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#i prefer to read it as a standalone
visceravalentines · 1 year
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DEAR MEG
I think you wrote that you loved the movie Annihilation. If I misremembered, please feel free to ignore this asdfg.
I remember I saw it and I really enjoyed the visuals, and the terrifying mutated plant bear screaming with a human voice (that part was haunting holy crap) but besides those scenes I wasn't super scared???
Maybe my brain is too small to understand the horror of it asdfghjk
But anyway, what I wanted to ask is, what were your favorite parts of the movie, and what scared you? If you don't mind me asking!
Have a nice day!!!
SOL MY LOVE
thank u for sending me this ask it is so lovely let's talk about cool movies!!!
I love Annihilation the movie but I also love Annihilation the book!! they are very different, only the very basic characters and concept make it into the movie. which makes sense because the book is surreal and abstract and can be hard to interpret what is actually going on at certain moments, and that doesn't translate very well to the big screen. the book, to me, is far more unsettling than the movie. I will answer for both! brain explosion below the cut!
it's an absolutely gorgeous film, weird and captivating and creepy. I love the body horror, the found footage from the previous expedition where the man's intestines are moving of their own accord......incredible. that bear???? scares the bejeezus out of me every time I watch it. one of the scariest creatures I can think of in a horror movie, creatures don't usually freak me out. the sound it makes haunts me. and the bear is not in the book! the book has......other guys. I also thought Natalie Portman ate the role of the biologist. she is distant and offputting and has very little interest in anything but the natural world around her, both in the book and in the movie.
in the book we get much more of a look into the biologist's very rich and strange internal life, and I remember reading it for the first time and being shocked how much I related to her. she was one of the first characters, maybe THE first character, I identified with on a meaningful level. when I read the book again recently I was pleased to find that hasn't changed, even though I have changed a lot since my first read. she is by no means an ideal role model or even a reliable narrator, but I just adore her. and her husband nicknames her Ghost Bird, which is everything to me.
the horror in the book is ultimately about something unmaking you and the world around you in a way you cannot understand. it's a very cosmic horror concept distilled down into very manageable pieces--a plant that begins to alter what you are with just a single touch. a creature that looks like something familiar, but feels distinctly wrong, or distinctly human. something wearing a face that does not belong to it. a sound you cannot identify. words you know, words you can read, but you can't understand what they're saying. it's there, it's right there, but you don't quite get it, and suddenly you are no longer you anymore and it's too late. it's about love and nature and knowledge and meaning and the value of all of these things and the horror of all of these things.
here are some of my very favorite lines from the book, the ones that give me the shivers every time I read it for one reason or another!!
"I am walking forever on the path from the border to base camp. It is taking a long time, and I know it will take even longer to get back. There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time..."
This was really the only thing I discovered in him after his return: a deep and unending solitude, as if he had been granted a gift that he didn't know what to do with. A gift that was poison to him and eventually killed him. But would it have killed me?
I took the photograph out of its frame, shoved it in my pocket. The lighthouse keeper would come with me, although he hardly counted as a good-luck charm. As I left the landing, I had the peculiar thought that I was not the first to pocket the photo, that someone would always come behind to replace it, to circle the lighthouse keeper again.
Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you're staring at it now.
"We should never have come here. I should never have come here." "That's all?" "I've come to believe it is the one fundamental truth."
There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you.
An almost plaintive keening, a lonely sound in that place, called out to me. And kept calling, pleading with me to return, to see it entire, to acknowledge its existence. I did not look back. I kept running.
Almost anyone else might see it differently. But I am not those people. I am just the biologist; I don't require any of this to have a deeper meaning.
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one-bunny-a-day · 10 months
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27/11/2023
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pennumbra · 8 months
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Book Recs?
Slightly unusual non-art post for me, but does anyone have any book recommendations? I've been reading more since the beginning of the year and enjoying it a lot, and the trickiest thing is honestly finding new books when I don't already know what I'm looking for- so I thought I'd ask!
Any genre! I like soft sci-fi/speculative fiction, nonfiction, and premises that are kinda quirky or unusual- I don't gravitate towards fantasy but I'm open to it! Lmk what you've been reading or what your old fav is and I'll give it a look. C:
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cupiare · 2 years
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any books you’ve been enjoying lately or planning to read?
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seokgyuu · 4 months
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When fertility clinics fail to give you what you want, you decide it’s time to take the matter into your own hands. And who’d be better for the job than Choi Seungcheol?
Pairing: Seungcheol x Fem!Reader
Genre: Porn with a small bit of plot. 
Warnings: This work contains adult content! MDNI! This whole fic revolves around getting pregnant!! So if you’re uncomfortable, please do not read. Smut warnings under the cut!
Word Count: 4.3k
A/N: Omg look, she’s back with a work!! And it’s a standalone Cheol fic??? Damn. I wanna thank the lovely @idyllic-ghost for the beautiful banner!! Have fun reading and please be a bit more patient in case you are a reader of Challenge Me. I swear there is more to come!! also big thanks to @beomcoups for reading this over and telling me it doesn't suck, lol.
Tagging: @duhnova, @yoonguurt, @highvern, @smileysuh, @cheolism @the-boy-meets-evil @ourdawnishotterthanourday @gyuswhore
“I don’t really know how to start.” You finally break the silence, sitting on the couch across from Seungcheol, your legs crossed and your hands laying in your lap. He watches as you lick over your lips, nervous eyes roaming around the room and something like a chuckle wants to creep out of his throat. He suppresses it and instead smiles.
“Me neither, don’t worry. We can take it slow if you like. Or I can finish this water and we can go upstairs,” he pauses for a second, “or stay here, whatever you prefer.”
Smut Warnings: unprotected sex (duh), creampie, dirty talk, blowjobs, face fucking, usage of the word daddy, squirting, multiple orgasms (f&m)
Choi Seungcheol has never done this before. He has never sat in the living room of a woman he barely knew with a glass of medium sparkling water in his hand and a pounding heart in his chest. If anything, this had only ever happened in his dreams. Not the medium sparkling water (mainly because he didn’t even like his water sparkled, medium or not) and perhaps with less clothing - even though that specific part was probably about to become reality. 
“Do you want something small to eat, or something?” You ask now and Cheol flinches slightly, looking up at you with his big eyes and his mouth slightly dropped.
“Oh, no, thanks!” He smiles back and takes a sip from his glass. It tastes awful but he’s not about to say that. 
Your living room is huge; two big couches the color of creme surrounded by tasteful art on the walls. A fireplace and a huge flatscreen above it, pictures of friends and family on the shelves, books from authors Cheol has never heard of. He wonders for a quick second why you would choose this route when you obviously had the funds to do it the… more professional way, but then he remembers that he is getting paid for this. In fact, he already has the insane amount in his bank account waiting to be used to pay off his student loans. 
“I don’t really know how to start.” You finally break the silence, sitting on the couch across from Seungcheol, your legs crossed and your hands laying in your lap. He watches as you lick over your lips, nervous eyes roaming around the room and something like a chuckle wants to creep out of his throat. He suppresses it and instead smiles.
“Me neither, don’t worry. We can take it slow if you like. Or I can finish this water and we can go upstairs,” he pauses for a second, “or stay here, whatever you prefer.”
You think it’s cute, the way he blushes. In a situation like this one, definitely not surprising. You’ve been thinking about this for months now: fertility clinics in your town and even outside of it weren’t working. It wasn’t the money that was the problem, but your body apparently. Or anything else. At some point one of the doctors joked that it would probably be best if you tried getting pregnant in the old fashioned way. By sleeping with someone who had a penis with functioning sperm. And whilst he had meant it as a joke, very clearly trying to uplift an incredibly sad situation (kind of distasteful, you find) you had taken it to heart and here you are now. 
A friend of yours owned a few gyms in town and Cheol was a regular turned PT in one of them. He was handsome and strong, a gentleman, healthy and in desperate need of some easy made money. Your friend had overheard him talking to one of the other PTs and even though it might not have been the most professional thing to do - she had asked him if he wanted to help out in your specific situation. You have to admit - back when she told you it felt extremely humiliating. Asking some stranger to have sex with you to, maybe (hopefully?), get you pregnant. Not to mention her being his boss - if he hadn’t reacted the way he did, he could have more than likely sued her for this. 
But he said yes. And now he's here. Many dollars richer and with an embarrassed flush on his pretty face. 
“Upstairs is probably more comfortable,” you finally respond and he nods, emptying his glass. After, he looks at you expectantly and you feel your insides growing hot. He’s everything you wished for and more. Better than who you had picked first in the fertility clinic for sure. It’s crazy, all of this, you know it, and yet you can’t help but feel like this is also the only right thing. You want a baby. Seungcheol wants to help you get one. 
Finally, you get up and he joins you, a nervous smile on his lips as you lead him to the stairs in the foyer, your legs shaking as you walk up, the sounds of his footsteps behind you echoing in your head. You’re about to lead a stranger into your bedroom. A sexy stranger that will (hopefully) father the child you’ve been wanting for over a year. Your stomach turns in excitement as well as arousal and you clear your throat as you reach the top of the stairs.
“It’s right over here,” you say, pointing at the door to your left and Seungcheol nods, eyes only temporarily leaving your frame. 
A part of him feels like he should come clean about how much he’s been looking forward to this. To sleep with you, to breed you. Ever since his boss had asked him about this, he’s been excited. It was almost as if she had known. Showing him pictures of you, telling him how much you want to have a baby. She obviously didn’t say the obvious, didn’t say that you were desperate for cum in your pussy to get you pregnant. Mainly because that would have been even more inappropriate. But Cheol knew. He still does. Knows that you’re probably dripping into your designer panties wanting nothing but his cum and his only. Fuck, he is growing harder by the second. He has to calm down, remain professional. This is supposed to be nothing but a business transaction, he is well aware. But it’s not like he chose to have an extreme breeding kink, right? 
The door to your bedroom opens and Cheol takes in the furniture and decorations only for a second before his eyes land on you again. You stand in front of your bed, your arms wrapped around yourself. 
“I- uh, I think it’s probably best if we, uhm, get ready by ourselves?” 
Cheol nods. He kind of figured there wouldn’t be much foreplay. Still, just the thought of you behind him, touching yourself… he comes to the conclusion he won’t need much handy work to be hard for you. 
“Should we take our clothes off, or…?” He asks carefully and you swallow, your eyes trying to be subtle as you check him out but he can clearly see what you’re doing. You want him to take off his clothes. You just aren’t sure if you should. It would probably make the situation easier, yes, but it would also expose you to this man that is built like a god. You bite down on your lip and swallow the lump in your throat. Then, you nod. 
With a sense of pride, Cheol moves his hands to the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head without any trouble. Your eyes are immediately glued to his toned torso - the abs, the strong shoulders, his chest. 
“Maybe we should turn off the lights.” The words escape your mouth before they reach your brain. A small smirk tugs on Cheol’s lips - you’re flustered because of him. Without a word, Cheol nods and turns off the light, sitting down onto the bed with his back turned to you. This is nerve wracking. Your face is hot and your heart is beating fast as you sit down as well. You hear him behind you. Hear the sound of his pants opening, of his hands moving to shove it down. There is no stopping the wish to see him, his beautiful body. When you hear the small sigh he lets out a few seconds later, you decide to just follow your instincts. It was you who had called him here. Backing out now would be foolish. So, you bite down on your lip and lean back slightly, your hand wandering down to your clothed core, pressing against it for just a quick moment, before you move to open your jeans as well, making quick work to get them down your legs. 
You begin to circle your clit over your panties, eyes closed and the image of Cheol right there in front of you. The smug smile, the lean muscles on his torso… you wonder what they’d feel like under your fingertips. Now, it is you who sighs softly and Seungcheol behind you groans quietly. The sound shoots through you, makes you crave to hear it even closer, right by your ear. You want him to hold you, want him to say your name as he slides into you. 
The sounds you make drive Seungcheol crazy. His big hand is wrapped around his cock, moving up and down, precum helping to make the glide easier. His whole head is filled with you and nothing but you and he has to stop himself from shooting his load right away just thinking about feeling you tightly around him. Yes, Seungcheol seriously doesn’t know how long he can go on like this without cumming. So, he slightly turns around, tongue slipping over his lips.
“I’m ready…,” his deep voice reaches your ears just when two of your fingers slide into your pussy, already longing for more. You moan, feeling another wave of heat running through your body. Nodding, you let your fingers slip out and turn around, moving fully onto the bed. You hadn’t discussed positions earlier, but you decide to get on all fours, Seungcheol slowly getting up.
He can’t see you, only your silhouette that looks ever so perfect, ass up in the air and, fuck, he thinks he won’t last long. Swallowing hard, he moves and places his hands on your hips.
“Is that alright?” He asks and you nod.
“Y-yes.”
That’s all he needs. Moving forward, his right hand grabs his erect cock, leading it to your core. God, you’re wet. No problem at all to slide into you, into your seemingly perfect pussy that begins to squeeze him right away. Seungcheol is sure there are stars dancing in front of his head already. 
His size almost takes you out. The stretch hurts deliciously and the second he is buried fully inside of you, your head drops and a moan you couldn’t suppress even if you wanted to makes Seungcheol thrust for the first time. He starts out slow but deep, trying to hold on longer by not speeding up. While the goal is obvious, he doesn’t just want to cum inside of you and leave. No, he wants to make this a good experience for both of you. So, he listens to the sounds you make to the way your pussy clenches, the way your body shoves back against him. You seem to like it deep, seem to want it harder and, fuck, if Seungcheol wasn’t so keen on still kind of keeping it professional he would push your head into your pillows and fuck you til you begged him to never stop. 
All that fills the air is the moans both of you let out as well as the sound of skin on skin, of his cock sinking into your wetness over and over again. You want to scream, want to tell him to go harder, faster. All sense of professionalism is slowly but surely leaving your body and when his big hands squeeze your hips, you finally falter. 
“H-harder, please!” You cry out and Seungcheol twitches inside of you, nodding to himself before doing as he’s asked. He leans forward, his hips hitting yours harder and faster than before, fingers digging into your skin as he groans in pleasure. 
“Fuck!” Your hands grab the sheets, knuckles white just when your first orgasm hits. Throwing your head back, crying out in nothing but pure bliss, leaving Seungcheol speechless. He can feel your climax around him, can feel you clenching, vibrating almost. He can feel just how good you squeeze him and there is no stopping his own release following right away, spurts of hot cum painting your warm walls white. He fucks both of you through your orgasms, sweat running down his face and finally pulls out, wishing the light was on so he could see his seed spilling out of you. 
You turn around, falling onto your back, your eyes closed. 
“That… wow.” You can’t find words. Mainly because you can’t even remember the last time someone fucked you this good. Seungcheol licks over his lips.
“Can I turn the light on?” He asks then and something in his voice makes chills run down your back. Your eyes fly open and you bite back down onto your lip before telling him yes. Once the light is back on, you feel another wave of lust rush over you. He’s fully naked. He’s sweaty. He’s perfect. Blonde hair sticking to his forehead, brown eyes taking in every bit of your body that’s free for him to see. Different from what you had believed you don’t feel uncomfortable. More so the opposite. His gaze on your body seems to light you on fire, making you crave more. 
“You’re beautiful.” He lets his hands fall down onto your bare thighs, slowly pushing them apart. His cock hardens again at the sight of your pussy, his cum slowly dripping out of you.. You allow yourself to check him out, seeing how his blood rushes down, how much he enjoys the view. 
“I think… I think maybe another round… would make the probability higher that it works.” Another thing you say before it registers. 
The smug smile appearing on his face now almost makes you gasp. It’s so different from the person he was downstairs, from the shy and slightly awkward man who didn’t know where to look. Now, he looks like a wild animal with its eyes set on its prey. Oh, god.
He leans forward, hands still on your thighs and your throat goes dry. His tongue licks over his bottom lip and his eyes seem to already fuck you a second time. 
“We should get this back inside, don’t you think?” It takes you by surprise when you feel his fingers on your core, when you feel him gathering his release and shove it back inside you, his thick fingers splitting you open deliciously. This time you can’t stop the gasp, your hands moving to hold onto his forearms, eyes wide and mouth dropped.
“That’s right, take all of Daddy’s cum,” his lips are right by your ear and your body is hit by an enormous wave of lust, your pussy clenching around his fingers as he keeps fucking them into you. Moans escape you and your head falls back - at least you think it does until you feel his other hand on the back of your neck holding it steady.
“Look at me,” he breathes, “look at me when I fuck my first load back into you before giving you another one.” 
You whimper as you nod, eyes watering from the desperation of wanting to cum again. Seungcheol is sure to give you as many orgasms as you can take. As many rounds as you let him have you.
His plump lips are opened as he watches you, your sweaty face, your blown pupils, your obvious need for more. Fuck, he’s a goner. Before knowing what he’s doing, he’s leaning in even more, crashing your lips together. Your eyes flutter shut immediately and you kiss him back, opening your lips to invite him inside. He groans against your mouth, his tongue sliding into your warmth, feeling yours a few seconds later. 
The kiss is heated and desperate and every vein in your body seems to be on fire. Your heart is pounding at triple speed in your chest and when Seungcheol parts for air, you’re already craving him again. You want to touch him, want him to hold you close when he’s back inside of you, when he gives you what you need, what you want. There seem to be no coherent thoughts left in your brain as he continues to kiss you with his fingers buried inside your sweet cunt. 
“Do you even know how hot you are, fuck,” he breathes against your lips now, pulling his fingers out of you to have both his hands on you the next second. He kisses you again, hungry for your touch. Hands all over you, gliding from your hips to your breasts, getting rid of the shirt you were still wearing. He wants to see all of you, lose himself in your body, wants to get high on what it feels like to know you want him just as bad as he wants you. This isn’t just about making you a mum anymore. Seungcheol wants to give you pleasure, wants to treat you the way you deserve. He saw it in your eyes earlier - saw how you want it hard and rough, heard it in your pleads for him. 
“On your knees, face me.” It’s an order you’re more than happy to follow. You bite down onto your lip and get on your knees, looking up at him. God, he looks ethereal. 
“Good girl, so, so good for me.” You shiver when he lets his fingers slide over your face, down to your mouth, sliding them in. You suck them in without having to be asked. They taste like you and him and your eyes roll back when he begins to fuck them down your throat, his free hand cradling your tits again. 
“That’s right. Fuck.” 
It’s like he is in a trance, hypnotized by the way you look with his fingers in your mouth, knowing full well his seed is still inside and will soon be joined by more. He feels like he is addicted to you already, like he just can’t get enough of you. He wants to taste you, wants to have you come on his cock over and over again.
His eyes are glued to you. You, who is sucking on his fingers so prettily, your tongue swirling around the digits and Seungcheol grows impatient. He pulls his fingers out of your mouth and instead grabs his half hard cock with his slicked up fingers, jerking himself off a few times, eyes never leaving yours. 
“Open up wide for me, baby girl.” 
His cock slides through your lips and into your mouth and your eyes roll back, tongue already pressing against his thick length. The groan he lets out makes slick run down your thighs. You want him so bad, your pussy is throbbing and clenching and you feel like your head has never been this dizzy before. Nothing but arousal is in the air, the smell of you and him and what you’ve done just as hypnotizing as your eyes. 
Working forward slowly, Cheol watches as you take more and more of him down your perfect throat, his own mouth hanging low. No one has ever looked as good with his cock in their mouth. He doubts anyone ever will. He’s big, he knows he is and while he wants to be careful with you - he also wants to ruin you. Wants to see drool dripping down your chin, wants to hear you choke on his huge cock. 
“Take it all, I know you can.” He pushes further, his tip gliding down your throat and you choke, your eyes filling with tears, but there is no part of you that isn’t fully enjoying this. You want him to fuck your mouth, to be rough, harsh. Want to be used by him all while having him breed you later on. He watches you, watches the first tear and the first small pool of drool, his cock growing heavier on your tongue by the second.
“Look at you. So, so pretty. Getting Daddy’s cock hard so he can breed you again, isn’t that so nice of you?”
He does his first thrust down your throat and you choke once more, followed by a moan around his cock that makes him groan. Everything around him is a blur. There is only you and your mouth, the warmth of it, the feeling of how your throat restricts around his length, how you seem to vibrate around him. 
Getting your throat fucked certainly wasn’t on your list of probable things happening tonight. But you lose yourself in the feeling of him using you to get off. Feeling him grow harder in your mouth, spit dripping from your mouth onto your bed, his taste ever so present. God, you wanna devour him until he explodes inside of you. 
As much as he enjoys this, though, there is a reason he is here. With a last hard thrust down your excellent throat, he pulls out, watching you gain back your breath, your eyes fluttering open and looking at him with such desperate want it makes shivers run down his back. 
There is no need for words - he leans forward, pushing you over so you’re on your back, his lips catching yours in another heated kiss. His hand is around his cock, leading it to your entrance. The tip breaches you and you moan into the kiss, your arms wrapping around his neck, pulling him even closer. Your legs almost automatically set around his waist, his cock sinking as deep into you as possible.
“Fuck,” he breathes, settling inside of you, giving him and you a second to adjust. God, he could already shoot his load. You feel perfect around him. Like you were made for him and only him. It suddenly bothers him - the fact he’s gonna get you pregnant and never see you again. The thought is scary, and he might have spiraled into something - but you have a different idea. 
Wiggling your hips, you are whining into his mouth, trying to finally get him to move. Your pussy squeezes him, begs him and Cheol is just a man after all. He does his first thrust that is quickly followed by more. Soon, both of your moans are filling the room, his lips kissing every inch of you he can reach, your heartbeat rapidly increasing. You feel like you’re in a different dimension, a dimension that only exists for you and Seungcheol and your pleasure. You arch your back, his mouth on your tits, sucking and biting them, your moans getting louder every second. 
While you don’t want it to end, you also want nothing more than for him to fill you up again. Feel him twitch and lose control because of you. Your nails dig into his muscular back just as he leans back, his dark eyes staring into yours as he fucks you harder, his hands shoving your thighs back, his movements becoming more fluid. Your eyes roll back and you sure you can feel him in your stomach, or no, you can feel him everywhere.
“Look at you, so fucking beautiful, could look at you forever.” 
You wonder if he knows what those words do to you. If he knows how hot he is, how ethereal he looks. Probably. With your mouth and eyes wide, your body in his hands and your pussy crying, begging, yearning for release, you let yourself fall. Fall down into the greatest pleasure of your life, waves and waves of it hitting you, liquid shooting out of you and onto Cheol’s cock and thighs, loud and lewd moans leaving your throat as you reach the highest height you’ve ever been.
Seungcheol’s response is the prettiest sound you’ve ever heard, his own eyes not able to stay open as he fucks into you faster and harder, so close to bursting. And when he does, when he lets go as well, when all he has to give is ready to be given - there is no stopping the wave of yet another orgasm hitting you. Spurts of white are met by your pussy squeezing him, by you crying out his name over and over while his hips crash against yours at rapid speed over and over again. 
Then, he collapses on top of you. Your legs fall into their natural position and your hands find the back of his head, stroking through his wet strands of hair. You are both panting, his chest glued to yours. Sweat and drool and other bodily fluids give the air the smell of sex and you wonder how long it’ll linger in your bedroom. You’re not sure you ever want it to leave. Or him, for that matter.
It takes a good couple of minutes before Seungcheol is able to lift his head to look at you. His eyes sparkle and you smile, one hand wandering to cup his cheek and caress it softly.
“Hi,” you whisper. He can’t help but smile back.
“Hi,” he replies quitely. 
He kisses you after. Soft and sweet. He is still buried inside of you, keeping his cum inside you, making sure it’s all right where it belongs. The thought makes him wonder. Makes him ask himself why it feels like it’s not just his seed that belongs to you. He doesn’t dare to speak what’s on his mind. Instead, he just continues to kiss you.
Unknowingly that you were just thinking the exact same thought as him. 
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osarina · 4 months
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ᡣ𐭩 I LAUGH LIKE ME AGAIN (SHE LAUGHS LIKE YOU)
FEATURING: dazai osamu
SUMMARY: four years apart and the ultimate question is about to be answered: do you and dazai really still know each other, or are you clinging to a fantasy of the past? you decide to put it to the test with a game of wits and questions when dazai gets back to your apartment—but as the game drags on, dazai starts to wonder if maybe he was wrong. worse, if maybe he would prefer to be wrong.
(wordcount: 14.5k; ņsfw; fem!reader; port mafia executive!reader, jealous!dazai, possessive!dazai, smoking & drinking, unprotected sex, switch!dazai, switch!reader, undertones of angst (happy ending). lmk if anything is missing, im rushing to get this out!)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys here it IS - sorry it's late, but TRUST it's worth it. i'm so proud of this fic, genuinely one of the things im most proud of writing. this is technically a part 2 to he's my collar but can be read as a standalone
It takes far too long for Dazai to make it out of the Port Mafia headquarters, with both Akutagawa and Chuuya prowling about like the dogs they are. He wonders if you tipped either of them off—Chuuya, in particular—because the slug had been looking around like he was searching for someone. He thinks you’re entirely wretched for it, knowing that if he got caught, he’d be trapped in that damp and filthy torture chamber until he managed to finagle his way out, and he plans to make it known to you just how entirely displeased he is by the situation. 
The path to your apartment is achingly familiar, and the giddiness in his chest is something he hasn’t felt since the day he left. He knows that he should probably be more careful—he’s still in Port Mafia territory, your apartment spans the top floor of the easternmost building of the five towers—but he also knows that you’re the only one with direct access to the cameras in this building so he’s more reckless than he would’ve otherwise been. 
The floors tick up agonizingly slowly, Dazai swears that there must be something wrong with the elevator because it’s never taken this long before to get up to your place. His fingers thrum against his thigh, and his foot taps the ground impatiently. He paces from corner to corner within the small space like a caged animal. He thinks that maybe he should be taking advantage of the time alone, come up with some better excuses as to why he didn’t say anything to you before he left.
“I wouldn’t have left,” isn’t going to cut it. As true as it might be, it’s not the full truth, and Dazai knows you’ll be able to sniff it out in a matter of a few seconds with a clear head. He’s not walking into a cheerful reunion between old lovers, he’s walking into what’s about to be a stressful game of chess against a strategist whom Dazai has always considered a near-equal, a battle of wits against a woman whose whole life has revolved around political warfare. If he wants to keep his dignity intact and his secrets safe, he’s going to have to be incredibly cautious with what he says to you and even with how he reacts to what you say to him.
Still, he can’t help the giddiness. The excitement. He’s missed you. He’s missed you so much that it hurts. He’d thought that over time, the longing for you would go away, but it never did. If anything, it got worse because, over time, the pictures of you started to lack the soothing feeling they used to bring to the aching in his chest. Over time, he started to forget the sound of your voice and the sound of your laugh.
He’d known that you’d been sent away on foreign business not long after his last call to you, but he didn’t think Mori would actually keep you abroad for three whole years. He’d been hoping, maybe, that he could stumble into you one day. Or maybe just watch from afar, get close enough to hear the sound of your voice again. He’s been grossly denied of you for too long, and he knows that it’s of his own doing but that only makes it worse.
When the elevator dings, announcing his arrival on your floor, Dazai is sorely unprepared for the conversation about to take place. He steps into your penthouse, eyes drifting around the familiar vast space.
Like your office, not much has changed since the last time he was here. Your coffee table is still set down a few centimeters too close to the couch in the living room—the same couch he had his first kiss on with you when the two of you were sixteen and drunk on champagne celebrating a successful mission. You still hang your black jacket over a chair instead of properly on a hanger, it’s why it always has a crease on the back—he’d noticed it when you left your office, and he can’t help but smile slightly at the confirmation as his eyes linger on where it’s draped over one of your kitchen chairs. 
You tried to convince him that you’ve changed in the years the two of you have been apart, but Dazai doesn’t think you’ve changed much at all.
You’re leaning against the windows, looking down on the city—he knows you must’ve heard the elevator, but you haven’t bothered to look his way yet. There’s an indecipherable expression on your face and a glass of wine in your hand. You’re still dressed in your suit and Dazai notices there’s a glass of whiskey on the rocks untouched on the kitchen table. He shrugs off his trench coat and drapes it over yours, hoping that the scent of you seeps into it because he’s gone too long without it.
His fingers curl around the glass of whiskey you’d left out for him, and for a moment, he swears that he’s eighteen again. He’s making his way to your penthouse after a long mission with Chuuya, you’re expecting him—you always are—and he can never push away the fondness that squeezes his chest when he finds you lounging back on your couch, flipping through channels to find something to watch, a glass of his favorite whiskey set down on the coffee table next to where your feet are propped up as you wait for him to show up.
He wonders if you even care to remember what his favorite is. He wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.
He makes his way out of the kitchen and back into the living room, and he’s reminded that he’s not eighteen and you’re not waiting for him to show up after a mission because you finally look at him, and his breath catches in his throat.
He thinks you look a bit older now than you did four years ago—to be expected, of course—and there’s a coldness to your eyes that hadn’t been there before. Impossibly, he thinks that you’re somehow even more beautiful than you were when he last saw you, and he realizes again, throat tightening, that even after three years of no contact with you, he’s just as in love with you now as he was the day he left.
He knew it back then before he left, even if he never said it. When he was eighteen and could only feel any inkling of pleasure when he was with you; it wasn’t like he’d never tried to have sex with other people, he’d whore himself out for information at any given chance and slept around frequently after you started dating a civilian to distract himself from the bitter jealousy he felt, but he’d never known how good it was supposed to feel until he slept with you for the first time. When he was seventeen and could only ever feel comfortable in your presence, seeking you out at any given chance when he couldn’t handle being around people anymore; he’d curl up in your office with your orange blanket, napping as you did work, knowing that you’d keep people away from him. He thinks he might’ve even known when he was sixteen when the two of you first met on the streets of the Kanagawa prefecture.
He wonders if you even believed him when he said it earlier—he doubts it, you don’t seem too keen to believe anything he says, and he doesn’t blame you for it. 
But whether you believe it or not, it’s yours—that rotted heart of his, shriveled and shabby, riddled with holes and decay, half-eaten by maggots and worms it might be, but it’s still yours. He thinks that it was meant to be yours since the moment he was born, and it’ll be yours even after the two of you are long dead. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to go without you again—he doesn’t think he can. He knows that despite the tentative ceasefire, the Port Mafia and the Agency are still enemies, but he knows in his heart that he won’t be able to leave you again. Even just the sight of you has condemned him completely. 
Then you speak, and at once, his entire world falls apart.
“I’m leaving again in the morning,” you finally say, tone flat and eyes sharp and shrewd as you look over him. He reminds himself that this is not a reunion, that he needs to get his head on straight if he wants to make it out of your apartment in one piece, but it’s hard. “I was only brought back to smooth things over with the government after the whole fiasco with Fitzgerald and his American cronies. I’ll be leaving for Russia in the morning to meet with Tolstoy and Nabakov. Hopefully, gain some intel on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s plans before the man makes another move on the city.”
He… did not anticipate that you’d be leaving again so soon. Something cold and sharp latches to his heart, like jagged nails ripping it apart. He makes sure it doesn’t show on his face.
“Be careful,” he tells you quietly. “Dostoevsky… he’s not someone to underestimate. Just-Just be careful.”
You raise your eyebrows, unimpressed, “I’ve worked with Dostoevsky before. I don’t need you to warn me about him.” 
Your voice is cool. Sharp. Dazai sighs, knowing that anything he might’ve said to you earlier in the night is lost to you, and he doesn’t know if he’ll have it in him to bare his heart again, only for you to scorn it. He’s not meeting with you as he knows you—as his closest friend, as his lover; he’s meeting with you as the Port Mafia executive. Not the version of you that treats with allies, wining and dining them with glittering eyes and playful smiles as you use your ability to ensure they never turn on the Port Mafia; the version of you that sits at the round table with enemies, with a quick mind and calculating eyes as you decide whether or not they’re worthy of being absorbed into the Port Mafia or if Double Black will be sent out to eradicate them. 
“I told you everything I had to say back at the office,” Dazai tries, and he wonders if you’ll let him get away with it—he doubts it, but it’s worth a shot, and it will at least stall for a few moments as he tries to forcibly turn the cogs in his mind to figure out the best way of appeasing you. “I missed you. I… couldn’t say goodbye to you, not if I was to leave. I…”
I love you.
He doesn’t say it; he thinks he was only able to push it out earlier in the night in the heat of the moment, the orgasm-induced haze fogging his brain enough to let it slip out in desperation to make you give him a chance. And it worked because you gave him a second chance when you invited him back to your apartment, but Dazai doesn’t know how to make the most of the opportunity. He thinks he’s a fool for not preparing for this before getting here.
You click your tongue sharply, lip curling up in something close to disgust, and Dazai is glad he didn’t speak his ‘I love you’ because he thinks he might’ve actually cried if that was your reaction to him saying it.
“The only things you told me earlier in the night were half-truths and sweet talk. I didn’t invite you back to my apartment to hear you beg for another chance, Dazai,” you say coolly, and Dazai desperately misses the sound of his given name on your tongue. The corner of your lip curves up into a half-smirk, eyes suddenly glittering beneath the dim lighting of your penthouse as you add, “Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to it after we talk.”
He thinks the fact that you’re already considering an after might be a good sign. He can feel his cheeks flush a bit at your words, but instead of letting himself get rattled, he takes a step forward, well into your personal space, as he dips his face down so close to yours that his lips nearly brush yours as he speaks.
“I’d beg pretty for you,” he whispers, letting his voice drop an octave as his gaze tracks down to your lips. “I’d even get on my knees.”
Unfortunately, you are entirely unbothered by the proposition. “We’ll see, I suppose,” you say, and then raise your eyebrows, signaling for him to take a step back.
He does, and he feels distinctly put out and rejected by your reaction, but he sighs and asks, “What did you invite me here for then?” 
He very much does not like the way your eyes glitter now—shrewd this time, more amused, dangerous, as if you know the two of you are about to tread down territory that he’s going to be unfamiliar with. You nod for him to follow you into the kitchen, taking a seat at the head of the table and motioning for him to sit opposite you.
He does.
“We can play a game,” you finally concede. Dazai settles back against his chair, fingers still tapping rhythmically against his glass of whiskey, a terrible habit that Dazai has accrued whenever he feels cornered. Not a frequent occurrence, but damning when it is. Your eyes linger on them, and he knows you’ve pinpointed the tell. He forces himself to stop, but from the way your lips curl up, he can tell it doesn’t matter. “Ten questions each. Yes or no answers only.”
Dazai notices that you pointedly leave out any rule about the honesty of each answer—intentional, surely, so he probes.
“How do we determine the winner?” Dazai asks. He finally takes a sip of the fine whiskey you’d poured for him, and his question from earlier is answered. His favorite. There’s a warm feeling in his chest at the realization that you’ve remembered it even after all of these years.
Your lips curve up into a sharper and wider smile, teeth glimmering like knives beneath the soft lighting of your kitchen. The glass of wine in your hands is suddenly more reminiscent of a gun being pointed at him than your choice of alcohol, and he feels as if he’s already made some egregious mistake in your eyes.
“After we give our answer, the other has to decide whether or not it was truthful. In the end, we’ll both see how many the other got right. A test to see how well we still know each other,” is all you say in response. You’re mocking him and his insistence that the two of you are still the same, but Dazai intends to prove himself right. You tilt your head to the side and then say, “The prize is to be determined by the winner. I’ll ask the first question.”
Dazai winks, a lecherous comment already on his tongue about the prize, but the withering look you give him is more than enough to make it die before he can let it loose. He pointedly takes another sip of his drink and sinks in his seat.
He thinks that this should be an easy win. You’re quite the adept liar, but you’ve always had a glaring tell. Well, he amends, it’s glaring to him, at least. Not many others would be observant enough to catch it, and even if they were, only someone with an abundance of experience with you would be able to put it together. His gaze flickers up to meet yours, wondering if your lashes flutter right before you tell a lie. It’s such a simple and subtle tell, so casual that it took Dazai a year and a half to put together, but it was hard to miss once he did.
You hum to yourself as you give off the appearance of thinking about a question, but Dazai knows you better than anyone, and he’s certain that you already have all ten prepared, so he rolls his eyes at the faux show of uncertainty. 
“We both know you know what you want to ask,” he finally says. “Do us both a favor and quit with the theatrics.”
Your lip quirks up in amusement. “And here I was being gracious giving you more time to formulate whatever lies you’ll try to get away with,” you drawl, and Dazai nearly flinches.
“You know me so well,” Dazai sighs to hide how disconcerted he really is. “The question?”
You stare at him for a moment, and your lips curl up into a deceptively soft smile that almost throws Dazai off because, god, he’s missed you. And he knows you’re looking at him like this just for this specific reason because you’re a despicable bitch who knows that he’s always been easily unsettled when people show any semblance of affection toward him, but he can’t help the way he falters.
He tries to brace himself for whatever invasive question you’re about to ask regarding his reasons for leaving. Tries to prepare himself to lie cleanly because he’s sure you’re as aware of his tells as he is of yours. 
Then you ask: 
“Did you defect because of something Oda asked of you?”
Jesus. Right for the throat. You really don’t pull punches. 
Dazai’s throat tightens at the mention of his old friend, but he’s able to keep his expression clear of the sudden pain that your question brings on. You’re watching him carefully for reactions, gaze hawklike as you study his face, and Dazai is not about to let you pinpoint any more of his tells so early in the game.
He figures that this is an easy question; you already know the answer but want to hear the confirmation from his lips, so he decides to tell the truth.
“Yes.”
“The truth,” you say, an indecipherable expression on your face. He wonders if you want to ask what Odasaku asked of him, but that’s not part of the game and Dazai has no intention of answering that.
Be on the side that saves people. If both are the same to you, become a good man.
You might laugh in his face—Dazai Osamu, the Demon Prodigy, a good man? The idea is blasphemous, and he thinks it might actually hurt him if you scoff or laugh in response to hearing that, so he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t give away more than he has to, hoping that you don’t just straight up ask him.
You open your lips to speak, and Dazai braces himself for the prying question, but instead, you only probe, “First question?”
He wonders if your whole first question and the implications of it was just a means of trying to throw him off because now he’s fumbling trying to remember what he wanted to ask you before you hit him with it. He wouldn’t put it past you to play dirty like that—bringing up his dead friend and his last request just to unsettle him to give you the edge.
“Did we meet during my underground years after I defected?” he finally asks, and yeah, he knows the answer to this question. The missing half of his ear and waking up in the old safe house he used to hide out at with you is more than enough evidence for him to come to a definite conclusion, but he wants to hear it from you.
“Yes.”
Dazai inhales sharply and then murmurs, “That’s the truth.” And then, more loudly and far more affronted, he accuses, “I can’t believe you shot half of my ear off.”
He expects you to toss him a wink and a sharp grin, unrepentant and even finding amusement in his offense, but instead, your expression falters for the first time since he’s arrived. Something strange crosses your face; for whatever reason, his words leave you conflicted and Dazai suddenly feels even more nervous than he already was because now he can’t help but wonder what he might’ve said to you in his drunken state. 
He supposes that’ll have to be another question, but first, he’s going to have to figure out how to phrase it to get a yes or no answer first, without being vague enough for it to be a waste of a question or easy for you to misconstrue.
You hum after a few moments, taking a pointed sip of your wine. Dazai watches curiously—you’re bothered still, you’re not even trying to hide it. He knows you have better control over your facial expressions than this, so he thinks maybe it’s a ploy to get him to start spiraling down a path of useless questions. Put off by his sudden inability to discern your schemes, a part of him wonders if maybe you were right because the him of four years ago would’ve seen right through you right now.
“I’m afraid it had to be done,” you sigh with faux regret, but he can tell from the way the smile on your lips doesn’t reach your eyes that you’re not into the banter. “Were you able to fulfill Oda’s request?” 
Fuck. This time Dazai can’t withhold the grimace that spreads across his face. He tries to keep his voice light with a deflecting comment, “My, bella, you’re really hitting with the deep questions tonight, aren’t you?”
You raise your eyebrows, tilting your head to the side as you wait for an answer, not giving him any room to formulate a response to your question. He finally sighs and shakes his head, taking a long sip of his whiskey. He wishes he had a pack of cigarettes on him, suddenly desperately longing for the pleasant burn of the smoke against his throat; he needs the buzz badly right now.
As if you could read his mind, you shift in your seat a bit and stuff your hand into the pocket of your slacks. It takes a few seconds but you fish out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, sliding them across the table over to him. If he wasn’t already so in his head over the question you asked, he’d make a quip over the fact that you still know him so well despite your insistence otherwise, but he only pulls out a cigarette and lights it, looking curiously down at the familiar brand.
“Since when did you start smoking these?” he asks quietly, eyes fluttering shut as he tilts his head back and takes a long drag of it. He exhales slowly and then adds, “Thought you liked the other ones, in the green box.”
“Teal,” you correct, and then frown a bit. “... Switched after you left.”
Dazai’s eyes flutter back open as his gaze focuses on you, wondering if the implication you left up in the air is something he can take at face value or if it’s just another way of trying to get him to lower his guard. But from the way you suddenly don’t meet his eyes, Dazai thinks you might be being honest: you switched because they reminded you of him.
Dazai’s chest suddenly feels heavy again.
“... No,” he finally responds to your second question. “Not yet, at least.”
“... Truth,” you say, and Dazai’s lips curl into a wry smile.
“Unfortunately.” The word slips out before he can stop it.
Your gaze flickers back up to him, curious, but Dazai doesn’t give you the chance to dwell on his comment, asking his next question: “Did I… admit anything to you that night that I wouldn’t have said while sober?”
His fingers tap rhythmically against his glass of whiskey, half-empty now; he’s anxious to hear your response.
“You did,” you confirm.
Dazai grimaces because that’s another truth, and that is not good. But just like how he doesn’t offer any context for his answers, you don’t either. He doesn’t know what he might’ve admitted or how you might’ve taken it—he’s going to have to waste another question on this topic.
“Truth,” he murmurs.
You hum and then ask, “Do you still blame yourself for what happened to him?”
“Come on,” Dazai complains sharply, tossing you a dirty look now. His jaw is tight. He wonders if you keep asking about Oda as some sort of sick revenge for him leaving, ripping open wounds that never properly healed so you can dig your fingers into them and twist around. You don’t look bothered by his outburst, waiting patiently for a response. He lets out an angry sigh, looking away and taking another long drink from his glass and another drag of his cigarette. 
He voices his first lie, “No.”
You let out a puff of air, rising to your feet and making your way over to the opposite counter, you grab the bottle of whiskey and bring it back over to him, topping off his now-empty glass before pointedly holding out your hand. He passes the cigarette over to you, tilting his head back to watch you bring it to your lips—a part of him longs to lean forward, to slide his hand behind your neck and cradle your head as he brings his lips to yours, inhaling the smoke as you exhale it, dizzy off the proximity to you, high off the buzz of the nicotine, just like the two of you would do when before he left.
He refrains, if only barely.
You exhale the smoke, a small cloud billowing around you—Dazai mourns the waste—and then you pass the cigarette back over to him. Your fingers brush his as you do, and a spark shoots through his arm at the touch.
“A lie,” you finally say, looking down at him with a frown. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could’ve done to save him.”
“You don’t know that,” Dazai says tightly, averting his gaze from you as you make your way back over to your seat across from him. “If I’d been faster-”
“If Mori wants someone dead, then they’ll die,” you interrupt him, a grimace on your face as you look down at your wine glass. “Trust me, Dazai, there was no saving Oda Sakunosuke.”
Dazai pauses instead of snapping again, catching the expression on your face. Haunted, as if you’re speaking from experience. He tilts his head to the side and then asks quietly, “Are you talking about your ex-partner? Itou?”
If Dazai remembers correctly, he died on a mission when you turned eighteen. You never told him the circumstances, and he never asked, but it was the first and only time you ever broke down in front of him.
The corner of your lips tightens, “Is that your next question?”
Dazai barely withholds a frustrated sigh. 
“No,” he says quietly, and then asks, “Did I tell you why I couldn’t say goodbye? The real reason?”
He holds his breath now as he waits for your response. One way or another, this question is a double blade: if he did tell you why, then he’s at another disadvantage because he’s going to feel distinctly bare and vulnerable; if he didn’t tell you, he just admitted that he lied back at your office, at least partially. 
After what feels like an eternity, you finally say, “Yes.”
The truth. Dazai wonders when you’re going to utter your first lie, if you will, or if you’re trying to make some sort of point by being honest with him. He voices his answer and then waits impatiently for your next question as his mind races.
He desperately wants to know how you responded to him back then. Would you have come with him had he come to you before he left? Or would you have chosen the Port Mafia? He wonders if he should ask, make it one of his remaining seven questions, but he doesn’t know if he has the guts to hear your answer, so maybe he’ll just change the subject.
“Are you enjoying yourself at the Agency?”
For the life of him, Dazai cannot figure out your angle. First, the prying questions about Oda and now asking about the Agency. He doesn’t know what he expected at the start of the game—you’ve always been unpredictable, but even more so now. He’s never had such a hard time reading you or your intentions before.
He starts to feel even more doubtful, wondering if you were right.
Maybe he doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does anymore.
But this is an easy question, so he says the truth with little hesitation, “I am.”
Dazai swears the corners of your lips curl up into a soft smile, but it’s gone so quickly that he might’ve imagined it.
“Good,” you say quietly. “I’m glad.”
Dazai’s lips part, a warm feeling spreads through his chest at the honesty in your tone. Desperately, he wants to know what’s going on—where’s the rage and the betrayal he expected from you? The hate? Why do you seem… okay with all of this?
Irrationally, he starts to wonder if everything from the office was just a heat-of-the-moment conversation. If now that you’ve had time to sit on your thoughts, you’ve realized… realized what? That you’ve moved on from him? That you don’t care what he does anymore? That you’ve accepted that he’s no longer a part of your life? The warmth in his chest disappears, edged away by a sudden coldness and desperation because he thinks he’d rather die than go back to a life without you.
Even more irrationally, he remembers the comment you made back at the office, the admission that you’ve slept around since he left. Oh god, what if you really have moved on?
He knows his next question.
“The people you slept with—were they all one-night stands?”
He doesn’t want to know the answer unless it’s a yes.
You raise your eyebrows at the abrupt shift in his line of questioning, and then, to his absolute horror, you say, truthfully, “No.”
“What do you mean no?” he asks angrily—he thinks if he was a bird, he’d be puffing his chest out in irritation. He feels antsy suddenly, he needs to move around. He starts tapping his foot against the floor, his fingers against the glass. And again, he thinks you’re a despicable bitch because you only look amused at his question as if he’s not beside himself with righteous fury.
“It’s not your turn,” is all you respond with, and Dazai has a distinct urge to throttle you. Then you ask, “Do you feel like you belong there?”
He halts.
His fingers freeze from where they’re tapping against the glass, his foot freezes mid-motion. His lips part as he’s confronted with the very question that he’s been struggling with for two years now. He wants to yes, if only to maybe be a little spiteful, to rub in your face that he’s somewhere good and he’s somewhere where he belongs, and it’s not somewhere with you. A cruel dig to get back for the aching in his chest at the thought of you being with other people, but he knows that you’ll catch the lie, and more importantly, he doesn’t want to hurt you like that.
Maybe he has grown a bit because the Dazai of four years ago nearly killed your civilian boyfriend when he found out that you were dating someone besides him and then promptly made a show of sleeping around to try to get back at you.
So, instead, he says quite honestly, “I don’t know.”
You tilt your head to the side. “Not a yes or no answer, but I suppose it works. How curious.”
He hates your cryptic comments. Pointedly, he side-eyes you as he takes another long drag of his cigarette. Already, it’s nearly down to the nub, so he puts it out on your table, ignoring the distasteful look you give him, and then reaches for another to light as he asks: “Were you in a relationship with any of them?” 
You roll your eyes at his prying, and he cannot hide the abject horror that crosses his face when you say, “Yes.”
“That better be a lie,” he complains, and when you look at him as if to ask if that’s really his guess, he makes a show of pushing out his bottom lip and looking away as he says: “I cannot believe you dated other people. Cheater.”
“We were never even dating, Daz-”
“Yes, we were,” Dazai protests instantly, entirely aghast at your words. “We absolutely were. What does that even mean? Of course, we were dating. Everybody knew it. Ask anybody. Ane-san knew. Gin-chan knew. Chuuya knew. Even Mori knew. We were so dating, you-”
“You never officially asked me to be your girlfriend, which is, unfortunately, the most fundamental step of dating,” you interrupt him, and Dazai stares at you in disbelief.
“I bought you flowers, we fucked exclusively,” Dazai complains, aggrieved. “We were definitely dating, and you definitely cheated on me because we never broke up.”
“If we were dating,” you emphasize the if very pointedly, and Dazai is distinctly put out by it, “then we broke up the day you left without saying goodbye.”
Dazai withers. He has no witty comment to return fire with, so instead, he just takes another sip of his whiskey, grateful for the combined buzz of the alcohol and the nicotine to distract him from the overwhelming guilt he feels whenever you bring up how he left you.
“Do you feel like you belong more with the Agency than you did with the Port Mafia?” 
Your next question is an amendment to your previous on, and it leaves Dazai just as lost.
He wants to belong with the Agency. He does. Desperately. He wants more than anything to feel as at home and comfortable in the light as he does in the dark. He doesn’t want to question his place among them anymore, he doesn’t want to wonder if he sticks out like a sore thumb. He wants to enter the office and feel like he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not, just so he can keep his place with them. He doesn’t want to have to fear at every corner that he’s going to revert to old habits, and they’ll see him for the monster that he is: a monster that should have never left the dark crevices that he crawled out from, a monster with blood so black that it strikes fear in even the most terrible mafiosos.
“No,” he admits the insecurity that’s plagued him to the one person he feels comfortable enough with to voice it aloud. He can’t bring himself to look up at you, wondering if the admission will give you some sort of sick satisfaction, if you’ll be happy that he’s not finding a place he can be comfortable in without you. Instead, he decides to rush to ask his next question: “The one you were in a relationship with, did you love him?”
He thinks that the question came across as far more timid than he meant it to be, and his eyes slide shut as he waits for your answer.
“There were multiple I had relationships with—” Dazai scoffs, of course, there were multiple. “—...but no, I did not.”
He lets out a soft puff of air, shoulders slumping a bit in relief. But his fingers are still tense around his glass, waiting for whatever question you’re going to ask next that’s going to dig deep into open wounds, stripping him of all of his masks and armor to force him to lay himself entirely bare in front of you.
“Did you really blow up Chuuya’s car before you left?”
His eyes fly open at the sudden change of pace in your questions, noting the smirk curling at the corner of your lips and the amusement glinting in your eyes. He accepts the olive branch quickly as he gives you a sharp smile and asks: “What do you think?” 
Your hand flies to your mouth to muffle a laugh, and the smile on Dazai’s lips becomes a bit softer as he watches you desperately try to get yourself under control. “You’re insane, you know that?” you finally say, still trying to bite back giggles. “He was so mad. Raged about it for weeks.”
Another question pops into Dazai’s head at the mention of Chuuya, and before he can consider whether or not he actually wants to know the answer to it, he asks: “Speaking of Chuuya, was he one of your trysts while I was gone?”
Suddenly, you are not laughing, and suddenly, Dazai regrets speaking.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Do not tell me-”
“He was,” you confirm.
Dazai’s glass of whiskey is empty. 
He grabs the bottle and drinks right from it, miserable.
“I think I would’ve rather been stabbed through the heart,” Dazai says mournfully, and though he keeps a faux-light tone with you, his throat feels like it’s swollen, and he feels a bit sick to his stomach.
He’s always been jealous of the bond you have with Chuuya. Absurdly jealous, even. You clicked with him quickly—you clicked with both of them quickly, and maybe it was a matter of the three of you being the youngest of the Port Mafia’s uppermost echelon, but Dazai doesn’t want to attribute it solely to that—but the way you clicked with Chuuya was different from how you clicked with Dazai. Two people so completely human locked away in the dark, clinging to one another to maintain some sense of normalcy; your and his casual humanity made Dazai’s lack of it irrefutable and glaring.
Regardless of the why, he never liked how close you were with Chuuya. 
Even before you were dating him—because you were dating him—a part of him had always felt sidelined whenever the three of you hung out together. Not because of either of your wrongdoings but just because it was hard for him to keep up with the two of you. He always felt a bit lost trying to, unable to follow along when the two of you would start laughing at jokes that he didn’t understand even when you explained them to him, when you would share glances with one another that spoke whole conversations he wasn’t privy to. The two of you got along in ways that Dazai would never be able to get along with anyone because there’s just something fundamentally wrong with him at his core. Chuuya, for all of his talk and fear regarding the question of his humanity, has always been so unfailingly human in ways that Dazai, to this day, cannot fathom to understand.
After you started dating him—because you were dating him—it only got worse because he’d see you with Chuuya and wonder if you were better off with someone like him instead. Dazai doesn’t know how to treat you right, clearly. He can’t even treat himself right; and Chuuya has always been the epitome of a gentleman, loathe Dazai is to admit it—Ane-san drilled that into the other boy where Mori only taught Dazai how to be cruel and unforgiving. The line between love and obsession has always been a terribly blurry one for him, and you have always wavered on either side of it—and Dazai, unfortunately, does not love healthily and obsesses so entirely that it would have most people running for the hills. 
For better or for worse, you’re not most people.
In his spiral of insecurity, he doesn’t catch the way your brows furrow as you put together some puzzle pieces. “Dazai,” you say suddenly, drawing him from his thoughts abruptly. There’s an accusatory look in your eyes that he really does not like. “Were you the one that booby-trapped my fucking apartment?”
Dazai snorts.
“You bastard,” you snap at him, and Dazai can’t help but bite the palm of his hand as a means of trying to stifle his laughter. “Mori thought it was a goddamn assassination attempt. He kept me under watch for weeks because of you. I couldn’t leave the towers without half of the Black Lizards with me.”
“Sorry,” he coos, not sorry at all. Dazai, because he clearly doesn’t know when to learn his lesson, then he promptly asks, “Am I better fuck than Chuuya?”
“Jesus Christ, Dazai, get off the topic of Chuuya and my sex life, it’s clearly only upsetting you,” you snap at him instead of answering the question. Dazai wants to argue and retain some dignity; he’s not upset, but then his entire world is shattered by your next words: “I am not answering this question.”
Dazai blanches. He can feel the blood drain from his face. He’d thought this was an easy question to make him feel a bit better. What do you mean you won’t answer? Does that mean Chuuya-
No. Dazai refuses to believe it.
 “No way,” he says, shaking his head. “He’s not a better fuck than me. You can’t possibly-”
“He’s not,” you finally say, and Dazai audibly lets out a sigh of relief. “But if you ever mention anything along the likes of that to him, you will never fuck me again, Dazai Osamu. Do you understand?”
Dazai is too relieved to even argue. “Yeah.”
“No more questions about my sex life,” you say firmly, and Dazai doesn’t respond, but he does agree internally because he doesn’t think his heart can handle any more scares like that. Your eyes sharpen again, and Dazai braces himself. “Were you the one to tell Mori I lied about being sick so I could skip out on the ball Mishima hosted when we were seventeen?”
Dazai’s eyes narrow right back at you and rather than answering, he shoots one of his own questions at you: “Were you the one to tell Mori I had his contact in my phone as ‘ignore’?”
You take his lack of an answer as an affirmative, correctly so. Dazai has no regrets about ratting you out to Mori because he was not about to attend Mishima’s event without you on his arm. He’d rather die. 
“You bastard, do you know the lengths I went to fake being sick? I wanted one night to relax without people breathing down my neck.”
“If I had to go, you had to go,” Dazai retorts petulantly. “I was not about to suffer with only Chuuya as company. You had no reason to tell Mori about the contact name besides to be petty. I fought with Chuuya for weeks because I thought he was the one to do it.”
You choke on a laugh. “Chuuya was so mad, he had no idea what you were talking about.”
“He tied me to a pole and swung me around for three hours,” Dazai complains, but there’s a smile on his lips as you burst into laughter, unable to stifle the giggles that spill from your lips.
“I know,” you wheeze, “I got it on video. We watch it sometimes when we’re bored and can’t find a movie.”
Dazai gapes, and you laugh harder, but for the first time in four years, Dazai finally feels… at home, he feels comfortable in his own skin again. He’s back in your penthouse, he’s drinking his favorite whiskey and smoking his favorite brand of cigarettes, you’re sitting at the kitchen table with him and laughing your head off at his expense, and for a moment, Dazai feels as if nothing has changed: he feels like himself again, eighteen and entirely enamored by the sight and sound of you, and you feel like you again, all of the doubt that had begun to rise to his chest as the two of you played the questions game long gone.
He falls in love with you all over again. Harder this time. Faster. He thinks he’ll fall in love with you again and again every day for the rest of your lives, each time more than the last, no matter how impossible it might seem.
He thinks maybe it’s not that he feels like he belongs with the Port Mafia more than the Agency. He thinks that it’s you. You’re the one he feels at home with. You’re the one he’s comfortable enough to be himself with. You’re the one he belongs with, always has, and always will.
After a few moments, you finally manage to get yourself under control, still giggling a bit as you look back up at him. Your smile is softer now, eyes gentle, more genuine than the smile you gave him before asking the first question. Dazai’s breath catches because when was the last time you looked at him like this—the last time anyone has looked at him like this? A warm feeling spreads through his chest; Dazai thinks he would stay in this moment forever if given the opportunity.
“Are you happy?” you ask quietly
Dazai blinks, startled, and an odd feeling spreads through his chest once your question registers. His lips part to answer, but no words leave them; he draws back as if he’s been slapped, a bit flustered and confused because that’s the furthest thing from what he expected you to ask. He wonders if you’d asked the last three questions to lull him into a false sense of security.
“I-” he starts to say but cuts himself off. “What kind of question is that?” 
He tries to deflect instead of properly answering, frowning, but you only raise your eyebrows, pointedly keeping your lips sealed to let him know that you expect an answer. He shakes his head and then sighs, bouncing the question in his head a few times before going for a cop-out: “When I’m with you? Always.”
You’re not pleased by his decision, frowning as you look away from him—he knows that’s not what you asked, not really, but you should have been clearer with your question if you wanted him to give you the answer you expected. But he doesn’t like the sudden disappointment on your face, it leaves his skin itchy and his chest longing for the soft look to return.
So he sits there, ruminating on the question. Is he happy? He should be, right? He’s saving people. He’s on the way to fulfilling Odasaku’s final request. He has a whole group of people whom he can rely on without having to fear being taken advantage of or betrayed at every corner. He’s happy.
But is he trying to convince himself of it? Why is he still trying to kill himself if he’s happy? Why is there a part of him that feels lonely no matter how surrounded he is by people? Why is it that when he’s at his lowest points, the only two people he wishes he could be with are you and Chuuya? Why does he ache for the days he’d spend dragging the two of you around Yokohama, causing trouble for Mori—the closest he’s ever felt to enjoying life?
“I don’t know,” he finally amends his answer, looking down at the bottle in front of him and the cinders of the cigarette dangling between his fingers. He lifts it to his lips again, taking one last drag of it as he tries to figure out what his last question should be.
There’s only one pressing question he has left, but he hesitates, unsure if he really wants to know your answer.
He forces it out anyway.
“Would you… would you have come with me back then?” His voice is quieter than he intended, cracks over ‘me’, and to your credit, you don’t react to the question, expression as eerily still as it was before, as if you’re considering your words.
A yes or no. It shouldn’t take this long for you to answer. Each second that passes feels like an eternity, and Dazai suddenly feels anxious, he doesn’t know why he asked this question because if the answer is no—if it’s no, then…
Finally, you let you a soft sigh, taking a sip of your wine as if to prolong his agony.
Your lashes flutter before you speak.
You lie for the first time that night.
“Yes.”
Dazai’s voice sounds far away as he says, “That’s a lie.”
“I guess you were right,” you say softly, but you sound so distant, like you’re on the opposite side of a long, empty tunnel and not sitting right in front of him. “We do still know each other decently well; you got them all right.”
Dazai doesn’t care. In fact, he would have gladly conceded a loss in this game, and he would’ve gladly admitted that maybe the two of you don’t know each other as well as you used to if it meant that he got the last question wrong because then he would’ve just given you a coy expression and asked if you’d let him get to know this new version of you too. You would’ve said yes, and he would’ve made quite the pleasurable night out of it for the two of you. Instead, he had to insist that nothing has changed, and now he has to come to terms with the fact that he was right and he had known you well enough back then to know not to ask you to leave with him because you would have chosen the Mafia over him. 
He’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t even notice you approaching him until you’re leaning on the table next to him, index and middle finger coming beneath his chin to tilt his face up toward you. He looks up at you through his lashes, eyes searching your face, but he only finds another blank slate that he can’t read. His breath hitches when your hand slides from his chin to cup his cheek, and he can’t help the way that he leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut.
“I would choose you over so many things, Osamu.” You speak his given name for the first time in years, but he can hardly find any comfort in it because he knows he’s not going to like what you’re about to say. Your fingers card through the tips of his hair, brushing the dark locks behind his ear as your thumb sweeps over his cheekbone. “But not over the Port Mafia. Just like how you didn’t choose to stay for me.”
“It’s not the same,” he says, voice hoarse. “It’s-”
“It is,” you interrupt, voice deceptively gentle, and he thinks you’re entirely unfair because he can hardly focus with your touch distracting him. He’s missed it so much—he’s gone four years without it, without any type of touch that wasn’t him getting his shit kicked in by Kunikida or an enemy. “You didn’t choose to stay for me. I wouldn’t have chosen to leave for you.”
“Why?” Dazai asks tightly, and he hates that when his jaw tenses, you smooth your fingers over it, and he unclenches it immediately.
There’s a sadder look in your eye now as you give him a small smile. “You know why.”
Of course, he knows why. He feels the hatred deep in his gut as his mind draws back to Mori. Because that’s who the issue is. It’s not the Port Mafia. It’s not your friendship with Kouyou. It’s not even your friendship with Chuuya that’s the issue. It’s Mori and your undying loyalty to him. No matter how much you claim to despise him, bashing him every chance you get, sneering at him whenever he tries to treat you like his daughter, Dazai knows that when it comes down to it, you’ll always choose him. You’d throw yourself on a sword if he asked it of you, and not for the first time, Dazai wants to spit in the man’s face for making you feel as if you’re eternally indebted to him for rescuing you from that warzone so many years ago; for making you feel as if you’re nothing without the Mafia, nothing without him.
“You don’t owe him anything,” Dazai says tightly. “You have to know that by now—you don’t owe him anything.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation, Dazai,” you sigh, sounding tired. Your hand drops from his face, and Dazai longs for your touch again instantly. His fingers twitch from where they’re resting on his lap; he only barely stops himself from reaching out for you. You try to smile as you change the subject, but it hardly meets your eyes, “It’s a tie then. No prize for either of us, hm?”
Dazai is not so inclined to switch the subject. He wants to press on this now that he has the chance; he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to rip you out from beneath Mori’s thumb, but he needs to at least try… but you’re leaving again in the morning, and Dazai also does not want to ruin this night with you. He doesn’t know when he’ll get another.
So, instead, he matches your half-assed smile as he looks up at you and says, “I didn’t say you got them all right. You only said that I got them all right.”
You raise your eyebrows. “Did I get any wrong?” you ask, amused.
No.
“Yes.”
“Liar,” you say, but there’s a fond lilt to your tone as you let out another puff of air, the smile on your face finally reaching your eyes as you look down at him. The soft lighting of your kitchen casts a pretty glow over your face, your smile is so entrancing that Dazai thinks he could stare at it forever.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes out, the words slipping from his lips before he can stop them. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He’s sure he must look like a fool right now, entirely enamored by the sight of you, unable to even fathom drawing his gaze away. He wonders if you’ll protest again, call him a liar, and shift away from him.
You don’t.
The smile on your lips falls, and a wrecked expression crosses your face as your eyes search his. Your lips part to speak, and he waits with bated breath for whatever you’re about to say—he thinks that if you deny him again right now, it might completely shatter all of the walls he’d so carefully built to protect himself.
“I’ve missed you too,” you whisper as if you’re scared to speak the words out loud—and how can he blame you when the last time you dared to speak them, he hung up on you, never hearing from him again until tonight.
God, the guilt he feels whenever he thinks of you returns with a vengeance, so intense that Dazai starts to feel sick to his stomach. He can’t handle it, so he does the only thing he knows how to do to distract himself from it.
His movements are clumsy as he pushes himself up to his feet, nearly tripping over the leg of his chair, and his fingers feel clunky as he lifts them up to cup your cheeks. For a second, he fears that you might move away from him, but you don’t, so he leans in to press his lips against yours.
There’s no tenderness to his kiss. Dazai kisses you like he wants to consume you, lips sliding messily against yours, blunt nails indent crescents into your cheeks as he holds you close. Usually, he would be embarrassed by his blatant desperation and lack of finesse—he’s never been a sloppy kisser, when the two of you were younger, you would always let out pleased hums into his mouth, lashes fluttering as he worked his lips carefully against yours, tongue sliding against your own as he traces his name on it. 
All of his finely honed skill is thrown out the window now as he kisses you like a man who has been starved for years. He has been starved for years—the quick fuck in your office did nothing to quell the longing he’s felt for you the past four years. He could kiss you for hours. Days, even, and it still won’t be enough. Nothing short of an eternity with you would be enough to make up for the four years he’s been deprived of you.
He lets out a low groan into your mouth as you nip at his bottom lip, hands sliding from your face down to your hips. He’d take you here. Right now. But he remembers the last time he tried to fuck you on your kitchen table, it ended with him choking on the barrel of your gun as you yelled at him for being gross (“I eat on this table, you heathen!”) and he’s not particularly in the mood to set off your temper now that he finally has you in his arms again, so it’s with much restraint that he grabs you by the hips to walk you back into your bedroom.
He can hardly concentrate as your fingers twist the hair at the nape of his neck, soft moans slipping from his lips, muffled against your mouth. It’s only sheer instinct and muscle memory that has him making his way from the kitchen and down the hall. He can’t bring himself to separate his lips from yours for even a second. And he’s a mess because he’s not coherent enough to force himself to breathe properly through his nose, so his lungs are burning and his head feels a bit light, but he doesn’t care so long as it means he can keep kissing you.
Turn left, turn right, second door from the end of the hall. 
His fingers fumble for the knob of your bedroom door, pushing it open a bit too hard, considering the way he hears it slam against the wall and how you tug his hair hard in retaliation. He doesn’t care, moans a bit louder even when your nails scrape his stinging scalp, and you let out a derisive noise against his lips before biting down hard enough to draw blood.
The taste of iron makes a slow smile curl at his lips, walking you back toward the bed, and it’s only when your knees hit the edge that you finally pull away from him. “If you broke my door, you’re fixing it, Osamu.”
Dazai’s smile is lecherous. “I’m gonna break something alright,” he croons, relishing in the way you immediately roll your eyes at him. It’s all so familiar—he can almost pretend that he never left, that nothing has changed since the two of you were eighteen, dumb, reckless, and in love.
Before he can press you back against the bed, he feels your fingers drop from around his neck to his waistband, curling around his belt loops. In an instant, you’ve twisted the both of you around, and suddenly, it’s the back of Dazai’s knees pressed against the edge of the bed as you push him down onto the mattress. He hits the sheets with an ‘oof’ and a hazy smile, surrounded by the scent of you, drowning in the sight of you. He thinks he might be in heaven. 
You shift on top of him, straddling his waist; Dazai’s hands instantly come to rest on your thighs, sliding up the sides to grab your ass and pull you more firmly onto him. He groans when he feels you grind down against his cock, and god, he’s already hard just from kissing you. He hears you snort above him, but Dazai doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed.
His lips part in a silent moan as you lean down to ghost kisses along his jaw, hands sliding up his chest. He feels you wrap your fingers around his bolo tie and tug it, you let out a sharp noise of distaste against his skin before murmuring: “I hate this ugly thing.”
He lets out a huff of laughter that quickly breaks off into a moan when your lips trail to the spot behind his ear that always makes him writhe. His fingers bite into your hips, pushing you down on him as he rocks his hips up into you—shit, he might be able to cum just from this. His cock is straining painfully against his beige pants, twitching as he grinds up against your clothed cunt. He thinks maybe if he fucks his hips upward a few more times, he might be able to push himself over the edge, but as desperate as he is to chase his release, he refuses to cum anywhere but inside of you.
Plus, he thinks he’ll be shamed to hell and back if he finishes in his pants with you hardly touching him. 
“Then strip me out of it,” he gasps, lashes fluttering as your teeth graze his pulse point right above the edge of his bandages. Fuck, he’d give anything for you to bite down—riddle him with marks he can’t cover so he can flaunt them off to everyone who looks at him. Dazai knows that there are countless men and women out there who’d die to be able to be called yours, he wants them to know he’s the only one who can take that honor. “What’re you waiting for?” 
You hum and then sit back on his hips—he bites his bottom lip raw as you unintentionally put even more pressure on his cock. He’s half dazed out, not realizing that your grip tightened on his bolo tie until you straight up yank it off of him, snapping the string around his neck.
“No!” he complains, watching with wide eyes and parted lips as you fling the now-broken bolo tie off to the side of your room. “Noooo, why’d you do that? I’m going to have to order a new one.”
“Boo-hoo,” you say dryly, hardly paying attention to him as your fingers curl around the hem of his vest, pulling it up over his head, snorting when he lets out a puff of irritation as his nose gets caught around the collar. 
“This is so unsexy,” he protests, rubbing his nose. “Shouldn’t you be more gentle?” 
“Stop wearing so many layers of clothes,” you retort, but Dazai is placated when you lean back down to kiss the corner of his lips, lashes fluttering as his eyes slide shut. He lets out a pleased hum as you kiss down his jaw, nimble fingers unbuttoning his final layer of clothing. He wishes he wore an undershirt just to watch you huff in annoyance. His breath catches as you nip at his skin and then murmur, “This better?” 
“Yeah,” he breathes out, voice wavering as you get down to the last button of his shirt, sliding it off of his shoulders and easing him out of it. His body shudders as your hands slide over the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Fuck, it’s been so long since anyone’s touched him beneath his clothes, even with the bandages still acting as a layer between the two of you, his nerves are on end, sensitive to everywhere your fingers touch.
He wonders if you’ll pull off the bandages—it’s a line that the two of you only crossed once back then, and although the idea of it has him brimming with anxiety, he longs for the feeling of your skin flush to his.
He almost feels a bit embarrassed when you sit back again to admire him as if there’s not a scar-ridden body hidden beneath the bandages. You look at him like he’s beautiful, like he’s not a monster disguised as a man, like he’s human. Dazai has always felt distinctly seen beneath your stare like you can see through all of the masks he wears and see him for him, and that has not changed over the past four years.
He’s missed the comfort of it. He has. It used to unnerve him back then, thinking someone could see him so clearly when he tried so hard and so carefully to hide himself beneath layers of impenetrable masks, but after going four years alone, with no one for him to turn to, no one he could look at and have them just know what he’s thinking… 
Yosano once mentioned offhandedly that to be loved is to be seen, and Dazai thinks the only time he’s ever been seen—truly seen, down to his core, deep in his soul—is when he’s with you.
It was a very lonely four years without you.
“I thought about you every day,” Dazai tells you softly, the grip on your hips easing up as he looks up at you. “Made a list of places I wanted to bring you and then burned it because I never thought I’d get the chance to be with you again. Stared at old pictures of you all the time, couldn’t sleep without thinking about memories with you. Drank your favorite wine just so I could pretend I was tasting it off your lips.”
You bring your hand up to cup his cheek, and Dazai leans into your touch, eyes fluttering shut again. He kisses your palm, humming softly when your thumb runs along his bottom lip.
“There wasn’t a single day I went without you crossing my mind,” you admit quietly and Dazai’s breath hitches as he stares up at you, dark eyes wide and lips parted. He thinks he should say something, anything really, but it’s a lost cause. You don’t seem to mind, luckily, because you only lean down to brush your lips against his again.
This kiss is softer than the last, lips trembling against yours as your tongue dances along his inner lip. He thinks his cheeks might feel wet but he doesn’t dare acknowledge it; you don’t either, only using your thumbs to brush away the tears as they spill over his cheeks.
“Are you really leaving again in the morning?” he finally asks, and he hates that his voice cracks over the words.
You hum in agreement, still hovering over him, still running your thumbs along his cheekbone. His lashes droop shut, but he forces them back open as you speak. “I am. Bright and early. Flight leaves at six.”
His gaze flickers to the left, over to where your alarm clock is set up on your nightstand. 
12:35
He looks back at you, eyes swimming with desperation.
You give him a soft, wry smile. “We should make the most of the night then, hm?”
He doesn’t waste any time on that.
His grip on your hip tightens, and in one swift motion, he flips the two of you around, elbows resting on the mattress on either side of your head as he hovers above you. Your eyes glitter as you give him a coy smile, and again, Dazai falls in love.
Then, he ruins the moment.
“Tell me how you fucked Chuuya.”
Your smile drops. “Osamu, what the fuck?”
“Tell me,” he pouts, nudging his nose against your cheek and peppering soft kisses on your cheek and down your neck. His knees drop to the bed on either side of your hips, holding up his weight as he reaches down to unbutton your slacks, sliding them off your body. A smile flickers onto his lips as his fingers graze your panties—drenched, finally, evidence that he’s not the only one so affected by this. “Tell me. Were you on top? Did he take you from behind? Was he rough? No, it’s Chuuya-”
“If you care so much about how Chuuya fucks, Osamu, how about you go fuck him yourself?” you interrupt him.
Dazai gags.
“Don’t ever say that again,” he says and then returns to his mission, fumbling with his own pants now as he tries to yank them and his briefs off, unable to hold back the relieved sigh when he finally frees his cock, unceremoniously tossing them to the floor. “Tell me.” 
“Why do you care so much, hm?” you ask, reaching up to brush his hair out of his eyes. “I told you that you were better.”
You’re only trying to deflect from the question and he almost lets you succeed, partially placated, but he stays strong, leveling an unrelenting stare onto you as he waits for your answer. You sigh heavily, and he knows he’s won.
“Not rough,” you say as if Dazai hasn’t already come to that conclusion. Chuuya’s had a crush on you since the three of you were sixteen. Dazai assumed he had grown out of it, but evidently, he was wrong, considering he took the opportunity to sleep with Dazai’s girlfriend—because you were his girlfriend—the moment Dazai was out of the picture. What a little snake. Dazai needs to vandalize his apartment again. Maybe set up a few more bombs. He’s only drawn back from his mental spiral when you start talking again: “He took the lead. Wanted to see my face the whole time, make sure I was okay.”
“How gentlemanly of him,” Dazai says—he’s not bitter. He’s not.
“It was,” you agree, too genuinely.
Dazai squints at you hard. 
“Don’t look at me like that,” you say. “You asked.”
“You don’t need to sound so wistful.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Osamu, I’m not wistful.”
“How-”
“Are we going to talk about Nakahara Chuuya all night, or are you going to fuck me?” you interrupt immediately, looking increasingly incensed. Dazai only raises his chin at you pointedly—you’re the one that slept with Chuuya. “Time is dwindling, Osamu.”
Okay. 
Dazai’s gaze flickers back to the clock and then back down to you, withering a bit under your irritated stare. He sighs and leans back over you to kiss the corner of your lips, fingers curling around the hem of your panties to slide them off your legs.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against your skin, his kisses linger against your skin now as he drags his lips down to your jaw. “The thought of him being with you…”
It makes Dazai want to do terrible things. The part of him that he locked up deep within rattles at the bars of its cage, furious and bloodthirsty. The trigger finger he’s been so careful to tame twitches with a desire he hasn’t felt in four years. The thought of anyone being with you makes Dazai sick to his stomach—Dazai is the only one who should get to see you like this, be with you like this—but the thought of Chuuya being with you is so much worse.
“You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Osamu,” you tell him quietly, fingers intertwining with his hair as he nips at your neck. “No matter how much I slept around, nothing was ever able to fill the hole losing you left. Not even Chuuya.”
Dazai exhales, shaky—the guilt returns, and so does the doubt because what right does he have sitting here being petty about what you did while he was gone when he was the one who left you behind without so much as a word? His eyes flutter shut, he spares a few more chaste kisses across your throat before lifting his face back to yours, kissing you gently.
“Let me make up for lost time then,” he says softly.
He doesn’t hesitate now, one hand dropping down to your thigh, lifting it to wrap around his waist as he presses his hips into you. His breath shudders when his cock slips against your folds, a low moan spilling from his lips. He has to reach down to angle himself properly, tip pressing against your tight hole.
The fingers of his free hands are shaky as he lifts them to cup your cheek. “Look at me,” he says, heat spreading through his abdomen when he realizes you already can hardly hold your eyes open, quick breaths escaping your lips as you try to keep yourself from cumming already. “Look at me, I want to see you.”
Your eyes flutter open, lidded and heavy as you look up at him, and Dazai thinks that maybe he could cum just from the expression on your face alone, inhaling sharply as his thumb drags across your bottom lip. He thinks maybe he should try to get ahold of himself, fearing that if he pushes inside of you now, he might cum on the spot, but his cock is aching so badly that Dazai thinks he might die if he doesn’t feel your heat around him immediately.
It takes all of his strength to keep his eyes from sliding shut as he pushes inside of you, desperate to see the way your face twists and your breath catches. Your lips tremble, chest rising and falling rapidly, he can feel your thighs tightening around his waist, and Dazai groans when your heels dig into his lower back, forcing his hips flush to you, burying his cock deep in your cunt. He chokes, grip on your thigh bruising; his abdomen tightens, and his head feels light.
No way, he thinks, gritting his teeth as he tries to hold back the waves of pleasure threatening to tear through him. He hears you let out a huff of laughter beneath him, and Dazai would shut you up with a sharp thrust of your hips, but he’s still desperately trying to regain control over himself, so he thinks that’s maybe not the best idea.
His forehead drops to rest on the pillow next to your head, lips brushing your ear as he lets out a low moan. He can’t even savor the way you let out a full-body shudder, fingers coming up to toy with the hair at the nape of his neck. Fuck, you’re so tight—Dazai can feel your walls tightening around him, spasming, his breath is shaky, and he tries to distract himself by pressing his lips to your skin, mouthing messily at your skin, sucking and nipping and counting to ten as he tries to settle down.
But it’s hard with the soft sighs you’re letting out, the way your fingers catch on his tousled hair, tugging enough to make his scalp sting. His head is so fogged that he can hardly think straight—god, he’s missed this, he hasn’t had the comfort of letting himself go like this in… since he left, really. His mind is always turning, plotting out ten, twenty, thirty steps in advance in fear of making a mistake, slipping up and letting the rest of the Agency see him for what he is, slipping up and their lives being the price just like with Odasaku. It’s only with you that’s ever comfortable enough to finally let the cogs in his brain slow and shatter, lose himself in carnal pleasures, lose himself in you; it’s been four years since he’s last had a reprieve from his own brain.
But he only lets himself slip halfway—tonight isn’t going to be about him, it’s about you. He has four years to make up for and he intends on getting a good start on it tonight.
He pants quietly as he lifts his head enough to bite your earlobe, tugging it gently before pressing his lips to your temple. “I’ve missed this,” he admits, voice raspy and clogged thick with emotion. “I’ve-”
He can hardly get the words out, and his breath catches when your hands slide from behind his head to cup his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. He thinks he must look wrecked—he can already feel the sweat beading on his forehead, and he knows his eyes are probably glazed over. You still look stunning, a soft expression on your face as you look up at him as if he’s not buried to the hilt inside of you. 
Unfair, he thinks mournfully. 
“What're you still holding onto, hm?” you ask, and Dazai only barely registers your words, sinking into your touch as you brush matted hair out of his eyes. He can finally bring himself to roll his hips—experimental, slow, trying to make sure he can actually move before trying to fuck you. Then you sigh softly, and he’s too out of it to try to make out the expression on your face as you say: “You work yourself so hard… always have. I’ve got you, you can let go, Dazai. C’mon.”
“No,” he hums, but his voice is strained, evidence of his struggle. “Tonight’s about my favorite girl.”
“Favorite?” you tease, lifting your shoulders off the bed to ghost a kiss against his lips that nearly has his hips stuttering—the conversation so reminiscent of one that the two of you had at seventeen it almost makes him smile.
“Only,” he amends quietly, kissing your nose, then the corner of your lips, and then nipping your jawline.
Just when he thinks he’s good to actually start picking up the pace, intent on fucking the thoughts out of you until you forget about your stupid flight in the morning, he catches a suspicious expression on your face, one that has his eyes narrowing.
“What?” he asks dubiously; your eyes are glittering in a way that he knows from experience is dangerous. 
You don’t say anything, just look pointedly at your thighs, then up to his shoulders. Dazai tilts his head to the side, recognizing what you want, and after a moment’s hesitation, he slides your legs up above his shoulders, folding them to your chest, eyes nearly rolling back at the new angle. Fuck, his hips do stutter this time, breath hitching. He has to readjust again, mentally focus on not cumming on the spot, and then-
And then you say: “He had my legs like this.”
A trick. 
Dazai knows it. 
You’re trying to make him let go of the thin thread of self-control he still has. To give in. To let all of the gears in his brain finally fall apart for the first time in four years.
He knows it.
He falls for it anyway.
Dazai’s jaw tightens, gaze snapping down to you only to catch a goading look in your eyes, a sly smile on your lips that Dazai has every intention of fucking right off your face. He inhales sharply, one hand sliding up your body to grab your chin, blunt nails digging a bit too deeply into your cheeks.
“Yeah?” he says, voice rough. 
Your lashes flutter and lips part as Dazai pointedly jerks his hips up. Your breath catches over a moan, and Dazai knows that this new angle is affecting you just as much as it is him.
“Mhm,” you agree, and just like that, the thin thread snaps.
He snaps his hips into you so hard that your bedframe bangs loudly against the wall behind it, quickly setting a steady pace, nice and deep, quick enough that you can’t even get a breath of air to your lungs before Dazai is fucking it right out of you. Already, he’s so fucked out that his mind is in shambles, one hand settling on your hip to hold you in place as he thrusts his hips into you, hitting that sweet spot with each stroke while his other hand, still cupping your face, slides down to your neck.
He doesn’t squeeze—wouldn’t dare to cut off the pretty noises spilling from your lips, moans of his names, choked gasps and cries between each rock of his hips—but the fact that you trust him, him, enough to have his fingers wrapped around your throat is always a quick way make him topple over the edge.
His eyes dart down to your chest, realizing, very unfortunately, that you haven’t taken off your button-up yet. He nearly bites down on his tongue in frustration as his hand comes down to your chest, careful to keep the pace of his hips as he hooks his fingers around the first button just to yank down, popping off half of the buttons of your expensive dress shirt and haphazardly pulling it off of you to toss it to the side before fumbling with the clip of your bra.
“Osamu,” you hiss, and Dazai revels in the way your voice wavers with each thrust, biting back moans. “That’s the second-”
You don’t get to finish your sentence. Dazai tosses your bra over with your discarded shirt and dips his head down to wrap his lips around your nipple, tongue swirling around the sensitive bud before rolling it between his teeth, and you’re gone—Dazai lets out a muffled groan around you as your back arches up into him, crying out his name, walls tightening around him as you cum on his cock.
“Oh-f-hah-fuck,” Dazai gasps as he rests his head on your collarbone, grip on your waist tightening. 
He has to physically force himself to lift his head, bracing his forearm on the mattress next to your head, desperate to see the way your eyes roll back, he can already feel himself teetering over the edge—the lewd sound of skin-on-skin, the sloppiness of his cock driving in and out of your cunt, he can feel your cum dripping down his cock, smeared on his pelvis.
His hand slides behind your head, lifting it from where you have it pressed against the mattress. Beautiful—the only thought that can run through his hazy brain is of you and how perfect you are, lips swollen and bitten raw, parted as pitched moans escape them, tears spilling from the corner of your eyes as he fucks you through your orgasm and right into a second. He’s the only one that should ever get to see you like this, with your clever brain fucked right and dumb, body writhing against the bed as you cling to him.
He leans down again, trailing sloppy kisses against your neck, gasping as he starts to feel his high approaching.
“No one makes you feel like this,” he says, or maybe he begs, he’s not sure if he’s making a statement or pleading for you to tell him it’s the truth. “Tell me. T-shit-tell me.”
“No one,” you sob over another moan, and Dazai can feel your pussy fluttering around him—he wonders if he’s already fucked you into a third. Usually, it takes longer. “No one, Osamu, you’re the only one.”
And that’s the only thing he needed to hear to give him that final push. His steady pace shifts into a more erratic one, sloppy and desperate, as he chases a high that’s just out of reach. His moans are muffled against your skin, teeth scraping your collarbone, mind a jumbled mess of thoughts of you. He feels your fingers trembling as you lift them to his cheeks, pulling his face up to press your lips against his, and that’s all it takes: he lets out a wanton moan against your mouth, pressing your legs further into your chest as his hips still against your ass, finishing deep inside of you.
Spots dance in his vision, head buzzing and ears ringing; he swears his orgasm lasts an eternity, body shaking and shuddering above you, letting out breathy moans into your mouth. He can feel his cum dribbling out of you, pooling onto the sheets beneath the two of you, so much of it that you can’t even keep it all in you. 
He doesn’t let his lips leave yours once—the kisses are messy and sloppy, devoid of all of the finesse that the two of you usually have, teeth nearly clashing, tongues sliding against each other’s. 
It’s only when his vision finally starts to clear and his head feels less on the verge of passing out does Dazai finally trails kisses from your lips to your jaw and down your neck before he finally collapses on top of you, mind entirely gone, like he’s floating on clouds. He pants as he tries to catch his breath, eyes lidded as he absently trails kisses along your chest and collarbone. He thinks the world could be ending around the two of you, and Dazai wouldn’t even have the capacity to notice. For the first time in four years, he really, truly allows his brain to rest.
He doesn’t know how much time passes, eyes drooping shut as he lets himself be enveloped by your arms, drowning in the comfort of your scent.
He doesn’t want to know. He’s scared to look at the clock and check.
“Tonight was supposed to be about you,” Dazai finally complains, burying his face in your chest as he pouts.
You only let out a soft laugh above him. “We have the rest of our lives for that… You deserved a break, Osamu.”
The rest of our lives.
Dazai’s throat tightens, vision blurring a bit at the thought—he can only barely bring himself to respond, and the words that slip out are not what he means to say: “I never thought I’d get to be with you like this again,” he admits, voice hoarse. “I never thought-”
“I know,” you interrupt, voice quiet, a bit shaky. “... I know.”
Of course, you know.
He can’t bring himself to say anything else, so he doesn’t, sinking into your arms and allowing himself the comfort he’s deprived himself of for so long. He almost starts to drift off—and god, he can’t remember the last time he’s dozed off willingly, only able to sleep after drinking copious amounts of alcohol or taking an even more copious number of sleeping pills. It’s not until you speak again does he stir back awake from the brink of sleep.
“What did he ask of you? Oda, I mean,” you finally ask, fingers brushing through his dark hair, lulling him further to sleep.
Dazai thinks that you’re cruel, asking him while his mind is still fogged from the exhaustion following his high, and he’s still half asleep in your arms, trying to regain his bearings. The words slip out before he can think twice, forgetting his fear of you laughing at the idea of him trying to be a better man.
“He asked me to be on the side that saves people… if both are the same to me, he wanted me to be a good man.”
The words dawn on him too late; he can hardly bring himself to look up at you, scared that he’s going to find an amused expression on your face or a derisive sneer. He wouldn’t blame you, he’s thought the same about himself ever since he left the Port Mafia, doubt and self-loathing riddling him with every step he takes in the light. He waits for the scoff, he waits for the laugh, he waits for-
“... I think he would be proud of who you’ve become, Osamu. I think you’ve fulfilled his request.”
Dazai does look up at you now, feeling particularly vulnerable, still scared that he might find a mocking expression on your face but he doesn’t. Only an uncharacteristically soft expression is painted on your face as you look up at the ceiling, a genuine one—a small smile and a look in your eyes that makes his heart feel warm. You don’t notice him looking until he lets slip out:
“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispers. 
(I love you, he means)
“I’ve missed you too,” you say back quietly.
(I love you too)
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adelheidvonschicksal · 4 months
Text
⋆。°✩ DARLING, DON'T BE AFRAID
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Summary: Despite living with Xavier for the past few weeks, you still haven't taken the plunge to see if all this time together make you anything more than roommates especially when he disappears again in the middle of the night. Determined, you decide to question him on where his feelings lie. You just never thought a simple kiss on the cheek was the only push needed.
Pairing: Xavier x Fem!Reader
Content Warning: Roommates AU, Vanilla Smut (A lot of it. Like 7k words of smut), Love Confessions, Friends to Lovers, Emotional Sex
Word Count: 12,000~
Note: Sequel to Do Roommates Sleep Together. This part can be read as a standalone. So not necessary to read part one but it adds more context.
AO3 Link
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You make a final decisive pull of the trigger. A loud pang resonates in the air and smoke spirals off the barrel. The Wanderer disappears in a wisp of debris and dust that is quickly caught in the wind.
Xavier stands a few feet in front of you. His sword twirls with one final arc of light illuminating behind the sharpened tip before it dematerializes in his hand.  You’re oblivious to the way his eyes search and find you on instinct as you run eager fingertips on the warm barrel of your pistol. 
“Mission completed. We should report back.”
You raise your head to meet his gaze while your gloved fingers remain faithfully on your weapon. The adrenaline from a successful mission is still surging through you.
“I want to test out my guns some more.”
His eyes soften at your response, but the weight of his gaze is still heavy as he walks towards you and places his hand on your head. 
“There will be more Wanderers tomorrow,” he murmurs. His thumb gently brushes your forehead before his hand swoops back over your hair. Though your hands were still itching for another battle, your mind was weak to the calmness of his tone, like the slow tumble of waves on the shore, as he coaxes your head back to look at him more directly. “Let’s go home.”
This time you do not protest. Even if you did, what could you possibly say? 
Your aggression relaxes along with your shoulders, allowing you to give in to his request with a quick holstering of your twin guns. 
You return to headquarters and give your mission report to Jenna – pausing only to poke fun when she mentions how much Xavier’s reporting time has improved since the two of you became partners – then you start on the way home with the sun kissing at your back.
Laughter fills the air on the streets. Immediately, you feel warm inside. It was only thanks to the work you do every day that citizens could enjoy this peaceful dusk without fear of monsters scrambling to destroy the city like so many years ago. 
It’s rewarding to know you hold some small part in the safety of the city after almost dying in the catastrophe as a child. You breathed it in fully, letting joy fill your lungs as you savor the calm moment. The emotion is only highlighted by the fact that when you look to your side, you can see Xavier there, putting weight to the empty space left in the wake of your family’s death. 
Walking home together in the past was a random occurrence, happening whenever your busy schedules after missions aligned. As freshly cemented roommates, it was almost a given you’d walk home together now. Not just to the apartment complex, but to an actual shared home. 
This path you go along every day has become special in that time. It’s full of promises, the kind you could only wish for on snowy New Year's evenings as you tied red ribbons to the shrine gate and prayed for good things to happen in your life. Not a lot of those wishes came true but Xavier did. 
In that way, you were a fortunate person. 
It was only your guess if he felt the same. You want to ask him. Unlike when you’re fighting Wanderers, you’re not brave when it comes to Xavier - a part of you prefers to leave things between you unsaid. It’s safer that way as you can keep living in a beautiful world of your own illusions. 
Therefore, you’re unable to help yourself. Pinching the sleeve of his uniform, you tug on it gently to gain his attention; Xavier looks at you with glossy glazed eyes. He’s always so sluggish after missions. His steps slow and methodical, like a robot, as he barely manages to straighten his spine and raise his head.
“Chin up, Xavier. We’re almost there.”
“I’m exhausted,” he says. 
You don’t need to hear him say it to understand. You think you’ve become good at reading his body language by now. Donning a sympathetic smile, you shift your hand, aiming for a lower target, and entwine your fingers with his under the guise of leading him faster.
“My next solution is carrying you by the way.”
A smile cracks on his face, impossibly light as his gaze drifts to the hold you have on his hand. “I don’t think you could carry me.”
“You dare doubt me?” Truth be told, he was right. He was tall and muscular and much thicker under that uniform than he looked. He would probably crush you under his weight if you tried to lift him. Despite how improper it was to think, you wouldn’t mind if he wanted to place his weight on top of you in another way. You tick up the corner of your lips into a surprisingly innocent smile opposite of the images in your imagination as you flash your bicep to him. “I’m very strong.”
“I think it would make more sense if I carried you.”
“I can walk.”
“I don’t see why that matters,” he says with a yawn, and you smile.
“Are you sure you won’t drop me?”
“If it’s a choice between falling asleep and dropping you then I’ll definitely stay awake. Otherwise, you might end up carrying me after all,” he says. Xavier always manages to be unfailingly charming. Given the mystery of his past and the way he carries himself, you often question exactly what kind of upbringing he had. You almost ask but your interrogation doesn’t have the chance to plant seeds when he stops in front of you and kneels. 
You thought he was joking when he said he’d carry you home but that doesn’t stop you from wrapping your arms over his broad shoulders and letting him scoop your legs up around his solid waistline. 
His clasp on the back of your thighs makes you shiver. You feel like a touch-starved virgin that the simple strength of his hands over the thickness of your pants incited such a reaction out of you, so you bury your burning face against the back of his neck. 
“Are you alright?” he asks.
Xavier must feel your hair against his neck, and you use the fact he can’t see your face to your advantage as you nod against his nape.
“Just hungry.”
For his part, Xavier doesn’t question your sudden hunger. Instead, he asks what you’re in the mood for and starts to list the restaurants that you pass on the way to the apartment complex.
You lay your cheek against him, watching the many buildings pass you by until you point out one you don’t recognize, flashing with many signs about a grand opening.
“How about that one?” you ask.
Xavier chuckles, continuing on in his steps past the building in question. “It’s not that great.”
“How do you know?”
“I tried them out.”
You squeeze into his shoulders, pushing off of them in a childlike manner and an even more dramatic gasp. “Without me?”
“I was going to bring you something back, but they weren’t very tasty. I like your cooking a lot more.”
You know he can’t see you, but you puff out your cheeks anyway. You wrap your arms tightly around him again, willing your heart not to skip when his back tenses as your chest compresses against him.  
“Are you asking me to cook dinner for you? I’m quite exhausted after all that running around,” you tell him sarcastically. 
He accidentally makes you regret your teasing when he agrees with a compassionate offer, “I’ll cook for you today.”
Hearing the word cook from his mouth makes your stomach sour. If there’s one thing after all these months you learned, it’s that Xavier is a…creative cook to put it gently. Or rather, he has zero cooking ability if it involves electricity. You didn’t mind. The two of you make it work with you doing most of the cooking and him cleaning up after, at your own behest, because if he had his way, he’d be in the kitchen much more often. 
“On second thought, I’ll cook.”
“You still don’t trust me,” he says with a sigh. Guilt tingles through you. However, your continued survival outweighs the guilt that the memory of his puppy eyes can draw out of you. “I’ll handle the cold stuff, and I’ll leave the meat to you.”
“Deal,” you say, nuzzling your head against his neck. 
When you get home, the night pans out like it always does. The two of you take turns in the shower with dinner being cooked shortly after, and the human garbage disposal known as your roommate leaves very little work for you to do once all is said and done. 
You decide to start on the last of chores for today while Xavier washes the dishes. It’s routine to check the plants before going to bed as the many potted flowers were like your own children after you spent so many hours tending to them, finding the perfect ratio of nutrients and water to keep them thriving. 
It is also routine to hunt down the birds so lovingly named Fatso and Alarm Clock by the sleepy man of the house to give them some of the seeds and nuts you regularly brought home from the store. You told Xavier that happy birds would stop eating his strawberries when in reality you liked to spoil them. 
So, you spread out the seeds on the ground for them, leaving them there for later. 
“If you feed them, they’ll never leave.”
You can’t help the laugh that leaves you. As much as he complains about the birds, you think, if his constant curiosity about the birds’ day-to-day lives was anything to go by, that he’d miss the two fluffy creatures if they were to ever find new nesting grounds. You turn back to the balcony door with a cheeky grin. “I have experience with things that don’t leave after you feed them. You enjoyed dinner a little too much.”
It’s hard to see in the fading light but Xavier blushes and brings a shy grip to the back of his neck. “Last I checked you moved in with me.”
That silences you. There’s no denying his observation, and you fail to notice him getting closer until he reaches his hand out to help you up. You willingly reach out, hand sinking into his touch as he lifts you to your feet. 
The coolness of your palms touching slowly births a lingering warmth. The soft squeeze around your hand makes it hard to let him go but eventually you must. Otherwise, you might say things that are better kept to yourself as you walk back into the house and close the sliding door behind you. 
With a pounding heart, you retire to your room early.
This room is a little different from the master room at your old apartment. The wall color is a little different brighter and it’s smaller. Luckily, you made the space work pretty easily by migrating half your plushie collection into Xavier’s room, checking like a dutiful mother to make sure he was treating them right and placing them with love should they roll off his dresser.  Sighing, you change into slightly more comfortable clothes, choosing a random pair of soft shorts and a tank top to wear before climbing into bed. It’s ten when you finally let your eyes slip shut, and it's around eleven you feel someone touching you.
Your eyelids are surprisingly heavy; you can barely pry them open enough to see the wisp of grey-brown hair shadowing medium-blue eyes. You don’t protest as you feel his fingertips brush along your waist or when his knee digs into the mattress, sinking you towards his weight.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he wants. You raise your arm enough to let your fingertips greet the curve of his chin in silent acceptance. Slowly, you drop your hand and squeeze his bicep. Like a good little soldier, he follows the order to fall into the bed with you. 
The most comfortable position is to slot your arm on top of his as he hugs your waist, props his leg on top of yours, and spoons your back. There’s absolutely zero space between your lower halves; and if he notices how you, with a small amount of shame, subtly shift and push yourself back on him a little more, he doesn’t say as he lolls his head against the curve of your neck while his incredibly light exhaling on your skin comforts you after a long day. 
With a flutter of your eyelids, you slowly slip back into sleep with the happiness that comes with being roommates with your crush. 
It’s times like these that make you think maybe he loves you. It’s also times like these that make you forget that despite all of the endearing things about him and despite how much you care about him, you don’t truly know a lot about him.
Xavier has always been a man with a lot of secrets. You’ve known this since you first met him asleep in the forest. It’s true that you once accepted the fact you’d never learn all his secrets but that was before whatever this abnormal relationship that the two of you found yourself in. 
Even after living together for more than two months now, you still had no idea where he would go when he would sneak off in the middle of the night. You didn’t question where he goes anymore, you found that he wouldn’t give you a straight answer to save his life. You merely stayed up until you heard the sound of the door opening or the warped echo of air being sucked into a vacuum, indicating he teleported inside. 
So, when you wake up at two in the morning, finding yourself alone and the side of the bed where he laid mere hours ago already cold, you’re not surprised.
Getting out of bed, you slip on your slippers and drag your feet to the balcony. It’s a familiar situation when you collapse into the swing chair, with nothing but the cold and the chirping of the birds to keep you company until he undoubtedly returns with his body hosting a family of fresh wounds.
It’s incredibly frustrating because you love him and seeing him hurt, without you having been there to prevent it, drives you crazy. You wonder why he won’t tell you, and your heart sinks, as quickly as a stone cast in a lake, with the idea that maybe you were the only one thinking that your relationship meant more than it did. Because even after all this time, you still aren’t close to him in the way you want. 
Clenching your fists, you shove your eyes against them. It was all so infuriating when he ran off to fight Wanderers or whoever and left you all alone to overthink and worry about him like some helpless house plant. It was enough to make you want to cry as the strange foreboding sense of losing him begins to echo inside of you, making you nauseous.                                                                                 There’s only one way to get rid of this feeling. Taking in a deep breath, you settle to give him a piece of your mind about sneaking off so much and also to bite the bullet to confess your feelings. 
It was only a matter of waiting for him to actually return home and to get your heightened nerves to stop firing in every direction in the meantime. 
By the time you heard the door to the apartment creaking open, you’d nearly fallen asleep in the wicker swing chair. You swallow down the bitter taste of fear, ignoring the tumultuous waves it makes when it hits your stomach. You’d never get anywhere if you didn’t face him. 
Carefully, you hop up from your seat and make slow strides into the apartment. It’s still dark in the house; you hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights earlier. Yet Xavier carries a lightness around him, mostly imagined by yourself, that makes him easy to spot in the darkness. 
For a moment, things seem normal as he takes a few stiff steps forward. Suddenly, he falls forward, the white of his uniform nearly a blur with how fast he collapses onto the sofa, but it is nothing compared to the speed at which you rush to his side. 
You call his name, press two fingers to his throat, and let your eyes slip closed with a desperate concentration as you search for his pulse behind the blaring red of his collar. 
It’s a gradual pace, averaging twenty beats a minute and slowly rising. For anyone else, you’d immediately rush them to the hospital. For Xavier, that number is a relief. 
You hold your hand to your pounding heart, practicing deep measured inhales to calm it. It appears he fell asleep as soon as he entered the room, with only enough awareness to kick off his shoes at the door. 
It looks like your lecture will have to be postponed for another day. 
You’re thankful for all the training you had to take to become a hunter because it takes an enormous amount of effort to throw one of his arms over your shoulders and drag him to his bedroom. You make a mental note to never let him question your ability to carry him again as you sit him on the bed and shuffle off his uniform jacket, leaving him only in his pants. 
In a tender motion, you gently cup his face and examine him. Dirt cakes his face; and when you brush it away, there’s a small cut on his cheek. It hits you again just how reckless and secretive he can be, echoing with a bitter thought that he didn’t bring you again. The only bright spot is the little cut is his only injury this time. 
Laying him on his back, you leave for only a moment to get a warm washcloth and an adhesive from the bathroom. It’s a blue band-aid with a cartoonish pink bunny on it, something a kid would love and has probably been collecting dust in the drawer longer than you’ve been alive. 
It takes all the seriousness out of your body when you return, clean his face off, and place the colorful bandage on his cheek. It’s hard to believe this narcoleptic pretty boy was the strongest member of the Hunters Association. 
“I didn’t think when we moved in together I was going to become a babysitter,” you commented with a little huff and poke of his cheek. “You’re terrible at taking care of yourself. Can’t cook. Can’t stay awake. Can’t tell someone when you’re going out. I bet you didn’t even lock the door when you came in. …What if a Wanderer floated in after you and trampled all the flowers, or did you just not want to leave any for me tomorrow?”
You know your complaints are falling on deaf ears as he cuddles up to his pillow without a care in the world. But if you didn’t complain, you’d get depressed instead. Dropping to your knees, you sit on the floor and prop your elbow on the bed to get a better look at him. 
He looks so peaceful.
There’s no tension, no crease to his expression. It’d be easy to mistake him for a normal young man if it weren’t for the strong humming of his Evol tickling at the wall of your resonance.
“I’ll let you sleep, but you’re getting it in the morning! I expect answers. Otherwise, I won’t cook breakfast for you,” you attempt to sound threatening in your words with every poke to his cheek a not-so-silent promise to follow through. “I’ll take my missions with the new recruit all the ladies at work gossip about. And the next time I get a snack shipment, I’m letting Jeremiah have first pick!”
With one last prod to his face and no reaction otherwise, you stop your demands and sit back on your legs. 
Bit by bit, you feel your energy dissolving. It’s no use. It’s all empty threats. You’ll probably not cook for a few days, eat in front of him too, at least until he gives you those puppy eyes, and you’ll fold just like origami paper. You’ll still save him the snack you know he likes even if you allow Jeremiah first pick of the rest. And you’d never be interested in the new recruit or anyone else. 
Xavier can be distant and formal. For others, his hyper-independence was evident. Taking on missions alone and avoiding group settings is just the way Xavier’s personality works. He’s reliable and gets along with everyone at a surface level and he’s known to go out of his way to help others without seeking validation for it so it never ruffled any feathers when he goes off on his own or rejects an invitation to drink with the others after work. 
They didn’t see. They didn’t see how easy it was to care about him. They appreciate him but they weren’t aware of how intensely and passionately he could feel when he unfurls that independent nature. How he always quietly adjusts his dominant foot to point your direction whenever a Wanderer appears. How his voice drops and his touch becomes the smallest bit more graceful and careful when he sees you upset. How sweetly he looks when he sleeps.
It makes your resolve crumble and your heart squeeze, something only he can do without even being awake to know it. 
“You’re lucky I like you,” you mumble to him. 
As you lean closer, you easily ignore the stirring in your gut that tells you to stop. 
The bandage is a little rough against your lips as you seize the chance to kiss him. It’s a short and small thing, much more delicate than your prodding from earlier because you want to indulge the romantic in you. You want him to somehow sense the feelings cultivated in your heart over the past few months though impossible when he’s asleep.
You don’t let it last long. Instead, the desperate urge to feel his heat against you spurs you to rest your forehead against his cheek. It’s warm and soft, and the faint scent of pine trees of the no-hunt zone fills your nose. You savor being this close to him, allowing yourself to indulge in it until the heat on your skin starts to match his, and you finally let him have peace for the night.
With no need to remain in his room, you stand and pivot towards the door, wondering how you’ll manage to grasp any form of sleep tonight. However, you don’t make it two steps before there’s a tug at your arm.
You yelp as you’re pulled towards the bed while the shock has you stumbling forward into it. The hand leaving your arm in favor of grasping around your wrist stops you from falling completely but your knees have already buckled. You’re left nearly a head under him when he finally swings his legs over the side of the bed and shifts into a full sitting position. This position is oddly familiar. When you uncertainly force your eyes up to meet his face, this vulnerable angle becomes unmistakable.  
His voice is husked and rasped from sleep, sending a chill up your spine when paired with the swirling shadows darkening his blue eyes under his hooded lids and dark lashes. That’s the look of a predator, of the association’s strongest hunter, and you face the inkling realization that you’re the prey. 
Nervously, you begin to divert your eyes. He takes a page out of your own playbook and reaches under your chin to guide your sight back to him as you fight not to whimper at the pressure of his thumb pushing down as if he wants to part your lips. It isn’t until now that you notice how close you are to his lap and how another few inches would drop you to your knees.
“Why worry about Wanderers following me home when you’re so much scarier.”
“What do you mean?” 
Memory has never been your friend. This though is the first time you’ve forgotten how to breathe when his fingers completely close around your wrist. His hold is firm, preventing you from wringing your way out of his grasp, but it doesn’t hurt.
He might as well take that grasp and use it to squeeze your heart instead when he brings your hand to his face. You’re unsure what he’s planning; the awkwardness of the situation makes your fingers straighten and twitch away as he holds your hand closer to his face. Sensing your trepidation, he closes the last of the distance instead by tilting his head into your hand with the same affection as always as he lets your fingertip brush against the silly little bunny bandage. 
The familiarity of the motion puts your heart a little more at ease but not enough to bring your breathing back to you as he mumbles, “I don’t remember giving you permission to kiss me.”
Your lips part with a silent puff while your brows push forward, highlighting the confusion in your mind onto your face. He takes advantage of the moment to nuzzle your hand. It’s a notion you can’t appreciate as his words finally sink into your mind and reform into a horrifying conclusion.
“…You were awake the whole time.”
He chuckles so easily at the dry peep that echoes from you, the rivet of that warm sound collects in your palm and makes your face scalding hot. You didn’t face a burning heat like this even when fighting one of those flame dragons. All the while, Xavier was laughing at you…
“Not the whole time.”
With your head catching up, you find enough of yourself again to actually glare at him and smack his shoulder. “That’s not the point!”
With another display of strength, he locks your other wrist, pulls you up, and then snatches you into him. Luckily, you’re able to flatten your palms against his chest to brace yourself. His heart as well as his face is unnervingly calm compared to your own organ that’s currently orchestrating its escape from your chest, battering your ribcage even harder as you unconsciously stretch your fingers over his naked skin. 
You don’t like this. This bullying, which you only describe as such because you can’t think of a word more fitting for the way he’s treating you, is too one-sided. 
“It was on the cheek,” you argue with a steeled voice. You fake the confidence to stare him back down, choosing to trade your determination to confess to him tonight in exchange for preserving your pride. “It was friendly.”
To your satisfaction, your declaration of war makes him the one to pause this time. His eyes widen and there’s a quiver in those waves of blue that he hides by glancing down and away. 
“…Is that what it was?”
You nod. “I wasn’t…going to do anything else.”
Xavier smiles, shaking his head, and there’s a new determination in his eyes that causes your teeth to clench down on the inside of your cheek as he leans closer. 
“In that case, is it okay to return the favor?”
He doesn’t give you the time to answer. He’s already closing the distance, his dark lashes already fluttering, and his lips already puckering to kiss you as you’re squeezed flushed against him, only your palms stopping your chest from colliding with his. 
“Wait!”
Hearing your disapproval, he pauses, but that cheeky grin still doesn’t dissipate. 
“What's wrong?” he asks with a sigh. You’re sure it’s not a true question. “Am I not allowed to give you a friendly kiss as well.”
The implications make your stomach twist while your thighs squeeze together pathetically with the sudden throbbing of arousal that spikes through you as you tumble further and further into this rabbit’s trap.
“I—that’s!”
“So, you were misbehaving,” he concludes from your sheepishness. “I guess that means I need to punish you instead.” He breaks his hold around one of your wrists to ghost his fingertips along your cheek and down your neck until all you can do in response is breathe out a moan, much to his surprise given by the rise of his eyebrows and the slight dust of pink on his bewildered face. “…I didn’t think you were that sensitive there.”
Your mind swims with the traitorous thought of wanting to show him where you’re more sensitive dancing in your mind before you can sweep it away. When his fingers dance along your neck again, you whimper and hold in another moan.
“Don’t hold back on my account. You know my most sensitive spot after all, as hunting partners, it only makes sense for me to know yours, right?”
You can hardly think of a response to that. It’s true. You know his biggest weaknesses and as you come to terms with the situation you run your thumb over the plump inside of your thigh hesitantly. It takes you almost an entire minute to decide on what you want to say, and you don’t notice his hold on your wrist weakening.  
“My weakness—” 
Suddenly, your arm drops back to your side.
“I’m kidding,” Xavier states; the small smile he normally wears comes back to his face as you look up at him with wide eyes. “I was only curious as to what your reaction would be.”
The tension in the air wanes and buries itself in your heart. The embarrassment clings to every cell living in you, unshakeable as you try to keep a brave face. “You’re cruel.”
“Am I? You were the one touching me, all the while promising to run off with some rookie,” he reminds you. 
“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t—you’re so frustrating,” you scream at him, and this is the first time he appears to take you seriously all night.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, with less teasing and more concern. He wraps an arm around your waist. His legs slot between yours, leaving your knees to collide with the plush of the bed as he hugs you tighter and tighter until you’re nearly seated in his lap. “Don’t be mad. I only thought—” 
“Xavier?”
“Did you really mean it then?” he redirects. He snakes his other arm around your waist, this time when he holds you it feels…weak, and his pursed lips and narrowed eyes hold back a troubled emotion. “That it was in a friendly way?”
Your breath hitches at the swirl of his thumbs nervously circling the small of your waist. Nervously, he waits for an answer you long lost in the rapids of the constantly changing tides of the last few minutes. 
“If you meant it…if you truly wanted to kiss me,” he pauses, trying to find his voice. The one to tell you that you’re all he thinks about. “Then you should have woken me up.” His face holds a serene glow that completely enraptures you as he looks up at you. “I wouldn’t have rejected you,” he swore.
He loved you so much it ached. Moving in together should have been enough to prove it. He guesses not; because when he thinks you want him back, you’re so hesitant to accept. Even now, you’re unable to respond. 
This cycle has become painful, even for someone as patient as himself, the wait when you’re this close to him is agonizing. So, he decides now to be the one to end this circle the two of you found yourself in with one decisive motion. 
He tests the waters, not knowing if he’ll swim or drown, but he has confidence in his ability to read your personality and actions as he cups the back of your head and pulls you in for a kiss. 
Your mind empties immediately, your body on autopilot when it registers the warm, silky skin of his lips on yours. Closing your eyes, you willingly tumble and fall into the taste of him, chasing after it when he breaks away. 
“There. We’re even,” he says, but to you, that’s far from the truth. You’re far from even after all the heartache and sleepless nights he’s been putting you through, after all the push and pull that left you aching and wanting both in your heart and between your thighs. 
The self-satisfied smile on his face quickly fades as you grope his shoulders, digging your nails in like you’re afraid he’ll escape. Your knees press to the top of the bed as you plant yourself more onto his lap. He braces his hands on your hips to catch you as you run your hand into his hair and crane his head back, so he has to look you in the eye.
His ears pinken at your sudden brazenness, but it doesn’t reflect in his voice as he smiles at you. “Are you trying to get more?” 
“Am I being too greedy?” you ask. He chuckles at the jut of your lips and the pleading eyes before you press another demanding kiss to the corner of his lips. 
Xavier moans from his throat as he latches onto your jaw to redirect your kisses to his lips. Kissing him is nearly maddening, the twitch of his muscular thighs under your ass making your mind hazy. With one hard squeeze at your hips, he catches up to the zealousness of your kisses. 
His tongue pokes and prods at your mouth. However, he doesn’t need much permission to keep going as you open your mouth wider. His mind skips and lags at just how quickly your mouth overtakes the slick appendage. It leaves him more than a little out of breath and flustered with the rate your mouths keep parting and meeting, tongues desperately searching and licking the inside your mouths as if this is the first meal you’ve had in weeks.
You’re hungry to memorize each other despite having all the time in the world now to do just that. When the two of you finally indulged enough and earned enough satisfaction, you’re able to calm down and readjust the pace. 
“I think we’re both greedy,” he jokes about the both of you before sliding his tongue back into your mouth. This time he’s slower as he presses down on your tongue, causing your teeth to lightly graze over the top of his.
There are too many sensations going on for you to keep up. The way your breasts hug his hard chest has you feeling sensitive while the heat seeping from his tongue stroking in your mouth has your stomach bundled in tight knots that won’t know release until he’s inside of you. 
Dreams were nothing compared to this. Nights filled with nothing but inappropriate thoughts of him turn into nightmares at the slim chance of having to face them again should this go wrong. 
Impatiently, his fingers curve into the hump of your ass to anchor you and encourage you to grind on his lap, or rather grind against the hard tent brazenly making its presence known with each hurried roll of your hips.
You whine from the separation of your sexes when he begins to lift you up, but your complaints quickly die in your throat. They’re replaced by a squeal as he flips you and your back bounces on the mattress.  
Xavier climbs over you, his face flushed, breath ragged, and overall, he’s just absolutely beautiful to you. Reaching up, you cup his cheek and play with the ends of his hair, unable to recall the last time you’ve felt this high. 
“Xavier,” you whisper breathlessly as you swoop his bangs back to see more of his handsome face and save it to memory. “What are we?”
Xavier tilts his head, furrowing his brow at your question, and there’s a second where a ray of doubt breaks through the clouds of lust in his irises. “We’re…whatever you want to be.”
“I want to be with you,” you say. Those words tumble out more effortlessly than you ever thought. 
Xavier overlaps your hand with his, holding on tight as if to prove a point. “You are with me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” he corrects. Then, he dazzles you as he always does, “I want you to tell me so there’s no mistake, and you can’t take it back later.”
You inwardly become embarrassed when it crosses your mind that this is the first time you’ve ever confessed to him without multiple drinks in your system. It’s too late to turn back now that you’ve crossed the Milky Way and landed on the other side. 
But why would you when you’re so close?
“I want to be with you always. Whenever and wherever you are. Whether that’s having fun together or fighting. I-I love you, and—”
“And I love you,” he answers. You’re not sure if you’re jealous or relieved that he can say those three words without hesitation.
“I don’t want anything to be between us. I don’t want any more secrets or hidden things. I’m tired of this. I just want to be real, more than partners or roommates or whatever other title that isn’t boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Okay,” Xavier agrees as easily as he agreed to be roommates with you in the first place. 
“Okay?”
“I want that too,” he agrees as he repositions himself on top of you and his lips curve into a small smirk, “girlfriend.”
You’re accustomed to the finicky organ known as your heart tightening with pain when you’re overwhelmed; this time when it skips a beat, it’s welcomed. Smiling, you gaze up at him as he releases a slow, strained breath. It’s validating to know he’s been just as nervous as you.
Everything suddenly becomes full force again when his knees move to either side of your legs while he pins your hands above your head in one tight fist. His teeth nip at your earlobe, and his free hand gropes at your breast, fingers outstretching to fully take it in his grasp. Wet kisses burn on your throat, each one firing off a rapid signal to arch your back. 
“Slow down,” you whine before cutting it off with a moan as he hits a particular delicate spot. The discovery spurs him on, like a pet with a new toy, and he bites your nape once again causing your hips to jerk. With a burning desire building in your stomach at every touch, you pitifully hug your thighs together to try to ease it. “I didn’t get a chance to absorb all that,” you tell him, mostly to get some time to catch up. It backfires wonderfully as he grips onto the bottom of your tank top.
“I have a better way to help you understand.”
The sheets shift with his movement, your lower half dipping towards him as if he holds his own gravitational field. He settles between your legs and strokes against you with one slow, languid rock. It instantly makes you throb. It’s painful how hard you clench over absolutely nothing, panties gathering the lust that’s dripping from you.  
You simultaneously hate and love him for causing this need that’s bubbling inside you. 
Large hands press your shirt further up your torso. “Arms up,” he demands softly, which you have no problem obeying, and he quickly lifts your shirt over your head.
He lowers his hands to hold at your waist, and they fall still on you as he takes in your naked skin. You’re not privy to his thoughts. The silence of the room feels defean-ing now that your needy gasps of air aren’t filling it.
He pauses, eyes taking you in as you raise your eyebrows at his hesitancy. Xavier smiles, mumbling out, “Just thinking where to start.”
Xavier smiles at you so tenderly. Everything about him is incredibly soft on first appearance. He has big blue puppy eyes, he prefers white, cozy clothes, and his voice is just as gentle as his appearance. Everything about him is soft except for his hands. 
Those are hardy and battle-honed, worn with calluses built up with every swing of the sword he’s taken since he was a child, enough of them to slay thousands of Wanderers over the years. 
They drag.
Oh, they drag so dangerously slow over your skin, dipping into the pudge of your stomach and highlighting a small circle in the warm, buzzing glow of his Evol. The rays shine gold over your flesh, shimmering brightly in the dark of the room. 
“Here,” he states before hunting down another spot on your torso. A beauty mark, like a beacon, earns the sharp eyes of a hunter. He zones in on the vulnerable location, creating a golden target. “Maybe here.”
You squirm with every mapped spot he creates. “Xavier.”
The residue of his power leaves your skin humming; you’re overly aware of each spot he highlights with his power. You like to think your senses would still be heightened regardless of this little game. After all, you’ve been wanting him to touch you forever.
Every night next to him felt like torture, being unable to touch him more than a hug when all you could feel on your back was his hard chest, his arm tight around your waist, and the outline of his cock against your ass as he sighed in your ear.
It runs through your head that he must have put more thought into touching you than you assumed as he continues to stripe lines over the top of your thighs right under your night shorts, making your breath heavy in your throat. You’re no longer sure if he’s marking you to tease you, to track what parts of your body he’s claimed for himself, or to simply make you laugh from the humming of his Evol tickling you like fuzzy static on an old tv screen. Even as he smiles at your shallow giggles, there’s no denying the aura of possession radiating from him that makes you antsy when he finally presses his finger to your sternum.
“Let’s start here,” he says followed by a soft hum as he tattoos a line straight between your breasts, leaving you highlighted in slowly fading graffiti.
“About time you decided,” you say with an playfully exaggerated roll of your eyes. He cocks his head at you with a sly smile.
“I can’t help if I want to touch all of you,” he murmurs. Any response you had ready dies when he licks the encircled zone of your shoulder then swiftly to the notch of your throat, drawing a moan out of you that you didn’t think you were capable of until you met him.
Tilting your head, you allow him more room to work as he kisses your chest. His warm tongue slips through the line he marked, his nose dragging against you as he litters your engorged skin with kisses. 
“More,” you beg. Who was he to keep you waiting any longer?
He slips a fingerpad over the tip of your nipple, gently pressing down and then rolling it. It does nothing to satiate you. Satisfaction keeps escaping your grasp, the goalpost of what’s enough moving further out of reach with every pinch and pull of your pebbling nipples. Chasing it makes you brash, and you give a hard push to the back of his head. 
Just as you want, he spoils you. He bites and nips the supple skin, drawing out soft pleas from your angelic lips. When he finally graces you with the slick, velvety lap of his tongue on your pert nipple, you mewl and arch. His lips are a little rough after being out all night, his hunger for you more palpable than ever as he gropes harder and sucks at your wet skin. 
Your aching pussy throbs with every brush of his clothed cock. Your patience drains more and more as you crave something to fill you. It isn’t until he switches sides and gently nips and suckles around your other teat that you realize he’s been fingerprinting you with his Evol, the polka dots slowly fade away each time he adjusts his hand to knead your breast.  
“You’re still being cruel,” you manage between moans. 
“I think I’m being very fair,” he reasons, recapturing your lips to silence your complaints, and it works as your mind keeps repeating when his tongue makes a temporary reservation back in the confines of your mouth. 
When he parts with you again, he cements it with a soft kiss then another. He keeps peppering them on you so fast that you almost miss the way his tongue darts over your bottom lip before his teeth bite down. 
Xavier sighs between his kisses, each one adding more pressure, turning from loving, adoration-filled into needy, heavy smooches.
“Wanted.”
Another kiss that leaves you whimpering.
“To.”
He fondles your chest again, alternating between rolling and pinching your sensitive, puffed nipple then grasping your bare tits in his hands, molding and kneading them.
“With you.”
With your thighs closing at his waist, you curve your back and meet the sloppy buck of his hips. There’s a rush of excitement leaking from you when his kisses trail back over your breasts, hitting the tiny ring of bite marks he seared on you before tracing across the targets of light decorating your belly. 
“So bad.”
Skin on fire, legs spread wide to accommodate his chest as he sinks lower to press wet kisses to your stomach, you call out to him. “Xavier, baby,” you whisper and brush his hair to get his attention. And does he give it to you when his eyes flick up to look at you from under the grey tuffs of his hair.
Your mouth goes dry at the sight. 
You bring your finger to your lips, not only to pry them open so you can speak but also because you need to bite on it. Otherwise, the surge of lust in you at the sight of his head so close to your cunt and the back of your thighs resting on his broad shoulders would cause you to cum right there. 
“My most sensitive spot…is my legs…”
It doesn’t take long for him to catch on, and he quirks his eyebrows up at you with false concern. He lowers his head to kiss your stomach again, this time noticeably closer to your mound. “Are you sure you want to tell me that in this situation? It isn’t wise for the prey to put themselves at a disadvantage.”
“I said no secrets,” you remind him, curling a finger to beckon him back up. Inwardly, you curse that he decides to bring your legs with him by keeping them propped up on his shoulders. Somehow, you manage to ignore his obvious teasing and poke at the cutesy adhesive still stuck on his face. “If you were listening, you should know you’re still in trouble for sneaking off so much without telling me.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” he tells you, a layer of remorse riding his explanation. “I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere.”
Amused, you shake your head at how boyish he sounds as he defends himself while he pulls off that wide and pleading look to bolster his cause. Even with your amusement, you’re not willing to let him off just yet. Sternly, you tap his cheek again. 
“That’s not going to work this time.”
Pouting, Xavier holds onto your hand, stopping your playful jabs. “Please give me a chance to lighten my sentence, Miss Hunter, it was unintentional,” he negotiates with a kiss on your palm. The sincerity in his request eases your heart enough to allow him a little wiggle room, or perhaps it’s the slick trailing more between your folds. 
“You only got until morning to make a case for yourself.”
“I’ll make you forget by then.” He snatches up your ankle towards his face, a much more pleasant position than your last, as your muscles were starting to ache from having your knees pushed to your face. 
He caresses your ankle, pressing an airy kiss. The little bump of his nose against the ball of your ankle tickles, making a giggle cascade from your lips as you slide lower with the pull of your leg.  
“Silly,” he mumbles before shuffling off your shorts. Your underwear comes off with more of a fight, the stickiness soaked into it causing the dainty fabric to cling lewdly to your skin and outline to the shape of your cunt. 
You don’t often hear Xavier curse but that’s what happens along with his tongue rolling over his upper lip when he catches the image. He reaches out and his fingers twitch, threatening to curve against the spreading stain in your panties but he resists and hooks his fingers into the waistband. He takes his sweet time watching the doused material peeling from you with thin strands of cum sticking to it.
It takes him more effort than he’d like to admit to resist diving straight in. Instead, he keeps it slow, sensual, as much for his sake as yours as he skims his lips up your calf.
He does the same with your center, carefully pressing two fingers against you as he holds your leg up on his shoulder. His mouth stays on your inner thigh, but his eyes are entirely locked on his fingers and the way they effortlessly collect your cum and slip between your lips with barely a push. You can feel his breath shudder out against you before he forces it down with a bite of your thigh but that does nothing to hide the way his entire body tenses when his fingers slip from your clit all the way to your clenching hole. 
It does nothing good for your ego or your sanity to think how normally calm and collected Xavier is losing his composure just by touching you. How he’s so obviously turned on when you haven’t nearly returned as much as he’s been giving you. 
He presses his hands at the crook of your thighs, pushing your legs further apart, and quenches himself between your legs. His name leaves you in one low drawn-out sigh. Sure, you were baiting him when you told him your weakness, but you weren’t expecting him to abuse the knowledge so readily. 
He held your legs blood cuttingly tight to keep you from squirming away from his wriggling tongue, and by the moan that reverberates from his chest and the strong jerk against the mattress when your juices hit his tongue, you think he would only be satisfied if you crushed his head between your straining thighs. When he suckles your clit; when his voice, muffled, hits your pussy; when his biceps tighten around your legs as if encouraging you to do so, and when his eyes meet yours with a silent demand, you know that’s exactly what he wants.
At the plunging of his fingers in you, you break down, catch his head in a vice-like grip, and push him into you. Your heart flutters and the remaining butterflies in your stomach migrate away at the growl he lets out. Your walls happily clench around those thick fingers, your dripping hole making it easy and smooth work to pump in and out of you. You’re not sure when he decides he would rather feel your muscle tightening around his tongue instead, but you can only respond with the tilt of your head back into the sheets and the stroke of your heel on his bare back when it happens. 
The only thing better is his palm grinding down on your clit, alternating between slow rotations and rough sporadic grinding that has your toes curling and your eyes glossing with the buildup of tears.
“You’re too loud,” he comments yet he doesn’t stop, in fact, he presses down harder, making you whine. “You’re going to wake the neighbors.”
“Since when have you cared what the neighbors think?” you barely manage to whimper out. 
“I’m not worried about them. I just don’t want anyone else to hear what only I should,” he remarks, lapping up the juices spilling down your legs.
His confession is a surprise to you. You never took him to be so possessive. But if that possessiveness is what kept his tongue swirling on your swollen clit and an intense moan escaping your lips then you didn’t mind. 
However…
His fingers weren’t enough anymore. 
Choosing to surprise him, you decide to turn the tables on him. You jerk your legs, catching him off guard but not enough to tip him over. He looks at you with concern. It doesn’t stop you from trying again with extra force this time until you can weaken his grasp and force him down on his back. 
Having the world’s strongest hunter under you was only something you could dream of—first as a rival and now as a lover. The adrenaline has you tunnel-visioned as you straddle his stomach, your soaked cunt making a waterboard out of his abs, which Xavier has also picked up on if the dusky pink on his cheeks is anything to go by.
You grab his hands, gripping tight to regain his attention. Xavier looks taken back especially when your fingers interlock his and pin them back. Whether he’s shocked or curious you don’t know, and you also don’t ask to borrow his power. 
“You’ve been having too much fun,” you tell him as you check to make sure your finger is sufficiently coated with light. “For my turn, I’ll attack here and here,” you whisper, marking off his chest and drawing a line across his neck.
There’s a hint of worry finally when he sees you’re aiming for his weak spot. “If you’re trying to teach me the best spot to kill Wanderers, I already know.”
“More like the best spots to defeat a Xavier,” you remark, flattening your palm over his heart, finding your own thumping when you verify that you finally managed to raise his heart rate to the levels of a normal human.
“You’re pretty forward today.” Xavier reaches out to hold your hips and cocks his head at you with an inquisitive glance. “Are you always this easy to excite or is it because of me?” 
You feel your face heat at his question. As if he didn’t already know the answer. No one else could make you like this. Needy. Shy. Aroused. Flustered. Confused. Infatuated and in love more than you’ve ever been. 
Your eyes soften. “And if I said it was you?”
“Then, you can use me all you want,” he confesses and gently coaxes you back to sit on his hard cock. You smoothly slide your hands to his shoulders, rotating loving strokes into his fair skin before you stop to free his cock from his pants.
It springs readily into your palm, so responsive. You reward him by letting him have a little taste of you. He tries to hide the hitch of his breath as if he could hide any reaction from you right now. It’s so hard to get him to react to anything, and your brain won’t let you miss a single moment as you sit back onto his lap and grind.
His cock slides between your lips, so big that you can feel it stroking you fully, his swollen, dribbling head making you whimper whenever it bumps your clit. 
“You, you’re so—” he begins, his eyes flitting from the gentle shake of your tits to his cock glistening between your folds, but he loses his voice to a low whimper when you increase your pace. It’s not on purpose but you can’t help yourself; you’re aching for him just as much as he is for you. “Hah, please...” 
His cock is leaking onto him with each sleek thrust, a little pool of precum glistening on his belly as your hips buck. It makes your stomach twist and your insides twitch to see him so excited for you.
“Not yet,” you tell him, brushing fingers across the length of his throat. His mouth parts with a croak that plasters a crooked smile on your face.
His eyebrows knit, and he frowns as you decide to tease him a little by slowing your strokes while your nails continue to follow the thick vein protruding from his neck as he desperately holds down his whines. 
“And you call me the cruel one.”
He was gorgeous under you. Beautifully flushed and sheened with sweat. His lips were so close to quivering each time his swollen head was swallowed back under your heat. It’s strange how his pitiful expression actually excites you, leaving you wetter and funneling this cycle of him repeatedly scrunching his face before relaxing it with a moan. 
“Please,” he asks again, this time more politely, pleadingly, and downright cutely. He knows what he’s doing because you decide to take pity on him when he gazes at you. “Please let me have you?”
It takes only a second for you to reposition yourself and hover over him. There’s a split hesitation when it registers that you’re actually going to have sex with him and how large he actually is with his cock standing tall and the tip kissing at your entrance.  You press downward anyway.
The stretch is both painful and pleasurable, straining your nerves as you lower. The wince on your face is accompanied by a hiss on your lips. However, Xavier is there again to catch you.
“Let’s take our time,” he instructs.
You nod, slowly thrusting halfway onto him. Each rise and fall of your hips coating him with your cream little by little makes it a bit easier to sheath him each bounce. 
“Good girl,” he whispers soothingly. Face constricting, he bites down on his lip to hold in a weak groan. It’s not your fault that the praise made your walls flutter and tighten.
When you finally suck him in completely, your eyes roll. 
“There you go,” he continues. He slides his hand into one of yours, encouraging you to hold onto it as you slowly and pointedly follow the curve of his cock, “Just like that,” he rasps out.    As you take him in fully, your pussy reaching his lap and pushing against his balls, you find it hard to concentrate on the exact words leaving him.
You take a minute to sit with him fully sheathed inside of you, allowing your stretched core to get more accustomed to his cock and also for the high of joining with him to cool off. Otherwise, you’d lose control.
You feel so full. It’s a wonderful sensation, and the pleasure increases tenfold when you lift your hips then have him stretch you again.
Rubbing your fingertips into the back of his palm, you lift and slam back onto him again, causing a ragged groan from you both that ricochets off the walls of the room. It isn’t until now that you recognize how bad you’ve been needing this.
Needed him. 
You’re still nowhere near understanding why this need is inside of you. Anyone can give you pleasure, and he’s not the first, but nothing quite matched the warmth overtaking you when his cock pistons and rubs against your nerves as you ride him. 
The thought that Xavier was right about fate being written in the stars barely breaks through the thick fog of arousal clouding your brain. The heat spurs you to bounce harder to meet his jerking thrusts. 
He sighs under you; the pressure on his lower half increases while your eyesight blurs and your head angles back. You’ll both be each other’s undoing at this rate, he thinks, as he watches the beads of sweat accumulating in little shiny droplets on your forehead and on your bouncing chest in a light sheen.
Chasing that desire to see you undone, he pulls you to a halt, burying himself deep inside of you, before pressing his hand to your mound, brushing past the patch of damp hair to zone in on your sticky, swollen clit. 
The instant whine of his name makes him dizzy. Centuries have gone by, and he’s never heard you say his name with such wanton desperation nor seen you grind onto him, stirring his cock in you as if your sanity depended on it.  
His certainly depended on you. Always has especially in the many decades he thought he’d never see you again. That need is even clearer from how sensitive yet eager his cock is to you squeezing around it as you shudder on top of him while keeping an unbearably tight hold on his hand. Your movements come to a near stop except for the occasional rut to prolong the rush of your orgasm. 
The sight of you breaking down on top of him threatens to make his eyes roll back as he squeezes onto your legs for grounding. Your strangled gasp followed by your muscles relaxing tells him that you’re coming down.  
“I take it you’ve finished,” Xavier says with a smirk, and you only have half the mind to swat at his chest like a lazy cat. Your legs burn, your chest unable to fill with enough oxygen to catch your breath. You think you’ll skip the gym tomorrow but Xavier has other plans.
“I’m not finished,” he reminds you. 
You look down at Xavier; you’d been so busy finding your own pleasure, you didn’t realize he hadn’t cum yet. You feel a lingering guilt but he swiftly takes the situation into his own hands.
You’re still too sensitive to fight back as he slides his cock out of you with a wet pop. It takes two swift movements for him to lift you off of him and roll you onto your stomach.
Your chest feels restricted, tight to the mattress as he presses on top of you, his grey-brown hair rubbing your shoulder as he cuddles your back. It’s an affectionate notion, distracting from the pressure in your lower half as he slides off the last of his clothes and thrusts his cock back inside of you. 
You thought you were filled to the brim the first time, yet this angle was different. It felt much tighter, and the slightest shift of his hips had you muffling moans into your arms. 
“I want to hear you,” he sweetly requests, yanking on your hips to raise your ass higher and pull you further away from the muffling effects of the bed. Your fracturing mewls mix into his grunts, both sounds washing out the sloppy, wet paps of his cock pounding into you. 
His hand swoops down your bending back in one long soothing stroke before his head collapses onto you. His grunts are loud, tumbling right into your ear along with the slapping sound of his hips meeting your ass. Your legs feel like jelly, and the rest of your body becomes weightless as your mind only focuses on his cock recklessly burning its way through you.
Xavier’s breath rolls against your back along with his forehead as he buries you under his weight; his grip on your thighs tightens to an unbearable degree, leaving you to wonder if you’ll have marks in the morning. 
You don’t really care if he does when he moans your name and heat fills you, spreading with each sporadic thrust until he finally bottoms out inside you one last time and holds until he completely empties. 
Taking his time to enjoy the sensation, he waits before pulling out of you, making you whimper with the sudden void. Shakily, you collapse back into the sheets and flip onto your back with a sigh. His eyes are still half-lidded as he watches you; he chews briefly on his bottom lip, reminding you of the look in his eyes earlier. 
“Xavier,” you question but he silences you with a kiss, which you tiredly return. His fingertips slide down from your knee to your thigh, and he teases your opening, the mixture of cum making it easy for him to stroke your still spasming pussy. 
Xavier sighs against your lips before moving his kisses to the swoop of your neck. “You’re so beautiful and all mine.”
Your mouth parts with a dry moan as he slides thick fingers over your clit. It starts to ache from his touch but it’s hard to deny him, even as he tortures you with his methodic and precise rotations over the bead.
His name is on your mouth, each syllable heavy on your tongue. You leave garbled gasps in his mouth as he makes out with you while your hand draws down his chest, attempting to make a mental map of every twitching muscle and healed wound on the way down.
Your heart jumps with the twitch of his cock when you wrap your hand around it. There’s going to be no trouble getting him to rebound, you think. He’s already thickening again with the warm strokes of your hand and tracing of your fingers over the slowly beating vein lining the underside of his shaft. 
Xavier doesn’t even let you finish exciting him before he rolls back on top of you and settles his head between your breasts. Between all the cum in between your legs and his half-hard cock, it isn’t as mind-numbing to have him inside you. What is different is to feel him twitching and growing inside you with his renewed thrusts. 
You’re hiccupping by the time he pushes your legs back and starts to hit deep inside of you, leaving the corner of your eyes tearing. You’re overwhelmed with everything. The uncharacteristic amount of energy he possesses as his hips snap into you. How each powerful rock leaves tingles aftershock-ing inside you, ruining your chances to recover before he does it again. The heavy scent of sex mixed with pine overwhelms your nose. His sweaty chest blocks out any light in the room, sealing any notion that you can be distracted by anything other than him as he pushes up your knee towards your chest.
You’re quickly working up to your second orgasm; the painful cramping in your foot tells you it’ll be bigger than the last. You’re right. When you come undone again, it’s with a shrill sob. You’re too out of it to even register when he finishes until he starts kissing your neck again.
He’s still inside you, you realize once your mind finally lands back on earth. His cock is resting in the heat inside you, waiting for him to work the two of you back up again. You know that’s the goal when his thumb gently brushes over one of your nipples again. Your sore insides constrict and strain. You don’t think you could survive a third round. 
“Xavier, please, no more.”
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice dry and husky in your ear as he kisses under it. 
“Too much,” you tell him, pushing on his chest to make some space between the two of you.  
“I didn’t catch that,” he coos defiantly. When he notices that you’re being serious, he obediently pulls out of you. His kisses become smoother as he pecks your lips. “What’s wrong? Is it aching?”
You nod then puff your cheeks in frustration when you see the amusement on his face.
“It’s not funny!” you say, holding onto that angry, childish pout until his smile turns sympathetic. 
“You’re right,” he agrees and shifts off you. Quickly, he locates his briefs on the corner of the bed. He steps out of bed and pulls them on. To your surprise, he leaves you, alone and cold.  
“Where are you going?”
Xavier disappears without answering you and only the sound of running water gives you any sort of hint of where he might’ve gone. When he returns, it’s with a rag dangled in his hand. 
“A boyfriend should help clean his girlfriend up after times like this,” he explains and leans over you; he presses the wet cloth between your legs; the rag is incredibly soothing on your bloated skin. It’s a blessing to your sore muscles as he starts to massage and clean you. “It feels better already, doesn’t it?”
“I guess,” you answer pitifully, grumbling a bit because the look on his face still seems like he’s teasing about your neediness. 
“You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s my fault you’re a little sore.” He’s definitely taunting you, but you don’t have the energy to fight about it. “All done,” he remarks, tossing the rag to a forgotten section of the dresser. He carefully climbs back on top of you, waiting for the moment your hand finds his bicep to guide him down next to you. 
It isn’t the first time he’s been this affectionate, and it won’t be the last time. However, this time feels more special than any time you’ve slept together, and not just because you can feel the stickiness of his sex-clad skin against your naked body. Well, that’s part of the reason.
“Something on your mind?”
“Nothing. I’m really happy,” you explain. 
“If it really makes you that happy, maybe we should do it more often,” he offers, and you pinch his unwounded cheek to punish him. Jumping back, he knocks your hand away and caresses his wounded face. “I’ll need another bandage if you keep doing that,” he complains weakly. 
“You only have yourself to blame!”
Xavier sighs. “You’re always right,” he concedes, more so that he can cuddle you without fighting rather than actually agreeing with you, you fear. 
“I don’t believe you.”
“Are you really doubting your boyfriend?” he asks. Heartbeat skipped, you clamp your mouth shut as he unfolds the blankets over the two of you. 
It’s finally settling back into your mind that the two of you are a couple now. “I’m still…not used to it yet with you being that.”
“You will get used to it the longer we’re together. The same as I will.” Xavier sighs, happily so. “Although, we might run into the same problem again.”
You blink at him. “Why?”
Thoughtful, Xavier hums then explains, “First comes love then comes marriage as they say.”
He catches you off-guard once more. As always, Xavier is forever forging on ahead with little regard for convention. “Aren’t you thinking too far ahead?”
“Maybe,” he agrees but there’s no drop in his confidence as he smiles at you and draws his hand over your hairline. “But I loved you since we met.”
“Xavier, please,” you beg, finding your favorite place to hide your flustered face in the crook of his elbow. 
He can’t help but laugh at you as he curls his arm around you. “Especially that,” he confesses and places one more kiss on the top of your head before inviting you to go to sleep. 
You do, falling asleep against his chest less than thirty minutes later. For him, sleep is elusive for once as he mulls over the day’s events.
The word girlfriend on his tongue is sweet. The idea itself burns wonderfully in his chest, but it isn’t enough. He knows he still needs to wait a bit longer, take his time, your bashful response to his prodding was enough to tell him that it isn’t time yet. It’s hard not to rush when this is the closest he’s ever been to the one thing he truly wants. 
Xavier guesses he’ll still have to rely on his dreams for a little while longer. It’s okay, he tells himself, it’ll work out this time. He’ll find a place to settle with you and have a quiet life, a place where he can see stars. 
And this lifetime, when he asks you to marry him, he hopes you’ll say yes.
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flowerandblood · 2 months
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The Lost Haven (10/16)
[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece • female ]
[ warnings: incest obviously, unprotected sex, smut, the angst, squirting, semi-public intimacy, description drug overdose, violence, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]
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[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn't let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father's mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]
Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra's husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin's brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.
Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard
* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *
Next chapters: Masterlist
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Although she hadn't written him back since their rather tumultuous phone call, her uncle had tried to soothe her anger by sending her pictures and videos of Vhagar at various frames and times of the day.
Through this, in the morning she would see her owner pouring food into her bowl, ordering her to stay still, listening to her squeals of impatience, then she could see her proudly carrying a big stick between her sharp fangs, and in the evening she would listen to him recording close-up footage of her dark eyes and wet nose asking her if she had missed her, with Vhagar then licking his phone.
She knew it was wrong, but some part of her felt happy about it and waited impatiently for each new message from him, because even though she didn't write him back she knew what he meant to tell her in this way: he wanted her to understand that he thought of her every day, anytime, anywhere.
She waited impatiently for news that would doom him in her eyes definitively, words from Daemon that he had killed someone again, hurt someone again, any confirmation that he was unable to change, that there was no going back for him.
There was something touching in that realisation, in the thought that he wasn't lying when he said he cared.
They both risked keeping in touch and because of that she had to have two phone cards to avoid attracting Daemon's attention, but other than that her uncle didn't try to call her or approach her, respecting her personal space.
He, however, surprised her by calling her one afternoon while she was in class. She didn't know what to do for a moment and then left the room to the surprise of everyone gathered, apologising to her professor, saying it was an urgent matter, led away by Robb's anxious, watchful gaze.
He hadn't spoken to her since his confrontation with her uncle, and she felt bad about it, but preferred not to approach him.
She had made the mistake of telling him too much and now she had to pay for it.
She sighed heavily as she stepped out into the corridor and answered, putting her phone to her ear.
"Aemond, you can't call me. Is something wrong?" She asked simultaneously frustrated and horrified.
"I got in. I passed the exam." He said excitedly, loud and clear, like a small child boasting to his mother that he had got the best mark in the class.
She blinked and shook her head, smiling involuntarily, feeling relieved at the thought that perhaps there was still hope for him.
He was really trying.
"I'm proud of you. I really am." She confessed from the bottom of her heart, wanting him to feel appreciated, to know that this was the right path for him and that she would support him in it without looking at what he had done to her in the past.
"Let's meet to celebrate. Please." He muttered, and she felt discomfort in her stomach, her whole body tensed.
"No." She said immediately, feeling fear, thinking this was another trap, another excuse to weaken Daemon.
"Just for a moment. In a public place, in a restaurant, in a café. Wherever you want, wherever you feel safe." He insisted, a plea in his voice from which she felt a sting in her heart, longing to see him and needing to keep him at bay.
"I can't, Aemond. You know I can't. I will always support you, including about your studies, but after what has happened I can't trust you." She said in a trembling voice, wanting to be honest with him.
She felt he deserved it.
She heard him swallow hard and fell silent for a long moment, making her feel remorseful, her heart pounding like mad.
"– forgive me – I had no right to ask you to do this – it was a mistake resulting from my selfishness – thank you for everything –" He said in a tone from which she felt an unpleasant shudder of self-regret, because some part of her wanted to please him, to be with him, to be happy with him, to make love to him.
But that was not enough.
"– Aemond –" She muttered, but he hung up, leaving her with an unpleasant, uncomfortable void in her heart.
She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath, trying not to cry, thinking that she had done the right and sensible thing, that she had to look out for herself and not cross the line she had drawn for herself.
It was better for her and for him.
However, she couldn't stop the unpleasant feeling of disappointment and sadness when he didn't send her any photos or messages that day or any day after. She thought that he was punishing her in this way and that it was a painful form of manipulation on his part to which she could not react.
He wanted to break her, to force her to be with him again, to make her feel remorse and let him do what he wanted with her.
She was not going to make the same mistake.
She felt for the first time that something was wrong when her professor accosted her in the corridor.
"Your friend got the best score of all the participants in the exams, Miss Strong, but he has not yet submitted all the documents. He shouldn't delay, if he doesn't do it by Wednesday, someone else will take his place." He explained, and she swallowed hard and nodded.
"I'll pass it on to him." She muttered and as soon as she said goodbye to him, she texted him.
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He, however, did not write her back either that day or the next, making her cry again through the night because of him.
Was he punishing her in this way?
Was he showing her that if she did not meet his expectations he would do nothing to change?
That her presence was supposed to be the payment for him going to University?
She thought it was terribly unfair of him and that she didn't want to know him only to send him another message in despair.
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He, however, continued not to reply and she had lost hope that anything would change.
"You haven't been eating lately. What's going on?" Asked Daemon, driving with her to the supermarket to buy things for dinner.
He took her to various places under his watchful eye, trying to find her activities to keep her from sitting in her room and torturing herself with thoughts.
She swallowed hard and looked away, not wanting to talk about it or lie to his face. She heard her step-father sigh heavily at her lack of response, impatient, and he was already about to say something when suddenly his phone rang in the car.
He answered by clicking the hands-free mode, connecting directly to the car's control panel.
"Boss, there's a small problem at the Moon & Stars club. There has been an incident, someone has tried to rob the safe. We suspect it was Hightower's people, but they managed to run away. They didn't take anything."
She looked at her father, who sighed heavily, running his hand over his face.
"Do I have to do everything myself? I'll be right there." He hissed impatiently and turned off the road, heading in a completely different direction.
He didn't usually take her with him to do his business, but now apparently the matter was serious and they were too far from home to turn back.
As they went inside, Daemon pointed his finger at one of the guest lodges to her.
"Wait here for me and stay where you are. Ten minutes and I'm back. Is that clear? You can order yourself something to drink, just have them pour it by your side in a glass." He said and she nodded, having no intention of doing anything but sitting.
Old rock classics were playing all around her, posters of bands and various guitars everywhere, red and blue lights blinking all around her, tormenting her already tired eyes.
She hadn't slept well the past few nights.
"Rhaenys?" She heard someone's voice behind her and turned, surprised to see a woman in front of her, the same one she had met when Daemon had shown her what her uncle had done to Robert.
She looked at her with big eyes, confused and terrified, because no one but him had ever called her by that name.
"Alys. We've already met." She introduced herself, extending her hand to her, holding her drink in the other, and she shook it.
The woman grinned in a way she didn't like and sat down across from her, making her feel uncomfortable. She looked around, trying to spot Daemon in the crowd, tense.
"Don't be scared. I'm a friend of Aemond's and an old acquaintance of your step-father's." Alys said calmly, taking a sip of whisky from her glass.
She looked at her with her heart beating fast, playing with her fingers in a gesture of concern.
"– but –" She muttered, unsure if she wanted to know how she knew the name that only her uncle called her by.
How close friends they were.
It seemed to her that Alys saw the question written all over her face, because she grinned even wider.
"He revealed to me the name he calls you by accident. Let's just say it slipped out to him in a moment of elation because he forgot it wasn't you lying beneath him." She said softly, without a grimace of anger or frustration, as if she found it amusing.
She swallowed hard, feeling an unpleasant sting in her heart at the thought that she was having sex with him, that he was comfortable with another woman.
On the other hand, her words sounded in her ears making her grow hot.
It slipped out of him in a moment of elation because he forgot that it wasn't you lying beneath him.
Alys sighed, spreading herself out comfortably on the couch, seeing that her words had completely shocked her and she didn't know how to act.
"Don't worry. We were never in a romantic relationship. I find the fact that he is so deeply in love with someone quite charming. For a long time I didn't know who the mysterious Rhaenys was, as there was no girl in our society with that name. It wasn't until recently that I found out for what reason Aemond kept his feelings to himself. An uncle should care for his niece, but not that much, right?" She sneered, and she swallowed hard with a loud snort of air.
Was she trying to scare her?
To blackmail her?
"Why are you telling me this?" She asked horrified, making the woman raise her eyebrows high.
"I want to help. I suspect your father didn't tell you that Aemond had recently overdosed on sleep drugs." She said, and she froze, feeling herself go deaf for a moment, and everything around her stopped.
"What?"
"He's in hospital in intensive care. I found out about it from his grandfather's co-workers. Everyone is whispering about it being a suicide attempt, thinking it was because Otto decided to make Aegon his successor. But I think otherwise." She said calmly, tilting her glass, drinking its entire contents to the end in one gulp, and set it down on the table.
"When he came to talk to me last time, he talked about you. He wanted me to help him with the Larys Strong case. Fear not: we've had nothing more in common than business for over a year. Since your name slipped out of his mouth, he was no longer comfortable with this form of intimacy, which is quite understandable. I learned his sweet little secret, but honestly, looking at you, I don't blame him." She said lightly with a simultaneously heartfelt and disturbing smirk.
Their relation was deep, she thought with regret, even if they were not together.
Something in that thought saddened her, the image of their bodies entwined together.
Did he feel the same when he saw Robb?
Are you two together again?
Are you in love with him?
"It hurts you that he slept with me. That he didn't wait for you." She stated calmly, as if she had come to some obvious, ordinary conclusion. She twisted in her seat, feeling panic rising within her, her bright green eyes seeming to pierce her to the core.
"I don't know what you mean." She muttered, looking away, red with embarrassment.
"I know he hurt you. What he did to you. In a way, I admire how you endangered yourself for him having Daemon under your nose. It's tragic that you love him so much, but it's even more tragic that he reciprocates your feelings. It saddens me to see such a young, innocent girl fall down with him because of his greed." She said dryly, making her shake her head, clenching her eyes, feeling hot tears under her eyelids.
"Leave her alone, Alys. Don't mess with her head." Daemon said, grabbing her arm and lifted her upright. The black-haired woman looked at him, sighing heavily, the expression on her face not changing one bit.
"I was just offering her my condolences."
As soon as they got into the car, her step-father began his interrogation.
"What did that witch want from you? I like her, but she's a specific person and I'd rather you didn't talk to her alone." He scoffed, pulling out of the car park. She looked blankly out of the window, feeling horribly tired.
"That Aemond has overdosed and is in hospital."
Daemon rolled his eyes, impatient, and licked his lower lip.
"I didn't want to burden you even more. To make you think it's your fault. Your uncle is trying to make himself a victim."
"He killed Larys Strong for me." She muttered and heard Daemon take a deep breath, frustrated.
"Maybe he did, maybe he didn't."
"He did. Because of that rape pill. Against his grandfather's will."
"How do you know that? I forbade you to contact him. Do you want me to take your phone away from you so you'll finally wise up?"
"I don't want him to die."
Daemon fell silent and stopped at the side of the road, turning on the emergency lights. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a moment – they continued like that for a moment in a silence filled with tension, her fingers involuntarily tracing over the scars on her wrists.
Her reminder of what he had done to her.
"We can't help him if he doesn't want it himself. Do you understand?"
"He wants it."
"You're the only one who believes that."
"After they imprisoned me in their house, he stayed in one room with me all the time. He cried constantly, like he was a little baby. He is broken. He begged me for forgiveness."
"If he had really cared about you, he would never have done this to you."
"If your father had bequeathed in his will what was due to you to someone else, would you have left it that way?" She asked, glancing at him. Daemon shook his head, sighing heavily, shaking the dust off his trousers.
"If you cared about peace, you would have made a deal with them. My mother doesn't think justice has been done, but she remains silent for your sake. She will not stand up to you." She said coldly. Daemon looked at her with a gaze from which she froze.
"Careful now."
"Or what? You've always resented me for lying. But can you be told the truth without fear of the consequences? Do you only want to hear the kind of truth that is convenient for you?"
"Your grandfather bequeathed to your mother what he wanted in his will. Nobody forced him to do that. Do you think I'm going to give it back to them so they won't be sad? So that your poor one-eyed uncle doesn't cry? Wake up. Why do you think Viserys passed everything on to Rhaenyra? Hm? Is it because he's in love with me? Because he despised his sons? No. Because he knew that whatever he bequeathed to them, Otto would take it. He showed him that he never really trusted him and he was absolutely right."
They stared at each other in silence, the air around them so thick she felt she had trouble catching her breath. She turned her head away, feeling only fatigue, only regret.
"Take me home."
Daemon snorted and shook his head, taking off with a screech of tyres, furious.
Only money mattered, only influence, only power.
Everything else was just an obstacle to the goal.
When they got home Daemon held out his hand to her, startling her.
"Give me your phone."
She pressed her lips together, feeling her heart begin to pound like mad in rage.
"No."
She saw her step-father smack the inside of her cheek with the tip of his tongue, standing with his hand stretched out in front of him.
"I don't like repeating myself."
"No."
"Should I call your mother? Are you going to tell her that you talk to your uncle and what you do with him in your free time?" He sneered, making her feel a squeeze in her throat. "Come to your senses."
"Tell her what you want. I don't care." She said dryly and moved ahead, running upstairs to her room.
She locked herself in the bathroom and changed the card in her phone, looking in her contacts for Helaena's old number, the one she'd given her when they were still little girls, praying she'd answer.
"Hello?" She heard her soft voice on the other end and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hi. I'm sorry to bother you. I know Aemond is in hospital. He's passed his university exam, but the deadline for submitting his documents is today. They should be in his flat in the envelope he got from the University. Are you able to fill them out and bring them to the Archaeology Department tomorrow?" She asked in a whisper, afraid that someone outside would hear her conversation.
"Oh. Okay. Okay, I'll try." She muttered, and she breathed out heavily, feeling relieved.
"Thank you. How is he?" She asked quickly.
"He's still not awake, but his condition is stable. The worst is behind us. Our mum tried to call him but he didn't answer, so she drove there to see what had happened. Thank goodness she had spare keys to his flat."
The next day she set it as a point of honour to convince her professor and dean, appearing with Helaena, that the situation was exceptional and procedures could be bent in this situation.
"I didn't know my friend was in hospital. It happened suddenly and for this reason he could not bring the documents yesterday, which however his sister has with her today."
"We cannot accept them without his signature." Said the dean, making her feel an unpleasant discomfort in her stomach at the thought that her uncle would wake up only to find that his chance was gone.
"I ask for your understanding in this unique situation. He is unconscious at the moment and fighting for his life. As soon as he is able, he will come to sign the documents in person. The professor told me that he passed the exam with the best result. He's been through a lot and I don't want his work to be in vain." She said, and the man sighed heavily and nodded.
"Very well. But as soon as he is able, he is to appear here immediately and explain to me in person."
She sent him another message that same day, knowing from Helaena that he was finally awake and that nothing was threatening his life anymore.
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He, however, did not write her back.
Was it because of her that he had done this to himself?
Was it because she had not met him?
She felt anger and remorse at the same time, but mostly she was relieved that he was still alive.
Lying alone in bed late at night, she thought she would go mad if she didn't find out why he had done it, so in a gesture of despair she decided to call him to find out how he felt.
She shuddered when she heard him pick up, but he was quiet, complete silence on the other end of the receiver.
"How are you feeling?" She asked softly, wondering if she was about to hear a litany from him about how much he had suffered because of her, that he didn't want to live because of her.
Would he try to manipulate her with remorse.
"Exactly as I deserve."
She swallowed hard, completely not expecting such an answer, not knowing what to make of his words.
Exactly as I deserve.
She lowered her gaze, playing with her duvet between her fingers, feeling her heart pounding like mad.
"Did you… really want to do this?" She muttered, dreading his answer, and he laughed, as if something in her question amused him for some reason.
"No. I wanted to see how you felt that day."
She froze, feeling her breath get stuck in her lungs, her eyebrows arching in pain at his words.
"Your suffering is not my desire, Aemond. You hurt me, but I don't want revenge. I just want… to stop feeling this unbearable pain in my heart that I have felt in my chest for eight years." She muttered, simultaneously wanting to see him again and forget him, to run away from him and let herself be locked in his arms once more.
"I regret it so much. I told my grandfather that I didn't want him to involve you, but he said that if we didn't, someone else would want to take advantage of Daemon's weakness for you. And I believed him. I thought that Larys will actually try to do something to you again, but only now do I understand that it was a simple lie that I easily accepted to justify myself. Fuck, I'm so ashamed, baby, I really am." He choked out with difficulty, whooping with tears, making her freeze completely, just listening to him.
"My father took everything from me. I did these fucked-up things to other people for nothing. I mutilated them for nothing. The only thing he left me is the property by the sea, the same one where I lost my eye, as if he had made a mockery of me. I was so lost. I still am."
She swallowed hard, staring dully ahead, feeling as one by one tears ran down her face.
Some part of her understood him, knew how hurt and disappointed he must have been, but another couldn't forgive him for somehow using her to get revenge on Daemon and her mother.
She felt like her head was going to burst.
"What do you want, Aemond? Truly. Be honest." She asked, impatient, and heard him swallow heavily.
"I want to study and see you once in a while. In a public place, so that you feel safe."
She pressed her lips together at his words, feeling the heat in her stomach and chest, for which she rebuked herself in spirit, trying to remain sober in her mind.
"And that's it? What about your family? About your business?"
"My grandfather limited my influence and responsibilities after I shot Larys without his knowledge. He no longer trusts me and doesn't assign me important tasks."
It was only then that she understood why he had actually overdosed.
He had lost his business.
He had lost his grandfather's respect.
He had lost her.
He was alone, exactly as he was then.
His face contorted in pain and despair, his red cheeks flooded with tears, his eyes closed and his hands clenched into fists then, as he stood up to his waist in the sea water, alone and terrified.
"The University Library." She said feeling that she had made up her mind.
"I don't understand."
"We can meet in the University Library."
"Really?" He asked excitedly, as if she had given him a wonderful surprise, and she swallowed hard, feeling a tightness in her throat.
"Only there and for a short time. Once in a while. If I find out you did something to hurt me or my family, you'll never see me again."
She didn't care about their business, their money, their eternal need to prove to themselves who was in charge of this town.
She just wanted her friend back.
The next day she turned up at the agreed place all tense, hiding her little pocket knife in her bra beforehand, afraid that he would trick her again.
That he would betray her again.
So many emotions were rattling through her head that her hands were shaking and although she tried to concentrate on reading her textbook, she couldn't. When she heard the sound of the door opening and raised her head from the book, she drew in a breath, seeing his silhouette emerge from behind the bookcases.
He stood still, as if petrified, his eyes and mouth opened wide.
"Hi." He muttered as if choking.
"Hi." She replied, looking at him watchfully, ready to run away.
She swallowed hard as he simply pulled off his leather jacket and sat down next to her on the big, soft cushions.
Afraid of how much her heart was pounding, how euphoric she felt at the sight of him, she decided to turn her thoughts away from that and get to the point, pulling from her backpack her notebooks that she had brought for him.
"I brought you my notes from first year. Read them, if you can't decipher something, I'll try to guess what I wrote. They'll come in handy for you before semester exams." She said indifferently, handing them to him one by one. He nodded and swallowed hard, taking them from her, clearly not knowing how to act.
"Thank you."
Having no idea what more she could say, she leaned back and sank into reading her textbook again, afraid to look at him, afraid of what she would see in his gaze.
She shuddered and took a breath as he lay down beside her and put his head on her shoulder, exactly as she had done when they had read books together as small children.
She pressed her lips into a thin line, feeling tears squeeze into her eyes at this tender memory.
He heard her uneven breath, his moist, soft lips brushed her neck as his hand touched her waist, locking her in a warm embrace that felt too good, too safe.
No.
"– please –" She muttered, but didn't have time to say anything else because he interrupted her.
"– I have a gift for you –" He said, surprising her completely, taking out a rose-shaped red lollipop from his pocket after a moment. "– I didn't know what kind of flowers you like, so I bought one like this – the sales lady said it has a strawberry flavour –"
She felt touched and at the same time pained at the thought of how sweet and thoughtful this gift was. She took it from him, turning it in her fingers, no longer able to remember the last time anyone had given her something without an occasion to just make her smile.
"I'll eat it later. I don't want to get the books dirty now. Thank you, that's very kind of you." She said softly, putting the lollipop aside, and he nodded, his face pressed against her cheek as his fingers ran slowly over her face.
For some reason she didn't understand when he leaned back, her body followed him, laying next to him on the soft material. She let his arm draw her closer, his hand combing through her hair as her fingers touched his chest.
He nuzzled her face into the hollow of his neck, and she closed her eyes, smelling the pleasant scent of his aftershave and his masculine perfume, making a wonderful warmth spill over her lower abdomen.
"Several of my father's men are dead. They were shot on your grandfather's orders." She whispered, not wanting to forget who he was or what he had done.
She heard him sigh quietly, his fingers trailing over her head and down her back, playing with the curls of her hair.
Why did she feel so surprisingly safe in his arms, why was she so relaxed, so calm, why did her chest fill with some strange, unnatural relief?
"I know."
"Did you have anything to do with it?"
"No. My grandfather restricted my field of action after we called the emergency services when you…" He didn't finish, and she swallowed hard, knowing what he meant.
She decided she had to ask him this question, even though she was so afraid of his answer.
"If your grandfather tells you to kill Daemon or my brother. What will you do then?"
To her surprise, he seemed to have expected her to ask him this, for he answered almost immediately, without hesitation or uncertainty in his voice.
"I will tell him to do it himself. The times when I was his dog are over and he knows it. He has no idea what to do with me. I'm out of his control."
Something in his words, in the confidence with which they left his throat made her feel hot in her heart. She lifted herself up on her arm, wanting to look at his face, knowing that even if his lips lied to her, she would see the truth in the look of his healthy eye.
"What's your plan?"
Her uncle hummed under his breath, his hand from her neck sliding down between her breasts, trailing along the buttons of her dress, making a hot shiver run down her spine.
He was doing this on purpose, she thought.
"I want to start acting on my own." He said cautiously and looked at her with a glint in his eye that she didn't like.
"What do you mean?" She muttered involuntarily.
"If you think there's a way I could escape this world, you're wrong. Even Daemon didn't escaped it, he simply gathered his most trusted people and expanded his influence. I want to do the same, and I will start by taking over Heavenly Beach. Since Larys is dead, chaos has reigned there, and I intend to take advantage of it. Many of my grandfather's people don't like the vision of them having to work for Aegon in the future. They neither respect nor fear him." He sneered, saying the words as if he was proud of himself.
She stared at him in disbelief, not expecting such a response from him, the fact that he would dare to think of cutting himself off from his grandfather, of breaking away from his leash.
His words surprised her so much that she didn't know what to say, what she felt, what she thought about what she had just heard.
She shuddered, snapped out of her reverie when his finger tapped her breast where her pocket knife was tucked under her bra, feeling the cold sweat on her back at the thought of him noticing it.
"– wise girl –" He hummed, using this as an excuse to tease her through the material of her dress, rubbing the spot under where he knew her nipple was.
She swallowed loudly, feeling a wave of pleasurable heat surge through her entire body, the place between her thighs pulsed painfully hard, embarrassingly wet and eager for him not to stop.
She thought she would not give him that satisfaction.
"What do you intend to do with my step-father?" She asked in a trembling voice, and he looked at her with a smirk, shamelessly closing his hand on her breast again and again, no longer even pretending that he meant anything other than to feel her.
"Nothing. I won't attack him first. For you. He has nothing to do with Heavenly Beach." He muttered, spreading himself more comfortably on the cushion, already focusing only on where his hand was and what it was doing to her. She shuddered as another wave of tickling pleasure and tension shook her loins, her fingers involuntarily clenching on his wrist.
"– stop – someone will see –" She mumbled, looking around, terrified that Robb or anyone else who knew her might see them.
"I want it back." He whispered. "I want what we had during that summer."
She swallowed heavily, looking up at him in shock, feeling her heart get stuck in her throat and stop beating for a second.
I want it back.
I want what we had during that summer.
His words, so childish, simple and ill-considered were too painfully honest for her, his gaze hot and thirsty, full of what he was speaking of.
"I…God, after all, you know it won't work. We can't. No one will accept it, no one will understand. We'll be miserable again." She whispered pleadingly, shaking her head, unable to even imagine what it would look like.
To him, however, it clearly didn't matter anymore, and that shocked her the most.
"If you don't want it, I'll understand it. What I desire is fucked up, like my whole person. But I want you to know that what happened between us… then, when my father died. It was real. I've never felt more alive and fulfilled than then, being deep inside you. You were so warm." He said, running his thumb over the soft skin of her cheek, making her turn all red at his words, her cunt all slick from her moisture clenched greedily around nothing.
"Aemond." She mumbled in embarrassment, involuntarily feeling him inside her again, the thrusts of his hips forcing him deep, deep into her delicate flesh.
"I don't care how wrong it is. I don't care about morality. I've done far less moral things to other people. Making love to my niece seems to me the smallest of my sins." He confessed, sinking his hand into her hair, looking at her in a way that made her want to cry.
Making love to my niece seems to me the smallest of my sins.
Making love.
"Someone might say it's disgusting and wrong, but I only care about what you want. I don't give a shit about others. What they will think of me, whether I live by their rules or not. What can they do to me? Mock me? Fear me? They are already do. It's not about me, it's about you. I don't want to ruin your life."
She burst out crying at his words, because although he had hurt her so much, some sick part of her had longed to hear it for eight years. She moaned quietly as his lips began to place quick, helpless kisses on her face, his wide hands enclosing her in his embrace, trying to comfort her.
But she knew there was no comfort for them.
There was no future for them.
"– please – please, I don't want you to cry because of me –"
"This is just too much. I wish I could be a child again. To go back to that sea. To fall asleep next to you in that room. I wish I could feel again the peace I felt then. Your presence next to me. But I can't have it." She mumbled, choking on her own tears, involuntarily seeking relief in his proximity, feeling grief at the thought that he could not be the strange man she was allowed to love.
"You have it. You have me. You always had."
She looked up at him and froze, breathing hard, looking straight into his eyes, one empty and dead, the other filled with the hot affection she so feared.
"Do you like me?" He asked, and she blinked, not understanding what he meant. She nodded, however, wanting him to know that no matter how hard she tried, she was incapable of hating him.
"Very much?" He continued and smiled as she nodded again, breathing loudly through her mouth, trying to calm the convulsions of her body.
"Will you be my girlfriend?"
What?
The two of them, then, by the sea, walking side by side, the white shells in her hand, his soft, moist lips that evening on hers, his warm embrace as she lay snuggled into his body at night, in his room, in his bed.
"This time I'm aware of what I'm asking for. What I want. And although I should, I'm not ashamed of it. I have wasted eight years that I could have spent with you, no matter how much we would both have suffered during that time. I want to suffer with you by my side now." He whispered, tucking an unruly strand of her hair behind her ear in a gesture so tender that her voice stuck in her throat.
"I wish I could trust you, but I don't know if I can." She muttered with difficulty.
His eyebrows arched in pain at her words.
"I know. I'll wait as long as it takes." He whispered, his broad, warm hand running over her cheek.
I'll wait as long as it takes.
She was terrified by the fact that everything inside her screamed that she wanted him back.
She wanted him to be close.
She wanted him to touch her.
She wanted him to love her.
"You can only embrace me and hold my hand. No kisses on the lips and don't try to take me." She muttered, to her surprise instead of shame feeling relieved.
Against everything and everyone, morals and good manners, everything she valued in life.
They were together.
To her simultaneous annoyance and delight, her uncle took her words very loosely: he didn't kiss her lips and his hands didn't go near the area of her panties, but over the following weeks, when they met in secret in the library, his fingers travelled over every other part of her body.
She deliberately stopped wearing a bra, knowing that the thought that someone might have noticed her nipples under her T-shirt drove him to fury.
As she spread herself comfortably between his thighs with her textbook that they were reading together, satisfaction filled her body as she felt his hard manhood pushing greedily against her buttocks, his hand in some subconscious motion slipping under the material, enclosing itself on her soft, plump breast.
"– you are doing this on purpose –" He breathed out into her ear, rolling his hips back and forth, rubbing his throbbing length against the space between her buttocks, trailing his lips down her long neck, leaving wet, sticky marks on her bare skin. "– you let others look at what is mine – you punish me –"
She sighed, closing her eyes, tilting her head back so that she rested it on his shoulder, showing him grace – she clenched her thighs involuntarily, feeling a wonderful pulsing between them as his lips sank greedily into the hollow of her neck, her hand clamped down on his wrist, encouraging him not to stop.
"– let me look at them – take pity on me –" He exhaled, completely losing interest in reading, kneading the silken, smooth structure of her breast with his fingers as his other hand slid down to her bare thigh, stroking it affectionately.
"– we can't – someone will see us –" She muttered, her breath heavy and deep, her whole body hot and tense from the waves of tickling, overpowering pleasure, his hands, his scent, his closeness driving her mad.
It always ended the same way.
"– there are no cameras here – please – I haven't seen you all week – I've been good, haven't I? – hm? –" He gasped, and she swallowed hard at the thought of what he had done.
He, accompanied by Criston Cole and a handful of trusted men, had carried out attacks on all of the clubs owned by Larys Strong at once, taking over the entirety of his inheritance, depriving his grandfather of half of his trusted associates.
An expression of their displeasure at having nominated Aegon as his successor.
Daemon was shocked by this turn of events, having enemies on two fronts wondering, in fact, whether to respond to her uncle's offer to make a deal.
Aemond could have given Daemon the advantage over Otto that he so needed.
It was probably only the chaos and what was going on around him that made Daemon not ask her why she was going to the library in the middle of the summer, thinking apparently that she was trying to escape from what was going on around her that way.
It was partly true.
She knew that her boyfriend's conciliatory attitude was not because he had suddenly fallen in love with her step-father or brother, but because he wanted her, and she had the power to reward him for being faithful to her and for keeping his promises.
It was a dangerous game and they both knew it.
She sighed and turned in his embrace, sitting down on top of him, pulling her Tshirt over her head without much finesse. Her uncle froze for a moment, staring at the sight before him, his swollen erection beneath her pulsed hard again and again.
She decided to tease him a little and began to rock her hips back and forth, pressing down on what was beneath her, a muffled, low groan came from his throat.
"– fuck –" He mumbled, stroking her naked waist, watching her bare silhouette as if he were staring at something sacred that he held in reverence, for a moment afraid to touch her as he desired.
She rested her hands on his chest as he began to roll his hips, and after a moment he leaned in, sinking his face between her soft breasts.
"– ah –" She sighed, tilting her head back in pleasure, feeling her swollen pussy throb around nothing as his slick tongue ran over her sternum.
Her fingers combed through his short hair as his face moved slightly to the side, blindly searching for her nipple, around which his puffy lips clamped down after a moment, beginning to suck.
"– Aemond –" She mumbled, snuggling his head closer to her chest, involuntarily wanting to feel him harder, closer, deeper, the sweat of exertion and emotion trickling down her bare spine.
His face pressed against her breasts, his lips and tongue sucking and licking her nipples were the furthest form of their intimacy, something lewd and wonderful at the same time, a perpetual torment with no possibility of fulfilment.
"– fuck, let me – please – just this once –" He exhaled wearily, switching from one breast to the other, squeezing it between his fingers, directing her hard, sensitive nipple to his lips, which he clamped around it.
Shivers and waves of delightful tension shook her whole body making her mind all foggy, the space between her thighs all throbbing and moist, ready to welcome him deep inside her.
She rose suddenly from her knees, grabbing the material of her T-shirt, putting it over her head as if nothing had happened, feeling a drop of her own wetness run down her thighs.
"– baby –" He muttered, touching her bare leg, trying to stop her, desperate and thirsty.
"– next week Professor Addams is organising a private excavations two hours away from our town – it's a site in one of the medieval fortresses of our region, very important and he needs volunteers – I've offered to let you come and to count it as your student practices, so that you would have to make up less of them during the academic year – professor will rent rooms for all of us in a hotel nearby – if you come and do your best, I'll let you sleep with me –" She said lightly, looking at him over her shoulder, knowing how ambiguous her words sounded and that was exactly what she meant.
She saw him swallow hard, looking at her with wide eyes, his erection twiched hard in his trousers.
"– do you mean it? –" He mumbled in a trembling voice, as if the very thought made him faint.
"– yes, but it's two weeks – you'd then either have to give up your job, or drive to do your errands at night and come back in the morning –" She explained, taking her backpack in her hand, getting up from the ground.
He stood up with her, grabbing her aggressively around the waist, her body slamming against his.
"– promise me –" He whispered in a trembling voice into her ear, making her leaking pussy clench hard around nothing.
He groaned when, instead of words, her lips found his in a loud, deep kiss that took his breath away. His fingers clenched on her hair, not allowing her to move away, her tongue thrust deep between his teeth with his loud sigh of delight, colliding with his, which she licked invitingly.
She pushed him away and stepped back, trying to calm herself, in his healthy eye a heat and madness she had never seen before in her life.
He was on the verge of fucking her right here and now, ripping off her shorts and panties and slamming into her on the cold library floor.
She wouldn't stand up to him, and her moist cunt would gladly accept him deep inside her.
But he didn't know that.
"– I'll write you all the details later – take it seriously –" She mumbled, having increasing trouble pretending indifference and that she felt nothing for him.
He nodded his head like a small child and she gave him one comforting smile.
"– I love you –" He muttered in a trembling voice, and she felt a twinge in her stomach at his words, her heart filling with heat.
"– I love you too –" She finally confessed with shame, feeling her voice break. He pressed his lips together as if he wanted to cry, his eyebrows arched in pain.
"– I need you – please –"
"– be there –" She mumbled pleadingly and turned away, moving towards the exit, afraid that if she stayed with him a moment longer, she would finally give in to him.
Daemon was not happy with the idea of her leaving for so long.
"– the situation is still tense – someone of my people would have to be there with you –" He said.
"It's an archaeological excavations. I need a change of environment. I've been answering your every call for the last few months. I'm tired. I want to get away from what's going on and earn some money. Drive me there yourself if you're afraid I'm lying. You can call my professor, he will confirm that I have expressed my willingness to go with him again as his assistant. He's a good man. We'll sit in research all day and at night in a hotel."
"In what hotel? I need to know." He said impatiently.
"There is only one small hotel in this village on the main street." She explained, and her father sighed heavily.
"Please. This fortress is an important site. These excavations will count as practices, that way I won't have to do so many of them during the academic year. I haven't even swum in the lake this year, I just want to be alone for a while and do what I really enjoy."
Her stepfather sighed heavily and nodded.
"So be it. But I'll drive you away personally."
The next day she decided to text him to set things up.
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Fuck.
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She sighed heavily when he didn't write back then or the next day, clearly furious at the thought of having to look at her ex's face, but there was nothing she could do about it.
When Daemon drove her there he personally inspected her hotel room and furrowed his brow when he saw two single beds in it, not one.
"Who are you going to spend the night with?" He asked dryly.
"Certainly with some female friend." She shrugged her shoulders, placing her bags on the floor, feigning indifference.
She found with concern that lying to him was coming more and more easily to her.
He sighed and nodded.
"Report to me every day: text me or your mother in the morning and evening that you are fine. If you don't, I'll come here personally." He said warningly, and she smiled in his direction and nodded, for some reason happy.
She would spend a two weeks with him.
"Okay, Dad."
Daemon liked it when she called him that.
His gaze softened and he left her alone, throwing over his shoulder that she should watch over herself and not do anything stupid.
Too late, she thought with amusement.
She was joyful, and the sight of herself smiling in the mirror seemed unnatural to her.
She was certain that this happy little girl had died a few years ago.
She waited two hours to be sure her step-father is far away and went out into the corridor, looking for her professor. She wanted to inform him that she would be spending the night in a room with her boyfriend, while texting her uncle that Daemon had already left and he could enter the building in peace.
As she had found out from one of the students, their professor was overseeing the setting up of equipment and research tents near the site where they were to carry out the excavation, so that's where she went.
The sight of Robb among several other people she knew well did not fill her with optimism.
Her ex-boyfriend lowered his gaze as she approached their professor, who was just talking to one of the museum workers from the fortress they were about to research. Professor Addams smiled at the sight of her.
"Miss Strong! It is wonderful that you have made it. Will your friend also arrive as planned?" He asked lightly, and Robb looked at them surprised, tense.
"Yes, my boyfriend will be here soon. I also wanted to ask if he could spend the night in my room. We'll both be more comfortable that way." She said without stammering, making her ex-boyfriend turn pale and red all at the same time.
Their professor laughed and nodded.
"It's your room and you're adults after all. Just remember to focus on work, not dating." He said and she smiled involuntarily, casting a defiant glance at the boy she once thought would change her life.
"We will, Professor."
She turned as she heard someone's footsteps and beamed all over as she saw her uncle, clearly terrified and excited, throwing a menacing, displeased look at Robb.
"Speak of the devil. Today we'll just set up the equipment and figure out the details, work will start tomorrow. Everyone is to be here at eight in the morning right after breakfast. Get some shopping done at a nearby supermarket and get a good night's sleep." Their professor said.
She knew that surely the last thing awaiting her that night was sleep.
She was not mistaken – the moment they crossed the threshold of their room her uncle literally threw himself at her.
There was something animal and primal in the way he tore off her clothes, in his gaze black with desire, in his loud, heavy breath as he finally exposed her entire naked body, something he should never see, should never desire, should never have.
And yet.
For a moment he just stared at her, breathing loudly, as if he wanted to remember this moment, her, exposed beneath him – his hand ran slowly over her cheek, along her jawline and neck, sliding down between her breasts to her stomach.
It seemed obvious to her that the time for quiet, slow, tender lovemaking would come later, once the sun had set, once they were both just writhing in each other's embrace, unable to separate.
Now, however, they were hot with desire that burned their skin, and his lips, swollen with lust, after a moment clamped down on her hard, sensitive nipple, sucking on it as greedily as if there was no tomorrow to come.
She moaned loudly, too loudly when his fingers slid down her stomach, deep between her thighs, finding her hot, throbbing, leaking pussy at last, her hands pressing his face to her chest.
"– I hate that son of a bitch – I hate the way he looks at you – as if he's the one who wants to protect you – as if he's the one who knows what you need – bullshit –" He hissed furiously between the licks of his tongue, the tips of his fingers digging into the silky, moist skin of her swollen folds.
She whimpered, spreading her thighs wider, feeling the arousal fill her belly at the thought of how jealous he was of her.
Even when he was with another woman, he dreamt that she was the one lying beneath him.
She could not allow him to doubt the depth of her feelings, to doubt her intention or her fidelity.
"– I don't care about him, uncle – you can kiss me in his presence if that's what you want –" She cooed innocently, looking up at him with her lips parted in deep breaths, his dark gaze clouded and filled with something that sent a shiver through her.
He pulled away from her, as if her words had brought him to an edge from which there was no turning back, his nimble fingers quickly undoing the belt from his trousers and his zipper.
All she could do was, in a natural, simple reflex, spread her thighs even wider in front of him and entwine her legs on his back as he leaned down, sliding the material of his boxers lower, releasing his throbbing, fat erection.
Holding the base of his cock in his hand he guided the thick, pink head of it, leaking from his precum, onto her heat, teasing it, soaking his manhood in her wetness to use it as a lube.
"– may I? –" He asked in a trembling voice, leaning on his elbow right next to her head, and she nodded quickly, not knowing what else she could say.
"– ah –" She gasped along with him, running her fingers through the fabric of his t-shirt on his back as he sank into her with one, slow, sure thrust.
He slid into her with astonishing ease, and her slickness made him start to move inside her immediately, as if the warmth of her clenching walls had awakened some primal instinct in him, ordering him to just take what he wanted.
Nothing more than whimpers and grunts escaped their lips as their hips began to slam against each other with loud clicks of her wetness, his erection so fat and swollen that she barely fit it inside her, his forehead pressed against her.
His scent, his neck into which she snuggled her face as he thrust into her again and again with lewd slaps, his body lying on top of her, all of it was so familiar, so longed for.
"– Aemond –" She breathed out, tilting her head back, enclosing him in the helpless embrace of her body, feeling him with her whole self at last, connecting with him the way she had always wanted to, the bed beneath them creaking loudly.
"– fuck – fuck, baby – I missed you –" He mumbled with difficulty, quickening his pace, with each push rubbing the tip of his erection against the spot inside her from where she could see the stars.
"– I missed you too –" She confessed in shame, listening to the perverted sound of him opening her wide on his cock with wet clicks of her moisture.
He surprised her when he suddenly took her legs in his hands, forcing her to take a new position, putting her knees on his shoulders.
She moaned in shock as he began to move inside her anew with a loud slaps of their hips, feeling a flash of pleasure flow through her body again and again.
Her insides began to squeeze his manhood in delight, pulling high pitched, boyish moans of pleasure from his throat, his lips parted wide, his brow arched as if he was in pain.
"– you're so beautiful – I love you – I love you, I love you, I love you –" He exhaled, no longer sliding out of her, all sticky from her moisture, invading her insides with violent, sharp, quick stabs from which she threw her head back.
"– Aemond, God, yes, yes, yes, here, fuck me here, ah –" She mewled, writhing beneath him in ecstasy, feeling the tension in her lower abdomen and her throbbing pussy about to reach its peak.
He leaned over her, pressing her body against the bed with her own thighs in a position where her calves were at the level of her head.
She clenched her fingers against his back, moaning helplessly as she felt the pressure on her clit from which tears pooled under her eyelids, each successive thrust of his hips sending her body into a state of ecstasy which forced him to close her mouth with his.
"– shhh – shhh, baby, not so loud – mmm – I know – your uncle is close too –" He breathed out into her throat between loud, sticky kisses full of their slick tongues, hearing her squeal of pleasure.
Tears of relief ran down her cheeks red from exertion as her body was shaken by such a powerful orgasm that she just burst out crying.
She heard his loud moans and panting, felt how aggressively his cock pulsed inside her, filling her with his release, how their bodies convulsed as a wave of her moisture flowed out of her, so much that they both drew in air loudly, his face pressed against her hot cheek.
"– 'm sorry –" She muttered embarrassed, not fully understanding what had happened, the wet, large stain under her buttocks made her uncomfortable.
"– it's okay – it's okay, baby – it's okay –" He whispered tenderly, placing loud, sticky kisses on her face.
"– uh – what have you done to me? – we'll have to change the sheets now –" She sighed, combing her fingers through his short hair in an attempt to calm herself, the last waves of pleasant warmth and tickling flowed through her body, putting her in a state of perfect bliss.
She dropped her legs lower, returning to her original position, allowing him to lie between her thighs and she squirmed when he suddenly lifted her by the buttocks and stood up with her.
"– don't worry – we'll just sleep on the other bed – see? –" He hummed, heading with her towards the single bed on the other side, laying down on his back with a sigh of exertion.
She spread herself comfortably on top of him, placing her palm on his shoulder, letting his hands wander over her bare body.
"– can I stay inside you? – you're so warm –" He mumbled like a little boy, and she nodded, dreaming of nothing else.
"– yes –" She whispered, lying with her eyes closed, concentrating on the smell of his perfume and his sweat, his soft manhood still pulsing deep inside her.
She heard him let out a loud breath, something like delight and relief in his words.
"– this is the most beautiful day of my life –"
______
Author notes: You can thank my husband for the last scene, lol. He did things to me.
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The crushing | joel miller x f!reader, 5.2k
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Summary: This is the story of a man who had everything in the palm of his hand and traded it all for an empty space in the hollow of his heart. Or This story follows Joel, two to three years after he cheated on his wife.
Warnings: 18+ MDNI, ANGST, cheater!Joel, Joel's POV, this is NOT “The Falling” from Joel's POV, brief mention of smut (p i v) but nothing too graphic (I think), self-loathing, depression, therapy, flashbacks and memories from the past, alcohol consumption, Tommy being a supportive brother (eventually), as always let me know if I missed anything!
A/N: Ok, so, Joel gave me a whiplash on this one, he was either staring at me through the screen giving me nothing, or he was mumbling unintelligibly in my ear while I was trying to keep up with him. It started out as a final chapter, but I really think that this part should be Joel's POV and the next and -probably- final one should be the resolving, however that may come. I guess it can be read as a standalone, but if you're interested, it's a sequel to “The Falling”. I edited it seven thousand times because I kept adding things along the way, so I hope it all makes some sense and there are not too many mistakes.. Thank you for taking the time to read anything I write! Love you all! 🥰😘
P.S.: I just wanted to take a moment and let you know that I really appreciate everyone who has read, liked, commented, reblogged and asked about “The Falling”. I honestly didn't think a single soul would take the time to read that kind of story. It means more than you know and I didn’t take lightly how close to home this fic hit for some people; yet you’ve given it a chance, sharing some of your own experiences with me. I love you all, take care and I'll see you -hopefully- in the comments! 🥹🫂
Dividers by @cafekitsune & @saradika-graphics
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...need your reassurance...
...your only focus…
...for the foreseeable future...
He did make it his sole focus. Because of course, he closed the deal, even after he left that damn table like a madman. He still found a way to get what he wanted. That's the man he was. And he wasn't sure if he hated himself for it or not. But self-loathing was a daily occurrence now, so one more reason added to the list was nothing he couldn't handle.
For two years he would wake up every day, is it called waking up if he doesn’t sleep at all?, he would work his ass off, he would go home, he would sink into despair and then he would start all over again the next day. A vicious cycle consisting of 730 days in a row. The deafening silence within the walls of the house was excruciating, the loneliness was unbearable. Even the light penetrating through the windows seemed different than when you were there with him, a dullness surrounding every corner of the now barely lived in space.
You. He hadn’t seen your face in 730 days. He hadn’t smelled your scent or touched your soft skin. He barely listened to your voice anymore, any form of unavoidable communication, you preferred to be conducted by the lawyers, or via text messages, at the most. At the 731st one, he finally knew, something had to change. He couldn’t repeat another day, like all the others that came and went. He simply couldn’t.
Tommy suggested that therapy might help Joel, a few times, but he refused every one of them. Maria was keeping her distance, her place was delicate, being his brother’s wife but also his wife’s best friend. Surprisingly, she was the one who finally got through to him.
“Are you gonna stay a recluse for the rest of your miserable life, then?” Maria wonders, switching her gaze between Joel and the dining room. Everything was untouched, as you left them when you moved out, but the place felt empty, depressing, probably mirroring Joel’s existence.
Joel sighs, closing his eyes briefly. “I’m not a recluse..”, he snarls through his teeth, rolling his eyes at her. He was more than eager to be done with the dinner his sister-in-law insisted on having in his house and be left alone, in his natural state. Alone. Infuriating woman.
“What do you call that?”, Maria persists, goddamn lawyer to the bone.
“What?!” Joel spits back pissed off, looking at his brother next, for support.
“That!” she gestures around his body and his surroundings. “The way you go on for the past two years! Either get over it or do something about it!”, she doesn’t hold back, even when Tommy proposes a gentler approach. Yeah, look where it got you, is the paid answer, so Tommy steps back, shaking his head and raising his hands up in surrender.
“You’ve got him on a leash, hm?”, Joel jokes absentmindedly, “Can you breathe alright, Tommy boy?”, earning himself a hard glare from Maria.
“Maybe the wrong Miller is on a leash..” Maria mutters, causing Tommy’s eyes to widen in horror.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”, Joel retorts doing a double back at her.
“Means that freedom is for those who can bear it.”, Maria throws her napkin on her plate and leaves the room. Joel remains silent, pondering the meaning of her words. It would be a long time before he understood what she meant.
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Therapy was hard.
Therapy was hard because he had to do it for himself. He had to concentrate on himself. He thought, being the contractor that he was, that he would walk into the room, get the answers he needed and fix his marriage, just as he rearranged the bricks and the wood and the steel on the construction sites.
But this wasn’t about his marriage. His marriage and the way it crumbled down was the aftermath, he came to learn. It was the outcome of insecurities, selfishness, lack of communication, ungratefulness.
He got it all wrong. Everything. Every little thing. He had to rewire his brain and change every point of view he was holding onto. Honesty. Honesty was the key.
“Why didn’t you reach out to your wife after that night?”, his therapist insists.
“I respected her boundaries.”, Joel was quick to respond.
“And what were those?”
“She didn’t want to see me.”
“Did she say that?”
“No-, I mean-, the way she left that night, she didn’t say much in general. But she blocked my number, so.”, he shrugs in defence.
“So, how can you be so sure that she didn't want to see you? Even if you're right, it doesn't mean that she didn't expect a reaction from you, or that you weren't allowed to try, if that’s what you wanted.”
“Why would she? I upset her, she needed time to think, work things out.”, Joel explains.
The therapist swipes her fingers over her lips, contemplating her approach. “Joel, you walk into your bedroom, into what is supposed to be a safe place and you see your partner with another person in an intimate moment. How does that make you feel? Just say the first words that come to mind.”, his therapist changes the point of view.
Joel shudders just at the thought of it. You, naked, flushed, lips parted and swollen, skin sweaty, breaths short and pupils blown wide, coming for anyone other than him. It would utterly destroy him. “Furious, pissed, betrayed, heartbroken.. I think I would lose it, if I’m honest.” he admits instantly, in his haste to throw the abomination of this image from his thoughts.
“I see. But in her case, you think your wife was just upset?”
“No, of course not.” Joel slightly frowns, shaking his head.
“Do you think she felt all those feelings that you just described to me?”
“I believe so, yes.”, god this is so hard.
“You believe so?” the therapist pushes, again.
Joel’s nostrils flare from the sharp inhale, “I know so.”
“So, she wasn’t just upset.” the therapist concludes and Joel agrees without meeting her eyes, “No, she wasn’t.”
Over time, Joel came to realize that his choice of words was a subconscious attempt to diminish the seriousness of his actions.
“You said in a previous session that you gave space to your wife to work things out.”
“Yeah, it was only fair.”, Joel confirms.
“So, it was hard for you to give her that space?”
“Yes, of course, I missed her every day.”
“Was that a constant in your relationship?”, the therapist wonders.
“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“How did you work things out as a couple, before? I assume you had difficult times as partners, no?”
“Nothing major to be honest, my wife was a very calm and reasonable person. If anything occurred she would talk to me about it.”
“And how did you respond to that?”
“Uh, I was there to listen, we always found a solution together as a couple.”
“Hmhm, so, what changed this time?”
“What do you mean?” He knew exactly what she meant.
“Why didn’t you talk to her? Communicate with her? Maybe help her see your side of things, like you did before, find your way out of this together, as partners.” his therapist explains. “And even before the infidelity, did you let her know that something was bothering you, that you felt differently?”
"I didn't feel differently about my wife. My feelings for her never changed.", he immediately corrects her. "My love for her was never the problem," he confesses and it's the first time since his therapy began that he's shared something so personal, so private.
“But there was a problem, something was wrong if you felt the need to be intimate with another woman. So, why did you keep that from her?”
Joel opens his mouth already knowing he does not have an answer. Or that he doesn't want to give one. He shakes his head, raising his brows in a silent admission that he can’t answer that. Or he won't. His gaze is fixed on a loose thread on the fabric of the couch, his fingers keep picking on it.
“Joel?”
“I- I don’t know what you want me to say, I don’t know.” he keeps shaking his head. He can’t answer that. He won't.
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He was so angry when he left the session that day. He was so angry at you. He was angry at your honesty, your clarity, your courage to have a mind of your own and to speak it freely, knowing full well that probably no one else shared the same opinions as you did. That's what he loved most about you, but now he hated it.
“Own it, Joel. Own what you have done. At least that way it will be worth something. Otherwise it was all for nothing.”
This was one of the last things you said to him on the phone, while he was trying to persuade you to change your mind about the divorce. You were always so brave about those matters. Matters of the heart, of integrity. He remembers you always talking about things that he found admirable but utopian. Easy in theory, hard in practice.
“I need to be able to sleep at night. I need to own my decisions; not because I’m always right, far from it, but at least I know I’m being honest with myself. And that matters.” he recalls one of your late-night talks.
You usually found it easier to share your most vulnerable thoughts once you were thoroughly fucked and satiated. When Joel held you in his arms, your breaths almost shared over the same pillow, your scents and your fluids mixed together.
“We’re all imperfect beings, flawed; we all feel embarrassed when we fuck up,” you continue, “it’s hard to admit our mistakes to others, I get that. But deep down we always know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. Admitting it only helps us to be present in our lives.”
“Be present?”, Joel seems fascinated by the way your mind weaves your thoughts together into deeply rooted beliefs.
“Yes, my love, there's no greater freedom than to live your life truthfully.” you smile at him, softly. Your sleepy eyes roam his face affectionately. Your fingertips caress his jawline, your thumb pressing lightly against the bare patch of his beard. He can feel your devotion pouring from your fingers and sinking into his skin at that moment.
“That’s one of my greatest fears, you know. Living my life in ignorance, in a lie.”, you whisper your deepest insecurity against his soft lips. His hold on you tightens as he rolls you onto your back, nestling his hips between your welcoming thighs. You are safe in these arms. His arms. You surrender to him, body and soul. You can feel his growing erection pressing between your folds, already wet from your combined releases. He tenderly brushes his lips against yours and slowly licks his way into your parted mouth, as he intertwines his fingers with yours. He enters you in one fluid, slow thrust, his warm exhale cooling your wet lips. “Then let me give you something real.”
Thinking back to those moments, Joel couldn't reconcile himself to the fact that he was the one who had brought that fear of yours to life. What broke him was that it was not a lie. Your life together had not been a lie. He loved you. In fact, he was burning up for you. He was a man of control, but not with you. Never with you. You consumed his every thought; being around you for too long made his lungs constrict in pain, begging for a deep breath. Sometimes he was worried sick that if he completely let himself love you like he needed to, he would suffocate you. He loved you. And it killed him that his actions suggested otherwise.
But at some point he had to be honest with himself. He was just protecting his ego. He was trying to get the upper hand out of a shitty, compromising situation. He wasn't being thoughtful, he was being selfish. He was biding his time. He thought the longer he left ‘it’ untouched, the less it would hurt when the inevitable time of confrontation came. He was scared out of his mind that he would lose you forever. No second chances, no redemption, no reconciliation.
No lingering scent on his pillow as your hair pools there, under his chin, as you nestle your face between his neck and shoulder, breathing him in. No laughter through the enormous house, damn, why did he build it so big; you never clarified what the disbelief in your eyes meant when he said he built this house for you, while he pulls you up on your feet for a silly cowboy dance.
No more gentle touches, no more noses brushing together as a silent goodbye in the kitchen before you rush off to work. No more turning around just before you open the door to leave, running to him like a little girl, giving him quick, hungry pecks on the lips while he laughs on your mouth, squeezes your butt cheek and slaps it playfully to say goodbye. Later, baby, he would promise you, his teeth nipping at your earlobe and he could feel your skin crawling with anticipation.
No more I love yous, either breathed, either whispered, either panted, as he makes a home for himself inside your warmth.
When did he fuck you last? He used to have you every day. You craved it every day. You craved him. Why did he stop telling you he loved you every chance he got? When was the last time you said it?
A week before that fateful night, when you touched him longingly, aching for him to touch you back and he told you he had work to do, he wasn’t a teenager anymore. Why the hell did he say that? Why did he sit there and watch the light fading from your eyes? I love you, you said with a sigh against his temple and walked out of his office defeated. Why did you say that? Did you know? Did you suspect? Why didn’t you fight him? You should have said something, anything, pushed him, punched him in the chest, woken him up. Would he have woken up? Or did he need that to come to his senses? Does he have to fall? Does this falling ever stop? Does he have to let you go? Will you come back to him? Does he deserve you?
Days blurred seamlessly into one another. Joel drifted further and further away from everyone. The house haunted him, all the progress he was making within the therapy walls was dissipating once he stepped inside the cold space of his empty house. Leaving the confines of it was his first thought in the morning, while he hurriedly dressed to go to his office far earlier than necessary and his last when he closed his eyes, as he laid his weary limbs on the couch, chasing still your now long gone scent on its fabric, knowing another sleepless night was his only companion until the first rays of sunlight hit the floor-to-ceiling windows to announce the beginning of another day.
People at work tiptoed around him, not knowing how to act. It was as if he was there, but not really. He was focused solely on the Marks project, mechanically going through board meetings, paperwork and supervising the construction site. He. Just. Wasn’t. There.
Joel, will you please sign the papers?
He simply stares at the text message for a good full minute, his thumbs hovering over the screen of his phone. This was one of the rare occasions you had initiated communication with him, always about the progress of the divorce.
No, no, I won’t, the little toddler in him screams, stamping his little feet on the ground.
The papers are not ready.
Joel texts back. He keeps it simple, frightened he might not get an answer back.
Joel, we both know they are. I don’t want any of your assets or your money; this is an easy signature, please.
An easy signature? You think he cares about the houses, or the cars, or the money?
You know I can’t accept that. The house is yours and so is a good part of the money.
The point was to share this house together, Joel, don’t you think us splitting up kind of defeats the purpose? And what on earth makes you think I would ever want to go back in there?
So, there’s nothing I can do to make this easier for you?
Easier? You think money or property can make up for what you’ve done?
Of course not, I wasn’t implying anything like that. Just wanna do something for you, anything.
Can you turn back time?
Of course, he can't. So, he doesn't know what to say to that. He just keeps staring at the screen, lost in thought. After 2 minutes another text follows.
?
You know I can’t..
Sign the papers. Please.
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“Is there anything in particular you want to talk about today, or should I take the lead?”
“Actually I’ve been thinking a lot about that night.”, Joel suggests for the first time. He usually lets the therapist decide where to steer the conversation, then simply refuses to elaborate until he feels ready to talk.
“What about it?”, he shifts his gaze from the window to the direction of her voice.
“I should probably rephrase that. I’m always thinking about that night, repeating it in my head again and again and I’m troubled by something I realized.”
His therapist nods to signal that she's listening.
“Why did she just leave? The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense to me. She just left. No shouting, no breaking things, no attacking either me or-”, her. “Why she didn’t stay? Why she didn’t insist that I leave? She was just- so quiet.”
The therapist smiles in recognition of Joel's near breakthrough. They were beginning to get somewhere, his empathy nudging him under the surface.
“I'm really glad you mentioned that, Joel, so I'd like to take you back to that night and try to understand what might have been going through your wife's mind at that moment," she explains.
“So, she walks into the house, finds her safe space violated by her husband, and she chooses to handle the situation calmly and quietly-” Joel tries to stop her, but she already knows what he's going to ask. “I can't tell you why she chose that path, that's for her to answer, only she knows why.” His therapist continues, “She is making one request of you and one request only, can you tell me what it is?”
“She asked me to leave the house.”
“Hmhm.” the therapist looks at him expectantly.
“I just wanted to talk to her.”, Joel elaborates, “I thought that if I refused to leave, she would accept to listen to me.”
“So you forced your needs on her, while she was in a particularly fragile state of mind.”
“I should have made my intentions clearer, you mean?”
“I mean, that maybe you shouldn’t have had any expectations in the first place. Why do you think was so important to you, to explain yourself right at that moment?”
“Because I knew it was probably the last time I would see her for a while, I just wanted to ease her pain, why is that so wrong? Should I be indifferent? Would that be better?”
“Did it ever occur to you that you might be depriving her of her right to choose?” Come on, Joel, break some eggs.
Joel now begins to make connections. He rubs his hand over his face, the realization of what has really happened crushing him. “Oh, god, I-” He's been so selfish from the start. He hasn't shown you any respect, not even at this delicate moment. He didn't give you a choice as to whether you wanted to listen to him or not. He didn't even let you choose where you wanted to stay. He just made you leave the house. Did he make you believe he wanted you to leave? That he wanted her to stay? Because he didn’t. Fuck. “-I never thought about it like that.”
Fuck.
How could he be so blind? Why was he so blind?
His therapist insisted on it. Because no matter how much progress Joel made over the course of a year, he never revealed the true reason behind his infidelity.
“Joel, we’ve talked about a lot of things; you’ve tried really hard to make this all about your wife and about understanding what she was feeling and how your actions have affected her, but as I keep reminding you”, she smiles understandingly, “you’re the one in therapy, you need to heal your wounds before you even attempt to heal hers. And although it is in fact a really noble thought, this” she gestures between them, “can only work if you do it for yourself. I know it may sound selfish, but I promise you, it is not. It is the exact opposite.”
Fuck.
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“Yeah?”, his voice hoarse from sleep as he answers the door after the insistent knock at it. Tommy looks at him surprised once he opens it, “You’re sleeping, already?”. No, he wasn’t. He wouldn’t call it that. But when he goes almost a week without any proper rest, passing out is the right word for what he’s doing. “Yeah, I guess I dosed off..” Joel lies. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” Tommy responds as he squeezes himself through the door to enter the house. “Yeah, sure, come on in.”, Joel mutters under his breath. “You just saw me at work this morning, is everything all right?”
“I just came to check on you.” Tommy confesses uncomfortably.
“You could have called.”
“Would you have answered?” Tommy deadpans.
Touché.
“Tell Maria I’m fine, Tommy, no need to worry about me; go spend the night where it counts.”, Joel replies in an attempt to push him away, as he walks farther into the house, rounding the kitchen island.
“Hey, brother, I’m here, I am here for you.” Tommy’s eyes narrow in pain and concern as he stares at his sibling's back, following behind him.
Joel exhales hard through his nose, his grip tight as he grabs the edges of the counter, his head lowering between his shoulder blades.
“You shouldn’t, nobody should.” Joel sighs, rubbing the pads of his fingers across his forehead.
“Ok, that’s enough.” Tommy snaps at him. “Enough self-loathing, enough resignation. Enough. You’ve punished yourself enough.”
Joel laughs at that. “Is that right? Is it enough for you? What about her?” he asks, his head turned to the side, looking at his brother over his shoulder.
“What?” Tommy is genuinely confused.
Joel turns his back, resting his waist on the edge of the counter, now looking straight at Tommy. “I should have what? Just get on with my life? Let it all be water under the bridge? Disrespect her even more?”
“Jesus..” Tommy mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand, the other resting on his hip, his eyes shut in frustration.
“Are you doing this for her? Does she even know that?”
“It doesn’t matter, Tommy!” Joel raises his voice, exasperated. “I’m not doing this for her, I’m not doing anything for her, apparently and that’s the problem.”, his voice breaks, the lump in his throat too big to push down. “She’s not here anymore, Tommy.” he’s standing fully on his feet now, pushing himself away from the counter, leaning slightly forward, like he’s trying to make his brother understand; his eyes are glazed, Tommy had never seen him so devastated before. “She’s gone. I’ve lost her.”, his palms clenched in fists in front of his chest, resisting the urge to wrap them around his shirt and rip it to shreds, as he wants to do with his heart.
“I thought therapy was working..” Tommy whispers, his eyes dropping to the floor beneath him.
“Oh, it’s working, all right!” Joel chuckles in irony, sniffing his nose. “I’m getting a front-row seat, witnessing what a piece of shit I am-”
“Hey!” Tommy tries to cut him off.
“-what on earth was she doing with me to begin with, is beyond me.”
“HEY!” Tommy's eyes bulge out of his sockets, angry at his brother's self-deprecating words. Joel bends his waist forward, puts his elbows on the island in front of him and lets his head sink in again.
“Ok.” Tommy breathes deeply to ground himself, his hands in a position of a prayer in front of his mouth, “Ok, we could both use a drink.” he realizes, as he moves to open the cupboard to grab two tumblers and the whiskey from the shelf with the drinks. “..or five.”
The two brothers drink their first round in silence, both calming their nerves down. Tommy refills their glasses without asking; he knows this is going to be a long night.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” Tommy begins, pushing Joel’s drink back towards him. Joel wringles his brows in confusion, “What are you talking about? You’re always there for me.”
“No, I haven’t, not really.” Tommy admits, “I let Maria take over when all this happened and I’m sorry.”
“There was nothing you could do, Tommy, don’t sweat it.”
“Let me say this, please.” Tommy raises his hand, his palm facing his brother. “I was just- fuck, we all knew how much you loved her, how much you loved each other, so when it all went down, I just didn’t know how to deal with it. What to say to you, how to comfort you. I didn't know how to deal with you.”
“You blamed me.” Joel says matter-of-factly.
“No-”, Tommy weakly refuses but Joel shakes his head dismissively, interrupting him. “It’s ok, Tommy, you should.”
Tommy looks embarrassed, his cheeks slightly pinkish, not only from the whiskey. “It’s just that I- I couldn’t reconcile the image of the man you were with her, with.. you know..”, he stutters.
“..the image of a cheater. Say it.” Joel adds.
Tommy shakes his head, like he still can't believe what's happened. “Besides, while she was staying with us those first few weeks I saw how devastated she was, man- she was a shell of a woman, so I was confused, I didn’t know how-”
“Tommy. Tommy, it’s fine.” Joel feels his skin crawl visualizing you like that in his head, cutting his brother off once again; he deserves every ounce of mistrust and he knows it.
“No, it’s not.” Tommy insists. “Yes, you fucked up. Brother, you really did. You did a number on her-”, Joel’s body tenses instantly at his brother’s words, his jaw clenching as his eyes darken, moving down to his hands, his grip on the tumbler tightening, his knuckles turning white and Tommy stops abruptly, “shit, sorry, I didn’t mean-”, his face twitches with regret.
“It’s the truth. That’s exactly what I did.” Joel’s gaze seems detached as if he's somewhere else right now.
“What I meant to say, is that I should have been there for you in spite of what has happened. I can see you're suffering, it's taking its toll on you, it has been for some time now; tell me what I can do. How can I help you?” Tommy seems almost desperate, like he’s the one in need of redemption.
Your text flashes through his mind, can you turn back time?, making him smile bitterly.
“Can you turn back time?” Joel's repeating your question and as the words leave his mouth he can feel your presence next to him. That's the most he felt of you for the last three years. He's almost blissful.
“You know I can't.” Tommy sighs. Joel laughs earnestly, the irony of the moment too good not to appreciate.
“Joel, brother, please, just talk to me. Help me understand. You act like you’re the one who’s been cheated on. So, what happened? Why did you do it?” Tommy is pleading with him to give him anything.
Silence fills the room for much longer than either of them would like. Joel feels torn between telling his brother everything or keeping his mouth shut. He wants to tell him, he hasn’t told a soul, but he’s not sure he can get the words out. He’s not sure he can bear to hear the words coming out of his mouth. He’s not sure he can substantiate it, make it real. Because that’s how it feels. He talks about it and it becomes real.
But maybe this is the right thing to do. That’s what needs to be done. He needs to talk about it. He needs to tell the truth and admit the pain he’s caused. Make it real for you, too. Perhaps it is time for him to give you what is rightfully yours. Acknowledgment.
Joel’s made up his mind. He’s gonna talk to Tommy. He lifts his glass to down his drink for some liquid courage, freezing his hand in mid-air as the next words fall from his brother’s mouth. “First of all, who was it?”
“What?” Joel's eyes search Tommy’s through his glass for an explanation.
“Who did you do?”, Tommy clarifies.
Joel feels like he’s been struck by lightning. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Who did you fuck, Joel?”, Tommy begins to feel confused, are they not on the same page here?
“You don’t know?”, Joel can barely speak now, his voice low in shock.
“No one does, not even Maria; she never told anyone.”
You told nobody? Not even your best friend? Why on earth would you do that? Did you feel ashamed? Was it just too much to talk about?
But his brain takes pity on him, helping him for once to understand. He’s connecting the dots while your voice fills the corners of his mind through his memories. His head is swarming with images of you standing in that walk-in closet, remembering what you said the last time he saw you. You’re the one I married, not her. I expected better from you, Joel, not her.
You were right.
It didn’t matter who it was. That is why. He was the one making the choice. He was the one breaking his promises, breaking your trust, breaking your heart; breaking you. He was the one who should have known better. He was the one who should have been honest. Easy in theory, hard in practice.
He feels a fresh wave of pain scattering through his body. He welcomes it. Damn, he’s craving it. He’s glad you chose to withhold the identity of the woman. Not because somehow it’s making it easier for him to defend himself, on the contrary.
There’s no one else to blame. Nobody. Just him. All of the anger, the resentment, the disappointment, all of them on him. He embraces them all. Everything. He will take it all, swallow it down and let it rot inside of him.
Joel tells Tommy everything. Everything, but her name.
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Taglist: @southernbe, @orcasoul, @auteurdelabre
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joosthead · 2 months
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touch tank || j.k. f!reader
WARNING #1: explicit real person fiction ahead, dni if below 18. dni if anti-rpf
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WARNING #2: explicit rpf/real person fiction content ahead. read at your own risk. dni if anti rpf, dni or read ahead if you simply don’t like rpf lol
₊˚⊹⋆ prompt(s): 16S) the classic “oh, let me help you put some sunscreen on” but then the little massage turns into something more
part 2 of just too soft for all of it — this is a standalone fic but both of these are set in the same universe if you want some more : )
₊˚⊹⋆ reader: f!reader, gets referred to as joost’s girlfriend. notfamous!reader. if you are a person who does not tan/burns—pretend that you can tan easily for this fic😭 exploration into joost and normal!reader’s dynamic. little bit opposite aesthetic reader
₊˚⊹⋆ word count: 7.7k
₊˚⊹⋆ cw: smut (oily massage, f!receiving oral+eating from back, unprotected piv, outdoors [but still private] sex, creampie), perfect world w perfect temperatures and pools, quite sappy lol didn’t know i could top jtsfaoi but here we are, google translate dutch. note: ice lolly/popsicle in mind. yes this is important. idk if they have these in nl but they do now < 3
WARNING #3: rpf ahead—don't like it, don't read it. do not repost this on any other platform, screenshots or text alike. do not click ahead if you don’t want to read rpf. do not interact if you are below 18. how to block tags/words on tumblr.
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₊˚⊹⋆ track(s) of the fic: “touch tank” by quinnie, “love is strange” by mickey & sylvia, “pink in the night” by mitski
₊˚⊹⋆ junote: i really wanted to combine this with prompt 14 but i couldn't make it work : ( i do have requests for that that i’ll fulfill so stay tuned teehee !! sorry this took so long, i am a perfectionist and absolutely adore this prompt so—here you guys go !! enjoy : 3
₊˚⊹⋆translation: "Kun je me hier voelen, diep in je?" - "Can you feel me here, deep in you?"
18+ only — explicit rpf content ahead, minors dni, anti rpf dni. 4th and final warning!
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Because your life is so perfect, the day after your meltdown and subsequent putting back together (courtesy of Joost), your area gets hit with the worst heatwave of the summer. 
You guess that this is some cruel tactic of the universe to make its stars align for you in any way it can. The unbearable beams of sunlight beaming down upon you the moment you exit Joost and your shared home into the backyard. “Are you sure we should have a day outside?” you call back behind you, putting on your sunglasses. “Shouldn’t we just chill inside and watch something?” 
Joost comes up behind you, arm snaking around your waist, lips planted on your cheek in a second. “Some sunlight will be very good for you, you’re always holed up in the office or library,” he mumbles into your shoulder, covered by the baby-blue cotton fabric of one of his button ups. “You can bear it.”
You shake your head, but keep walking forward down the steps anyways, sandals slapping against the small wood deck. “I think the heat might kill me.” 
“It won’t—I won't let it!” Joost exclaims proudly, letting you go and going ahead of you. Even without seeing his face, you know how big of a smile he’s got on his lips. 
The pool sloshes on its own, the aqua blue water spilling over the sides and darkening the gray pavement next to it. On one of your loungers, Joost sets down the tote bag he prepared of towels, sunscreen, the change of clothes you’ll wear when you go back inside. You woke up to it this morning, along with a butcher paper wrapped breakfast sandwich and a glass of water. A text accompanied it—he would be out back, taking the cover off the pool and setting everything up. 
Usually, you're the one setting everything up, preferring to have it your own specific way, but—you chose peace last night, going straight to bed after taking that bath together  After these few years together, Joost may not be as Type A as you, but he can certainly hold his own now around the household. 
Your backyard is a quaint sight: the fence lined with various flower bushes, clean cut grass all around. A tree stands in the corner, roots surrounded by a ring of decorative rocks and pink carnations—there isn’t much either of you have done to upkeep any of it, but somehow, they bloom year after year. Your loungers are baby blue, covered in the towels that Joost has set out, the tote bag spilling over on the left one. 
It's almost like you’ve taken an outing to the beach and you're not in the little old house you’ve lived in for the past few years. Any day with Joost is that extravagant, he makes it that way. Already, you can relax, your shoulders lowering as you sit down on the edge of your lounger and watch as Joost squats, running his fingers along the surface of the water in silence. 
Low on his hips, Joost’s swim trunks are black and needlessly designer, just the way he likes them. He’s shirtless, the expanse of his back to you—his own name is tattooed on his right shoulder in some sans-serif script he must’ve liked before he ever met you, and in this sunlight, you wish in secret to see your own next to it.  
“You’re staring, lieverd,” Joost remarks over his shoulder, giving the water one final splash as he stands up and you smile. 
“How could I not?”
“I’m just too beautiful, aren’t I?” He comes over to you, standing in front of you and shielding you from the sun. “You ready to get in the pool?” 
Behind your sunglasses, you squint up at him and nod. “Put on some music and I’ll go.”
Goofy as always, he salutes to you and marches away like some Supreme swim trunk clad soldier. As he sets up the speaker on the far side of the pool, you unbutton your shirt, get ready to slip off your flip flops, but in your pocket, your phone vibrates. 
You check it—it’s an email from your supervisor, asking you to look over a few files for her. Regardless of your big day out taking up your time…it’s a Saturday. And yet you still find yourself about to respond, about to start typing when Joost places his big hand over your phone screen, saying, “We can look at that later, yeah?” Your grip on the phone loosens; he’s right, you can look at that later. There’s still a part of you that wants to reply, scared of what the consequences will be if you don’t, but—“Today will be great.” Taking your face in his hands, he presses a kiss to your forehead. “Come, now.” 
You stand up and he slips off your button up for you, dropping it on the deck chair. You adjust the strings of your bikini; white and blue and flowery, patterned like a delicate porcelain vase, so pretty on you and Joost tells you such.
Turning to him, you hold your hands out to the side, showing yourself off. Joost’s hand comes up to your collarbone to fidget with the matching necklaces you both have that you wear now—pearl pendants in dainty silver cages attached to short chains and these green and tarnished (“well-loved,” Joost calls them) old halves of a “BEST FRIENDS FOREVER” heart-shaped necklace from a Claire’s you both visited on a trip to America. He wears them both today, too, chains intertwined and tangled as always. 
“Do you realize how pretty you are? Zo mooi mijn liefste,” Joost says, taking your hand and twirling you around for a better look—he wolf whistles, and it makes you laugh, cheeks warming with his eyes on you. 
“With how much you tell me, I think I’m starting to realize it.” 
“Very glad,” he says, pulling you in for a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll tell you more then.” 
Grinning, you pull away and make for the pool steps, but not before Joost taps you on the ass; you act scandalized, dropping your mouth open, narrowing your eyes at him, but it’s lighthearted, and just makes you want to finish what you started last night. “Smokeshow!” he whisper yells through his cupped hands around his mouth as you walk forward and to the side of the pool—it’s still morning, and your neighbours are weird about noise. This is his version of being considerate of that. Too bad for them that you moved Joost Klein into your once quiet home. 
Dipping a toe into the water, you immediately suck in a breath through your teeth at how cold it is. Even with the tarp and the sun shining down upon it for hours, the water still nips at your skin, something in your brain perceiving it to be freezing and impossible to step into. “Ew,” you mutter, and Joost snickers from behind you. 
“Baby can’t handle it?” he teases. 
“Not true,” you mumble, going down the second step, ankle deep, and immediately scrambling out of the water. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck?” 
“You’re surprised that water is supposed to be cool?” 
“It’s not supposed to be that cool.” 
“Come here.” You turn around, walk right up to him. Even without shoes, you still have to look up at Joost, and he smiles right down at you—you know that’s going to happen. “C’mon. Jump, schatje,” he says, tapping the backs of your thighs, so you do—he can carry you with ease, all the times he’s brought you upstairs this way, all the drunken piggybacks he’s given you. You wrap your arms around his neck, wrap your legs around him tightly, while he has his hands under your ass. “Good, baby.” 
He takes the opportunity to press a kiss to your neck, then starts forward down the pool steps, slowly so you can adjust. “Agh!” you yelp softly as he moves further into the pool, the cold water coming up around your body, engulfing you. The temperature is a shock to your system, though the way it cools your hot skin is so, so welcome. It isn’t as cold like this. 
“Is it okay?” 
“I’m okay,” you say, though you hug him closer to get any sort of warmth on you. 
“Are you sure?” he laughs, and you nod, still clinging onto him like a little bear. “You’re so cute. I think I deserve a kiss for that.” 
“One for carrying me,” you say, kissing him on his soft lips. “Another for setting all of this up.” You kiss him again, and Joost deepens it, somehow squeezing your body even tighter to his, tongue teasing at your mouth as he squeezes your ass, as you rest your hands on his chest.  “Have we ever done it in a pool?” you ask once you pull away. 
“Never.” Joost gives you one last peck, one last kiss on the jaw as he smiles at you. “Do you think today is the day?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.” 
After around an hour of wading around—you’ve both decided that today is not the day to do it in a pool. It’s too hot, even with the cold water you’re situated in. Not even your house or the tree in the corner of the yard provides good shade for the water as the day gets later, the sun beating down on your shoulders; it would turn into a burn if you were that unlucky, but you, however, are not. 
In the morning when you first stepped out, the pool was still shaded and you and Joost could do whatever you wanted: breath holding contests, Joost trying (and failing) to do a handstand underwater, racing each other across and back several times like this was some backyard Olympics. After a bit, you floated on your backs together, laughing about what the water feels like in your ears, laughing about how terrible he is at floating. Finally, you felt all of the worries from the past month melt away and into the water as you gazed up at the blue sky above you. 
You heard it before it came—Joost swiping the surface of the water, making a large splash that drenched your face as you floated. You exclaimed, “You dick!” and freed yourself from your float to splash him back in the face hard, then he feigned the hurt and sorrow that fills one’s heart after chlorine fills their waterlines, rubbing at his eyes—you weren’t not going to come over and dote on him, but then he splashed you back as you looked over his red eyes, and it made you splash him back even more. 
Noise be damned, you were both laughing and shrieking and splashing for around an hour—in the midst of your splash war, you noticed how pink Joost’s shoulders were, the beginnings of a nasty sunburn afoot with the afternoon sun shining down on both of you. You shooed him out of the pool and into the refuge of the umbrella covering your lounge chairs, and started to rummage in the bag before he sprung up from his seat. 
“Wait, wait, wait! Before I forget—” Joost exclaims, running back up the stairs and into your house. A minute or two passes, and he comes back with his hands behind his back, closing the sliding door shut with his foot. In front of him, he holds out a twin popsicle—two sticks encapsulated by sweet red syrup and already melting in its package. “Ijslolly!” He presents it to you as he comes down the stairs, then bows to you deeply and dramatically, which makes you laugh. “Here you go, m’lady,” he says, then tips his imaginary fedora to you because. Because of course he would—anyone else, it would make you cringe, but it’s Joost. Perfectly goofy, perfectly sweet, perfectly Joost. 
You laugh as he opens the wrapper and splits the popsicle in two—one for him, one for you. “Thank you, kind sir,” you giggle, playing along. “Where’d you even get this?” you ask, taking your half and licking at the melting syrup already dripping onto your hand. 
“I went to the store while you were sleeping,” Joost says proudly, biting into the popsicle. “It’s strawberry, do you like?” 
Walking forward, you nod and get up on your tiptoes to give him a kiss. “I love.” 
He beams at you, sits down, chomps at his popsicle while you eat yours; he puts his hat and sunglasses back on and you do the same, and you sit together as the music plays for you. 
A new Charli xcx song, Joost and Käärijä’s recent collaboration, an incredibly sexual recent Ski Aggu release that you make a note of texting him “???” about later. 
Before you know it, you’re left with a red-stained stick, a red-stained mouth, a satisfied sweet tooth. “Okay, Joosty. Sunscreen time.” He gives you an exaggerated grumble but sits down at the edge of the lounger nonetheless, and you stand between his legs, taking the sunscreen from behind him and uncapping it. “You need it more than I do.” 
“Shush,” he says, but lets you take out two fingers worth of sunscreen, lets you take off his sunglasses and spread the sunscreen on his cheeks, rubbing it in. You can’t resist him and his pretty face, dusted pink cheeks, ocean blue eyes looking up at you through long blonde eyelashes. 
You’re so distracted by his face that you don’t pay attention to where you’re going—“Oops,” you giggle. “I got sunscreen on your mustache.”
“Oops,” he repeats. “I don’t mind.”
Hands on the backs of your thighs, Joost pulls you close by them and presses a kiss to your stomach, then hugs you tight around your waist. Automatically, your hands come up to play with his hair, combing your fingers through the strands. “All of your sunscreen is going on my stomach, Joost.” 
“Don’t care. You think if I lay out in the sun for long enough, it’ll bleach my hair more?” 
You snicker, “The heat will singe you to pieces before it can even bleach your hair.”
Sighing, he presses another kiss to your stomach. “You’re lucky. You get to tan today.”
“I ran out of my oil in Cuba, Joosty, I can’t.” A couple’s vacation with Appie and Alanis in Havana, feels like so long ago even though it’s only been two months. Fruity cocktails on the beach (and in your hotel room, and at the bar, and in the club, and…), running down hallways, fussing over Joost’s sunburned cheeks, Joost ogling you sunbathing but unable to do anything out of respect for your friends right next to you. You should have picked up another tub, but you weren’t exactly expecting to be tanning back in Amsterdam anyways. 
“You can't, or you won't? Look in the bag,” Joost mumbles into your tummy. You lean over behind him and reach into the tote—most of the other things have already spilled out and onto the lounger behind him: your sunglasses, two droom groot caps, the wrapper of your popsicle, a cheap film camera, and…a brand new tub of coconut oil. Your favourite brand. He must’ve picked it up on his trip to the store this morning, and you laugh, “You're so sweet.” 
“Mm-mm,” Joost hums. “That’s you, lieverd. You should lie down, I’ll put the oil so you can tan your back.”
Cocking an eyebrow at him, you snort, “Feels like you have something up your sleeve, Klein.”
He grins a toothy smile up at you—“Maybe I do.”
Joost gets up and moves all of the things to the other lounger, allowing you to lie on it on your stomach. You wiggle around a little on it, settling into the soft cushion, your back already stretching with your position. 
“I will be a great masseuse, schatje, don’t you worry. “ Careful not to put too much weight on you, Joost straddles the backs of your thighs. 
“Should I be worried?”
“No.”
“I feel like I should be worried.”
“Don’t be.” From behind you, he gets up, and you turn around to see what he’s doing—he gets your/his button up from the other chair and slips it on. “No more burning today for me.” 
You nod as he settles back on you, and you hear the sound of your little coconut oil tub being opened, the safety seal being ripped off, the clicking of his tongue at it ripping off unevenly. The air is a comfortable blanket of warmth upon you now, your worries melting away with it as you wait for Joost. 
“Can you untie the string around my back?” you ask before you forget. 
A few beats of silence pass until Joost finally says—“What?” 
“Is there a problem?”
“Why untie?” 
Joost’s voice has deepened an octave—almost grave, the tone of his voice is, because all of the possibilities in his mind floating around. Just your bare back and its expanse in front of him.
“I don’t want a tan line,” you explain. “Untie it and I won’t get one.” 
“Okay,” he affirms, though sounding uneasy as he undoes the tight strings of your halter top, the strings around your torso. He swipes them out of his way, and you assume the pause in his movement is to dip his fingers in the coconut oil and warm it up for you. 
Your assumption is right. In a minute or so, Joost’s big hands smooth across your back, firm yet gentle—he knows exactly how to handle you. The oil provides a lovely glide for his palms against your skin, and it smells so great; the pressure he’s applying is perfect on you, and you let out a little mewl of pleasure. The knots in your back are melting away with every swipe of his hands across it and you have to ask—“Where’d you learn to give such a great massage, Joost?”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.” 
Even if you tried, you couldn’t deduce how he learned to do this; maybe you’re just super tired from the last month (very likely) or he was a masseuse in his past life, but you’re already less tense with his hands on you. He digs his thumbs into the small of your back and rubs circles into it as you sigh in contentment at how it feels.
“I like this song,” Joost mumbles as it changes to this one you found years ago, some song about baby blue shirts, how pretty he looks going down on you.
“Mhm,” you hum.
“Seems very appropriate for the situation, right?” Eyes closed, you smile with his fingertips hovering just above your skin, a pause now in his treatment for you. “Can I…you know…” with his finger, Joost writes a small J, one, two, three times, on your back and sliding with the oil waiting for your response. 
“Massage me for a little more, I’ll think about it.”
“Fine,” he breathes, then gets back to work. 
Joost smoothes his hands over your back muscles; first over the top, over your trapezius, then up to your shoulders. He pinches a little around the shoulders, gliding over the smooth skin there. Hands sticky with oil, the solid melts with the sun-warmed dip of your spine, the valley of your back before him. The dip is perfect to smell, perfect to kiss; perfect to put a light hand on in public and a harsher grip on in private. With every movement of his hands, it smells more like coconut, smells less like you, and Joost has to resist the urge to bend down and nose at it to get your scent back. Every movement is accompanied by a little—a little breath. A little happy sigh from you, and it makes him go insane with every press of his hands against you. 
You’re much more refined than he is, more able to keep it together; if Joost was in your position, he knows he’d be a mess under you, quick and fast and easy. You’re his favourite person—the wave of your hand could bring him to his knees. Taking care of you comes so easily to him, even if he’s so commonly doted upon by other people. This feeling—no wonder you like taking care of him as much as you do. 
Today is so happy, a day that’ll get him through weeks and shows to come without you, long days on the tour bus wishing you could be by his side. Joost got through yesterday, his flight, the ride home using the prospect of you, seeing you, to get by. Then he got home, and seeing you was all he could look forward to after being away for what felt like forever, and he finally did, and he was so overjoyed and then—then you were crying, and he felt so sad that all he could do was hold you. He wants badly to understand why. 
“Can I ask…can I ask why you cried yesterday, lieverd?” Joost adds in a soft voice, still running his hands firmly over your sore muscles, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it right now, I understand. But I’d like to know sometime, so we can help you feel better.”
You’ve known since the moment you started crying that you’d have to talk about it sometime. Sharing everything with each other is the way your relationship is, how it always has been—you thought about it in the bath with him, his chest against your back, deep and tired voice reverberating with it. How to word it as he played the first track on the new album, so crazy experimental and unlike anything you’ve ever heard from him before. Thought about it in the pool, thinking about it now. 
“I just…I’m probably the most mundane part of your life. There’s this little voice in my head, maybe it’s what I think people are saying about me—‘You’re telling me Joost Klein couldn’t find someone more interesting?’” You think back to an offhand Tweet you saw come up on your timeline, 10 angry quote tweets already defending you, no likes, but it still sticks to the back of your mind like some aggravating super glue: “‘His girlfriend doesn’t even do music or anything special and she still can't show up for him.’ I don’t travel like you do, I’m not always making music or doing things. And still, I couldn’t be there for you. 
I watch you at your shows and you’re this…enigma, you’re amazing. I want to be as good as you, I wanna show you off like you show me off. But there’s always something in the way. My schedule, or university, or work.” It’s truly difficult now not to feel like you overshared, dumped something on him that maybe you weren’t prepared to dump on him—a cloud shadows the sun, just at the right moment, and the parts of your skin not already touched by the umbrella’s shade are cooled momentarily. “Or maybe I’m just not trying hard enough for you.”
“I’m not flashy,” you say softly, settling on your forearms. “My way of being flashy is the way I love you, and I don’t know if I’ll ever think it compares to how you do it. I feel bad, that’s all. Like I could be doing more for you in every way.” Whatever it is, whether or not you were prepared to say it—it’s out now. “‘Cause you deserve it, you always do.” Blindly, you reach behind you and hold your hand out for him to hold, and he does, squeezing it tightly. Your cheeks warm, and it’s certainly not because of the temperature outside anymore. “I’m sorry I killed the vibe.” 
From behind you, you hear a sniffle, and you raise your head and look back, alarmed. Joost wipes a tear away with his other hand, laughs a sniffly laugh as you laugh, “Joooost. You’re gonna make me cry.”
“No, no, no vibe killing in this house.” You crane your head back again, pursing your lips, and he leans forward so he can kiss you, then peppers kisses until your shoulder, mumbling, “I should be comforting you, lieverd.”
“It’s okay,” you say softly. “Don’t really need to be comforted, just need to get it through my head that it’s not like that. I’m just sad that you’re sad.” 
Joost rubs your back, though it seems like he needs that more than you do if you’re judging by his sniffles and wavery voice alone. “I never knew you felt that way.”
He wraps his arms around your torso, hugging you close and continues, “If it’s any consolation, which I hope it is—you could never be careless. You set out my favourite sleep clothes for when I got back, favourite snacks, plushies on the bed, a place in the dresser for new stuff.” You have to admit—you were pretty proud of that last idea when you came up with it. “You’re thoughtful, and you’re kind, and I’m so lucky to have you. I love you, I love you. I love you.” 
With every “I love you” is a kiss upon your skin that you can’t see, but feel wholeheartedly anyways. “My muse, my saviour,” he says, and you have to laugh a little. “I mean it, you know I mean it.” And you do, you know it—how could you not when it comes from Joost? “You’re the most extraordinary part of my life, schat. Every show, your presence is there with me, even if you feel you aren’t.” 
“Not true,” you say, voice teasing. “That would be impossible, wouldn’t it?” 
You can feel the roll in his eyes from here, even though you can’t see it. “Yeah, yeah. But you know what I mean, right? Best friends forever, that’s what our necklaces say. Always there for each other. You’re always there with me.”
He kisses your shoulder. The oil is strange on his lips, but he doesn’t mind—it’s you. “Nothing compares to you, everything we have together…I hope you know how I feel now.” Pausing, Joost rests his forehead on the back of your head, breathes you in. “I’m obsessed with you, I think,” he whispers into the nape of your neck, then kisses it, and you laugh with the tickle of his lips, his facial hair against your sunwarmed skin. 
“You are? I didn’t know,” you tease, perking your ass up against Joost on top of you because—somewhere in your conversation, he’s gotten hard, and it’s poking against your thigh now, making you bite your lip. Stroking each other’s egos has gotten you both excited, it seems.  “What’s up with that, hm?” 
“You should know. I’m telling you right now, I’m obsessed with you. And this?” Joost grinds his crotch against you just lightly, kissing the side of your neck as he lowers his voice, “This, I like talking about you too much. You can’t blame me for it, you’re gorgeous.” 
“I don’t think I know how obsessed with me you are yet. Tell me more?” 
“Do I have to tell you, schat?” he says, gentle and low, fingering the delicate ties on your sides and the sensitive skin of your hips under them. His fingers drag down the column of your spine, tease at the edge of your bikini. “I don’t think I have to tell you, right? That I love you, need you?” 
“You don’t? Have to tell me?” 
“I’ll show you.” 
You imagine what he looks like behind you—burnt shoulders, rosy cheeks, dark sunglasses, chlorine dried blonde hair all messy and the tips dripping with water still upon the billowy cotton of his button up. Those blue eyes, blown out at the sight of you underneath him, wandering every lovely curve of your body. Slowly, he unravels the ties that hold both sides of your bottoms together, the nylon springing back against your skin, and you fight the urge to smile in anticipation of Joost all over you soon. 
“You don’t want any tan lines down here?” he asks, fingers already underneath the damp fabric of your swimsuit bottoms. You shake your head no. “Ok, then no tan lines.” 
Joost slips the fabric off of your skin; the dampness makes it cling to you still, though it’s easy enough to take off completely. You hike your leg up for easier access, turn your head so you can get a good look at him. In a sort of headband, his sunglasses are perched atop his head; the button up wrinkled and a bit stained with oil; rightfully, his eyes are half-lidded with want, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his trunks.
“What do you want to do?” Teasing him, you run a finger down his bulge and he smiles at you. Truly, you haven’t a single idea about what Joost wants to do with you next, and it looks like he doesn’t either—until his eyes light up, and you figure that tugging gently at his trunks for him can help expedite the process.
“Can I try something?” 
“Go right ahead.” 
You lie in wait as Joost lowers his shorts, erection springing out and his hand coming to wrap around it and give it a few pumps—you reach behind, running a finger down the slit, and he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth as he strokes himself, then settles his cock on the soft cleft of your ass and glides it against, between it. 
You laugh, “You’re such a dog, Joost,” but as he ruts gently against you—the little moans he’s doing in your ear, already rambling about how good you feel and he’s not even inside yet, one hand gripping your hip and keeping his cock in place and the other on the back of the lounger so he can keep his balance; this is your personal paradise. 
“Fuck,” Joost whispers, biting his lip. You love a show, and he’s ever the showman—but you’re outside, he’s outside, he’s very aware of your cranky old neighbours, and he loves you and your house. One day, you’ll share the lease together, so he tries and stays quiet for the sake of that dream, so you both won’t get kicked out for verbal indecency today. 
“I know how much you like it, Joost,” you purr from under him, voice muffled by your arms. “You can tell me.” 
From Joost’s point of view, you look like a line in his song, the notes in the margin crafting and tailoring the work to his perfect vision; you look like the fully realized final draft of something he’s been working on for months, trying to find the sound of for years. 
If he could write something about this moment, it would probably result in entire sagas, but for now—keeping you like this close to his chest is a gift only he has. 
“I can’t be eloquent like this,” he laughs, and you have to agree; whatever goes on in that head, he short circuits before he can say it in this state of pleasure. 
Joost pauses his small thrusts, catches his breath. “Go on,” you encourage, but he breathes a quiet, “No. If I go any more, I’ll cum early and that would be so lame, schat.” 
“Not lame. I would personally love to see it.” 
“Mm-mm. We are not doing that today,” he laughs, and the sound makes your heart warm. 
“Put it in,” you say softly, trying to convince him to keep going—it’s so cute how far gone he is already, how hard he’s trying for you. 
“No, no, no. Let me taste you first.”
You cannot argue with that. 
In an instant, you abandon your bikini top, abandon the bottoms too in a crumpled mess on the ground laying on your sandals and his flip flops. “Hands and knees, lieverd,” Joost says, and you follow his direction, settling so you’re on your elbows and your ass is hiked in the air. 
A few moments pass as Joost sits behind you, and you have to ask—“What are you waiting for?”
“Just enjoying the view,” he says, then gives a kiss to your ass cheek, making you giggle. “So impatient today, schat. Is it because I was gone for so long?” Joost moves your knees so they’re spread even wider, giving him more access to you. “How much did you miss me?” A kiss to the back of your thigh, right near your center, your stomach caving in with the deep breath you take in anticipation. 
“I missed you a lot,” you whisper, looking back at him focusing his dilated eyes on your pussy, and your cheeks grow hot at the sight. “Missed you more than you know.”
“Did you?” He licks a tentative stripe up your slit, up even higher over your hole—so sensitive, your knees could shake with only the tip of his tongue teasing you. “Show me, let me hear it, lieverd.” 
“Joost,” you scold, though your arching back reveals your true feelings about what he’s doing.
“Sorry, can’t resist.” He presses a kiss atop it before coming back to your pussy.
So exposed, so vulnerable, so open, Joost’s fingers parting your folds. He spreads them gently so you’re even more open to him and licks in between, drinking from you. The smacking of his lips against you—it’s filthy. You’re so cognizant of the sound; is it unmistakable from outside, Joost’s tongue flicking against your clit, his fingers rubbing circles on where he can’t reach? You hope the sounds of the city outside your flat cover the mewls that spill out of you as he lays his tongue flat against it and laps up your wetness. 
“I think we should get you more tan in the front, too, right, schatje?” Joost says, breathless, and you flip over, laying on your back for him. Before he can get back to business, you cup his chin, pinching it gently between your fingers. His lips are covered in your wetness, glistening with it in the sunlight. You pull him to you, bringing his lips to yours, the salty taste of yourself on your tastebuds, on your chin as well now. 
This all makes you realize—you weren’t wrong at all for missing him so terribly. 
When you pull away, Joost pauses, gazing at your face, brushing your hair out of your eyes. On top of you, lying partly on you, he cups your cheek, silver chain resting on your chest, the pearl pendants and the halves of one heart of the matching necklaces you own together right next to each other. 
“Zo mooi,” he says quietly as he lowers down, kissing your chest right next to your pendants, kissing down between the valley of your breasts, maneuvering so he can graze your nipple with his teeth, flatten his tongue over it. His hand comes up to cup your other breast as he sucks at the bud, then sucks at the skin next to it; that will leave a mark tomorrow, a sweet reminder of your time together. 
Finally, he’s satisfied with his work on you and starts down your body, kissing your stomach, your hips. Before you can even process it, he folds you in half, hands on the backs of your knees; licks one long stripe through your folds, then attaches his lips around your clit, sucking it, forcing a loud and choked moan out of your mouth as he alternates between licking hard at your bud with the tip of his tongue and sucking.
Joost is a fiend for it, devilish look in his eyes, smile on his mouth even when it’s pressed up so close against you—his fingers tease at your dripping wet hole, then his middle fingers are inside you, and then he’s there to the knuckle and petting at your g-spot incessantly. 
Joost knows you inside and out; can already tell that your pretty hands resting on the back of his head and holding him there will result in your fingers tangled in his hair and tugging lightly; knows that a few more seconds of his curling fingers and his tongue on you will make you try and push against his hand still holding you open with your thigh, you’ll fail to do so, and be happier for it. 
You’re too lost in your pleasure to look at him like he wants you to. No matter—you’re a beautiful sight coming undone for him, eyes closed, chest heaving with your breaths, a slight sheen to your skin. “Joost,” you sob quietly as he continues pumping his fingers in and out of you, continuing to lap at your pussy like he’s trying to quench an unquenchable thirst. 
“Mhm? Do you like it, schat?” Joost says against you, the vibrations of his deep voice making you twitch. You nod, and there it is—he pauses to smile when he realizes you're holding his head in its place, burying his face in your center. Who is he not to give you what you want? He drinks you in, and it makes you moan louder. “Keep quiet,” he mumbles. “We wouldn’t want the neighbours to hear, now would we?” 
You’ve come back to reality enough to nod, quiet down a little, but after a few more seconds of him sucking your clit, pistoning his fingers in and out of you, you cum, saying his name over and over again, then whispering it once you realize that yes—you’re still outside. Joost presses one last sloppy kiss against your overstimulated bud, and you nudge his face away with your fingertips, laughing breathlessly. 
Joost laughs too as he settles his cheek on the inside of your thigh, peppering soft kisses to it as he gazes at you; the look in his eyes is so tender, you almost want to look away, but you don’t. You’d take a picture if it wasn’t so glaringly obvious what you were doing before. You cup his other cheek, and he nuzzles further into your thigh, eyes closed. 
For a few moments, you stay like this, catching your breaths, basking in the afterglow of your orgasm together. After a little, Joost wipes his mouth and his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Owie,” Joost winces, reaching back to rub over the spot on his head where you pulled on his hair. “You really enjoyed that, schatje,” he smiles, climbing up over you. 
“I'm sorry,” you say softly, putting your hand over his as he lies down on you, head on your chest. “I shouldn’t have tugged so hard.” 
“It’s okay, it was worth it.” You pet his hair—Joost is so warm, the air is so hot around you, but you’ve never felt better. “I’m so hard it hurts, schat,” he mumbles, and you laugh as he shifts around on top of you, erection through his shorts poking your thigh. 
“Let’s fix that?” 
“I thought you’d never ask.” 
With quickness, Joost is up and off of you, straightened on his knees and parting yours, but you sit up. Hooking your fingers on the waistband of his trunks, you pull them down slightly, pulling him in to kiss you as you pull them lower, letting his cock spring out as you kiss sloppily, strawberry stained tongues meeting. You wrap your hand around his thick shaft, run your thumb over his weeping pink tip to spread around the precum, which makes him groan into your mouth, makes your teeth knock together. 
You stroke him a few times, Joost’s hand resting at the base of your neck. It’s like time slows down when you pull away from him and watch him and his furrowed blonde brows, the way his lips are dropped open, the pink blush of his skin creeping down his neck to his chest with all of this exertion. 
Joost opens his eyes, catching you gazing at him intently, and he brings his forehead to yours as you keep jerking him, and holds your face in his hands. “Catch me if I fall?” he asks, and you laugh. 
“So dramatic.”
“You don't even know, dude.” A few more kiss-filled seconds pass until Joost finally calls it—“Enough, baby, I need to be inside of you now, please.” 
Nodding, you lie back, opening your legs for him. He sits back, stroking himself. “No crying today, hm, schat?” Joost says as he takes his place between your legs. “No crying unless it’s out of pleasure, of course. Or if you want to cry out of sadness, that’s okay, too.” 
“I’ll take note of that, thanks,” you smile as Joost lines up with your entrance, lying over you. You slip your hands underneath his shirt, fingers running over Rayquaza, his skin piping hot on yours. The pool still sloshes, the sun is much higher, he's inching his cock inside of you and saying something in Dutch that sounds like whatever is equivalent to “fucking Christ,” his face screwed up in pleasure. 
“So warm,” Joost practically whimpers, and you both know that he certainly didn’t mean to say that in such a whiny tone. “So warm,” you laugh, making an exaggerated moan to tease him as he covers his face with his hands and laughs with you. 
“Shut uppp.” Another inch inside you, so deep. “I wish you could feel how it feels, it’d change your life.” Every vein and ridge on his cock, you can feel as you envelop him fully. “You changed mine,“ he says, and it makes your heart soar. “Over/under, 3 minutes, schat?” 
“Under. Over/under 30 seconds?” 
“Under. Maybe. Jesus fuck, you feel so good,” he laughs, breathless. “So tight, you’re amazing.” Joost goes silent as he fully bottoms out in you, but a few moments pass, and he states like he’s been thinking of it the entire time, “Lowkey, I wish we had one of those squeeze bottles,” he makes a disturbingly good squeeze bottle sound with his mouth, “Pfft-pfft. We could be oiled up super quick if we did. Maybe for next time I give you a massage.” 
You give him a puzzled, amused look—you know him like the back of your hand, but where his mind wanders sometimes, you aren’t sure. “I just don’t know,” you laugh. “Maybe we can workshop that idea.” Joost grinds himself against your clit, and you moan into his mouth as he comes down and kisses you. 
Joost fucks you like you both have all the time in the day to be here—as far as either of you are concerned, you do. Long, languid thrusts that you both watch as his cock disappears inside of you, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on your clit. The wet, hollow slaps of his hips against your ass are filthy music to your ears; you pant into each other’s mouths, close enough to touch, but not wanting to for the sake of watching each other, eyes open. 
You snake your arms around his neck, bringing him closer as his thrusts become shallower, quicker, erratic, punching into your g-spot. Without warning, Joost straightens up, exiting you fully, then lifts your hips up to meet him where he is, his shaft rubbing against your clit. 
“Ik hou van je, lieverd."
“Ik hou van je, Joost, I love you so much.” 
Joost’s face lights up then melts once he hears you speak Dutch—it’s so cute, like a little surprise for him even though you try to speak it with him regularly. Since it’s easier for you to express yourself in English, he'd rather you just speak Dutch at work and school like you already do, but the excitement in his expression when you do speak it is priceless. 
He sinks inside you once more, a loud shared moan between you two; this angle allows him to be deeper inside you than before. You tighten around him, and he sighs in pleasure. Joost splays his fingers out on your belly. “Kun je me hier voelen, diep in je?” 
“Ja, je voelt je zo goed, schat,” you breathe. Your praises seem to incense him to thrust into you firmly, out, in, out, in, sloppy, though you can’t blame him. Still, the head of his cock hits your spot with every seat of himself in you. He smoothes his tattooed hand over your chest, your erratic heartbeat probably felt through to his palm; he moves up to put his thumb in your mouth, and eagerly, you suck as he fucks you. Anything to quiet yourself, anything to have more of him inside of you. “I’m close, Joost,” you say once he moves his hand to your shoulder for leverage. 
Nodding, he says, “Me too,” keeping the pace, smearing more of your wetness over your clit so his fingers slide over it better as he rubs it for you.  
A few more reckless thrusts, your arms flying up around his neck for support, lips catching each other’s, swallowing each other’s moans. That familiar tugging feeling in your stomach grows and grows until you can’t ignore it anymore, your core tightening, your pussy tightening around him as you gasp out his name over and over again with your climax, and he gasps out yours. He’s not finished yet, but his hips have lost the rhythm they once had, his control over his impending orgasm with how you’ve constricted around him. 
“Schat, hold on for me a little.” 
“I should be telling you that,” you say, though you understand—the overstimulation of his cock dragging against your insides is getting to be a lot. You hug him close, your lips right next to his ear, his panting breaths right in yours as he ruts into you. “Cum inside me, Joost,” you whisper, and with one last deep thrust inside of you, he cums with a groan, with a breathy moan of your name, clutching your body tightly in his hands as he shoots inside of you, cock pulsing; so warm, being filled up like this, no space between you two, his stuttering hips fucking back into you for a few final thrusts.
In each other’s arms you lie there, panting—sweaty skin on sweaty skin, music still playing from the speaker, him softening inside of you. Joost kisses you deeply, kisses your cheeks, your chin, and you smile. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted and more, schat,” he says into the side of your neck. “Don't forget that.” 
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thank you so much for reading! likes, comments, reblogs always so so appreciated <3 : ) - juno
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untolduttering · 28 days
Text
Good Boy
Part two to this one, but can be read as a standalone
Summary: You find out about Sanji stealing your underwear and decide to confront him and do something fun about it.
Tags: female!reader x Sanji, nsfw, oral (female receiving), fingering, face grinding, grinding, small mention of blood
Word Count: 3.2k
You weren’t a complete idiot.
Sure, small garments such as socks did go missing. Underwear, too, could slip through the cracks. You didn’t really pay attention to your dirty laundry, but you sure did notice when a pair of underwear you had worn showed back up, clean, in your drawer. Especially when you hadn’t done any laundry.
And when it followed a routine? Put back carefully folded, the love put into the action almost radiating from the drawer?
You knew from the start, really. When Sanji would use that first day at a new island to stay with the ship. You were in a shop that overlooked the docks when you saw him and his overeager little self enter the women’s quarters, and leave with a heavily flushed face and a bounce in his step.
His idea worked quite well at first. If you hadn’t seen him sneaking in, you might’ve stayed blissfully ignorant for a little while longer. For him to pick the first day, when you were too excited to be on land to really pay much attention to the mundane routines, and the laundry day that typically followed after, was a good example of his strategic thinking.
If only he wasn’t a known pervert. If only he had any control over his desires. It seemed that once he started, he couldn’t stop, and couldn’t help to take more. The silly, horny boy. He really was so needy.
You didn’t mind, though. You’d become quite smitten with the cook in your time with the crew. You didn’t think he’d return any desire you’d had for him, until you realized that he’d stopped taking Nami’s and Robin’s underwear. Nami had been quite vocal with her complaints, and once you’d noticed that she’d stopped, you’d asked about it. And she confirmed, in her need to keep a sharp eye and rigid check of her underwear drawer, that they remained the same. Robin’s was a swift answer, amusement clearly there at Sanji’s behavior, but he had stopped rooting through her things as well.
So you let it continue, and sometimes even indulged in making it better for him. Every once in a while, you’d wear the same pair of underwear for two days. It wasn’t something you did often, as you preferred to be clean, and wearing a pair for so long wasn’t always all too pleasant, but you noticed that when you did that, the pair was gone for longer. The acknowledgment of your efforts was much more rewarding than it should have been.
And when your own longing for him grew to be unbearable, your self-consciousness being overridden by your need to have him, you had to figure out how to tell him. You thought of all the different ways you’d wanted to confess to him, making it as romantic as possible. But now, with this new ammunition, you wanted to have a little fun with it. You were thinking of making it a little more sexual. And that thought grew.
Now, you had an idea. And the first step required waiting for the next island, for that first day, and hoping that Sanji would volunteer as usual.
It was midday when Brook yelled out that he’d spotted land. You were helping Nami prune her tangerine trees, enjoying the sun warming your skin. The call made your stomach flip and caused a different sort of excitement than it usually did.
Nami predicted that you would all arrive by nightfall, and the crew decided to sleep on the ship and venture out tomorrow morning. You were suddenly thankful that you decided to wear your pale peach panties with a lettuce ruffle along the edges, and a cute little bow at the top of the waistband.
Come morning, Sanji offered to stay with the ship during breakfast. You had to fight off the stupid grin that wanted to spread across your face when you heard it.
“I wanna see what sort of stores they have,” Nami chirped.
“I think that’d be nice to do, too,” you offered.
Immediately, Sanji swooned and started fawning and crooning, “Oh my lovely, lovely ladies, out on the town, stripping down and dressing up!” He had his hands clasped and pressed to his face as he spun around, hearts in his eyes.
You giggled as Nami dragged you away from the table, ready to go out. The rest of the crew did similarly as they all decided what they were going to do with their day. You let her drag you off the ship and into town, and followed her through one store, commenting on everything she tried on. It wasn’t until you were on your way to the next store that you paused.
“Ah! Nami, I’ve forgotten my money on the ship. I’ll be right back,” you told her. You turned and left before she could offer to pay, adding to whatever debt you had to her with another added interest.
The ship was finally empty and you headed straight for the women's quarters. As quietly as you could, you pushed open the door and snuck in.
Sanji was standing there, the pair from yesterday pressed to his face. He was licking at the fabric, dragging his tongue across before sucking on it. A moan spilled out of his mouth as he did, and it was all somehow both equal parts lewd and cute.
You let the door click as you shut it behind you, causing Sanji to jump and spin around. His face flushed a deep red as he sputtered. He shoved the panties behind his back, as though hoping you hadn’t seen anything at all.
“Enjoying yourself?” you asked.
“Y/n-san! I— I was just… thinking of how nice it would be to clean for you ladies in here!” Sanji let out a nervous laugh.
“Mmmhmmm,” you hummed. You reached out and grabbed the arm he was trying to hide, and slowly guided it forward. He let you, unable to do anything that might seem like resistance to you. You dragged your fingertips down the length of his arm until you reached his hand to take the panties from his grasp.
“They were on the floor.” His gaze refused to meet yours. “I was just putting them back.”
“Right…” you unfurled them and held them up between you. “I know you’ve been taking them.”
Sanji opened his mouth to defend himself again but you cut him off. “But I don’t mind. I, uh, quite like it, actually.” His eyes widened in surprise. “It’s been very sweet of you to clean and return them, too, ever the gentleman. But you’ve been taking without asking, and I thought I should do something about that.”
You could hear his swallow. “Like what?” he asked.
Now it was your turn to get nervous. It was a bold move, one you wanted to work desperately. You dropped your hands, keeping your underwear gripped in one as you stepped forward and grabbed the front of his coat. “I want you to strip down.”
Sanji’s jaw dropped, clearly not expecting the request, your forwardness, your hands on his front. He was frozen by it.
“Please?” you added.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, breathless, his lapse broken by your plea. His hands immediately began to loosen his tie while you unbuttoned his coat. Piece by piece, you both peeled all of his clothes off. Once they were piled onto the floor, you took a step back just to admire.
He cut a lean figure. He did not have very large muscles, but what he did have was well defined. His legs were the most toned, and little faint scars crisscrossed along the skin. It was clear that he took care to keep himself as well groomed as he did clean. The hair on his chest was kept trimmed, and so was the line that followed down to his happy trail, all the way down to his pubes. You felt the heat that was coursing through you burn hottest when you stared at his cock. It was pretty. Long, but not all that girthy, and that rosy tip sitting tall from his hardness. It was also clear that the attention was making him nervous, as his hands shifted, not knowing where to place themselves.
“You’re beautiful,” you breathed out, completely in awe. You couldn’t believe he’d even waste his time on your underwear, when he looked like that.
Sanji’s cheeks got even redder somehow, as he deflected the compliment, “You must have mistaken me for a mirror, mon amour, when your own beauty outshines all.”
And that personality, so ready to serve and make others feel good, all above his own needs. You felt your heart swell with fondness, and it ached a little at how he couldn’t see how wonderful he was.
But that was part of why you were here now. To make him feel good.
You raised your underwear, offering it to him, and asked, “Can you put these on?”
Sanji’s face went right back to shock. “You want me to wear them?”
You nodded, a grin tugging at the edges of your mouth. You were also here to toy with him, too.
“If… if that’s what you’d like.” He reached out for them and then slipped them on.
And oh, had you made the right choice. The way they sat high on his hips, and just barely contained his bulge had your head swimming. The little ruffles and peach color made him look so sweet. You stepped close again and pressed your hands to his chest, feeling the muscle there before dragging them down, enjoying the fuzz that covered it all. He was warm from his embarrassment, and his breath hitched from the contact. You toyed with the band of the panties once your hands got there, playing with the material. Then, you grabbed his length, feeling him through the fabric. He moaned immediately.
“Y/n…” He grabbed your face and brought you in for a kiss, unable to resist any longer. It was heated and needy, and you were eager to return it. The taste of his last cigarette lingered on his lips. You rubbed at his cock, earning another moan, one that caused his mouth to open, and you took the opportunity to dart your tongue in, to taste more, to take more.
You stepped forward, gently guiding him to the bed. He let himself be led and broke off the kiss to be pushed onto his back. You climbed on top of him, straddling his waist, needing to have your hands back on him. You ran your fingers through his bangs, pulling them back as you went, and hungrily went back to devouring him. You ground your hips down into his, eliciting a whine from his throat.
Sanji’s hands wandered, first groping your tits before reaching down to slip under the hem. As badly as you wanted to let him strip you, you grabbed his wrist and tutted.
He looked at you with a furrowed brow and his bottom lip jutted out, confused, and like he had done something wrong.
“Not until I’ve had my fun, when you’ve made up for stealing from me.”
He averted his eyes at being reminded of his shame, and let his hands fall to your hips. He nodded, but kept his bottom lip pushed out. You could tell he was put out for not being allowed to serve you, but oh he was serving you so, so well right now.
You smiled at him, warm and genuine. “Good boy.”
His eyes lit up at the praise and he pulled you back in for more. Sanji was always eager to do as he was told.
You started grinding into him properly now, keeping a steady rhythm. You were both moaning and struggling to breath as your makeout became messier and messier. Teeth gently nibbled into lips and tongues explored mouths until Sanji couldn’t take much more.
“I’m so close,” he whimpered.
You lifted your hips, wrapped your hand around his cock, and started pumping. Sanji’s back arched as he started babbling. “Yes, yes, please, yes.” His moans got louder and louder. He cried out as he came, and you made sure that all the cum that came shooting out remained in the underwear.
“Just like that, baby. Just like that,” you cooed as you rubbed him the rest of the way through his high.
“Thank you, thank you,” he cried.
You kissed all over his face; his forehead, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. You lingered on his lips, but when his fingers dug into your waistband, you pulled back.
“Not yet. You’ll have to wait. For now…” you trailed off, building up courage. “I want you to get dressed.”
“What?” he asked. “But what about you, my love? You have to let me take care of you.”
“Later, later.” You pulled him up from the bed. “And I want you to keep the panties on, just the way they are.”
“But what about…” he gestured to the mess he made.
“Exactly.”
Sanji looked a little horrified at the prospect, and you wouldn’t make him do it if he truly didn’t want to. But he started nodding. “You like me like this?”
You grinned. “It’s a punishment, too, for all the cumming you’ve done in my underwear. You’ll have to sit in now.”
The loud sound of footsteps climbing the ramp that led onto the deck interrupted the two of you.
“Saaaaaanjiiii,” Luffy called. “I’m hungry!”
“You’d better hurry then,” you teased while swiping his pants off the ground.
Right before he left, after dressing him, you gave his cheek a quick kiss and his crotch a quick squeeze. The smile it put on his face dazzled you as he left, and you could see a faint trickle of blood flowing out of his nose.
It was hard for you to focus for the rest of the day. All you could think of was Sanji and his cum covered panties. When you were near him, it was impossible to function properly. Your eyes couldn’t help but wander right to his crotch and recreate the image of what you knew was there in your mind. Sanji seemed to be struggling in a similar way, as he seemed determined to keep an apron on at all times. To think that he must be covering his hard-on made your spine tingle. At one point he even accidentally switched the meals he was supposed to give Luffy and Nami. You couldn’t recollect a time he’d ever made a mistake like that.
At dinner, he made sure to place himself next to you. He rested his hand on your knee at first, letting it sit there as you all ate. But then it creeped its way upward, his fingers massaging as they went. You hooked your ankle around his and pulled his leg closer, just to feel more of him. This meal couldn’t end fast enough.
When it did finally end, you lingered in the dining room, waiting for the rest of the crew to go their separate ways. Walking back into the kitchen, Sanji had you pinned to the counter immediately. He buried his face into your neck, covering it in kisses as he spoke.
“Have I been good, my dear?” he asked, his voice desperate.
“Yes, you’ve been very good,” you purred as you pet his hair.
His hands slipped lower. “Let me take care of you, please.”
You nodded your assent, but pressed a hand to his chest to make him pause. “ Just take your pants off and then you can have me however you’d like,” you told him.
Sanji stripped himself faster than you thought possible, and dropped to his knees. He pressed his face into your clothed cunt, inhaling hard and mouthing at it. He lifted his eyes to yours, and asked, “May I?”
The sight before you made your stomach burn and cunt ache. The tip of his cock just barely peeked out of the soiled underwear, and his lips were wet with spit, just begging to be on you. “Yes,” you breathed.
He tugged off both your shorts and underwear in one go, and you could see the stars in his eyes as he stared at your pussy.
“So pretty,” he said, before hefting one of your legs onto his shoulder and diving in.
He dragged his tongue through all your folds, trying to get all the wetness that had gathered into his mouth and down his throat. Once he was satisfied, he pressed it flat to your clit, licking up and down, switching to tongue your hole and licking his way back up to it.
You brought your hand down to grip his hair, but had to restrain yourself from doing more. You wanted to pull his face even closer, if possible, and grind against it, but you were afraid of accidentally hurting him.
But it was Sanji, someone well attuned to how gestures convey emotions, needs, and he said, “Use my face, baby. I’ve been bad, selfish, for stealing your underwear. Take all you need from me.”
And you did as he asked, grinding down as soon as the last word left his mouth. The new stimulation made you whine, but your sounds were nothing compared to the sinful ones that came from Sanji. He was loud, and you could feel the sound just as much as you heard it. His hips began to thrust into nothing and his eyes were fully glazed over.
It didn’t take much longer for you to cum. With being pent up all day, the sounds from Sanji only increasing in pitch, and his tongue working at you relentlessly, the coil that had been growing tighter and tighter in your lower abdomen snapped, and Sanji drank up all that you gave him.
But he didn’t stop. Instead, with your hips gone still, he inserted two of his fingers into your hole and started pumping.
“One more. Just one more, can you do that for me?” he asked, before latching onto your clit without waiting for an answer.
Sanji curled his fingers and pounded at your sweet spot. He pulled another one from you as you gripped the counter behind you, trying to keep yourself upright and grounded. But of course, he still didn’t stop, and you whined out his name.
“Another one, my love. Only once more.” he murmured. And you let him, with legs shaking and hopeless moans spilling out of you.
He added another finger, stretching you out so nicely, The third orgasm had you near to collapsing, and you truly had to tug him off of you. “I can’t, Sanji. I can’t do anymore.”
He left a spattering of kisses across your thighs and whispered out thank yous and praises. Cheekily, he left a kiss to your clit before pulling all the way back and looking up at you. His face was a complete mess. His hair was sticking up every which way from your hands, and his face was soaked with your juices, smeared all across his mouth, cheeks, chin, and even his nose. You looked down to see that he’d already come, a fresh wet patch on the front of those panties, and a few ropes of cum dripping down his stomach and thighs.
“You’re so pretty like this. We’ll have to do it again,” you told him as you caressed his face.
Sanji gave you a big, dumb smile,full of admiration, and said, “Anything for you.”
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⋆*·゚I heard it in your silence... misa x putellas!femreader
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when misa watches the girl she's crushed on for years retreat into her own shadows, she knows something is wrong.
or; part of the as the flowers bloom, my heart does too universe (can be read as standalone)
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Misa’s perceptive eyes were glued to you sitting across the room as soon as your laugh reached her ears over the loud chatter and music. With your hand slapped to your mouth to hide that gorgeous smile of yours, probably out of some hidden insecurity, you leaned into your friends. You seemed to add something to one of their comments before laughter commenced again. With your eyes squeezed shut in glee and your head falling back, Misa was reminded of why she'd ever developed such a crush on you. She couldn't help but let the corners of her mouth pull into the faintest smile. Your radiant joy was contagious, if anything. And the need to be in or around your orbit was addictive to her, at best.
The little venue Alexia had rented to celebrate another year around the moon was packed with friends, family and other acquaintances and still, Misa hadn't had any trouble zeroing in on the back of your head as soon as she'd walked in. She'd recognise that very specific shade of hair colour anywhere, even in the dim lighting with overhead party lights dancing across the walls.
She had to fight to keep her expression neutral and not smile like a fool instead of focussing on the conversation going on around her. It was horrible to crush on a girl who’d never be interested in her, but what she deemed even worse, was falling for her friend’s younger sister... someone who, to make matters worse for her case, was very much taken... going by the woman glued to your side.
Y/N Putellas—  youngest of the three sisters that Elí no doubt had had to reign in and keep in check throughout your childhoods. She knew some bits about you and your life, which was a surprising small amount, seeing as Alexia spoke of her sisters so often it always seemed as if they were part of the team. But perhaps Misa preferred it that way. If she'd keep you at a distance, you'd feel more like an enigma than a real person. You had always felt like someone from another world to her anyway. Someone from a world so foreign to her that she had just stuck to glances and smiles instead of starting conversations or building a friendship. She knew you wouldn't have minded. She'd watched you closely to know your face would blossom into the biggest smile when someone approached you to talk. Though your welcoming energy and open disposition made her think otherwise, Misa still felt like you were out of reach. Unattainable. Meant to admire instead of indulge with.
The first time she'd met you, properly met you, and not through passing after matches or birthday parties like these, you and Alba had tagged along to a post-season vacation with your sister. Misa’s cheeks still dusted pink at the memory of how she’d acted around you the entire week. Or rather, how she hadn't... seeing as she'd frozen up whenever you would so much as look her way, send her a smile or sit beside her during dinners to try and strike up conversation. And the fact that the heat had made you parade around in a plethora of swimwear, or without a top on to sunbathe, hadn't helped either. She’d hid the rapid beating of her heart during such occasions exceptionally well. And even if she feared that her stoicism to everything you did had turned you away from her, she hated how you would still smile at her ever so gently, as if you thought Misa was deserving of some patience to let her come out of her shell. Either that, or you were a mindreader and could see the thoughts spiralling in her head whenever you sidled by her to grab something off the kitchen counter. No, Misa knew she had hidden her crush well, otherwise she would have received a lot of teasing comments and probably a sour look or a stern talking to from Alexia.
There was part of her that felt guilty for liking a woman who wasn't available, but what was she to do? Tell her heart to shut up and pick the next best available woman to crush on instead? She knew she couldn't do that, or wouldn't, more like, even if she had full control over her emotions. Which she hadn't. Sometimes she hated that and how it meant that she couldn't spare herself from the longing. Besides, you'd never made even a single move on her showcasing you felt what she did, and she preferred to keep her ego intact instead of facing inevitable rejection by approaching a woman like you.
And even if you had been single, Misa knew she would never take her chance. If not for you being Alexia’s little sister, which should've ended her dilemma then and there, then for the fact she knew you were on a whole other level. Even with knowing you only superficially after some smalltalk and overheard conversations, she could sense you were one of a kind. There weren’t a lot of people who could look at a person with so much grace and adoration, and there sure weren't enough people who made someone feel so comfortable just by being around them. And that laughter… the giggles and the smiles. Oh, how those could brighten up anyone’s day… Misa's days, especially. Well, you were one of those few lucky people who possessed that gift, you were special, Misa was certain.
Misa had never really had a high school crush, too focused on football to spend her energy and time on losing track of her dream to get to the top. She figured this was the equivalent of that. Of fluttered stomachs after shy glances, stumbled words after locked eyes and a rapid heartbeat as she daydreamed of being near you. So, yes, a crush. She could be fine with that. Still, maybe it would have been better to have a crush on a straight girl, because then she’d know there would never be a chance and she could slowly let it go, but this was different. And even if she didn’t think about you every day, she did feel her mouth go dry and her heart beat faster each time Alexia would bring your name up, or bring you along. Maybe it would just be like that for a while, at least until Misa would properly fall in love with someone who was right for her so that her crush on you would eventually fade into the abyss.
Misa let the drink in her glass slosh around and watched how you happily chatted away with who she knew were your best friends. Alexia had talked about the four of you now and then, always with a fond smile on her face. Misa could see now why your older sister felt that way. There hadn't been a single dull moment between you, as it seemed, and no one was left out. Well, no one but one. But she wasn't part of your friend group. Not really. Maybe by association, but that was where your friends drew the line. That much was clear by the distance they'd put between them and the woman by your side.
Misa watched as you sat leaning forward, elbows on your knees and flute with champagne in your hands as you listened to one of your friends, purposefully turning your back on your girlfriend. Misa’s brows furrowed—  what had she done to deserve such a treatment from you? Surely something bad, seeing as Misa was certain you'd never treat someone like that just for kicks. When she watched how your girlfriend harshly whirled you back to sit pressed against her, she clenched the glass in her hand. The conversation broke apart for a second, all eyes now on your girlfriend after what she'd pulled. One of your friends said something, quickly jumped up and playfully pulled you up, creating an easy escape from the situation, probably with the excuse to go to the restroom. Your friends that were left gave each other a look. Then, one of them turned to your girlfriend with a pointed finger and a face set in accusatory anger. Misa was eager to see what would happen next, but a hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her thoughts.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Of course, it would be your older sister disrupting her everlasting and ongoing thoughts of you. Misa nibbled on her lip in thought, then fought out a smile and nodded.
"Come, I want to introduce you to someone. I think she's just your type."
Misa made a face but let herself get pulled off the seat nonetheless. Maybe it would be for the best to finally move on from you, no matter how serious her crush. Or maybe exactly because of that.
"I'm sure you'll like her."
"Fine," She muttered, feigning annoyance as Alexia's laugh reached her ears.
"I want to at least set one of my friends up with their once-in-a-lifetime lover."
"Is that a thing you've still got on your bucketlist?"
"Something like that, I just want to see you happy with someone," Alexia shrugged absentmindedly, smiling at people as they pressed through the crowd, but Misa stilled as they passed the door to the outside area.
With a tear stricken face and your friend's arm slung around your waist, you disappeared outside behind the doors, probably for some fresh air.
Ignore it. Don't give in. Not your business. You don't even know her. Let. It. GO.
Misa felt Alexia pull at her arm, and she pushed herself to follow her friend instead of following Alexia's little sister out. She had no business checking up on you. She needed to get you out of her head. But something was wrong, and she hated how it had made your smile disappear, the one thing she had started to let dictate her days whenever you were around. Which meant her night was ruined now. She’d seen your mood get ruined before, which typically seemed to happen whenever the group had talked about relationships and love during the vacation in Ibiza. You would turn sullen and quiet, but would mask it so perfectly that even Misa wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t already been staring at you to witness the change.
You had laughed along to the silly banter of insignificant relationship quarrels and would smile or awe on cue if someone told an adorable story about their girlfriend. But you had turned your head away to bask in the Ibizan sun as soon as you'd felt afraid you were going to be asked about your relationship. You knew some of your sister's friends had a knack for being direct, Jenni being one of them. Despite having built a great bond with her thanks to the time she'd been with Alexia, she didn't know the extent of your life nowadays. Let alone your love life. You knew she'd meant well but winced nonetheless when her familiar voice silenced the restaurant table by asking you that one dreaded question;
"How's your lover doing?" She'd said it with a playfulness to her voice that showcased how little she really knew about said lover, but she couldn't be blamed for what she didn't know. Or better, for what you hadn't told her. You hadn't told anyone though, for that matter. Not even your best friends, though they had puzzled the pieces together after little effort and had barely needed to pull the words out of you to have you admit how things were really going.
With a sharp inhale, you pulled on your mask, your face breaking out into a wide grin seconds after as you grabbed your wine glass and twirled it around, trying to stall the time by pretending to let its rich aroma fill your nostrils.
"Really great." Your voice rose, knowing it wouldn't work if you'd deadpanned it with the same pain in your tone as the pain you were feeling inside.
"She's clearly downplaying it to not make us jealous, no?" Alexia threw a chuckle at you, "They're spending all their time together nowadays. We can barely get a phonecall in or steal her away for an evening. I'm surprised she's even here." Though Alexia seemed amused, there was something else that shone through in her eyes. Perhaps melancholy because of the deep sense of your absence in her life.
"I don't think she is," Alba chided from across of Misa, eyes narrowed while a smirk played at her lips, "She'd rub it in our faces nonetheless. Which means-" She hummed in thought, examining her little sister, then gasped as she watched you furrow your brows in slight worry. Alba had always been the one to better read between the lines of your acts and masks, and you knew how forthright she could be to point it out. You just hoped she wouldn't bare your relationship issues to the entire table, if she even had a hunch this time. You didn't want to talk about it. Not with her, not with anyone. You would work it out together and keep it between you and your girlfriend, as she had made you promise. And perhaps, if you didn't speak about it, you could pretend nothing was wrong.
"You miss her, don't you? It's the only plausible reason you've been disappearing further and further into your seat with all this lovey dovey talk going on around here," Alba threw a quick accusatory look Patri's way, who threw up her hands at the allegation.
Misa watched the worry ebb away from your face, but it didn't disappear entirely. Something was still plaguing you.
"I do," You nodded, solemnly, bringing your glass to your lips and nipping ever so slightly, as if you didn't want to down the entire glass until it could be done as a last resort to soften whatever blow you still seemed to be waiting for.
Jenni awed, fingers pinching at your cheek, to which you couldn't help but let out a genuine squeal and giggle, "Who'd have thought little Putellas would find her one true love before any of us?"
"Hey!"
"You know we weren't meant to be, no offence," Jenni laughed at Alexia, who playfully shook her head in return, then turned back to you.
"She treating you well, honeyboo?"
You knew it was but a joke, you could see it on her face, but you couldn't help but take the question extremely serious. Your thoughts wandered to the past few months. Your jaw tensed. No, she hadn't been good to you, but in her defence, it had been entirely your doing. Well, you figured it had to be.
The fact that you waited too long to answer and how your eyes drifted to the many people walking the promenade behind Jenni, made the table quiet in an instant.
"She is treating you well, isn't she?" Alexia piped up almost immediately, ignoring the kick that Alba dealt to her ankle, silently telling her to not bring it up with a table full of her teammates.
"She is- sorry, the wine's getting to me quicker than usual in this heat." A breathy chuckle left you, and Misa watched as you tipped your glass backwards and downed the wine.
Alba eyed you, calling your bluff instantly.
"So you down it all in one go?" Claudia wondered, blinking as she teased.
"Okay, I see what kind of night this will be. I'm all for it," Leila raised her glass, "To us and our love lives. However glamorous or miserable they may be."
Misa shook her head and let out a breathy chuckle.
Jenni laughed, "And if it's non-existent, then we'll salute to getting a hot lover-" She eyed Misa momentarily before she noticed the empty glass you were playing with. She waved the nearest waitress over, "Wait- can we get a refill on her glass? We can't salute with an empty one."
"What happens if we do?"
"Seven years of bad luck, or something."
"I thought it was seven years of bad sex?"
"One and the same thing, isn't it?"
Misa watched you quietly after not having said a word in ages and using her semi-invisibility to observe you a little longer.
The waitress returned with a glass of dry white and she watched as you gave her a kind smile, feeling sympathetic after having been a waiter yourself on the weekends during university. It was where you'd met one of your best friends— Catalina. You'd been thrown to the wolves during your first shift by having to wait the tables of both a hen party and a group of college boys from some other country, all while an El Clásico was playing on the screens. They had made you run around the restaurant like a headless chicken. You'd dropped the tray of drinks you'd carefully been balancing in both your hands the second FC Barçelona had scored against Real Madrid and the terrace had roared and jumped up in pure delight. The men that had bumped into you had been too drunk or excited, or both, to notice what they'd done, but Catalina had. She'd helped you clean up and then offered to stay an hour longer after her shift to help bridge the hour before another coworker would take over from you, even if your boss should've had that covered in the first place. The rest was history. Your other two best friends, Abril and Isla, had immediately accepted her into the group. But that hadn't been too hard. Despite Catalina being older than the three of you, and definitely being labeled as the mom-friend, she had a youthful spirit to her and perfectly matched the energy of your already established silly little trio. Catalina had been a constant and unwavering source of guidance and maturity mixed with a silliness that was a surprise to you at first. But Catalina and her wise words were not here to help you out of this situation right now.
Misa had taken notice of how you had grabbed the glass and raised it to clink as soon as it had been put in front of you. But you had not touched it for the rest of the dinner afterwards, seemingly not taking the easy bait offered to you to drown your sorrows in the unsuspecting bliss of a drunken haze. She applauded you for it. Not a lot of people would've done the same.
The taxi ride home had been eventful, with Jenni roping the taxi driver into her improvised karaoke party mid-ride and the others joining in as soon as they'd noticed the driver wasn't opposed to some lighthearted fun with a group of young women in his van. But Misa had sensed something was still awry the second you had shuffled onto the last row. You'd buried yourself beneath your blazer and she knew it was more of a way to comfort yourself than to warm you up from the chilly AC. And when you had closed your eyes and tilted your head back to rest when the singing had commenced, she furrowed her brows in worry as she glanced across Leila, who sat in between you. Leila noticed Misa's line of sight, stopped singing when she saw your far-away state, and tugged at you,
"Do we need to stop?" She asked, hinting at the possibility of the wine messing with your stomach. That, together with the way the car was swirling along the mountain pass as it drove to your Airbnb at the top of the mountain.
You opened your eyes, gave Leila a tight-lipped smile and shook your head.
"I'm just tired. Sun and alcohol always put me right to sleep."
You'd excused yourself and disappeared into your room under the same guise, but Misa knew that was a lie when she heard the sniffles and muffled sobs coming from the room next to hers in the villa you'd all rented out for the week. It was your room, and unless you had suddenly decided to swap rooms with one of the other girls, it were your sobs she heard.
It tore at her conscience to lay there in her bed and have to listen to you and know she should and could do nothing about it. While you were open and approachable, you were incredibly reserved when it came to your feelings. You only showed a surface level of what was inside, the rest safely tucked away behind layers of brick walls. You'd shown so by brushing over your true state multiple times that vacation, so why would you accept Misa's comfort if she were to knock on your door?
Not being able to listen to it any longer, she made her way to the shared kitchen and filled a glass of water, gulping it down immediately as she looked through the tall glass sliding doors. The few inflatables bobbed gently in the pool and their towels and bathing suits were still drying on the edge of some chairs. She recognised your black bikini instantly. You were a beautiful woman, something that was more a fact than a personal preference, and you could wear a trash bag and make it look fashionable, but there was something about you in black that took Misa's breath away. She'd willed her eyes to look at anything but you when you'd walked out of the house with that small bikini clinging to your warm and sunkissed body. It felt wrong to stare at you and your curves and simultaneously have her mind filled with thoughts that were anything but platonic. Even if she didn't daydream about tearing the thing off of you, since she willed herself to never let her crush get to that point, it still felt weird to see you in a state of such... undress. As if she wasn't meant to see you like that. As if she was being rude to you, and to your girlfriend by extension, by staring at you nearly naked when she had this massive crush on you. It filled her with guilt. It also made her feel incredibly silly, seeing as all the girls wore close to nothing either and some even paraded through the secluded backyard in nude to work on their tan.
"I'm sorry, I was feeling ill so I took a shower and went to bed early."
Misa quickly whirled around when she heard a door open inside the house.
"I know, I'm sorry. I should've told you. I'm... feeling better now, though?"
Your soft voice muttered and approached. She could hear the stuffiness in your nose and it pained her. Quickly, she opened the sliding doors and slid outside.
"I really am sorry, baby. No, Carmen, please-"
A sudden urgency shimmered through in your tone, and Misa walked over to the edge of the backyard to sit down on a lounger, hoping she would blend in behind the greenery of the many potted plants in the dark of night. She cursed herself, however, when the sliding doors opened further and you walked out, pacing the tiles near the pool as you nibbled on your bottom lip, your figure lit up by the warm lights of the porch.
"Please, trust me. We were out on the sea all day, then went to a restaurant, had drinks, took a van back and then I went to take a shower. Then I went straight to bed."
"Because I forgot to set an alarm for our phone call- Yes, I forgot the one this morning as well. I was in the pool. Well, I didn't answer your texts because my head was killing me. I hadn't even looked at my phone. No, I wasn't ghosting you. I texted you I was ill. That wasn't some excuse. I was actually asleep before you called. I'm good, by the way."
"My sisters and her teammates. Some have girlfriends, yes, what's that to do with anything, Carmen? No, just because they're also into women doesn't mean there's a higher risk of me cheating with them, are you insane? Do you actually hear yourself?" Your voice rose, and Misa hated how she was hearing parts of your private conversation. She shouldn't be there, she didn't want to be there, she didn't even want to know what you were dealing with. That was your business, and she felt like an intruder. But she couldn't disappear back inside without having to pass you, and she also didn't want to get up and leave to give you space and then see the uneasiness on your face knowing that she'd heard some of your phonecall.
"I know we're going through a rough patch, but I wouldn't cheat. Ever. Not even if you were horrible to me and I were surrounded by groups of women who lust after me- No?! Goddamn, Carmen, it was just a rhetorical thing to- Lust is not important to me. Love is. And you- you... give me that... Listen-"
She could hear the despair in your voice, as if you were dangling above a cliff and feeling your grip loosen on the rope keeping you from falling.
"Like I said— Ale, Alba, Jenni and- No, no. God, why am I even indulging your insecurities? Especially when you're like this-"
"Why I'm having an attitude? Carmen, do you hear yourself? I'm sorry, but I can't talk to you when you're like this. It's like trying to soothe a wailing baby on a plane, it's useless."
And, immediately after, "I-I shouldn't... I shouldn't have said that."
It was quiet for a good while, and Misa hoped you had ended the call and disappeared back into your room. Then she heard the quiver in your voice.
"That's... that really hurt my feelings. Why would you say that?"
You had sounded so small, but she could hear you were trying your best to stay tough. Then it was quiet again. Misa glanced over her shoulder, watched how you'd taken a seat on the steps leading back up to the house and had wrapped an arm around yourself as if it was the only thing still keeping you from breaking down.
"Carmen, I'm going to hang up now. I fear that whatever I say will only be fuel to whatever fire you're wanting to light. You've already made your mind up. You're- We're clearly on edge and I'd rather have this conversation face to face and when we're not in our feelings or say stuff we don't mean. Are you okay with that?"
Misa hated that idea. If the girl could get you so distraught over the phone, she didn't want to imagine what it would be to have her in front of you, accusing you of whatever she thought you'd done. Though Misa had always thought of you as a strong woman, how else could you, being raised by one, you clearly were on the brink of breaking now.
"It's okay, love. It's okay. I forgive you. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I'm so sorry. I know I shouldn't have. Yes, I promise. I know, I don't want to fight either. We'll fix things, like we said. No. I-I... love you, too. Bye, sweet dreams."
You looked down at your phone after ending the call, then buried your head in your hands, soft sobs drowning in the wind and the soothing buzz of the pool cleaner. You took a deep breath in, hating how it came out all shuddered because of your sobs. You rubbed at your forehead, then pulled at your oversized shirt, massaging the ache you felt beneath it, in your chest. But you couldn't pull yourself out of your misery by your lonesome self. You needed to, you knew that. Your heart ached harder when you realised the next few days would be filled with dread of what was to come once you'd return home.
Misa watched as you stood up, the red blob of one of Alexia's old FC Barçelona training jerseys disappearing behind the glass doors of the house. When she heard it click shut, she let out the biggest breath she'd ever held.
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Misa remembered that week very well. How she’d hated the remainder of it and would’ve been better off taking the next flight home instead of having to look at you and know you were hurting. How obvious it was that your sudden silence wasn't because you couldn't stay away longer than a week from your girlfriend without missing her, but how much you dreaded and counted down the days until you saw her again. But perhaps she'd cheated when coming to that conclusion the second she'd overheard your phonecall. She couldn't blame your sisters for not catching onto your act when you were so good at masking. Well, not good enough to push through and smile as if nothing happened, but good enough to get the job done either way.
Misa hated having the inner dilemma with herself wether to approach you and confess of hearing the conversation, and offer you some comfort perhaps. Or if she should take her worries to the one person who would protect you with her life. But was it really her place to decide wether she should rope Alexia into your relationship issues? No, it wasn’t. It had all reminded her how bad it was to have had a crush on you in the first place. If she hadn’t had one, she wouldn’t have been attached enough to care more than she should. She would have felt bad about it a little, sympathise, and then just… let it go. Deal with her own love life, or lack thereof. But she couldn’t. She wanted to see you smile again, and not the fake ones. But wanting that, she couldn’t deny, was for a selfish reason as well. And she had been even more distant with you after the incident. Showing up beside you in silent comfort would surely raise suspicion. You were a clever and observant woman. She knew that. And she knew that you knew that her eyes flit to you more than necessary, after having been caught multiple times.
So, she decided to not go over into action beside praying every night that things would get better for you. That you would work things out with your girlfriend, with this Carmen, who you clearly loved enough despite the issues in your relationship, and to work through them with her. Even if she hated no longer hearing your laughter through the splashing of water as you'd dunk Alba below the surface or see you dance and let loose or watch you awe at the old woman making balloon figures for the kids on the boulevard. But when she’d seen you get playfully pushed between your sisters in your seat on the airplane when you’d all taken a picture to send to your mother, and that broad smile had come out which she'd assumed matched the same adorable childlike glee of your younger self, Misa had hoped it was the start of better days coming. That whatever had happened in Ibiza had just been an unfortunate course of events. And that whatever she'd seen during Alexia's birthday party had just been bad timing, as well.
So when Mapi had asked, months later, how her favourite Putellas was doing and Alexia had turned stoic and waved the subject off with a scowl, Misa knew something had gone terribly wrong. Usually, the oldest Putellas sister would speak with so much joy in her eyes whenever her little sister was brought up. The fact she refused to talk about you at all, worried them. Including Misa, who was listening from her cubby while taping her fingers. 
“But she’s still going out with us after camp, right?”
Alexia rubbed at her furrowed brows, rummaging through her bag and looking anywhere but up in the eyes of her friends, “She'll be at the match, but that's all. I don’t think she's tagging along.”
Jenni perked up, looking defeated and confused at the same time, “Why not? She’s fun to have around, and I’ve missed her.”
“I don’t want her there.” Alexia’s response was blunt, harsh even, and the suddenty of it shifted the energy of the conversation.
“Okay… that’s- well, what happened?” Jenni butted in from her cubby, and Misa perked her ears, tearing the tape around her fingers in half with her teeth.
“Nothing.”
“Alexia.”
“I don’t want to talk or even think about it.”
“So instead you’ll leave us worried and let us speculate on our own?” Mapi huffed, clearly not liking how all kinds of scenarios flitted through her mind.
Alexia's face set in stone as she glared at them, eyes brimming with tears, “Not here.”
“Okay… that… that doesn’t sound good.”
“Can you at least tell us if she’s okay?”
Alexia's head hung low as she tied her cleats, and she muttered, “She isn’t, not mentally... or emotionally.”
“Then why not let her tag along? A fun night out sounds exactly like what she needs.” Jenni immediately held up her hands at the glare Alexia directed her way as soon as she'd spoken.
“No, it’s not. It’s not the right environment for her.”
“Because!?” Mapi hurried out in a whisper, realising this was not a conversation to be held in a filled locker room.
“I said not now!”
Jenni and Mapi sat back, defeated, and from her side of the room, Misa felt an immense wave of worry settle in her stomach. She had the desperate need to do something... anything, but what could she do when she was confined to watch from the sidelines?
⋆*·゚⋆*·゚⋆*·゚⋆*·゚⋆*·゚⋆*·゚
© 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆, 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵, 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲, 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘆.🖤
unnoffical first part of the 'as the flowers bloom, my heart does too' fic!! i hope you like it <3
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azrielbrainrot · 6 months
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You Take Me Higher
Pairing: Azriel x Reader
Description: What happens when you run into Azriel at a bar after a long mission?
Warnings: Smut, Public Sex
Word Count: 4220
Rating: 18+
Notes: This is basically pwp except it's part of a new universe I'm working on. Still, you can read this as a standalone since there's no actual plot here. I just felt like writing mindless smut since "She Laughs Like You" is so plot heavy. Hope you enjoy <3
Spy!Reader Masterlist
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You normally don't come to Rita's, preferring calmer bars to the loud and suffocating club, it's too much of an assault to your senses. But your friends had invited you enough times for you to accept, not wanting to turn them down again. You hadn't seen them in a while after a particularly long mission outside of the Night Court so it was nice to catch up with them even if it meant dealing with the headache that always follows your trips here.
You'd seen the High Lord and his Inner Circle as soon as you arrived. Their commanding presence allowing your eyes to find them immediately among the rest of the club goers. Upon seeing them, seeing him, you almost regretted coming out, not knowing how to act around him outside of work or your escapades and definitely not wanting to do it in front of so many people.
You decide on a simple wave, nodding discreetly at him and the rest of his family, turning your attention back to your now gushing friends after they wave back politely, making sure you didn't linger on his hazel eyes or the unbuttoned silk shirt, keeping up with the “friendly acquaintances” narrative you've crafted for yourselves. Intending on keeping away from him for the rest of the night.
Azriel seemed to have a different idea as he signaled for you to follow him not even an hour later. And, as soon as you excused yourself from your friends and stepped out into the hallway, he grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers and discreetly guiding you through a back door, to a dark alley behind the popular bar. Your back was against the wall and his lips on yours, hands roaming all over your body, before you could even question him or get a good glimpse at him under the moonlight.
“Azriel,” you whine, trying to get his attention away from your neck, where he has been leaving tiny bites followed by soothing open-mouthed kisses, effectively making you lose your mind. Your hand tightens around his collar at a particularly hard bite, one you're sure left the imprint of his sharp canines on your supple skin.
Just when you were about to call out to him once more, thinking he didn't hear you or was choosing to ignore you, the shadowsinger finally lets out a hum against the column of your throat, at last acknowledging you were trying to talk to him.
You swallow before speaking, trying to get rid of the dryness in your mouth. This backfires as it only makes him use his grip on the back of your neck to pull you even closer to him when he feels the movement, and a moan leaves your mouth before you find your words.
“Someone could see us,” you push through the desire steadily building inside you, trying to be the voice of reason, but you barely get the words out as he keeps nibbling on the soft skin of your throat, making you struggle to hold onto your composure.
When he simply lets out another amused hum before continuing to mark up your neck - to the point you're not sure the glamour magic you can use will be enough for covering them up - you tangle your fingers around the strands of dark hair and pull hard, effectively getting his attention. He grunts softly but allows you to move him away from your neck, and you're finally able to meet his eyes for the first time since he's taken you to the alley.
Your heart stalls in your chest when you take him in. Pupils blown out behind half-lidded eyes, the beautiful hazel almost imperceptible in the midst of all the desire. Dark hair messy, falling into his eyes, and shirt half undone from your tight grip on his collar, the illyrian marks you've grown to love peaking through. He was breathing heavy, chest rising and falling rapidly as he took advantage of the break you've given him to catch his breath.
The sight almost makes you forget your protests, brain going numb at the raw hunger reflected on his face. He's always been mesmerizing, you've been caught by his beauty ever since the first time you met him all those decades ago, but in moments like these you sometimes have trouble believing he's even real. He's like a God walking among mortals.
Azriel smirks when he notices your eyes glazing over and your scent deepening with arousal, taking the opportunity and leaning down for another, slower but equally passionate kiss. He's been so focused on your neck that he barely even tasted you since you've been outside. He wants to take his time with you for a moment.
Your mouth opens for him immediately, melting into him and releasing the grip you had on his dark locks in favor of grabbing the back of his neck, pulling him impossibly closer to you, needing to feel all of him while he explores your mouth.
Eventually, you break the dizzying kiss again, your senses catching up to you in between the desire fogging up the air. He lets out a sound suspiciously similar to a whine and leans his forehead against yours, barely moving a breath away from your lips. Resigned to hear what you have to say before being able to continue indulging in your enticing taste.
“We'll get caught if we stay here,” you whisper, lips brushing against his soft ones with every word.
You needed to keep your head leveled, wanting to avoid getting caught in such a risky position by any of the drunk party goers or, even worse, your High Lord. You don't even let yourself wonder what anyone would think if they found you tangled up with someone who is technically your superior, outside of a bar of all places. You'd both be in a lot of trouble.
“I won't let anyone see us,” he assures, and as the words leave his mouth, the dark shadows always accompanying him start swirling around the both of you, as if corroborating the statement. “I can keep us well hidden.” He finishes the sentence with a chaste peck on your lips and moves back to look into your eyes, searching for any doubts and waiting to see your response. Always so respectful even in the throes of pleasure.
You bite your lip, holding his gaze as you realize what he's implying. It's not that you would consider yourself a prude by any means but you've never done anything like this in public. Well, aside from the first night that started it at all, but the circumstances had been completely different then. Drunk fae could stumble out through the back door at any moment here, it could even be one of your friends or his. There was no anonymity in one of the most popular bars in Velaris. This might be the most irresponsible thing you'd do.
And, as much as that's true, you can't deny the heat spreading in your belly at the suggestion, the wetness pooling between your legs.
Azriel is looking at you like he could eat you whole, and you're more than aware of his abilities, of the delicious pleasure he can bring you. He wouldn't lie to you either, if he promised he'd keep you hidden then you know he will follow through with it. You'd trust him with anything.
Without the danger of really getting caught, what's stopping you from letting this irresistible male have his way with you right here? You'd be a fool to deny him and yourself the pleasure.
Your lips are back on his before you can talk yourself out of it, wrapping your arms fully around his neck and letting him take charge. He gets the message quickly, grabbing your waist and pressing you against him, letting you feel his bulge on your stomach, so close to where you need him most, making you both moan into the kiss.
Azriel has never been anything short of passionate when fucking you, always giving it his all and completely drowning you in mind boggling pleasure, but today he's acting differently. His rough touch is hungrier, greedier, as if he couldn't get enough of you no matter how much he took. It feels like he's untamed in his desire and it just so happens that he desires to have you.
His hands move all over your body, soon finding their way under your dress so he can grab at your thighs and pull you closer. You let yours wander down his chest, taking advantage of the mostly unbuttoned shirt, raking your nails softly over the tan skin.
When he abandons your mouth and starts leaving kisses down your jaw, moving to the slowly healing love bites, you notice the shadows have thoroughly covered you when you try to look around, suddenly aware of the loud music.
They're acting as a protective barrier to the outside world, the same way they hide him when he's in enemy territory fulfilling his Spymaster duties. Any last bit of remaining doubt evaporated with the realization. He's never been caught after all.
You let your head fall back against the brick wall, letting out a breath that soon turns into a moan when he bites into your throat hard at the same time his hand finds your folds, teasing the sensitive skin through the drenched fabric of your panties. Feeling him grin against your skin at the reaction he pulled from you.
“Always so ready for me,” he praises and then licks a stripe up your throat, tilting your head further back to reach your chin and connect your mouths once again. You accept him greedily, grinding down on his hand, needing him to touch you properly.
After all the attention he's been giving you and the thought of trying something new with the enticing male, your underwear is absolutely soaked through and you need him to take responsibility for it already. You feel like you'd been doused with hot oil.
Thankfully, he seems to take pity on you, pushing your panties to the side, moving up and down to gather some wetness before slowly starting to circle your clit in time with each lick of his tongue into your mouth.
He's swallowing the desperate sounds trying to escape past your lips and your nails start to dig into his shoulders, trying to ground yourself somehow. You'd be embarrassed at how close you already were if this wasn't Azriel. Each stroke of his scarred thumb against your sensitive clit was taking you higher.
He stops his movements as if sensing how close you were. You were about to protest when he also breaks the kiss, needing him to keep touching you, but hold your tongue when he pushes your dress up to your waist, exposing your soaked underwear to the cold night air. He curses softly as your scent reaches him.
“Keep this up for me, pretty.” His voice was deeper, rough with pleasure and restraint.
Your body catches up to the order before your mind has the chance to, doing as you're told and holding onto your dress so he can have an unobstructed view of you. He breathes out a “good” without ever taking his eyes off the wet fabric clinging to your folds, the praise and need in his eyes only adding fuel to the fire burning inside you.
Azriel gets down on his knees between your legs, now eye level with your cunt as he pulls the panties right to the side, his other hand reaching up, encouraging you to part your thighs so he can feast on the mouth watering sight in front of him.
You can't help the cocky smirk when he lets out a low groan at the sight. You had bought the white skimpy lace in hopes he'd be taking it off, you just couldn't have predicted it would be happening in a dark alley behind this bar.
He looks up at you then, holding your gaze as he leans closer to your heat, licking you from hole to clit, making a show of moaning at the taste. Your hands move to grab at his hair instantly, letting your mouth fall open in a silent moan as he repeats the action.
Your legs threaten to give out when he starts kissing and sucking, not wasting a single drop of your wetness. His thumb circles your hole as he moves to tongue at your clit, swirling it around once, twice before his finger is filling you up.
He throws one of your thighs over his shoulder, diving into your cunt. Soon adding another finger and pumping both into you, getting you ready for him. You start grinding your hips against his face, chasing his fingers, his mouth, the mind numbing feeling he's giving you. He hums into you, the vibrations making you tremble and let out an embarrassing mewl of his name.
You don't know how he can have this effect on you, this male could probably make you melt into a puddle with a simple look. He pulls away with a harsh suck so he can watch his fingers move in and out of you, can watch the wetness almost dripping down your legs and his wrist, replacing his tongue with a scarred thumb, the rough texture so different from his wet tongue, adding an extra bite to the pleasure.
You only notice your head was thrown back against the wall, eyes closed as you chase your orgasm, when you hear him call your name. Eyes moving down to meet his dark ones again.
“I need you to cum on my fingers so I can fuck you, alright?” You nod, half delirious already, even though he's barely gotten his hands on you. You'd do anything he told you to.
It doesn't take long before a familiar knot starts tightening in your lower belly, your walls clenching around his fingers. He starts nibbling at the soft skin of your thigh, leaving marks similar to the ones decorating your neck and chest. Mumbling sweet praises against your skin, words you can't even focus on with the blood rushing through your ears.
Your orgasm catches you by surprise, making you almost lose your balance as your eyes roll to the back of your head and your mouth opens in a silent scream, hands trying to find purchase on his shoulders and his hair, forgetting about the dress and holding onto his instead. His hand abandons your clit so he can grab onto your waist, helping you stay up.
He keeps his fingers moving slowly as you come down from your high, breathing heavily and letting out soft gasps. As your mind clears up, he leans over to leave one last kiss against your heat before taking his fingers out carefully and standing up. Grabbing your chin so he can kiss you once more, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.
You pull away with a tug on his lip. The orgasm only made you hungrier, you wanted to feel him inside you, stretching you out. “I need your cock, Az.”
“So greedy,” he moans, though you can't figure out if disapprovingly or otherwise. He moves one hand to start unbuttoning his pants so he can free his painful erection at last. You follow the movement, saliva gathering in your mouth involuntarily at the tantalizing sight of his hard, leaking cock. He pumps his fist around it, relieving some of the need. You swallow, moving up to meet his gaze when you feel the intensity of his stare.
He's probably thinking the same thing as you. Remembering how his heavy cock feels against your wet tongue, moving down your throat. You see him grab the base of his cock harder, internally debating if he wants to let you suck him off or fuck you. Your cunt clenches at the thought and apparently the sentiment is clear on your face, the desire written there enough for him to make his decision as he grabs onto the back of your thighs, lifting you up against the wall.
The movement has his cock press right against you, feeling the hardness slide across your sensitive heat. You grab hold of him, not resisting giving him one teasing stroke before guiding him to your hole, needing to have him inside you desperately.
Azriel starts pushing in slowly, stretching you out deliciously. It doesn't matter how many times he fucks you, it will always take you by surprise. You've never had anyone fill you up so well, it almost seemed impossible how he even fit inside you sometimes.
He takes his time filling you up, knowing your body well enough to recognize any twinge of discomfort. In this position, it feels like he can go in deeper, the angle hitting every sensitive spot.
When he finally bottoms out, Azriel presses his whole body against yours, holding you up with his own hips and moving one of his hands over your chest so he can tug the front of the dress down and give your neglected breasts some attention as you adjust to him.
You can feel your walls flutter around his cock, moaning out his name when his mouth finds its way over one of your nipples.
Feeling more than ready for him, you push your hips against him, urging him to finally fuck you. He chokes out a breath, taking a vengeful bite at your nipple, as you move yourself on him, pulling his hips back to thrust back into you, feeling you clench around him. His mouth abandons your chest and meets yours again, hands tightening around your waist as his thrusts' rhythm increases.
It's like all the hunger from before comes back tenfold, his grip most likely bruising your skin as the sounds of wet skin slapping against each other fills the alleyway, your moans rising in tempo with each snap of his hips.
Just as you start losing yourself in the pleasure, one of his hands comes up to cover your mouth. You still let out a muffled whine when he slows down to warn you, whispering in your ear, “The barrier the shadows create isn't completely soundproof. You need to be quiet for me.” You whine in response, making him add, “Alright?”
You almost forgot where you were, and that anyone could walk by you at any moment, but in the heat of desire, the fact only makes you wetter, hips moving of their own accord against him, prompting him to pick up the pace.
“You said we wouldn't get caught.” The last thing you want to focus on right now is to keep quiet when he's making you feel so good.
“We won't,” he moves back to look into your eyes, “Unless you want us to.”
Maybe it's the drinks from before or the way his cock throbs inside you, but you almost wish someone would see you, so they would know you're the one this bewitching male chooses to fuck, you're the one making him cum time and time again, it's your name he moans out in pleasure.
The possessive feeling coils around your heart, a feeling you have no right to have. You have no sort of claim over him after all, but luckily he doesn't let your linger in such thoughts, and starts fucking you hard and fast again, effectively pushing all thoughts out of your mind.
“Gods, you feel fucking perfect,” he growls against your ear, making you let out a long muffled moan. He draws his cock out almost completely before slamming back into you, just so he can hear the gasp that still escapes through his fingers, before picking up the pace again, keeping to shallow thrusts.
His hand moves from your mouth eventually, confident you won't scream too loud, or simply not caring if you do anymore. Both of you get lost in the feeling of each other, tongues battling inside your mouth, your hands roaming all over his shoulders, coming up to tangle in his silky hair. Time almost stands still around the two of you as you hide in his shadows, completely separated from the outside world.
You start getting closer, and knowing you won't be able to hold out for much longer but wanting him to finish with you, you move your trembling hand down his back, finding the raised skin where his wings meet his back and tease them over his shirt.
Illyrians are extremely protective of their wings and you know how sensitive they are, so when he let you touch them around their base for the first time, you were more than flattered even though you can't fully run your fingers over the leathery skin yet, and you're almost sure this isn't the most sensitive spot. You know this is a big step for him, considering all the trust issues you've seen him display, so you don't mind being patient.
Your fingers barely make contact before he's growling and his pace falters, nails digging into your skin. You'd caught him off guard, but he recovers too fast, pushing you even harder into the wall and speeding up, fully intent on making you both fall over the edge now.
“I'm so close,” you breathe out, feeling yourself right at the precipice.
“Me too,” his thrusts turn even more erratic, confirming his words. And with another snap of his hips, you're falling over the edge, moaning out his name with no care for who hears it.
He follows you soon after, thrusting deeper and grinding into you, pumping you full of his cum as the both of you ride out the mind numbing orgasms. You don't remember the last time you came so hard, every nerve on your body is alive with pleasure, if it hadn't been for his hold on you, you don't think you would have been able to stay up.
His lips find your pulse point after a bit, leaving soft kisses around as you massage his scalp, watching with amusement as his wings twitch softly. You would stay in this position for the rest of time if you could, everything just falls into place in these soft moments between you two.
Unfortunately, you get a stark reminder of your surroundings when you hear the back door open, the music filtering through it. You tense immediately, suddenly hyper aware of your compromising position. Azriel leans away from your neck to look into your eyes, his serene expression and the way his wings cocoon around both of you calming you down.
Just as he promised, whoever stumbled out of the bar didn't even suspect you were hidden in the shadows, walking out onto the main street as if they were alone. When you don't hear any footsteps anymore, you let your head fall back against the wall, finally relaxing and breathing a soft, “Fuck.”
He watches you for a moment before speaking up. “We need to get out of here. People are starting to leave,” he tells you, a glimpse of amusement behind his words.
You nod in agreement, knowing he's right but, even after your scare, still hesitant to let go of him, reveling in the warmth of his skin against yours and his soft touch for as long as possible.
The longer you've been sleeping together, the harder it is to accept that outside of the bedroom you're nothing more than acquaintances, you wouldn't even call him your friend. Aside from moments like this or the rare occasion of running into him when you're working, you don't see or talk to him at all.
You always find yourself missing him, not only his body. That's something you need to hide from him, the implications would be enough to have him call off this agreement between you. There is no space for feelings in it, both of you made it very clear from the beginning. You should do yourself a favor and end it before the fluttering of your heart morphs into something more dangerous but you can't bring yourself to even consider it.
He pulls out of you gently, none the wiser to the internal conflict raging inside you. Getting you down from his hold and carefully helping you stand on unsteady legs, muscles still spasming faintly. A rag appears through his shadows and he helps you clean yourself up with it before even worrying about himself, making sure your dress falls back into place as well. You were truly playing a losing game with him. How could you not fall for Azriel?
When you're both decent enough, he calls his shadows off and you put up a glamour around yourself, hopefully masking his male scent clinging to your skin.
“I need to find my friends and let them know I'm leaving.” You try to think of excuses, knowing they'll know you're running off with someone but praying they can't figure out who.
He nods at you, looking over your body with an indecipherable look in his eyes as he takes note of his marks disappearing. “I'll wait for you here.”
“What?”
“My family is used to me sneaking off in the middle of outings,” a smirk grows on his face as he adds, “And I'm not done with you quite yet.”
taglist: @tinymarklee
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kryptonitejelly · 2 months
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A flyboy!universe idea/drabble because of this scene. Set in flyboy, but can be read as a standalone - Jake Seresin x you ft. Seresin sibling squabbling.
This is just me clearing up and finishing off the one billion wips sitting in my drafts…. these are just moments tbh.
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Wish you were here.
Jake shoots off the text to you, telling you for what seems to be the hundredth time in that day that he wishes you were here. He sticks his phone back in his pocket, but not before taking a glance at his lock screen - a photo of you from a recent weekend where you both had gone to a flower market to pick up some blooms for home and Jake had managed to snap a candid photo of you bending down with your nose to a bouquet of fresh stalks.
“I’m sick of you moping,” Jake’s sister, Emma says as she comes into view, Layla in her arms. Jake opens his arms for his niece to which he gets an immediate response of her attempting to wriggle out of her own mother’s hold and into his. It makes Emma roll her eyes and Jake grin.
“We like Uncle Jake better don’t we,” he chuckles as the little girl secures her place in his arms and lets her head drop comfortable on his shoulder with a giggle.
“After all I’ve done for these kids,” Emma sighs dramatically in jest as she reaches out to tickle Layla’s stomach which makes her squirm in Jake’s hold.
“I’m not moping,” Jake says as Layla wriggles further into his hold, returning to Emma’s original topic of conversation, “I just miss my wife”
“Not your wife yet,” Emma corrects, but teasingly. Jake had taken to call you his wife as the wedding grew nearer - something he had easily, and happily, fallen into.
“Your wife,” Layla’s head pops up as she pats her Uncle Jake on the cheek the ruffles of her white poofy dress rustling as she moves her hand.
“That’s right princess, my wife,” says Jake as he grabs hold of Layla’s tiny arm, blowing a row of raspberry kisses into it.
It makes Layla giggle in excitement, her previous statements forgotten as she squirms in Jake’s arms.
“Has the wedding come and gone?” The sound of your voice makes Jake’s head whip up and you find yourself staring into stunned green eyes.
“Turns out the problem was easily solved,” you explain as you step forward, first hugging Emma hello before reaching out to allow Layla, who has her arms out and reaching to you, to find her way into your arms.
“You’re pretty,” she says in child-like awe as she pats your cheek gently.
“Not as beautiful as you,” you say with a gasp, doing a twirl together with Layla in your arms which earns you a child like shriek of excitement. You return to your original position, matching grins on yours and Layla’s faces only to find two pairs of similarly green eyes watching you both. Your eyes meet Jake’s and you take in the wide smile he has on his face. You pass Layla off to Emma who, reading her brother, has extended her arms to coax her daughter back into her hold.
“Surprise,” you say as Jake pulls you close to him, the front of your body flush against his, your heads pulled away just enough so that you could look at each other. Jake’s hand is resting in the small of your back.
“I would have come get you from the airport.”
“Missing the point of a surprise,” you tease, placing a palm on his chest, your hand meeting a the linen blend suit jacket he has on.
“Best kind of surprise,” Jake says before leaning forward to press a kiss to the side of your head, “but I’ll always prefer having you back earlier.”
His words make your smiler wider as you hear a pretend gag from Emma.
“You’re disgusting,” she says, as affectionately as a sister can, to Jake, her and Layla watching as Jake presses another kiss to the side of your head, before shifting you both to face the two of them with you now tucked into his side, his hand on massaging small circles into your waist.
“You’re disgusting,” is what Jake retorts in a way only a younger brother can, no matter the age.
“Are my grandchildren squabbling again,” the familiar voice of Grandma Doris sounds out as she comes sweeping into view. She’s met by two defiant sets of “yes-es” from Jake and Emma but ignores them for you instead, taking your hands as she pulls you in for an embrace, swatting Jake’s hold on you away in the process, “you look lovely my dear.”
“I was afraid it would be too simple,” you say, almost bashfully.
“Nonsense,” Grandma Doris waves a hand in the air, dismissing your concerns, “you look perfect.”
“You do,” Jake agrees, he lets his grandmother have you for a second more, but he reaches forward, gently tugging you back towards him by your waist.
“Won’t even let his Grandmother win,” is what she says to you with a smile on her lips despite the exasperated shake of her head that follows along as she releases her hold on you.
“He’s impossible,” you say with a chuckle, but only slightly bashful as Jake secures you back against his side.
“I’m not letting her go for the rest of the evening,” he informs the group matter of factly to which both Seresin women roll their eyes.
“I’m sorry you have to put up with him,” Emma says to you.
“No, we’re sorry,” Grandma Doris echos, as the two women shake their heads.
“I’m not sorry,” is all Jake supplies cheerily before planting another kiss on the side of your head.
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jolapeno · 2 years
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i'm with you
simon 'ghost' riley x fem!reader an: can be read as a standalone, but does nicely accompany 'keep you close'. alludes to 18+ content, more angst, feelings, and emotions. usual, jo shit. summary: he knows how he feels, he knows how she feels. yet he fucks it up all the same. word count: 3.7k
simon 'ghost' riley masterlist
It’s a shithole. 
The safe house is barely standing. It’s a teetering, broken mess which is almost blending with trees. 
“It’s a safe shit hole. We’ll get evac to you at sunlight.”
That’s all Price had said before silence met Ghost’s ears. His tone sympathetic, but stern. The reminder of his words when they left base still swirling around some distant space in his mind: Sort it, Simon. Or I will. 
Not that he had a fucking clue how to. 
The damage is seemingly already done. He’s aware it’s his fault. He’s aware he’s a being a fucking cunt and that he’s fucking things up. 
In his defence, he’s not entirely sure how to be anything but. 
He’s stoic and distant. It’s who he is. With or without the mask. 
He’s let few in, few past the many walls and layers he’s built over the years. It frightened him he’d wanted to tear them all down when he realised that she fit perfectly between the crook of his arm and chest. 
“I’ll scope it out,” Mouse says, walking away from him before he can protest. 
His eyes watch her form, running his tongue over the front of his teeth as he reminds himself to unclench his fists. He preferred her talking his ear off. He misses her telling him useless facts about nothing and anything. 
Fuck, he just misses her. 
He misses how it was before he made her sleep in his bed, before he handed her the fuckin’ scrunchie and kissed her. He misses how he didn’t feel conflicted before he’d felt how soft her thighs were, how delicious she tasted and how sinfully poetic her moaning his name was. 
“Sir.”
He’s thankful the mask is covering his fucking face as he smirks instantly. She likely knows it, just from the way she’s stood, all cocky like she’s got the fucking keys to the castle. But, as he reaches the door, he sees that same stern look—the one blended with ice and fire simultaneously, like a flamin’ tequila shot which’ll burn him from the inside out.
He’d suspected the safe house would be worse on the inside. 
As bad as he suspected it to be, he didn’t expect the electricity to be out. He didn’t expect the leak in the cupboard he supposed was a bedroom, and for it to be directly above the moth-infected mattress and poorly-made metal-frame bed.
Not that he’d sleep. 
He highly suspects she isn’t about to either. 
In another moment, he’s sure she’d be making light of the situation. Likely flirting, something she used to do more of before she was taken from him. When her heart was lighter, her fears never realised. 
I’ll let you be the big spoon, Simon. 
He conjures her voice with such ease he has to look around to check she hasn’t actually spoken. No. She’s still ignoring him, in her own personal hell-ish way, where she manages to both acknowledge and ignore him all at once. A skill he thought he was alone in mastering. 
He doesn’t comment when Mouse drags a chair to the door, hooking the back of it under the handle. He wants to comment that the chair will do fuck all to stop us being killed. That one measly push, and it's likely the whole fucking cabin will come down.
But, he doesn’t. 
Quickly suspecting the act makes her feel better. Noticing the slight tremble to her fingers, the way she keeps trying to busy herself, looking from window to window, door to ceiling. He tries not to look, to make things worse—not that he’s sure he can—however, the sound of her helmet unclipping makes his neck snap. Watching her ungloved fingers hook it onto the chair. Those same fingers that stroked his arm when she lay on his chest, the same ones he clutched between his when he knew her dreams had taken her. 
Then, all he saw was her back. 
Her frame looking smaller than she has done since the day in the med bay. 
He studies her a lot. More than he’ll ever admit.  
Whenever his eyes aren’t on what is needed, he allows them to find her. Seeking her out, like he is now. All eyes tracing her back, wondering if he can find the places he’d bruised when he filled her and stole her gasp. When he’d slowly rocked inside of her, gripping her sides as he pressed his forehead against hers. 
Then he sees it: the damn scrunchie. 
He both loathes it and misses it. 
Having wished he’d never returned it, even if it meant he gained the memory of her lips on his. When she’d been full of desperation and need, fingers so soft against his stubbly, rugged skin. 
The trade had been worth it, even if it had changed everything. 
Even if he’d awoken feeling lighter than he had in a long-time, almost content. He’d let his eyes roll over her features, capturing them all to mind until she’d stirred and he’d half-pretended to do the same. Knowing, deep down, the moment had to end—that things wouldn’t, and couldn’t, be the same. 
How could they be? His heart beat too quickly when she was around, his stomach almost bruised from how it fell to his feet whenever he thought she’d been hurt. He couldn’t control himself, barely think, barely functioned when she wasn’t in plain view. 
It would ruin something, a mission, a stakeout. Something.
Because she’d gotten under his skin. 
Mouse had scurried herself into another place she shouldn’t have, even if he’d been the one to let her in. Practically throw open the doors and be damned with the walls.   
When he thought about it, it made no sense. Not the feelings which simmered, bubbled and exploded within him, not the way everything seemed to brighten when her eyes landed on him. Not that fact that he had needed her to sleep, he had needed her to rest—not as her lieutenant, but as something else entirely. 
Now, she’s purposefully keeping her distance. Her hand rubbing her side, her foot kicking open cupboard doors, stepping back in case something which wasn’t welcome comes out. 
“You hurt?” 
Silence. But her body freezes, tenses. Slowly, in time, her head shakes, her eyes unwilling to look over her shoulder to him. Even if he’s pleading internally for her to do so. 
“Words, Mouse.” 
She huffs, shooting him a glare over her shoulder. “No, sir.” 
He expects it—the tone. Almost braced for it. 
Ghost doesn’t expect the pacing which follows, the way she switches from silently moving around the cabin to needing to move more purposefully. 
Three steps forward, three back. 
++
Once he’d been sure no one had followed, he began the fire. 
He found blankets, not bad ones, considering the rest of the place. 
There even more important since the warmth from the flames barely touches all of the corners of the room, his back against the dusty armchair he refuses to sit in as he watches her continue to pace.
She had paused for a brief moment, having searched the decrepit kitchen until she found beans, handing him a can and a half-rusting fork and began pacing once again. Her teeth nip at her bottom lip, her eyes unfocused on anything but where she moves them for a step. 
He’s not sure what it means.
Half-wishing Johnny was here to translate. He understands her, has been let in too. Not in the same way—never in the fucking same way. But, he’d be able to answer, even tell him the reasons she chose shapes over lines.
Occasionally, she stabs her beans with the fork—the only other sound than the cracking of the fire and her boots. 
He won’t admit it, but he likes the sounds of her boots on the safe house floor. How it echoes through the shit wooden walls and across the shit wooden floor. It’s as close to communicating with him as she’s gotten since the team had split up, and she’d no longer felt it necessary to respond through radio. He’d have been content to listen to it for longer, but watching her in the corner of his eyes was beginning to make him dizzy. 
“Mouse. Sit down.” 
Mouse pauses, not lifting her eyes. Seemingly thinking, deciding. Knowing her, she’s weighing up whether it’s worth ignoring his demand or not. Eventually, moving to the fire, sitting down, glaring into her own tin can. 
And it’s tense. 
Her silent treatment is more palpable now she’s sat in front of him, all red-nosed and anger-filled eyes.
“You cold?” 
“No.” 
He lowers his chin, purposefully ensuring his voice isn’t as sharp, as bruttish as it has been. “Mouse. Are you cold?” 
The look she gives him wounds him. It’s all pitiful, pleading and mixed with tight lips. One which screams for him to let it go. 
It’s worsened by the fact he can tell she’s holding back everything inside of her, not wanting a single shiver to show, a whimper or displeased groan at how she couldn’t warm herself. 
“Yes, Simon. I’m fucking cold.” 
Something both curls and unfurls in him at once at the sound of his name. 
The way she spits his name stains the air, making it buzz around him. It punctures and breathes life into the tension, making it double, triple. It’s stifling, mixing with burning wood and damp as he grits his jaw. 
“Come here.” 
“So you can avoid me again?” 
There it is. 
Her words were even accompanied by his least favourite expression: the angered glare.
“I said—“
She groans, loud, purposeful. Slightly edging forward along the dusty floor, shooting him a glare which he supposes should mean “happy, now?”—but he’s not fucking happy, not even close to it. 
He weighs up his options, considering both the fallout and the payoff before he grabs her ankle and pulls. He’s surprised at the lack of resistance, her body sliding with ease across the short distance until she is closer, almost entirely between his legs. 
“Fuck sake…” she whispers, deep under her breath.
Rolling her head on her neck, letting her eyes land on the fire and her grip remain iron-like on the can. 
“You gonna ignore me all night?” 
“Yes.” 
He rolls his eyes, placing the can down on the floor as he stares at the fire too. He watches them dance, the flames. Almost losing himself in it before he hears her can be placed down too. 
Heavier, more filled than his.
A swirl of worry rose in him, wrapping itself around important organs and sensibility as she let her face turn, letting him see her. 
“I hate beans.” 
“Course you do,” he replies, studying her. 
He lets his eyes fall over her, from her bent knees to her face, back down to her boots pressed against the floor. 
If he could, he’d leave this place and find her something. Bring her back greasy food, and a milkshake. Hell, he’d even find her a plate of curry and rice from that place she always talks about near her home. 
Not realising until now his hand is still on her ankle, something she’s too becoming aware of as she wiggles it—attempting to free herself from him.
“Why are you doing this?” Why did you let me in, to freeze me out, Simon. 
The words, both said and unsaid, dance to him, all broken and sad as soon as they leave her lips.
I don’t know. 
That’s the honest answer. He’s not sure why he let her leave that morning without explaining what he was thinking. He’s not sure why he just stared when she asked him a question—a simple, normal fucking question. Ghost isn’t even about a lot right now, other than he misses her.
And she must sense it, the shift. 
She must understand him, and see his thoughts all of a sudden as if they were being painted onto the walls. 
Because truthfully, he feels better when she’s close and feels almost whole. He could almost let himself imagine watching mundane television with her, doing a food shop at a supermarket with too many choices. He can also imagine ruining her over and over again. Desperately needing her fingers to snake through his hair as he takes her apart with just his tongue. Never wanting another mouth to wrap around his cock ever again, finding her the most terrifyingly intoxicating thing he’s ever met in his entire life. 
Her arms push her up, quickly distancing herself from him. 
“Mouse…” 
Shaking her head, taking strides to the pathetic kitchen as his chest tightens, knowing he should move; it feels harder to breathe as he watches her, especially when she leans over the poorly made counter—back to him.
Don’t leave. 
Don’t leave me. 
The same words which he thought of when she’d fallen asleep against him, her ear close to his heart. Not wanting her, and yet wanting every single part of her all at once in some confusing turn of events.
Because he’d never banked on her agreeing to come back with him. 
Not even just to sleep. 
He’d not planned or expected to hand her the scrunchie, and her kiss him. He hadn’t banked on it being the key to unlocking everything he’s been carefully stuffing down inside of him, desperately trying to lock it all away so he doesn’t ruin things, so he doesn’t change things. 
She turns, all so suddenly. 
Again, as though hearing him, and the look she gives him—fuck, it would have floored him if he wasn’t already sat down. It knocks the wind from his sails, the cockiness from his confidence. He almost feels stripped back, no mask, no uniform. 
And, it commands him to stand up. 
An order that he gladly answers as her eyes scream, now or never, Simon. Last fucking chance.
He stands, striding, closing the gap in half the steps it had taken her—stopping just short of her. Allowing her one more moment to glare at him, to inject her eyes into his skin, to feel anger, to feel hate towards him before he makes sure he takes every last bit of it away. 
If she was brave enough to ask, he’d tell her his favourite part of her is her eyes. 
Not the thighs she thinks he adores, not the smile he finds lights a room. 
Right now, he’s got a front-row seat to watching them thaw. Slowly, bit by bit, waiting until the right time before he swallows, hand hovering over her jaw. 
It’s hard not to struggle for breath when he stares into them when he loses himself in the shades that make up her eyes. The thousands of mini-expressions they show, let him in, just enough to read her. 
He half wishes the wind was howling or the house creeks. Because Mouse doesn’t speak, the silence is so thick he’s adamant she can hear how quickly his heart is beating. As though she thinks the entire moment is fragile, and at risk of shattering. 
Ghost knows why that is. He let her think that.
He’d let it be that way. 
He’d acted coldly, filling her mind with thoughts of him regretting it. But he didn’t. If anything, he felt as though he’d been resuscitated, while not knowing he’d been dead. That in one night she’d ruined him, and all she did was count sheep. 
“Lift my mask.” 
His words leave his lips softly, less gruff than he’s used to speaking. He’s sure it’s the reason she holds his stare for a beat, likely focusing on every expression dancing in his eyes. 
Mouse had told him, in her half-lucid, sleep-filled way, he said more with his eyes than he thought. Those words had swirled around his mind all night and ever since. Always wondering if they’re doing it, just like he is right now. 
He hopes they are. Hopes she can see how much he needs her to lift the mask, how much he needs her to do so he knows he can kiss her. Because words are not his strength, but action is. 
How can he make her forgive him if he can’t kiss his apologies into her lips, into her skin? He’d get onto his knees for her, if needed, but he needs her to lift his mask first. Silently commanding her to do so as her hands slightly shake, moving tentatively to the fabric at his neck. 
But she does lift it. 
Fingers lightly pulling it free from his neck, the fabric pulling at the tiny hairs and over his stubble. A cold finger and thumb slide either side, brushing his skin, leaving scorch marks he hopes burn forever as he watches her eyes.
Showing her he’s okay with it, all of it. If he could get the words out, he’d tell her as much. That the first day when she didn’t cower from him, when she stared him straight in the eyes, nodded and called him sir, he’d been fucked. When she was taken, stolen from him, he’d almost lost it—a gnawing inside of him which only stifled when he knew she was back safe. 
He doesn’t think she’ll ever understand the effect on him, likely never believing him.
The cold, six-foot-something soldier who has more hidden and confidential in his file than information has fallen. 
Fallen so far he doesn’t care he’s without any means of being saved, if she decides to not catch him. 
She’d never understand it, the effect she had on him. Likely suspecting he’s not capable of it, just because he’s silent, because he’s practical. But he feels, just not on the surface. And sometimes, that’s a bigger burden to carry. 
Nails drag over his stubble, the fabric lifting, rolling over the hair at the back of his neck. It almost makes him shudder—catching the scent of the sweat on her body mixing with her shampoo. A scent he can’t rid from his pillow, not that he wants to. 
It’s only as the mask clears his nostrils does he realise how much he loathes this place, hates the smell of it and the sight of it. But it’s a small blessing. A quietness in the middle of nothingness where this moment can exist. 
And then her fingers stop, letting the mask sit just above the base of his nose, resting on the bridge. 
“Lift the mask.”
She swallows. Her eyes flicking down before meeting his, sliding it up the last bit—freeing the skin around his eyes and his forehead. The cool air dancing over perspiration. 
It’s intimate, so much so that he’s not sure if Mouse knows she’s holding her breath as he cups her jaw and cheek. He makes his touch feathery, and gentle. Soft and slow as he slowly tilts her head up, watching her eyes focus on him as she allows her arms to fall back to her sides. It’s cautious all of it. Not his or her usual quick, determined, and efficient movements. 
He wonders if Mouse can tell his cheeks are on fire, whether she knows his stomach is doing flips as he strokes her cheek. 
And then she sighs. “It’s because you’re my lieutenant.”
His mind silences.
Empties. 
Her eyebrows rise, waiting before she smirks. “Words, sir.”
“Yes.” 
Because he is her lieutenant. Her superior. 
It’s fraternisation. Prohibited. Even if Price isn’t fucking bothered, even if Soap told him to find her. Some part of him knows it's more than wrong—knows it can put her at risk, from others, from higher-ups… from enemies. 
And then he feels it. 
Her catching him.
Small hands on his waist, holding him tightly. His free hand moving up to the back of her head, fingers sliding over her neck, up her hair, before he pulls, feeling bobbled silk-covered ghosts. 
“Mouse…” 
She stiffens as if waiting for him to move, but he doesn’t. Not this time. Not now.
Even if he should. Even if it would make sense too. 
Instead, his lips descend until they find hers gently, almost experimentally—fearful she’ll pull away. 
She doesn’t. 
Instead, holding him more firmly, more determined at his waist. He feels her pull, tug at him to move closer, as his tongue presses against her lips before things turn more desperate, hungry, and needy. 
She makes the blood rush through his veins and silences his heartbeat from his ears. That’s when his apologies really begin—when they begin searing themselves against her lips, then her jaw, and then her neck. 
His hand clutches the scrunchie to her lower spine, keeping her flush to him, showing in all the ways he can that this is what he wants. Not distance, not space or avoidance—as much as his behaviour has said otherwise. 
Ghost slides his hand down and around her thighs until he lifts her onto the counter—the one which groans at the intrusion of someone who dares use it for something other than letting it sit there—nudging her thighs apart, sliding as comfortably as he can between them as he grips her waist, feels her skin on his. 
He doesn’t mind that their lips part, her breaths mingling with his. He gets to watch her eyes, all wild and full of something he can’t describe.
He lets her hand brush over his cheek, smudging the black from around his eyes into her nails, and he whispers her name—so careful with it, like it’s something he could break. 
“Do that ever again—” Don’t ever hurt me. 
“Never.” I couldn’t. I’m sorry.
She waits for a beat, before nodding. 
He wants to lift her, move her somewhere more comfortable, although he’s not sure where that’ll be. The floor is their best bet, he could pull her flush against him all night, turn her legs to jelly, and let his palm slide down her stomach until she’s gasping his name and he feels how slick she is on his fingers. 
“No. Not here. I'm worried the walls'll come down.”
Rolling his eyes, he snorts, burying his head into her neck, silently agreeing.
His fingers drawing soft circles on her waist, not sure how to tell her he's happy with this. He's just wanted this. To hold her. Breathe her in and have the chance to explain.
“Simon…”
He pauses, both his hand and his thoughts. Lifting his head, sliding a hand over her cheek, feeling her curl into, just like she did in his bed. 
“...I feel the same…”
Good. That's good.
"So... don't let me fall. don't let this continue, if you're not going to catch me. If you're going to leave. If you'll ignore me—"
"Stop."
It's sharp, leaving his tongue gruffer than he'd hoped.
The words, the ones he wants to say sitting on the tip, sat right at the edge of his lips, unwilling to fall through into the air. So, his lips answer her in the only way he knows how. Not sure how else to show her he'd catch her. He'd catch her every single fucking time.
Always.
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mandos-mind-trick · 11 months
Text
Kinktober Day 17 - Fivesome
Summary: You’re there for their pleasure. Who’s to say it’s not pleasurable for you too? 
Pairing: Bad Batch x reader (no clonecest)
Warnings: NSFW, 18+, unprotected sex, group sex, blowjobs, bondage, brief degradation, no foreplay, creampies galore, sloppy seconds, and thirds, and fourths, pre-Echo, reader is a sort of barrack bunny for CF99, light aftercare. 
A/N: This is a sequel to A Lesson In Obedience, though it can be read as a standalone.
MASTERLIST
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Your eyes widen as the door slides open, but you’re unable to do anything but stare. Even Crosshair pauses, hand tangled in your hair. His cock is pressing against the back of your tongue, drool sliding down your chin from being forced open for so long. You hold your breath in an attempt not to gag, hands grasping Crosshair’s thigh plates as you kneel in front of him. Your breasts are on full display, your shirt gone and your breastband down around your waist. 
“Got started without us?” Wrecker complains, stepping down into the barracks.
“She started it.” Crosshair says, pulling you off his cock. You take a deep breath in, filling your lungs. “Could hardly keep her off me.” 
Crosshair lets go of your hair as Hunter grips your jaw, forcing your mouth open. “I don’t doubt that.” He says, stuffing two of his fingers into your mouth. His gloves taste like metal and blaster residue. “Needy little thing.” 
You close your lips around Hunter’s fingers, swirling your tongue around the digits. 
“What do you think?” He asks, turning to Tech. 
Tech looks up from his datapad, watching you suck on Hunter’s fingers. “Plan 33 would suit best in this situation.” 
You pause again, looking up between Hunter and Tech. 
“I like Plan 33.” Wrecker says. 
“You like every plan.” Crosshair says. 
“Plan 33 it is.” Hunter says, pulling his fingers free of your mouth. He lifts you up off your knees, turning you and bending you over the table. 
Tech is already there waiting, grabbing your wrists with one hand and tugging them towards the other side of the table, forcing you flat against it. He makes quick work with the rope, securing your wrists together before securing it under the table, keeping your arms outstretched. He slips a finger under the rope around your wrists, ensuring it’s not too tight before disappearing behind you. 
The cool air of the barracks hits your damp pussy as your pants are tugged off and tossed somewhere off to the side. Hands grip your ass cheeks, pulling them apart to reveal your slick folds to the room. 
“Already so wet and we haven’t even touched you yet.” Hunter says. “Our little whore.” 
You let out a quiet whimper, shifting on your feet at the sound of codpieces hitting the floor. 
“You’ve been a good girl lately.” Hunter says, dragging his fingers through your folds. “You can choose who goes first.” 
You rest your cheek against the cool table, thinking. Wrecker is an immediate no. You’ve taken him first before, and though it’s bearable, you’d prefer some prep first. Crosshair would finish the fastest since you had already worked him up, but he’s the roughest. Hunter is your usual first choice in these situations. 
“Tech.” You say, tugging lightly at the ropes. “I want Tech first.” 
It’s quiet as bodies shift behind you. Long fingers grip your ass, thumbs pulling your lips apart. It’s Tech alright, you can tell by his touch. You could tell them apart with your eyes closed, by touch or by dick, hell even by lips. 
The head of a cock drags through your pussy, gathering some of your wetness. You let out a quiet sound, body tingling in anticipation. You’ve been wet since Crosshair glanced your way, knowing what was coming. You had arrived not long ago, and had yet to celebrate your brief shore leave and another set of successful missions. 
Your pussy burns a bit as Tech presses his cock into you, your body fighting the intrusion after getting no warm up, not even a finger. You breathe deeply, relaxing your body as he presses into your tight hole. His hands hold your hips, steadying you and himself as he sinks further into you, your body slowly opening to him. 
He begins slowly rocking his hips, sinking his cock completely into you. Small moans leave your lips as he uses you, his grip tight on your hips. You can do nothing but lay there as he fucks you, taking what he wants from your body. The position offers you no relief, your hips just far enough from the table you can’t even get any pressure against your clit as Tech thrusts into you. 
They did that on purpose. 
The sound of his hips smacking against your ass is loud as he fucks you, his groans mixing with your moans like some symphony of pleasure. You squeeze around him, doing what little you can to help him along, and to also attempt to get yourself off. This isn’t about your pleasure, you know that. You’ll cum when they want you to. Anything other than that is a bonus for you. 
Tech cums with a groan as you squeeze tight around him, spurting his release inside you. You groan at the feeling of his cock twitching inside you, tugging at your restraints but there’s no give to them. 
Tech pulls out of you, stepping back. The others groan as his release begins to drip from your pussy, the warm seed sliding down your slit. 
“Who’s next?” Crosshair asks. 
“Hunter.” You say, shifting on your feet to try and alleviate the ache starting to blossom in your stomach where the edge of the table digs in. 
You go still as the head of a cock drags through your messy folds, brushing over your neglected clit. Your eyes roll back as he sinks into you, still a stretch even after taking Tech’s cock. Hunter slides a hand down your back, fingers trailing your spine. Goosebumps form on your skin as he grips the back of your neck, bracing his other hand on the table at your side. 
He draws his hips back just slightly before snapping them back against yours. You let out a yelp at the force of it, rougher than he usually is. He snaps his hips against yours repeatedly, your body jerking against the table with every movement. Your eyes roll back as he hits that spot deep within you with every thrust, your pussy clenching tight around him. 
Your first orgasm hits you like a ton of bricks, a high pitched cry leaving your lips as you spasm around him. Hunter groans as he spills into you, his own orgasm washing over him. You moan at the sensation of being filled again, pussy clenching as he pulls himself free of you. The spasms from the aftershock of your orgasm forces his cum out of you, mixing it with Tech’s. 
“Crosshair.” You gasp, pussy clenching in an attempt to hold it in. 
You yelp as a hand smacks against your ass cheek, the sound cracking through the room. That’s going to hurt later. Crosshair maneuvers your body, propping one leg up on the table, spreading you open further for him. It forces you up onto your toes on the other leg, muscles already trembling. 
He wastes no time slipping into you, pushing himself in to the hilt. You let out a groan, hands tugging at the restraints but they don’t give. His hands fall to your hips, gripping them so tightly you’ll likely have bruises there tomorrow. He sets a brutal pace, picking up where Hunter left off. His thrusts are short and sharp, forcing your body against the table as he uses you. 
Despite his roughness you can already feel another orgasm building, the new angle allowing your clit to press against the edge of the table with every thrust. You shake as you get closer and closer to the edge, drawing him closer with every spasm of your walls. He was already worked up, his cock twitching inside you as he chases the high he was denied thanks to the arrival of the others. 
He cums with a groan, hands squeezing your sides almost painfully as he spills into you. You tremble, close to your own orgasm but you’re denied it as he stops moving, yanking himself free as soon as he’s spent. 
You gulp in anticipation, pussy throbbing as you wait for the inevitable. You’re well prepared, slick from your own juices and the releases of the others. You’ve been stretched open at least a little, prepared as much as you can be in this situation. 
A big hand lowers your leg back onto the floor, taking the stress off the other. You’re still shaking and sore, but nowhere near where you’ll be once he’s finished. His fingers drag through your folds, collecting the cum seeping out of you before pressing it back into your pussy. You moan as his fingers stretch you open, pussy clenching around them in anticipation. 
His hand is gentle on your back as he pulls his fingers free, the wide head of his cock pressing against your hole. You relax your body, breathing deeply as he presses inside, stretching you open. It still burns, even after taking three cocks before him. 
Wrecker pushes his way into your pussy, forcing your body to stretch to accommodate his large size. You’re whining and moaning by the time he’s seated inside you, pussy already fluttering around him. He reaches so deep inside you, hitting every spot on the way. Your hands clench into fists as he rocks into you, movements slow and shallow as he fights your body’s attempts to clench around him. 
You’re sweating, face sticking to the table as Wrecker fucks you, wrists getting sore from being held in such an awkward position for so long. You won’t last much longer, and you know Wrecker won’t either. He’s usually the fastest to cum, be it from your tight pussy or just from any stimulation. 
His grip is gentle on you, always afraid of hurting you. He could crush your bones easily, but he holds you so delicately, even as he practically spears you open on his cock. 
There’s no helping that. 
You let out a high pitched cry as your orgasm suddenly hits you like a speeder, your legs shaking as you spasm around him. Wrecker groans, loud and deep, thrown into his own orgasm thanks to yours. He cums inside you, adding to the mess leaking out around his cock. You feel messy, full of their cum and coated in sweat. 
You wouldn’t have it any other way. 
Tech is suddenly there, releasing your wrists with a couple tugs of rope. Wrecker catches you from sliding off the table, lifting you into his arms easily. You’re shaking and trembling and leaking cum still as he holds you. 
“Good girl.” Hunter says, stroking your damp hair from your forehead. “Always so good for us. How about a shower, huh? That sound good.” 
You nod, a smile tugging at your lips. They never fail to take care of you, even after using you for their pleasure. 
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