#exposed fracture

[t4tstarvingdog]

i think dean getting a stray that has food issues would make him worse but ultimately make him better

[faggotcitosis]

words saddest dog

[void-tiger]

Oxytocin low. Send hugs.

[sollux-captor]

im feeling so many ways abt late a5a2 homestuck (i just finished it actually) but the sufferer hit way different.

homestuck late a5a2 spoilers incoming!!!

adding this after writing way too much shit that im not fucking deleting: vent cw too

ok so my main thing that made me feel something (a rarity, like almost unheard of /gen /srs) was the signless' story. something about it just envoked feelings within me, i dont even know how to describe them

something about this fucking frame just made me feel... idk what. dread? pity? genuinely idk. obviously its not the whole "ouuuu tied up so hawttt" bullshit, idk i think the story combined with the music and imagery just made it to the farthest pits of my soul, and this point was the breaking/overwhelming point.

i almost want to sit thru all of it again just to try and figure it out. i want to feel that again to understand it. obviously if i read it again i wont feel anything cuz thoughts, emotions, and feelings are a rare experience for me.

i feel like the story felt like a metaphor for my life, not to get all emo and dark and edgy or whatever about it, im being completely level-headed and genuine with this.

fuck thats what it feels like's happening inside of me. i feel my compassion and love for others depleting, as its been for years, with the cards ive been dealt (not getting into that right now). ive been conscious of an eternal rage slowly growing inside of me, and these past few years i feel like the ratio of compassion vs. rage within me is leaning in a way that im just barely able to see how bad and scary it is. ive been subjected to a life of suffering in almost every place i could imagine, yet i always tried to stay a loving, caring person for the few individuals who bring about some light in this darkness.

yet i can see it happening before my very eyes. i see i am no longer who i once was, im worse, im violent and enraged all the time and its getting worse and harder contain with every passing day. its scary being able to watch yourself rot away into a bottomless pot of boiling rage.

torture and execution has always been the metephor ive used when describing how i live and feel inside. i think to see something so deep within me and something so relatable in front of me, written and drawn out as a story, i think that broke me.

[damagedmonstera]

My first endo symptoms started at 11 years old, I didn't get diagnosed till I was 31.

I was fucking gaslit and treated like I was faking it for 20 years!

I passed out from the pain when I got my first period. I was treated like I was being melodramatic and that my pain was normal.

For context, 3 years earlier I had my front teeth smashed in and some dipshit adult with no first aid training put and icepack on my exposed nerves, I did not pass out from that pain.

It had already been well proven that I had a high pain tolerance, but as soon as it's about so called "women's problems" suddenly it's different? Fuck that!

Several years later I fractured my cheekbone in a fight, I didn't seek help for it for half a week because it wasn't as bad as my period pain gets, it was peer pressure from the visual bruising and swelling that followed that eventually got me to get it checked out.

Imagine how much different it would be if endo pain was externally visible?

As an adult at one point I slipped and fractured my ankle, didn't even shed a tear and kept walking on it for a week before getting it checked out, because I thought it was just a bad sprain (it healed badly because of that)

The pain I go through with endo will have me sobbing for hours on end.

20 Fucking years before a diagnosis! And even after that doctors treating me like I'm over playing it and fucking gaslighting me and treating my pain as low priority.

My last Gyno gaslit and retraumatised me, bullied me into an option I didn't want after I had already said no to it 3 times in that session because of how badly it went last time I tried it.

I've had to wait 6 months to see a new one, which is happening next week.

If they don't take me seriously, especially if they don't take my request for a hysterectomy seriously, given that the only thing that has improved my symptoms after grasping at every non surgical straw has been zolodex/chemical menopause. I'm not sure that I will be able to keep on living with this.

Help me, OB-GYN. You're my only hope!

[hoshiyoshis]

ive never hated a doctor quicker than i have now.

[opencommunion]

"The story of  'John Doe 1' of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is tucked in a lawsuit filed five years ago against several U.S. tech companies, including Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle producer. In a country where the earth hides its treasures beneath its surface, those who chip away at its bounty pay an unfair price. As a pre-teen, his family could no longer afford to pay his $6 monthly school fee, leaving him with one option: a life working underground in a tunnel, digging for cobalt rocks.  But soon after he began working for roughly two U.S. dollars per day, the child was buried alive under the rubble of a collapsed mine tunnel. His body was never recovered. 

The nation, fractured by war, disease, and famine, has seen more than 6 million people die since the mid-1990s, making the conflict the deadliest since World War II. But, in recent years, the death and destruction have been aided by the growing number of electric vehicles humming down American streets. In 2022, the U.S., the world’s third-largest importer of cobalt, spent nearly $525 million on the mineral, much of which came from the Congo.

As America’s dependence on the Congo has grown, Black-led labor and environmental organizers here in the U.S. have worked to build a transnational solidarity movement. Activists also say that the inequities faced in the Congo relate to those that Black Americans experience. And thanks in part to social media, the desire to better understand what’s happening in the Congo has grown in the past 10 years. In some ways, the Black Lives Matter movement first took root in the Congo after the uprising in Ferguson in 2014, advocates say. And since the murder of George Floyd and the outrage over the Gaza war, there has been an uptick in Congolese and Black American groups working on solidarity campaigns.

Throughout it all, the inequities faced by Congolese people and Black Americans show how the supply chain highlights similar patterns of exploitation and disenfranchisement. ... While the American South has picked up about two-thirds of the electric vehicle production jobs, Black workers there are more likely to work in non-unionized warehouses, receiving less pay and protections. The White House has also failed to share data that definitively proves whether Black workers are receiving these jobs, rather than them just being placed near Black communities. 'Automakers are moving their EV manufacturing and operations to the South in hopes of exploiting low labor costs and making higher profits,' explained Yterenickia Bell, an at-large council member in Clarkston, Georgia, last year. While Georgia has been targeted for investment by the Biden administration, workers are 'refusing to stand idly by and let them repeat a cycle that harms Black communities and working families.'

... Of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children. They are not only exposed to physical threats but environmental ones. Cobalt mining pollutes critical water sources, plus the air and land. It is linked to respiratory illnesses, food insecurity, and violence. Still, in March, a U.S. court ruled on the case, finding that American companies could not be held liable for child labor in the Congo, even as they helped intensify the prevalence. ... Recently, the push for mining in the Congo has reached new heights because of a rift in China-U.S. relations regarding EV production. Earlier this month, the Biden administration issued a 100% tariff on Chinese-produced EVs to deter their purchase in the U.S. Currently, China owns about 80% of the legal mines in the Congo, but tens of thousands of Congolese work in 'artisanal' mines outside these facilities, where there are no rules or regulations, and where the U.S. gets much of its cobalt imports.  'Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected,' wrote Siddharth Kara last year in the award-winning investigative book Cobalt Red: How The Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. 'It is a system of absolute exploitation for absolute profit.' While it is the world’s richest country in terms of wealth from natural resources, Congo is among the poorest in terms of life outcomes. Of the 201 countries recognized by the World Bank Group, it has the 191st lowest life expectancy."

[flowersforbucky]

love language

snapshots of your relationship with bucky told through the five love languages.

“remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”

warnings/tags: smut, oral, unprotected sex, mentions of blood, wound care, brief uses of alcohol, anxiety and self-doubt, language, reader is afab, 18+ only, avenger!reader, fluffier than what i typically write, undercover mission, friends to lovers!!!

word count: 6.6k

Acts of Service

“Exciting Friday night?” Your head snaps up at the masculine voice. You nearly slosh hot tea on both yourself and the pages of the book that lay open in your lap. You're surprised to see him - as far as you were aware, Bucky and Sam were in Munich. You didn't think they were supposed to be back in the country for another two days.

“Something like that,” you answer, regaining your composure as you bring the mug to your lips. “What are you doing back so early? Did recon go okay?”

Bucky lets out a long sigh as he plops down into the recliner, adjacent to where you're curled up on the sofa in the compound’s communal living room. His eyelids look heavier than normal, with dark circles underneath that aren't typically present. You place your cup of tea on the end table next to you and close the book before angling your body towards him, giving him your undivided attention.

“It was a shit-show,” he answers bluntly, voice laced with defeat. “HYDRA had the drop on us from the minute we entered Germany. What was supposed to be us just gathering intel turned into an ambush. One minute, it was just the two of us in an old warehouse, and then the next..” he trails off, eyes locked on one of the buttons of his tactical pants that he’s fidgeting with. “We’re lucky to have made it out. Sam was taken to med-bay as soon as we got back. Broken arm and collarbone, dislocated shoulder, possibly a few fractured ribs..” he lists off the injuries.

“Jesus,” you cringe, a death grip on the book in your hands as you listen to him summarize the mission. “Looks like you came out pretty unscathed in comparison.” You glance him over from head to toe, relieved to see no visible wounds or bruises.

“Yeah, well,” he starts, sitting forward and pulling the collar of his black t-shirt over to expose his right shoulder. Your eyes bulge when you see the obvious knife wound that the fabric had been concealing. “Not completely unscathed.”

“Holy shit, Bucky, why didn’t you go get this stitched up?” You stand up quickly, your book falling forgotten to the floor as you step closer to him to inspect the cut. There’s dried blood covering the surrounding skin of his chest and shoulder, with fresh blood still seeping from the opening of the wound. Even with the luxury of the Quinjet, a direct flight from Germany to New York is at least eight hours, who knows how long the cut had been steadily oozing–

“The bleeding has slacked off for the most part at this point,” he tries to assure you, attempting to cover the wound back up with his shirt. His shirt that, upon closer inspection, is thoroughly soaked through with blood. You all but smack his hand away so that you can continue to inspect the cut.

“It’s too deep,” you shake your head. “It needs stitches.”

“It’ll be fine by morning–” he starts to argue with you, but you’re already walking away from him, exiting the room to retrieve a first-aid kit kept in one of the shared bathrooms just down the hallway. Though you can’t currently see him, you have no doubt that he is shaking his head and rolling his eyes at you.

Before returning to the living room, you stop by the kitchen and grab a cold can of Blue Moon to help take the edge off. Upon reentering the living room, you find that he’s hunched over where he sits in the recliner, leaning forward to grab your book from where it had fallen on the rug.

“What were you reading before I so rudely interrupted you?” The corner of his mouth tugs upwards in a smirk as he inspects the cover of the book.

“The Hunger Games,” you answer simply as you place the first-aid kit on the couch and hold out the beer to him. He accepts the drink, a small, surprised smile appearing on his face.

“Shirt,” you instruct a second later, turning to him with a warm, wet rag that you intend to clean some of the dried blood off with. Surprisingly, he obliges your request, placing both the beer and the book in his lap to pull the bloodied fabric over his head.

“And what exactly is The Hunger Games about?” he asks, looking up at you through his thick lashes before turning his attention back to the book in his lap. He flips it over, skimming the words on the back cover.

“The Hunger Games,” you begin as you delicately swipe the damp washcloth across the dirty skin around his wound, watching as the material turns from white to pink as it collects the old blood. “Are dystopian fiction novels. The books get their title from an annual event in which a boy and a girl, ranging from the ages of twelve to eighteen, from twelve different districts are selected by name-drawing to compete in a fight to the death. Twenty-four go into an arena, one comes out.”

“Sheesh,” Bucky grimaces and pops the tab to the beer. You turn away from him, placing the soiled washcloth on the table next to him before retrieving some disinfectant from the kit. “And what’s the point in having a bunch of children kill each other?”

“Punishment and control,” you shrug, pouring some of the clear liquid on a large gauze pad until it’s soaked. He gives you a vague nod, signaling he’s ready for you to clean the wound. You dab the drenched cotton along the opening of the wound, wincing more visibly than Bucky does himself. “The districts where the children are reaped from have had uprisings against the nation’s Capitol in the past. The games are to punish them, as well as to remind them what power the Capitol holds.”

Bucky’s brows furrow together, contemplating your words. You make the initial incision for his stitches and he lets out a grunt of discomfort. “Sorry,” you mumble, concentrating on the stitchwork.

“So what happens?” He asks after a few moments of silence, obviously trying to distract himself from the needle going in and out of his tender flesh as he sips on the amber colored liquid. “The group of kids rebel and take down the Capitol?”

“You’re not too far off,” you chuckle lightly. “I guess you’ll just have to read them for yourself to find out.”

“I suppose I will,” he says, eyeing your needlework from the corner of his eye. “Will you let me borrow your copies when I finish The Lord of the Rings?”

“You’re reading The Lord of the Rings?” you fail at hiding your tone of surprise, more focused on finishing suturing his cut.

“Don’t act so shocked,” he feigns insult. “I read when I have the free time to do so.” He turns his head towards you for the first time since you began stitching, causing you to realize just how close his face is to your own. You push down the fluttery feeling in the pit of your stomach at the close proximity, clearing your throat as you turn to grab a pair of small medical scissors. You clip the thread before backing away from him.

“That should hold you together well enough until your supernatural super-soldier healing abilities take care of it while you sleep.”

He stands from his position in the recliner, holding out your book to you. “Thank you,” he tells you sincerely. “For the stitches, and the beer.”

“Of course,” you say as you take your book back from him. “Don’t want you getting blood all over the compound.”

“I think I’m gonna go check on Sam,” he sighs. “I’ll let you get back to your reading.”

“Get some rest!” you demand as he retreats to the hallway.

“Yes ma’am,” he calls without looking back, his Brooklyn drawl making an appearance.

For the rest of the night, you try to focus on your book and not the way you felt when his plush pink lips and cerulean blue eyes were just inches from your face.

Receiving Gifts

One week later

Punctuality has never been your strong-suit, but you didn’t expect to be the very last person to arrive at Bucky’s birthday party - get together, as he insists on calling it, since he feels silly having a birthday party at over one hundred years old. However, as you’re approaching the pavilion at the compound’s lake, you see that all of your friends are already mingling comfortably.

Natasha, Sharon, and Wanda wave at you from where they lounge next to the bonfire, Steve and Sam are engaged in an intense game of beer pong (which Sam seems to be doing impressively well at, considering one arm is still in a cast and sling), Clint and Bruce are playing cornhole - everyone is here, though you don’t see the one person you came for.

You make your way over to a picnic table closer to the lake that has been dedicated to presents so that you can add yours to the pile. You had ordered the gift a week ago, the same night that you had stitched up Bucky’s shoulder wound, and it arrived just in time - in today's mail, only an hour ago.

Hence the reason you are the last to arrive with a shittily-wrapped present in hand.

“Is that Avengers wrapping paper?” You whirl around at the amused voice to see Bucky walking towards you.

“That it is,” you confirm. “You and I aren't featured, though. Just the OGs,” you shrug, staring down at the cartoon depictions of Steve and the others.

“I was starting to wonder if you weren't going to come.” He says lightheartedly, nodding in the direction of everyone else.

“Your present didn't get delivered until the last minute,” you explain, giving the box-shaped object in your hand a shake. “Didn't want to show up empty handed.”

“You didn't have to get me a gift at all,” he says reassuringly, but eyes the present curiously. “But since you almost missed my party over it, I should open it right away.” He holds his hands out expectantly, almost childlike.

You roll your eyes, handing over the poorly packaged present. You had never been the best at gift-wrapping, usually preferring to reuse bags.

“I did not almost miss your party. It's just now eight o'clock,” you defend yourself, staring at the sun that's just starting to set over the lake's horizon, painting the New York sky in hues of orange and purple.

He smirks, walking past you to place the present on the table. You watch as he rips the wrapping paper away unceremoniously, until the gift is revealed.

“I know you had asked to borrow my copies,” you begin, suddenly feeling nervous as you watch him look over the box set of the first edition of The Hunger Games trilogy. “But my copies are old, and tattered, and have been annotated to shit, so.. I thought maybe you'd like your own,” you shrug nonchalantly.

He studies the box, pulling out the first book and glancing it over with a look you can't quite decipher. There's a faint hint of rose on his cheeks, and the lines around his eyes crinkle when he turns his head to look at you.

“Thank you,” he says with a soft, earnest smile. “This is incredibly thoughtful of you. I'm going to start reading them–”

“This pizza is getting cold!” You hear Sam's voice bellow from under the pavilion a few yards away. “I'm about to dig in with or without the birthday boy.”

You exhale through your nose, a half laugh, half sigh and look at Bucky expectantly. “Pretty sure you're the only birthday boy here.”

“I guess that's my cue,” he sighs as he places the books with the rest of his unopened gifts. “Thanks again, really. It's my favorite gift,” he adds with a sly grin as he begins to walk towards Sam and the table of pizza boxes.

“You haven't even opened the others yet,” you point out, following in his steps.

“Don’t need to open any of the others to know that yours is my favorite.”

Words of Affirmation

Two weeks later

Overstimulated. That's the best word to describe the way you're currently feeling.

Nervous, uncomfortable, irritable, a little hungry, even - any of those words would suffice, too. But with the way the velvet fabric of your dress hugs your hips too tightly, the way that the conversation of the drunk party guests roars in your ears, and the way that the heels of your feet already burn in your platform wedges so early in the evening, you think overstimulated sums up your current state the best.

You fidget with the extravagant ring that adorns your left ring finger, twisting it back and forth and rubbing the pad of your right thumb across the oval-shaped stone.

You aren't even supposed to be here, your brain keeps reminding you. It was supposed to be Natasha. Natasha, who has a boatload of undercover operations experience. But then she had to come down with the flu. Natasha, who never gets sick with anything more than a head cold, bedridden with the flu the day before a highly anticipated undercover mission that you are now taking her place in.

It's not that you hadn't been part of an undercover operation before - you had. You just hadn't been part of any undercover operation that required you to pose as someone's wife before.

Definitely not Bucky's wife.

The two of you had just arrived at the party no more than thirty minutes ago and you had spent the entirety of that time thinking that you wouldn't be able to make this believable; that everyone would see how anxious and awkward you feel and just know - just know that you weren't meant to be here and that it's abundantly clear that you and Bucky aren't actually together.

“Ivanov just arrived,” Bucky's voice murmurs next to your ear as he walks up behind you, snapping you out of your self-doubt induced trance. His left hand, disguised using nano-tech to look like a human, flesh hand, comes to rest against the small of your back and his right hand extends the drink that he retrieved for you from the bar.

“How'd you know I like lemon drops?” You ask, instantly recognizing the pale yellow liquid in the martini glass.

“I'm your husband. It's part of my job to know your go-to cocktail,” he smirks, looking at you in a way that almost makes you believe his words. “Besides, I'd know your drink of choice anyway. You always order a lemon drop.”

You clear your throat, breaking his stare by checking out the fellow attendees and event staff filtering through the ballroom. You slowly sip the sour liquid, trying to focus on the burn of the vodka and not the heat radiating across the skin of your back from him simply resting his fingers against the material of your dress.

“So where's Ivanov?” you break the tension. The illegal arms dealer that you'd been assigned to spy on was nowhere to be seen.

“He should be showing his face any minute now,” Bucky answers, a hint of displeasure in his voice. “I overheard some men at the bar saying he had just arrived in a three million dollar Bugatti with his twenty year old girlfriend.” You visibly cringe at the numbers. Ivanov had to be approaching senior citizen status at this point.

“Can't say that I'd expect anything else from him,” you sigh, attempting to wipe the disgust from your features. “What’s our game plan from here? Hover close by him and listen in on conversations–”

“Dance with me,” Bucky interrupts, his eyes locked on something on the opposite side of the room. You follow his gaze, realizing that Ivanov has entered with his exceptionally youthful girlfriend on his arm. Bucky extends his own arm to you, which you accept after tossing back the last sip of your drink and setting the empty glass on a table behind you.

He guides you to the center of the dance floor where several other couples are swaying to classical piano music. Ivanov mingles with a small group of questionable looking men just a few feet behind you, where Bucky is able to keep an eye on him.

He places one hand on your waist, using the other to hold one of yours in his own as he begins to slowly sway both of you to the rhythm of the music. Your free hand rests on the back of his neck, where you nervously twirl a tuft of his hair between your perfectly manicured fingers (you tried not to take too much offense to Sharon rushing you to the first salon she could find yesterday to help you look the part).

Bucky huffs a low laugh before using his grip on your hip to tug you closer to him, closing an awkward amount of space that separates your chest from his.

“If we want this to be believable, you’re gonna have to act like you kind of like me,” he murmurs lowly so that no one near you overhears. His face is just inches from yours - the scent of sandalwood from his aftershave and spearmint from his mouthwash is dizzying. Add in the fact that the lemon drop you had just quickly downed was heavy on the vodka, it’s a miracle that you’re still standing upright in these ridiculous heels that Sharon had picked out for you.

“I do like you,” you huff, your cheeks warming. “Not liking you isn’t the problem.” His gaze shifts away from where Ivanov stands a few yards behind you and down to your face.

“What is the problem then?”

You stare at his hand that holds yours, your eyes fixated on the brilliant diamond of your faux wedding ring. “For starters, I don’t really know how to slow dance,” you half-mumble. As if on cue, your left ankle shifts ever so slightly in your shoe, causing you to wobble. Bucky tightens his grasp on both your waist and hand to help steady you. He cackles - loudly enough for an old lady walking by to give him a side-eye.

“I think it’s pretty unlikely that our cover gets blown because you’re a little unsteady,” he whispers reassuringly. It does little to ease the lump of anxiety that has settled in your gut.

“It’s not just my lack of dancing experience,” you retort. “It’s all of this. I’m a bit out of my element here and I can’t help but feel like Natasha would have been able to do a much better–”

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, beginning to massage his thumb over the skin of your hand in languid, circular motions. You can’t decide if it’s the effects of the alcohol coursing through your veins or if it’s just the fact that it’s him, but it feels as though there’s a continuous trail of hot sparks everywhere his skin touches yours. “You've got this. If anyone’s got this, it's you. You've handled missions far more daunting than this with ease, right?”

You finally shift your eyes to meet his gaze. His deep blue eyes bore into yours with utmost sincerity. You give him a small nod of agreement and a tight-lipped, uncertain smile.

He leans in closer so that his mouth hovers just next to your ear, his warm breath raising goosebumps down the expanse of your neck and shoulders.

“And remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”

The slow, gentle swaying motions you'd been forcing your body to perform come to a sudden halt. You look at Bucky as if he's grown a second head. He’s looking at you with a shit-eating grin spread from ear to ear.

“Did you just quote Peeta Mellark?”

“I finished up the first book yesterday,” he shrugs as if his words hadn't just made your heart skip several beats. “Now let's get this job over with so we can go discuss the book in detail over some greasy diner food, yeah?”

Quality Time

The mere thought of getting the fuck out of that giant estate and away from Ivanov and the other countless skeevy party-goers to gorge on greasy diner food was more than enough motivation to get you through the duration of the mission.

Of course, it helped that Ivanov is a lightweight drunk with no concept of volume control. After a couple drinks, he handed the location of his next illegal arms deal to you and Bucky on a silver platter - without ever even noticing the two of you dancing just feet away from him.

“I'm sending the audio recording over to you right now,” Bucky says as he types on his cell phone. The two of you are currently in a drugstore parking lot half an hour away from the estate, sitting in the Audi SUV that you'd been given for this evening’s mission.

“Got it,” Sam’s voice booms through the car’s Bluetooth speakers a second later. “You guys did great back there. Go ahead and get back to the compound for debriefing.”

Your eyes flash to the time on the vehicle's touchscreen display - 10:06 pm. You can feel your stomach churning from hunger and your skin itching to get out of the restrictive velvet fabric, the last thing you wanted to do at this hour was go to a fucking debriefing.

“About that..” Bucky starts, noticing your disappointed expression and tense posture. “Debriefing is going to have to wait until the morning.”

“We should really get any details while they are still fresh–”

“What’s that? Sam? Sorry, you're breaking up, can't understand what you're–”

Bucky's flesh finger touches a button on the digital display screen and the call disconnects before he finishes his sentence.

“You know he's going to call back any second, right?” You ask after a moment of loaded silence. Bucky says nothing at first. You watch as he powers off his phone, and then grabs yours from its location in the center cup holder and powers it off, as well.

“I fully anticipate him trying,” he answers as he puts the car in reverse and peels out of the nearly vacant parking lot. “But I promised you a potentially gut-rotting meal, and I'm going to keep that promise.”

Half an hour later, you and Bucky sit opposite each other in a cozy, corner booth of the only open diner in a five mile radius. It's half diner, half arcade, and the two of you are some of the only people here save for the teenage couple making out next to the jukebox in the gaming area. You both look out of place - him in his black satin suit and you in your burgundy colored dress with the thigh-slit, but you're too relieved to be eating to care.

He's already scarfed down a fried chicken sandwich and is rapidly making his way through a pile of mozzarella sticks. You're eating a fat stack of blueberry pancakes and the best loaded hash browns that you think you've ever had.

Breakfast foods hit different at eleven o'clock at night.

“I'm just saying, Katniss is kind of oblivious,” Bucky shrugs with a mouthful of fried cheese. “It's obvious that Peeta was never just pretending to be in love with her.”

“That's a big assumption coming from someone who hasn't even started the second book yet,” you say as you fork a bite of pancake into your mouth.

He throws his hands up in mock defense, covering his now empty plate up with a dirty napkin.

“You're not wrong though,” you admit. “She did miss a lot of signs, and she's not always the most reliable narrator.”

He responds with a small hum as he watches you finish your pancakes with a soft smile that shows his laugh lines and the dimple of his left cheek.

His smile turns to something more curious as the young couple who had been making out in the arcade room earlier dashes past your booth and out the back door of the restaurant.

“What is it?” You ask, pushing your empty plate towards the center of the table.

“The game room is free now,” he states, as if it's obvious. “Now I can kick your ass in air hockey.”

And kick your ass in air hockey he does. And skee ball, and Dance Dance revolution.

“Please don't tell Natasha that you beat me at Dance Dance Revolution,” you beg him as you pick up your high heels that you had discarded for the game. “She'll never let me live that one down. In fact, if anyone asks, it was a dead tie for all of these games.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” he chuckles, approaching the pool table in the center of the room and leaning against the edge. “As long as you win this game of pool.”

“No, nope, absolutely not,” you freeze where you're standing, crossing your arms over your chest. “If I couldn't beat you at air hockey then I don't stand a chance of beating you at pool.”

He ignores you, instead turning to choose two cue sticks from the selection on the back wall. He tosses one to you from several feet away, which you instinctively drop your shoes to the floor to catch.

“I haven't even tried to play pool since I was maybe ten years old,” you whine.

“Why were you trying to play pool at ten years old?” he chuckles, gathering up all of the balls and placing them inside the triangular rack in the center of the table.

“It was at a birthday party,” you admit. “I pretended to know what I was doing to impress a boy that I had a crush on.”

“And how did that go for you?” He removes the triangle-shaped container from around the balls and begins to line up his shot.

“Well, I haven't tried to play pool since then,” you begin, taking a seat on the edge of the table and turning your head to watch him. He pulls the cue stick back and quickly stabs it forward, breaking the balls apart and sending them rolling in various directions across the felt table. “And Kyle from my fourth grade class thought that I had cooties, so, you tell me how you think that went for me.”

“Sounds like it was Kyle's loss.” You watch as he walks to one of the table's pockets to look inside. “I've got stripes,” he states, looking at you with an expectant smile.

You exhale a dramatic sigh, hopping off the edge of the table and turning around to position your stick in front of the cue ball.

“Fine,” you relent, looking up at him from where you're leaning over across the table. “But you're not allowed to laugh at me when you realize I wasn't lying about having no experience at this.”

“Scout's honor,” he swears and you can tell by his smile and reddened cheeks that he’s already trying to contain his laughter.

Feeling extra nervous due to the way you can physically feel him watching you, you take an embarrassing amount of time working up the courage to propel the tip of the cue stick towards a solid purple colored ball.

It travels a foot or so across the green felt material of the table and comes to a stop just inches away from a corner pocket.

“Damn it,” you sigh under your breath.

“That wasn't too bad, actually,” he says, not even trying to conceal his tone of surprise as he walks over to where you're standing. “You just need to change your stance a little and hit the ball a bit harder.”

“So, do basically everything differently, then?”

“I can help you, if you want,” he offers with a smug grin.

“Hm,” you bite your lip as you pretend to contemplate the proposition. “Okay,” you accept with a shrug. “But this better not be an attempt to pull a cliche “pretend to help her with pool as an excuse to make a move” kind of move.” You're fully joking - you know Bucky well enough to know he wouldn't make such a corny, obvious move with anyone - and you definitely wouldn't expect him to do so with you.

But you don't miss the way his expression darkens ever so slightly and his eyes sweep up your figure before moving to stand behind you, propping his own cue stick up against the table.

The front of your thighs brush up against the edge of the table and Bucky’s arms enclose you on either side - his hands coming to rest next to each of your legs on the table's edge, as close as they can be to you without actually touching.

Your breath hitches in your throat when the silky material of his suit brushes against your bare shoulders, the sensation causing you to go deadly still as you await his next move.

“With how fast your heart is beating right now, I don't think I would have to do something as cheesy as that to make a move.” He murmurs, his mouth close enough to the exposed skin of your neck that you can feel the heat of his breath. It's an automatic response, the way your head tilts back into his touch. You start to pull away, start to feel embarrassed, start to tell him just how wrong he is, when he brings a flesh finger to the ball of your shoulder and trails his index finger down the skin of your arm, eliciting a surge of goosebumps in its wake.

This physical reaction doesn't go unnoticed by him, either. He hums a small laugh, inching closer to you so that his body presses against your ass.

“In fact,” he says, voice barely above a whisper, “I think that if I wanted to, I could have you bent over this table for me without having to resort to anything like that.”

If his chest wasn't pinning you between him and the pool table, you probably would have fallen over. The air in the arcade feels a sudden ten degrees warmer and you swear you can hear your blood pumping in your ears - things that unfortunately can't be blamed on the effects of the martini that had dissipated from your system hours ago.

No, it's all him. His closeness, his warmth, his voice, his scent. Just him.

“If you wanted to, yeah?” You question, your voice an octave higher than you ideally would have liked. “That makes it sound like you don't want to. But the bulge I'm feeling from your pants makes it seem like you do want to. Kinda sending me mixed signals here.” You rut back against him for good measure.

He hisses next to your ear, his hands snapping to your hips, effectively stilling you beneath him. His fingers dig into the flesh around your hip bones, the pressure somewhere perfectly between uncomfortable and pleasurable.

“Here? Bent over this table?” he tuts, his lips grazing the skin next to the shoulder strap of your dress. “Where a couple of unsuspecting teenagers could walk in for a game of skee ball at any second?” He lets out a low laugh, the sound vibrating against your back.

“No, I don't think so,” he continues. “Not when we've got a brand new Audi with a spacious backseat and highly tinted windows just outside this building.”

Physical Touch

If someone had asked you six hours ago if you thought there was a chance you would be ending this night by having sex with Bucky Barnes, you would have said no.

But if someone had asked you if you thought there was a chance you would be having sex with Bucky Barnes in the backseat of a car in a diner-arcade combo parking lot, you would have said fuck no.

You would have been wrong on both accounts. And with the way that he's nipping and sucking up the insides of your thighs, you're pretty fucking okay with that.

Your dress is bunched up around your waist, your panties discarded on the floor of the car. You're laying as comfortably as you can across the backseat with Bucky nestled snuggly between your legs. It's a tight fit, and the stagnant air inside the Audi is balmy, but you'll be damned if you interrupt this to turn the AC on. The only light inside the vehicle is from the glow of the full moon that illuminates the sky, and the giant neon green diner sign a few yards away from where you're parked.

He's not wasting any time - it's well past midnight at this point and considering the fact that Bucky turned your cell phones off hours ago, you're surprised that Sam hasn't traced the location of the vehicle and sent search and rescue already.

As soon as his mouth makes contact with your center, you’re lacing your fingers through his short, soft locks and tugging on them. You grind your pussy against his face, meeting his fervent motions with your own. He locks his lips around your clit before pulling away with an obscene, wet pop that echoes through the cab of the car.

He reaches one hand up to your shoulders while keeping his lips on you, quickly tugging down the spaghetti straps of your dress and then pawing at the fabric covering your chest to free your tits.

At the same time that he plunges his tongue inside you, he rolls a nipple between two of his cool, metal digits, yearning a sharp yelp from you. He releases his grip and then palms your breast in his hand, continuing to work your folds with his lips and tongue.

You don't know if it's the fact that it's been a ridiculous amount of time since you so much as kissed someone or the fact that Bucky eats pussy like he's starving, but you're approaching your climax insanely fast.

You clench your thighs around his ears and push your hips upwards, the friction building that warm tension in your lower belly that comes spilling over when he lets out a guttural moan across your core.

You cum against his face, feeling your juices drip down the insides of your thighs - there's a pesky voice in the back of your head telling you that you're going to have to pay to have this car detailed before giving it back.

He sits up, his back resting against the middle of the leather seat. He unbuttons and unzips his suit pants, raising off the seat just enough to tug them down to mid-thigh along with his boxers. You're still coming down from your orgasm when he's pulling you up from the seat and into a sitting position.

You tuck your legs underneath you so that you're propped up on your knees on the seat directly next to him. Bucky pumps himself in his hand as you lean over, gathering all of the saliva in your mouth and letting it slide between your lips and over the head of his cock.

You push his hand away to replace it with your own, using your spit as lubrication as you stroke him up and down. He throws his head back against the headrest, looking up at the roof of the car as he brings his hand around the curve of your ass, flesh hand finding your pussy that's still throbbing from how hard he had made you cum.

You can feel the smooth band of the engagement ring that you'd been wearing all evening repeatedly caress a large vein on the side of his dick - you remove your hand from him, causing him to snap his head back down to look at you. You bring your other hand to remove the ring from your finger, planning to tuck it into a cup holder for safekeeping while you use your hands on him.

“Leave it on,” he breaks the thick silence when he realizes what you're doing. “Want you to keep wearing it.”

You push the ring back down on your finger, his command sending a fresh wave of arousal to your core. You're extending your hand back to his cock when he cuts you off, pulling you to him and across his lap.

You straddle him, his erection locked between your pussy lips and his lower belly. You move forwards, and then backwards - earning another deep groan from him as you coat the underbelly of his cock in your juices. You grind up and down against him several times, until you're feeling impossibly empty and can't take the feeling of not having him inside you any longer.

You lift yourself up on the balls of your feet, high enough for him to guide himself to your entrance. He teases your hole with his head - or at least tries to, before you're sinking yourself down onto his length. You go still for a moment when he's fully inside you, giving you both time to adjust to the new, overwhelming sensation of each other.

You begin to ride him, slowly at first - he stretches you blissfully sweet and soon you're picking up the pace, your ass bouncing off of his thighs with each comedown.

He places a hand on the back of your neck, pulling your face down to his in a sloppy, searing kiss. It hits you that he's inside you raw right now, and you're just now kissing. You taste yourself on him, warm and salty sweet. He sweeps his tongue along your bottom lip and you open up for him, letting him explore your mouth from the perfect angle that he's at beneath you.

He continues to kiss you but removes his hand from the back of your neck, moving both of them to cup your ass. He begins to meet your movements with his own, thrusting himself upwards so that his cock is ramming into that sweet spot of your cervix and sending you towards a second climax.

“Feel so fuckin’ good,” you moan into his mouth, breaking the kiss for air. Your encouragement spurs him on, increasing the speed of his thrusts. Your legs turn to jelly beneath you, but he's got you - he holds you up by your ass cheeks and leans forward to take one of your nipples in his warm mouth.

It's enough to send you over the edge again. Your orgasm builds, heat exploding through your abdomen as his movements grow erratic and he spills into you from below.

He stills beneath you when you're both spent, your chest heaving against his. You make no effort to remove yourself from him, and he seems more than happy to keep you right where you are - his arms locking around your waist and pulling you close to him.

“I guess now would be as good of a time as any to ask you if you'd like to go on a date with me sometime?”

“Go on a date with you sometime?” You lean back, looking down with him with the limited amount of moonlight and neon lighting that breaks through the tinted windows. “We dressed up real nice, slow danced, spied on a bad guy, ate greasy diner food, played arcade games, and you're inside me as we speak. I think it's safe to say we're currently on a date.”

He snorts, breaking into laughter beneath you. “A second date, then,” he concedes. “I would love to take you on a second date.”

♡♡♡♡♡

thank you for reading!!! kind of nervous to put this one out there tbh, i've been working on it off and on for weeks but i love how it turned out and i hope you all do too. as always comments and reblogs are very appreciated 💕

it's nice to have a friend

moth to a flame

oil & water

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

Between Dreams and Sugar

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Reader

Synopsis: Your screams will haunt his dreams until the day he dies.

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Torture, gore, angst, violence & death, suggestive joke, fluff, happy ending, rescue fic but who rescues who...>:)

A/N: Guys, I have a confession - I don't think I can write Ghost properly lmfao. This is horrifically mid.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

There was so much blood coating your body that you had forgotten where the wounds were and weren’t. It flowed from you like viscus water—a homogeneous mixture of congealed shades of red like rubies except for the simple fact that this was not beautiful; it was not desired or sought after. 

 On the ground, soaking in indistinguishable pools of crimson, ripples are sent out when your limp foot twitches mutely in its clutch. That was all you could do now. Twitch. Writhe. They didn’t even bother tying you to the chair anymore—just let you slouch half out of it like a school kid who had gotten too drunk the night before. 

Hell, you wished you were drunk. 

“Sergeant.” 

You wished you could feel your fingers. You wished you could move your neck up from its bend position as if it was a wilting flower; hair stuck to your skin. Blood dribbles out of your mouth. Drip…drop…drip…drop. 

You’d bitten your tongue open in a vain attempt to stop yourself from screaming, hadn’t you? You…you can’t quite remember.

“Sergeant!” Groaning long and low, the violent chills that wrack your form only serve to make yourself bleed out faster, tension forcing precious life fluid out from burst veins and slashed ankles. 

Cuts far span your legs and shoulders. Your back is nothing more than a painting of burns coated with sweat and infection; puss sticking you to the backrest of the chair like yellow-colored adhesive. Your clothes are the opposite idea of modesty. Tattered, torn by blades to create harm. Fuck, could you even breathe properly anymore?

Lungs only create a wheeze—you’re not getting enough oxygen to function. 

A dark growl bounces off the walls.

Ghost struggles against his binds, uniform also in a state of disarray with very obviously broken ribs and bruised chest. Splotches of yellow-white mounds signal blunt trauma over the pale skin that’s already laced with old scars. 

They’d all but anchored him to his chair—and even then the red marks that blister are a signal of the brutality of the large man as he peels back his skin to try and struggle himself out. 

You whine, the loftiness stuck in your brain addictive; to pull back that curtain was as much of a struggle as staying awake. That harsh Manchester accent was something to draw closer to, though, professionalism a key to the lock on your failing consciousness. The reminder of companionship.

“G…” Your vocal cords fizzle, “Ghost…” 

“Open your eyes.” Every word was enunciated, deep and guttural.

Parting your lips, more blood drowns your lap in thick globs, and soon your battered throat vibrates with coughs that make you see stars, mild panic the moment you realize that you can’t breathe. 

Jerking forward, you gasp, eyes snapping open as your neck bends ahead in desperation. Mucus and other bodily fluids spray over your lap, tinged scarlet, but the blockage in your throat is dispelled as your broken ribs quiver in agony. 

Whimpering like a kicked dog, you wonder how long it’ll take for Ghost to realize getting you to focus on him was pointless. If this all continued, you’d be dead within the day. 

But you entertain him.

Head slowly balking back as your jaw hangs loose, you rest it on the wooden frame behind you as softly as you’re able with a most likely concussed brain and a fractured skull. Only one eye opens, and even then it’s half-glued to your cheek with dried blood. 

Ghost’s balaclava had been ripped off. It felt wrong to see him in the open like this. Exposed. It was quite obvious he disliked it just as much as you did. 

Blue eyes blazed at you; blonde hair going this way and that as crimson fell down the swell of his Adam’s Apple from a very broken nose. That gaze was unrelenting, and even with your blurry vision, you knew it would be unwise to look away. 

His stubbled jaw sets as a heart can be seen skipping beats in his breast. You were totally out of it, enough so that you missed the way his lungs slightly released when you had pulled yourself back to the present. 

The gulping sigh.

“That’s it, Sergeant.” You cough once more, wet and haggard, and your head falls back to your chest before you have to force it back up on shaking muscles. It was getting harder. “Easy does it, then…Thought I lost you.”

“C–can’t,” the useless feet flicker over the ground, sloshing through fluid in unstable jumps as you slur out, “Hurts, Ghost.”  

A slow and dark inhalation meets your ears before a sudden grunt of a struggling body; jerking arms as the chair squeals with old nails being torn out. 

“I know, Birdie, I know.” His tone is lesser now as he bites back a curse as the blisters on his arms pop, the rope burns turning a vile color as his muscles strain, “But you keep those pretty little eyes on me, yeah?” 

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. 

Black Operations were dangerous, yeah, but never had the Lieutenant been so down in the gutter as he was right now. Mainly because of you, no, entirely because of you. He could withstand months of torture—mental and physical—with no problem. He’d done it countless times before. 

But never had he been forced to watch someone hurt you instead of him.

They would come in every day, these pitiful excuses for German drug runners, and would make him watch as they ripped open your skin with blunt knives and other tools coated in rust. Questions would be asked—questions that Ghost knew he could not answer even if it was you who would get punished. 

Every time you would flinch when the door to this concrete basement opened, it was harder to keep his tongue from wagging. He was watching you die; letting it happen. 

Fuck, it made him sick.

Ghost violently reems a shoulder up and down, not caring about the long stripes of now oozing blood on his forearms or the pain that the action brings bone-deep. There was so much scarlet flowing from you. Too much.

What he knows for certain is that he can’t let you die here. He’d never forgive himself for that.

How is she still conscious? The question was utterly genuine as Ghost’s dead eyes narrowed dangerously, sparking with urgency at the uneven risings and fallings from your chest. 

“Fucking hell,” the Lieutenant growls, each word punctuated by a desperate attempt to free himself. He had to get you out of this. You were his responsibility; his team. 

His…Ghost pants, sweat dripping down his arms.

You didn’t abandon him, how could he do the same to you? When questioned you hadn't given up his true name, hadn’t blabbered to save your own skin so you could avoid a horrible amount of pain. Pain that Ghost knew well. 

Pain that was never supposed to be known to you.

Your screams would haunt his nightmares until the day he died. 

“Ghost,” blue eyes freeze, snapping away from the sight of the bone around his wrists becoming visible through a thin coverage of remaining flesh. He pauses like a guard dog. Your optic was glinting, flicking with failing consciousness. The movement of your chest sputtered as the man clenched his teeth together. “You’re hurtin’ yourself.” 

“‘Bout to do even more damage, yeah?” he gets back to it, working enough blood into the rope to make it slick; dripping. “If it’ll get me out of these bastard things.” 

The weak smirk on your face gives his brows a deep furrow, sweat glistening on his forehead.

A part of him hated you. Hated you for the way you had this effect on him. He shouldn’t care if you lived or died—that wasn’t his cross to carry. 

But you’d made him soft these last few months. Soft, and weak, and disgustingly concerned for your safety. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t Ghost. 

“Gonna b…bleed out, y’know.” Your tongue slips, mind so loose that anything that comes to the front slips out like water from a slip-and-slide. Fingers twitching, your limp body grows so cold that you shiver. 

“Negative.” Ghost barks, slipping one hand partially under the restraint and his flesh, acting as a zipper, starts to go with it. He hisses under his breath, body hot and spilling. Mutilating himself. “Shut your damn gob.” Blood splatters to the floor, “I’m gettin’ us out of ‘ere.”

“Tell me a joke.” Blue eyes flicker, blonde lashes slipping over pale cheeks. 

You feel another wave of pain shutter through you—one that makes you whimper as quietly as a soft breeze on a summer day. 

“Joke?” Ghost hisses, glaring over at you without heat. “The fuck are you on about?” A wobbling eyebrow raise is all he gets. 

He grunts feral-like, evocative of a bear that hadn’t gotten his supper. Your lid droops and panic spikes.

“How long can a fish breakdance for?” Ghost slips a hand free, snarling in the back of his mouth as the entirety of his left hand is left ripped open, the fissures itchy and welling. Wasting no time, the limb goes to assist the other, pulling with ripped-off fingernails at the tight knot. A side-eye is sent your way.

Only you weren't moving. Lips snap in a moment of obvious concern, not only by the tone but by the way the man jerks forward in the chair—no matter if one arm and both of his legs were still restrained.

“Love!” The door handle rattles with screeching chains, but Ghost is occupied with raging at you. Ordering you to stay awake with terrifying eyes. It was as though for the first time in a long time there was true fear in his throat. True hatred. 

Chucking voices heat veins that he had long since thought were cold, and the Lieutenant composes himself with a sharp pause. He leans back slowly into the chair; jaw so tight his molars almost crack in the back of his mouth like candy. Your face is tilted downward, and Ghost memorizes the make of it, trails his gaze slowly over every slash and cut that mars you. Feet slap off the concrete as multiple people enter the room, but it was like a switch had flipped internally, walls going up.

The mask was still there, even if all that physically remained of it was the black paint in his sockets.

He’d return every mark, from a bruise to an open wound, tenfold. But you needed to wake up first. You…you needed to.

You had to be okay.

Three men encircle the two of you, faces hidden and obviously enjoying a bit of their own product.

“Look at this, Lutz, the man got a hand out of the binding.” Blue eyes travel to stare dead-on into a pair of blown pupils; mind gone. 

The second man goes to grip your hair, forcing your head up in inspection. Ghost’s vision immediately travels over, biceps going tense like a dog with its hackles raised and vision going red. 

“Don’t worry about that. It’s one hand, what can the Bastard do?”

“Oh,” another laughs, though his body is wound tight, “careful with the woman, Alric—the beast looks like he’s about to snap at you.”  

The three share sly looks. Alric, the one with your hair in his grip, shakes your head back and forth, blood flying around in the air as your limp body jerks. Ghost lunges, but he only makes it as far as the chair allows him before he’s shoved back by a hand on his chest. 

Moving quicker than an animal, bone snaps, and an agony-laced scream echoes off the walls not a millisecond later. 

Ghost had gripped that hand and twisted, making the wrist joint completely flip on itself. Blank blue eyes watch with glints of sadistic glee as the man wails, grabbing onto himself and falling back onto his ass.

The one holding you instantly releases your hair and rushes to his friend. 

“Holy fuck!” Everyone divulges into frantic German curses, Ghost making out a command to leave and go see a doctor.

“Cheers. Good luck with that, ya’ Bastard.” Grumbling under his breath, the Lieutenant realized he was probably enjoying this more than he should, but always his attention shifts back to you. How you hang limb, battered face covered by your hair, and loss of blood steadily leaving your hands curling into the palms—

Ghost’s eyes widen slightly as the two still try and calm down their companion. Your hand. It wasn’t curled because of onset rigor mortis. You were holding a blade. 

The Brit’s large chest swells with pride; jaw going somewhat slackened as he stares at you. So you were faking it….Fucking hell, Sweetheart. 

Slowly, his vision peels to the empty sheath on Lutz’s belt. It wasn’t a big knife—nothing more than a three-inch blade on the end. But you were still conscious enough to hear these goons show up before he had; had used sleight of hand that anyone else in your situation would have just given up on. 

It was hard to hold back a low chuckle, but he managed. Fuck, you were something else.

The two unmaimed men shove the third out the door, shouting down the hallway as his sobs and sniffling nose reverberate even as he’s out of sight. 

Grunting, the Brit shifts his hips, lips pulling in a snarl at the bouncing electrical wire that goes up his ribs. Many were broken; along with his nose and a dislocated shoulder, but he knows he can deal with it. Getting you out and to the Evac point was his top priority—his wounds weren’t over-the-top life-threatening unless they went too long without treatment. 

You on the other hand. 

Lids narrow on the way the knife-holding hand shakes with exertion when simply applying pressure. If this was going to happen, it had to happen now.

“That was a nice little show,” Alric growls, standing in the middle of the two in the chairs and keeping a considerable distance farther from Ghost than you. Blue eyes blink blankly, emotions swiftly wiped away. “One-handed? I’m impressed.” 

Ghost raises a single blonde eyebrow, “More where that came from.” 

Alric smiles.

“Emil—get the gun.” Legs slowly tense, but other than that there’s no outward display of nervousness. 

Seconds later a barrel is level with Ghost’s forehead, the chilled metal pressing deep into his blood-coated skin. He doesn’t balk back, he doesn’t even flinch, just watches with a dim flicker in his optics that remains even after he blinks. Like a cat’s slitted pupils. 

It would be no use shoving the gun out of this man’s hands—he would fire before the Lieutenant was able to steal the weapon for himself. 

“I’m getting sick of this game, Soldier. We’ve been through this day after day.” Alric swipes at his nose, white powder stuck under his nostrils. Ghost can’t stop the small tick of his mouth. “Tell me who you are,” the gun swivels, and the Brit’s heart seizes up. It points at your abdomen. “Or the girl gets a nice new stomach.” 

Lips thin into a small line as hidden fury swells. 

“Alric…” Emil seems nervous, his feet shifting and hands twitching. The aura Ghost was emitting was like a dark cloud around the room; sheer size and indistinguishable emotions rose to drown out all else when a threat to the beast’s bird was brought into the picture. There had been multiple times throughout the days when the men had been scared to touch you at all for fear of the look that had been leveled their way. Those eyes…fuck it was like a demon was stuck in flesh. In blue so close to gray the color was more like the concrete of a prison cell. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“Tell me.” Alric growls as Emil gets closer to you. Ghost stays silent, unblinking as his fingers curl into fists. His knuckles crack from the force. “Tell me!”

Emil bushes your shoulder and you lunge. Bringing the blade into his chest, your form brings the both of you to the floor in a splash of scarlet and twin screams of pain. 

The Blonde’s heart seizes at the sound in an aggressive bounce.

Alric whips around, eyes widened and gun loose in his grip. Ghost wastes no time, trusting your judgment, and shoves himself forward. A shot goes off as the Lieutenant rams his shoulder into the man, but the bullet bites into the far wall instead of your back as you dig your knife into Emil’s throat; wrestling for life. 

The chair still attached to Ghost was a problem, but his body weight was used to his advantage. Sinew bunched as a growl exits his lips, Alric and him slamming to the floor in a flurry of rabid intentions and the likeness of wolves caught in a trap. Ghost’s eyesight goes red, remembering every cut and beating you went through for him in the reflection of Alric’s eyes. That pathetic drug runner had made you bleed. 

His bird doesn’t bleed.

Teeth and nails are tools kept for animals, and now that the gun was too far from grip and you were limp beside the gargling body of Emil, Ghost decided that being a bit insane might do him well at the moment. 

He had to get you out of here. And in no world was this man going to get away to live one day more.

“Please, don’t,” Alric begs, clawing at his behemoth build, “I’m not—I wasn’t—!” 

Blood-stained teeth snap into the thin flesh of a visible neck as dead blue eyes keep you in sight like a dog does the moon.

—

You don’t recall anything after slashing one man’s neck and even that is a blur of flashing colors; instances of one waxing expression waning into another. Trapped between bouts of failing consciousness and pain that could rival someone getting their bones snapped one by one. 

But you know the feeling of moss on your cheek. The shadow that sits above you and the fingers that prod at your back, pressing cooling salves of Silverweed into the burns and cuts. Your eyes weakly flicker, a low moan stuck in your throat. 

Every limb is a cinder block.

“Stop your moving.” The command was stiff but quiet, and the pressure on your spine increased. Flinching, the sensation of tight bindings all along your body became apparent to you, slowly but surely. 

“That…hell?” You cough, throat bare and dry. Sweat drips down your temple. 

Blinking rapidly, you try to focus on the cold wind whipping past your bare skin, the trees in the distance of what appeared to be a glade. The sound of a running stream makes your ears perk.

A canteen was suddenly shoved to your lips and you grunt in surprise, water slicking your closed lips.

“Drink.” You don’t argue, peeling back your lips and letting the liquid drip into your mouth, most falling to the moss under you and getting re-adsorbed into the earth. “...There’s a girl.” 

The metal container disappears just as quickly as it showed up, and you lick at the corner of your lips, cheeks burning at the comment.

Ghost kneels above you, bar a shirt, and you narrow your lids to focus on the black and blue splotches completely covering him. He still doesn’t have a mask, and you glance over the blonde stubble; the scars, and the aggressive set of his eyebrows. The blood had been washed away, and you wondered if the stream in the background of this place was still stained with crimson and the telltale black of eye paint.

“Simon,” whispering seemed appropriate, though you don’t know why. Your voice was better now but still, your body refused to listen to your instructions. Every plea to move your arms or legs was denied, sharp needles poking into your flesh that made you shake. “What…?” 

Blue eyes blink down at you, something hidden in the depths. A finger curls to flick a stray hair from your face slowly. Skin brushes skin.

“Snagged what I could before I ran off. Wasn’t much.” That harsh voice, the gravel in it. You frown weakly, your lids heavy. “Bandages. Extra shirt. Blanket I used to stop the bleeding.”

He won’t tell you he was begging you to wake up when he’d been stuffing old fabric into your open wounds. 

Coughs wrack your frame, whole body jerks that overtake what little peace there was to be found. A hand tilts your head back to the ground, patient as the other grabs your hair, peeling the strands away as a flood of vomit escapes your mouth. 

Eyes burning and face hot, you sputter as a thumb runs deep circles over your scalp. 

“Easy…” Ghost whispers, tattoos like obsidian in the darkness of the world around the two. Late afternoon and this was the first time you’d woken up since he’d been carrying you. A nail was taken out of his heart. 

Seeing your eyes flicker, even filled with the tears as they were, was a blessing he’d thank whatever God that was out there for. “Easy, Sweetheart. Breathe for me.”

“Fuck,” you gasp, shaking more than a leaf. “Fuck it hurts, Simon.” 

He shifts you slightly away from the bile, the familiar words burning his lungs. 

“Evac point is four miles.” It felt like a death sentence to you, your eyes going buggy at the thought. “I’m carrying you there.” 

“Bullshit,” you pant, wheezing. “Your arms are destroyed.” 

Ghost blinks before scowling, sending a glance to his limbs. They’re both raw and skinned, just like his fingers; red with burst blisters the size of rocks. One hurts far more than the other.

“They’re nothing.” 

“Nothing pretty to look at,” blue eyes narrow on you in annoyance, but the dry-humored Brit doesn't miss a beat.

“Seems you’re in good spirits, Sergeant. Fancy walking on your own?” Your lips flick, delirious and high off of whatever pain meds that Ghost had found when he had been carrying you out of the basement of that house. 

Try as he might, the feeling of your dead weight was worse than he ever could have imagined. So, outwardly, he stayed numb but knew that every little look from you was as beautiful as a sunrise. 

“Want me to try?” Palms begin to shift, a hand pressing deep into the moss that bends and yields to your form. 

Ghost snaps forward.

“Fucking Bastard!” He puts weight on the back of your shoulder as you hiccup dull chuckles, “Quit it! Else I’ll leave you here to annoy the damn plants.”

The threat was empty, and your eyes softened as they spread their fatigued gaze over the span of the Brit’s visible skin, glee leaking out. Ghost sighs, shaking his head sharply at you, agitation stuck in his skull as it always was.

So beastly, this man, but his hold on you was about as gentle as you could imagine. 

Your attraction to him was anything but one-sided. You knew his emotions as well as your own; it was quite obvious to everyone but him. The long looks, the concerned glances. His touch freely given.

He had given you his name and, to you, that was about as close to a proposal as a ring was. You’d kissed; you’d shared beds and shared skin. You knew when he was being horrible to himself deep in the confines of his head.

“Simon,” you whisper, and a blue gaze stays stubbornly away, glaring at your burns with venom. A tired smile peels your lips. “Simon.” 

A huff is all you get, a bush of skin as breath wafts over your bare back. Your hand goes to touch his knee, brushing softly over the torn fabric. The flinch would not be noticeable to anyone but you. Brows pull slightly tighter. 

“I had a dream about you, y’know.” Speaking hurt, but the attention that is finally brought your way was worth it. Birds chirp in the distance.

“What’s that?” 

“Hm,” you lightly nod, cheek ruffling moss as you take down slow inhalations. Staring into each other’s eyes you for a moment forget the agony under your skin. “You were trapped by a giant fish underwater.” 

A Blonde eyebrow raises, slow smirk unable to be hidden. It was impossible not to be entirely taken by you. How you speak, how you breathe. Even like this, you had placed a spell of black magic over him, binding the darkness that made up Simon Riley—Ghost—to your every action and whim.

“That right, Sweetheart? What happened, then?”

Chuckling, Ghost’s hold goes to your neck, massaging the skin so delicately that you lose your train of thought for a moment as shivers erupt, “I had to save you.”  

Lips press to your scalp, a bent nose digging despite the shifting cartilage as lion limbs shake with a want to drag you to him. Such a rabid beast that devotes himself to your life.

“You tend to do a lot of the savin’, Love.” It’s muttered into your hair, softly, lowly. Compliments are rare—Ghost prefers actions above all else—but they’re treasured. 

You know what he means.

“Yeah, I love you, too, you brute.” Deep chuckles dance in your ear, and you both stay there for a while, simply breathing in each other as the sky bleeds into the earth. So content, your heart had slowed, the salve in your wounds and the bandages compressing the areas with the most problems and forcing them to be numb. 

When you had nearly fallen asleep, Ghost had peeled back to look down at you; eyes malleable as they slipped over your battered body. 

“Hm,” he hums, reaching to his side and grabbing for the shirt he had stolen. After a few minutes of quiet curses and apologetic kisses, the large piece of fabric was over your top. The Lieutenant had begrudgingly admitted that the scraps of pants you had on now would have to do until you got proper attention. 

“Giving the squirrels a show, then, Simon?” The man rolls his eyes deeply at the sarcastic comment, rubbing up and down your legs to keep circulation going as he readies to move you.

“They better keep quiet ‘bout it,” Ghost grumbles, running a hand through his hair, “Else I’ll have to rip a few tails.”

“So violent,” You wince when your shoulder is gripped, neck limp as your upper half was rotated. Gnashing your teeth, the Lieutenant shushes you comfortably, raising your body to rest in the crook of his large arm. Muscles tense and loosen, your cheek now resting on your Lover’s pec. You hear him hiss silently at the pressure on his broken ribs as guilt hits you. “Not the squirrels’ fault.” 

“It is if they keep looking at ya. Only I get to see you like that.” Your pain-laced laugh is cut off when you’re lifted, large hands under your knees helping equalize your body. 

A strained whine exits your lips, straining to get air as you pant and clench your eyes shut. Ghost wasn’t doing much better—gritting his teeth and tilting his head back. 

Feet stumble before righting themselves, lids opening as lashes flutter over bloodless cheeks to stare down at you. 

The word seems to stop.

“...Tell me you’re alright.” You heard that for what it was—Tell me to keep going, because if you don’t then I won’t be able to. 

Blinking up at him, your nose slots under his chin as you feel him shake with exertion, lips pressing deep into his raging pulse. You swallow down saliva as his grip on you tightens, pressing you closer; giving you his body heat.

“I’m okay, Simon. Not…not lost yet.” 

“Good.” He lets his eyes close for a moment, taking you in as he lets his nose be coated in your scent, the flesh under his fingertips. Ghost knows some of your wounds reopen, and, thus, his bare feet start off into the woods. His men would still be at the Evac point waiting for them. Price would have given the order. “...I’ll be needing you ‘round. Might lose my head otherwise, eh?”

“You do seem to have a few loose screws when I’m not near.” 

“That was an exaggeration,” Simon grumbles. 

You scoff, trying not to puke at his limping steps. The word swirls, but the man carrying you stays ever clear. “No,” you whisper, “No, it wasn’t.”

Scared lips pull up, but the birds respond for him. 

Less than ten percent out from the Evac point is when you drop a tidbit of a thought to the man.

“Y’know what I want, Ghost?” The large Brit side-steps a downed tree, sweat dripping down his chin to splatter to your skin.

“What is it?” He pants, sparing you a glance as his eyebrows are constantly furrowed in concentration. Your talking made it easier to push on.

“A fucking cake. A big one.” Blue eyes blink and his feet nearly stumble to a stop before he forces on. A gasp of a chuckle makes your heart skip a beat as voices start up from the next tree line.

“Keep talking to me, Love, and I’ll buy you the whole bloody bakery.” Soldiers burst from the bushes, and Ghost calls out identification as everyone gapes. Guns immediately lower.

Medics rush forward, but still on high alert, the Lieutenant snaps at them, bringing you closer into his hold as he pushes onward. 

“Where’s the fucking heli?!” Everyone stops and points. Huffing, Ghost shoves forward. 

“The whole bakery?” You slur, giggling and feeling the kiss on your head. 

“Every bastard pastry’ll be yours. Count on it.” 

—

“Simon, you promised.” Your wheel-chair bound form pouts as the man in question deadpans from behind you, leaning on the handles. His balaclava can only hide so much.

The air is sweet with the scent of desserts and bread. 

“Birdie, you can’t eat all ‘O that, you’ll explode like you took a .308 round to the head.” The woman behind the counter pales, pulling at the collar of her shirt with her smile becoming strained.

“Is that a challenge?” You glance over your shoulder, smirking wide. 

“No,” Simon blanky states, the skin over his nose bridge and under-eye completely black and blue. 

“I think that was a challenge.” 

“It wasn’t.”

The customers grind their palms into their eye sockets, some tuning around in line and leaving entirely.

“Simon,” you intertwine your hands and lean to show him, eyes wide and pleading. “Please.” Drawing out the word, you smile with everything you can. 

The both of you connect in a battle of wills—you with that infectious innocent and sly nature, and Simon with a tight glare and tired eyes. A blatant will to please you in every aspect and a need to see you happy at all times. This goes on for a full minute before a loud sigh echoes off the walls, shoulders deflating. A hidden kiss is pressed firmly to your head.

You giggle loudly at the authoritative order.

“One of everything.”

TAGS:

@blueoorchid, @jxvipike, @revrse, @shuttlelauncher81, @bruhhvv, @kittiowolf210, @aerangi, @spikespiegell, @ghost-with-a-teacup, @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore, @uberraschungg, @neelehksttr, @shoe1412,@jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet​, @pukbadger, @omeganixtra, @nanialis, @gills-lounge, @voidinfernal, @sukunas-left-nut-sack, @untoldshortsofthefandoms, @batmanunicorns523, @icepancakes, @copiasratscheese, @besas-stuff, @marytvirgin, @misfne, @halfmoth-halfman, @lothiriel9, @anna-banana27, @jade-jax, @cl0wncxre, @emerald-valkyrie, @michirulol, @330bpm-whiplash, @lora21, @bespectacledhuman, @wolfyland07, @dilfsaremyfavourite, @astronaunt2009, @shmaptin, @levietc, @kk19pls, @semieitabby, @thriving-n-jiving, @cringe-kats, @n1choles, @gaychaosgremlin, @johnpricesprincess, @haleypearce,

[tojisun]

THAT BLOOD AS LUBE THING!!!! HERES MY TAKE!!!!!!

Logan having been punched in the mouth so many times that when he has you finally bent over, your both panting and full of aggressive adrenaline with your knees pushed up to your chest, his giant hands splayed over the backs of your thighs, he lets a bloody string of spit fall from his mouth and onto your exposed cunt from where he’s absolutely shredded the crotch of your costume.

THIS SEXY THING IN REFERENCE TO THAT? GODDAMN YEA cw: smut; f!reader; blood as lube; fucking in public; thrashing bcuz of oversensitivity - all consensual; a touch of poolverine/reader poly :3 this is v short im sorry! // divider by @/plutism!

the guttural hunger ripples in waves as logan tears through your pants, each rip sending his hackles rising, the tension between the two of you brewing, until he’s got you fully bare and ready for him. your scent hits him hard, and he almost buckles down, his cock jumping underneath his suit, before he’s got your thighs cushioning either side of his head.

he takes in a greedy drag, nose flaring at the waft of your aroma—so wet and messy and all his.

logan’s eyes flick up to you for a moment—a question—and you give him the subtlest of nods, and it’s all he needs to pry his maw open. the thick string of blood and spit mixed together falls like a diabolical glob on your cunt, and watching him do this makes your breath hitch.

everything about this is rugged, animalistic, but it is also so, so hot. you try to rationalize past your need, telling yourself that this isn’t the right time to be fucked, not when logan’s bleeding all over your cunt, but a rough tongue presses flat on your slit and your thoughts are razed into fractures.

you keen, bucking in his hold, as your hands fly to grip anything you can, trying so desperately to ground yourself. logan doesn't let you, digging in like a man starved and aching; he ruts his bloodied mouth all over your pussy, hot tongue fucking past your folds and into the tight ring of your cunt, and slurps.

“fuck!” you cry out, fists tightening around whatever remains of your pants. your head falls backwards, exposing your throat as you scream.

logan can eat pussy, you’ve known that for years, but there is a curl of something primal in the way he eats you out tonight—all filthy and overwhelming, his silence making you feel ever more so like a prey being devoured. tears are already springing up from your eyes, beading, until a sob wretches itself from your throat because it’s—

it’s too good!

you’re babbling nonsense, you realize later, your words slurring when you beg and moan, telling him how it’s too much and how he needs to stop—“please ‘gan!”—as you feel your mind getting scrambled with the intensity of this all. you try to dislodge yourself from his hold, thrashing, but logan pushes you down with a firm hand on your belly, subduing every effort to rip his mouth off from your cunt.

you’re fully crying now, shaking, and you try warning him that you’re about to cum—the dregs of your ecstasy peaking with every lick and sharp teeth dragging to nip at your folds and at your clit—but you can’t. you’re too drunk off of the pleasure, and your body feels like a rubber pulled taut, ready to snap as your climax builds—

tipping—

then logan’s pulling away with a snarl.

“no!” you keen, sobbing, trembling hands reaching to pull him back before your euphoria dies down, but logan’s already straightening up and folding himself over you, his bulk easily covering you. “i wan’ cum! logan, please—”

“shh,” he coos, like he isn’t wet with your slick and his tan skin tinged with the slightest of red. you see yourself on his beard, droplets of your slick glinting like little diamonds as he leans in.

he pushes your hair away from your face with a grin, and it looks mean but not unkind; just teasing because he knows how much your need has grown. he must have. no one knows your body more than anyone else, after all, and you are sure that he knew that you were there, on the throes of your orgasm, waiting for it to spill into a stuttering blanket of white.

“i’ve got you, darl,” he continues, like he didn’t just edge you off. “gon’ fuck you good now—prepared you nice f’me, after all.”

oh.

you hiccup, still glaring up at him with vitriol despite the promise, but you feel yourself loosening up as the tension leaves your body. he hums, still petting your cheek, and you grumble, looking away because you can’t stand the force of his attention—all that crinkled-eye smile and raggedly endearing taunts he chirps at you.

logan hums, satisfied at seeing you placated, then he’s moving back up again. the action draws air into your exposed cunt and you move to shut your legs close, at least even for a bit, but he wrenches them apart with a heavy hand pressing down on your inner thigh, and slots himself properly between your legs. you roll your eyes at him, dutifully ignoring the way your cheeks are warming up at being so exposed before logan while he’s still all clothed with his suit.

he chuckles with a fond shake of his head, and paws for the zipper on his suit. the sound of it dragging makes you twitch, feeling hypersensitive again. you feel him getting excited too, his chest heaving when he finally pulls his cock out from his pants. you stare at it, still so unused to the size because logan’s big, yes, and he’s big everywhere—from his thighs to his delts, and now his cock.

it’s girthy, webbed with thick veins, and leaking; pearly pre- beading on the head, and nothing has ever made your mouth water more than seeing it.

you want it in you, yes, but fuck, you want your throat stuffed too. want it fucked raw and ruined; want to be used by logan—

but your cunt is wet and itching, and you want to cum so, so bad.

you wonder what you must have looked because logan’s stuffing his fingers in your mouth, as though in placation, and you suck on them, greedy, not minding the faint taste of earth and salty sweat. it makes you even headier, filling you up with the reminder of where you two are, and you whimper, need bloating, because fuck, you need him now.

logan is still quiet even when he taps his cock over your clit, sending goosebumps to rise all over your skin.

“ready, pretty bird?” he asks like he can’t smell the desperation rolling off of you.

still, you nod, and you try your best to relax because you feel so worked up already with all the dragging—

then, logan’s pushing in, in, in, and you are gone.

.

you don’t even know how many time’s you’ve cum now, only that your cunt is oversensitive and your thighs are a sticky mess and your throat is hoarse, but it must have been hours because the sky has turned dark, almost pitch black, and there’s nothing else but you and logan—

the sound of boots crinkling against rocks makes you freeze, your sharp senses breezing past the euphoric pressure being pounded into your cunt, before you put a hand over logan’s chest, making him stop.

with only the sounds of ragged breathing, the two of you hear where the echoing footsteps are coming from. still perched on your back—and speared by logan’s cock—you tip your head up, not minding the upside-down perspective of your surroundings.

logan groans the moment a familiar red suit walks into view. wade’s got his mask pulled up just enough that you two see his grin, then—

“and where’s my invitation?”

logan groans again, while you give out a breathy chuckle, pussy clenching around logan’s cock. he bucks in with a confused grumble.

what? your throat is still pretty lonely, after all.

wade was lounging atop a building when he sees his two favourite people fight— wait they’re— oh? oh.

[dr-zl]

...

[kirain]

I decided to make adult designs and "where are they now" stories for all the child tieflings who are confirmed to survive to Act 3.

Unbeknownst to her, Arabella was a latent sorcerer with a natural connection to the Weave. Her powers likely would've manifested at puberty, but touching the idol of Silvanus imbued her with wild druid magic, multiclassing her prematurely. This caused an internal struggle between the two powers, which threatened to rip her and anyone around her apart. Fortunately, with Withers' guidance, she set out to follow the Weave and found balance in her new, strange abilities. For years she traveled Faerûn alone, honing her skills and making peace with her past. Eventually, she became known as the "Wondering Storm", so attuned to nature some would mistake her for Silvanus' Chosen. Those who crossed her, however, would swear she was Jergal's Chosen; able to end a life with a single stare. Though not unkind, Arabella became feared by many for her stoic personality, mysterious presence, and peculiar command of the Weave. It seemed that wherever she was needed, she would inexplicably be.

Though Raphael went silent, Mol continued to enjoy, and perhaps abuse, the gifts from her patron. With the Absolute defeated, she quickly clawed her way up the ranks of the Guild, eventually becoming a pseudo ward to Nine-Fingers Keene. For years she would sharpen her skills, mentored by Keene and her most trusted associates, until she challenged the notorious crime lord to a duel for leadership. Much to her surprise, Keene lost, and was therefore forced to relinquish command to the young tiefling. Seeing the move as a betrayal, however, the Guild's loyalty was split, causing the criminal powerhouse to fracture. This led to a dark time for the Guild, with many in Baldur's Gate referring to it as the "Outlaw Civil War". Much blood was shed during this conflict, but eventually Mol turned the tides in her favour, running Keene and those still loyal to her out of the city. She would go on to rebuild the Guild in her image, successfully and more fearsome than ever; though, when she approached her old colleagues with an invitation to join, they all declined.

Once he managed to enter the city, Mattis tried to find his companions from the Grove, but he ultimately turned his sights to conning rich families with "panaceas from the hells". For a while, he flourished under this racket, until his scheme was exposed by jealous competition. This led to him being violently assaulted by angry customers, nearly ending his life—he only survived by rolling into a rapid canal. After being saved by a kind, impoverished couple who fished him out of the water, he spent nearly three months confined to a bed. His recovery was slow and agonizing, but hardly discouraging. Instead of succumbing to his misery, he took the time to plot his revenge. With the couple's help, he learned the laws of the land and revived his strength. Then, when able, he cut his hair, disguised his face, spied on the man who wronged him, and subsequently tricked him into signing his business over to the couple. Together, they turned the questionable business into something respectable. Mostly. Mattis' silver tongue finally became an asset, rather than a survival tactic, though he was never above a good swindle.

Ide and Umi took up arms during the Absolute's attack on the city, each of them basking in the action. Realising that Umi had developed an insatiable bloodlust, and itching for more battles herself, Ide suggested they enlist into the army. Though technically too young, the new General—appointed by High Duke Ravengard after the fall of the Absolute—accepted them as apprentices until they came of age.

Though their time with the Flaming Fist was imperative to their training and survival, they found the rules and hypocrisy of the troop disheartening, and even more so when the General died. Eventually they deserted, leaving Baldur's Gate entirely and starting a small band of vigilantes. To some, they were a menace. To others, they became heroes of the Sword Coast. No matter the case, Ide and Umi were inseparable, never seen apart.

Inspired by his saviours, Mirkon continued to write stories about his time in the Grove and his rescue from the harpies. He never found his parents, but he refused to live in the slum's orphanage. Life was hard for the young tiefling, often forcing him to grovel for food and coin. On the worst days, he found comfort turning his stories into songs, which he slowly morphed into a semi-profitable street act. This eventually caught the attention of Alfira, who one day happened to be passing by. Recognising his talent, and overjoyed to be reunited, she took him in and taught him how to play the violin. Together, they created a lucrative show that expanded well beyond the Elfsong Tavern, which aided Alfira in opening her dream college. She and Lakrissa would soon adopt Mirkon, and he would later become one of the most beloved and celebrated instructors at the college.

Though working as a hawker for the Baldur's Mouth kept Silfy fed and relatively sheltered, she grew listless. Dealing with rude and racist customers hardened her enough to snap back, resulting in her termination. With nowhere to go, she found herself wandering into Ramazith's Tower, where she implored Rolan for a job. Feeling for her plight, Rolan put her to work stocking shelves and filling orders. It wasn't exciting work, but she was safe and satisfied, until one day a customer's tome exploded, causing a flurry of rainbow flames that whirled into the shape of a unicorn. This event, though frightening, would inspire Silfy to start reading the books in the shop, with the help of Tolna and Rolan. To everyone's surprise, she proved to have an impressive aptitude for magic, and she soon found herself enthralled. Within just a few years, Silfy would be accepted into Blackstaff Academy, where she would excel in her studies and catch the eye of the great Vajra Safahr. She would offer Silfy a position in the school, as well as a mentorship, but Silfy would politely decline, graduate, and return to Bauldr's Gate. Her true home.

[pellucid-constellations]

Set in Stone

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: The Court of Nightmares is an evil place. Secret agendas, forced marriages, malicious intent; there’s nothing good or pure. But then Azriel finds you.

Word count: 1k

Warnings: Angst but just a little to start

a/n: hi 😌 please enjoy my random inspo after the mess that is my life happened. I plan to write more for these guys so consider this a prologue :)

Masterlist ♡

~~

Time moved slower in the library. 

People spoke quieter, the air stood still, dim sunlight stiffened in lines that cut across endless tables. 

There was no real reason for you to be here. 

None at all. 

You welcomed the faint buzzing in your ears anyway, relished in the quiet you couldn’t find elsewhere. Flipping the page and going to the next, you pretended you did belong. Maybe as a scholar or researcher. Maybe an acclaimed author. An inventor, entrepreneur, alchemist—anything but the bleak reality. 

You were stuck. So, incredibly stuck. 

The high lord was coming today. You knew if you weren't in the hall with your family upon his arrival you would get an earful, but it was difficult to pull away from your beautiful corner of the night court.

No one ever came in here, and if they did they were over a millennium old and cared only for the books on foreign policy and probably the torture of young children, if you had to take a guess. But there was plenty of enjoyable material lining the shelves. Sure, it wasn’t very joyful, but it was informative, and anything was better than listening to your father blab on about your marriage prospects—an uncomfortable conversation that was to come to fruition any day now. 

With any luck, your husband would be a merchant who traveled endlessly or a soldier whose life would come to a quick end, leaving you free of any wifely obligations. But luck was hardly on your side, and as the daughter of a noble you were expecting a husband of the same station. 

And dukes were the absolute worst, all self-important and stagnant.  

An unfamiliar echo sent your head whipping to the side before you could tame your reaction. The library door swung open with such force it sent dusty air flying past your face. Typically, the old men entered meekly, the hefty door difficult for them to open. The abruptness of this entry, the power that seeped across the threshold, had you standing and pressing yourself against the table in milliseconds. 

You weren’t a fighter. Women were not allowed to learn anything of the sort here. You briefly debated if your embroidery skills would be enough to pose a threat to this presence, but that thought wisped away with the flickering shadows twining around your ankles. 

You didn’t recognize him at first. The high lord and his circle didn’t come to court often, and even when they did, they stayed far away on the dais or slinked around in hallways threateningly. And this man especially—the spy—he was almost always cloaked in shadow. 

His shadows weren’t covering him now, instead opting to twist up your body in a terrifying display. Were they searching you? Attempting to suffocate you? Paralyze you? 

It didn’t matter much, not when the shadowsinger himself was standing before you, exposed and armed to the teeth, his amber eyes locked on your own widened gaze. 

Your breath came out in short pants, uncomfortable and hard to capture. Your knuckles went white against the table, and you were sure if you were stronger, fractures would have appeared in the wood. The edge dug into your back. Shadows continued to make paths up your skin. 

The spymaster didn’t look away. 

The trembling began. It started with your jaw, then your legs, and then your chest. Breathing became nearly impossible. 

“Take care of that.” 

The last time the high lord made his rounds in court, those words had been a death sentence. One the man before you had carried out. A simple flick of his wrist and shadows had encased the lowly merchant that had insulted the high lady. His screams still echoed in the hall. 

At least, they echoed for you. 

The merchant was not a good man. Most that resided in the night court were not good people. But death was easy to come by here, and the shadowsinger—with his glaring siphons only inches away—was an executioner. 

Your life was little, meaningless, no direction or purpose other than marriage and continuing a family line, but you wanted to live for the chance of more. For the hope that one day, you might be free of this dank palace. 

Something softened in the spymaster’s eyes, and then he took a step forward, edging his hand towards you, palm up. The screeching of the table at your back made him halt. Your knees were shaking, your book now toppled over to the floor, and the shadows had refused to answer the call from their master. But you stood your ground, expecting a bruise where the table connected to your skin. 

“I apologize,” the Illyrian spoke, causing you to flinch once again. His own features seemed to recoil, and he took half a step back. “I am here on business for the high lord. I only seek the artifact room.” 

If you answered him, perhaps he would spare you. 

Your mouth opened and closed several times before the first sounds left your lips. “In the back. B-by the archives.” 

He nodded, but the action seemed delayed, slowed. As if he was measuring your reactions, trying to anticipate them. When you didn’t flinch again, he sent his hand out once more, this time with more force. Your breath caught, but when the shadows retreated from your body, some of the tension left you. 

The shadowsinger sidestepped, taking the longest route possible around your table toward the artifact room. Once his back was turned, you scrambled. You left the book spine up on the floor, quickly gathering your belongings with shaking hands and trembling fingers. The echoing of the man’s heavy boots rang with each step he took, but it was reassuring—it meant he was getting further and further away. 

It wasn’t until your hand met the sturdy door that fear crept back along the edges of your chest. 

“Your name?” 

The words were powerful, gravelly, but they were soft somehow. Effortfully tamed. 

You gave him your name, but the sound was lost in the swinging of the door.

[steviewashere]

Baby Blanket

Rating: General CW: Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abandonment (as I think that's what it would technically be even if Steve is an adult at this point) Tags: Post-Canon, Future Fic, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Sick Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson Takes Care of Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Steve Harrington Has a Complicated Relationship With His Mom, Baby Blanket, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Eddie Loves Him So Bad, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Sad Steve Harrington, Cuddling & Snuggling For @steddieangstyaugust Day 15 Prompt: Childhood (apologies that I'm late, but this idea hit me very last minute on the 15th, oops!) Also, I didn't mean to describe Linus's (from Peanuts/Charlie Brown) blanket, but I sorta did?

🌡️—————🌡️ He’s careful about inserting the thermometer into Steve’s mouth. Even as the aforementioned guy coughs around it, jostling the little glass thing, nearly knocking it straight back down to the floor. But he’s prepared to keep it from crashing this time. No way is he going out to the store—again—to replace the damn thing.

“Breathe slow through your nose, sweetheart,” Eddie breathes, demanding lightly. “I know it’s hard to do right now, but we won’t get an accurate reading if you spit this thing out.” He cups his palms under Steve’s chin just in case, all too riled at the thought of having to be the catcher on the field. But it just ends up being a precautionary thing—as Steve, though rolling his eyes, does exactly what he’s told.

It’s a slow going process. The mercury inside working up, up, up as the time ticks away. A minute passes and Eddie knows that Steve is suppressing coughs. His eyes have gone watery and his cheeks, already flushed, glow a deeper and brighter terrible red. There’s got to be a huge wad of snot stuck half past and around the block in his right nostril, the feeble attempts at sucking in air are just that—feeble. And the deepest tell to Steve’s state is the awful, wet, raspy rattling croaking from his chest.

Inwardly, Eddie raises his fist at whatever god allowed the creation of the flu virus. And he shakes that fist for causing that damn virus to spread.

His watch beeps, two minutes up. And he gently pries the thermometer from Steve’s overly moist mouth, unlocking the hacking of his lungs, and the spray of his spit, and the miserable attempts to cover it all up with his elbow. Not like that would do anything, Eddie bitterly thinks, I already had this shit last week.

103 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Shit,” Eddie mutters. He sets the thermometer onto the coffee table. Reaches out for Steve’s shoulders and forces him back down onto his right side—half flopped already on the sofa, just needs to get his legs tucked back underneath him. And he pets a shaking hand over the exposed, goosepimpled, and overheated skin of Steve’s bicep. Usually, this muscle tank he’s got going on would be hot, but now it’s just…bleh. “Listen,” Eddie whispers, “if your fever doesn’t break by tomorrow morning, I have to take you to the hospital, okay?”

Steve gives a weak whine. Eyes closed, mouth twisted, shivering. “I don’t wanna,” he petulantly protests; but that’s not going to work on Eddie. Not this time, at least.

“I know,” Eddie murmurs, “I know, baby. But I’m serious this time. You’ve already been sick a while longer than I have. And you’re shaking like a leaf. And though you finally were able to keep down some crackers and soup—and water, thank god—you’ve barely had anything to eat. I’m just”—he sighs—“I’m worried, Steve. I’m worried this is something more than just the average flu.”

Another weak little sound, this time something like a sniffle. And when Eddie gets a clear look at Steve’s face, no longer buried into the soft throw pillow under his head, his heart begins to fracture. Tears streak Steve’s already ruddy, terribly warm cheeks. And his lips are quivering. And his eyebrows are quirked in an uncomfortable twist.

And Eddie hates this.

“Baby?” He calls to Steve.

“S-sorry,” Steve chokes out, “I don’t feel good.”

He brings his hand off of Steve’s bicep, instead cupping the back of his head. “Okay,” he softly says, “you don’t need to be sorry, baby. But thank you for telling me how you’re feeling. Can you tell me what doesn’t feel good? Maybe I can help fix it?”

For a long moment, Steve doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets the last of his tears out of his system, lets Eddie hold him along his greasy hair, and continues to shiver through his whole body. Finally, he whispers, “Can you stay and…can you cuddle with me?” He doesn’t look Eddie in the eyes when he requests it. Doesn’t dare drag his sight off the loose threads of the throw pillows, strings that Eddie promised he would sew back straight when they were both feeling better. Steve takes another raspy, deep breath that physically pains Eddie to even hear. And then he tacks on, softer than before, “My mom used to when she still loved…” He sighs.

There’s not much to say to that, other than Eddie immediately and already agreeing. Because a cuddle with his boyfriend is as easy as breathing air for him. But they still haven’t touched on the sore subject that is Steve’s parents. Or Steve’s childhood, for that matter.

It’s not like there’s much reason to. Not when they’ve got a life outside of Hawkins now and have their own apartment and Steve hasn’t spoken to either of his parents in roughly three whole years. Not when they’ve learned to take responsibility for each other—both in the duty of making sure the other is safe and healthy, and in the sense that without the other, one of them just wouldn’t be. And it’s never time to talk about Steve’s parents when all they’ve done is push him aside, leave him second best to their work and social lives, and when they finally paid attention—they realized that having a certain type of kid (a word that they don’t repeat, an f word) hindered all the “work” they’ve done for the family they have.

Not that they’re family.

But they tried to act like one at some point.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers, “let’s get you to our room, okay? You want me to get anything else before I slip into bed with you?”

Again, Steve takes a moment of silence. Then, “I stole one of my mom’s blankets when we moved in here. It’s in the hall closet. Can I have that?”

“Yes, baby. What’s the pattern on it?”

Quietly, Steve answers, “My baby blanket. The blue one. It has my name embroidered on it.”

“I’ll grab it, I promise. Now, let me get you to bed and I’ll be with you in just a second.”

He easily and carefully picks Steve up from the couch. Not exactly light, but not heavy either. And shuffles the two of them down the hallway to their bedroom. Tucks Steve under just the top sheet, no comforter. Pushes hair away from his forehead and back behind his ear. Leaves a little kiss to his right cheek, the heat radiating onto Eddie’s lips.

Then, Eddie grabs what he needs: an ice pack from the freezer, a cold bottle of water, the container of cough syrup, and some Tylenol. It’s the baby blanket that’s harder to get. Not because it’s buried in the back of the closet. And not because it’s simply not there.

But it’s the way it lays between Eddie’s hands that really gets him.

It’s a pale blue. Something close to periwinkle. Has a light layer of fuzz and lint, as if it’s hardly been washed over the years. Too precious of cargo to run through the washing machine, and too hard to take away for a hand wash when Steve probably needed it all the time. The edges are frayed—strings loose, some of the stitching completely missing, a few tears that would never be sewn up to the original corner it’s meant to be. There’s a couple small stains on it, most likely from being dragged or even dropped in dirt. In the bottom right corner of the fabric is a name embroidered in off-white floss: Steve. Though, upon closer inspection, it appears one of the letters is missing. The only thing left in its wake is the shadow of what should’ve been an ’N.’ Like maybe it had been altered at some point.

The size of the thing pulls at Eddie’s heart strings, too.

Not a big one—like the quilt his mama made when he had turned three, though it wouldn’t fully cover him until he was ten (when she wouldn’t see him use it, but he tries hard not to think of that. Tries.). It’s not medium, either. No, this baby blanket is the perfect size for a baby; a newborn baby.

Underneath Eddie’s right index finger, he feels a soft tag on the back of the blanket. And when he flips it over, he spots exactly that. A tag. Not with care instructions like some of those store bought blankets—pre-determined with a name. No, it’s a screwy kind of tag. Made from obvious silk, scrap fabric, off-white, too, but yellowing from old age. And in a black, inky scrawl, it reads:

‘For you, my little prince. For my heart. I love you always. -Mommy’

And he didn’t want to cry, but he’s close to bursting with the need to. So, he shoves that little bit of emotion back inside, puts the blanket in the crook of his left elbow, and carries his haul back to their bedroom. Where he finds Steve in the same position: curled up on his left side, hands tucked under his chin, legs bent and ankles crossed, the top sheet pulled all the way up to his wrists, eyes glazed and looking at the empty left spot of the mattress where Eddie should be.

He puts the ice pack on the back of Steve’s neck, even if he’s met with a slight hiss and a half-assed wriggle away. But, thankfully, the fight can be put off because Steve stops trying to get away. To that, Eddie internally relieves a sigh. Twists the cap off of the bottle of water, but places it on Steve’s bedside table for him to reach later. The cough syrup and Tylenol go to Eddie’s table. But the baby blanket goes immediately to Steve, who takes it with quick, healthy movements.

Eddie can only lay himself under the top sheet, melting and softening at the sight of Steve bringing the blanket up close to his face, tucking one of the torn and frayed edges to his bottom lip. He runs the old fabric on his dry mouth, almost like he’s smearing kisses along the thing.

“Thank you,” Steve tiredly breathes.

Laying on his right side, Eddie has full access to Steve from where he is. He reaches out a gentle hand to the side of his boyfriend’s face, caresses his skin tenderly, and then pulls him close between his shoulder blades. Not quite tucked into Eddie’s warmth, but enough that they could share body heat. But he does tangle their legs together, just to give them contact, just to satiate some of what Steve needs.

Steve scoots even closer, though. Closer than how they should lay considering he’s got a temperature that nearly warrants a hospital visit. But Eddie lets him lay his head on his shoulder. Lets him puff warm air onto his neck. Lets him take.

“Eds?”

He hums questioningly.

A hard, yet slow intake of breath. “I miss my mom,” Steve admits quietly. So quietly, Eddie almost doesn’t hear him. But he does. Damnit, he does. “She’s not a bad person. She’s not…she’s not what my dad made her to be.”

“I know,” Eddie can only say, ��I know, Stevie.”

“She love—s me.”

Eddie throws his left arm over Steve’s waist, brushes his hand over the small of Steve’s back. “Yeah?” He asks softly.

“Mhm,” Steve answers, “I know it.” Eddie can just feel the tickle of the baby blanket brush him. Like it’s being pulled even closer. “She made this for me. And she…she used to tell me stories. And she took care of me when I was sick.”

He has to bite his tongue, even as his fingers betray him—as they squeeze Steve at the utterance of those words. Because he knows better than to point out the ‘was’ in those sentences. He knows better than to make a point that Steve’s mom hasn’t even bothered to try and keep contact. Even when she was given a phone number—“For emergencies,” so Steve had said.

Though, that makes Eddie wonder if it was for emergencies at all.

Makes him wonder if it really meant, “Call me every once in a while. Don’t be a stranger.”

He can’t tell Steve, delirious and sick and sad Steve, that his mom is effectively a stranger now. Can’t do that. Can’t be the one to tell him that his mom is basically dead. And the evidence of that is her absence.

He can’t do that.

“Oh, she loves you so much, baby,” he lies.

Steve nods. His hair scraping the underside of Eddie’s jaw, dirty and heavy and prickly. “She does,” he agrees. Then, he goes silent again. His fingers running over the blanket, feet rustling under the top sheet, skin on skin, nasally breaths through a stuffed up nose. 

“Doesn’t she?” Steve asks later, quiet and low. Unsure.

🌡️—————🌡️

[madamechrissy]

Yandere Gojo

From Fractured Desires ch 6 - Link below-

MDNI- Heavy breeding kink here lol, yandere, kinda a mind fuck, Satoru is hot like this I'm sorry

“Please, please… Satoru, I need you in me. Please.” You’re begging so hard you’re fucking sobbing, and finally Satoru is shoving you into the bed, and before you can take a breath he has your leg on his shoulder, and his cock buried to the fucking hilt. “Oh my god! F-fuck! Toru!”

“Is that what you’re begging for, needy little slut?” He whispers those words through gritted teeth, you just nod mindlessly, as your little cunt stretches to accommodate his thickness, and he’s got his hand braced on your thigh, pressing it further, sinking impossibly deeper, making you scream.

“Yes, yes, yes…. Thank you. Thank you. Need you.” You’re whimpering, stuttering, as he’s pulling back, making you hiss a bit at the pain, before he’s shoved back in, hitting even harder. “Want you. Want you.”

“Yeah baby, do you? How should I fuck this pretty pussy? Hard, fucking break it? Or easy, and break your stupid little mind.” You are already stupid, you can’t think when he’s on top of you.

“You do anything you want to me, Satoru Gojo. Please. Anything.” He groans now, slamming into you so deep you can’t take it, you’re already close, that white stubble above his cock tickling your exposed clit as he just grinds that tip against your cervix.

“You’re mine to do anything I want, huh? Ya sure about that?” You just nod, and he’s now fucking into you, hard, long strokes, but they’re slow , agonizingly slow, keeping you right on that edge.

“Anything, anything.” You say, breathless between strokes, you can’t keep your goddamn mouth shut, not when Satoru Gojo’s cock is deep in your cunt.

“What if I want you pregnant? What if I want you to- ah- never leave me?” He demands, and you don’t even care, you’ll get pregnant, you’ll do anything, as his length is stroking in and out. You’re so soaked you can hear every slutty stroke of your pussy squish in the room as he’s wrecking your insides.

“Do it. Fucking do it.” You mumble, eyes rolling back as he presses in, and you cling to his bare shoulders, letting out pathetic whimpers. “Cumming, cumming-ah!”

“All over this cock, good girl.” His words make it worse, now you can’t breathe, as the climax washes over you, knocking you off this existence, now you’re somewhere in space, with Satoru moving over you.

He’s filling you so deep, and now he’s rocking against you, leaky tip grinding inside your cervix, your eyes lock onto his, as his lidded gaze drinks you in, his long, snowy white lashes fluttering. But he never doesn’t look at you, he’s enthralled, pressing that thigh even further, rolling his hips just so, hitting every spot you have, discovering more you didn’t know.

You gape, your mouth opening and shutting stupidly, as he’s biting that lower lip, and he brushes your hair back softly, then something hits, and hits hard, you can’t even describe it. When he’s so vulnerable then, when he’s so deep, and a drip of sweat falls from his chin onto your lips. You lap it up, your own hands coming to cup his face, as you roll your hips.

“Satoru… I…” You struggle, you can’t say this stupid shit. Can you?’

“You’re perfect.” He says, rolling his hips again, watching as he tears you apart, makes you into a trembling mess. “Wanna get you pregnant, want you to never work, never leave.”

His words should scare you, he should scare you. Satoru is a red flag, but you don’t seem to care, in fact it makes it more heady, it makes you wetter, the insane shit he’s saying. “Then do it.”

“Do it!?” You nod, rolling up again, and pressing you lips up for more of his brutal kisses.

“Give me it, your babies. In me. Please!” Now you’re so close again, and he’s groaning, shoving your thighs up so high you’re smushed, and your struggle to breathe, while he’s fucking into you so deep like this, so deep you can’t stop yourself from cumming around his length, spasming, making him tense.

“Never leave me. Never.” He says, maddening eyes, and you should hesitate, but you fucking can’t, you can’t with him.

“Never. Never, Satoru-ngh!” He’s fucking you so hard, so deep now, bending down to hold your face in his huge hands, as his cock shoves in so deep you scream in pain, but fuck it feels good.

“Never, never. Can’t. Won’t- let- ah- you go. No.” He’s fucking insane, you see it in his maddened state, it’s like he’s consumed, consumed by you, and you gasp at the intensity, as he’s fucking you so hard, as the smacks are loud in the room. “Mine, mine. Mine, say it.”

“Yours. Yours. Yours.” You are his, how could there have ever been anything, how when his hot, full lips are on yours, how when he has you bent in half, how when he’s railing the fuck out of you.

It’s all Satoru Gojo.

“I’m filling you up, baby, you better fucking take it all. Can you, take all of me? Can you?” He’s asking it in so many ways, and you barely register you’re sobbing when a strangled sound comes out.

“Yes, yes. All of you. Give me it.”  You plead, and your foreheads touch, as he’s stretching your eager pussy, making it so sloppy wih each thrust, as he slows, and shoves so hard it hurts, but you want it.

You want every bit.

“Make you a fucking mommy. Keep you knocked up. Got me?” He whispers, fucking insanely, but you nod, you can’t speak anymore. “Beg for it.”

“C-can’t… t-talk…” He’s groaning now, hot breaths brushing your bruised lips, reddened from all his kisses.

“Beg for it. For me. Now.” His words are jerky, broken, and you finally gasp a bit, struggling to form a word.

“Please, please…” He smacks you again, kissing the spot as soon as he does, and you almost cum.

“Not yet. Not yet. Say it… better.” He demands, jerky movements halted, as your stinging cheek keeps getting kissed.

“Please sir?” Another smack, and you whine out. “Please, what the fuck do you want me to say!? Lemme have your cum. Your babies.”

“Ask better, fucking brat.” He says through gritted teeth. “Ask me better. Perfect, beautiful goddamn bitch, bane of my fucking existense.” You should hate those words, but you’re throbbing now, so goddamn close even though he’s just staying still.

Your eyes are filled with tears as your face is reddening, overheated, overstimulated, dying for him. “Please, give me babies, Sir. Ow, what!?”

“Better, do better.” You pause then, disoriented, blinking in confusion, your brain is too stupid and fucked out to think.

“Please, please, want your babies in me, s’bad… Daddy please, fill me up with them-” Satoru is groaning now, eyes snapping shut as he’s slammed into you, making you choke on your words, on pleasure, and you’re crying, it’s just so much.

“Good girl, that’s it, that’s it. Take it, baby, take everything. You’re gonna get knocked up right here, right now, in your slutty little cunt.” And with those words, he’s cumming, and you’re coming, and it’s so fucking much cum. He’s pulsing inside you, and you feel it, feel his hot cum filling you up, coating your walls as your cunt sucks it up.

Like she wants these babies, how couldn’t she, how couldn’t you, when this man you barely know has claimed you like this? You’re shaking, your walls clenching around him, begging for more, even though you know you can’t take anymore, and now Satoru is coming down from his high, panting and looking at you, pupils just pinpoints, as he slowly shoves that cum deeper, as you’re shoving it with how hard you’re pulsing.

“Holy fuck… I… Satoru, I…” You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you’re just sobbing, and you expect him to make fun of you, but he pulls you close, caressing your hair now, gently.

“I know, I know baby.” He murmurs, as you sob against the crook of his neck, as you cling to him. “I know.”

Crazy/messy/toxic yandere long smutfic here -

Tumblr Masterlist: Fractued Desires

[corazondebeskar-reads]

the art of breaking (dark!joel miller x f!reader; dead dove do not eat)

the art of breaking part one | part two

very dark!Joel Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 10k

Summary: Your meeting is happenstance, but everything that follows? Well, that’s all Joel. He just knows you’re going to be his perfect little toy. He just has to show you how.

written for the #deaddovedecember2023 event hosted by @romana-after-dark | also on ao3 | dedicating this to @kewwrites, who is a master and icon of unsettling-but-still-romantic dark fic & whose incredible vibes made me feel brave enough to write this. love you ty 🖤

dividers by @saradika-graphics

NOTE: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.

Seriously, I am saying this as clearly as I can: read the warnings carefully. If anything listed is something you don’t want to read, don’t. The working title for this was “the darkest joel” for a reason (and I actually tamed it down/cut out some of the intense scenes). It’s modern-day/no outbreak, but Joel still lost Sarah and went off the deep end. He was probably a good dom at some point, but now he’s just fucked up.

If you're worried it'll be too dark, it probably will be.

Warnings under the cut:

Warnings: dead dove do not eat, non-con, dub-con, very dark!Joel, BAD bdsm etiquette, not SSC/RACK compliant, sadist!Joel x masochist!reader, coercion, corruption, manipulation, isolation, gaslighting, captivity, sadism, masochism, pain play, extreme punishment, semi-permanent damage (a bone is broken, I’m not fucking around), whipping, spanking, face slapping, tit slapping, impact play in general, mentions of vomit (no description), oral, anal, vaginal, degradation, humiliation, overstimulation, edging, denial, dacryphilia, bastinado (mentioned), restraints, very brief knifeplay, tiny drop of blood play, Joel sees reader as property, inadequate aftercare 

Again, I cannot say this enough. This is a dark fantasy and should not be taken as representative of a good d/s relationship—it’s abuse masquerading. Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I’m condoning it. 

Please read responsibly. 

I. in media res

     -the fracture

There’s one comfort Joel almost never denies you.

Well, never denies himself.

Unless you’ve been real bad, you always take your place in bed with him at the end of the day. You think it’s so he has easy access to you if he wakes up horny, but honestly, that happens a lot less than expected. He works hard all day; he needs his sleep.

No, he likes the comfort of your warm body next to his. The way you curl up and press kisses to him, no matter how bad he hurt you during the day. His sweet little pet, desperate for every bit of his affection you can earn. He’s always gentle with you here.

It’s part of what makes The Pit so effective.

It fucks with your brain on so many levels, exposes you to so many fears, and then you have to reconcile that you were bad enough for Joel to deny himself the comfort of you in his arms at night. That you’re so undeserving of his love.

Of all of the ways he punishes you, this will be the worst. You can take the humiliation, the pain—not easily, but you can, and there’s usually immediate care after.

But a night in The Pit will tear you down completely.

You hadn’t known what to expect when he said you’d have to spend the night alone, but it wasn’t this.

“No, please,” you scream, stumbling to keep up as Joel pulls you by your hair.

“Shut up,” he snarls.

The soil is loose, clinging to your sweat as you try to right yourself. It’s a futile effort. When you reach The Pit, he holds you down with his boot on your chest while he unlocks and opens the bars.

“Get in,” he says.

You’re sobbing and shaking, skin already gone cold. Somehow, you manage to obey.

The Pit is exactly what it sounds like. It has an open wooden frame with mesh on the side walls to keep the dirt in place. The bottom is bare soil. Mounted to the top of the beams is a grate of bars that sit flush with the ground.

It’s big enough for you to curl up at the bottom—which is what you do now.

“I’m sorry,” you cry.

He shuts and locks the gate.

II. from the start

     -intact

It was kismet, really, that he was there that night. He didn’t usually go out for drinks with the guys, not wanting to be the boss who was always cramping their style. But Tommy had dragged him out tonight, and so he was witness (with the rest of the pub) to your relationship falling apart.

And okay, maybe he went outside for a smoke after you moved the fight to the alley so he could eavesdrop. But it wasn’t his fault. How could he not?

You had said, “Maybe you’re just not man enough for me,” to the brawny but pathetic prick across from you in the booth. “Wanting you to be rough doesn’t make me a freak.”

“That’s not rough; that’s fuckin’ abuse. You’re sick,” your boyfriend had practically shouted.

The discussion evolved into a screaming match in the alley, where Joel had been pleased to be right. It was about more than just a little rough sex or spanking.

At the end of it, your boyfriend stormed off, and you went back in the pub. Joel found you at the bar, throwing back another shot and wiping your tears away.

“You did good back there,” he says.

You startle and look at the stranger. The very handsome stranger. Rugged, with a salt and pepper beard and a scar across his nose.

“What do you mean?”

“Standin’ up for yourself. Not a lot of people woulda been confident enough. ‘Specially not a girl lookin’ for that.”

You glare at the bar counter. “M’not a weirdo.”

“Nah, you’re not. Shit like that is perfectly normal. He’s just pathetic.”

You look back up at him, and he sticks one hand in his pocket, trying to adjust himself discreetly. The tear streaks on your cheeks are getting to him.

“I don’t know. He’s probably right. It’s not your garden variety shit,” you say. The tequila and his gentle eyes have loosened your tongue.

“I doubt that. Try me,” he says.

“What?”

“Try me. Tell me what he freaked out over, and I’ll tell ya if it’s weird. Trust me, I’ve seen it all.”

You hesitate, but he looks genuine and kind. “I asked him to hit me. Like, in the face. And to, y’know, pin me down and—” you trail off.

“And make ya take it?” he guesses.

You nod. “He thought I like, I dunno, actually wanted to be raped,” you whisper the last word, eyes darting to the people around you.

Joel laughs. “Honey, that’s so normal, you wouldn’t believe. I’ve helped ladies out with that little roleplay more times than I can count. If that’s your deepest, darkest fantasy, and he couldn’t take it, then you’re better off without him.”

“It’s not,” you mumble.

“Speak up, honey.”

“It’s not my deepest, darkest fantasy. It’s probably one of the least of them.”

He grins. “Then you’re definitely better off. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with likin’ things on the darker side, sweetheart.”

You’re feeling hot all over and are about to ask him more when your phone rings. It’s your idiot boyfriend, who’s realized you have the car keys.

“I better go. Thank you,” you say, standing and offering him your hand.

He gives it a firm shake, tipping his head. “I’m Joel. And if you’re ever so inclined, I’d like to take you out sometime.”

You laugh. “Let me break up with my boyfriend first, Joel.” But you dig a pen out of your purse and write your number on one of the tiny bar napkins.

Your first date was so normal. You’re not sure what you expected. To jump right to hardcore sex?

But no, he turns up at your door in a neatly pressed green button-up, black slacks, and an ostentatious belt buckle. He greets you with a kiss on the cheek and a bouquet of wildflowers, lavender stalks nestled between pink honeysuckle and red salvia. Not a traditional arrangement, but it reminds you of a summer sunset.

“From my garden,” he says a little sheepishly, but you like them a lot better than some generic store display. You tell him as much and his cheeks flush a little.

You return the kiss and pop the flowers in a vase of water before he sweeps you off in his pickup. You aren’t surprised, really, but it’s more charming than some of the other men and their gaudy trucks.

Joel’s is older but well-kept, with minimal rusting around the wheel wells. The bed is open, and you can see streaks of grease and paint spills. A silver tool chest is mounted against the back of the cab. Everything inside and out has a light coating of sawdust.

He isn’t some insecure man with a truck big enough to make up for what isn’t in his britches, that’s for certain. You’d hazard a guess that the corded muscle of his forearms and the breadth of his shoulders are well-earned.

He holds the door open for you, which you tease him for as you slide onto the truck’s bench seat.

“Ain’t doin’ it ‘cause you’re incapable,” he drawls. “Or because you’re a lady,” he adds when he sees the glint in your eye.

“Oh yeah, cowboy?”

His grin is lopsided, a little dark. “Nah. I just think you deserve to be taken care of, s’all.”

You flush, the back of your neck burning, but you don’t fight the smile that threatens to break out. “Thank you, Joel.”

He shakes his head. He’s pretty sure, now, that if he plays his cards right, he’s found somethin’ special.

He waits three whole dates to take you to bed, and even then, it doesn’t start dirty.

“Let me get to know your body first, baby,” he urges when you ask him to fuck you rough. Instead, he takes you apart piece by piece. First with his tongue, and then his fingers. He brings you to the edge over and over, but never lets you fall.

After a while, you’re a broken record, pleas and sobs spilling from you.

“That’s music to my ears, darlin’,” he says, pulling his fingers out abruptly to see how your cunt throbs for him. He spits on your clit and watches it drip down to join the mess between your thighs.

“Please, please, Joel,” you beg.

“Please who now?”

“Please, sir,” you try, and are rewarded with his sharp grin. But not with an orgasm.

He slaps your cunt. “That’s more like it, baby. You remember who you’re talkin’ to, alright?”

You nod. “Yes, sir; thank you, sir.”

He shakes his head, sucking on your clit for a moment before pulling back to get a good look at you. “You do like a little pain, huh?”

“Would like more,” you say.

“Oh yeah? What would you let me do to you?”

“Anything, please, sir.”

He clicks his tongue at you. “Don’t go sayin’ that to someone you barely know. It’s okay to mean it when you trust somebody, but you’re gonna end up in more trouble than you bargain for if you pass that out like candy.”

“I do mean it.”

“Yeah? You’ll let me do this?” His open palm smacks across your face, leaving a sting tingling on your cheek and a lightness to your brain.

Tears spring to your eyes, but you nod frantically.

“What about this?” he grabs a nipple in his calloused fingers and yanks, twisting.

You yelp, but it trails off to a moan, and you nod.

“Goddamn, baby. S’good. But what about this?” He flicks open the switchblade he keeps in his pocket.

You jerk and whine, eyes wide and wet as he brings it to your breast. Your breathing falls shallow as you try to hold still, the point scraping the delicate skin as he circles it. But the look you’re giving him almost has him cumming in his pants like he were twenty years younger.

“Fuck, you weren’t kidding. I mean, you’ve gotta have limits; everyone does. But you just want me to hurt you, huh?” He digs the tip of the blade in a little on the side of your breast, cock throbbing as you gasp, and you both watch a tiny drop of blood bead and trickle down the blade.

He puts it away. “No,” he says when you whimper. “Not today. I ain’t prepared for all that.”

Joel doesn’t like to break his toys. Not permanently. Just enough that he can put them back together how he likes and then do it all over again.

“Don’t need to be prepared; just do it,” you whine.

He slaps you again and wrenches your head up with a hand in your hair. “First of all, I fuckin’ told you no. Second, I know you want to be a stupid little cunt for me, but I’m not about to cut you open without any goddamn first aid shit.”

He leans back and smacks the breast he had cut. He hits you over and over, alternating sides, until your chest burns, and you’re sobbing.

He looks you over briefly and then shoves his hand between your thighs. “You’re wetter than a slip ‘n slide, baby.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” you whisper.

“I know,” he says, and wipes the tears from your cheek with his thumb. He feels your cunt twitch when he brings his thumb to his mouth and sucks it clean.

It’s the last straw for him. He’s not opened you enough, but he has a feeling you’ll like it better this way anyway.

You cry out, back arching when he shoves into you. He meant to go slow, he really did, if only to drag out the anticipation. But you’re so warm. So wet. So he just stuffs himself inside.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe you love the pain; it’s just that he can’t resist feeling the evidence for himself. He slaps you across the face while you’re still processing his cock, and the resulting clench and jerk of your body drag a moan from him.

He holds back, regulates his urge to pull each whimper and scream from you, but it’s still so fucking good. It’s been a long time since he’s doled out real cruelty to a slut like you who loves to suffer.

When he finally lets you cum, it’s when he’s about to. He pulls out and spanks your cunt, granting his permission. As your pussy flutters desperately around nothing, he cums on it, watching the way it gets prettier as he paints it.

You black out for a minute. When you come to, he’s wiping you down gently with a warm washcloth, wicking the sweat off your face and chest before cleaning his cum from your curls. You whimper, and he grins, leaning over to steal a kiss.

Even after that first night, he goes slow. He can’t scare ya, not while you still have someplace to run. Plus, it’s so much easier if he starts planting the seeds for your training now.

He knows you’ll beg for it, anyway. He’s been getting the nastiest text messages from you. Part of it is the dopamine; he’s not stupid. But part of you really wants this shit. And the rest? Well. You’ll get there.

It’s the little things. He orders you a black decaf at the drive-thru when you ask for a latte. You start to correct him, like you think he’s made a mistake, but he gives you a look, and you shut your mouth immediately.

When he pulls away from the speaker, you look over at him again. “Sorry,” you mumble.

“Sorry…?”

You squirm a little, heart pounding, unsure if he’s really doing this at the Dunkin’ Donuts. “Sorry, sir.”

He smiles and rubs his hand on your thigh where it peeks out from your skirt. “Thanks, baby.”

And that’s all it takes. You take the cup when he hands it to you and you’re quick to say, “Thank you, sir,” even though the kid at the window is still passing things through to Joel and can clearly hear you.

     -fissured

It goes on like that for a couple of months, but it doesn’t all go so smoothly. One night, he picks you up from work and takes you to a restaurant, saying he wants to treat you. Halfway through the meal, he asks for your panties.

“What?” you say, shocked at his vulgar language in the dining room.

“Take ‘em off and hand ‘em to me.”

You go to stand, probably thinking you can go to the bathroom to obey.

He shakes his head, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “Right here, right now, baby.”

“Joel,” you hiss, sitting back down, “I can’t do that.”

He fixes you with a calm smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, raising one finger in the air. “I’ll give ya three choices. The first one, the one I’m going to advise you pick, is that you do it right now, and I’ll only punish ya for talkin’ back.”

“The second one,” he holds up another finger for emphasis, “is you can go to the bathroom to take ‘em off, but you’re gonna pay for it when we get home. The third one is where you don’t listen, we leave right now, and you learn to fuckin’ regret it.”

Your breathing is shallow, and your pretty eyes are shining. If he wasn’t fully hard before, he is now.

“I-I can’t,” you whimper. “Please, sir.”

“You got about thirty seconds to make up your mind.” The softness is gone—from his voice, from his face, from the set of his shoulders.

“Fuck,” you whisper, and you stand up. You’re only in the bathroom for a minute, and when you sit back down, you try to hand them to him under the table.

“Nah, that was only a choice if you were good,” he says, smirking and laying his expectant hand on the white linens.

Mortified, you ball them up tight in your fist and press them into his hand. He slides them into his pants pocket.

He doesn’t say anything else about it for the rest of dinner, asking instead about your projects at work and your visit with your parents over the holidays. You feel sick, barely eating a thing, and biting your lip to stave off the tears.

As soon as you’re in the truck, you start to cry. “I’m sorry, I was just scared and—”

“Shut up. You made your choice. You’re not sorry. You’re just afraid of the consequences.”

“N-no, I am sorry, I mean it.”

“You’re gonna have to prove it.” He doesn’t look at you on the drive home, doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t even turn the radio on; just listens to you sniffle.

When he parks, he sets his hand on your thigh. “Don’t worry, baby. I know you can be my good girl. All you gotta do is take your punishment and learn from it, okay?”

You sniffle again and nod, blinking through tear-laden lashes at him.

“So pretty when you cry for me,” he murmurs. He gets out and comes around to open your door, offering a hand to help you step down from the tall truck. You take it, and he holds on, leading you inside his house.

He sits sprawled on the couch, thighs parted wide to make room and waits until you’re comfortably kneeling between his legs. You’re sat in silence, head bowed, arms folded behind your back.

“Tell me what you did wrong today.”

This is a first, but not a last. Even on days when nothing egregious has happened, you will follow this ritual. He’ll ask for your sins, and you’ll confess. There will always be something you’ll owe him for.

“I argued when you gave me orders. I was disobedient.”

“Anything else I need to know about, baby?”

“No, sir.”

“Why’d you argue?”

“I was afraid. I’m sorry.”

“Save your grovelin’ for after, baby. Why were you afraid?”

“I didn’t want people to see. I didn’t want to get kicked out or arrested.”

“You think I’d let anything happen to you? You think I would have given you an order that put either of us at any kinda risk?”

Your face burns. “I—”

“I thought you trusted me.” He sounds hurt, and you’re a little nauseous when you look up to see his eyes wide and sad, lips turned into a wounded scowl.

Your shoulders slump. “I didn’t think. I panicked.”

“Hmm. Okay, I can work with that.”

You look up at him, brow scrunched and lips pouting as you try to parse his words.

He smiles. It’s cold, and his eyes are steel.

You swallow hard, and his grin widens, quirking into a smirk.

“Alright, baby. I got just the thing.”

He leads you into the ensuite. You kneel on the little rug by the tub while he fills it. You’re too afraid to ask what’s happening, so you just sit quietly. He leaves the room and doesn’t come back until the tub is nearly full, and you’re starting to worry that you were supposed to be monitoring it.

He comes back in, and once it’s nearing the lip of the tub, he turns off the faucet. He has you kneel on the top of the three steps leading up to the edge. It’s the most luxurious thing in this house, and you suspect he installed it custom so he could soak his aching muscles.

He bends you over the edge so you’re leaning close to the water and crouches down behind you. It’s a pleasant surprise when he spreads you wide and licks from your clit to your asshole.

He stays there for a few minutes, indulging in your wet cunt and the cries it draws from your lips. After he’s had his fill, he stands up and lubes up his cock before pushing his way into your ass. He’s generous with the lube but rarely preps you, since you both like it better when it hurts.

You’re writhing a little beneath him, wriggling your hips to try to ease the passage. Once he’s fully seated inside you, he grabs the back of your head and shoves it under the water before fucking hard into you.

You thrash, displacing water from the tub, until he yanks you back up.

You gasp for air and scrabble to get a grip on the wet tile, but he pushes you back down and groans at how tight you get while you’re struggling.

He pulls you roughly back up. “Gonna keep going until you stop makin’ a fuss.”

You go to protest, to panic, and he pushes you back down.

The next time he pulls you out, he spanks you until your skin is burning. “Fuckin’ trust me. You think I’m gonna let you drown?”

“No, sir,” you cry, but it’s garbled as he pushes you back down. You’re still fighting him each time.

He pulls you back out and repeats the beating. “Relax, or we’re gonna be here all night.”

He continues the process a few more times and then gives you a reprieve, letting go of your hair so you can rest your cheek against the cold edge of the tub while he pounds into you. He reaches and rubs featherlight circles around your clit until you’re softly moaning.

“You gonna trust me?”

“I’m trying, my body panics,” you pant.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to ya. You hear me? You know you’re panicking, so focus on me instead.”

“Yes, sir.”

It shouldn’t make sense, but you think he’s long warped your brain anyway. The next time he pushes you underwater, you clench your fists tight and focus on what oxygen you do have, even if he knocks a little out with each thrust.

His hand in your hair is your anchor and buoy. You tense when you feel your body start to jerk, trying so hard to control it.

He pulls you up. “Just like that, baby. Again.”

It gets just a little easier each time. He leaves you under longer, until your lungs are burning, and you’re on the edge of gasping in water, but he pulls you out in time.

“Fuck, you’re doing so well.” He’s a little fascinated. He hadn’t really been sure it could be done or if your survival instincts would go into a frenzy. But here you are, letting him almost fucking drown you.

Not that he would.

Despite being balls deep in your tight little asshole, he isn’t trying to reach his orgasm. Not yet, staving off his pleasure so he can keep a clear head.

He keeps it up just a little longer. You’re getting tired and tolerating less and less time underwater. The last time he pulls you up, he pinches your clit and tells you to cum while he fills you.

He dunks you again while you cum, and you clamp down on him tighter than you have before, convulsing on his cock. When he pulls you back up, you’re gasping and sobbing. He pulls out and wraps you in a towel, easing you to the wet floor while he cleans up.

When he comes back to you, he helps you stand and dry off, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“So?”

Your brow furrows. It’s not what he usually asks after a punishment, but you think you know what he means. “I’m sorry. I trust you, I promise.”

“I know. M’so proud of you for taking that. You’re turning out so nicely, sweet thing.”

In the morning, you’re almost late to work after sucking him off when you should have been getting dressed. He’s about to walk out the door to head to the site when he hears your frustrated voice from the bedroom.

“Joel, where are my underwear? I need to fuckin’ leave.”

“I told you, baby. There was a price to pay when you picked the bathroom. Y’ain’t wearing ‘em anymore.”

“What?”

He doesn’t need to see you to smirk at the shocked expression he knows is on your face. “We’ll talk about it more tonight; I gotta run.”

     -avulsed

“Y’know, baby,” Joel says, leaning forward to rub your shoulder. “They just don’t fuckin’ appreciate you.”

You’re bent over, elbows on your knees, crying with your face buried in your hands. You sit up and sniffle, wiping the tears. “It’s fine; it’s not like I need to be coddled at work.”

All the stress of the PR world is getting to you, and you hate it, you fucking hate it, but you dropped 50k on a degree, so now you’re stuck.

“But they make you work all this overtime, cut your team in half, and then berate you when you can’t meet the client’s deadline? You do not deserve that, baby.”

You let him coax you into his lap, facing him so you can bury your face in his soft, worn tee. He rubs your back and holds your head to his chest.

“You’re too good to me,” you mumble.

“Nah, darlin’, I’ve told ya a thousand times. You deserve to be taken care of.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head. “I, well. I was thinkin’...”

You wait, but when he doesn’t pick back up, you sit up and look at him.

“I dunno. It’s nothin’,” he says.

“Please tell me?”

“Alright, fine. Now, I don’t want ya to feel any pressure. It’s just a thought. But maybe you should just quit and stay with me a while, ‘till you can find something better?”

You can’t tell if he’s joking. He must see something on your face, because he tips your chin up so you’re looking into his eyes.

“I know it’s sudden, but I mean it. Let me take care of ya while you figure shit out. We don’t gotta treat it like living together if y’ain’t ready. But I’d be open to that conversation, too.”

It doesn’t take much more than that. The first couple weeks, he lets you give it a try—searching for new degree programs, applying for jobs you know you’re overqualified for just to try something different.

After nothing pans out, he suggests you both take a week off. Him from work and you from the burden of trying to escape unemployment. Just relax, like a little staycation.

It’s bliss. You go on dates, eat pizza and marathon the “Jurassic Park” movies, and fuck like crazy.

On the third night, he sits you down. On his cock, of course. While you’re bouncing and brainless, he cups your cheek. “Baby, you’ve been too damn stressed still. What if we… well, what if we tried out a day or two like we’ve been talking about?”

Sometimes, you whisper to him in the darkness, usually while he’s balls deep, how you wish you could be his all the time. His good girl. His pet. And he whispers back, lures you right in with promises of taking care of everything, of you not having a worry or care in the world. Just him.

Now, he fondles your tits while he murmurs to you. “We can just wake up together, and I can take care of ya. Everything you need, baby. All you’d have to do is be good for me, yeah?”

You moan and grind down harder on his cock. “Please, sir. I want it more than anything. Just to be yours.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Joel had no patience for brats, so he usually broke his toys in sooner into the training process. He liked ‘em nice and obedient—scared, if that’s what it took, but devoted. But you had been from the start—you wanted to be good in all the ways you could never seem to be to other people. Your family, your job, the world seemed to just demand more and more.

Joel was the first person to make you feel like you had actually, really, truly pleased him. There wasn’t a higher mark you should have made. There wasn’t any expectation for you to give more and more.

His orders were complete, always. You learned that very quickly. Attempts to go above and beyond were rebuked.

“If I wanted that, I woulda said so,” he told you. And like everything else, you committed his words to memory.

It helped that he gave praise freely. You didn’t have to wonder if he was satisfied, if you should have licked him differently, if you should have made prettier faces while you came. He reassured you until you believed him, and then kept going anyway.

It made it easier for him to slowly peel you away from the ungrateful world.

“You don’t have to take that,” he’d say after watching your face fall further and further while on the phone with your mom. “Family ain’t supposed to make you feel like shit.”

They made it too easy, really, and your relationship with them would have likely just fizzled out. But in the end, he had to step in and snap it off.

You asked him to come with you to dinner at their house. He was hesitant. He wasn’t really the boyfriend type. He wasn’t really even your boyfriend. That was too weird a word for either of you, not when he owned you.

But he knows you didn’t want to go alone, and he has a feeling he’ll be cleaning up the mess anyway.

You want to give them a chance. Things have been so tense, and they said they missed you. But they didn’t even make it through the entrée without ridiculing you.

When your father asks how work is going, you quietly confess to quitting, hastily reassuring them that you are looking for a new position. Though, and you keep this part to yourself, you maybe haven’t been trying that hard.

“What do you mean you quit? How are you paying your bills? You better not have come here to ask for money,” your father says, setting down his fork to glare at you.

“Well, I’ve been living with Joel,” you mumble to the tablecloth.

“I didn’t raise you to be a gold digger,” your mother chides.

Joel tries to bite his tongue and let them dig their own graves. But your father calls you a “fucking whore,” and he can’t stand it. Can’t stand the way you’re cowering in your chair, fighting back tears.

“You watch your mouth,” Joel snaps at your father.

You look up, mouth agape, eyes darting from Joel to your parents.

“Mind your business,” your dad tells him.

Joel stands up and throws his napkin on the table. “She is my fuckin’ business. I wouldn’t stand by and let anyone talk to her like that. You’re not an exception just because you managed to get it up long enough to cum in your wife.”

“Joel,” you whisper, tugging at his sleeve. You’re burning, melting on the spot, from the vulgar way he’s talking to them. For him, someone who’s always strict about manners and proper hospitality, to talk back like this? God, you think, he must really love you.

He puts a hand on the back of your neck and holds firmly as you lean into it. He rounds back on your parents. “You treat her like fuckin’ dirt beneath your feet, and I’m tired of it. You don’t deserve the fuckin’ dirt beneath her feet.”

He shoves his chair back and grabs your hand. “C’mon, baby; we’re leaving.”

You take it and stand up, letting him pull you along. Your father follows you into the foyer, and you try not to look at him while you shove your shoes on.

Joel holds your coat out while you slip into it, and you tune out whatever your dad is yelling now. You don’t want to hear it; you know it’s nasty, and your whole world has narrowed to Joel anyway.

He holds out the key. “Go wait in the truck, baby.”

And you do.

He comes out about five minutes later, red-faced and huffing with fury. He doesn’t say a word when he gets in; just throws the truck into reverse and pulls away. You both ignore the blood on his knuckles.

Once you’re on the road, he looks over at you and sighs. “C’mere, sweetheart.”

You unbuckle and slide over to the middle seat, tucking your hand between his warm body to curl around his arm. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

“Whaddya sorry for? None of that was your fault.” He kisses the top of your head and cups your cheek at the stoplight. “It was gonna happen eventually, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

The rest of the ride home is silent while you breathe in his comforting musk and try to relax. But the tension is unrelenting, the horrible rotting feeling eating away at your spine.

He knows. Knows what you need, knows what he can do to seal this moment forever. He waits until he’s unzipping the pretty little cocktail dress you’d stressed over.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs, breaking away from where he was sucking his claim down your neck to swap out your delicate necklace with his collar.

He unhooks the bra and kisses the marks he left behind with the cane, your penance for being allowed to wear it. It leaves you bare to him, and his hands turn greedy. He presses biting kisses against your lips while digging fingers into your bruises, swallowing your whimpers.

He grabs you by the neck and squeezes the sides of your throat, holding you to him while your vision blurs. When he lets go, you stumble, but his arm around your back holds you upright. He slaps your face with quick, sharp blows in rapid succession to keep you unsteady.

“Knees, hands behind your head,” he says, and lets go.

You fall but are quick to right yourself and take the position. He wastes no time, giving you another harsh smack before grabbing your hair and shoving his cock into your throat.

You choke and gag but keep your hands in place even as your head spins. You feel limp and grateful that he doesn’t seem to require any effort from you as he uses you without mercy.

“Look at you. You’ve got my whole cock down your throat. You’re so fuckin’ good for me.”

Your eyes are already glazed over, and you moan your appreciation around him.

He pulls out and hauls you to your feet. “I know what you need, sweetheart. Get your ass downstairs.”

He fucks you, beats you, uses you wherever he wants. But the basement is where he keeps the heavy equipment and where you know you’re about to have your mind and body pushed to the absolute limit.

You’re ready, he thinks, when he gets down and finds you waiting perfectly in place for him, eyes wide like he’s descended from on high. He jerks a thumb to the wooden post, and you meet him there.

“Forget about what they want you to be,” he murmurs as he closes the steel cuffs around your ankles. “You know what you want, baby. Right?”

“Mhm,” you nod, already slipping away into that safe place only Joel can get you to.

“What do you want to be?” he asks, binding your arms up over your head to the eye bolt at the top of the post.

“Yours.” It’s half-whisper, half-whine.

“Yeah? You just wanna be mine? You don’t want to get a new job?”

“No,” you finally confess. “But—”

“But what, baby? If you say somethin’ about money or bills, I’m gonna be mighty unhappy.”

You bite your lip. “I’m scared one day, you’ll wake up and not want me anymore.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, sweetheart. You think I put all this work into helpin’ you, into teaching you how to be mine, just to toss ya out? You’re hurtin’ my feelings.”

“I’m sorry,” you say automatically.

He slides a silicone cock into the bracket lined right up with your mouth. It’s a fairly standard size, since he knows you’re going to thrash around and doesn’t want you gagging too much and throwing up.

Your torso gets tied to the post by your tits, the wood nestled between them and rope woven around. Securing you there forces your head onto the toy, but he doesn’t make you take it all the way. You keep your mouth open and don’t move closer or further, waiting for his command.

“Suck on it whenever you’d like. You’re going to need it.”

Your eyes roll back a little at his promise. If he thinks you’re going to need something in your mouth to self-soothe, you’re in for an absolutely amazing time.

“Focus on me. That’s all you’ll need to do from now on, baby. No more worries in that pretty little head, okay?”

The first strike is a warm-up. When you feel the lash of his favorite whip lick your ass, you moan. It’s a moderately short signal whip that he wields like a fucking pro. His warmups are quick but thorough, and you’re squirming when he moves on to your thighs and shoulders.

“Already?” he says, laughing when you whine around the silicone cock.

You’re absentmindedly sucking on it when he starts a harsher assault. A particularly sharp strike stings at the valley where your ass meets your thighs, and you yelp, jerking a little and gagging yourself on the dildo.

His smirk burns into your back as the cry melts into a moan, and you writhe a little, trying to get friction where you need it most. What you get, though, is the tip of the whip against your cunt.

By the time he moves around to your tits, they’re covered in spit, heaving with the effort of holding back your orgasm. He comes up to you first, and pinches at your nipples.

“Aw, does my dumb little cunt want to cum?” He croons, tugging and twisting until you moan. He laughs when all you can get out is a muffled “mhm.”

“Tell ya what. You can cum all you want while I hurt you tonight, okay?”

He punctuates it with a particularly cruel pinch, and that, combined with his permission, is all you need to let the pleasure shudder through you.

“Yeah? You gonna get off to being my little toy? Gonna let me do whatever I want?”

You moan around the fake cock, easing it further into your throat.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He doesn’t give a warm-up on your tits, figuring you’re already so far gone it doesn’t fuckin’ matter.

He’s right. The first lash is harsh, a welt blooming across the top of your breast in its wake, but you groan, trying to press your cunt up against the post for any relief.

You don’t need it, though. He brings you to your peak again with the skilled flick of his wrist, landing blows across the fat of your breasts. He waits until you’re mid-orgasm to bring the whip hard across your nipples.

The resulting wail almost makes him cum in his pants. He does it only twice more, relishing in your agony, but restraining himself from just letting loose. Not with the whip, as much as he’d like to. Maybe later with a flogger.

Once he’s taken it as far as he’s willing to risk, he moves back around to give the rest of you the same treatment. The hardest hits push you over the edge, and by the time his arm is getting tired, you’re sobbing and writhing in your restraints, overstimulated in every way.

He unlatches your ankles first, helping you find steady footing before untying your wrists and torso. You drop to your knees and open your mouth, throat aching for his cock after the tease of the toy.

He doesn’t have the willpower to torment you by denying it tonight. Instead, he nearly pops the button off his jeans in his urgency to pull his cock out and shove it as far down your throat as he can.

Your arms find their place behind your back, and you just take it. He fucks into you without restraint. It’s filthy, from the mess you’re making to the wet choking sounds he pushes out of you with each thrust.

You’re shaking, and he pulls out abruptly.

“I said while I’m hurting you. You don’t get to just cum from getting facefucked.”

“Then hurt me, please,” you sob. It’s right there; you’re so close.

He slaps you across the face and laughs as you cum, shoving back into your throat while you’re still riding out the aftershocks.

He pulls back out, and you whine until he yanks you up by the bicep and pushes you over to the padded bench, bending you over it and shoving into your sopping cunt.

“Still disappointed?” he teases.

“N-no,” you pant. “Please hurt me.”

“Beg me properly, greedy little cunt.”

You clench around him just at the words, but obey. “Please, sir, please hurt me so I can cum. Please.”

“I’ve been hurtin’ you all night, baby,” he says, voice thick with false pity. “Don’t you want me to be gentle with you now?” He can feel how hard you’re trying not to cum as he mocks you.

“No,” you sob. “No, love me, hurt me, please.”

It’s got an edge of desperation and heartbreak to it that he just loves.

He smacks your already bruising ass until you sob harder, shaking uncontrollably as you cum. He wraps his hands around your throat and fucks you through it until he cums, hips stuttering, and filling your cunt with his spend.

He lets himself collapse a little on top of you, pinning you with his weight against the bench with his softening cock still buried in you. “Feel loved now?”

You’re still crying, and when he folds his arms around your chest, elbows resting on the table, you cling to him. “Love you,” you murmur over and over, pressing kisses up and down his forearms.

He nuzzles his face into your neck, kissing and sucking at you. “I know, baby. You know I love ya.” He’s half-hard—not something that happens a lot anymore at his age, so he’s not gonna waste it. He pulls out just to manhandle you up onto the bench on your back, climbing up between your legs and shoving back in.

It’s a little sloppy until he’s fully hard again; your combined cream making things a little too slippery. Once he’s erect, though, he sets a punishing pace, folding you in half with your legs up by your ears. He works your clit with his hand, relishing in the way you’re fucking exhausted and overstimulated, but your poor clit’s been neglected. It means he can twist and pull on it, tugging until you give him more and more, until you’re sobbing for mercy that you know you’ll never get.

He doesn’t ease up until he pulls out to cum over your tits and face.

“Mine,” he snarls, shoving his fingers into your swollen cunt and feeding you what’s left of his first orgasm and your… well, he’s not really sure how many. A fuckin’ lot. “You’re all mine. Little fuckin’ toy to do whatever I want, right?”

You’re still gasping for breath, having been half-suffocated in that position, but when you look at him, it’s like he’s a fucking god. “Yes, sir.”

     -broken

The day had started out fine.

He’d laid out a dress for you to wear. Sometimes, he made you go around bare for a while, just to fuck with your head a little, but he prefers to unwrap you like a present.

Plus, the sight of you crawling around in nothing but a slutty, barely-there dress is picture-fuckin’-perfect. He’d know; he’s got a bunch of ‘em on his phone.

And crawl, you do. You haven’t been allowed to walk further than a couple of feet in a long time. There’s penance to be paid if you can’t avoid it.

Joel collects your penance whenever possible, gathering what’s owed for your sins and dealing out forgiveness when it's settled. It’s how he shows his love.

And he does love you. How could he not? Such a perfect little toy. He’s spent so much time training you right to be his prized possession.

He knew it’d happen eventually, so when you commit one of the worst offenses, he has to make it count. You were testing your limits, of course; he had expected it. He had expected it months ago. It was worse now, after you’d been so good and earned so much trust. But now that you’d been nothing but his for two months, you had finally fucked up.

Your punishments were never painful. Okay, they weren’t pain-focused. Sometimes, he had to put you over his knee to let his frustration out before he could give you a proper punishment. But the pain wasn’t the point—you both liked it too damn much. No matter how much farther he took it than a regular session, and no matter how sick you were with guilt, you were always a soaking wet mess after a beating.

This time would have to be different, though.

It was time to finally break you.

He knew as soon as he got home. Not the particulars, but that you’d made a huge mistake.

On the surface, nothing was amiss. You were knelt by the door in your pretty little dress, a short number in navy blue. You had your head down and arms folded behind your back in perfect posture.

But something was off. It didn’t feel like you were happy he was home. And he was pretty sure there would only be one reason for that.

He hung up his keys but didn’t bother to take off his shoes, coming to stand in front of you. “What’d you do?”

You flinch and have to re-tense to hold the position as a sob escapes you. Your hands are balled into fists to fight the urge to cover your face. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I asked what you did.”

If it were still the early days, when this shit usually happened, he might have been just a little softer. At least until he coaxed the confession from you, anyway. But you were in too deep, now, too entangled in this life that he had little patience for your reticence.

“I—”

“I recommend you spit it out. You’ll tell me in the end, anyway.”

You start to cry. “I can’t say it.”

“You better figure it out pretty fuckin’ fast, little girl.”

“I had an orgasm,” you blurt, whimpers escalating to sobs.

He pauses. It’s worse than he thought. The rush of disappointment and anger sends his heart racing, and his fingers flex in longing for a cane.

“Did you enjoy it?” he says.

It catches you off guard. “No, I promise.”

“That’s too bad, ‘cause it’s the last one you’re gonna have for a while.”

You aren’t surprised; you’re actually relieved. Of course, of course he’ll fix you.

He finally takes his shoes off and sets his phone on the counter, beckoning you to follow him to the living room. Taking his seat on the couch, he waits until you’re settled at his feet.

“Why’d you do that, baby?”

“I-I didn’t mean to. I was edging for the last time today, and I don’t know what happened. It was just there, and I knew it, I knew it was coming, and I—” You choke on the guilt, the grief.

“You what?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t convince myself to stop. I kept thinking ‘no, you stupid cunt,’ but I couldn’t pull my hand away.”

He regards you for a moment. He’s burning inside, but trying to calculate the most effective approach.

“Thank you for telling me right away,” he says, but even though he means it, the words are cold and clipped. “Which hand?”

You look at him, eyes wide and brows furrowed. “What?”

“Which hand did you use? Give it to me.”

You lift up your right hand, and he cradles it in his.

“Listen close.” He waits until he’s sure you’re focused on him, on his words.

This is where things have fallen apart in the past. No amount of training and manipulation can get someone across this hurdle; they have to mean it. The last thing he wants is someone running to the police because they don’t fucking understand how serious he is.

“This is going to be your last chance to back out. I will stop right now and let you pack your shit and leave. But if you stay, you’re agreeing to anything I do to you past this point.”

You bite your lip, stomach churning. “You’re scaring me,” you whisper.

“Good. You should be scared. What you’ve done is one of the worst things you could have. That’s got some serious consequences, baby.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“I gotta hurt you. Bad. Y’ain’t going to like this; I can promise you that. I can’t punish your cunt because you’re such a stupid pain slut; anything short of permanent damage is gonna make you wet. And I’m not lookin’ to do permanent damage.”

Your lip trembles, heart pounding. You’ve never been so afraid, but you’re also enthralled. Lured in by the timbre of his voice and the salvation it’s promising.

He squeezes your hand where he’s still holding onto you. “I’m going to break one of your fingers.”

Your heart falters, blood rushing. “Oh god,” you whisper, shaking your head. Instinctively, you tug back on your hand, but he grasps it tight, tight enough that you feel the bones grind under his large fingers.

“It’s up to you. That’s half the price for forgiveness. The rest is gonna be spending the night alone.”

Somehow, that sounds worse. You can’t breathe.

“Gotta choose, baby. You wanna go? I’ll pay for a cab. You can walk away, but you can’t ever come back.”

You think you might be drowning. Leave? How could you leave? There’s no debate in your head; you have nothing without Joel. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. And the idea of losing him feels catastrophic.

You’re crying again, and you’re vaguely aware of his soothing voice trying to coach you through breathing. When you focus on him, just like he’s taught you, you start to calm down.

It’s Joel, you think. He’ll take care of you. And he said he didn’t want permanent damage. You just have to suffer for your betrayal and he’ll forgive you.

“I think I might throw up,” you warn him.

He sighs, the fear of losing you flooding away, taking some of his anger with it. “We’ll do it in the bathroom.”

He stands up, and you follow, albeit slowly, as the wave of nausea rises. You do throw up as soon as you get in the bathroom, thankfully making it to the toilet. He holds your hair and rubs his hand across your shoulder blades.

“It’s okay, baby, get it out of your system. You’re being so brave for me,” he croons. He helps you up to sit on the edge of the tub and gets you a little cup of mouthwash.

“I’ll help you brush your teeth after,” he promises. “I’d do it now, but, well. You’re probably going to puke again.”

When you’re done swishing the mouthwash, when it’s all turned to foam and you’ve spit it back in the cup, he swaps you for water. You rinse and spit that, too.

He’s laid a few things out on the counter. You feel dizzy all over again. Something tells you the comfort you feel is wrong, but he’s prepared an ice pack and medical tape, and has four little ibuprofen out next to another cup of water.

The other, louder part of you is whispering, see? He’ll take care of you. The act of wondering what’s wrong with you feels like a farce. You’re thinking it because you think you should, just going through the motions.

He takes off his belt and brings it to your mouth. You clench it between your teeth, letting a shaky breath through. His hand cups your cheek, and you lean into the warmth.

“I knew you were somethin’ special,” he whispers. You’re not sure he meant to.

Your whole body is shaking uncontrollably. He watches you for a moment, worried you’re going to faint, and then sits on the floor with his back against the tub, pulling you into his lap. He lays you back against his chest, caging you in with his arms and thighs. The ice pack sits to his right, already popped and frozen. Waiting.

Gently, he lifts your hand and brings it in front of your chest, taking it in his left. It’s a macabre mockery, the way he cradles it in his palm, fingers wrapped around the sides. In his right hand, he notches his thumb on the knuckle of your middle finger, bringing the other fingers in below it.

He doesn’t drag it out, doesn’t take pleasure in your terror. When he moves, it’s faster than a gunshot. Your scream is raw, breaking free from the spaces between your teeth and the belt. The taste of leather will remind you of this moment for the rest of your life.

He has the ice pack on it before you mentally register that it’s over. You’re sobbing. Horribly, he’s right, and you are sick again. He holds your hair in one fist, holding the ice pack to your mangled hand in the other.

When you’re done, he pulls you back against him, wrapping his limbs around you in a perverse embrace as you shake harder. With his free hand, he brings a damp, cool cloth to your face, cleaning you of the viscera of your sickness.

He’s shushing you, head bent close to your ear. “It’s alright, baby, it’s over. You did so good. I’m so proud. I love you so much.”

It’s good that he doesn’t expect an answer because he doesn’t get one. You’re too lost in the pain and shock.

When it’s time to take a break from the ice, he grabs the medical tape and wraps it around your index and middle fingers. You cry out again as he jostles the break. Once he’s splinted it, he lowers your hand gently to your lap so he can grab the medicine.

“I can’t; I’ll throw up again,” you say, voice cracking.

“Don’t have a choice, baby. Gotta keep the swelling down.”

He feeds you each pill, one by one, chasing them with sips of water.

You look so sad and precious that he almost feels bad. Unfortunately, he’s also rock fucking hard, so he shifts you a little to pull his dick out.

You don’t say anything when he lifts you to lower you on it. He’s careful, trying not to shake you around too much. He was right; you didn’t enjoy this pain. You’ve never been this dry for him before, and you whimper pathetically at the pinch and sting of his girth.

You may be worn out and in agony, but your cunt doesn’t get the message. He grins when he feels you getting wet and clenching around him. He doesn’t push it though, doesn’t torment you, just fucks up into you gently until he fills you.

You’re limp against him now, and he presses a kiss into your hair. “You may have to walk for a bit,” he muses. “But I’ll cap your penance at ten.”

You wince. Ten strokes with the cane on the soles of your feet every day until your finger heals? You usually only owe enough for two or three. It is a mercy, though, so you nod and thank him.

Joel can hardly contain the way his chest is flooding with warmth. You’re so close; he can feel it. So close to being completely his to put together just the way he likes.

He can’t wait to take you to The Pit.

     -kintsugi

You’re cold. So cold. You’re curled in on yourself, tucked into a corner in the hopes that you’d be able to keep warmer. Your whole right hand throbs.

Moonlight only cuts across the corner, but it’s a comfort still. The soil is loose and you keep shuddering, feeling the tickle of a dozen phantom insects.

Worst of all, your chest aches, like he may as well have hewn you open. Dry sobs work their way free every now and then, leaving your mouth tacky and your throat full of cotton.

The only rest you get is when you blessedly pass out. Every time you close your eyes voluntarily, you see the heartbroken look on his face when you begged him not to leave you there.

“I wish I didn’t have to. I wish you hadn’t broken my trust and I could keep you close, baby. But you’re never going to learn how to be good if I don’t show ya.”

Bad, I’m bad, he doesn’t want me anymore, you think to no end.

When the sun starts to rise, you’re limp, still in your corner. You barely turn your head when a shadow falls over The Pit, but your heart starts to pound when the lock clicks, and Joel raises the gate.

“Oh, baby,” he says, soft and sorrowful. “C’mere.” He reaches out a hand, and you scramble to him, letting him take your left arm in his grasp and pull you out. You move immediately to your knees, body bent forward as your knotted muscles protest. He scoots his boot out of the danger zone near your broken finger.

You keep whispering, a broken record of “Sorry, please, I’m so sorry.”

He picks you up and holds you to his chest, shushing until you fall quiet. It doesn’t take longer than a few seconds as your brain desperately clings to any scrap, any way you can be good for him.

He brushes the loose dirt from you before going inside and upstairs to the ensuite. He sets you on the little rug next to the full garden tub, and he tests the water with his fingers before peeling his clothes off.

You flex your left hand, balling it in and out of a fist. You’ve never been particularly ambidextrous and wonder how you’re going to wash him without falling in or hurting your hand.

Before he gets in, he feeds you four more little red pills. Once he’s settled, he reaches out and guides you carefully by the waist, pulling you into his lap in the warm water.

That’s all it takes for you to start crying again. He doesn’t try to quiet you; just holds you there against his chest and lets you sob.

By the time you’ve calmed, the water has cooled, but instead of getting out, he just drains a little and runs more hot water.

Joel tips your chin up gently with the knuckle of his index finger. “You ready to be my good girl again?”

You nod, lip trembling.

Joel does nothing you hadn’t asked for. The trouble for you was that you asked for too much. Gave him too much. And it was far too late to get any of it back.

He gave what he could, though. Couldn’t replace what he’d taken, so he pours himself in the cracks, puts you back together with a firm hand and loving care. Sure, his love doesn’t look like what you’re used to, but he knows you see it for what it is.

“I know, baby. You took that all so well. Don’t worry,” he pauses to kiss you, “I forgive you. My perfect little toy.”

pls be nice, I'm so nervous about this.