t. How many have I had of these over the last few months? My dentist said my teeth are as healthy as can be.” You teased, pulling the first smile of the night from her.

“Only if you try a martini.” She acquiesced with the daiquiri glass already in her hand. 

“No way. I hate gin. And olives.” You shivered at the thought of such a disgusting combination.

“Remind me to never take you for tapas.” The midfielder muttered before putting the straw in her mouth and having a drink. You swore she only had the tiniest bit before her face pinched in disgust. “That has more sugar in it than I’ve had all year.” 

“You have a miserable diet then.” 

This back and forth continued for quite some time, to your surprise. 

First, it was about your choice of drink still. Then Alexia thought it fit to rehash that period of time where you wasted your wages trying out every cocktail on the menu to see which one you liked most, a jab at you that had her laughing so much her stomach muscles started to ache. At some point, the pair of you found yourselves laughing at everything and nothing. Once at a guy that walked in with an air to him that exuded dickhead, and on another occasion, the situations you were in as widows. How strange it was that you’d both gravitated towards this random bar when in the past it’d be the last place you would be in.

More drinks were bought than normal– usually you both stuck to two, three at a push. But at four, with number five threatening, you collectively decided to call it a night. The idea of walking home wasn’t so unappealing before you got to the door, but that changed when you saw the utter downpour happening on the streets. It was hammering it down with rain, and you stood there like a fool, cowering under the doorway with your hoodless coat. Alexia smirked behind you, then reached into the bucket by the door, where she had left her umbrella.

“At least one of us came prepared.” You grumbled when she stepped outside with it above her head, the light from the street lamp reflecting off of the water that ran off the top of the nylon fabric.

“Let me walk you home.” She responded softly, rather than teasing you. 

The notion took you by surprise. So far, this… whatever it was between you, it hadn’t existed outside the bar. Hell, it hadn’t ever made it to the door before. Having her walk you home was uncharted ground. 

“So you can share your umbrella with me?” You wondered with an eyebrow raised dramatically.

“What does it look like?” She deadpanned, making you laugh. A sound she’d gotten used to over the course of the evening and one she was quickly beginning to adore. “I’m not standing here for fun.”

“Fine. Don’t hog it though.” 

You quickly scampered the short distance from the door to Alexia, though soon realised you would have to stand on her toes almost to get under it– much closer than you thought. That idea spooked you a little. Your heart wanted it, your brain tried to welcome it, but a deeply uncomfortable feeling settled in your bones. It felt wrong. So wrong. You recognised that feeling not too long after; it was guilt. And with one realisation, came another. 

You were starting to fall for Alexia.

That guilt increased tenfold, so intensely you feared for a moment that you were going to throw up on her shoes. But then she chuckled under her breath, something that made your breath hitch when you heard it so close to your ear for the first time, and shoved all emotions to the side for later. When you were in the safety of your own bed, your once shared bed, where you could hate yourself with no interruptions from someone you wanted but didn’t feel like you could have.

“Come on, get in. Otherwise this whole walk will be for nothing.” 

Even though it felt wrong to do so, you huddled closer to her. If she noticed you were quieter on the walk back, she didn’t say anything. 

Unbeknownst to you, these same thoughts had plagued Alexia ever since that night she found herself missing you at the bar when you were gone. They weren’t so strong back then as they were now, but it meant she had more time than you to adjust to them. Two weeks prior, she had brought it up whilst having dinner with her closest friends, who had been just as close with her late partner, and even they were quick to reassure her that there was nothing wrong with exploring a new relationship. 

Especially when her partner had voiced to Alexia that she wishes she could fall in love again afterwards.

Her anxiety ate away at her less, but it was still there. Being in such close proximity with someone she liked romantically, those thoughts were loud and clear in the back of her mind. The only way around that, she knew, was by facing it. And as she was beginning to see, she liked being close to you. Having just the one seat between you rather than three was a welcome surprise, and that paled in comparison to getting to walk you home. 

Except, the same couldn’t be said for you. With the tears that fell that night, you were struck with the sickening reminder that no matter how healed you think you are, there was always something with grief that summoned the fact that missing someone isn’t something you ever outgrow.

—

Some days you found the beauty in that fact, though. Grief isn’t something you finish or get over, you have to learn to carry it. That was something you were proud of, how you never let the person you loved be someone of the past. They were still very much a part of you as a living being.

This is something that cropped up a couple weeks after the rainy walk home. Since then, the two of you spoke endlessly each time you showed up at the bar. There was now just one seat between you rather than three. You took turns walking the other home. 

Still, it was a growing friendship that never ventured out of its confines of Fridays on the same streets. It’d been happening for months now, and neither of you found a problem with it. It was the one part of your lives that was regular and routine, but most importantly, comforting. Nothing else in your lives came close to these nights. 

Work had overrun for you, and due to not wanting to be late for Alexia, you’d rushed straight over from there to the bar, leaving no time to stop off at home for dinner. Drinking on an empty stomach was never a good choice, so you limited yourself to only the one drink before switching to something non-alcoholic. Alexia noticed but didn’t say much, only when your stomach rumbled so loud in a lull of conversation that you worried the entire bar might have heard it. She laughed for far too long about it, even as you reached over the stool between you and hit her lightly on the shoulder.

“If you’re gonna laugh like that, you can pay for my dinner.” You told her, not quite catching the meaning of your own words. Asking her to dinner.

“Of course I’ll pay for dinner.” Alexia said when she finally calmed down. “Where were you thinking of taking us?”

You weren’t thinking about it at all, actually. Not until that very moment. Your first instinct was to shut it down, play off your own suggestions. 

Deep down, however, that wasn’t something you wanted. What you did want was to stop feeling guilty everyday. Not just for spending time with Alexia, but for breathing. Blinking. All the mundane things your partner didn’t get to do anymore. But guilt wasn’t grief, she didn’t want you to feel guilty, she wanted you to live. You had promised her that back then, when she could still ask for them, and smile when you gave them. 

So, you breathed through the knot in your chest, and stood from your chair.

“You’ll see when we get there.” You smiled slyly, shrugging on your jacket and heading to the door. Alexia followed suit, a grin on her face that seemed cheeky on the surface but was shy and nervous underneath. 

This felt like a big step in whatever it was between you.

And the way that your grief carried itself that day was in the way you chose a tiny, unsuspecting restaurant ten minutes down the road. Alexia didn’t trust it, but you knew just how incredible it was. Even if it had been over two years since you’d been.

“What is this place.” Alexia muttered as you led her in, holding the door for her. 

“The best Thai food in the country.” You sighed dramatically, practically drooling at the sight of the menu.

There were a few new additions on the board, but one meal remained. 

“That. We have to share that. It’s the best thing they do.” You tapped her shoulder and pointed to it, rolling your eyes at the face she pulled.

“Really?” She couldn’t have said it in a more dreading tone.

“Yes. Really. Go sit down, I’ll order.” 

Doing as you said, Alexia headed for the booth in the corner right by the window. Rather than looking out of it, her eyes were stuck on you. She didn’t know how the months had slipped by so fast, but she couldn’t have picked a time during all that, other than then for the two of you to step outside the comfort and familiarity of the bar and do something new. She felt ready. She just desperately hoped you were too.

When you came over, she erased all that from the forefront of her mind so she could be present with you. It wasn’t difficult to do when you sat across from her and spoke so animatedly with such excitement, it might’ve been the most upbeat she had seen you. Her heart thumped away in her chest at the sight.

You were like that for a reason; it was the first time you had visited somewhere that had been so intrinsically sacred to your relationship without bawling your eyes out. And each time the doubts creeped in about you painting over those memories with new ones, you shut that train of thought right up, because it wasn’t true. Nothing could paint over those memories, you had to remind yourself of that. You were just making new ones with someone that had… saved you over these months. Whether she knew that, whether you knew the extent of it, you weren’t sure. You just found it hard to picture a life now without Alexia in it.

Then your food was served, and when it was placed between you both, Alexia seemed much more enthusiastic than a terribly coloured, proportioned, heavily contrasted photo on the menu board. You took a bite of it after her, and it was just as good as you remembered.

“God, I haven’t had this in two years, and it’s still incredible.” You groaned in satisfaction after taking another bite. Alexia, however, froze a little.

“Tw… two years?” She asked delicately. You should have known she would put the pieces of the puzzle together far too soon.

“Yeah. Two years, and quite a bit more than a month now.” You tried to joke, though it didn’t land too successfully.

“If I had known it was important, I would not have been so rude about it.” She admitted quietly, not daring to look at you for some reason. She felt it wasn’t just you she had disrespected, but your partner too, and that felt awful.

“Doesn’t matter now, Alexia. We’re here, and I’m happy about it. That’s all that matters.” When she didn’t seem to be taking in your words, you nudged her knee with yours under the table. “Only the most special people in my life get to come here.” 

Of course it was then she looked up, the girl was a sucker for a bit of sweet talk.

“Then I guess I should count myself very, very lucky then. And grateful.” 

Every time her tone dropped to that soft level, it undid you bit by bit. Months of that was beginning to build up, but you didn’t know what to do with it.

Conversation drifted from topic to topic, with periods of silence between them. Not uncomfortable or awkward, but necessary. They’d become a common theme when you were together. It felt good, it felt relieving, to be able to exist with someone and not need to talk all the time, be someone you weren’t. You had missed that serene existing, and with Alexia, after more than two years without it, you felt you could do it for the rest of your life.

“Are you okay?” She asked in alarm when your fork clattered down onto the table after you had dropped it.

“Y-yeah. Sorry. Went a bit light-headed.”

It was true, you did. Because that revelation was ground-breaking to you. It told you everything and nothing all at once. 

It told you what you wanted the rest of your life to look like, but not how to navigate it or live it. How do you get into a relationship with someone, when the last person you thought you’d spend your life with had died? How do you become comfortable with that fact when a relationship feels like cheating?

Two sides of your mind battled constantly. You wanted to feel Alexia’s touch, but the horrible feeling of bile rising in your throat cut you off from that desire every time you thought about it. You wanted to have her in your life for the rest of it, but you didn’t know what that looked like. Or, rather, you did, but were just too afraid to admit it.

You were tired of jumping between two different mindsets; disgust and devotion. Sometimes you thought you would be better off having never met Alexia so that you would’ve never had to deal with this dilemma. Yet, again, the mere thought of that was horrifying. Who would you be now without her?

“If I eat anymore, I might never be able to play football again.” Alexia slumped back in her chair, none the wiser to your inner crisis. 

You needed time away from her, but didn’t want the night to end. Not when it had been so… perfect. So much more than you could have asked for.

“Maybe walking it off will help.” You proposed lightly.

“Will it? So you are the know-it-all athlete now?” She smirked, something she often did that had begun to make you blush each time she did, and she knew that.

“Maybe. Can’t let me walk home alone in the dark, that’s all I know.”

“Yeah? What about me?” 

“You’re stronger than most people in this town and you know it.” The grin on her face after that let you know she had won this little bout of bickering.

“How do you know that for sure?” You rolled your eyes, balled up a napkin, and threw it at her.

“Walk me home, you idiot.” 

The journey back was quiet. Streetlamps casted yellow golden pools across the pavements that you both drifted in and out of as you walked. Your shoulders bumped every so often, hands brushing too on occasion. You swore you felt her stretch her pinky out to reach yours for a second before she pulled away. When you caught her gazing at you, she didn’t look away anymore. Just smiled, soft and beautiful, just her. Unashamed in her feelings, which made you feel confident in your own, but even more terrified too. 

What if you couldn’t meet her halfway?

“You remembered your keys this time?” She teased as you reached your doorstep, waiting on the lower step as you headed to the door.

“Yes I did, thank you. You’re not very good service, you know.” A gasp came from behind you, far more dramatic than necessary.

“I don’t walk just anyone home, you know. Only lonely people that think a sugary slushie is a good drink on a Friday night.” 

“You should get new material for your jokes. All you do is rip me for my daiquiris.” You turned to her after finally getting your key in the door, but not turning it yet. You looked down at her from the higher step, a childish grin on your face. “Or am I that perfect that there’s nothing for you to work against?”

The footballer had no response for that.

With a pleased hum, you turned back to the door and unlocked it. You pushed it open ajar, and turned once more, to say goodbye to a silent Alexia.

“That one really got you good, huh?” You said with a giggle.

One second you were laughing, the next there was a mouth pressed softly to yours.

You gasped. She pulled away. You stared at each other, breathless from the shock of it. But you wanted it again.

You wrapped your arms around her shoulders and pulled her back in. It’d been years since you kissed someone, but muscle memory kicked in, and it felt good. Her lips moved carefully, nervously, because it meant as much to her as it did to you. She was warm and soft, everything that a kiss should be and everything that you’d missed about doing it. 

And when she tilted her head just slightly to deepen it, it was as if the ground shifted beneath you. Your heart grew to make space for her finally. The sheer force of feeling something like this again was almost winding, but the fact you allowed it for yourself made you feel whole again. 

After a couple minutes of standing on the doorstep like anxious teenagers doing something they shouldn’t, Alexia finally broke it off. Though, neither of you moved far. Your foreheads rested against each other and you breathed the same cool air of the night’s chill. Her arms stayed around your waist, one hand having slipped under your jacket as she stroked up and down your hip with her thumb where you stayed in the silent aftermath. 

She didn’t speak, nor did you. There wasn’t anything to say.

Only the sound of a car passing by broke the moment. And as it did, the marvel of it was stripped from you. Because when you leaned back and it was Alexia looking at you, not her, it terrified you. 

You dropped your arms, stepped back in alarm. Forgot who you were, and who it was in front of you. You dashed inside without a word, leaving Alexia standing there, blinking away the sting in her eyes as the door closed in her face, leaving her heart thrown on the floor where you once were. She stayed there for a minute or two, feeling numb. 

Numb in a way that didn’t hurt yet, but would come crashing over her the second she got home. Numb in a way that you would understand, but maybe that was the problem with it all. You understood too well.

—

Days passed by in a way that was both slow and far too quick at the same time. 

Complete silence between you. 

Alexia showed up at the bar the following Friday, a naive hope nestled in her chest that you would be there. It didn’t surprise her when the hours ticked by and you didn’t show. 

Even though he didn’t know what had happened, the bartender could sense that it had all come crashing down between you. He saw the eager and anxious way Alexia came in, and how her shoulders slumped more and more with every swing of the door that wasn’t you. He saw the frown deepen, and the way her eyes glossed over before she blinked hastily to cover it. He fixed her a drink that she didn’t finish. 

The whole time she stayed, he didn’t ever drift far. He wiped down the bar and kept her in the corner of his eye. The worst part of it all was that he couldn’t even say he was surprised that it had come to this, too much was on the line for it to not end well, he’d seen it before in situations where the lines that hearts were on were twice as strong and stable. Still, it wrecked him a little.

Alexia had an unexpected request for him that night: a piece of paper and a pen. He obliged without hesitation. Ten minutes later, she was handing them both back with drying tear tracks on her cheeks.

“If she comes in at any point, will you give this to her?” 

She didn’t even have to say your name, he knew who she was talking about. He tried to hide his sad smile as he took the paper back and tucked it away in the till. His faith in the world and all its good diminished at the outcome of it all. 

But it didn’t diminish completely, because you walked in the next week. You looked just as broken as Alexia did. The latter wasn’t there this time, either. But he remembered the letter, and he handed it over to you wordlessly along with your drink of choice for that occasion. Just a water.

You knew who it was from instantly. The first glimpse of jagged handwriting almost tore your heart in two there and then, before you’d even read it.

I’m sorry. For scaring you, for breaking your space by writing this, for pushing you.

I’m sorry I did that with no warning, but I am not sorry for how I feel about you. You are the only person that makes me want to fall in love again. I didn’t think I would ever feel that way again, especially not so soon, because I didn’t think I ever could. Then you showed up at the bar and you made me want to try. I believe she sent you to me for this very reason.

But I have to be honest, because I cannot survive another kind of almost. 

I can’t commit to this if you aren’t all in. I’m sorry. I don’t want to push you, or force a decision, I just need honesty. Because I choose you, I do, but only if you choose me too.

It’s you I want. You make me feel alive again. Thank you.

-A

You traced your finger over that last single letter, the one thing that made you feel connected to her. With her note, you didn’t expect anything less from her. Everything she said was entirely understandable, if it was you in the reverse then you would ask for the same. But god, it was terrifying being on this side of it.

Your first instinct was fear, to run away from it, forget any of it ever happened. To go crawling back to the safety of your bed, where if you closed your eyes hard enough, you could pretend nothing had changed those years ago, and that the perfume that filled the room wasn’t just from the bottle you had sprayed on the pillow. 

None of that was possible. None of it was healthy or long-lasting. You had that option served on a silver platter by a person you were falling in love with. And the one other person you loved wanted this for you. It was an easy choice to anyone else on the outside– being on the inside was a whole other story. 

You sat with it for a few days. Went about your normal life – work, grocery shopping, walks, all of it – like normal, when underneath the mask, was a dilemma you never imagined you would face in your life. You couldn’t have dreamt it in a month of Sundays. There were sleepless nights, hours spent laying in bed with nothing but this decision as company. 

Alexia had saved you. She declared it first but it suddenly became true to you, just under a week after you received the note. She made you feel alive again too.

Those few days where your life was empty knowing everything you’d built with her was on the edge of a precipice were nothing compared to those couple hours a month with her in some bar in the centre of town. Those couple hours were what kept you going, what brought you out of your grief and gave you back to yourself.

The thought of years with her instead of a few hours, god only knows what it would do for you. 

Fortunately, the choice was up to you.

“Please do not knock like that on my d-” She cut herself off at the sight of you at her door.

Albeit, you had knocked very desperately, but it was with good reason.

“I’m in, Alexia. I’m all in. It’s you I want too, only you.” You blurted out, not really knowing what you were saying but hoping it was good enough anyway. 

Alexia stood there in her pajamas and dressing gown, blinking at you. You were nearly vibrating with anxiety– the time it took for her to respond felt like a lifetime.

“Y… you’re sure?” She asked nervously, not getting her hopes up again.

“Yes. I’m certain, Alexia. Please. Don’t tell me it’s too late.” 

There were tears in your eyes and hers. 

Of course it wasn’t too late. 

She stepped forward and swept you up in a hug you’d craved for years, it was healing and refreshing all in one. You hugged her back just as tight, not daring to let go then, or ever. Not until she did, that was your new rule. You weren’t ever going to let her feel that apprehension again. And just to prove your point, you kept your arms tight around her but leaned back enough to look at her.

“Let me kiss you. Properly this time. I won’t run.” You said with a hopeful smile, relieved when she laughed far too giddily for such a stupid joke. 

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” She mumbled, her lips already against yours halfway through the sentence.

You didn’t expect anything less from her.

The time that followed after that, another doorstep kiss, this time without the tears and anxiety, was as good as it could get.

Trips to the bar still happened. And even though the drinks stayed the same, there was less distance between you. Your shoulder and thigh pressed against hers, elbows nudging each other every so often, especially when Alexia said something so stupid you couldn’t help but double over the woodtop laughing.

It turned out to be a soft kind of love. The most treasured kind of love. Your relationship bloomed between the two of you, and your partners were present in ways that weren’t loud, but still there.

Alexia’s drink choice, the two rings on her keys, the way she made her eggs in a morning, and the decor of her house that was hardly chosen by her. Your rings stayed on your bedside table when she came over, she put her shoes on the rack next to pairs she knew weren’t yours, new photos hung up on your living room wall amongst some that’d been there for years. These things had to remain to build a path into the future.

There were two halves of two broken hearts held together by the love left by your late partners. The relationship would be nothing without them, not just in the physical sense. They’d taught you to love, they’d experienced it so wholly, that apparently they felt it necessary that it was too good to not be experienced by anyone else. And who better than someone just as lost as you each were.

The bar was a common choice for date nights. But not even then– just whenever one of you needed it. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

A month down the line, you found yourselves there. Happy, content. Whole again.

“Of course you can.” You smiled, lifting your head up from where it rested against her shoulder to face her properly.

“What made you realise this is what you wanted?” She wondered, fingers fidgeting with her glass. “After I kissed you for the first time, those days without each other… what changed your mind?”

You couldn’t believe you hadn’t mentioned it yet, to be honest. It was everything to you, it was the entire reason you were where you were with her.

“I take comfort in knowing I loved her for the rest of her life, and that she would want me to be loved for the rest of mine. The only person that could do that is you.”

—

i haven't put out a story in sososo long, i'm so anxious to post this i cant begin to describe it lmao. really really wish i had the energy (and time) to commit to making this a full length fic but i just don't right now, though i hope this will suffice for the time being :)

[therisingsun777]

I stood before large oaken doors, and was met naught but with the steady thrum of rain behind me. Only a few had stood before this archway, and if rumor were true, even fewer left. My hands shook lightly as I raised a fist, and lightly rapped my knuckles upon it.

There was but a moment to gather my bearings about me, patience wearing thin as I stared on. Then, through a subtle movement; a decoration of times twisting in strange arrangements, the door was opened. No crackle nor creak to hint as its pulling, nor any figure to have done so. It was simply closed, then open, in a matter of mere milliseconds.

I stepped inside, my pack shifted about on my shoulders as a long, gilded gold and ebony hall, made itself known to me. Yet there was no one in sight; no welcoming committee to take my name. Still further my foot stepped, determined as I were to see this bizarre allocation through.

It was about the point in which I made it to a rather strange stairwell, that the man revealed himself. A polite cough resounded behind my back, and I quickly turned in startlement to find him. He was not the figure I imagined; not the sort that myth spoke of, tall in stature and broadly handsome.

What bare itself before me instead was a kneasly, slightly fat, old man. Portly would be the word that came to mind. Je jad a beard that trailed far lower than a beard should according to the modern fashions, and quite prominent, bushy eyebrows. He was even shorter than my rather timid 5"6, and as of current wielded a staff, rather lackadaisically.

"Ah, are you to be my Apprentice, then?" His voice was rather high-pitched, and yet warm, effeminate.

"Y-yes," I stumbled, "But I think... well surely there's been some sort of mistake,"

He let an eyebrow raise, and grinned rather sharply, "Now has there"

I nodded, and spoke despite the caution that suddenly tugged underneath my navel, "You see, I... I never wanted to be a WitchKnight. I very much have my eyes set upon being a Healer,"

He stroked his beard, lightly twirling his staff within a rather gnarled hand, "A noble profession indeed. Well then! Let's see some healing, shall we?"

Before I could quite react, my palm was bleeding. I blinked. There was no pain from the wound; nor in fact any real source through which the blood could arrive.

"Was I supposed to try to heal an illusion?"

He chuckled, "Very well then," And slowly drew a knife, whereupon he cut his own palm, "Try this on for size,"

Startled, I dropped my pack and drew out a golden stone, which I very carefully placed upon the wound. With a muttered phrase, and a stab into a portion of the stone, the wound was gone. I stared towards the man accusingly, but he was no longer looking at me.

His eyes were narrowed onto the wound as he muttered under his breath. Finally, after what felt like far too many minutes, he looked up.

"You will do," He decided.

"But I will do for What?" I protested, now quite incensed, "I am a Healer, and refuse to take part in fights and... and petty scraps!"

Again, maddeningly, he chuckled, "Ah, the romantacization will leave you with age: it always does,"

I rooted my feet to the spot as he turned deeper down the hall, "I will not leave this spot until you tell me why you ate keeping me as an Apprentice!"

He looked back at me with a broad grin, "Ah, well alright then," With multiple thunks of his staff, he moved over to the steps and sat himself down, "First, allow me to ask; what does it mean to be a WitchKnight?"

I refrained from rolling my eyes, barely, and said, "It means fighting in the Wars, or hunting the Dark, or those who seem inclined to utilize it,"

He let a hand fall onto his chin, "Uh huh. Then tell me, what happens when a WitchKnight is injured? Surely they aren't just left for dead?"

I opened my mouth, but could not reply immediately, "Well everyone knows a little bit of healing magick, do they not?"

At this, he smirked and rolled his eyes; for but a moment it was as if the age clear upon his face had left, "Yes, everyone knows a little bit about healing magick. But only a Healer can deal with injuries most Profane and Foul; is that not what you were taught?"

I frowned, but not altogether deeply, "So I am to become a WitchKnight; not to fight, but, but to save other WitchKnights?"

He smiled, "So it would seem. Are you opposed to this?"

I considered for a long moment, before saying, "I am not opposed to adventure; I am a Mage after all. I suppose... well I never imagined I would get to do too much. So... no, I am not opposed at all,"

witchknights are unmatched in magical and martial arts. Unlike the rest of your peers you wanted to study healing magic and medicine not war and violence. So when the witchknight chose you everyone was confused, Even the archsage himself.

[bewitched-hours]

ANGST IDEA: (if you write it uh.. he/they pronouns for reader)

Two-Time gets so enamored with y/n, they start following them around, until they get the idea,, that y/n would be the best sacrifice for The Spawn. And stabs them mid round (it could be anything, just as long as Two-Time or any other sentinel ends up killing y/n)

And 1x ends up being the killer..

While casting Necromancy, She summons y/n without realizing it, and while they’re checking their minions, he senses a new being under their control.

Revealing Y/n as a minion, somewhat still aware, like a sleepy person, kinda wobbling around and whatnot.. and feels a bit .. bad..

I don't do he/they but I can offer They/Them as the closest to male pronouns as stated in my ruleset(again, nothing against guys but I honestly write a bit more on relatability and for my fellow gals because I see mostly AMAB reader fics-) Also I may have misunderstood the request, I apologize if this isn't what you wanted-

Reader has They/Them-

It wasn't supposed to be even possible... But the Spectre seemed to have been bored.

And by the stars, Two Time's infatuation with you gave it an idea.

You thought it was innocent at first and that you could handle them despite not reciprocating their feelings. You were just kind like that, not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings.

Hell, you even went out of your way to apologize to killers and make sure they didn't feel discouraged by a missed attack... Even though they wouldn't be in the first place...

But what no one could've seen coming was Two Time suddenly backstabbing you and successfully killing you..?

That wasn't right. Something was up, especially when you were nowhere to be found after that round. Even your cabin was completely destroyed which only meant...

You were actually dead dead. Gone from existence entirely.

Obviously, the blame was on Two Time. They stabbed you after all and all they could talk about was the Spawn possibly giving them a third life to better protect everyone.

It left a sour taste in their mouths but the Spectre did grant them a third life to keep them insane.

The next round was when things got interesting.

1x1x1x1 was chosen as the killer and in the middle of it, she chose to use necromancy. Raising minions from the dead to help him with taking care of the pesky survivors.

Although you horrified the survivors with your appearance, 1x failed to realise it until much later while checking on the minions because she felt a new presence among them.

And there you stood. Not entirely stable as you looked more like someone fighting off exhaustion and being on the edge of collapsing. It looked pitiful enough.

So when the round ended and you were taken to the killer's cabin with them, 1x merely picked you up and explained what happened quickly before hauling you off with them.

Did you even know what was happening? You didn't show any resistance but the vengeance she could feel from you when you spotted Two Time was enough to allow you to be a true minion.

There would just need to be a few modifications...

Anything you'd like to request/ask? Check out my pinned post first and I'll be happy to write up whatever you want!

[whisperedmeg]

DARK MATTER ―.✦ s.r. soft animal series ∘ part xi

pairing: spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader

summary: spencer belongs to this history, she’s still finding her place — but love, like dark matter, doesn’t need to be seen to hold everything together.

genre: hurt/comfort, fluff | w/c: 3.3k

tags/warnings: post-prison spencer, reader meets more members of the BAU (past & present!), rossi doing rich old man shit, reader feels like an outsider looking in, big relationship milestone, suggestive makeout at the beginning and implied/fade to black intimacy at the end but nothing super explicit, still 18+ MDNI

a/n: this one has some fun guest appearances from our fave BAU team members 🥳 and something big happens towards the end hehehe. also icymi, I shared some headcanons about soft animal reader & spencer last week. part 12 (the penultimate chapter AHHH) is coming next week. im a lil scared to post that one ngl…prepare yourselves for angst in advance lol

series masterlist

The invitation arrived on a Monday, tucked inside a cream-colored envelope with the kind of dramatic embossing only someone like David Rossi would consider necessary. Both of our names graced the front and Spencer’s eyes lit up like Christmas morning when he opened it.

“‘You’re invited to a celebration of friendship, food, and fine wine at Chateau Rossi.’” He grinned as he read it, shaking his head. “He named his house. Of course he named his house.”

I laughed from the couch, legs tucked beneath me and a half-completed crossword puzzle in my lap. “What’s the party for?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Spencer said, turning the card over like it might reveal more secrets. “It’s not a birthday or an anniversary or a retirement or anything. I think he’s just bored and rich.”

“Sounds about right.”

Spencer looked at me with a kind of boyish hope, a spark I didn’t see often but always loved when it surfaced. “Rossi said a bunch of old team members are all coming into town for it. Morgan, Hotch, Blake... everyone. It’ll be amazing.”

Something fluttered in my chest — mostly joy, but tinged with a touch of nerves. I kept my tone light. “You sure I won’t be crashing a BAU greatest hits reunion?”

He crossed the room in two steps and stood in front of me, hands warm on my shoulders. “I want you there. That’s the whole point. And I’m sure everyone else will be bringing their partners, too.”

I looked at him for a long moment, my lips curling into a soft smile. “Then we’ll go.”

—

Five days later, I stood in front of the mirror with the front of my deep green midi dress clutched in place. Spencer stood behind me, eyes focused. His knuckles grazed my lower back, feather-light, teasing the sensitive skin along my spine before catching the zipper between his thumb and forefinger. He leaned forward, pressing a soft, lingering kiss between my shoulder blades, and my breath caught in my throat.

“You’re moving awfully slow for someone who’s supposed to be zipping me up,” I murmured, eyes half-closed as I watched his reflection through heavy lashes.

He raised his gaze to meet to mine in the mirror, dark and playful, a slow smile spreading across his lips. “I’m just admiring you. Thoroughly.”

Turning slowly in his arms with my dress only half-zipped, I slid my hands up his chest, feeling the warmth of his body through his crisp shirt. “Flattering me into social functions? That’s low, Dr. Reid.”

“Effective, though, right?” His voice was a husky murmur, his mouth hovering close enough to mine that I could taste the faint sweetness of his breath.

I answered by pulling him into a deep, slow kiss, one that unraveled my resolve with every brush of his lips, every gentle sweep of his tongue. Spencer’s hands tightened around my waist, fingers gripping me possessively as he pressed his hips into mine, drawing a soft gasp from my throat. My hands found their way beneath his jacket, gripping the smooth fabric of his shirt, tugging him even closer.

When we finally pulled apart, our breathing was uneven as I rested my forehead against his, our eyes closed as we steadied ourselves.

“We can’t. We’re already late,” I whispered softly.

He exhaled slowly, nodding with reluctant agreement as he reached around to pull my zipper up the rest of the way. “Then let’s go before we don’t.”

—

David Rossi’s mansion was every bit the chateau he claimed it to be — glowing lanterns in the trees, jazz filtering through the air, tables draped in white linens, fountains twinkling beside flower beds that probably each had their own landscaping teams. The whole thing looked like the opening scene of a very expensive movie.

Spencer held my hand tightly as we crossed the lawn.

“They’re all going to love you,” he said. “Just wait.”

He believed it. I tried to believe it too. The anxious knot in my stomach said otherwise, but I smiled and nodded. This meant something to him — returning to this circle, showing me off like a part of his present that could stand beside his past. I’d met some of them before, but never all at once — and never like this.

I wanted, desperately, to belong to all of it.

Garcia greeted me with a flourish and a kiss on both cheeks. “You made it! I was starting to worry you two were going to skip out and stay in bed all night.”

“Tempting,” Spencer murmured under his breath for only me to hear, squeezing my hand.

“Hi, Penelope,” I said, smiling. “This place is incredible.”

“Oh, Rossi doesn’t know how to do anything halfway,” she said, eyes twinkling as she began to pull me along with her. “Come on, there’s champagne and stuffed mushrooms and something with truffle oil I can’t pronounce.”

—

One of the former members of Spencer’s team, Alex Blake, approached me at the bar and introduced herself. “Spencer told me you’re a nurse at Millburn. That’s vital work — thank you for doing it. Correctional healthcare doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves.”

I blinked at her, surprised and touched by the comment. “Thank you,” I said. “That… really means a lot.”

For the first hour, it was easy. We sipped champagne under the lights. Penelope made me laugh. Alex asked smart questions. Luke and Tara and Matt were nice, too. Spencer stayed close, his hand constantly brushing mine or curling lightly around my waist. He was so clearly happy to be here and to have me here with him that it made something in my chest ache in the best way.

But then the night deepened. Conversations shifted. Circles formed.

I watched Spencer drift naturally between pockets of conversation. He looked like a younger, happier version of the man I knew, catching up with Derek Morgan and Aaron Hotchner, laughing loudly at something Tara said, hugging Emily with a kind of familiarity that came from war zones and grief and saving lives together. He slid so easily into that past — like muscle memory, the kind built from years of trust and friendship. Still, it kind of sucked that I couldn’t totally slide in alongside him.

I didn’t mind — not at first. I picked at a small plate of food, wandered the edge of the garden, refilled my drink. But slowly, invisibly, the distance started to hum.

The first pang hit when someone I’d already met — an agent named Anderson — introduced himself again. A small thing. Forgivable. But it knocked me slightly off balance. I smiled through it. Laughed politely. Told myself it didn’t matter.

Then came the question: “So, how did you and Spencer meet?”

I answered carefully. “At Millburn. I’m a nurse in the infirmary there.”

The air shifted. A tight smile. A polite nod. And then the conversation wandered away without me. It wasn’t rude. It wasn’t intentional. But I still felt it like a bruise forming.

—

Candles flickered down the center of a long table set for twenty, silver gleaming beside fine china. Spencer sat across from me, deep in conversation with Luke and Hotch. I ended up beside JJ’s husband Will, who passed me a basket of bread and offered a sympathetic smile.

“You surviving?” he asked.

I gave him a wry look. “Trying to.”

He chuckled. “Took me years to get used to how tight this group is. Even now, I still mostly just nod and smile and try to act like all the inside jokes don’t go right over my head.”

I laughed softly. “Sounds like a solid strategy.”

“Seriously though, don’t worry too much about all of this. You’re doing great. Getting integrated with the BAU crew just takes some time.”

I nodded gratefully, feeling slightly less alone.

Across the table, conversation flowed around me, punctuated by laughter and anecdotes that stretched back years. Hotch shared updates about his son Jack’s travel soccer team. Derek proudly displayed photos of his little boy, Hank Spencer Morgan. Laughter broke out recalling a time Derek and Spencer got trapped in an elevator, anxiously calling out for Hotch as if he might magically appear to rescue them. There were more tales of prank wars and Halloween costumes and magic tricks in the bullpen.

Spencer’s laughter was bright, his eyes shining. I loved hearing the stories, loved watching him come alive in the telling of them, even the ones I’d heard before. I laughed along softly, but inside, I wondered if this part of him would always feel slightly out of my reach.

Spencer looked at me a few times. Smiled across the candles. But he didn’t see it. Not yet.

Later, while he talked with Emily and Tara about a recent case in Miami, I wandered back toward the garden. The string lights overhead seemed to blur slightly. I stood in the corner of the patio and tried to breathe.

Someone offered me dessert. I declined. Anderson brushed past me with a joke I didn’t quite catch. I nodded along, still smiling. But my chest was tight.

And then I slipped away.

Upstairs, I found a quiet balcony and stepped out into the night.

The air was cool, the stars clear and sharp above me. I wrapped my arms around myself and breathed.

I heard him before I saw him — the soft creak of the door, the familiar cadence of his footsteps. I leaned into the railing, hoping the dark might soften the vulnerability on my face.

He didn’t speak right away. Just stood beside me, close but not crowding.

��Hey,” he said finally, voice low.

“Hey,” I echoed, trying to smile. It didn’t quite reach my eyes. I turned my gaze back up to the stars.

“You okay?”

I hesitated. “Yeah. Just needed a minute.”

He didn’t push. Just let the quiet stretch, open and kind.

Eventually, I exhaled. “Rossi sure knows how to throw a party. And I’ve really loved meeting everyone tonight,” I said with a small smile. “I still need to corner Derek before we leave and get some more dirt on you.”

He chuckled at that, but then the rest of the words tumbled out of me before I could stop them.

“They all know a version of you I’ll never get to meet,” I said quietly. “And I don’t think anyone meant to make me feel out of place, but I still did. Like I was standing just outside the frame all night.”

Spencer’s expression softened, guilt flickering in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I should’ve seen it sooner.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. No one did. I just…” My voice dipped. “I wish I could belong to this part of your life, too.”

“You do,” he said, without hesitation. “You already do.” He looked down for a moment, then back up at the sky. “Most of the people here tonight have seen the worst of me,” he said slowly. “Watched me fall apart more than once and helped put me back together. But you… you met me in a totally different kind of wreckage. And you chose to stay anyway.”

He turned to face me more fully.

“I want them to know you — not just meet you, but know you. Because you’re the person who pulled me out of something I didn’t think I’d survive. I didn’t even know there was a future out there left for me to want until you reminded me what it felt like to hope.”

My breath caught.

He reached for my hand, his voice low. “I know this part of my world feels like a closed room sometimes. But it’s not. You’re already inside it — just by being here. I’ll keep making space, because I want you in all of it — the past, the present, whatever’s next. And if it ever feels like you’re outside the door, I’ll open it. Every single time.”

The words settled in my chest like warmth after a long cold, and I leaned into him. We stood in comfortable silence, looking up at the stars.

“You ever think about how much of the universe is invisible?” I asked softly after a minute.

“Only all the time,” he chuckled. “Dark matter holds galaxies together. You don’t always see it, but it’s there. Holding the shape. The structure.”

He paused for a moment before his gaze shifted from the sky down to me, eyes full of something I could barely hold. “You’re that for me. You hold me together. You’re part of this, even when it doesn’t feel like it. You’ve changed my center of gravity. And they’ll see that, too.”

He threaded his fingers through mine, and I felt my breath steady at last.

—

Two weeks later, I walked into Spencer’s apartment and took stock of what had changed.

One of Rossi’s books sat on my side of the bed, the page I’d left off on marked with a receipt from our favorite diner — the one with the pie. A framed photo of me and Spencer, mid-laugh on Rossi’s lawn at the party, had taken up residence on his bookshelf, perched next to a faded copy of Cosmos by Carl Sagan. My favorite mug now lived in his cabinet, nestled between his like it had always belonged there.

And on the couch, quietly waiting, was a soft leather-bound journal.

Spencer picked it up and handed it to me once I sat down. “I’ve been, um, writing things down,” he said, voice low. “Things I want you to know. Memories. Anecdotes. Cases that still live somewhere in my head. I realized I never told you half of what made me, me, but I want to start.”

I opened it slowly, fingers tracing his familiar handwriting across the pages. Scribbled thoughts. Stories. Annotations in the margins. I felt the weight of it hit me all at once — not just the pages or the words, but what it meant. That he trusted me with this. That he wanted me to know him, fully and without omission.

I glanced up at him, eyes warm. “You really want me to know it all?”

“All of it.” He leaned in gently, thumb brushing my cheek. “If it ever felt like I was closing doors, this is me opening them. You’re not on the outside.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and leaned in to kiss him softly. “Thank you,” I whispered against his lips.

We curled up together, my head resting gently on his shoulder, the journal open on my lap. Through the window, stars shimmered in the quiet, scattered like secrets we hadn’t told yet. The room felt hushed in that way only night can manage — like the whole world had paused just long enough to let us breathe.

—

After an hour or so of flipping through the journal, Spencer shifted beside me, almost imperceptibly — just enough that I could feel the nerves radiating off of him.

“Turn to the last page,” he said softly, his voice low and careful.

I glanced up at him. His expression was unreadable — serious, but not heavy. Just… open. So I turned the page with one hand, the other laced with his.

There, in his messy, scribbled handwriting, were seven words:

Move in with me. Please say yes.

My breath caught in my throat.

He didn’t speak, just waited, his hand still warm beneath mine. I stared at the words and felt the weight of them settle in my chest.

We weren’t kids. This wasn’t a fantasy, or a giddy impulse, or something he hadn’t thought through. We were two people who had seen some of the worst in life and in each other. We knew what hurt looked like, and we knew what it meant to carry grief and still try to build something anyway.

My mind immediately spun into motion — not just the logistics, but the stakes. What if we made a home together and something still cracked open? What if the walls closed in and started to suffocate us? What if the things he loved about me eventually hardened into something he didn’t recognize?

What if we messed it all up?

I looked at him.

“I know it’s a big step,” he said quietly, as if he could hear every thought I hadn’t spoken. “And I don’t want us to rush anything. But I want a life with you. This — us — is the only thing that’s ever made complete sense to me, even when everything else didn’t. And I’d rather do all the hard parts with you than the easy ones without you.” He studied me a moment. “Plus, I mean, we already spend almost every night together. Your lease is up in a couple months. Half of your clothes live in my drawers. It’s practical, really,” he rambled in typical Spencer fashion. Then he paused, took a breath, and said, “But… that’s not why I’m suggesting it. I’d want this even if it made no practical sense at all.”

I took a breath, and then another, trying to quiet the pulse in my ears. Then I brushed my fingertips against the page, tracing the words he’d written for me with so much hope for the future. I let myself feel that same hope, too.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

His breath stuttered like he hadn’t let himself dream of that answer. And then he smiled, wide and a little dazed.

I leaned in and kissed him, gentle and sure.

It wasn’t a fairytale, and I didn’t need it to be. It was real. Big and messy and soft.

“You know you’re going to have to clear out some shelf space, right? I have at least three milk crates-worth of books, and I refuse to make sacrifices,” I teased.

He laughed, eyes crinkling. “I’ll make room. I’ll even ask Luke for help putting up more shelves if we need them.”

I grinned. “We’re going to have, like, furniture store arguments, aren’t we?”

“Probably,” he said. “But in a deeply intellectual way. Like over the ethics of couches.”

I giggled. “And we’ll decorate for every holiday and accidentally buy the same coffee beans twice and probably fight over whose turn it is to clean the shower.”

“And I’ll lose, every time,” he said, entirely unbothered. “But you’ll still let me sleep in your arms.”

“Yeah,” I replied simply, because I suddenly didn’t know how to say all the things I felt — about home, and us, and what it meant to be chosen like this.

He leaned over and pressed his forehead to mine. “I want all of it,” he murmured. “The books and the arguments and the coffee and the shower. A full life. With you.”

—

Later, as we lay in bed, the journal still open between us and the stars humming quietly beyond the window, I turned toward him, heart full and aching in the best way.

“Spencer,” I whispered, not really sure what I intended to say next. I think I just needed the shape of his name in my mouth.

He looked over at me — soft, steady — and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Come here,” he murmured, voice low.

I did.

The journal slid to the floor with a quiet thud as I moved to straddle his lap, his hands finding my waist as mine curled against the back of his neck. There was no rush, no urgency — just the slow, reverent unfolding of clothes coming off, of skin against skin. Kisses that felt like punctuation. Touches like promises.

And as we moved together — quiet and close and sure — I felt it again: that invisible tether between us. The way he anchored me without even trying. A kind of gravity you don’t always see, but feel all the same.

Like dark matter. Invisible but everywhere, holding us quietly in place.

ᝰ.ᐟ

[sloaneispunk]

“the vote”

frontman!in-ho x you

after the second game, it was time to cast your votes- “x” or “o”. although the team had agreed on ending it then and there, in-ho had betrayed you. overwhelmed by deceit, you refused to talk to him after that, making him desperate to win your trust back.

“78 million per person, that’s good enough right?” dae-ho ran towards the team, enthusiastically pointing at the scoreboard.

“to be honest, i don’t care if it’s not enough, i just wanna get out of here.” you half-heartedly joked. in-ho looked up from the floor, catching your gaze. he could see past the facade you were putting up.

at that moment, in-ho wished that he could reveal his real identity to you, show you exactly who he was and the power he had. he wanted to help you.

there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t give for you to make it out of here alive, but it wasn’t that easy. afterall, you weren’t suppose to be his prime objective, and he couldn’t let the games end just like that.

“we will start with player 456. please proceed to the podium.”

“gi-hun, you’re up!” jung-bae said, grabbing the man.

“we can end this right now.” jun-hee added, making gi-hun nod, his eyes filled with determination.

everyone held their breaths as gi-hun stalked closer and closer to the two buttons. with one final look at everyone, his hand came down hard on ‘x’, making the team cheer loudly.

“y/n.” you heard a familiar voice call out to you from behind. it was in-ho, or should you say, young-il.

you gave him a small smile, quietly slipping away from everyone else to take your stand beside him.

“are you okay?” you asked, making him chuckle.

“i’m okay, y/n.” he replied throwing his arm gently around your shoulder.

“then why are you acting so weird?”

he sucked in a breath, shaking his head. “it’s just… i-i don’t know-are you sure ending the games right now is the right thing to do?”

your eyes narrowed. “what are you saying?”

“i just think, i mean, the 78 million can barely cover your debts. how are you going to continue on? you don’t want those loan-sharks coming after you again, do you?”

“young-il, whatever’s going on with you right now, it’s not making you think rational-”

“but y/n-”

“-no, young-il! what if you die in the next game?! what if we die?!”

“player 289, please proceed to the podim.”

that was your number.

“i hope you make the right choice.” you muttered under your breath before slipping out of his hold and walking away from him.

in-ho watched intensely, full of guilt and shame as you hit the “x” button. he gazed longingly as you headed to the other side of the room with the others who wanted to leave, head never lifting up from the ground once to look at him.

“you know she only reacted that way because she cares about you, right?” jung-bae awkwardly shifted to in-ho’s side, nudging his elbow.

but in-ho was having none of it. he shot jung-bae a look that pierced through his soul, sending shivers down his spine. jung-bae gulped and raised his hands in defeat, backing off.

when it finally came down to the last number, player 001, in-ho was ready. however, you already knew deep down he was planning to stay, but you had a small sliver of hope he would change his mind.

but of course, he didn’t.

the “o’s” had won. again.

you couldn’t believe it.

with a huff, you walked back to your bed, ignoring in-ho who chased after you.

after that, in-ho didn’t see much of you. even ehen the team had gathered for meal time, you didn’t show up. in-ho thought that by now, you would’ve came to your senses, or at least cooled doen enough to talk to him again. but he was wrong.

as the team chattered about what they think the next game might be, in-ho grabbed another serving. then, he looked up and down for you.

eventually, his eyes landed on a small figure on the other side of the room. crouched down and slumped on the cold cement floor with your back against the wall.

“y/n, sweetheart. do you wanna come back and sit with us?” he tried to ask nicely, his figure hovering above you, but you refused to look up. “are we really gonna do this?”

still no reply.

in-ho sighed, kneeling down, placing the food on the floor beside him. he placed a hand on your knee, the other gently grabbing your face, forcing you to look at him.

“can you at least eat?” he beckoned, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

your eyes were cold. that warm, inviting look you once had now gone. in-ho didn’t like that.

“i’m not hungry.” you told him flatly.

“y/n.” he said in a warning tone. “eat.”

“no thank you.”

in-ho didn’t know what came over him. it was like a protective drive that made him want to take control of you. so he grabbed your arm and pulled you along with him as he walked back to the group, picking up the extra serving along the way.

“what-?! let me go, you psycho!” you raised your voice, trying to wriggle out of his grip but it was tight.

he had dragged you all the way back to your team.

“now sit.” he instructed.

“w-what?”

“sit, please?” contradicting his tone, his gaze softened when he looked at you. his eyes almost begging.

after much hesitation, you slowly sat down. in-ho made sure to take the empty space beside you.

“now, will you please eat?”

“i-”

“or do you need me to feed you?”

that question caught you off guard, you nearly choked as no words came out of your mouth.

you simply nodded, picking the food up and eating silently as in-ho engaged in the conversation the team was having.

after few minutes later, you had gobbled down the lat of your food. in-ho smiled to himself, he knew you were starving afterall, he saw pass your little white lie.

“hey.” he whispered, nudging your shoulder causing you to look up. “are you still hungry?”

“a little, but i’m okay.” you replied, but your stomach failed you, grumbling as your eyes trailed down to in-ho’s uneaten food.

“finish it.” he said, offering you what was left.

“you’re kidding.” you laughed, but it dropped when he didn’t falter. “seriously?”

he nodded. “you need all the energy you can get, sweetheart. i can’t have you passing out on me mid-game.”

“i might just do that to get your attention.”

“you already have all my attention, y/n.” in-ho said lovingly, ruffling your hair. “so, does this mean you forgive me?”

“nope.” you said, popping the ‘p’. in-ho couldn’t believe it.

if that wasn’t enough to win you back he didn’t know what could.

but in-ho loved a good challenge.

the next day, a new game was introduced.

mingle.

“oh, we are so dead.” you moaned as you stepped into the arena. this game was set to eliminate and everybody knew that.

“what the hell kind of game is this?” dae-ho groaned, coming to your side.

“we just have to stick together, we’ll make it out alive.” said jun-hee.

then, in-ho scooped you over to him easily by taking your arm. “i want you by my side the whole time.”

he was dead serious. looking at him, there was not one single fiber in his body that was kidding.

“understood?”

“yes.” you complied.

and just like that, the game had begun.

as the platform beneath you started to move, panic shot through you.

‘9’

the lights dimmed.

a blaring alarm sounded.

flashing lights of red and white engulfed your vision.

“that group over there!” you heard gi-hun yell amongst the chaos. your eyes shot to where he was pointing.

you grabbed them and without wasting any time, the nine of you dashed to the nearest room, closing the door shut behind you.

there was a moment of silence, everyone trying to catch their breath.

“is everyone alright?” the old lady from the other team was the first to speak up.

when everyone was accounted for, she turned to you. “thank you, young lady. without you i don’t think we would have made it on time.”

you shook your head. “it’s no problem, miss. i’m glad everyone is safe.”

in-ho stood beside you, watching the exchange. his heart warmed at the sight of your kindess. even in a place like this you had the heart to think about others.

that was something he could never have.

“good job, y/n.” in-ho praised you, placing a kiss to your temple.

a few rounds had passed and gi-hun speculated that this would be the final round.

“how do you know?”

“final round. they’re going to seperate us into twos.” gi-hun explained as the platform started to spin. “there’s only about a hundred of us left and less than fifty rooms. it’s the easiest and most efficient way of getting us to turn against each other.”

he was right.

one glanced at the players and you could see the change in demeanour. it was every man for himself. no one was willing to make a sacrifice for another.

when the platform came to a halt, low and behold, it was the number 2.

you searched around for jun-hee. if anyone should make it out of that place, it was her and her unborn child.

just as you spotted her among the crowd, a hand grabbed your waist, hauling you away from everyone. you looked up to see in-ho.

despite wanting to ensure jun-hee’s safety, one glance at the timer made you realise that you didn’t have the time to. so, you followed in-ho’s lead into the nearest room.

just as you thought you were clear from the danger, you came face to face with the most obnoxious person in the games. thanos.

“señorita!” he exclaimed, yanking you out of in-ho’s embrace. “come with me.”

“young-il!” you screamed, thrashing and kicking but thanos’ hands only tightened.

at the lost of your warmth, in-ho immediately went back for you.

there was only 40 seconds left.

he ran right up to thanos, drew his fist back and with all the energy he could muster up, threw a punch straight into his face.

“jesus! what’s your problem, old man?!” thanos yelped out in pain, his hands flying to his face.

in-ho didn’t stop there. he practically pounced on the man, grabbing him by the collar and landing blows left and right. you stumbled away from the mess, eyes growing wide after the violence you didn’t know in-ho was capable of.

quickly, your crawled back to them, pulling in-ho away from thanos as the timer continued to go down.

“young-il, let go!”

but he wouldn’t listen.

“young-il, that’s enough!”

it wasn’t until in-ho locked eyes with you, then he stopped. with tears nearly spilling from your eyes, he stopped in his tracks, turning his attention from thanos to you.

10 seconds

he immediately scooped you up from the ground, not waiting for you to protest before he headed straight for an empty room. with you in his arms, he could feel your body trembling.

when the two of you got into the room safely, he placed you carefully on the ground. he too sank to the floor, he opened his mouth to say something but before he could, you buried yourself to his side, catching him off guard.

nevertheless, he opened his arms, wrapping them around you.

you felt like a little kid, hugging their plushie when they got scared. except this plushie was someone who you knew deep down you shouldn’t be with or even feel safe with. but you loved the way he protected you, looked out for you. there was something so intimate about every single thing in-ho did for you. even almost beating thanos into a bloody pulp because he took you away from him.

you were snapped out of your thoughts when you heard in-ho’s voice call out to you. “hm? what?” you asked, still not moving from where you were.

you felt him let out a deep chuckle. “i said, are we even now?”

you felt his finger threading through your hair, playing with the different strands, making you hum. “definitely.”

holy shit i’m so excited for s3 (& and all the new LBH fics i’m gonna write)

stay tuned!

[viviansturns]

Can you do a Chris fic where they are best friends but secretly want each other. Like they’re going to have a sleepover and at the moment they’re in his room watching a movie or something and he does something that turns her on like idk taking off his shirt or something and she’s like staring. He asks if she’s good and she’s like stuttering and shit like ohh yeah I’m fine and says she’s gonna take a shower. So she goes in and tries to get herself off and Chris hears her so he goes in the bathroom and at first she doesn’t realize cause she has her eyes closed focusing on the pleasure and he doesn’t say anything just stares. Eventually Chris asks like “what are you thinking about” and there she opens her eyes and sees Chris and it leads to them fuckinh and feelings revealing and yea. That was a lot omg but like something like that would be sooo gooddd.

note to the anon: try not to send the same request to multiple writers because it makes it less original!

cw: walking in on showering, eating out, p in v protected, overstimulation, bigdick!chris

Chris had been your best friend since middle school—one of those friends who could knock on your window at 2 a.m. and you'd let him in without even asking why. He was safety, comfort, inside jokes and shared playlists.

But tonight?

Tonight, he was shirtless on the bed, watching a movie, and your brain was not cooperating.

“I’m telling you,” he muttered around a mouthful of popcorn, “if they just talked to the villain, this whole movie would’ve ended in twenty minutes.”

You didn’t respond.

Because you weren’t listening.

Because your attention was locked on the way his sweatpants hung low on his hips. The way his abs flexed when he sat up. The curve of his jawline, how it shadowed under the warm light of his bedroom lamp. His low eyes and sharp jawline and messy hair were practically transfixing you.

He turned to look at you, smirking when he caught you staring. “You good?”

You blinked. Swallowed. “What? Yeah. I’m—yeah, I’m fine.”

“Sure you are,” he said, teasing. He leaned back on his elbows, biceps stretching. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

You scrambled off the bed. “I’m just gonna take a shower real quick.”

“Shower?” he echoed, eyebrows raised. “We’re mid-movie.”

You grabbed your bag and practically fled to the bathroom. “I’ll be quick.”

Your skin was burning before the water even turned hot.

The shower was supposed to calm you down. Wash away the images. Wipe your brain clean.

Instead, you sat down on the built-in bench, steam curling around you, and let your legs fall open. The water had been turned off minutes ago, but your skin was still damp, your breath shaky. A towel was wrapped loosely around your body, but your hand had already slipped beneath it.

You weren’t even ashamed.

You were too far gone for shame.

Your fingers rubbed slow circles, hips shifting against the tile. Your head fell back, mouth parting, eyes fluttering shut.

And in your mind, it was his voice whispering your name. His hand on your thighs. His mouth—

“Fuck,” you gasped.

Then—a click noise. You didn't pay attention at first, too focused on reaching your high.

“What are you thinking about?”

Your body jerked like you’d been electrocuted. Your eyes snapped open—and there he was. Chris. Standing just inside the bathroom door, half-shrouded in steam, like some fantasy brought to life.

Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He didn’t move. Just watched you, eyes locked on your hand still buried under the towel.

“You left the door unlocked,” he said softly. “I heard you.”

He stepped closer.

You didn’t move.

“I heard you say my name,” he added, voice lower now. “wanna explain that?”

Your breath hitched.

He came to a slow stop in front of you. Still shirtless. Still in those grey sweatpants. Only now, you could see the clear outline of his hard-on pressing against the fabric.

He knelt down, one hand bracing beside your thigh, the other gently sliding the towel back.

“Was it me?” he whispered.

You nodded. Barely.

And Chris smiled like a man finally unchained.

“Good."

Chris’s fingers grazed your inner thigh, slow and deliberate. You were still seated on the shower bench, towel parted now, barely covering anything. Your breath was stuck in your throat. His pupils were blown wide.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmured, almost more to himself than to you.

“Then show me,” you said.

That was all it took.

He leaned in—not fast, not greedy—controlled. Like he wanted to savor it. His lips pressed to the soft skin just above your knee. Then higher. Then higher. Until he was inches from where your fingers had just been.

You whimpered.

Chris looked up at you, hand sliding under your thigh to hold you open. “You want me to stop, say it now.”

You didn’t.

You couldn’t.

Your hips lifted in response.

He smiled, just a little. “Didn’t think so.”

His mouth landed soft at first, just a kiss. Then a slow, hot lick that made your eyes roll back. His tongue circled you, teasing, not giving you everything yet.

You tried to grind against his face, but his grip on your thighs tightened.

“Let me take my time,” he said against your skin. “You rushed it in here alone. I’m gonna make it last.”

You were panting already. “Chris, please…”

He groaned like your voice alone could make him come.

He licked deep, slow and rhythmic, and when he found that perfect spot—the one that made your spine arch and your thighs shake—he stayed there. His tongue moved in firm, steady circles, his hand sliding up to press lightly on your lower stomach, holding you down when you started to twitch from the pressure building.

“Shit—Chris—”

He hummed, the vibration making your eyes flutter shut.

You came the first time so hard you forgot how to breathe.

But he didn’t stop.

Even as your thighs tried to close, even as your moans cracked and your back hit the tile wall, he kept going, pushing you through it, past it, into something raw and aching.

When he finally pulled back, his mouth was shiny, his jaw flushed. He looked wrecked—but satisfied.

“I’ve wanted to taste you for so fucking long,” he said, voice wrecked.

You reached for him, yanking him up to crash your mouth against his, tasting yourself on his tongue. His body fell into yours, hands framing your face, and the kiss turned frantic, desperate. All tongue and teeth and gasps between words.

You pulled at his waistband, dragging his sweats and boxers down together. His cock slapped against his stomach, flushed and hard and so heavy-looking your thighs clenched just from seeing it.

“Condom?” you breathed, tugging your lip between your teeth.

He nodded, panting. “Yeah. Bedroom. Top drawer.”

You stood—shaky, still flushed—and followed him out.

The bed was unmade, covers a mess from the movie earlier, but you didn’t care. You climbed on first, laying back, thighs still damp, eyes fixed on him while he rolled the condom on with trembling hands.

And when he hovered over you—head brushing your entrance, arm shaking a little with restraint—you looked him dead in the eyes.

“Don’t go easy.”

He groaned. “If I go any harder I might not last—”

“Then take your time,” you whispered. “But don’t hold back.”

He pushed in slowly—so slowly—and the stretch stole every word from your throat. You dug your nails into his biceps, mouth falling open.

Chris’s eyes were locked on where you joined, jaw tight, chest heaving. “Holy—fuck—you feel—”

“Holy fuck,” you gasped. “Y-y—so big.” he just groans out loud, not moving at all as he tried to catch his breath.

"D-Don't say shit like that," he mumbled. "I'm tryna last for you."

You just whimper in desperation, wrapping your legs around his waist to pull him further into you, clenching. "Please, Chris. Move."

And he did.

Not fast. Not hard. But deep. Each thrust felt intentional, like he was trying to memorize your body from the inside out.

You moaned loud—long and wrecked—and he kissed you to muffle it.

The pace stayed steady, even as the pressure built. You locked your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, deeper. His lips found your neck, biting softly, his breath hot against your skin.

“Tell me you’ve thought about this,” he whispered.

“I-I’ve dreamed about this.”

He groaned into your throat. “Tell me you wanted me.”

“I always wanted you.”

His rhythm stuttered. He reached down, fingers finding your clit, rubbing slow and firm in sync with his thrusts.

Your back arched.

Every stroke was deep and delicious—dragging against that spot inside you just right, his fingers teasing you at the same pace, unhurried, like he wanted you right on the edge without tipping over.

“Chris—” your voice cracked. “Don’t stop. Please.”

“Not planning on it,” he rasped, kissing your shoulder, your collarbone, everywhere he could reach. “You feel—fuck—you feel so good.”

You clenched around him, tight and desperate, and he cursed again, dragging his cock out almost all the way before sliding back in slow and thick.

You whimpered. He smiled against your skin.

“Just like that,” he muttered. “You like it when I take my time, huh?”

You nodded fast, nails digging into his back.

He shifted, pulling your hips up just slightly, angling himself deeper. The next thrust made you cry out—sharp and breathless. His hand never left your clit, rubbing tight circles that made your legs shake.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he said into your neck. “Can’t believe I waited this long.”

He groaned, picking up the pace—just slightly. Enough to make your breath catch with every thrust, but still not fast. Not rough. It was a rhythm built to drive you crazy, to stretch it out until you were babbling nonsense into his shoulder, clutching at him like you’d fall apart without his body against yours.

You came like that—legs shaking, chest heaving, voice cracked and ragged from how long it had been building.

And even then—he didn’t stop.

Chris held you through it, whispering praise, mouth pressed to your cheek. “That’s it. That’s my girl. So fucking good for me.”

You gasped, blinking up at him. “Y-Your girl?”

He looked down at you, still inside, still rock hard, still moving. “You think I fuck just anyone like this?”

You tried to answer, but all that came out was a moan as he rolled his hips deep and slow again, dragging another soft wave of overstimulation out of you.

His fingers slid back to your clit. “Give me another.”

“Chris—” you whimpered. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” he whispered, kissing your jaw. “One more. Just one more, baby.”

You clenched your eyes shut, body twitching under him, so sensitive you could barely take it—but he didn’t stop.

You came again—your third—with a strangled cry, thighs trembling so hard he had to hold you still. His name left your lips like a prayer.

That finally broke him.

Chris shoved in deep, pace faltering, breath ragged as he fucked you through your aftershocks. “I’m gonna come,” he growled. “You feel too fucking good—I can’t—”

You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him down into a kiss just as his rhythm stuttered into something wild and desperate.

And then he groaned into your mouth as he came, hips jerking, cock pulsing inside you.

He stayed there—buried in you, panting, trembling, face pressed to your neck—while your fingers traced the sweat-damp skin of his back.

Neither of you spoke for a long moment.

"Now what?" you whisper

this might be buns sorry

[candycandy00]

As Heaven is Wide - A Doflamingo x Reader x Corazon Fanfic Part 4 (Final)

In a world where Doflamingo and Rosinante were raised by Celestial Dragons after their parents died in an accident, they grow up to be notorious world nobles in their own right. And then they buy you at the Human Auction. Now trapped between two very different brothers, you’re shared like a toy. Maybe they’re not so different after all.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

This chapter is very intense! Please read the warnings!

Smut. 18+. Fem Reader. Heavy Dubcon! Dead Dove Do Not Eat! Master/Slave Dynamics. Violence. Manipulation. Squirting. Size Difference. Humiliation. Bondage. Forced Piercings. Blood. Captivity. Drug/Aphrodisiac Use. Pain. Reader is described as little but only by ten foot tall men. This is a brutal, dark fanfic! You’ve been warned!

Any comments/feedback is greatly appreciated! Title comes from a song by Garbage (which really fits the mood of this fic I recommend it!). Dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more and @benkeibear!

You’re sitting in one of the unused bedrooms in the Donquixote manor, your hands cuffed behind your back. It’s been nearly an hour since you were brought here by two guards who refused to tell you where Rosi is. 

There’s a window to your right, the curtains drawn back to reveal the darkness of night.  This was supposed to be a very different evening. You and Rosi should have already landed on a small nearby island and bought a bigger ship by now. You should be holding hands while buying supplies and planning your new lives together, even if you felt strangely guilty about leaving Doffy behind. 

A guard opens the door and roughly pulls you out of the room. You don’t bother asking any questions, you’ve already learned that these men have nothing to say to you. 

He leads you down the familiar hallway and to the door of Doflamingo’s bedroom. You were expecting a dungeon, but you’re not entirely surprised. 

Doffy will surely kill you now. You just hope it’s quick. You worry about Rosi though, about whether he’ll be killed as well or just imprisoned here for the rest of his life, doomed to be tormented by his brother.

The door opens and you’re shoved inside, nearly falling before regaining your balance. Funny how much you’re thrown off by having your arms behind your back. 

Doflamingo is standing in the middle of the room, at the foot of his massive bed. His feathered coat and red suit jacket are gone, leaving red pants and a black dress shirt unbuttoned. In the chair nearby, Rosi is sitting, not restrained but looking pale and slightly dazed. His eyes meet yours, and he stands up. 

“Are you alright?!” he asks, rushing over to you. 

“I’m fine. What about you?”

He leans in close and says in a hurried whisper, “I’m so sorry! He forced me to take the drug again! He’s got something terrible planned!” 

“Rosi, sit down,” Doflamingo says, and Rosi hesitantly obeys. Then the older brother approaches you. “Do you have any idea how angry you’ve made me?”

You shake your head. “We just wanted to be free,” you say, trying to edge back away from him. 

He grabs your arm near the shoulder and pulls you closer to him. “You belong to me. Both of you do,” he says then drags you over to the bed. He positions himself in a sitting position, his back against the headboard, and pulls you into his lap, your back against his chest. 

With his bare hands, he rips your dress open, all the way down the front, leaving you completely exposed. You cry out at the sudden motion. 

“Stop it, Doffy!” Rosi yells. “You don’t realize what you’re doing! She didn’t even want to leave. I had to talk her into it!”

Doffy’s hands are groping your breasts harshly. “And why should that matter to me?”

Rosi looks from you to his brother. “Because she has feelings for you. I noticed, and it scared me, so I rushed the escape plan. She actually cares about you! About both of us! She might be the only human in the world who does!”

Doffy pauses and moves one hand to your chin, turning your face so that he can see your eyes. “Is that true? Do you have feelings for me?”

You wish you could see his eyes, to get some kind of read on what he’s thinking. Instead you only see your terrified face reflected back from his sunglasses. After a moment, you nod. “I do.”

Even you don’t understand why. The heart is a mysterious thing you suppose. 

Doffy grins in that terrible way that spells imminent danger. “I’m touched,” he says in a clearly sarcastic tone. “So touched that I’ve decided to show mercy.”

You stare back at him in disbelief. He’s not going to kill you? 

He must notice the confusion in your eyes, because he laughs and adds, “I still have to punish you though.”

With that, he reaches one long arm over to the nightstand and retrieves a little wooden box. He sits it on the bed beside you and opens it to reveal a set of what appears to be small golden hoop earrings. Oddly, there are three instead of two, and each of them has a very sharp, pointed end. 

Is he… going to pierce your ears? For what purpose? 

“I’m feeling so merciful tonight that I’m giving you gifts,” he says, grinning widely. “Even lowly human women like jewelry, right?”

You glance over at Rosinante, who looks just as confused as you are, but it might be because the drug is taking effect. His eyes are glazed over, his face reddening. 

Suddenly Doffy’s left hand moves around you to your right breast, giving it a squeeze before his fingers hold your nipple in a firm grip. He’s behind you, but he’s so tall he can easily loom over you and see what he’s doing as he pulls one of the small golden rings from the box. 

“Don’t worry, I already had these sanitized. We don’t want our cute toy to get an infection.”

You realize with horror what he intends to do, and instinctively try to squirm out of his grasp. With your hands cuffed behind you and his arms around your body, that’s an impossible task.

His right hand edges closer to you, the sharp point gleaming. You whimper, only getting the chance to say, “W-wait!” before you feel the cold metal pierce through your tender nipple. 

You scream, your body jerking in agony as Rosi jumps up from his chair and rushes over. 

“Doffy what the fuck?!” he yells, panicking as he tries to decide what to do to help you, seeming afraid to actually touch you. “You said you’d show mercy!”

Doflamingo still has one arm snaked around you, holding you in place. “This is mercy,” he tells Rosinante. His hand slides up to your throat and rests there. “It would be so easy to snap her neck. It would take no effort at all for me to rip her arms right off her body. I’ve killed countless slaves just for mildly annoying me. And she betrayed me. Her brains should be caked on the bottom of my shoes right now.”

Tears have already filled your eyes. You look down and see the ring, the tiny trickle of blood dripping from it, and nearly faint. You look back at Doflamingo. “I’m sorry,” you say, desperate to make all this stop. “I’m sorry we left…”

His face turns toward yours. “I know you are,” he says in a fake soothing voice. “That’s why I decided to give you a less permanent punishment.”

What he’s saying makes sense, in some terrible way. You expected to die for trying to escape, and your own guilt for leaving him behind is eating at your frazzled mind. You watched him crush a slave’s skull for dropping his coat. The fact that he’s not killing you for your crimes is an absolute shock. 

You collapse back against his chest. “Just do it,” you say weakly. 

Rosi looks horrified. “No! This is insane! If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s me!”

Doffy laughs then, loud and clear, the sound filling the room like a cloud. You feel it rumbling in his chest at your back. “Rosi, this is your punishment!”

With that, he quickly grips your left nipple while grabbing a second ring, then plunges the sharp end through your flesh before anyone else can react. 

You scream again, your body going rigid in Doffy’s lap for a moment before falling limp. The pain is blinding, burning, and you’re completely helpless against it. Your mind feels foggy, your vision hazy. You turn your head to look up at him, your face streaked with tears, your hair messy. “I’m sorry, Doffy… I promise I’ll never leave you alone again…”

What are you even saying? You barely understand the words yourself. You should hate him more than ever, but your heart is breaking and you don’t even know why. 

Doffy doesn’t reply, but instead looks at Rosi and holds out the box. “I saved one for you.”

Rosi’s eyes are wet and wide. “What? Where would I even…” His voice trails off as a look of pure horror spreads over his face. “No… you’ve gone mad, Doffy!”

You hear what they’re saying but your mind is so broken at the moment that you don’t comprehend what’s happening. Doffy pulls your legs apart, then slips one hand down to peel back the folds of your pussy. “Right here. Go ahead and put it in.”

That’s when you realize where the third ring is going. You snap to sudden awareness, trying vainly to get away, but just as before, Doffy has you in a vice grip. 

Rosi drops the box onto the bed. “I’m not doing this. She’s too sensitive there… it’s too cruel! You’ve done some sick things in the past but this is fucked up even for you!”

One of Doffy’s fingers lightly strokes your clit, making you shudder. “Rosi,” he says in that frighteningly calm tone he uses when angry, “if you don’t do it, I’ll rip out all her pretty little organs and decorate your room with them.”

You look up at Rosinante, trying to focus on his face. “It’s okay, Rosi. Just do it. Just finish this, please.”

Rosi stares at you, then at his brother. “I’ll never forgive you for this, Doffy,” he says before taking the final golden ring from the box. He sits on the bed, turning toward you, then very carefully holds your clit between his thumb and finger. “I’m sorry,” he says to you. 

“I know,” you tell him, fresh tears in your eyes. 

With Doffy watching, grin on his face, Rosi brings the point close. His eyes flick from the ring to your face, then back again. He takes a deep breath, then pushes the sharp edge into your tiny clit. 

Either because he was so hesitant, or because he’s trying to be careful, he’s much slower than Doffy was, ironically making the pain a thousand times worse. 

You scream louder than ever before, unable to bear the agony coursing through you, your legs kicking out wildly until Doffy holds them down. Rosi hurries to fasten the ring, then looks at his own handiwork. 

He’s panting, his eyes wild. You hear Doffy say, “Looks like the drug is really hitting you now!” before you black out. 

You don’t know how long you’re out, but when you wake up, you’re still in Doflamingo’s lap, in his bed, your arms still bound behind you. The first thing you feel is pain. The piercings are sore now, not at all helped by Doffy’s fingers playing with your tits. 

As you become more awake and aware, you feel another sensation. You look down to find Rosi gently licking your freshly pierced clit. Your body shivers, wracked by a powerful combination of pleasure and pain. 

When Rosi looks up, his eyes are completely dazed from the drug, his tongue softly prodding at the ring as his fingers slide in and out of your drenched pussy. 

His drug addled brain probably thinks he’s soothing you, but this much stimulation is quickly overwhelming your senses. You’re going to cum soon, and your body is twitching as evidence. But before you can climax, Doffy’s hand moves to your face and turns it toward him. 

Oh. His sunglasses are gone. A pair of deep red eyes are staring at you as Doffy’s mouth closes over yours, kissing you passionately. He never kisses slaves, but his tongue is in your mouth, exploring, tasting, as the fingers teasing your nipple rings become gentle. 

Rosi is still devouring your pussy, his tongue slipping through the gold hoop and very lightly pulling on it, making both pain and pleasure shoot through you. Your whole body is shaking, the two brothers easily pushing you over the edge. You moan into Doffy’s mouth as you cum, squirting all over Rosi’s face as he laps it up. 

After it’s over, the brothers uncuff you. Rosi takes off his own shirt and covers you with it, then picks you up. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Doffy asks, straightening his clothes. 

“To my room,” Rosi says, as if it’s obvious. 

Doffy puts his sunglasses back on. “No. You haven’t been punished nearly enough for the shit you tried to pull. Both of you will be confined to the holding cell until I decide to let you out.”

Rosi frowns. “You can’t do that to me, I’m-“

“You’re my brother, and you’re on thin ice,” Doffy says darkly. “But don’t worry, the two of you will enjoy yourselves. All your food and water will be spiked with the drug. Fuck each other until your brains are mush.”

Rosi starts to say something, but four guards appear at the door, waiting to escort you both. He glares at them. “None of you fucking touch her,” he says. The guards look uneasy, probably because they’re caught between obeying two different Celestial Dragons. They eventually nod, allowing Rosi to carry you down the hall. They lead the two of you down a set of stairs and down another hallway, in what appears to be an underground dungeon. 

You can see several “cells”, all with bars across the front. Each room has a small shower, sink, and toilet. You feel your gut twist when you realize anyone who walks through this area will see everything you do. Maybe you can get Rosi to stand in front of you to block their view. 

Though… if you’re both taking the drug, neither of you will probably care who sees. 

Each cell also has a small, fold away bed and a single wooden chair. It certainly doesn’t look comfortable for two people to stay in. 

You wonder what these cells are for. Misbehaving slaves? That’s the only answer that makes sense. 

Rosi walks into one of them and sits you on the bed. A guard walks in with a folded bundle of linens, including a clean dress for you, then walks back out and locks the gate-like door behind him. 

Once the guards have left, and the whole area is empty aside from the two of you, Rosi helps you pull the dress on before you fall asleep on the bed. You’re too exhausted to be worried. 

The next several days pass by in a blur, time losing all meaning after you both gave in to thirst on the third day. With both of you affected by the drug, you crave each other constantly. Rosi fucks you on the small bed, against the bars, in the shower, bent over the tiny sink, and even in the chair. You ride him like he’s a wild beast, cumming so many times that you pass out nearly every day. 

At some point Doflamingo appears on the other side of the bars. You have no idea how long he was there before you noticed him, because you’re currently preoccupied. 

Rosi is sitting on the floor of the cell, his back against the wall. You’re on your hands and knees in front of him, nestled between his spread thighs, deep throating his cock. 

When you notice Doffy, you pause and pull away. Your mind isn’t working properly. You should be screaming curses at the monster on the other side of your cage, but instead you smile at him and extend your hand, beckoning him. 

“Doffy! I missed you! Come here!”

For a moment, he doesn’t move or speak, then he opens the barred door and walks inside. He loosens his tie as he makes his way across the cell, stopping briefly at the small shelf where your supply of bottled water sits. He grabs a bottle, snaps off the lid, and takes a long drink. 

Did he just willingly drug himself? 

He unbuttons his shirt and pulls off his sunglasses, his every move seeming sensual to your eyes. He grins as he drops down to his knees behind you, finally descending into your dirty world with you. He turns you around with ease, so that you’re on your back, the cold stone floor against your bare skin. He opens his pants, pushes your legs apart, and begins fucking you right there in the cell. 

Ah, you really did miss him! You missed the way he shoves all the way in with each thrust, the way he turns you into a toy for his satisfaction. 

Rosi shifts positions so that he’s sitting beside your head, his fully erect cock still waiting for your attention. You turn your head to the side and take him back into your mouth, messily smearing around saliva and precum. Rosi’s hand lovingly strokes your hair while Doffy’s fingers play with your clit piercing. It feels so incredibly good to be stuffed full by their enormous cocks, your legs are trembling already. 

You pull away from Rosi once more, looking at each of the brothers in turn. Then you smile sweetly at them and say, “I love you!”

They both stare at you for a moment, then glance at each other. 

Rosi’s voice is soft when he asks, “Which one of us do you love?”

You giggle at that. “Both of you!” Then you wrap your lips around Rosi’s shaft again. 

Doffy laughs loudly, and you can see that his red eyes have taken on a hazy look. The drug is hitting him now. He gives your clit ring a small tug, making you whimper around Rosi’s cock. “You belong to us,” he says in that deep voice of his, fucking you even harder now. “I’ll never let you go!”

In your drug induced euphoria, his words sound like a twisted love confession. The sheer joy of hearing it makes you climax, your body convulsing with pleasure, your pussy clenching Doffy while your throat constricts around Rosi. 

They both watch you come undone, and moments later, they both cum as well, filling your waiting holes. 

*****

A month later, you’re sitting on the couch in Doffy’s office, Rosi beside you. Doffy is yelling at a slave who misplaced some paperwork. He suddenly reaches out and grabs the woman’s neck, prompting you to stand up. 

“Doffy,” you say, drawing his attention, “you promised.”

He sighs and releases the woman, who drops to the floor, gasping and sputtering. He looks down at her and says, “Get out of my sight.”

She scurries out of the room, then Doffy walks over and closes the door behind her. He promised you he’d stop killing slaves, and so far he’s kept that promise. You hope someday you can convince him to free them, but for now… baby steps. 

He returns to the couch and sits down, then takes hold of your wrist and pulls you onto the couch beside him, right between the two brothers. 

“If you were any other human, I’d kill you in the most gruesome way possible for undermining me in front of a slave,” he says, his hand slowly pulling up the lacy ruffled layers of your dress. 

Rosi scoots closer, his own hand pulling your right knee away from your left. “Like I’d let you do that,” he says to his brother. 

Doffy laughs, his hand slipping into the front of your panties. “She gets turned on when I say things like that. She’s already wet.”

“Really?” Rosi asks, his hand joining Doffy’s. Two sets of fingers are between your thighs, one of them opening your folds while the other begins stroking your clit around the ring. You don’t know whose fingers are doing what, but you moan as you lean back against the couch. 

“So, who’s room are staying in tonight?” Rosi asks you, a warm smile on his face. 

Doffy scoffs. “Of course she’s staying in mine. You’re welcome to watch from the chair, Rosi. Or you can just listen to her screams from your room.”

Rosi frowns. “I think she prefers my room. She loves taking control, riding me until she cums as many times as she likes.”

Two fingers lightly pinch your overly sensitive clit while another pulls at the ring. You shudder as you look from one brother to the other. Do you choose Rosi’s gentle lovemaking that makes you feel worshipped and adored? Or Doffy’s rough and harsh fucking that leaves you unable to walk the next day? 

“Can’t I have both?” you ask in your sweetest voice. 

They look at each other, then both grin. Doffy uses his free hand to turn your face toward him. He kisses you deeply before saying, “Such a greedy little human, wanting two Celestial Dragons all to herself!”

Rosi kisses you next, his lips warm and soft on yours. “We can share you again tonight, since you asked so nicely.”

And so your life as the toy of two monstrous brothers continues. You lost your freedom the day they bought you at the auction, but you’re not too upset about that anymore. After all, you have two new toys of your own. 

Tag List : @miruto @sharkuu 

[izzyy-stuff]

Hi, how are you? I hope you're doing well♡

I saw that your requests are open & something just came to mind that I feel like can go both ways either smut or fluff and I'm curious to see your take on it. It was: txt's reaction when he's doing live and y/n turns it off (either the live or the wifi) so the live will end so they can kiss him

That's it, if you do decide to do this, I hope you have fun! Either way I hope you have a wonderful day!!♡♡♡♡♡

𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅𝐅 - 𝐓𝐗𝐓

idol!txt x gn!reader

word count— 1.7k

↪ izzy speaks... this was fun :3 Just a cute little thought really which is what I love

masterlist

Soobin lets you know he is live as soon as you step into the room, holding two plates with dinner. “Wait, guys,” he smiles softly towards the camera, pushing his chair back and walking over to you. “Dinner is supposed to be eaten at the dinner table,” you remind him, trying your best not to smile as he cups your cheeks and presses a gentle kiss on the tip of your nose. “I know, baby, I’m sorry,” he whispers sweetly. “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be all yours, okay?” You nod, letting him take his portion and walk back to his seat, lying that it was Taehyun who cooked dinner for him when the fans ask. You sit down on his bed, making sure you are out of frame before you start eating your food, admiring your boyfriend from afar as he laughs with his fans and talks about their latest songs. Just a few minutes. 

But it’s never just a few minutes, is it? 

You’re done with eating within fifteen minutes and so is he, but he doesn’t rush to end the live, sitting in silence as he reads through the comments, answering some from time to time. And before you know it, a half an hour passes by and you’re still sitting on his bed, bored and alone. 

You’ve had enough of that, honestly. Soobin doesn’t notice you as you get up and leave the room, nor when you come back in your pajamas, ready to go to sleep. He continues chatting with his fans without even glancing your way and you don’t like that. Stepping closer to him while still making sure the camera doesn’t catch you, you click the ending button without hesitation, watching as his eyes widen and he turns to you. 

He isn’t mad, though. The only thing you can see in his eyes is amusement. “Oh, no, did you miss me, baby?” He coos, wrapping his hands around your waist and pulling you closer. You hum, little annoyed as you sit in his lap and let him snuggle his face in your neck, leaving soft kisses. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it’s been so long.” Your breath shakes as he bites your collarbone, pulling back. He simply chuckles, catching your lips in his before you can say anything else, keeping you as close as possible. 

Yeonjun smiles into his phone, just as he always does when he is on his way from work. You sit beside him, watching him from the side as he talks about a performance they had earlier. It was an amazing one and you watched it in awe, cheering him on quietly. “It was great, I love performing Love Language,” he says and you feel proud. He’s worked so hard for this and it’s nice to see him be happy with himself. 

He giggles at the few cheerful comments, briefly glancing at you to see if you’re okay. It’s a small move, one he is sure no one will be able to catch. Still, he masks it right away, saying how nice the weather outside is at the moment. You roll your eyes at him playfully, opening your own phone for games while he talks about his day. 

It’s when a fan asks him about his abs and he says he’s been working out for it lately that you raise your head again, intrigued. He has been working out, yes, you can confirm that. Your cheeks catch pink as you think about it—the way his abs flexed last night, his hands roamed your body and his lips felt against yours. He seems to notice your slight change in behaviour, a playful smirk tugging at his lips as he teases revealing his abs on live right now. “You want to see?” he lowers the camera and as soon as he grabs the bottom of his tank top, you immediately turn his live off without thinking. 

“What are you doing?” He teases. You don’t answer him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer. He smirks into the kiss, one hand resting on your waist while the other cups your cheek, tilting your face as he deepens it. “Jealousy suits you, baby.” 

Beomgyu didn’t go live a lot, so when he did tell you he wanted to go, you never had a problem. His beomidio is fun, and seeing him have so much fun with it always warms your heart. So why would you make him stop doing it? 

It’s simple, really. Because even though you love listening to him and you could do so for hours, the need to spend time with your boyfriend is strong, stronger than your fondness for his voice. 

You watch him with a pout, your leg bouncing up and down as you wait for his live to be over so you could go eat dinner together. You’re not even hungry really, you just miss him. You miss his hugs, the comfort of his arms, the addicting sound in a form of his laugh, his kisses—oh god, his kisses. 

You take a deep breath, looking at the time to see how long he’s been live for. Twenty minutes. You hesitate, debating how dumb the idea is and if you’d get in trouble for it. Maybe it’s unreasonable and you should just wait for him to finish up like any good partner would, but your heart tells you to go for it, knowing he won’t be mad. 

Giving it one last thought, you stand up from the couch and gently knock on the studio door, opening it without waiting for an answer. As soon as Beomgyu notices you, he smiles, a warm, calming smile meant for just you. You nod towards his phone on the table and his eyebrows furrow, questioning what you mean. You don’t explain yourself or wait for him to understand, though, simply stepping closer and turning his live off without a prior notice. His eyes widen but he doesn’t get a chance to question you as you settle in his lap, pressing your lips onto his. He wraps his arms around your waist and presses you closer, kissing you back and completely forgetting he was just in the middle of his live. 

Taehyun notices you in the corner of the room as soon as you step inside. He gives you a brief smile before focusing back on the chat, sharing his gym routine after seeing the question. You hover by the door, listening to his every word. You should go and focus on your responsibilities but it’s hard to leave him. The whole day was busy—for both you and him—and it felt like ages since you had the opportunity to just sit down with him and talk or cuddle, even though that’s exactly how last night looked like. 

He’s cute. The passion and love in his eyes as he shares his day with his fans makes you love him even more and it’s hard to just stay still and listen. You step closer, sitting down on the edge of the table where you know you can be close to him but out of the frame. He glances at you, eyes quickly scanning your figure before focusing back on the camera to make sure he doesn’t look suspicious. His hand finds your ankle under the table, holding you as his thumb draws small circles on your skin. Your cheeks redden, biting your bottom lip as you watch him. 

He’s fucking beautiful, the possesive grip of his hand on your ankle making your head spin. He chats with his fans about what he is up to lately for a bit more before his eyes meet yours again and you mouth for him to turn it off. He scoffs quietly, brushing a hand through his hair as if to regain focus. “Alright,” he finally says, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He listens, saying a quick bye before ending it with ease, finally giving all his attention to you. You smile as his hands trail up your thighs before they settle on your waist, manhandling you to the middle of the table and positioning himself between your legs. You lean forward, closing the gap between you as your lips connect with his, running a hand through his hair. 

As soon as you turn Kai’s live stream off, his eyes widen and shoot to you, surprise written all over his face. His cheeks are pink as he watches you, blinking confusedly. The pout on your face makes him even more flustered, the feeling of uncertainty when he doesn’t know if he did something wrong eating him alive. “Are you…Is everything okay?” He stutters, eyes widening when you sit on his lap and run a hand through his hair. “I miss you.” 

I miss you. He expected anything but that. He thought he was in trouble, that he did something to upset you or you needed to talk to him about something—but the fact you would just simply miss him hasn’t crossed his mind for a second. 

He lets out an awkward, disbelieving laugh, resting his forehead on your shoulder. You huf, your pout only growing wider as you see him making fun of you. 

But it’s far from that. In fact, he thinks you’re adorable. He raises his head, his eyes meeting yours, and cups your cheek immediately, pulling you in for a tender kiss. His cheeks are still flushed but so are yours now, your heart beating faster as if it was the first time you’ve kissed. One of his hands finds your lower back, keeping you close. 

“I miss you too,” he whispers against your lips, sending a shiver down your spine. You smile shyly, the confidence you had before while turning his live off suddenly disappearing. “You’re so cute,” he exhales a giggle, kissing you again. He kisses you as if it could be his last, the butterflies in your stomach he evokes making you feel like a silly teenager in love. 

Because with him that’s exactly what it feels like. A pure love between two people who don’t know how to hurt each other.

⋆✶ izzy's tags @beomiracles @seoulzie @adel222 @inkigayocamman @flowzel @love-be0m @virgo-and-libra @hwanghyunjinismybae @liaatiny @minaateez @bamgeutsz @lovingbeomgyudayone @definitelynotherr @hyunj00 @dawngyu @xylatox @heesmiles @hiddenhornsclub @biteyoubiteme @t-102 @jellyyjn @1-800-jewon ✶⋆ Want to get notified? Join taglist here !

[stargirlygirl]

no, you can't buy my ranch

rancher!sylus x spoiled!city girl!reader

⭑.ᐟ part five: make up dinner

summary: you cook sylus dinner to make up for yelling at him earlier in the week

contains: fluff, stalker!sylus (you're getting sus), swearing, 4.1k words (you're also getting fed tonight)

It’s finally Friday. The past three days have dragged on, every moment five times longer than it should be.

You’re ecstatic for tonight!

Okay, okay, it’s an apology dinner, but for some reason, you want it to be much more than that. You can’t help thinking of the silver-haired rancher whenever you get the chance. The memory of him alone makes your cheeks flush and brings a giddy smile to your lips. You’re positive, you look like a mad woman with the number of times you’ve giggled to yourself mid-work task. But you don’t care.

Even if this is only an apology meal, you’re going to give it your all just as Sylus gave it his all when showing you around town.

In preparation, you did some house cleaning and even rummaged an old cloth out of a box to drape it on your wooden dining table. You’ve been scouring the internet for worthy recipes to make, eventually settling on a five-star recipe you saw on TikTok called Marry Me Pasta. There’s no way better to a man’s heart than carbs, right?

You wake up early and book it to the grocery store to get all of the ingredients, eternally grateful that it’s a different staff member on the till today. Once you get home, you unpack the bags and put everything away before working on the finishing touches for tonight.

You’re practically jumping up and down like an excited puppy when wiping the sink down. Your music blasts, matching your energy and even amplifying it with the bass reverberating through the floorboards. You sing along, your voice breathy as you dance and clean in tandem.

By the time you’re all finished, it’s time to get ready. Taking a nice hot shower, you wash the day’s grime off you, leaving behind pure elation. After moisturising, you sit down at your vanity and get to work on your makeup. It’s calming, the routine of blending out your base product before moving onto brows and blush. Once you’re all glammed up (not too much but just enough), you slide on your dress for tonight. It’s the prettiest one you own, the sweetheart neckline is charming, and the floral print complements your features.

Next, you fix your hair, spritz on your yummiest perfume, and add some jewellery to complete the look.

Shoes? One thing Sylus isn’t getting tonight is to see you in a pair of heels. He already saw you in a pair the first time you went to his ranch house, and that was enough for the next few years. Instead, he gets to see your bunny slippers and “Stand back while Daddy’s cooking” apron. A gift from your best friend btw when you told her you were moving out to the middle of fuck nowhere.

You then start on dinner. The recipe surprisingly doesn’t take that long to make. Boil the pasta, make the sauce and cook the chicken. For a moment, you wonder if this recipe will really get Sylus to propose to you. Obviously, it’s not supposed to have that kind of effect. It’s just meant to be a good enough meal for a nice dinner. But what if your cooking is too good? Or worse, what if your cooking isn’t good at all?

Sending Sylus a quick text to come over, you blow on a piece of creamy chicken and take a bite. Mhmm! Oh, he’s gonna wanna marry you once he gets a taste of this.

Setting out the plates and dishing out pasta, there’s a firm rap on the front door. Gazing up, you can’t conceal the goofy smile that spreads on your lips. You set down tonight’s meal on the table before dashing over to the door. Opening it with both hands, a very handsome-looking Sylus is revealed. He’s exchanged his usual jeans and button-up for trousers and a blazer. You beam up at him, your brain short-circuiting as his crimson eyes meet yours.

After a beat, he chuckles, “Something on my face, kitten?” You chortle, the gleeful sound making his brow raise.

“Oh?” With one hand, he pulls out his phone and flips on the camera to check himself. But all that stares back at him is perfection.

“You look great, Sy. Why don’t you come in?” You grin. Lowering his phone, he nods slightly. When he slips inside, you notice the bottle of wine in his hand.

Leading him to the kitchen, you say curiously, “Oooo, I didn’t know you drank wine.”

He chuckles richly while setting it down on the dining table, “There are many things you don’t know about me, sweetie.”

Untying your apron and putting it away, you counter, “Then let’s change that, yeah?” Sylus stands there, this big man in your kitchen, gazing around like a young child at an aquarium, full of wonder and awe at the changes you’ve made.

Coming over to the dining table, you sit in the chair opposite him. But he just stands there, eyes roving over the food and cutlery as if he’s never been cooked a meal before.

“Sit,” you whine, kicking off your slippers and crossing your legs to get all comfy (idk maybe this is just me). His signature smirk returns as he complies.

Shuffling in, he teases, “Nice bunny slippers, dear.”

“Shush,” you pout playfully, already sticking your fork into your pasta.

“Don’t you want to taste the wine I brought?” Sylus asks in his usual condescending tone, but this time, it felt weighty. Almost like he’s a little hurt you didn’t jump at the opportunity.

”Oh,” you murmur, dumbfounded. Your fork clanks against the plate, and chair legs scrape the wooden flooring as you fumble to find your wine glasses. You throw open cabinet doors, mumbling to yourself about where those pesky glasses could be.

Until you ask the fundamental question: Do you even own wine glasses? Surely, right? But even if you do, you clearly haven’t unpacked them yet. How could this have happened? You’ve been preparing for the past few days for tonight, and you forgot the wine glasses?

Sylus’s deep voice interrupts your mental spiral, “Need some help, sweetie?”

“No, no!” You squeak, placing two mugs on the countertop. One of which is your favourite, and the other of which is a grandpa classic: I don’t need Google, my wife knows everything. Fluttering back to the dining table, you set the mugs down.

“This okay?” You ask. Sylus turns the grandpa mug around by the rim. Upon reading the quote, he guffaws heartily, coughing into his palm to stifle it under the pointed look you give him.

“This is all I have right now, okay?!” Grinning widely, he pops open the bottle of red and pours a small amount into both mugs.

You chirp, “Thanks!” Grabbing yours by the handle, you return to your seat and take a sip. The wine bubbles on your tongue, sour and bitter like arsenic. You can’t stop yourself from cringing in displeasure, your expression only encouraging Sylus’s teasing.

“You don’t like it?” He questions as you set your mug down. You shake your head, remnants of the poison burning your taste buds. He chuckles softly before sipping his wine.

“Mhmm, you have no taste, kitten,” he sighs.

“Not after drinking that, I don’t,” you retort, eliciting a hearty laugh from the rancher opposite.

He grins, “A good pinot noir never killed anyone, dear.” Rolling your eyes, you stab a pasta spiral with more force than necessary. Popping the delicious carb in your mouth, the creamy flavour explodes across your taste buds. It washes away the acridity of the wine, leaving behind a pupil-dilating warmth. You moan in delight, catching a raised brow from Sylus.

“What? It’s good,” you defend yourself while covering your mouth. His mug thunks on the table. Swallowing down the pasta, you gesture to his untouched plate with your fork.

“Aren’t you gonna try some?” You ask, a little pouty.

The rancher grins, “’Course I am, sweetie.” You eye him as he scoops up some pasta on his fork. Bringing it closer to his mouth, he glances up and catches your gaze.

Sylus murmurs cockily, “Something you aren’t telling me, kitten?”

You groan, “Nooooo. Just try some!” You’re on the edge of your seat as those plump lips wrap around the sauce-coated fork. Your heartbeat spikes, anxiety rising as he chews lazily. What the man trying to buy your property thinks of the dinner you made shouldn’t be so important to you. But it is.

His fork clinks on the plate, scraping up another bite as he gulps down his first one.

“So? What do you think?” You ask excitedly.

Your date nods in approval, “It’s nice, sweetie.”

“Just nice?” You prompt, your food forgotten momentarily. He chuckles, his softened eyes flicking up to meet yours.

“Very nice.” You roll your eyes and pick your fork up, continuing to eat your yummy meal in satiated silence. It’s almost too quiet; the metallic chinking of cutlery and thudding of mugs are the only sounds ringing throughout the open kitchen.

Perking up, you say, “How about we put some music on?”

Gulping, the rancher nods, “What kind of music, sweetie?” Already on your feet, you grab your phone and fetch your speaker from the lounge room.

All the while, you call out, “Just some like smooth jazz or something, you know! Something cosy!” Placing it down on the kitchen bench, your speaker makes a little connectivity sound while you open YouTube and search for one of those three-hour jazz videos.

“How about Requiem K. 626, kitten?” Sylus suggests.

You pout, glancing up from your phone to look at him, “Requiem’s so dramatic, though. Very…very powerful. What about Joe Hisashi?” Pressing play on A Symphonic Celebration, you’re met with the familiar piano of Howl’s Moving Castle. Not Sylus’s go-to, but he nods all the same as you take up your seat across from him once more.

He grins, “Should have told me we needed a backing track, darling. I would have brought my record player.”

“You have one or those?” You ask, genuinely shocked.

“Mhmm,” he hums, chewing on another mouthful of pasta.

You keep the conversation going with, “What records do you have? You’ll have to show me sometime.” He nods, scooping up the last bites of his pasta while you’ve barely eaten half.

“I thought all of you country folk would be into Luke Combs or something,” you shrug. Sylus almost spits out his wine.

Coughing into his palm, he smirks, “Luke Combs? Oh, sweetie.”

“What?!” You huff. “Luke Combs is great. In fact, we should listen to his songs right now.” Reaching for your phone, you put on The Kind of Love We Make. The electric guitar strings make you giggle as the rancher opposite eyes you haughtily.

He drawls, “What a fitting song choice, kitten.”

“So you do know his songs!” You exclaim, adjusting the volume.

Sylus sighs, “Of course, I do. But I prefer classical.” You nod, soaking up this new information like a sponge. But he doesn’t offer up anything else before finishing up his dinner. Standing up, he walks over to the sink with his plate and rinses it off.

Coming back over, he gestures to your full cheeks and teases, “Don’t hurry up for my sake, sweetie.” Hovering a hand over your mouth, you’re brutally aware of how much creamy chicken you just stuffed between your lips. You nod, eyes following his dump truck figure before he sits back down.

Brushing the tablecloth like there’s somehow crumbs on it, Sylus asks confidently, “Tell me, dear, what else do you assume about me?” What a good question. You’re glad you’re still gulping down your food, so you have a moment to think about your answer.

What do you assume about, Sylus? Well, for one, he’s absolutely gorgeous, so he’s definitely been around the block if you know what I mean😏. But his accent is a little off, so you’re certain he’s not from these parts. With his business-savvy attitude and incessant teasing, maybe he’s from the city, too.

Eventually swallowing, you answer thoughtfully, “I assume you moved here a few years ago, maybe from the city, like me or something.” You keep your first assumption to yourself. That’s something you could find out from a friend (if you make any). He shakes his head slowly, his signature smirk curling on his lips.

“You’re right, sweetie. I’m not from here. But I didn’t come from the city, and I didn’t move in a few years ago.”

“Then—”

“Hush, didn’t daddy teach you that patience was a virtue?” He says mockingly. You roll your eyes in response and shove another bite of pasta in your mouth, willing the heat rising to your cheeks to go down.

After a few seconds, he continues on with, “I moved here just before your father bought this property twelve years ago.”

“Why’d you move here?” You ask between bites.

“Curious little thing, aren’t you, kitten?” He smirks.

You grumble, “Yes, yes. So are you going to answer my question or?” Sylus merely chuckles, seemingly amused by your interest in him.

“Careful now,” he warns condescendingly. “Don’t want you to get hurt now, do we, kitten?”

“Sy!” You groan.

He grins cockily, “Alright,” while raising his hands to the side in momentary surrender. “I moved here because I saw a great business opportunity.”

“In ranching?” You clarify, a brow raised shrewdly.

He corrects you, “In owning ranches, sweetie.”

“Same difference,” you shrug dismissively. Grabbing a napkin, you wipe your mouth and chuck it on your now-empty plate. Sylus lifts your plate before you can, and is already taking it over to the sink before you can protest.

“They’re quite different,” he remarks. The rushing water from the tap occupies the quiet between you. You feel interrogated under the warm glow of the lights and candles, their eyes staring at you, picking you apart as Sylus searches for the dish-washing liquid.

Fluttering over to his side, you wrap your hands around his arm and reassure him, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it later.”

“Sweetie—”

“Trust me! And if you still really wanna wash them, you can do it later, okay? There’s something I wanna show you,” you insist, tugging on his meaty arm. But the rancher doesn’t even budge at your attempts to drag him along.

He just gives you that seductive, arrogant look while drawling, “Have a surprise for me, darling?” You nod energetically, eager to get him away from the kitchen and outside.

Sighing, he lets you win, reminding you to turn off your speaker, and pull on some proper shoes and a jacket before heading out. The night air is crisp, yet reminiscent of today’s heat. The breeze is lukewarm, ruffling your cardigan and hair as you hold Sylus’s hand.

You lead him through the long blades of grass (since your failed attempt at mowing, you’ve given up for now), fingers intertwined. His hand is so much bigger than yours, it freaks you out (in more ways than one🫦).

“Where are you taking me?” He smirks, somehow still egotistical in this situation.

Gazing up at him, you reply, “Guess.” The rancher’s smile grows. With his free hand, he taps his chin with his finger quizzically.

“Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were leading me to the centre of your land so that no one could hear my screams,” he concludes.

You exclaim, “Sy! What the fuck?!”

“But,” he interjects. “I do know better. Using that knowledge, I’d say…” You observe as he glances around and up at the sky. Trees obscure the bright moon overhead.

He grins, “You’re taking me to see the moon.” Your jaw drops to the floor, eyes wide as you stare back at the man behind you. You’ve stopped walking forward, your feet firmly rooted to the ground like they’ve been overrun with vines.

“There’s… there’s no way you knew that,” you murmur, shocked. Sylus shrugs, all nonchalant on the outside, while mentally, sirens blare as the fruits of his stalking are coming to light.

“Just a guess, sweetie.” You close your mouth. And then open it again to say something, but no words fall out. They’re caught on the lump in your throat.

The rancher pushes your chin up, effectively shutting your mouth for you, with that damn smirk plastered across his handsome face. You shake your head, forcing out the beginnings of ridiculous thoughts like: “How does he know me so well?”

Pulling on your connected hands, Sylus assumes charge now and starts walking. He drags you along, veering from your original course to a section of your property you haven’t had time to explore. He navigates these grassy plains with ease, like he’s been doing this for years.

“You… you’re really good at reading people,” you mumble while looking down at your feet. Ah, so that’s what you’re thinking. The tension in Sylus’s shoulders dissolves.

“You’re very expressive, kitten,” he counters, humbling himself for the first time since you’ve met. But you miss it in your confused daze, simply humming and getting carried away by your onslaught of thoughts.

The night animals’ chattering only fuels the nerves rippling throughout your body. Suddenly, the air is hot and suffocating, or maybe that’s just your flushed face and thumping heart. Unaware, you stumble over a twig. Sylus catches you without thinking. His arm is tight around your waist as he steadies you.

“You alright?” He asks, his brow creased and eyes roving over your body, searching for any injuries. You nod too quickly while biting your lip.

You reassure him, “’M fine. It’s just dark. I didn’t see, um, the, um, branch.” He nods slowly, his stiff body and worry swirling in his blood-red eyes betraying his concern for you. But why is he concerned? Perhaps your pounding heart can tell you.

“Let’s keep going, yeah?” You manage out. Sylus squeezes you tenderly before easing off. Lacing his hand with yours once more, he leads you through the grass to a place you didn’t even know existed on your land.

Pale moonlight glints off dark water, peaceful in the evening. Tall trees surround a lake, casting serene shadows over you both. On the water’s surface, the radiant celestial body above in the twinkling sky is reflected.

Stars. Your favourite part of moving to the countryside had to be the stars. But tonight, they seem even brighter. They wink at you from the inky canvas overhead, clued in on something hidden.

“Don’t you want to sit, sweetie?” Sylus’s low rumble stuns you. He’s been so quiet, you almost forgot he was there (if not for his warm hand enveloping yours). You nod feebly, admiring your surroundings as he guides you to the water’s edge.

Water. Why was it that you two always retreated to water? Was it because of the pensive nature of water? How reflective it is? When staring at yourself in the cerulean depths, there’s nothing you can conceal. In the ripples, your soul is laid bare. Is this how Orpheus felt gazing upon himself until he faded away? Not only enraptured by his beauty, but perhaps by what lurked beneath.

“You’re awfully quiet, kitten,” Sylus teases, his breath fanning your ear. Those large hands squeeze your shoulders, a reassuring gesture. However, you’re left feeling anything but reassured.

“Sy,” you whisper, eyes trained on the moon mirrored by the still water. He hums, the sound gravelly. His hands slide down, caressing your upper arms lovingly. Turning slightly, you gaze up at him. The light flickers in your eyes and brings out a glow from your complexion, ethereal.

You shake your head, murmuring, “I didn’t even know this place existed.” The rancher’s arm slithers around you and draws you in, holding you against his broad chest. Your hands press against the muscle there, his heat from beneath his button-up making your palms sweaty. Or was it your skyrocketing anxiety that was responsible for the sweating?

“How did you find it?” You ask quietly. Sylus’s eyes widen, and his lips part for a split second, revealing the tangle of secrets he’s getting caught in as they start to unravel.

He clears his throat and brushes off your question with, “Pure chance.” Glimpsing down, you smile in disbelief.

“Chance?” You echo. Meeting his eyes again, you continue, “I don’t think you leave anything to chance.”

“Want to bet?” He proposes. You shake your head, fists bunching up his expensive shirt.

Your shoulders fall as you mumble, “Why should I? You’ll always win.” As soon as the words tumble from your lips, you wish you could grab them and stuff them back in like a ravenous child does candy. Why did you say that?!

“I mean—”

“Contemplative, are we, sweetie?” He cuts you off, his free hand grasping your wrist and tugging one of your fists off the slightly damp fabric of his shirt. You nod, hoping that he brushes off your somewhat accusatory comment. And he does, not wanting to elaborate on how correct you are. Not that you’ll ever know. Definitely. Hopefully.

What Sylus says next takes you by surprise.

“Do you want to dance?” You stare at him, blinking while his questions go in one ear and make a world trip around your brain.

“What?” You ask, confused.

The rancher repeats himself, “Do you want to dance, darling?”

You sputter, “But-but we don’t have any music.” He chuckles while shaking his head, the sound resonating in his chest and travelling through your fingertips.

Putting a small gap between you, Sylus slips his fingers up your palm and grasps your hand, while his other hand rests on your waist. You shift your free hand to his shoulder, eyes watching him like prey does when they sense a predator. Wearing his signature smirk, the rancher tenderly sways you from side to side, feet following a loose pattern.

What surprises you the most— besides how well Sylus can dance— is when he begins humming. It’s an endearing attempt at staying on key, which you giggle at.

“What’s so funny, kitten?” He asks, breaking his hum before resuming it while waiting for your answer.

You beam up at him, “You are.”

“Me?” He clarifies, tilting his head sideways slightly. You nod, erupting into a fit of laughter. His movements slow, but you shake your head.

“No, don’t stop. I’m sorry,” you murmur, unable to fully banish your grin. But Sylus cherishes it. It makes him feel good, knowing that he can make you laugh (or at least, make you laugh at him) when you’ve been so angry and upset with him from the start. Another rare moment of your joy, he’s committing it to memory and locking it in the vault at the corner of his mind.

You sigh, “This is really nice, Sy. Thanks for showing me this place, even if you won’t tell me how you found it.”

He nods, “My pleasure, kitten.” Leaning forward, you rest your cheek on his pecs, unprompted. His heart rate spikes, before stabilising once more. Letting go of your hand, he embraces you with both arms, still rocking gently.

Wistfully, you ask, “Have I atoned for my misbehaviour?” The rancher rests his chin on the crown of your head, thinking for a minute or so. The evening buzz fills the comfortable silence between you.

Eventually, Sylus breaks it with, “Almost.”

“Almost?” You pout, raising your head and tipping it back to look up at him. Silvery lashes frame garnet eyes as he gazes at you from a hair’s breadth away. Your noses brush, a warmth sparking between your bodies.

Inching closer, Sylus whispers, “I think a kiss is in order, don’t you?”

“Mhmm,” you hum thoughtfully, hands snaking up to the back of his neck and pulling him down. His lips are as soft as you thought they’d be. And soothing, too. You practically melt into him as your head tilts, fingers brushing over his sharp cheekbones.

You moan softly into Sylus’s mouth as his grip on you tightens. But it’s a grounding kind of tight. He holds you like he doesn’t ever want this moment to end. And neither do you. Teeth nibble and tongues slide, slipping into each other’s mouths as you taste the wine lingering on his taste buds. But it’s sweet and light. Maybe that’s how it should be.

Your mind is blank as your knees buckle, your body moulding against your date’s. He keeps you upright effortlessly, his hands shifting down to your lower back and grabbing your hips. It’s possessive, almost, but you like it.

Pulling back, both of your chests heave as you gaze at each other with so much emotion in your eyes. In his, you make out reverence and excitement, while in yours, all he’s probably seeing is, “Oh fuck! I just kissed ten!” But no words are exchanged as he leans back down and pulls you into another kiss, and then another and another. Until you’re positively breathless and internally squealing with delight.

story masterlist

full masterlist

star girl's final words: i went through requiem, symphonic celebration, kind of love we make, flatliner, smooth jazz, and lots of different songs while writing this one. hope you like it! lowk, i remember it being better when i wrote it vs after editing, but chow it is what it is.

taglist - @stxrrielle, @peachystea, @harbingers-lullaby, @grlyeetswrld, @multisstuff, @heartyluv, @cuntphoric-main, @sealoftime, @beesin03, @tragicvictoriantears, @bananasquash

[soriseerakyra]

Soft Hands and Scar Tissue

The cave is still when you feel it. The shift in the air. A moment of intuition that has you looking up from your broken gauntlet. A dread in your gut that has you frowning. Then you hear a small sound. A small hiss one of the many doors opening. And something tells you to head towards that sound.

You look into the darkness and wait.

You hear him before you see him. Heavy footsteps and the schlepping of rainwater. You smell it too. The smell of iron, metallic under the heavy, dirty water. It fills your senses, it’s overwhelming. The kind of scent you pick up when a civilian is hurt, bad.

“Bruce?”

You have to ask, because he stops walking the moment he sees you. He hides in the shadows, so dark it's hard for even you to make out even more than his outline. He waits there for a moment that feels like an eternity. He’s deciding.

He begins limping forward, and you swallow as the shadows peel back from around him. You can see it as he steps into the dim light of the cave. Your eyes drift to his feet, to the injured leg, but your gaze is taken by his cape. Dragging slowly behind him, smearing dark liquid all over the cave floor.

When he makes eye contact with you, his jaw clenches, annoyed.

“You’re not supposed to be here tonight.”

It’s hoarse, more so than usual, like he was barely able to speak to you.

You blink, “I needed you to look at—never mind.”

The moment he sways forward, the words die in your throat. He takes another step forward, hand flying to a wall behind him to hold up his weight.

You are in front of him in the blink of an eye.

“Bruce, you’re hurt.” Your voice is gentle. The kind you use when someone is going into shock or being loaded into the back of an ambulance.

“It’s nothing,” he says, breath tight.

You can’t help the scowl that comes over your face. “That’s your favorite lie.”

He tries to push past you, but even on his best day, he would barely get you to move an inch. Today, you only need the tips of your fingers on his chest to stop him from moving.

The moment you touch, you feel the slight stickiness of his chest plate.

“You’re bleeding, Bruce. Sit down before you fall.”

And he did. Not because he had to—but because this time, he didn’t want to argue.

You move with a calm efficiency. But something inside begins to twist. A worry.

Piece by piece, you begin to remove the complicated suit. If there is an easier way to remove it, he doesn’t tell you. His eyes roll closed the moment he sits.

The chest plate clicked loose beneath your fingers, revealing layers of torn mesh and blood soaked-fabric beneath. His jaw clenched, but he said nothing, blue eyes opening to watch you with tired eyes.

“You should’ve gone straight to Alfred, or had him meet you down here,” you mutter as you begin pulling off a shoulder guard and setting it aside. Your strength made it effortless, but she was careful, treating each piece like glass.

“Didn’t want to wake him,” he replied.

“You should’ve woken someone. This looks deep.”  You pull back another panel, your brow furrowing when you see the gash along his ribs. Deep purple, almost black bruising was already beginning to spread beneath the torn skin.

He gives you a quiet grunt but doesn’t flinch. You kneel in front of him, hand stilling briefly on his abdomen.

You pause, your throat tightening at how wide it is. How the blood is coming in a steady drip to the floor.

“You always forget I’m not like you,” he said, voice low.

Your head snaps to meet his gaze, an angry frown in place. “NO, Bruce. You forget I’m not like you. I heal by morning. You don’t.”

Your eyes lock. You see the slight fight in his gaze. The urge to fight against you. But when his lips parted, the words to deny you, but they didn’t come. You resume your work, pulling away the gloves, the gauntlets, the shredded undersuit.

“I didn’t mean to snap,” you murmur, irritation having left you. “I just… hate seeing you like this.”

“I know,” he said, softer than you expected. “That’s why I let you see it.”

You don’t respond. But your shoulders relax, and your fingers are softer on his skin.

You find first aid quickly, and needle and thread begin stitching as delicately as you can. It's hard for you, though. Never having done this before. 

He chuckles, a pained thing that makes his skin jump slightly. "Your face is so serious."

"This is serious."

You hear it in your voice, the slight pout.

"This is a bad Tuesday."

A shudder runs down your spine, and you feel your eyes getting bigger. But you swallow your condemnation. You don't tell him that he shouldn't be doing this, that he will only continue getting hurt. That he's killing himself. Because you're not sure that even if you were a regular human, you would be able to stop yourself from doing the same thing.

"You're more breakable than I remember," you say softly, half to yourself, after you finish with the stitch. 

You begin cleaning the rest of the wounds, your hands trailing over exposed skin as you look for more cuts, careful not to prod too much at the forming bruises.

Your heart pauses for a moment, white scars litter his skin, faded and newer. The tips of your fingers run over them, and his skin twitches slightly.

"Sorry," you say with a bit of a sigh, trying to ignore the slightly embarrassed flush heating your cheeks. "It's just you have so many scars."

"You don't?"

"One or two."

Childhood things from when your powers hadn't fully developed. Now, even in your worst fights, you heal flawlessly. Like your body knows how to return you to your most perfect state.

"I forget what pain feels like. Things sting for a moment, but my body never remembers. So, when I see you doing the things you do, I forget that you aren't like me."

“Do you think I can’t take it?” He asks, but there is no challenge in his tone. Just quiet curiosity, a hint of amusement curling at the edge of his mouth.

You shake your head slowly, gaze still on his bandages. “No. I know you can take it. You always do. That’s the problem.”

He goes still. The silence stretches between you, heavy and close.

“I forget that just because you can take the pain doesn’t mean you should have to,” you add, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re not made of steel, Bruce. You’re flesh. You break. And you bleed. And I—”

You stop yourself, the words too close to everything you’ve kept buried.

“I worry,” you finish instead. “Even if I don’t always understand what it’s like to live in a body that doesn’t heal overnight, I still… I worry about yours.”

The confession comes with another skip in your heartbeat. Different this time, it’s not simply embarrassment that is causing the heat to flood your cheeks.

It’s the way he’s looking at you, blue eyes hazy, a small smile crossing his face.

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve had worse. Besides, if I get to have you worrying over me, then it’s not that bad.”

Your hands stills over the gauze.

It’s not what he said—it’s how he said it. Not the gruff, sardonic sounds of a man in pain. There is a lightness to it. A teasing warmth that he rarely lets anyone hear.

Your throat tightens. “Don’t joke. Not about this.”

“I’m not,” he says, more serious now.  “You said you worry. I do too. About you.”

You glance up sharply, surprised. “Me?”

“You run into fire like it’s a breeze,” he murmurs. “You shrug off broken bones. You act like nothing can touch you. “But you’re not untouchable. Not where it counts.”

“Where am I vulnerable?” You wonder if you sound as confused as you are. There hasn’t been anything that you haven’t been able to shake off yet.

Bruce’s eyes don’t leave yours/ His voice is low and deliberate.

“Here,” he says, lifting a hand slowly, finger taps brushing—barely—against your chest, just above your heart. Then he shifts slightly, his gaze softer now. “And here.” His hand hovers, not quite touching your temple, like he’s afraid the contact might be too much. “You feel too much. You care too hard. That’s where it’ll hurt you.”

You swallow thickly. It’s strange, hearing your strengths called weaknesses—strangers still, how right it feels when he says it.

“I can’t stop caring,” you whisper.

“I know,” he replies. “That’s why I trust you.”

You want to peel your eyes away from his. To pull away from him for a moment. The beating of your heart spilling up into your throat.

“You say you trust me, but you never ask me to stay.”

His hand falls into his lap, surprised. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to find the right excuse to give you. Eyes wavering as he searches his thoughts.

“I didn’t think I had the right to.”

The right to?

You had made it obvious. Or at least you thought you did. What kind of person hangs out in a creepy cave if the person they like isn’t around…besides Bruce.

But if he thinks he needed the right, had he been thinking about asking? Had he been feeling the same way that you had? Waiting for you to give him the same signs you had been waiting for from him.

You finish wrapping his bandages. The side is fully stitched and cleaned. The rest of the wounds need time to mend.

Your fingers run over the edge of the largest one, just making sure it's secure.

“You’re gentler than Alfred.”

“For now. But if I have to bandage you together like this again, I’m going to throw you through a wall.”

You’re chuckling by the time you finish the threat, and he gives you a smile in return.

There is a tension that fills the room, not one of anger or trepidation, but something softer, warmer.

“I’m here—I can be here. Not just for the bruises and the blood. Or when you need help on a case. I can be here.

With you.

He reads you better than anyone else. And you are glad for it. If you had to say it out loud, you might have stumbled over them.

He looks rueful, slightly guarded, and unsure. But when he speaks, he’s much more forward than you are.

“I don’t know how to give all of myself to someone. To be honest, when they are here all of the time. “

“I’m not asking for everything all at once. Just the right to try.”

He smiles when you use his words. His hand finds yours and squeezes.

You both sit in silence. His breathing is normal for the first time that night. His body is already doing its best to heal him as much as it can. It would be a while before he was fully back in shape. But he wouldn’t stop, nor would you.

At least you would be there to patch him up.

[reignpage]

“Nanami Kento had another encounter with the nameless mermaid. Many such, in fact. Some of these encounters are details in letters he sent letters to Professor Yaga. They detailed his recent discoveries and confirmation of months of his research building up to his posting in Gibraltar.

Excited, he told him everything, barring the budding romantic feelings he knew he should not have encouraged for fear that the respected professor would question his priorities and admonish him. While waiting for a reply, the student dedicated the remaining day since he recorded his first late-night meeting with the specimen to overcoming the issue to do with his incapability to swim.

In his rush, one can only assume, he made no record of what spell or device he had discovered and used, though there are many theories to be had. This remains a great tragedy.

Later in the day, he took to the sea in a rush and agreed with the mermaid to go somewhere secluded, where they would not be seen by another in broad daylight, and decided upon a nearby cave accessible only by boat or strong swimmers.

Part of the meeting was recorded by the student via Pluma Memoria and the transcripts were recovered some time later alongside contextual notes made by him.

As we all know, the Inter-dimensional Research Committee and St. Eden's Board of Administration's issued formal requests for the exiled student to relinquish all of his possessions related to his research, including information on how to enter the underwater kingdom, their weaponry, their political system, and just as importantly, the specimen.

These requests were denied.

It is unclear why.

In today's class, we still study the excerpt, focusing especially on the historical and cultural significance of Nanami Kento's rebellion and asking ourselves the question:

Did he regret it?”

Nameless Specimen: I've been watching you.

Kento: I thought you might have. Somehow, I felt you, I think. Something was encouraging me, urging me forward. It was odd but...comforting.

Nameless Specimen: I understand…I was not supposed to want you to find me. My pod have tasked me with ensuring people like you never find our home. And indeed, I worked tirelessly to lead others astray, leaving what they thought were clues so they would search in circles and grow frustrated. But just an afternoon spent following you revealed a truth I cannot verify: you are different. You are not like the others who have come before you.

Kento: I'm not?

Nameless Specimen: No…they were fuelled by greed, by a desire to reap all the wealth off our land. They trample over the wildlife, made no effort to connect with the villagers, choosing arrogance over community, and relied solely on their spells and potions. It was the kind of laziness and irreverence that confirmed the decision our ancestors made a long time ago — keep the gates to Atlantis closed.

Kento: And no one has ever been successful?

She held my hands and swam us around the jagged floor of the sea, tickling the bellies of fish as she went. I was growing more and more accustomed to her anatomy, to the point that the agility of her scaled tail did not surprise me anymore, though the captivating colour of them never waned in my eyes.

Nameless Specimen: Only once. Two men. Students just like you. One was closed off but polite, the other friendly but deceitful. My ancestors welcomed them in, nursed them back to health after their ship hit the rocks and capsized, and even shared our air so that they may tour our home. Back then, my people had not known the cruelty and gluttony of others. They were simply excited to learn about the outside world and to exchange wisdom.

I kept quiet. She was sharing knowledge I would have killed to hear just weeks ago. Now, I was grimacing, much too aware of man's potential for destruction. History lessons were not without constant warnings for the new generations to do better. To be better.

Nameless Specimen: The polite one, records say, was truly interested to learn, to be a part of our community. He was energetic and enthusiastic. It did not take very long for him to be seen as one of us…And the other…had his eyes on our gold, our pearls, and our scales. During their stay, people went missing. Even our young. It was a slow, eventual development. At least, that is how it is explained to us. I believe our Elders simply do not wish to confront the fact that our people were just naive. They knew the truth of that visitor from another land and chose to trust in the kindness of one another than aggrieve their guests with accusations...until it was too late.

Kento: ...what happened?

Nameless Specimen: He must have developed some sort of contraption. It is hard to say exactly what happened...the devastation was far and wide. To this day, we mourn our loss and feel the echoes of the tragedy. Whatever he had found or received caused death on a scale unfathomable to our young… The Elders do not like to talk about this part but whispers among my peers claim that one morning, our people awoke and could not see through the thick cloud of blood thickening the water.

I gasped. A deep pit formed in my stomach and it has not left since. I do not think it will ever. There was a sad smile on her lips, like she pitied her ancestors and resented the innocence of her people at the same time, though, ultimately, she could not blame them.

Nameless Specimen: That day…they released more bodies into the field of lights than they ever had prior. Generations lost. Bloodlines ended. Dignity stolen. The dead were stripped of their scales, fins, hearts and eyes. Sold, I can only imagine, to the highest bidder. The hardest part of it all was identifying who was who. There remains to this day a large section of the field housing the bodies of those who were never claimed.

I was speechless. No words could ever be uttered to begin to apologise for the crimes that were committed, for the injustice, for the murder of so many. I know them not, but I hold them in my heart. The sins of the past will be brought to life. I will be sure of it.

Kento: I am so sorry. That should never have happened. W-we have laws, regulations, a-an honour code to abide by. I'll tell my school, my professor. Everyone. We will advocate for reparations, a galaxy-wide apology—

Nameless Specimen: That is not necessary. We grieve in our own way. And in any case, we know not everyone is bad. That's why I'm here. Why the two of us can be together like this…We do not want to stay closed off forever. There is a whole world out there that my people deserve to see. We do not want to live in fear for eternity. There might even come a time where we must rely on the help of others for the future of our pod. It is therefore up to my generation to prepare for that. To change and innovate. We will soon welcome others like you…Never again will we be exploited like that. We have learnt. Adapted. Survived. That is the way of my people.

She swam around me, grazing her tail against my legs. Her lips brushed my cheek.

Nameless Specimen: In the meantime, I hope this is enough for you.

Kento: It is. You are.

She laughed, bubbles escaping.

Nameless Specimen: Thank you for listening. I have never shared this before. We don’t get visitors at all. There are not even others like us…as far as we know.

Kento: No, thank you for sharing. I learnt so much. For this, I will forever be indebted to you.

Nameless Specimen: I learnt much from you too. While I watched you fumble about on the surface, you spoke on and on about interesting facts about your world. Spells you were frustrated by. Potions you wanted to perfect. Professors you disliked and classes you missed. It was all so entertaining. You are an interesting man.

I was awestruck by her beauty and the tender warmth with which she spoke to me. The sound of her voice, the melodic bliss it elicits, the comfort…I feel as though I am still in the cave with her — weightless and free.

Kento: You're the first person to have ever said that to me…Most people find me annoying. Even my best friend. Though I rather think that is because I remind him of a lecturer, which he has naturally learnt to tune out automatically.

Nameless Specimen: That is unfortunate. A smart man like you must be heard, no? That is how we function in my pod; everything worth saying must be heard in an assembly. Every voice is equal to begin with, but the brighter minds deserve a special respect. You are one such.

Her revelation made me blush. It was embarrassing but she only smiled patiently. Of course, I have heard my fair share of compliments — winning as many awards as I have would warrant that. But, when those flatteries leave her lips, I felt inclined to shy away from such niceties.

Kento: You barely know me…

Shaking her head, she pulled herself closer to me until we were flushed together. To that, I did not shy away from. Not when it felt right.

Nameless Specimen: I feel as though I have lived a lifetime with you.

Kento: I do too...I feel as if I...loved you in a past life. And in the next.

She smiled again and placed a hand on my cheek. I was surprised to find the flexibility in her joints, webbed as they are. Her thumb adjusted my glasses which were threatening to float away from me.

Nameless Specimen: It is odd, is it not? For two souls to have just collided and feel this way...it seems as if we have been veering off course, heading straight for each other.

I don't know what expression I held. But something about it made her eyes soften, not in pity but something akin to sadness. For herself and for me. Like she thought it a universe's worth of regret to have met so late. Like she knew, since having met her, I've realised that all my life I have only ever known loneliness. Like she felt the same way.

Then, she reached out and met my lips.

I feel no shame in admitting much of the time we spent together is dedicated to talking about things which held no special importance, and to kissing. There was much more to be learned from her lips and her body than words, I believe. It is because of her that I became privy to the secrets of the universe and beyond all while tethered to the only home I felt bound to.

Her kisses spoke of promises. They breathed life into me. Urged me to desire for more than shallow trophies and meaningless discoveries.

We joined together like we've done it many times before.

These moments filled me with a new sense of purpose.

They were moments to protect, to cultivate, to watch grow.

They were moments I would cherish till my last breath...

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Adrien this season wears the same wrinkled outfit his dad picked out for him, sleeps on a mattress on the floor, has no passion besides being with Marinette and being chat noir, learned how to make the only meal we ever saw him share with his dad, and despite his version being better claims his dad’s were perfect.

And ppl who claim to love him are watching him go thru this and no one is helping the guy out. Only Alya has been “hey! lying to the guy is wrong and is making him stagnate” but she would rather have her memory erased than say anything.

I stg if “the power of love” is Adrien finding the strength to forgive everyone when he finds out I am going to lose it.

Agreed. Season six is really showing what I mean when I say that Miraculous has terrible plot lines for an episodic formula show. Adrien being depressed and processing his father's death is not the kind of conflict that you can resolve in 20 minutes or less, but every episode is supposed to standalone, so we're getting this awkward back and forth where the issue is randomly acknowledged in one episode only to be ignored in the next one because it doesn't fit the tone of the episode and the quality of the episodes as singular entities is more important than the quality of the season as a whole.

The Alya thing was an especially glaring example of the issue. In Revelator, Alya learns the truth about Gabriel and her reaction isn't, "I have to tell Adrien" it's "I hate that I'm going to have to keep this secret, too!"

Rena Rouge: You don't get to decide what Adrien should or shouldn't know. Neither do I. Truth is essential for someone's personal growth, and now that I know I'm gonna have to lie! And you know I don't. like. Lying!

This statement is nonsensical. Alya starts by declaring that Adrien deserves the truth and ends lamenting the fact that she'll have to lie to him, too, as if lying is the only option. It's not, though. She could tell him the truth! Half the cast could!

At least, they could in a serialized show, but this is an episodic formula show where canon-changing reveals can only happen in the season finals, so Alya telling Adrien the truth was never on the table. That's why the episode's conflict wasn't "should we tell Adrien" it was "should Alya be in on the lie, too." You can see this clearly at the end of the episode where Alya actively wants her mind wiped so she doesn't tell Adrien:

Rena Rouge: Some secrets are heavier than others and I am afraid I won't be able to keep this one... Cat Noir: But isn't that wrong? Rena Rouge: No. Because it's meant to give people the ability to choose whether to share their secret or not. (She looks at Ladybug) And that's repairing things.

This is wildly inauthentic to Alya's character. She should be fighting to keep her memory so she can tell Adrien! But she can't do that because it's too upsetting for kids and the episode needs to feel like it has a satisfying conclusion so this is the only way the conflict could be played just like Adrien's depression can't be addressed in a way that calls characters to action.

Major changes can only happen at the start of a season, the end of a season, or in a special because that's how episodic formula shows work. Status quo is king so that episodes can air in any order. Miraculous is never going to give you a strong plot that plays out over the course of a season. The most you're ever going to get are undeveloped hints at the plot lines you desperately want to see. Teasers that keep you hooked while never paying off because they literally can't.

Will Adrien learn the truth and/or process his grief today? No. If that's going to happen, it will happen in the season finale and I would not be surprised if we don't even get it then. The show has a rule that there must always be a secret between Marinette and Adrien and I don't see how you undo the Gabriel secrets while keeping the identity stuff a secret. I'm still curious how they'll even do a proper reveal of the truth because it means addressing the fact that Gabriel was dying from a cataclysm Adrien inflicted on him.

This show is slated for at least two more seasons. It's entirely possible that Adrien will stay in the dark for several or even all of those. I'm not saying that's what they'll do, I'm just pointing out that it's a distinct possibility based on the way the show has been written in the past so I'd strongly encourage you to brace yourselves for the worst while hoping for the best.

Minor fun fact: while Adrien's depression feels like something you could possibly address in an episodic formula show, my bet is that they won't because addressing the depression means redoing his character model to a new outfit and his room to a new design. Those are noticeable changes that would confuse people who missed the episode where it happened and I would be shocked if the show took that risk. Because of the formula show issue, Adrien probably has to stay in his sad bedroom and dirty old clothes until a season finale or the start of a new season just like the sad bedroom was introduced at the start of the season. It's the same reason Ladybug's suit upgrade wasn't a total upgrade. She kept her classic look so that the episodes could air in any order without confusing viewers.

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 2x08, "the mistake"

catholic chase isn't just a character feature anymore - it's its own major subplot.

2x08 is so solid all around. the format is unique, in the vein of "three stories," and it says even more about chase and house's relationship than we've seen so far, in my opinion. their respective portrayals of one another show the complexities, toxicity, and underlying love (yes, i think that's here) between them. i'm going to forgo a lot of plot-specific comments because i REALLY want to capitalize on a certain analogy that i think is the most compelling bit of the episode (grad school close-reading brain Activated).

first and foremost, chase is being catholic again. how saint jude, patron saint of lost causes of him. i'll be showing my hand as someone who was raised Catholic Lite (my family has never been super religious); i know a lot of the sacramental lingo, too, because i just got through teaching at a catholic university!

catholics have a sacrament called "reconciliation," or a kid's first confessional to a priest - i did mine when i was 8. returning to confession is typical practice in the religion because there are always things for which to ask forgiveness. it's a very private affair (whatever is said is supposed to be utterly confidential) and supposed to be organic, but stacy's practice reconciliation with chase is anything but.

much like a kid (maybe a catholic kid, around age 8?) would rehearse lies to their parents, stacy coaches chase in preparation for his disciplinary hearing. he's repeatedly reprimanded for adding sincerity and self-flagellation where it would weaken his case, and in the same breath chastised for being a shitty liar. the whole "first reconciliation" affair is highly ritualistic; you have to memorize the act of contrition, introduce yourself to the priest in a very precise way, and it's very intimdating as a kid.

even visually, this shot is organized like a confessional booth - which are intimidating in their own right. the doors divide priest (stacy) and sinner (chase) from one another, with the subtle space in between the go-between through which chase confesses. there's even a lectern-equivalent over chase's shoulder.

also interesting to note (not just in this analogy) is that stacy isn't wearing the crucifix that mark gave her.

as the tale that chase spins for stacy unravels, we see that chase became increasingly desperate and self-serving (in character of him from the vogler arc). at the near climax, he reveals to cameron and foreman that he plans on assisting the patient, kayla, and her brother, sam, in securing her a black market liver. this is, clearly, insane, despite chase's insistence that house would do something similar. foreman reiterates the underlying problem chase is experiencing: "this isn't gonna be your salvation."

this is becoming increasingly apparent to chase, especially as, in real time, the number of people ushering him along this sacramental journey is expanding - stacy, cuddy, and house are all involved in the interrogation now. he can't find a pragmatic way out of this predicament, just like he can't keep dancing around his fundamental (catholic) guilt over his error eventually killing kayla.

the next version of events he tells is the martyr's version. in chase's last-ditch fiction, he describes how he marched into kayla's hospital room to stop her from pursuing the black market organ, even as sam protests against it. he undoes an earlier mote of selfishness - telling a superfluous story about his tonsils to comfort patient hospital anxiety - by sharing about his deceased father (a new revelation to the audience!). it's this faux honesty, this nobility, that chase wants as his final testimony. noble, guilty, sacrificing, all in one.

yet the final version, the one nearest the truth, concealing everything but chase's reason for lying, is the most pitiful one yet: after kayla has died, chase confesses his error to same, who lashes out. chase bears the brunt of guilt; he feels he's been adequately punished...

so why does he keep looking at house at every turn?

chase wants to fall on his noble sword and get things over with - he says as much to stacy when he has the option of pushing the hearing date up. however, at every junction, he's downplayed the role house had in diagnosing and treating the patient. he's also afraid of house hearing all this self-sacrificing farce because he knows that he won't buy it. in this moment, stacy has lost her position as allegorical priest; house now embodies the role, sans the privacy of the confessional booth and the screen.

and, like clockwork, house clocks chase's real goal here: absolution. he wants to get through this pseudo-catholic-sacrament as intact as possible without showing any real vulnerability. when house takes chase aside, he says that, "you want him [sam] to sue you." oh, the catholic suffering of it all.

house does away with the ceremony and ritual of the confession. he confesses (!!!) to chase that he figured his father had passed away, and that rowan asked him to keep it to himself. this obviously pains chase, but, since it's house, and since no one can convince me that house isn't mean to be chase's Not Dad, he looks to him instead for a way forward. he's confessed; what should he do now?

nope - house only outlines his 2 options (tell the whole truth, or keep lying) and pledges that he won't say anything. the decision is entirely up to chase. this is a pretty non-deific (or not CATHOLIC, i should say) moment for house, refusing to intervene when a situation sorta calls for it. he's neither benevolent nor malicious, and we've seen him be both. maybe that's why he pays for his lack of a decision when the diagnostics department enters The Foreman Era.

so, in conclusion, this episode was an exercise in chase's catholicism, namely the sacrament called reconciliation/confession, that house subverts by not being the deific, unmerciful god who chase has come to expect in his life.

meanwhile, in wilson land:

hands not quite folded in prayer, divided by the walls of a non-confessional? discussing illicit sexual affairs? drawing admissions from house about his illicit affair? their dumb little game being vaguely penetrative? house's ball(s) being in wilson's metaphorical court? who's to say. i'm just a grad student.

[bright-side20]

Red Thread of Fate

First of all, these parallels align with the theory of Elain and Azriel being true mates eventually.

I do believe that the concept of mating bonds in SJM's world is inspired by the East Asian myth that says gods create a pre-ordained string binding people who are essentially soulmates , a thread that can get stretched or tangled but never broken, unless one of them dies. These people will eventually find each other, no matter the time, place or circumstances.

In the Chinese legend, the thread is said to be tied around the ankles of a man and a woman destined to marry, because the ankles carry them through life and lead them toward each other. In the Japanese adaptation, the thread is tied to their pinkies, based on the belief that a vein from the pinky runs directly to the heart, which is quite similar to what SJM does, connecting the strings of the bond directly to the heart.

Also the thread is invisible and cannot be felt physically. The truth of the connection is revealed over time, after life has tested them. Recognition comes after the first meeting, not during it again, very similar to what SJM portrays, except for the strange cases of weird bonds ( Rhys's parents, Tamlin's parents, Elain and Lucien).

This aligns perfectly with Elain and Azriel's story. The bond didn't snap into place the moment they met, but instead grew as they spent time together listening, understanding, sharing moments that seemed ordinary... until it didn't. Their souls slowly began to recognize each other, Azriel started putting the pieces together and questioned the Cauldron, because what he feels for Elain runs far deeper. He begins to sense that she is his true mate.

In old folklore, there are also signs that two people are destined to come together eventually just like what SJM does in her books. For example, Feyre painting stars on her drawer before even knowing Rhys. And for Elain and Azriel, I would say Azriel revealing that Elain is a seer right after Madja said her mate is supposed to know what's happening to her. Or the fact that the estate he goes to is randomly called Rosehall.

There's another parallel that I like which is in Chinese folklore, the deity responsible for the threads is the Moon God, Yue Lao also known as the Old Man Under the Moon. He is the god of marriage and love. He appears at night, often beneath the moon, and ties the invisible red thread between two soulmates.

Which made me think of The Mother and Elriel 🥰

Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer

“Yes” Elain breathed, like she read the decision. Just this taste in the dead of the longest night of the year, where only the Mother might witness them. 

[woozisprincess]

Seventeen's reaction to you wanting to run through the entire group

You want to run through the Seventeen members like you're on the track team.

Seventeen x Fem Reader

Super suggestive, entirely talk about sex, Soonyoung wants a threesome, they are all dtf, it's the same scenario but if each member were the first to find out, reader gets called a slut (lovingly), unedited bs

Seungcheol

"Really?" He looks at you with a raised brow. Not what he was expecting when he asked if you had a crush on any of them. Was hoping you'd say him, but he supposes this can work in his favor. He leaned close to you, grabbing by the waist. "Well, you could always start with me." And if he got his way, you won't even think about the others once he's done. You thought a night with the leader was a great way to kick off your excursions.

Jeonghan

All of them? Not that he was judging. Just sounded like a lot of effort. Also Cheol's really possessive, the maknae doesn't like to share either, and Soonyoung is such a brag. So many things to consider, and work around. Sounds like more effort than it's worth. But then again... Sense you're offering. "I don't know about those other guys, but I can promise you won't regret a night with me."

Shua

Well that's... Not information that he asked for, but go off. "Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart." Dumb response. What does that even mean? Truthfully, out of everyone you did not mean to tell Joshua. Sweet, gentle Joshua. You apologize for your poor manners. Joshua thought for a moment. "Well I'm not exactly a perfect gentleman all the time." He smiled at you. Sum bout' how he said it. Did that mean what you thought it meant?

Junhui

"Damn, girl!" The reaction was automatic. "Like the whole team!?" You confirmed. After the initial shock Jun actually could not care less, just another thing about you that he probably shouldn't know, but you told him regardless. "Well... Shit," he muttered, "let me know when it's my turn." He might not care all that much, but he's not fucking stupid. If a bad bitch wants him, a bad bitch wants him.

Soonyoung

"Oh bet!? Can I go first!?" That's it. He jumps at the opportunity laid out before him, does not give a fuck that his band mates also take up space in your mind. Was actually weirdly into the fact that you wanted them all. Would you have two of them at once? That'd be so hot. Is giddy when you agreed to let him go first as long as he bought you dinner first. Told the whole group he hit. However, was a real one and did not tell them that they were potentially next.

Wonu

Oh? Okay then? You didn't even say it directly, but from how you were literally growling when talking about each member during the performance? Yeah you wanted that cookie, you wanted the whole fucking box of cookies. The bakers dozen, if you will. "Someone's libido is fucked." He mentioned, casually. You went flush after realizing how fucking feral you were acting. "Hey, you want what you want. I want you too, if that makes you feel any better." It did. It made you feel a lot better.

Jihoon

Could you even do that? Like that's a lot of dudes. Your body would need breaks, surely. He had no clue why he was focusing on the logistics so much, but he knew proper protection was a must. "Make sure they all wear condoms, don't get distracted." Solid piece of advice, but not the response you were expecting. Jihoon then showed you that he was ready for you anywhere and anytime by opening a random drawer in his studio, revealing a box of condoms. Extra large. Oh my god. You 100% put those condoms to use.

Dokyeom

"Sorry? What? Sorry?" He short circuited. You patted his shoulder and apologized. "Nononononono." You shouldn't apologize, it's your body! Oh, for freaking him out? No he's not freaking out... He's a grown man, perfectly capable of listening to a beautiful woman's sexual desires, especially if he's a part of them. "I just-" he sputters. "Me too?" Yes? Oh. So nice of you. Very generous. "Thank you." Adorable. You couldn't wait to ravage him.

Mingyu

Big softie, immediately asked to take you out for dinner. You grin at the prospect of princess treatment. And boy was he generous. Most selfless lover you've ever had. And the date itself was magical, he pulled out all the romantic stops. Truly, that night you didn't just fuck, Kim Mingyu, you made love to him. Definitely happening again... After you make your rounds though. Mingyu completely forgot you wanted to fuck the team. Was chill about it though. Very happy you had plans to return to him.

Minghao

"What do you mean by that?" You looked at him like he was stupid, confirming his suspicions. Another one you didn't actually tell, it just slipped out. While watching them practice, you pointed out Jihoon and Hoshi, started singing that two bad bitches song. Then muttered 'actually, all these bad bitches.' Minghao's interest was piqued. Really, the last person you wanted to tell was Hao, he could be awful... Judgey. But he was surprisingly very open minded. You supposed it wasn't that out of character. "So is this like a mission, or a fantasy?" Mission? Cool. "I'm very in support of women taking control of their sexuality's." Aka, 'I'm down to fuck.'

Seungkwan

"Slut." Automatic. Not a single regret. To be fair, he was calling you that already. You couldn't argue with him either. This would be the sluttiest thing you've ever attempted. Seungkwan was so proud. "You know you're gonna have to amp it up if you wanna pull the whole team, right?" Told you what to wear for who, how to act around who. Made you a slide show full of info, though, he gave you no info on himself. But then he finished his lecture and said. "And about the sex part, can't be a good slut unless you've had some proper experience." His voice was low when he spoke. And you had complete faith that Boo Seungkwan could make the best slut.

Vernon

"baller." He meant that shit too. High-key a power move. He's sure you'd have them all whipped in no time. And some of them liked to fucking spend! Not only could you have dick whenever you wanted, and also multiple lovers for different moods, but dinner dates, lunch dates, cuddle seshes, shoes, purses, nails, hair, Lego sets! Whatever you wanted! The world was your oyster! Vernon's always liked a woman who knows what she wants. "Question. Can you choke me?" The answer was yes.

Dino

"Reaaallllyyyy?" Chan wasn't judging. Okay he was judging a little bit, but just because it was his hyungs. "They're all so... Bleh." Like sure they were attractive and talented, but they were also his hyungs. He just didn't get it. What did they have that he didn't? Well a few of them are really buff... Some of them have quite the way with words... And Hoshi and Jeonghan were charismatic... So maybe they had a lot. But still, they're his hyungs!!! "Don't even bother with those guys, I'm sure once we're done you won't even want them." Only one way to find out.

(⁠*⁠＾⁠3⁠＾⁠)⁠/⁠～⁠♡

A/N: I want to run through svt like I'm on the track team. I really like Kwan's, like yes, training ark. Jihoon said wrap it losers!!!

Anyways, if you liked this pls talk to me about it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Comments or reblogs appreciated.