#it's like the world- for a short time- shrinks down to just be me and nothing else matters in the world except for me and my sleep

[celepeace]

I don't feel genuinely violent very often but the sound of landscaping tools in the morning activates something in me like a sleeper agent

[heavysighing-dreamyeyes]

The Benefits

18+, Minors, ageless, and blank blogs DNI. Best friends with benefits smut written with AFAB reader in mind. ~2.9k words

Being best friends with Jason Todd has its privileges. He'll pick up whatever you're running out of in the fridge on his way back from patrol. He'll let you borrow his jacket when it gets cold. He'll scare off anyone who even looks at you funny without saying a word, and half the time, you don't even realize he's doing it until the moment passes.

Jason Todd is safe to you, a solid, unyielding presence in your life that you wouldn't trade for the world. That's why the last two weeks have been the most confusing, head-spinning, thrilling days of your life.

It all started around midnight, Thursday night. Jason was on patrol, and you had an itch. It was only natural, human even, for you to reach for the toy tucked away in your drawer.

It's practiced, the way you push your sleep shorts and underwear to your ankles. It's experienced, the way you guide the toy to your clit and cycle through the vibrations till you find the perfect one.

You pull your shirt up, bite the hem and muffle your moans. It's so good, so delicious and satisfying when your clit starts to throb that you don't hear the window open, don't even register the sound of boots hitting the floor.

You do hear the breathless, almost non-existent, "Fuck," that leaves Red Hoods mouth.

You gasp, dropping the toy in a panic. You're mortified, heat spreading across your face as you scramble to cover yourself and turn off the vibrations at the same time, "Jason," You squeak out, eyes darting frantically from him to the sheets.

He doesn't move for a moment, and all you can think about as you pull the blankets up to your chest, is how you're going to be able to look him in the eye again.

He steps towards you, and you shrink back a little, unable to read the expression on his face through the mask.

"Do you want me to help," he asks, voice even and calm through the modulator like he didn't just climb through your window while you were about to come.

"I– what," You stutter out, fingers curling into the blanket. That's not the reaction you were expecting at all.

He tugs off his mask and your breath hitches at how wide his pupils are blown, "You can say no. We can pretend this never happened. Or, you can say yes and I'll take care of you."

"But wouldn't this ruin–" You start, clutching the comforter to your chest.

"It won't. We wouldn't let that happen, right?" He soothes, and any inhibitions you're having are quickly fading as he moves closer to the edge of your bed.

You nod a little, and he grins at you. It almost looks out of place when he's dressed head to toe in armor, but it's so undeniably him, "So, you'll let me help you?"

"Yes," You breathe out, eyes locked on his. You don't think you could deny him right now, not when the thought of doing anything like this with him has you rubbing your thighs together. Not when it's his eyes you think of as you draw circles between your thighs.

"Gonna need you to drop the blanket then, doll," he drawls, and you hesitantly do.

Nothing could have prepared you for how fast he moves when you finally do. His hands are grabbing at your thighs in an instant, dragging you to the edge of the bed as he drops to his knees.

He barely lets you get settled in the new position before he's licking at the inside of your thighs, nipping and biting and sucking at the skin.

It's lewd, the feeling of his gloves drawing your thighs over his shoulders. It's dirty, the way he doesn't hesitate to tighten his grip on your legs to hold your thighs apart. It pulls a whimper from your throat before you can choke it down.

Jason laughs fondly at your whine and embarrassed appearance, the sound reverberating across your skin, "You're okay, sweetheart. I got you."

His mouth finally makes its way to your core and his tongue dips out to press against your folds, spreading you open and gathering your wetness onto his tongue.

You groan out his name, fingers curling into his hair, half an attempt to pull his head back, and half to encourage him to keep going.

Tugging his hair only entices him to nudge your clit with his nose. His eyes flutter closed at the taste of you, and he starts to lap at your cunt with more enthusiasm. “So sweet,” He murmurs under his breath, a sound barely heard over your own flustered whines.

You gasp when his tongue starts to prod at your entrance, slowly delving into you, the motion slick and easy with you dripping down his chin. His eyes close at the sensation, moaning into you as if devouring you is his favorite thing in the world.

It's earth shattering, mind blowing and completely unfair at how quickly he's turned you into a mess. You can't even form a full thought, completely focused on the pleasure building in your gut. It's overwhelming, and it makes you instinctively try to press your thighs together.

Jason just lets out a satisfied groan when your legs squeeze around his head. He presses his hands more firmly into your thighs to keep them open as he licks a broad stripe to your core.

He gives another groan against you, as his tongue slips back inside you to get another taste, drinking you down greedily like you’re his own personal dessert.

It makes you choke out his name in desperate sobs, squirming against the sheets as he flicks his tongue.

Jason doesn’t slow down as you chant his name, more interested in finding out which way he swirls his tongue will get your voice to pitch again. His tongue slips out of your core to drag through your folds, gathering up your fluids before he pushes it back into you again. The motion is wet and loud and he only pulls back so he can admire the blissed out look on your face.

You can only imagine you're a mess, but that hardly matters when he's a mess, too. Drool and slick dripping down his chin, hair sticking in every direction as he pants.

You think you should say something, but then he winks and suddenly shoves his face into your core, licking a long stripe against you.

The sound he makes is almost a moan, like he’s never tasted anything better in his entire life. He doubles his efforts, his tongue licking and his lips sucking your clit, desperate to feel you unravel just from the things he’s doing to you.

He purrs against you, when you cry out his name and he sucks hard, wanting you to come undone against his mouth and tongue.

You want to warn him, really, you try to tug his hair and stutter out that he's making you feel so good and you're going to cum. His thumb rubs back and forth over your thigh and for some reason, that soft movement is what sends you spiraling over the edge.

You soak his face, scream his name for everyone to hear, and arch back against the sheets.

He groans against you, the sound muffled as you suddenly fall apart against him. His tongue keeps moving, almost desperately, trying to get every drop of you that he can.

He only pulls back a few moments later, wiping at his chin with the back of his hand. His eyes are blown as he looks up at you from where he’s still kneeled at the edge of your bed. His hair is mussed from how you’d been gripping it, but he doesn’t seem bothered as his eyes rake over your face, a satisfied smirk on his lips as he sees how dazed you are.

He stays on his knees for a few more moments, breathing heavy, before suddenly pushing himself up. He's watching you intently, looking absolutely proud to see your hazy eyes and parted lips.

He tugs off his gloves, dropping them unceremoniously to the ground before cupping your face, "Good?"

You laugh a little. Good? Good doesn't even cover it. You push up to your elbows, "I– yeah. That was good."

"Wanna join me in the shower," he asks gently, eyes trailing over your face as he traces jaw, "Get cleaned up?"

He doesn't need to ask you twice. You absolutely do.

Two weeks pass, and the lines set between you blur more and more. Being best friends with Jason Todd starts to come with benefits, something you never even dreamed would happen.

His hand slips below your shirt in public, caressing your hips while you wait in line at your favorite shop. Movie nights lead to making out on the couch. Cooking dinner gets sidetracked when Jason comes up behind you, nipping at the skin where your shoulder meets your neck.

It's intoxicating, and any feelings you were stuffing down for him before are front and center every time he tilts your head up so he can kiss you deeper. You do your best to grapple with the growing feeling of love attraction towards your best friend. It's just a perk. It's not more than that.

That idea comes tumbling to a halt when Duke Thomas plops down next to you on Jason's couch. He's stopped by to collect some evidence for whatever case that he and Jason are working together, and he catches you completely off guard when he starts to talk, "Congrats, by the way."

You tilt your head at him, confusion clear in your voice, "Congrats? For what?"

He has enough awareness to look sheepish, "For getting with Jason. The, uh, dating part, I mean. I know you guys are keeping it between the two of you for now, but it wasn't hard to pick up."

"What," You deadpan. You and Jason. Dating? That is news to you, and more than likely, a misunderstanding.

Duke grins at you, "It's kinda hard to keep secrets in a family of detectives. And he's been happier, you know?"

You did know that. He's been smiling more, excitable, almost bouncy, and he's been holding your hand a lot more. Wait. Do you have a boyfriend?

Duke takes your silence as permission to keep going, "I don't think anyone else picked up on it yet, though."

"Did he say something about us," You prompt carefully, and you hope you do a good job of keeping your voice steady.

Duke doesn't get to answer, when Jason walks back into the room with a case file. You don't manage to ask Duke again before he leaves, and you're left wondering if there's more happening between you and Jason then you realized.

You know you should ask, that it should be easy to ask. But it's not easy, and a week later, you're trying to figure out if you need to buy a one month anniversary gift.

Ever since Duke's visit, you've been reading into everything Jason does, trying to pick apart any sign and every action. He still calls you 'doll', that's normal.

But, he kisses you randomly, even if you're not hooking up, like he's doing it just to kiss you. That's not really normal. But it could be. Maybe. You're not exactly sure how a normal friends with benefits situation works.

Jason's your best friend, and you love adore need care for him more than anyone. He's also supposed to be arriving any second now, and you still haven't managed to figure anything out. Yeah, maybe you picked up a nicer bottle of wine than normal, and yeah, maybe you're not against the idea of dating him.

But the fear that it's just a misunderstanding weighs heavy. You're debating if flipping a coin is too tacky, when you hear Jason's key in the lock.

He's already grinning at you as he opens your door, "Hey," he murmurs, crossing the apartment to get to you.

You barely get to respond before his hands are on your ass, lifting you up to spin you around before placing you back down gently and ducking his head to kiss you, "I missed you."

"I– me too, missed you too," you mumble out as Jason dips down to kiss you again. Before he could pull you back into his arms, you squirm out of his grip, "Do you wanna pour the wine?"

He groans, grumpy at the loss of you in his arms, "Yeah, yeah." He shuffles towards the fridge, and shoots you a look like he's already missing the sensation of you in his arms.

You think you look calm as you grab the glasses from the cabinet. Your head only spins a little when, as Jason pours the wine into the glasses, he presses a kiss to the side of your head.

You follow him quietly to the couch, taking a long sip of your wine as you work up the courage to talk. 'Are we dating' sounds stupid. 'Are we celebrating our one month' sounds presumptuous.

Jason flops down against the couch, setting his glass down before and pulling you with him. It's familiar now, how easily he maneuvers you to straddle his lap. He presses a kiss to your shoulder, "You look nice."

"I haven't done anything different," You protest, setting your own glass down as he starts to trace patterns along your sides.

He hums thoughtfully, and presses another kiss to your jaw, "You always look nice."

You make a face at him, doubtful. But still nice of him to say. You set your hands on his shoulders as he guides you to sit in his lap. He's always been touchy, that's normal. But this, the kisses and the grabbing and the sex, still feels new.

"You're insatiable," You say instead and he nips hard enough at your throat to make you squeak.

Jason's hand slips down your back to slide under the waistband of your shorts. He leans back a little to see you clearly, "Insatiable? Probably. But all it takes is a few strokes of my finger and you're already needy. Do you have any idea how cute you look when your breath catches like that? When all you can do is whimper and grind into my hand?"

You nearly choke over his words, warmth spreading across your body, "Jason!"

He grins slyly at you, kneading the bare flesh of your backside, "What's the matter? Can't handle a little teasing from your boyfriend?"

Honestly, you should have been prepared for it. But you blank in the moment, "My boyfriend?"

He raises an eyebrow at you, hands going still against your skin, "Yes? Would you rather call me something else?"

You force a laugh, it only makes him look concerned. Okay. Abort. You have a boyfriend, and you've dug yourself a hole by not knowing about it. What's the best way to fix this? A distraction.

"Oh, no," You answer quickly, tangling your fingers into the hair at his nape, "I don't mind boyfriend."

He doesn't look like he believes you at all. He starts to talk, and you take the chance to kiss him, taking his bottom lip between your teeth and sucking, something that always makes him shiver.

It works for about a minute before he's pulling away, studying you intently, "You didn't think we were together."

You wince, it's unfair how nothing gets past him, "Well, no. Yes. I wasn't sure."

He frowns, "You weren't sure if we were dating after I ate you out on your bed, then did it two more times in the shower?"

You suck in a breath, and the memories that flash in your mind make you feel hot. The way he knelt on the tiles under the spray of water, how he pulled your thigh over his shoulder, how even as you struggled to stay upright, his steady hands never let you fall even after he pulled orgasm after orgasm out of you.

"I thought it was just a benefits kind of thing," You admit quietly, looking anywhere but his face.

He murmurs your name, uses his forefinger and his thumb to guide you to look at him, "I don't want anything halfway with you."

Your gaze flicks to him shyly, and he only wraps an arm around your waist to keep you pressed against him, like he's afraid you'll try to pull away. "Is that okay," he asks, searching your face for answers, "that I want more from you than hookups? Then being friends?"

"That's– yeah. Of course, that's okay. I want that with you," You answer quickly. The last thing you want is for him to misunderstand, to think you don't want that with him.

You're not expecting the relief that floods his face, the way his entire body seems to melt against you. He tucks his head into your shoulder, muffling his voice "Okay, good. That's good."

You press your face to his hair, savoring the moment, savoring your boyfriend and all that he makes you feel, "Jason?"

"Yeah," he mumbles, not moving from his spot against your skin.

"Do you wanna makeout?"

He laughs into your throat, lips brushing over your skin, "Yeah, doll, I wanna makeout."

[doqt33th]

SINGULARITY

MIRAGE/READER

SUMMARY: You and Mirage have been pining for each other for a while now. A nasty summer storm drives you straight into his arms. Shenanigans ensue.

WORD COUNT: 18k. Sorry I’m insane

WARNINGS: 18+ and I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH!! Explicit PWP, fingering + oral (fem receiving), penetrative sex, mild spit kink. Reader is fem and uses she/her pronouns but is written fairly androgynous. No descriptors of appearance beyond the basics and no (y/n) used.

Familiar streets flashed by at increasing speeds, traffic and pedestrians flickering by and blurring together into a smorgasbord of color, all gilded by the setting sun. Unconsciously, you dug your fingers into the seams of the leather seat beneath you, worrying the stitches. Out of the corner of your eye, the radio blazed to life with color and that oh-so-familiar symbol.

“Hey, hey, easy on the merchandise, hot stuff,” Mirage crackled out of the speakers lightheartedly, and you immediately yanked your hands into yourself like they’d been burned. In your worrying, you’d seemingly forgotten about what — or rather, who — exactly was your ride.

“Oh— my bad, I wasn’t thinking,” you said, sinking your weight back and down, instead picking at your nails to give your hands something to do. God, you were so nervous, and for what? Mirage knew all these people— these bots, and knew them well. They were all friends! Or amiable towards each other, at the very least. And they were the good guys. Saved the world and all that.

So why were you so anxious?

“You’re good, don’t worry ‘bout it.” He slowed to a stop at a red light. Your leg started to bounce. “Sooo… you wanna tell me what’s on your mind? Save me a trip to Noah’s repair shop? I’d hate for you to start taking your emotions out on me, y’know.”

You scoffed, eyes sliding to the radio. The grin that pulled at the corners of your mouth was one you were helpless to stop. He just had that effect on you, where around him you became a slave to your laughter and, additionally, also became one half of a terrible joke machine that Mirage happily completed.

Leather creaked as you nudged the inside of the door with your boot to chastise him. “You love when I take my emotions out on you, dick. Don’t lie.”

“Only the good ones,” he shot back, and you could hear the grin in his voice. “You nervous about meeting the others?”

His probe was successful; you fought the urge to shrink at your feelings being read so accurately and so immediately. “I— yeah. I am, and I don’t even know why. I’m sure they’re all great, I’m just working myself up over nothing.”

Red faded to green. Carried on the tide of forward-moving traffic, Mirage rolled ahead, eventually slipping over to make a turn. You watched him twist his mirrors to check his blind spot.

“Ah, c’mon. Nobody could blame you, you’re meeting a bunch of aliens for the first time. Pretty trippy for anyone. ‘specially if those aliens are, like, double your size. And robots.” A short chuckle topped off his words.

“Right. I just don’t wanna fuck it up or embarrass myself, you know how it is. I don’t wanna embarrass you, either.”

“Oh, Primus, trust me. You’re not gonna embarrass me. I don’t even think that’s possible. Prime’s seen me in a lot worse shape than bringing you in to meet him.” The world continued to roll by. Brick buildings blotted out the sunshine in intermittent flashes. “You got good marks from your favorite bot, you’ll be fine.” The dismissive tone of his voice was working, in a weird way, to assuage your fears.

“Excuse me,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest pointedly. “My favorite bot?”

“What, am I not?” A downright theatrical gasp hissed out of the speaker. “Have you been cheating on me?”

Cheeks hot with a flush at even the joking insinuation of being together, you glanced away from the impassive Autobot symbol on the radio and out the window. Still, the laugh barked out of you was sudden and sharp, and quickly dissolved into giggles. “Yes. Mirage. I’m sorry. There’s another ten foot tall alien robot in Brooklyn that’s been vying for my attention. We’re done.”

“I should throw you out on the street right now,” Mirage fussed playfully, his evident pout tinging his voice. “For breakin’ my spark. Also I’m taller than that.”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m fragile.”

“I dunno. Noah gets his ass kicked around pretty good and he’s still kickin’ it.”

“I am not Noah,” came your tongue-in-cheek rebuttal. “And Noah just refuses to give up even when it’s good for him.”

“Thought qualities like determination were supposed to be big things with you guys.”

“In moderation.”

Mirage barked a laugh. “Ha! Should tell that to Prime. He’ll blow a gasket.” You opened your mouth to reply, only to be cut off. “No, seriously, tell it to Prime, we’re here.”

The easy confidence that your playful back-and-forth had teased out instantly chilled into a dense mass in your stomach; Mirage was rolling slowly up to a nondescript warehouse buried deep within the old industrial part of Brooklyn, and the way the worn brick loomed over you even in the car made your heart rate pick up.

Now or never.

Familiar alien whirs and clicks of shifting and setting metal filled your ears as Mirage rose into his bipedal mode, the driver’s seat gently ejecting you onto your own two legs on the pavement. Following the motion, you took a few steps forward, but still balked a little at the half open door. Inside, you heard voices of varying timbre, and you fought the urge to turn tail.

Now. Or. Never. Gritted teeth accompanied the repetition of your thought.

The displacement of air behind you — and the soft, constant mechanical noises emanating from his body — signaled Mirage’s presence before his voice.

He said your name with surprising care, using a tone that only came out when he was really being sincere. You couldn’t help the way your face warmed at it as you turned, craning your neck up to meet his gaze. “Hey, you, uh, you want me to go in ahead of ya? Normally I’d be like ‘ladies first’ and all that, but you said you weren’t feeling too jazzed about going in—“

“Yeah, actually, if you could, that would be… great. That would be great.”

“Gotcha. Let you psych yourself up a little more before you go in, I see how it is. Let me do the talking,” he affirmed with an easy grin and a nod, bouncing on the balls of his pedes a few times before striding forward. His long legs folded easily under him as he ducked under the lowered garage door, and you traipsed after, smoothing your thumb over your knuckles repeatedly.

The warehouse yawned beyond you, orange shafts of light cutting gashes into otherwise brownish darkness. Old graffiti sprayed across the walls told you that Ramona had been there once, then Nick, then Darnell, and a million others. And you were there now, feeling impossibly small, yes, but a little more resilient with the fading sunlight at your back and Mirage, like always, at your side.

He’d become a permanent fixture in your life from the day you’d met him — when you’d strong-armed Noah into giving up his secret about his Porsche, and the mysterious car had ended up being a twelve-foot-tall robot with a literal motormouth that made a playful pass at you within the first hour of your first conversation. You’d been flustered out of your mind, but had just kept coming back out of unfettered curiosity and outright fascination. Aliens were real, and Noah was friends with one, and it— he could turn into a Porsche.

Mind-shattering observations on the surface, yes. Mirage tended to deflate the grandeur, though, because he never acted like aliens did in the movies or in books. There was no ‘We come in peace!’ bullshit. He was so easy. Everything with him was so easy. He was loudmouthed and extroverted and genuinely hilarious; you spent hours in Noah’s garage trading terrible jokes — mostly bad sexual innuendos — or buckled to Mirage’s driver’s seat as he flew down Central Avenue on the wrong side of the limit and blasted Haddaway so loud it nearly busted your eardrums.

Weird to say an alien robot was your friend, but he was. He gave you rides to work, to your lectures, to your labs, wherever; in fact, he got petulant when you dared to take the bus one day to give him a break, and made it a point to pry your routine out of you so that he could take you wherever you wanted, no fares needed. 

So infuriating. You loved it.

You loved… maybe more than just the back-and-forth. Maybe more than the bad jokes. Maybe more than the late-night drives. You were starting to think— starting to realize you loved big blue optics, and the rumble of a 260 horsepower engine when you made just the right innuendo, and broad, incredibly intricate servos that dwarfed yours in size but were so, so careful…

Man. You tried not to think about it too much. It as a concept made you laugh with its own absurdity. Poor human chick fell in love with the giant alien robot that made her laugh. It wasn’t… debilitating. You still functioned like a normal adult. Mostly. Except for that one night like two weeks ago where you’d been arguing with him about some stupid shit and he’d scooped you up, right off the ground, in both servos and held you there, digits interlaced against your back and thumbs on your front.

It wasn’t the first time he’d ever held you like that — he’d done it a few times — but something was different that night… even if he’d only done it to gain an upper hand in your bickering. The air crackled with latent electricity, made your skin buzz in all the right places, especially when Mirage had gone quiet for once in his life as he stared at you in his grasp. When you’d prompted him with his name, he’d only responded by gently stroking a thumb over the swell of your chest, which had made you gasp air in so sharply that it burned in your throat. The metal left a tingling path on your skin under your shirt in its wake and immediately sent your heart rate skyrocketing past whatever the fuck was a normal BPM.

He’d snapped back to reality at the sudden expansion of your lungs and had attempted to play it all off as a joke. You remembered how you’d still stumbled when your shoes touched the ground, an absolutely insane feeling of genuine heat rocking you as your brain seized the feeling of his touch while it still sparked against your nerve endings and helpfully replayed it over and over and over again. Sure, the rhythm of banter came back after a stuttering beat, but you never really cooled the warmth on your face for the rest of that night — and when Mirage had dropped you off at your apartment, your door was shut and locked for about five minutes before your shaking hand was frantically worked beneath the waistband of your pants.

…Whew. Definitely something a little more than friendly there. Maybe even more than pure love, something a little slicker and deeper that buzzed against your bones and coiled low in your stomach. It made you feel a little weird — just objectively, because of what Mirage was — but damn if it didn’t feel good to indulge.

God, fuck, why were you thinking about that now, of all times? Escapist fantasies be damned, you were going to meet Mirage’s comrades-friends-coworkers and leave a good impression. Not drool over the worn-out memory replaying in your head for the thousandth time this week.

Out of the darkness and around corners, they emerged. The stealth wasn’t on purpose; you didn’t even think they could be stealthy. Oh, one was coming right for you now — tall was the only word your brain could muster. Tall and red and square were added to the list of adjectives as the stately bot approached, servos collected into fists at his sides and shoulders thrown back.

“Priiiime,” Mirage greeted warmly, throwing his arms out at his sides in his favorite pose. “Look, hey, I know what you said about bringing more people around, but I swear— Hey!”

Completely ignoring your friend’s (status pending) greeting, the bot— Prime, holy shit, this is THE Prime, was kneeling down, leaning forward, and he was right in your face. You fought the very biological urge to flinch. Blue optics considered you for a moment before narrowing and flicking to your right from his lowered position.

“Mirage,” Optimus started with a gravelly tone  from behind his faceguard that communicated exasperation above all else. “I explicitly stated that for our safety — and yours — that we were to come in contact with no more humans.”

“Sir, I gotta be honest with you. Kinda hard on a planet that’s got, what, five billion of ‘em? Six?” Mirage glanced at you for backup. You stared back flatly, refusing to say anything that might put you on the business end of a laser cannon.

“You were told to remain incognito so you could recover.” Optimus continued, his gaze returning to you. With a shunk of shifting metal, his faceplate slid away. His faceplates were weathered; the chipped metal around his optics gave the illusion of wrinkles and eyebags. Tired. He seemed tired. “This is not incognito. What is your name?”

You gave it after taking a beat to steady yourself. He repeated it back to you. “How did you come in contact with Mirage?”

“I, uh— Noah, Noah Diaz, he’s my friend. I basically pried it out of him,” you said with a nervous laugh. “So it’s not Mirage’s fault. I’m just nosy.”

At the mention of Noah, Optimus seemed to visibly relax; he moved back slightly, though he remained kneeling, and the narrowed, suspicious squint of his optics rounded out into something much softer.

“…I see. Then I assume you understand the… precarious nature of our existence on your planet.” he said, his tone grave and his optics searching your face.

You nodded, pressing the flesh of the inside of your cheek between your teeth for a moment as you came up with a suitably diplomatic response that still conveyed your friendliness. “I do, yeah. Noah told me most of it. What he could, anyway. I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not— I’m not a threat here. Like I don’t work with the, uh, the government or anything. Whatever you guys need help with, I’m available, even if that just means keeping my mouth shut.”

Christ, you were glad this wasn’t your day job. You’d be such a shit ambassador. I’m available. What the hell did that even mean? Fuck yes, you were available, your brain guffawed, thinking of broad metal thumbs brushing over your chest.

You blinked hard, squeezing your eyelids together until the world came back in a photo negative, to scold yourself.

Although you’d stumbled through your reply, Optimus seemed to approve. He rose with a great creak of metal off of his knee and backed up to give you space, though he still regarded you with those sharp blue optics that felt as though they pinned you to the concrete below. “I see Noah chooses his company well. I should have assumed his sentiments would extend to his companions.” He shut his optics for a moment and dipped his head, as if considering deeply what to say next. “I am not sure how much Mirage — or Noah — divulged to you.”

“A fair amount— well. Any amount that won’t get them in trouble,” you called up, taking in deeper breaths to project your voice up the two stories of height to his head. To your side, Mirage snorted. “I know your name— Optimus, I know that, and I know about the Autobots. A little bit about the— fuck, what were they called—“

“Terrorcons?” Mirage supplied, and you were impressed at how quiet he’d been otherwise.

“Terrorcons, thank you. Other than that, not much. How much should I know?”

“Your knowledge is sufficient. All we fear — and all we risk—“ Optimus added with a pointed look at Mirage, who looked incredibly sheepish. “—at the moment is discovery. So long as you maintain secrecy, no harm shall come to us… or you, for that matter.”

It almost sounded like a threat, but Prime worded it very much like a warning. You decided it was best to heed his word — not that you really had another option.

“Right. Okay. Well— I mean, it was nice to meet you. People — humanity, I guess — aren’t bad. Most of us aren’t, anyway. Just, uh, let me know if there’s something Noah and I can get or do for you.”

Prime’s gaze shifted away from you. In fact, it seemed to shift away from the warehouse in general, looking somewhere far beyond the now-shut garage door. “Your generosity is admirable, but it is not humans primarily that we are concerned with.”

Brows furrowed at his vague answer, you thought it over for a second — and then decided not to push it. He probably knew best when it came to whatever foreboding nebulous space threat loomed over your collective heads; you would leave it up to the experts.

“Oh, well, golden rule and all that,” you still offered in terms of a response. That got his attention. His massive head tilted downwards to look at you once more with curiosity. “If I crash landed on someone else’s planet, I’d want them to be hospitable, y’know? Just trying to make the best of a shitty situation.”

Like he couldn’t handle the terrible punishment of silence anymore, Mirage butted in. “See, Prime? I told you she was cool.”

A short jolt shook the broad, boxy line of his shoulders, and at first you had thought he’d coughed, and then you realized he laughed. It was barely anything, a huff of a chuckle, but you glowed with the indirect affirmation. Just made Optimus Prime laugh. Maybe you weren’t such a terrible diplomat.

He wasn’t looking at you, though, rather at Mirage, and you swore from your low vantage point you could see a barely-there smile on Prime’s faceplates communicating…was that smug amusement? As the tall bot carefully made his way past you, he stopped in front of your companion, and let a heavy servo land on the headlight adorning his shoulder.

“No matter what you may feel, you chose well, Mirage.” Optimus rumbled out, before removing his servo and traipsing off into a darker section of the sprawling warehouse, ducking through a much-too-small cutout and speaking to Arcee about something indistinguishable. However, you couldn’t care less about whatever her and Prime were discussing — what the hell did he mean by Mirage choosing well?

You turned your head towards said bot, mouth open for inquiry and one brow raised. Mirage looked mortified, in every sense of the word; he stood shell-shocked, lips slightly parted and servos up and open as if to defend himself. His head was whipped around to follow Prime’s departure from the room. A whir started, bouncing off the walls — Mirage’s fans came on and off intermittently to keep his ambient internal temperature at safe levels, but the steady hum of this fan let you infer that he was flushing something fierce.

“Mirage? What—“

Interrupting you by breaking, nearly jumping, out of his trance, he clapped his servos together and started talking at a million miles a minute. “Well, damn, look at that, haha, it’s late, ain’t it? You got work in the morning, right? C’mon, hop in, I’ll drive you home—“

“No, Mirage, hold on, what was he talking about—“

“Seriously, c’mon, he was just messing around—“

“You’re telling me Optimus Prime was joking? Is he even capable of that?”

He said your name with a finality that nearly made you flinch. “Look, I can’t really— Just drop it, please?” It wasn’t angry, nor was it even commanding; in fact, his eyes were wide and pleading with you out of embarrassment. You knew the feeling all too well, and in the interest of sparing his feelings, decided to let it go, despite your intense curiosity.

You put your hands up in surrender. “Okay. Dropped.” A few beats of silence passed while Mirage was still tamping down his fluster. “You wanna take me home now or are we waiting for Prime to come embarrass you more?”

“Please, let’s get outta here,” he affirmed, dropping into his alt-mode and popping the driver door for you. As you slid in, you couldn’t help the little mischievous smile that grew on your face as your brain cooked up some other joke to take the edge off.

The garage door opened on its own. Mirage rolled into the noticeably darker alleyway. The burnt umber glow of the sunset-stained sky was only visible overhead; otherwise you were boxed in on the sides by blacked-out buildings.

Stifling silence was broken by a joke. Your joke, actually. “…Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me.”

The noise Mirage made was only comparable to a squawk. But obviously much more masculine, clearly. Still, his tires jerked on the road, betraying his surprise. “Hey— Prime is not my sire— or dad, or whatever you wanna call ‘em. He wishes.”

“I dunno,” you mused, arms crossed over your chest and back sunk deep into the seat. Brooklyn in transition blurred by in messy constellations of lit windows. “He got you pretty good there. Pretty standard dad behavior.”

“Hey, I don’t know what suddenly inspired him to go for comedy, but I do not appreciate it. That’s my thing. He’s stealin’ my thunder!”

“Maybe you’re just rubbing off on him.”

Silence.

The radio crackled. “Ew.”

Accompanied by the loudest eyeroll you could muster, you whacked the dashboard with an open palm, though you couldn’t stop your bubbling laughter. “Oh my god, you are so gross, Mirage! I hate you!”

“Ahh, don’t say that, c’mon! You love it here!”

“You wish.”

The rest of the ride home was spent that way, bickering like normal, and although you couldn’t let go of what Prime had said, nor his knowing look while he said it, you appreciated the return to baseline. When you got home, Mirage parked directly in front of your apartment building, and you lingered on the sidewalk for several minutes after you got out of the car. With the passenger door opened so it looked like you were talking to the ‘driver’ and not completely insane, you leaned on the doorframe and traded jabs with your ride until the humidity of the night air got a little too persistent to ignore. Damn you, Brooklyn. 

“See you tomorrow?” Mirage never said goodnight. He only ever asked when he could see you again, corny bastard.

“Tomorrow. My roommate’ll take me to work, don’t worry about it. I’ll just stick my head in the garage when I get home.”

“I thought we had a thing goin’, man!” His faux petulance returned. “You movin’ on already? You just met my folks!”

Your jaw dropped for a second at the fact he’d turned the damn bit around on you. “I met one folk, and you literally said he wasn’t your dad.”

“Maybe I was warmin’ up to the idea!”

Another lethal eyeroll. Your smile still remained locked on your face. “Whatever. Get the hell out of here, asshole,” you said, playfully shutting the door just a little harder than you needed to and slapping the roof like a horse you were trying to send off into the desert.

Even as you turned to walk into your building, you could hear the way his window shot down, far faster than a normal roll. “Ay! Merchandise!”

You stuck a middle finger over your shoulder, thumb out and all, to give him an idea of what he could do with his merchandise. Tires peeled against pavement as he screeched out of his spot and down the otherwise quiet street, letting you know in return how he felt about that.

Smiling like an idiot as you climbed the stairs to your apartment, you felt… airy. You were always smiling after hanging around Mirage, you couldn’t help it — especially as of late. But still, you were dying to know what Prime was talking about when he was messing with Mirage earlier. You chose well. Chose what? Your brain briefly entertained the thought of Mirage returning what you felt, and it made blood rush to your face.

It couldn’t really… work. You had made peace with your physical differences weeks ago. The both of you got along just fine despite the size difference, and it never impeded your normal interactions. But you doubted Mirage felt the same; no matter how familiar, how friendly you were with him, you could never shake the feeling of being just a little too alien. Your greatest similarities were in personality. The closest resemblance you held physically was the fact you were both humanoid in shape.

That didn’t stop you. No, not at all. It didn’t stop you from dropping into bed after a quick shower with a heavy sigh, your hand inevitably sinking beneath the covers as you thought of digits — Mirage’s digits, so well articulated for their size and so careful — playing with the hem of your underwear instead of your own fingers, pushing the fabric aside just a little roughly to explore your alien anatomy. It took very little time for you to grind yourself to climax; in fact, it was embarrassingly quick, and it left your face hot with some special kind of shame as you slunk out of bed to wash your hands. The entire time, you avoided your reflection in the mirror.

Even with the ancient AC cranked on and chugging away, it took you a long while to fall asleep.

Off in the industrial district of Brooklyn, meanwhile, Mirage was burning rubber as he took ninety-degree turns at sixty miles per hour. His processor was thrumming at max capacity, and his engine felt like it was about to either stall or explode.

Primus, it was all too much. Your teasing always got him some kind of hot and bothered, tight under his interface paneling, but the acidic rush of embarrassment still prickled at his cabling. Prime, come on, man. Mirage was still floored at the fact that Prime of all bots had embarrassed him like that, in front of you, no less!

He had it bad for you, and he knew it, but apparently every other bot in that warehouse knew it too. Ever since he’d met you, you’d stuck in his processor, the way the light glinted off your eyes and your all-teeth smile and the way he could get you to laugh. Sure, his flirts were only playful at first — and he only did them to mess with Noah, who’d harbored an on-and-off crush on you for a while — but the more he did them and the more you returned them, the more he started really… considering it.

It was so shameful. Primus, it was shameful. He’d barely ever interfaced in his life — there was just no time, especially not on Cybertron — and never with organics. After that one night where he’d hefted you up with ease in both servos and completely blanked when confronted with your soft, warm weight in his hold, he’d been on a spiral. It wasn’t just enough to be friendly with you; he was plenty friendly with Noah (though with the amount of stupid passes Mirage made at him, Noah would probably say too friendly) and he wanted something more with you.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d rolled into some long-abandoned warehouse or pitch-black deserted alley and scrabbled at his interface panel to pressurize his spike before he feverishly, frantically humped his fisted servo for relief, mental processors supplying increasingly filthy fantasies of your soft skin against his chassis and your mouth, Primus, your mouth on his own, on his spike, wherever, he didn’t care. Every single time, though, after coming down from his high with steam pouring off his lax frame, he felt just a little more discouraged than the last — because he knew that his fantasies would have to stay that way. Fantasies. Your friendship was enough, had to be, no matter how bad he wanted you, because he’d be damned to the Pit before he scared you off by being stupid and admitting his feelings.

Ugh. Ugh. He took another corner too hard and felt his tires shriek, let the burn travel upward and reverberate in his frame. The chaos in his mental processors quieted as he neared HQ. All he knew was that it was late, and he couldn’t be too loud or Prime would get on his ass for interrupting his stasis.

Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me. Your voice played, unbidden, from some file that popped open in his memory bank. He willed it away with a vengeance as he rolled into the warehouse-turned-headquarters as quietly as he could, transforming as soon as the door was shut and stretching out his back. Clicking echoed off the walls as his spinal struts reset, and the residual burn in his scraped tires tingled.

Mirage turned, and—

Yelped. Bumblebee was standing right there, shoulder against the wall and fiddling with some holographic projection from his forearm. Mirage coughed into his clenched servo to preserve what was left of his dignity.

“‘Sup,” he greeted through gritted denta. “I, uh, didn’t see you there, man. How’s it hangin’?”

Bee gave him a flatly unamused look that communicated ‘No shit, you didn’t see me.’ very well. The projection phased out of existence and left the two of them in the dimmed space in some kind of standoff.

“Well, y’know, beauty stasis and everything, I’m just gonna—“

“I wanna know, what you’re feeling! Tell me what’s your mind!” burbled Bee’s radio in place of his voice. Mirage jerked back for a second, not expecting Information Society at whatever unholy hour of the morning it was.

“Look, man, I don’t really wanna talk about—“

“There are some things you can’t hide!” insisted the same song. Bee gestured for Mirage to talk. Clearly he wanted to know.

This was as good a time as ever to spill, he guessed.

Mirage groaned and clasped both of his servos over his face after explaining the bones of it, his head tilted upwards, optics fruitlessly searching the water-stained warehouse ceiling for a solution to his problem. His… very human, very embarrassing problem.

Not that he thought you were embarrassing— not at all, never. But Prime would have his head over falling for a human. Okay, well, maybe not his head; it was more like Mirage would be in for a lengthy disapproving speech about responsibilities and goals and distractions, and Primus, just thinking about it made the former option of decapitation the preferable one. Even though he seemed to approve of his choice, considering what he’d said earlier, the ‘Bots were still at war, and there wasn’t time for human distractions. Literal human distractions.

It wasn’t like he could help it. You were funny, okay? And smart. And you teased him in just the right way that made his cooling fans sputter, and you were so curious about… everything about him, he thought, remembering your impromptu Cybertronian anatomy lesson with a hot flash in his processor. He couldn’t help but be flattered by your attention.

“Ugh, Bee, I don’t know what to do, man,” he said despairingly after a moment, pacing in circles in front of said squat yellow bot leaned against the nearby concrete wall. “I mean, look at this, she’d be missin’ out if she said no,” he added, arrogance staining his words in an attempt to console himself. It didn’t work; insecurity eviscerated his bravado moments after he said it. “Or… I guess we’d both be, huh.” A short, self-deprecating laugh left him.

Mirage wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come to Bee of all bots for advice, but he was sure as shit not going to Optimus after today, and Arcee would have just told him anyway. Plus, considering that Wheeljack wasn’t even in the country at the moment, his options were slim. Besides, Bee had… experience with this sort of thing. Dealing with humans and all. Just… not in this way. But it was close enough, and Mirage was totally lost; if he thought about it by himself for any longer, his processors were going to fry.

Speaking of, Bee tittered through his gutted voice synthesizer to get Mirage’s attention. Expression drawn into a very human grimace, Mirage turned to face his friend, servos planted firmly on his hips.

“Well, you gotta tell her— wanna know what love is— want you to show me,” Bee’s radio clipped, first from a talk show, then from a nearby station, and Mirage felt energon surge to his face in a hot rush at a very personal song being blared back at him.

He had the words memorized at this point. The shape of them was practically burned into his memory files, considering how much he played it for you. It was reserved for days on both ends of the spectrum, bad and good; Mirage would pick you up in his alt-mode and take you for joyrides across the city, flying over the Brooklyn Bridge at daredevil speeds, all the while blaring music loud enough to make your head pound.

The two of you had discovered a few favorites, but the Foreigner song was at the top of the list, right next to Careless Whisper, of course. The sound of your voice belting at the top of your lungs, softened with that specific human accent, thrumming and reverberating through your chest— you sounded so alive, but so different from what he was accustomed to.

“Dude—” Mirage nearly barked, voice up a full octave before clearing his synthesizer into his fist and repeating himself. “Dude. I can’t just do that. Aliens— we’re aliens. Well. She’s an alien, too, I guess, but we,” he paused to gesture frantically between himself and Bee, “are the aliens here. I don’t really think humans are into the whole giant robot thing.”

“Noah?” Bee played a clip of Mirage’s own voice back at him questioningly.

“Yeah, well, Noah’s a different story.”

With a whir of his actuators, Bee shook his head and looked away for a moment, big blue optics considering the floor. With a soft clunk, he crossed his arms over his chassis.

“Come on, man, you gotta give me something,” Mirage urged, tilting his head to follow the other bot’s motions. “Should I just leave it? I mean, I don’t want it to be weird, I just—“

Bee straightened up off the wall, clearly done thinking. His arms opened out in a shrug and his optics squinted, communicating I don’t know what you want me to say, dude, far better than his vocal synthesizer ever could have.

His radio clipped again, this time a few seconds of a Beatles song and then Noah’s voice. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah— right?”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem,” Mirage groaned, rolling his head back with a pained expression and letting his body follow the motion as he paced another tight circle. His faceplates felt hot at the insinuation. “And if I ask, it’s gonna be weird. And if I make it weird, I’m never gonna—“

He stopped rambling when a four-digit servo thumped on the headlight atop his shoulder, rooting him to the spot. Bee’s optics stared him down, wide and bright blue, and it made Mirage press his lips together firmly as he awaited whatever sage advice he was about to impart.

ABBA filtered through the radio first. “Should walk right up to her and say—“ What came next made Mirage’s brow ridges shoot up so high he thought they were going to fly off his helmet. “—when I get that feeling, I want sexual healin’!”

Mirage’s jaw dropped. Immensely flustered and ten times more frustrated at his friend’s useless advice, he shoved the other bot off. “Are you serious, dude? Primus, I never shoulda asked you. Thanks, I’ll go walk right up to her and ask to interface on the warehouse floor, that’ll go super well.”

Bee nodded quickly and gave him a double thumbs up with a series of approving beeps and chirps, the bottoms of his optics flattening into an amused look. Mirage dragged his servo down his faceplates in mortification, although his cooling fans kicked on a click higher than normal.

Sometimes he wished he’d been left on Cybertron with Soundwave and all his other goons. This was one of those times. As he dropped back into his alt-mode with an embarrassed mumble about ‘going on patrol,’ Bee whooped behind him, and the last thing Mirage heard before peeling out of the warehouse was “There’s nothin’ wrong with me lovin’ you, baby, no, no!”

Whoever gave Bee access to Marvin Gaye needed to be whacked upside the helm.

Knowing Mirage’s luck, it was probably you.

He stayed out for the rest of the night in his alt-mode, wandering the streets and staying away from your apartment, no matter how bad he wanted to go. The pool of people with any useful advice to offer for his predicament was steadily shrinking; after the disaster with Bee, Mirage just needed to stay away from that warehouse and let his processors cool.

Sometime in the morning he returned, though not to the warehouse. He almost immediately crashed into stasis as soon as he rolled into Noah’s garage, his simultaneously pent-up and exhausted processors eager for a chance to refresh themselves and defrag.

Ha, he thought blearily as he sank into stasis. Defrag.

You were waking as he was crashing, though you weren’t happy about it. The eight hour shift that loomed ahead of you on top of the bullshit from last night was a pretty potent combination for a headache of a day, especially when you couldn’t have your morning jam sesh with Mirage on your way to work. Thankfully, though, your roommate was a kind soul, and there was an extra cup of coffee waiting for you on the counter when you stumbled out of your bedroom.

As you sipped it, you wondered just how long you could keep the front up. By some small grace of God, your roommate’s schedule didn’t align very well with yours; you barely saw them in your daily life even before you met Mirage. It wasn’t on purpose, of course. It just happened that way. But on a few occasions, they’d been home when Mirage had dropped you off, and you’d been just calling him a ‘friend with places to be’ to excuse the fact that he never walked you to your door. Being somewhat prescient, they’d nudged you a couple times about this ‘friend’ turning into a boyfriend, but had never pushed it.

You just hoped it stayed that way.

Breakfast was a quick and quiet affair, though you traded a few jokes back and forth that had the both of you giggling into your food. The ride to your job was similar, and your roommate wished you a good shift before driving off leisurely — such a stark difference compared to Mirage’s affinity for peeling off into the street at Mach-fucking-10. Thinking of him made your face burn and your mind race. You tried not to.

Time was an especially cruel mistress today, though. You swore that people were actively winding the clocks back every time you looked up at them, and your shift felt like a thick slog, knee-deep, that you had no choice but to wade through. The worst part about slow shifts was that your mind wandered with nothing else to do, and like a moth to a flame— or rather, like metal to a magnet, your brain circled around to Mirage again and again and again.

Damn that bot. Damn it all. Every time you thought of him, it was some stupid joke he’d cracked or silly offhand comment he’d made or ridiculous flirt he’d lobbed your way — always accompanied by memories of his body, surprisingly lithe considering what he was made of, all legs and a dramatic waist topped with wide shoulders that made your own engine purr.

“Mirage, did you go upstate or something? You’re disgusting,” you’d laughed as you raked your gaze over his pecs, pretending to eye the dirt smeared there and not something else.

“Disgusting?! You gotta be kidding me, I’m not half as bad as the rest of ‘em. You should see Bee, dude!” He’d gestured out the door of the warehouse, where you assumed the other bot was lurking in dirt-covered shame.

“What the hell were you two even doing?”

“Pfft. Practicin’.”

“Practicing body-slamming each other?”

“Yeah, want me to show you?”

“Mirage,” you’d groaned, laughing despite yourself.

“C’mon, I know a few good ways to pin a bot down,” he grinned, winking at you. You fixed him with the most dead stare you could muster before breaking into a half-smile of your own.

“I’ll pass on the whole getting crushed thing, but I could be persuaded to spray you down by hand,” you flirted back, just for fun. 

No, not for fun. Real flirt. It was real, all of it was, and you couldn’t shake the memory of his optics widening, brightening, with eagerness and the way he’d pleaded. Playfully. Playfully?

“Please,” he begged dramatically, clasping his servos together, optics enormous. “I’ll be good! Maybe even stay still!”

You pinched your nose bridge between your fingers and tried to think about something else, because you were starting to press your thighs together a little and you were still at work, damn it. Professionalism was something you were aiming to maintain.

Hot. It was hot. That’s what you were thinking about. You’d glanced at the weather report earlier in the morning, and seeing a row of little sun icons clued you in on an insufferable heatwave that didn’t have any intention of breaking any time soon. Even now you felt sweat collect under your shirt and dot your hairline; all you could do was wipe your face with the back of your hand and keep working.

And working.

And working.

And. Working.

And then, eventually, you watched the clock tick over the last minute of your shift, and you heard angels sing a holy choir as you all but slammed your things down and sprinted to clock out. Well. You didn’t sprint, but you did speed walk, which counted for something.

Such was your haste to leave your workplace and talk to Mirage that you speed-walked headfirst into the lashing rain outside without a second thought. Genuinely caught by surprise, you stumbled back into the safety of the entryway, eyes wide as you watched the storm front swallow the last dregs of the golden evening sky and pour rain on the streets outside. Ink blots bleeding across paper. Rorschach tests. Some other poetic fluff came to mind over the supremely annoying realization that you were going to have to walk to the garage in wet clothes.

At least it was a quick walk.

Patience waning, you nearly considered calling Mirage — or even Noah — to come get you, but at the last second your roommate swooped in, pulling up outside and honking the horn a few times to let you know your knight in shining Prius was here to rescue you.

They cracked a few jokes at your expense when they saw your wet clothes, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle. Not after the trials and tribulations of Mirage. With a few clicks, the rest of your ride home was filled with Boyz II Men and intermittent conversation as you watched raindrops race each other down the window and considered what the hell you were going to say to Mirage tonight. 

Mostly, you were dying of curiosity to know what Prime had meant to get him so flustered. Thinking about that, though, just made you go down a spiral of what-ifs… especially considering that one of them was ‘What if he feels the same way?’

You could handle rejection. You were an adult who paid taxes. But just this one time, you weren’t sure if you could handle reciprocation. Especially full reciprocation.

Mirage’s friendship was something you felt privileged to have. You were just quite scared to fuck it all up and lose out on all the things that made being his friend worth it — including him. Jaw tightening, you blinked and looked away from the window. No use stewing in it.

At home, your dinner was quick and light — something in a Tupperware that you didn’t look at too hard after microwaving. When your roommate asked about your rush, you came up with some lame excuse about hanging out with Noah, waving your hand dismissively.

Don’t worry about me. I’m going to go break Hynek’s scale of close encounters. Don’t worry about it though.

“In this weather? You’ll be soaked thirty seconds out the door. You were soaked thirty seconds out the door.”

“I’ll bring an umbrella,” you said, barely listening to them over the cacophony of your own thoughts. Mirage. Mirage. Mirage. I’m seeing him tonight. I’m talking to him tonight. I’m not going to pussy out of anything tonight. Now or never. “The place is like two blocks up the street, I’ll live.”

“If you’re so inclined to catch a cold, I’m not gonna stop you. Not making you chicken soup, though.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you snarked affectionately, and the last thing you heard before exiting your apartment was their familiar laughter. That bolstered you somewhat.

Even if the rain whipping at your face made you reconsider your stupid horny stubbornness.

Only two blocks felt more like two dozen as you tucked your chin to your chest and gripped your hood to keep the wind from snatching it off your head; in your other hand you white-knuckled your umbrella to keep it from tilting the wrong angle and washing water down your back. Thunder rattled your bones more than once and made you think offhandedly of Kris, the poor kid. He hated storms but refused to admit it out of pride; he was probably curled up in a ball under his covers right now trying to block out the worst of the noise. And you thought of Noah alongside him just out of pure association, and you weren’t sure what made your stomach turn, but it did.

God, you hoped Noah wasn’t with Mirage right now. You didn’t want to slam the door open to the garage soaking wet and wrestle Mirage’s true feelings out of him while Noah spectated. Wrestle. Soaking wet.

Fuck my life.

The side door to the garage was jammed like it always was, even after you unlocked it, and you huddled against it to stay under the mediocre cover of the awning as you shoved your shoulder into it to force it open. Old metal hinges wailed as you ground them open, and the blessed dry warmth of the garage — the temperature always heightened with Mirage’s presence — sighed against your freezing skin as you wormed your way inside. 

“Mirage?” you called tentatively as you leaned back against the door to get it to shut and latch. A beat passed before your senses came to you and your hand fumbled behind you to lock it. Not for sordid reasons, honestly. You just didn’t want anyone to even have the chance of walking in on Mirage when he wasn’t folded into a Porsche.

Speaking of, you saw him then, pacing around the garage and seemingly very involved in a conversation with himself. Although the rain outside provided a dull roar of background noise, the whirs and clicks of his actuators and soft whooms of his pedes against the concrete filled your ears with their familiarity. It was Mirage, and you knew Mirage, and it helped dull the edge of abject nervousness in your gut.

He cut a sharp figure under the hanging ceiling lights, making sure to duck and avoid smacking his helm on them. When those bright blue optics registered your existence, you swore they flared with delight; he said your name with such enthusiasm it almost made you excited. For what, exactly, you didn’t know. “Hey, sugar, what’s k— Primus, you, uh, swim on your way here? Or do I just make you that wet? Cuz I appreciate the compliment.” He grinned wolfishly at you. Sparks flew off your rubbed-raw nerves.

The unimpressed stare you gave him was lethal. “That is not how that works,” you said, shaking your umbrella off on the floor and setting it against the wall to drip dry. “All the wetness is— would be in one place, dumbass.”

“Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention during my anatomy lessons. Wanna reteach ‘em to me? I’ll behave, swear on my spark.”

A scoff. “When have you ever behaved in your life?”

“When it counts! C’mon, you know you like it,” he said, gesturing down the length of his body with a flourish of his servo. “I mean, what isn’t there to like?”

“If I answer that question, I’ll hurt your feelings.” Excess rainwater dripped off your jacket as you peeled it off. Mirage’s optics followed the motion intently.

Amber lighting nearly glowed against the sleek metal of his torso. So what if your own eyes had wandered down it at his emphasis? He’d invited it. Expressly. He loved your attention, loved flaunting everything about himself just for a glance his way from you, for anything you’d give him.

It took him a second to register your words. He gasped and clasped a servo over his chassis— his spark, you remembered that from your own anatomy lesson a few weeks ago. “Gonna break my spark talkin’ like that. I hurt your feelings or something, sugar? What’s got you so bent?” With his question, he sank into a deep squat, draping his forearm over his thigh and leaning close to you.

A deep exhale left you. Your shoulders deflated. “It’s not you. Just the weather.” A short huff of a laugh, barely humorous, left you. “I mean, look at me.” You held your arms out and spun in a slow circle, errant droplets flying in every direction. “I look like a drowned rat.”

The lightbulb over his head was nearly visible. “You, uh, want a hand drying off?”

You stopped dead in your tracks. Your hands fell to your sides. Something akin to lightning danced up your spine.

“What?”

“Hold on, hold on, I got an idea,” he said,  holding his hand out at you to tell you to wait, excitement ramping up in his voice. What the hell was he planning? Nothing good, you figured. Or hoped.

Otherwise harsh sounds of metal against metal were softened by the alien chirrs and trills of the mechanical viscera working in his chassis as he settled on the ground in a sitting position. His back was leaned against the wall, carefully adjusted so his darling paint job was away from the rough concrete. To keep his balance, he rested against his tires and scooched his hips away from the wall, kicking his long legs out with a flourish and gesturing at his lap.

Although he was shorter this way, it was still a climb you didn't want to make while you were damp and the general slip hazard was high. “Can you give me a lift so I can see whatever shit you’re planning?”

“I got you, sugar, don’t even worry about it. Just hang on,” came the reply, and your brain blanked just a little at the feeling of his servos on you again, picking you up just like they had done on that night two weeks ago. With zero effort — seriously, you didn’t even hear any mechanical creaking — you were scooped upwards.

Your damp clothes clung to your body, a fact both you and Mirage were painfully aware of; the chill of the soaked fabric contrasted against that fascinating living heat of your skin nearly made the sensors in his servos short-circuit. He’d thought about this, exactly this, so much that it had probably worn a path into his neural processors. So soft. You were so soft.

A shudder ran up his spinal strut and he prayed you didn’t notice.

You were set down with your feet firmly on the flat tops of his thighs, ignoring the slight wobble in your knees. Arms raised a bit for balance, you looked down at the living machinery beneath you. The flight paths of the butterflies in your stomach grew more frantic. Broad servos released you from their hold, but they didn’t leave; no, they skated down, down, down until they settled on the flare of your hips and stayed. They were so heavy.

A breath caught in your throat like a wild animal in a trap. “If I fall, I’m gonna be so pissed off. You know that, right?” Anything to make this more normal. You had no idea how you kept the shake out of your voice.

“Relaaax, hot stuff, I’m on it. I got it, I got it,” he replied, his voice a full octave lower than what you were used to. “‘sides, I’m Mirage, remember? Protecting humans is kinda my thing.”

You scoffed. “Not with the way you drive.”

“Hey, I drive perfectly fine! You’re the one who’s scared of fun.” His servos left your hips to brace themselves on the floor. “Mirage, don’t drive so fast! Mirage, that’s a red light! Mirage, there are cops behind us!” His voice pitched up into something high and nasally to poorly, poorly mimic yours.

It was your turn to be affronted, though your mouth was open in a disbelieving sort of smile. “I don’t even sound like that, you fucker! And sorry for trying to keep us from getting arrested!”

“I dunno, you all sorta sound the same to our audio processors.” He was lying, and blatantly so. He had the distinct tone and pitch of your voice memorized down to the wavelength. “And besides, we wouldn’t get arrested.” His own voice took on a smug, self-satisfied edge, accompanied by the raise of his brow ridges.

“Oh, really? Why’s that? Please, enlighten me,” you snarked, crossing your arms over your chest and staring him down. In response, he leaned his head in, closer to you, closer than you expected, and an insufferable smirk crawled across his faceplates.

“Cuz cop cars can’t drive that fast,” he whispered conspiratorially, like it was a clever response.

What should have been a minute movement — just a shift of the head — actually became very noticeable on a twelve-foot-frame; his hips repositioned of their own accord to account for the redistribution of weight, and the change was enough to trip you up. Especially when you had been leaning in already to match his movement.

The world tilted as you started to fall forward; fearing injury or worse by tumbling off your semi-precarious perch, you jammed your hands out in front of you—

And slammed your palms directly on his chassis. It was all very fast after that. Mortified, you stared down at the planes of metal beneath you, feeling heat creep up, up, up your neck and seep into your face. Mirage had cursed above you out of surprise, and you felt the displacement of air as his servo shot up behind your back and hovered. Right there. He was right there, and he always would be.

You raised your head and made eye contact, and you knew it was over. His optics were wide with surprise, and they searched your face for any expression of pain or discontent. They cycled once, seeing none, and then flickered down to your lips.

He was so done for. Something in his expression sagged at your proximity; in his field of view, he saw an alert stating that his internal temperature was rising beyond ideal levels, and he would have laughed if not for you. Finally. Finally. Finally. He was half-expecting this to be a dream, something cooked up by his fried processors that he would wake up from any minute now. 

His servo was still hovering over your back.

“Can I—“

“Yes,” you said immediately in a sharp exhale — before he could even get the question out — and there it all went.

He surged forward like a flood from a dam, closing the distance between the both of you with a hungry rev of his engine. Explaining the logistics of it would sound silly; all you could do was go with the flow, just like every other time you’d ever kissed someone. All you knew was that it was satisfying, supremely so, and completely encompassing. Every sense was filled by him, and you realized with a kick of your heart that you never wanted it any other way.

Though your hand shook, you shoved past the fear and indulged in everything you had wanted for weeks, let yourself sink deep into that pit of want and refused to come up for air. Your fingers skated his curves and edges; you brought your palm up to the sharp angles of his jaw and smoothed it upward until it ran over the curve of his cheek.

He reacted to your touch like it was a live wire. Minute jerks of excitement ran through his frame, and when your hand rested on the side of his face, he tilted his helm into the kiss with barely restrained excitement. He was so careful, it made something inside you purr. That kind of caution was only reserved for something precious. You were precious. He couldn’t ever risk hurting you. Especially not by his own hand.

First impression was that his lips were far softer than you’d ever assumed. Pliable, hot metal pressed greedily against your mouth — more, more, more was a mantra echoed wordlessly between the both of you. The hovering servo came to rest on your back, pushing your front against his chassis as you shifted up on your toes to keep the angle of the kiss correct. Digits splayed against the planes of skin they found there, pressing down to feel your warmth — your heart slammed against your ribs so hard that Mirage could probably feel it against his palm.

With a hot flash, you wondered if the metal of his lips would bear the dent of your teeth from a bite. So you bit. It was more of a playful nip than anything, but the reaction you got was so instantaneous it was like Mirage had been waiting for it. Again, his engine throttled, the powerful rumble surging through you as his servo pinned you to his chassis. Against your mouth, his lips ticked up into a smile.

Air. You needed air. He let you pull away with no resistance, though his head did trail after your mouth for a moment.

You let your forehead sink down and rest against the top of his chassis for a moment; the condensation from your breath fogged the metal. Out of nowhere, manic giggles erupted from you. They shook your body incessantly as you rose and fell in time with Mirage’s heavy vents, your knees feeling weak and mind frazzled. From one kiss. One.

Laughter rocked his frame too, short chuckles of disbelief as his thumb rubbed circles into your back.

“Oh my god,” you murmured into the warm metal beneath you through shocks of giggles.

“Not exactly, but, eh, I’ll take it,” Mirage replied above you, and while he laughed at his own joke, you groaned and whacked him lightly with a palm. It wasn’t like he was unaffected though — far from it, in fact, judging from the steadily heating chassis beneath you and the tinge of static fringing his words.

“Bring me up,” you said hoarsely, twisting an arm behind you to paw at the servo on your back.

Without question, his other servo came up and curled under your thighs, hoisting you up so that his face was easier to reach. With most of your body now resting on his chassis and very much secured in his grip, you grasped his face in both your palms; he leaned so far into your touch with a shaky ex-vent that your noses almost brushed.

“Again?”

“Yeah, again,” he agreed, and this time you pulled him in, fingers hooking in some unseen seam behind his jaw as you crushed your mouth against his. Hunger, latent and now finally triggered, drove you closer, as close as you physically could, until your skin was starting to hurt from the random edges being pressed into it.

Curious above all else, you licked your tongue into the front of his mouth. The searing heat inside surprised you; it teetered on the edge of uncomfortable and reminded you very much of your computer at home when it ran for too long, with that special kind of mechanical stress and burning warmth that only came with overworked processors.

“‘S like that, is it?” he murmured into your mouth with a grin, his engine kicking up a notch and the vibration of his chassis hitting you very nicely right where you needed it most. You made some soft noise, half-gasp, half-groan, and hiked one of your legs up so it was bent at the knee, flattening your hips against his chest and fuck, there it was. The consistent rumble of his motor pressed a steady vibration right into your cunt over the seam of your jeans; a particular grind made you gasp and falter as you rolled your clit against the line of denim and held it there.

“Whoa-ho-ho! Heyyy, hot stuff, something feel good down there?” His voice was bursting at the seams with some rich kind of excitement; you breathed into his neck cabling as your hips jerked a little against his chassis. One servo pawed at your ass, clumsy with its eagerness, gripping and massaging the soft flesh it found there with intent.

Experimentally, his servo pressed down, pushing your pelvis down with it, and the pressure on your clit pulled a groan of satisfaction out of you that had his cooling fans sputter.

“Fuck,” you hissed through gritted teeth, and before he could say something stupid, you leaned your head down and pressed kisses to the delicate cabling of his neck.

A delighted noise rattled out of him, and his helm rolled back against the wall to allow you more access. Impatient, your kisses soon turned to bites, playful nips that tugged at the sensitive wiring and made his body jolt beneath yours like he’d been shocked. To your utter delight, you found that Mirage’s proclivity for talking extended to situations like these, too — noises streamed from his mouth as your curious teeth and hands worked over such a fragile part of his anatomy in ways that only a human could.

“Oh, Primus, babe, babe—“ he stammered out, and you lifted your head for just long enough of a window to allow him to swoop down and kiss you again, feverishly now.

Something thick and wet prodded past your teeth experimentally. For just a second you balked— and then remembered it was his glossa. His tongue. Yeah, you remembered that from your anatomy lesson; he’d stuck it out and pointed at it in a dumb way then, but fuck if it didn’t have your thighs tightening now. The hot biomesh probed your mouth, and it was so big you inadvertently drooled around it — but Mirage didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, you were pretty sure the spit dripping from your mouth around him was getting him even more worked up, judged by the way his digits tightened their grip on your ass.

You had been cold when you’d walked in that garage. Keyword there was had. Now your skin seared with a deep flush and steadily increasing heat; mindlessly, your hips started a slow, staccato rhythm that kept your breathing heavy. The servo on your back slid upwards to the point where it encompassed the back of both your neck and head. He could not get enough of your taste. He wanted it burned into the sensors on his glossa, for all he cared. Spit and lubricant swapped between the both of your mouths — you found that the metallic taste that seeped into your tongue did nothing but turn you on further.

Pulling away again for a deep inhale of air, you propped yourself semi-awkwardly on an elbow to look at him. Open adoration was written across his faceplates, along with blatant want that made his optics cycle frantically.

“I thought you were— fuck, I thought you were supposed to be drying me off,” you said, breaking in the middle of your sentence as his servo carefully started to move you. Just barely — just enough pressure to keep your hips working against him and chasing your pleasure.

“You really wanna?” He grinned at you, spit shiny on his chin. “I dunno about you, but I think I’m likin’ you being wet more.”

“You’re awful. That was terrible,” you laughed, brain foggy with arousal and general swelling affection for the bot underneath you.

“How many more of those you got left in you before you start admitting the truth that I’m the funniest bot you’ll ever meet?”

“I mean, you don’t exactly have stiff competition.”

“Aaand the best-looking.”

“I dunno… Optimus is kind of—“

“Hey!” he interrupted, bringing you up for another kiss to silence your thought before you could finish it. You happily complied, laughing into the heat of his mouth and then moaning in the same breath as his servo ground you down against his rumbling chassis again.

Hot. You were getting really hot. The damp clothes sticking to your skin were not helping; in fact, they felt as though they were going to start steaming being pressed against your skin like this. Against your wishes, you pulled backwards again, bracing yourself against the warm vents that substituted for his collarbones. They cycled hot, dry air against your fingertips, though it didn’t burn. Not yet, at least.

“Mirage,” you breathed, and that got his attention immediately. “…Are we fucking?”

“Please,” he instantly replied, so eager that it made your cunt throb. His enormous blue optics watched you with such intent that it almost made you want to shrink away from the scrutiny — but you steeled your resolve. You had him, and you had him right where you wanted. Opportunity of a fucking lifetime. You were not about to waste it.

You glanced down for a reprieve from the eye contact. “Fuck,” you swore softly, staring at the metalwork beneath you for a few heartbeats before shaking your head and glancing back upwards at him. “Okay, well— I— Okay. Let me just— do this—“

Hands shaking slightly, you balled your fists in the hem of your work shirt and wrestled it up and off you; the damp fabric lingered and peeled off of you, which made Mirage’s motor throttle powerfully underneath you. Other than that, though, you got no reaction, which made all that heat in your abdomen cool rapidly into a dense ball of abject horror.

Oh, you made a mistake. This was too much, you were too alien, too different—

The servo not supporting you against his chassis slid around from the planes of your back to your front, and you gasped sharply as he did the same fucking thing that drove you insane the first time, however many days ago. His thumb, warm on the palm-side, gently passed over the peak of your chest. His optics narrowed in on the indent in your soft flesh his digit created. Nerve endings in the trail it left behind sparked.

“Oh, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” he said reverently, voice steeped in a combination of awe and victory.

Oh-kay! You sucked a deep breath in, a litany of responses running through your head. The boost to your ego was very much appreciated, and it helped lighten the sinking mass of worry that had formed in the pit of your stomach.

Mirage nearly groaned when you placed your soft palm atop the junction of his digit and the heel of his servo. “Do it again,” you decided on, and that worked damn well.

As his servo groped at your chest, he leaned in, tucking his face under your jaw. To accommodate, you tilted your head up and away—

Only to swear into negative space as he very much returned the favor from earlier and began carefully sucking the world’s biggest hickeys into the skin of your neck. Breaths came harsh and choppy as the expanse of his glossa, hot and spit-slick, laved over the gentle bites he worried into your skin with his denta. 

“Ah, Mirage, Mirage,” you breathed; every mention of his name spilling from your bruised lips made his circuitry heat just a little more. It was so much all at once — his servos were so broad that their expanse covered huge swaths of skin at once, and his mouth on such a sensitive part of your anatomy wasn’t helping either. Your hands clawed for purchase against his helm and the back of his neck. One palm flattened as much as it could on the back of his head, trying with all of your laughable human strength to bring him as close as possible. The other ended up cradling the side of his head, your thumb brushing over the audial disk there. With no small amount of wonder, you watched the plates of his back ruffle at your touch.

Mirage wasn’t trying to be weird, but he could die happy so long as he had the taste of your skin still registering on his glossa. It was more addictive than any high-grade he’d had back home by leagues. That human flavor of salt and skin and some kind of sweetness had his processors thrumming at maximum capacity; you made his mouth flood with lubricant, a fact you could corroborate by the amount that spilled over your bare sternum. The feeling of his own spit sliding down your front between your bruised breasts made the muscles of your abdomen twitch. Fingers shaped like claws now, you pressed weak kisses against the smooth curves of his helm wherever you could reach.

Your jeans were just getting in the way at this point. The minute shocks of pleasure you derived from grinding your clit against the inseam were just that — minute. You needed something more now or you were going to get frustrated, and you’d dealt with enough sexual frustration over the past weeks to be very sick of that feeling.

“Oh, fuck, okay— Mirage,” you said breathlessly, giving him a light tap on the side of his helm to get his attention. Reluctantly, he pulled away from your chest, optics dimmed with pleasure. They cycled once and returned to their full brightness as he cleared the fog of arousal — barely — away from his processors.

“All systems go, sugar?” Static hissed underneath his words.

You tried and failed to stifle a snort of a laugh. “Corny ass,” you mumbled, although you were absolutely close enough for his audial sensors to pick up on it. He made a sound of indignation, but you pushed forward regardless. “I, um, I need to get these off.” Hooking your thumbs in the waistband of your jeans to emphasize your point, you glanced up at his optics again.

Blankness for a second. Then it registered. “Oh, right, right, of course, haha! You, uh, want help? Or you got it?”

“I think I can manage taking my pants off,” you laughed. “Just— let me sit on like— the top of your chest, there we go,” you instructed, and the hand under your ass pushed you up until you were turned around and seated on the lip of the top of his chassis. For a second, you wrestled with the denim — still not fully dried — but you managed to kick both your jeans and your shoes off. They were thrown somewhere in the direction of the door. God, you were so glad you locked it.

Underwear went next. There was a beat of hesitation — for what, you weren’t sure — but like you’d done so often as of late, you just ignored your trepidation and worked the elastic down your legs. A laugh barked out of you when you lifted the fabric up and saw the downright ridiculous wet spot that stained the gusset.

“Jesus Christ, look what you did to me,” you said with a faux accusatory tone, holding your panties out for Mirage to inspect. Two digits delicately took them from you; he held them up to his face, so close that it made you blush from sheer embarrassment.

“Wow. You weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout all the wet being in one spot, huh?” He examined them with no small amount of fascination, much to your mortification.

“Mirage! Put those down, oh my god,” you said, covering your mouth with a choked noise.

“What, I can’t admire my work?”

“No you can not.”

Mirage pouted at your denial, and mumbled something about you being no fun, but he still lifted you off his chassis regardless. Like he was helpless to your draw, he pulled you in for another kiss, though he couldn’t stop his mouth from wandering. Down, down, down, until his nose was nestled in your chest and he spoke into the soft flesh of your stomach. Shaky ex-vents tickled the damp skin there.

“Shit, baby, tastes so good,” he mumbled, and you were impressed by his ability to sound completely sex-drunk without even having done anything yet.

Your hips rolled against nothing; they bumped into his neck cabling and the top of his chassis fruitlessly, and a noise of frustration eked out of you. Mirage seemed to get the memo and pulled you away. Your body was brought down until your ass was sat firmly on his hips — his interface panel nestled right in front of your dripping cunt — and your back was leaned up against the flat support of his thighs; his knees were tucked up and his pedes placed firm and flat on the floor to give you the most stability. Fumbling for a second before you found somewhere to place your own feet, the enormity and absurdity of the situation brought more of those breathless giggles to your mouth that seized your chest and shook your shoulders.

Toootally breaking Hynek’s scale here. So beyond abduction. Way beyond abduction.

A few careful digits slipped around your knee, wormed their way between your legs. “Can I—“ 

Your thighs fell open without a word.

What had made you fall for Mirage the hardest was his motormouth. He never stopped talking; he always had something stupid to add, something to pitch in with, some silly joke to crack. There was a lightness he teased out of you that even you didn’t expect. But now? Now, for once, he was speechless. It made uncharacteristic shyness flare in your gut and heat your face as he studied your very bare, very human form with slightly parted lips and enormous optics.

His body caught up before his mouth did. The servo on your knee slid over it until it gripped your bare thigh; he watched the flesh shift back and forth under his touch with no small amount of fascination.

“Is it— it’s okay?” Your voice sounded very small. It was a special kind of insecurity to be faced with.

“Oh, yeah, it’s okay. It’s cool, you’re just— just different. A lot different.” He jiggled your thigh again playfully.

“Good kind of different though, right?”

“Very good.” To punctuate it, his engine snarled again, seemingly in response to the drool of your cunt on the hot metal of his interface panel. “Primus, you look good, babe. Shit.”

Ego boost! You smiled. Any other partner — any person — and this would be too much, this position too unflattering, your everything too open… With Mirage, though, it just felt like it always did. Easy.

One of your hands rested atop the servo still holding onto the meat of your thigh. The other slid down over your shining chest, passed over your stomach and pubic mound, and brushed past wiry hair, shiny with slick, in order to slide a finger up your folds. A whine ripped its way out of you at direct contact with your clit after mere heavy petting, and you couldn’t stop yourself from drawing tight circles with your fingers and twitching your hips forward to eke out more of that delicious pressure.

The servo on your thigh dug into your skin. Mirage’s vents became far heavier at the open display of your arousal; it has always been him vying for your attention. Now that it was the other way around, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. Transfluid was seeping between the seams of his interface panel, joining your own fluids in a shiny pool that sent sparks up his struts. He made you like this, made you so wet you dripped, made your clit swollen enough to be visible, made your cunt tight with heat and Primus, he needed you on his spike so bad, he thought he might die without it.

He verbalized these thoughts with an unintelligible noise of adoration.

It was enough encouragement for you to slide down from your clit and venture two fingers into yourself. Zero friction. They glided. Christ, when was the last time you were this wet? You’d slept with a handful of people, especially in your first couple years of college, but you’d never been soaked like this. Mirage’s cooling fans choked at the sight of your fingers vanishing into you. His thumb dug into the crease of your thigh and hip as he leaned just a little closer to watch.

Very little time passed before it devolved into your fingers working inside your walls, crooking against that one spot that made your breath hitch and hips jump. Mindlessly, you ground against your palm, catching your clit on the heel of your hand with a sweet moan that nearly shorted out his processors. He had to hear that again. Without thinking, he moved his servo over, resting the digits on your lower stomach and gently, gently nudging the heel of your hand out of the way to replace it with his thumb.

“Ah!” spilled from your lips at the insistent, broad pressure of his thumb, and your hips jerked against it, working your fingers that much deeper. Tears pricked at your eyes from pure sensation. “Mirage, mmm, just— just rub, up and down— or circles, just move, I don’t ca—are,” you floundered, the last word breaking as he did as he was told, carefully sliding his thumb up and down on the bead of your clit and sending twinges of searing pleasure up your spine.

You found quickly that just your fingers weren’t enough. Not when the reminder of his servo lay heavily on your lower stomach, tips of his digits digging into the soft fat there insistently. Although you were loath to part with your hand, you pulled your fingers out with a sigh. Mirage froze, optics flicking to your shiny hand as you spread your fingers, examining the strings of fluid that connected them with a far-off feeling of pride.

“Sugar, you’re killin’ me here,” he groaned, and you saw, for one endearing second, a puff of actual steam rise from the vents near his shoulders as he ex-vented harshly.

“Okay, well, here,” you said, unable to come up with anything clever with the purr of arousal in your cunt fanned by the heat of his interface plate and consistent, maddening rumble of his engine. Your hand, still shiny and wet with your fluids, grasped the top of his servo and gently pushed it downwards, until the tips of his digits rested against your drooling entrance. To fight the whimper that threatened to claw its way out of your throat, you nearly chewed a gash into the inside of your cheek. A gasp of an in-vent jolted his frame in awe.

“You sure? I mean— it’s cool?” His flustered stammering was so damn endearing; supreme affection for him swelled in your chest. 

“I’m sure. Just— just go slow.” His adoration was fueling your bravery. You knew he wouldn’t hurt you; if he did, it would never be intentional, and it would never be something he couldn’t fix.

He paused for a second before remembering the position of your own hand and flipping his servo so it was palm side up; you dragged a large enough breath in to balloon your lungs fully at the sight. Anticipation danced in the burn of your spread thighs. For a few seconds, it was just exploration; his digits slid over your silky folds, collecting the gathered slick with minute trembles. One delicious slide all the way up from entrance to clit had you gasping. Mirage silently thanked Primus above that your whole set-up was similar enough to his valve to know at least some of his way around it. It was just hotter. Wetter. Softer. So much softer.

“‘Raj, just— fuuuck,” you groaned out, your head rolling back as the tip of one digit sank into you, soon followed by the rest as it slid all the way to the base. Stars flickered behind your eyelids. The width matched the two fingers put together you’d just pulled out of yourself, though the texture was so wildly different to anything you’d ever put up there that it made your brain stutter for several moments as your nerve endings processed the feeling. The individual ridges and articulations of his knuckles dragged against the silk of your walls in a way that pulled the breath right out of you; your chest rose and fell rapidly with shallow breaths as your thighs twitched.

You were a mess. Mirage was in love. “Holy shit, baby, I get you this bad?” It was only partly teasing. “l— fuck, a second one good?”

“Good, yes, please.”

All thoughts were wiped clean from the forefront of your brain with the addition of a second digit. Slick noises and the sound of dripping fluids landing on metal and concrete filled your ears over the steadily climbing racket that Mirage’s entire body was making — his cooling fans competed with his engine to make the most noise, over top of the typical whirs and clicks that came with his motion. You couldn’t look, could only feel with your eyes squeezed shut as Mirage pumped both digits in and out, in and out, in and out. One arm was thrown up behind you, hooking loosely around his knee to ground you somewhere. The other was occupied: your hand clutched his wrist like a lifeline, white-knuckling it even as your sweaty palm slipped over the metal cuff. When his thumb returned to your clit, swirling clumsy but eager circles on top of it, that only contributed to the tight, hot coil building in your gut.

Mirage had half a mind to pop his interface panel right then and service himself, because the sight of you, shining with sweat and slick with his spit as you rode his digits, was almost too much to bear. The plush folds of your cunt, tight with arousal, were so soft against the hard planes of metal that comprised his servos; the contrast was short-circuiting him. Under his paneling, his spike was already pressurized. Had been for what felt like hours. Your ass was beginning to slide back and forth just a little due to the transfluid collecting underneath you; the rippling motion of your flesh was driving him insane. As were your walls, Primus, your walls that sucked greedily around his digits as they glided in and out of the tight ring of muscle that made up your entrance.

Your name left his lips in a groan that was an octave too high to be suave. The thought of your cunt clamping down on his spike — so soft, so hot, so wet — like it was doing on his digit had his hips rolling against nothing, working fruitlessly for friction they weren’t getting.

Sweat collected wherever skin touched skin. Condensation fogged wherever skin touched metal. The combination of his digits stretching you, curling in you when he realized what a dramatic reaction it incurred, and his thumb working your clit was getting to be too much. Heartbeat roaring in your ears like the rain outside, you clawed a grip into a seam in his leg and jerked your hips against his servo with breathy noises and gasps that you certainly wouldn’t be proud of later. For now, though, all it did was fuel Mirage’s ego and go straight to his spike.

Almost there. You were almost there, grinding your way towards it, sweat beading on your hot skin—

He pulled out. He pulled his digits out. A keen tore out of you at the loss of feeling, tears springing to your eyes as the hot edge you were so fucking close to fell away, your hips working unconsciously against a servo no longer there. With a gasp of a breath, you wrenched your eyes open, blinking away the collected tears and nearly baring your teeth at the bot beneath you — until you saw what he was doing.

In utter astonishment, you watched as the digits that were just inside you slid into his mouth, peeks of his glossa flashing as it worked them clean.

“Oh fuck,” you said before you could stop yourself. One of your hands slapped over your mouth; you tasted sweat and metal. His optics slid to you, lidded and cycling frantically as he processed your taste. A harsh ex-vent slumped his shoulders — the servo not preoccupied with his mouth clutched your hip like you were something precious.

“Sugar,” he breathed, static grating on the word. “Fuck, c’mere.”

Servos hefted you up, and you clutched onto them out of instinct as he helped you up to his face. Without thinking, you lunged forward to kiss, your tongue seeking out his glossa and tasting yourself with a resurging thrum of arousal. He cut it short, though, ignoring your protests as he cupped your ass in one servo and held you aloft. 

For a second, you stared at him in confusion. “What are you—“ Then it hit you. “Oh.” Your heart rate skyrocketed.

The grin stretching his faceplates was downright devious. “Hang onto something, wouldja? Not that you’re gonna fall. Just want you to enjoy the ride.” A short, heady chuckle rounded out his words.

“You’re insane— oh!” Your lighthearted scold was immediately interrupted by the press of your hips against his face and the slide of his slick glossa over the entirety of your sex. “Oh my fuck!” sobbed out of you as your upper body jackknifed over his helm. One arm curled around it with clawing fingers; the other slammed, palm flat, against the concrete wall.

A groan of satisfaction rumbled into your cunt as the taste of salt and sweat and girl bloomed on his glossa — just like earlier but so much stronger now. The proud line of his nose bumped your clit for a second before his glossa followed, narrowing so he could flick at it experimentally. Lubricant spilling from his mouth mixed with your own slick and ran down his chin; his cooling fans sputtered and spun weakly for a second as he pushed up further against your hips, malleable mesh drawing shapes between your clit and your hole.

Your fingernails scraped against the wall as your hips jerked of their own accord; the edge stolen from you earlier had very much returned, and the feeling of his faceplates sliding over the plush, soft skin of your inner thighs was doing something terrible to you.

“Mirage, ah, ah— I’m— fuck, fuck!” Broken syllables and curses streamed from your lips as a substitute for real words. When he closed his lips around your clit and sucked, it was over. It was so quick, embarrassingly quick. The orgasm that had been building suddenly snapped free and tore through you like a fucking hurricane, leaving spasming muscles and a wonderful endorphin afterglow in its wake. As you sobbed out his name, he slid two digits of his free servo back into you just to give you something to clamp down on, and it made tears spill down your burning cheeks from pure stimulus. Mirage drank you; he wanted nothing more than this, to swallow you down and leave your taste buzzing on his glossa like high-grade. Several thundering heartbeats later found you hunched over his helm as his glossa continued to work lazily against you, forcing twitches out of your thighs from pure overstimulation.

“Okay, okay,” you managed to croak, voice hoarse from weeping moans and boneless from what was probably one of the most insane finishes of your life. You tapped out weakly on the side of his helmet. Reluctantly, he pulled your pussy away from his face and cradled you in both servos, one noticeably damper than the other, in front of him.

His chin was shiny with you, his grin wide and completely self satisfied, and his optics dimmed with pleasure. If you were being honest, he’d never looked better, but in your frazzled state you weren’t sure if you had the capacity to string together enough words to form a compliment.

“I gotta say, compliments to the chef,” he hummed, and you stared at him, words not processing.

“Did you seriously— you just gave me head and that’s what you’re gonna say?”

“Uhh, yeah, babe. And I meant it.”

A genuine laugh shook you. “Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Okay. Well, put me back down there, you corny fuck,” you said with a gesture back at his hips.

“Oooh, keep sayin’ that. I’ll start thinkin’ you mean it.” Your body, errant trembles still running through it, was set carefully down back near its original position. This time, you sat in something closer to a straddle, back straight instead of leaning.

The garage air had gone from temperate and warm to fucking scorching. Outside, the rain droned on, occasional rumbles of thunder sounding so far away that they may as well have not been real. Your entire world had been compressed down to one point — a gravitational singularity in this garage, crushing space and time down until only bricks and concrete stood between you and the oblivion outside. All you knew was living metal and Mirage’s voice, trembling with excitement and fuzzy with static, and that was all you wanted to know. His chassis was making so much noise that you probably, under any other circumstance, would have been concerned; if he blew a gasket fucking you, though, you would wear that with pride.

Pure adoration reflected right back at you from his optics as his servos settled on your hips, his thumbs stroking your slick skin. Any concerns he had about Prime’s reaction to you, or to this — well, maybe not to this specifically, but to the both of you being together — were completely null and void in your presence; the reality of your soft weight in his lap was enough to short out his circuits.

Your hands slid down from the cooling fan in his abdomen spinning at maximum speed towards his soaked interface panel; glancing up at him demurely through your lashes, you spoke.

“You gonna let me return the favor?”

“Huh?” He broke out of his reverie. “Oh, right, um— yeah. Yeah, please.”

A smile crawled over your face at the reminder that despite all the poetic words you could come up with in your head, Mirage was still, and always would be, Mirage. Dazed already, he ran the subroutines to open his interface panel. Machinery shifted with a few clicks, and there was a hiss and an outpour of steam as his spike swung up before you, clearly aching for some kind of touch.

You heard more plates shifting lower, too, and out of curiosity peeked downward; something slick glowed lower down, but the nervous shifting of Mirage’s hips and his closed thighs obscured it from view.

Probably better to just focus on what’s in front of you. Your eyes roamed the length of his array first, your mouth going dry just at the size of it. It was bigger than any toy you owned, anyone you’d slept with, and bigger than his digits, too. Still, though… what were humans if not persevering?

And flexible?

You wrapped a hand around it right below the tip, and a full shudder lanced up Mirage’s frame; it was so thick that there was still space between your fingers and thumb left over. Transfluid, milky in consistency but pearlescent pink in color, spilled from the flared head. Curiosity overtook you, and you swiped a thumb up to catch an errant bead of it as it trailed down the side. The fluid was semi-oily, and smelled… fairly innocuous. Metallic, sure, but that came with the territory.

The array itself was as impressive as it was pretty. Like everything else about Mirage, it was fancy, mostly chrome with blue striping up the sides that led to a fully blue head. The biomesh it was made of — similar to his glossa — gently throbbed with alien pulses as you stared at it. Oh, that was hot. Why was that so hot?

Exploration in full was rewarded with soft noises spilling unbidden from Mirage’s lips, his hips twitching uncontrollably as you carefully slid your hand down from the tip to the base in one fluid motion, feeling the transfluid slick under your fingers. “Mmph, I— ah,” he choked out through gritted denta as you observed him.

Oh. Oh. The realization of the power you held over the big mech made a special kind of arousal thrum through you. Another slow pump had his hips jerk up once and a servo clamp over his mouth.

“This was not included in your anatomy lesson,” you said pointedly, a cheshire grin on your face as you hovered dangerously close to his spike. It throbbed in your grip, working another bead of transfluid out of the tip.

“Oh shit, babe,” he groaned, rolling his helm back against the wall. “Uh— hands— hands-on learning?” he offered weakly, unable to focus on anything other than the soft, damp skin of your palm around his spike.

He made the mistake of looking down as you let spit drool out of your bruised lips and spill over his spike for additional lube, and he snapped his optics shut to avoid from a spontaneous overload right there. The noises he made as you slid your tongue over the head were pitiful.

“Fuck, baby, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed, spinal struts clicking as they arched. Primus, was he seriously about to overload in your mouth? Your lips closed around the head and sucked lightly, and he yelped. A servo shot out and carefully grabbed your shoulder, though the tremors running through his digits told you of the restraint he was barely employing. A string of spit and transfluid connected your mouth to his spike as you lifted your head, and he had to force himself to look away for a second with that same servo clutched over his mouth to keep steady. “‘m not gonna last like that, you— can we just—“

“Fuck?”

“Primus, yes.”

“Yeah, we can. I guess.” Despite the leap of excitement in your stomach, you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t even start with that, c’mon,” he said fondly, one servo supporting you as you lifted yourself above his spike and stared down at it with no small amount of trepidation.

It looked a little more manageable from above, but working with something the size of your forearm would cool anyone’s heels, even if there was slick drooling down your inner thighs. Mirage’s servos settled heavy on your hips and you braced yourself on first his knees behind you, then his wrists as you tilted your pelvis to align your entrance as best you could. You sank. The head pressed insistently against your hole. Relax. Relax. Relax.

A deep breath filled your lungs, then whooshed out, deflating your shoulders. Unable to help himself, Mirage inched one of his servos over and ran his thumb through your folds, rolling over your clit and jolting your hips enough to slip the head inside. A long sigh of  “Fuuuuck.” was all that managed to come out of your mouth, your toes curling at the stretch and then the pop of the flared head sliding past your entrance.

Mirage’s entire frame trembled. His vents became shallow and sharp, and the tips of his digits clamped onto the soft meat of your hips desperately as the sensors on his spike reckoned with the realization of just how wet and warm humans really were. “Babe, babe, babe, shit,” he stammered out. “That’s— um, fuck, that’s good!” A weak laugh escaped him as his chin sank down to his chassis, cooling fans hiccuping from stress.

“Hold on, just hold on, I can… shit.” Sweat-dampened palms slid off his wrists for a second before you resituated yourself and leaned back a little, letting your upper back rest against his tucked up thighs. Whatever you were doing worked, because you sank further, and you thanked whatever god was listening that you’d already finished once, making your body quite boneless and that much easier to maneuver.

Mirage, on the other hand, was as taut as a fucking bowstring, made helpless to his own pleasure and completely powerless to you. His optics first scrunched shut, unable to look at you for fear of overloading at the sight of you finally on his spike; then they flew open at the realization that he wanted this burned into his visual processors forever.

Your skin shone with sweat and lubricant; rivulets trailed down your body like a visual pointer to your slick sex, nestled within wiry hair and stretching so beautifully around his spike that it tore an honest-to-Primus whimper out of his vocal synthesizer.

“Mirage, I need you to— mmnh, fuck, I need you to just touch— please,” you gasped, his spike punching the air right out of your lungs. Although your words were broken, he seemed to get the memo, and despite his minute tremors, brought his thumb back to your clit and pressed down. Just the surface area alone made you sigh and roll your head back in pleasure, and it loosened you enough to take him right up until the head nestled against your cervix and your ass brushed his hip plating. There was maybe an inch or two left, but you felt immense pride at managing to work most of his spike in — and immense pleasure, too. If he moved his thumb at all, you were done; you were so fucking full you could barely breathe, and you felt the slow, rhythmic pulses of his biomesh throb through you.

Mirage had never been one for restraint. He did things all-in, one-hundred-and-ten percent, all with a flourish to top it off; the feeling of the hot silk of your walls flexing around his spike just sitting there was enough to quite literally kill his cooling fans via a micro-short in an attempt to divert more power towards keeping his hips still. Senseless praises streamed from his lips, voice whining and roughened by static fuzz. “Yes, yes, yes, sugar, Primus, that’s good— feels so good, please, can I move, please,” he fumbled, jaw slack and optics flickering with the power surges cascading throughout his frame.

“Just— let me start,” was your response, tears pricking at your eyes, and although Mirage groaned pitifully underneath you, he listened.

You had a fair amount of experience with riding toys, and you knew what felt good; the lightbulb above your head became apparent. A shift in your position pushed further weight to the back so that the ridges and nodes of his spike pressed insistently toward the front — though, to be fair, it pressed everywhere — and oh, fuck, right there. Now shoved against that sweet spot inside you, the pleasure teetered on the edge of pain, and you dragged yourself up with a vicious grip on the seams of his thighs behind you. Mirage whined and shifted his hips just slightly; it was enough to pull a moan from your lips as you slid upward. Thick, sluggish droplets of slick swirled with transfluid oozed down his spike. He watched — it was all he could do — with an open mouth and rapidly cycling optics.

The flared head caught against your entrance; a spike (ha!) of pleasure lanced through you. “Okay, now, you can— help me, please,” you stammered out, dizzy with pleasure already and feeling a loopy kind of open-mouthed grin situate itself on your face. 

Your words were all he needed. Although he desperately, desperately wanted to snap his hips up and chase the vice-grip of your slick walls, he’d rather take on Megatron alone with his servos tied behind his back than risk hurting you. Especially while interfacing. He did not want to have to explain that to anyone.

Thumb slowly working your clit, his servos gripped your hips just a little too tight and assisted; you could feel the tremors lancing up and down his arms as he helped you establish a rhythm. At a word, the dam would break, but for now, you maintained tenuous control over the mech and over yourself as you rode him with his help.

Well. Rode was a strong word for it; he all but dragged you up and down the length of his spike, earning each of you luxurious groans from the other, but your quivering thigh muscles assisted as best they could. Heat surged through your body at the drag of his nodes against your walls, and you realized with a hot flash that Mirage was going to fucking ruin you for anybody else, and you liked that. Which was good, because he could have stayed buried in your cunt for the rest of his life and offlined happily just like that.

It was good. It was really good. But even the overwhelming stretch wasn’t enough. Just like earlier — it seemed like light years away now — when you’d still had pants on and hadn’t been completely lost to metal-on-skin debauchery, the grind of your clit on the seam of your jeans had been good, but not enough. Your fingers clawed at his wrists. The burn of your thighs from exertion seared through you, mixing with the jolts of pleasure from your clit to create some new, terrible monster that had you twitching with shameless ecstasy.

“Mirage, Mirage,” you croaked, as he slid you down his spike again and pushed it into your lungs, “I’m— fuck, please, faster, please, please.” In any other scenario, your begging would have immensely embarrassed you; now, though, it seemed like the only viable option to get him to fuck you like you needed him to.

“Shit, baby,” he hissed, and you gasped as he kept moving you, legs jerking uselessly. “You— fuck, you sure?”

“Yes, please, just— oh, fuck!” The cry — and the air in your lungs — was knocked right out of you by a single desperate snap of his hips upward, his spike driven straight home. Your entire upper body crumpled forward, kept upright only by a tenuous grip on his wrists, and then he really started fucking you, and you were gone.

His cooling fans surged back to life as he slammed into you, power no longer diverted towards holding the actuators of his hips back. No, now he was fucking jackhammering into you, and you were barely moving as his spike pistoned in and out of you, slick drooling from your cunt. Like he remembered himself, his thumb began to work furiously against your clit, and you rewarded him with a gasp and more than a few uncontrollable moans of his name, which only served to fuel him more.

Not like he was being quiet, either. You were glad that the building was solid brick and the rain continued to pour outside, because the amount of noise coming from his chassis and spilling from his lips was worrying. Praises and broken mentions of your name streamed from him; he tossed his helm back against the wall with his optics squeezed shut to keep from overloading prematurely. It was too much— it was way too fucking much. Your poor overworked cunt was nearly bruised with sensitivity, barely able to keep up with the stretch of his spike as the nodes pulsing along it raked that sweet spot inside of you mercilessly. Neither of you were going to last long; not your fragile human body nor his torqued-up frame could handle much more of this.

Every sharp thrust paired with the frantic, messy circles he pressed into your clit brought you viciously closer and spilled tears from your eyes. All you could really do was hold on as Mirage wrung pleasure from both your body and his. Impossibly, his thumb worked faster, his pace got even more brutal, and you were almost seizing from pleasure as your nerve endings were frayed raw. That peak was building in your gut, that familiar tight coil of heat, for the second time that night, and you knew it was going to completely destroy you, and you wanted it to.

Without warning, Mirage spread his knees apart, slammed his pedes flat on the floor, and thrusted up. His spinal struts arched again to get his spike that much further inside of your yielding body, his overload imminent and warning signs flashing in his optics’ periphery. “Fuck, yes— yes, baby, yes, yes, ah, shit!” His frenzied whine rang in your ears as steam from his vents heated the air around you; the only thing that rang in your ears besides your thunderous heartbeat was the heady slap of skin against metal, everything slick with your combined fluids.

You responded in kind at the new angle with a cry of his name and some noises that resembled words, but the way he sheathed his spike inside you — fuck, was it all the way in? — and ground his thumb against your clit was too much— too much— you couldn’t—

You shattered. Doubling over from pleasure, you sobbed incoherently as your climax slammed into you. Pleasure crackled through your veins like lightning; a fog of pleasure dulled your senses until the only thing you could focus on was his spike pulsing in your cunt and his thumb still grinding against your clit. Tears pricked at your eyes, joining the ones already wetting your cheeks, as jolts of pleasure lanced up your spine. Maybe you moaned his name, maybe you didn’t. You couldn’t tell.

Mirage went soon after you, because the feeling of your walls clamping around his spike as if trying to suck him in impossibly further did him in instantly. His optics snapped open wide before slamming shut and he cried your name as the best overload of his life wracked his frame; the actuators of his hips trembled violently, along with his servos, as transfluid gushed into you and was immediately forced out by the pure lack of room inside your cunt. Engine snarling, cooling fans nearly spinning off their axles, he held your hips as flush to his as possible while the both of you rode out your respective climaxes, twitching around each other violently. Minute jerks of his hips attempted to work more transfluid inside of you. Brain still wiped blank with pleasure, all you could do was make soft noises and let the aftershocks spasm through you.

Consciousness eventually came back to you in gritty waves. Mirage had set your body down, leaned back against his thighs, his spike still seated within you but depressurizing slowly. Transfluid seeped out of your puffy folds, and you lifted a shaking hand to collect some of it and taste it. Metallic. Like you’d expected.

Enormous vents whooshed through his frame as he attempted to cool his chassis; coolant dripped from him, some of it turned to steam by the pure heat of his internal mechanisms. Body shaking and feeling very small and human, you stroked a thumb over his wrist where you held it, feeling both its ambient warmth and a surge of affection. And satisfaction.

You were absolutely going to feel this in the morning, holy shit. Thank God you didn’t have work tomorrow.

Mirage eventually came back down to earth, his optics cracking open and cycling a few times before they flared to their usual brightness. Lids heavy and a dopey grin on his face, he carefully lifted you off his spike — it slid out of you with a slick noise that made you flush — and brought you up to face-level. With one servo, he held you tight against his torso; he planted the other flat on the floor and resituated his hips so he could slump down further against the wall, his entire frame lax.

Self-satisfaction beamed at you from his faceplates. “Oh, that was good, huh?”

You scoffed, too tired to get riled up at his teasing; you knew he was feeling the same as you. “Yeah, pretty good. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow, to be totally honest.” An exhausted laugh left you.

“Gonna count that as a win.”

“You… do whatever you want.” You waved a limp hand at him dismissively, letting the rise and fall of his chassis with his vents rock you.

“Well, then, I wanna do this,” he purred, and brought you in for a kiss that communicated all his smug affection without any of his stupid jokes. You returned it gratefully, a smile on each of your mouths as you basked in that pleasant post-sex glow.

The rain still droned outside. A boom of thunder rolled through the building; the lights flickered. Both you and Mirage glanced upward. His optics slid back down to you first.

“You thinkin’ about going anywhere in this weather?” he asked, raising a brow ridge.

“I dunno, do I have a ride?”

“Nah,” he replied playfully, kissing you again, and you found that it could storm for the rest of your life, and you wouldn’t really care. So long as you had your favorite — yes, your favorite, not that you could ever admit around him — to keep you company.

[star-suh]

Black but Fluffy Clouds 

Lee Taeyong & Jeong Jaehyun x Male Reader 

cw: tops taeyong and jaehyun, reader is scared of thunderstorms, established relationship, fluffy sex, bareback, muscle kink, veins kink, daddy kink, breeding, praising, spitroasting, cum swallowing.

—

“the weather station told us that there's gonna be thunderstorms tonight, so be prepared with some candles or flashlights if the lights goes off” yn heard some men talk on the radio. “oh hell no” he said. yn has always been scared of thunderstorms, they're loud and unpredictable, you don't know when or where one is happening it could be far away from you or right above the roof of your house.

“oh hey, jaehyun, can i pass the night in your house today?” yn called one of his boyfriends. “yes of course, taeyong is coming tonight too”. “great” yn whispers with a smile plastered on his face and doing a cute sign of victory with his hand…

“great the light is gone” taeyong sighed while watching the trees move cuz of the fast winds. “luckily for you both i have some candles here” jaehyun smiled and placed them in different parts of the house. the dim light of the candles makes the house feel a bit cozier.

the three were already in bed getting ready to sleep, with yn laying in the middle of both boyfriends. *BROOM* suddenly a rumbling sound echoed throughout the room, making yn yelp in fear and shrink, burying his head in the chest of a sleepy taeyong. “what’s wrong yn” jaehyun muttered quietly, “you almost kicked me out of bed”.

“sorry” yn tries to relax, “it's just that is so loud and… i …don't like it” his voice fading with the last words. “shh it's ok, we're here for you yn, do not worry” taeyong reassures him with some forehead kissed while jaehyun hugs him from behind, “you look so cute like this” jaehyun spoke, “so so cute” he starts to kiss the back of the scaredy boy's neck.

yn feels something poking his ass, it was jaehyun's boner. he starts to hump him as if he was a dog, “jae weren't you sleeping?” a flustered yn asks. “but you look cute now and that makes me hornyyy” he cried. taeyong laughed, “maybe with this you can forget about the thunderstorm and focus only on us” he grabs yn's chin and kiss him passionately.

jaehyun discarded yn's shorts and put his hard dick in between his legs, every time he thrusts his dick reaches yn's balls that get smeared with his pre-cum.

yn was being showered with kisses and his body painted with reds and purples due to the hickeys left by the others, “daddy, your dick is so wet” yn says to jaehyun while touching and tracing the muscles in his arms, the top being known for spurting so much pre-cum, the bottom's hole already soaked with it.

jaehyun introduced his dick slowly in his hole, locking his arms around yn's neck so he can feel his muscles better, while taeyong introduced his shaft on his mouth, yn traced every single vein on his shaft, kiss the tip and then bobbed his head, up and down. both then rocked their hips, back and forth, using his boyfriend’s holes to pleasure themselves. yn sucking taeyong's length doing direct eye contact with him then he pulls out and asks “am i being a good boy daddy?”, the look in his eyes and his lips glistening with saliva made taeyong's dick even harder. he caressed his cheek with the tip of his dick “yes you're being a good boy, right jaehyun?”. “fuck yeah, daddy's good boy” he replied and resumed leaving kisses on his neck.

time to switch, jaehyun now fucks his mouth and taeyong his hole. “can't believe that you're still so tight after taking all his cock… you really are the best hole of the world” he praises and yn responds with a moan muffled by jaehyun's dick.

yn sit in all fours being railed by both men, they move in unison when one enters the other exits. both tops started to kiss, a sight that made yn hornier.

yn leaned on his back so he can jerk off more easily and touch jaehyun's abs while still pleasuring his tops. “ynnie i can't hold it anymore” jaehyun thrusted faster bulging the other’s throat, wanting to put all his load down that tight throat. “be prepared baby” he whisper-moans, yn relaxes his throat eager to be flooded with that liquid. 

giving a few sloppy thrusts jaehyun cums without pulling out his dick, yn making gurgling noises, the cum was so thick that when he coughs hhespits some of it. “take it easy baby, relax and swallow.. don't forget to breath” he pants, shooting the last rope of cum. the top pulls out and kisses yn, then goes to clean himself.

now yn is completely for taeyong who still hasn't cum yet. “look who is a cum hungry boy” he cooes, putting his veiny arms on each side of yn's head who takes advantage of it and starts licking his veins. yn has always loved how veiny his arms were because that meant his dick was (and it is) veiny too. he loves how his boyfriends both have things he liked, one has his veins bulging on his arms and the other has well defined muscles. “are you ready for my load baby?”, “yes daddy” he replies quickly. taeyong laughs, “my good boy”.

both kissed, they're tongues intertwining with each other, exploring their mouths. 

taeyong grabbed the bedpost to help him drill deeper into yn, “fuck taeyongie .. so deep..”. “you're being a good b-boy, you deser…ve it” he struggles to speak due to the overwhelming feeling of yn's tight hole clenching on his shaft. "give me your cum daddy” as yn said that, taeyong filled him up with his load. “shit, so good” he moaned, “now it's time for you to cum” taeyong started to suck yn's dick, “i'm gonna milk you dry” he says while kissing and slapping it in his cheeks.

“are you gonna give your milk to daddy?” taeyong pouted, yn was incapable of doing eye contact with him due to being so embarrassed, he covered his eyes with his arm, “yes daddy” unbeknownst to him jaehyun came again and sucked his dick too, “don't forget about your other daddy” he smirks. 

after some sucking and handjobs yn cums, painting his tops’ faces in white. “you both look so pretty” yn praises, “you too baby” jaehyun responds then both got closer to yn’s face and made a threeway kiss, sharing yn’s cum between them in the process.

the next morning the three woke up, it was a sunny morning and the light had already come. “i guess that every time there's a thunderstorm we have to sleep together” jaehyun says, “if you know what we meant” taeyong adds, wiggling his eyebrows, making the others laugh. “i love you two” yn says. “we love you too” jaehyun and taeyong replied in unison, “let's go eat breakfast” the older said and they all get out of the bed and went to shower.

[transform4u]

Everyone keeps mistaking me and my boyfriend for twins, is there a way we can solve this? 

You and your boyfriend are nestled into the couch, the soft glow of the TV illuminating your faces as you both get lost in the drama of Real Housewives of New York. The mood is relaxed, laughter bubbling up between kisses. Just as you lean in closer, wrapped up in each other, a sudden rumble pulls your attention. The lights flicker overhead, casting shadows that dance across the room. You exchange a glance, and for a split second, you notice his eyes widen in surprise.

Before you can process it, the TV starts cycling through channels at lightning speed. You catch glimpses of flickering images, but then a booming roar erupts from the screen—it's a football game. Instinctively, your body shifts, your attention drawn like a magnet. The world around you fades as the couch beneath you begins to feel more worn, the fabric tearing slightly, revealing frayed edges and duct tape holding it together.

Suddenly, a surge of power courses through your body, igniting every muscle with a rush of energy. It starts in your core, where you can feel your abs clenching and expanding, each defined ridge aching as it grows, pushing against the fabric of your snug tank top. The familiar burn of muscle strain transforms into a thrilling sensation, reminding you of every grueling hour spent in the gym. Your biceps swell, bulging outward as if they’re being sculpted in real time. The skin stretches taut over the swelling mass, veins popping slightly as they become more pronounced. You flex instinctively, feeling the power coursing through you, and a satisfying ache radiates from your arms.

Your pecs expand, lifting your chest as they grow, creating a solid wall of muscle that fills out the tank top. Each contraction sends a jolt of pleasure mixed with discomfort, as they push against the material, desperate to break free. The weight of your new muscles feels incredible, a testament to your hard work and dedication. Your shoulders broaden, becoming rounded and strong, creating an imposing frame. The stretch and strain are intense, but the exhilaration that follows each expansion makes it all worthwhile.

And then there’s your glutes. As they firm and swell, you can feel the muscle fibers tightening and reshaping, lifting your backside with an intensity that borders on euphoric. Each step feels more powerful, as if you’re carrying an added strength with every movement.

You revel as each muscle aches and expands, reminding you of the raw power you now possess. You feel alive, invigorated, every inch of your body a testament to your relentless pursuit of strength and confidence. This electric moment is a celebration of your hard work, and you embrace it fully, ready to unleash this newfound energy on the world.

You glance over at your boyfriend and can’t help but laugh as you watch him seemingly shrink right before your eyes. It’s as if the energy in the room is pulling away his weight. Glasses slide down his nose, and his hair becomes an unruly mess, grimy and disheveled, like it hasn’t seen a brush in days.

He stands there with a slight hunch, his slender frame nearly disappearing beneath an oversized graphic tee that hangs awkwardly on his bony shoulders. His arms are thin, lacking any definition, and his wrists fidget nervously with the edge of his shirt, looking almost fragile. His chest is flat, a clear result of countless hours spent indoors, lost in video games and textbooks instead of working out. His legs are spindly, often clad in cargo shorts that seem two sizes too big, emphasizing how small he appears.

Thick-rimmed glasses perch precariously on his round face, framed by unkempt hair that speaks to a neglect of grooming. There’s a softness to his features, and when he manages a smile, it’s a shy charm that contrasts with his timid demeanor. Yet, despite his physical shortcomings, there’s an undeniable spark in his eyes—an enthusiasm for all things nerdy that hints at a vibrant inner world few ever see.

“Gosh. Darn!” he shouts in a nasally, high-pitched voice. “Do you always have to watch your sports ball so loudly? I can hardly study!”

You grab a cold beer from the side table, the crisp taste warming you as you take a sip. “Bro, it’s the Chiefs, dude!” you groan, flexing your muscles for effect. “Besides, it’s almost halftime—you know how I love that! Fucking cheerleaders, bouncing up and down and shit” For a moment, you see a glimmer of your ex-boyfriend in his eyes, for just a moment you remember you were once lovers. But as soon as that thought enters your mind, it's banished along with every other thought in your mind. You weren't some pathetic faggot.

He stands up, pushing his thick glasses up his bulbous nose, looking both earnest and slightly ridiculous. “It’s degrading to women, Brayden! Real women like sensitive guys, like me!”

At that, you can’t help but let out the loudest, most obnoxious laugh. The absurdity of his comment and the sheer contrast between your energetic vibe and his awkwardness is too much to resist. You shake your head, relishing the ridiculousness of the moment—an encapsulation of your friendship, filled with laughter and charm.

Your roommate trudges off to his room, and as he walks away, it’s almost as if he’s shrinking with each step, his slouching posture making him seem even smaller. You watch him disappear down the hallway, a mix of disbelief and exasperation bubbling up inside you. How did you end up living with this guy? You can’t believe the college thought it was a good idea to pair you two together.

He spends most of his time buried in textbooks or lost in Doctor Who forums, totally immersed in a world that feels light-years away from yours. To you, he’s the quintessential nerd—awkward, socially inept, and seemingly uninterested in anything outside of his bubble. You can’t recall him ever having a girlfriend; he’s the kind of guy who probably thinks flirting is a character arc in a sci-fi show. It was Saturday night, and your frat was having a raging rager. And there you could hear your--- roommate, Calvin, that scrawny nerd, locked in his room jerking off to some lesbian porn videos. The poor dude could barely get it up to begin with! The sounds coming out of his room were almost unbearable. Moans and muffled grunts filled the air as he desperately stroked his tiny pecker. You swear you could hear every squishy noise through those flimsy dorm walls. Classic loser move. Pathetic, right?

Meanwhile, your life is a whirlwind of workouts, parties, and late nights at the bars. You’ve never had trouble attracting women; it’s almost a game to you, one that you play with confidence and ease. While you are watching the football game in your dorm room, lounging on the couch wearing nothing but your ratty, cum stained boxers. Your phone buzzes with a notification from Snapchat - it's your fraternity brothers sharing a group snap of the gorgeous cheerleaders making their way onto the field before the big game. As the camera zooms in on their jiggling asses and long legs, you feel a familiar stirring in your undies. You've always had trouble keeping your eyes off these fine young things, especially when they're shaking their pom-poms. Their skimpy uniforms show off every curve of their hot little bodies. Their tits bounce hypnotically with each movement, swaying and jiggling like juicy jello in those tight tops. It takes every ounce of your self-control not to jump up and run the show, grabbing one of them and pounding away until they scream.

You grab your phone and open Instagram, pulling up your story feed. Your profile pic shows you shirtless, holding a beer in one hand and giving the camera a cocky smirk. Your abs are nicely defined and your pecs are just begging to be touched. You take another pic of your bulging crotch straining against your boxers.

With a click, you post the shots to your story, captioning them "Can't wait to put a baby in you later" Within seconds, your notifications start blowing up. It's a flurry of thirsty DMs and comments from horny college babes and even a few teachers. "Damn boy, you're fucking ripped!" one sexy chick messages. "Gonna have to see more of that body later," another texts back. Your face flushes but you grin, relishing the attention.

Just then, your English professor sends you a DM, of her large breasts heaving in her low-cut top. "See you later, Bry?" she texts. Your heart races, you barely have time to process it before your phone buzzes again. It's the professor again - "Meet me at my place tonight. Fuck, this could get you an easy A." You swallow hard, palms sweaty.

With trembling fingers, you pull on some ratty old gym sweats and a tank top that hasn't been washed in days. They reek of stale sweat and desperation. The sweatpants are crotch-level and clearly stained with cum. You zip up your fly, your rock-hard cock tenting obscenely against your stomach.

[macfrog]

little aphrodite sex on fire chapter nine

the amount i had to write jean-marc in this chapter makes me nauseous. anywho. these two heal my soul and make me weep. please enjoy a little look back at the ceo's experience of paris.

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: we're going back to paris. this time, through joel's eyes.

warnings: age gap (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), workplace relationship, imbalance of power dynamic, alcohol consumption, ostentatious flaunting of wealth (eat the rich i say), sugardaddy!joel, softdom!joel, oral (f and m receiving), daddy kink, praise kink, cursing, angst & pining, and...well. the ceo falls in love.

word count: 7.5k

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He wasn’t even sure you’d say yes when he asked. Thought you’d find it a bit much, flying halfway across the world just for one lousy meeting. He had what he’d say when you turned him down in mind, already: Sure, yeah, no problem. No, I just thought – Yeah. ‘s alright. I’ll bring you back som’ as a souvenir.

But you didn’t.

Oh, yeah? you’d said. Your face seemed to light – humored, impressed even. It made Joel feel braver. Reassured. You’ve a habit of doing that to him.

Mhm, he replied, chewing on the sub you’d ordered him after his conference call. He can’t remember what he promised Human Resources he’d have done within the hour. You walked in as he was saying it, and – well. Two days, he said, swallowing, Saturday Sunday.

And are you gonna make me take minutes while you meet with this Jean-Marc? You wiggled your fingers as you said it, letting the name drip through your lips in some kind of dreamy song. I don’t make the flight back unless they’re typed up by the time we leave? That the catch?

No catch. You don’t even gotta come to the meetin’.

I don’t have to –? Wow, Miller. You’re spoiling me, no? You kicked your leg, one knee hooked over the other. Your skirt shrinking up your thigh.

You were sat in the chair on the right, opposite his desk. You always sit in that one – and Joel’s still trying to figure out why. The working theory so far is that it’s at a good angle to watch the city below, and at the same time, see exactly who comes and goes in and out of the office during lunch.

But there has to be more to it, he thinks. He suspects. Martha’s desk is, like, five feet from yours. She spends her lunches in the conference room with Deb, shaking salads doused in balsamic vinegar and sharing cross-floor gossip. They invite you every day, and almost every day, you turn them down in favor of his shuttered office, the muted swish of cars on the street, the mock gasps and clutch of invisible pearls when you share that same fifth-floor gossip with him over the desk.

You’d been talking while he’d been thinking about the damn chair. He hadn’t heard a word of it. Huh? he asked, and you rolled your eyes.

Ain’t never listenin’, you muttered, peeling the damp paper back from your own sub.

Say it again, Joel said. Was just making a mental note to book dinner for us over there.

You scoffed, licking mayo from the corner of your lips. Why you making mental notes for anything? That’s what you pay me for.

And you were right – it is what he pays you for. Pays you to be his shadow, his right-hand man, his eyes and his ears and his entire brain, some days.

But lately – he doesn’t know. It’s different.

Truth be told, he has no idea what’s gotten into him. Looking at you the way he is. You’ve fucked around twice, now, and both times have been…nothing short of fucking amazing. Both times, Joel’s thought he might come within the first two minutes. Pushing inside your velvet walls, watching the way you roll forward, hearing the lewd moans pour across your lips.

He’s always thought you were attractive. It’s pretty fucking hard to ignore. Physically, sure – the look of your body, the way you know how to dress it. And the prettiest, softest face he’s ever seen. You can win him over in any discussion without a word, just by fluttering your eyelashes at him.

But you’re more than that. He thinks of you both as friends, maybe something more. Something deeper. It’s in the glances you steal, the silent lines tossed between one another. The way you read one another like an open book. Sometimes, he wonders if you actually can read his mind.

You’re intelligent, you’re funny, and you’re a hard fucking worker. Always on time, always seemingly juggling thirty things at once, and never letting him down. Nothing is too much, it seems; everything just is as it is. And he likes that about you. Simple. No baggage.

The morning of the flight, you send him a voice note telling him you’re downstairs. “And I ain’t lugging two cases up to the top floor only to bring ‘em back down when we’re leaving, Mr. CEO.”

He’s striding past Martha for the elevator before he’s even done listening to the message.

“Uh-uh!” she chirps, dashing over to slip between the brass doors behind him.

Joel sighs under his breath.

“I know better than to rely on you to remember all this stuff,” she says, holding up a file he’d asked her to put together for the trip.

She’s right not to – he’d probably leave that file in the car, or put it down somewhere and walk off without it. You’re the only one who can be trusted with it – with anything. You’re good at your job. And yet, he resents the fact that Martha’s about to lump you with even a fraction of responsibility for the next four days.

So when the Rolls pulls off and Martha is nothing but a pin-sized silhouette through the back window, still waving from the sidewalk, he pinches the folder in two fingers and tosses it to his left hip. Out of your grasp. You smile, eyes rolling, and pop your earbuds in. Joel breathes a laugh, eyes dipping again to skim read some contract on his phone. His hand is locked around your thigh. He likes that you just let him do it now.

Likes a lot of things about you. Likes that you put your music on shuffle, and then skip eleven tracks until you find one you actually want to listen to. Likes that your fingers twirl around the light chain of your necklace – the way they do anytime you’re nervous – and when he asks if you’re alright, you bareface lie to him and squeak, Yep.

Likes the glow the morning sun casts on you when you emerge from the car on the tarmac, pooling in the dimples on your cheeks, bright gold. The way you tug on the loose cotton of your sweatpants, bashful. Shy. And he likes that, when he follows you up the steps to the plane cabin, your awestruck expression lasts all of five seconds before that quick wit kicks straight back in.

“Feelin’ pretty guilty about all the air pollution,” you tell him, and Joel silently says his fifth thankful prayer this morning that he thought to ask you and not Martha.

He watches you settle into a seat by the window, watches you crane your neck to survey the view from the tiny circle of thick glass. He thinks about what he’d do if you were alone right now, if there weren’t crew slowly filing into the jet behind him.

He floats the idea. Tells you about the bedroom up back, tells you it’s cozy. You read between the lines just like he wants you to. And when the plane’s in the air, you follow after him.

You fall into bed together the same way you do when you arrive at the hotel. A tangle of limbs, of sweat and stuffy plane air. He sleeps the soundest he has in months – years, maybe. Pushed off by the sound of your breathing, the dip in the mattress by his side. The warmth which radiates from your body, the soft brush of your hand against his.

He puts it down to the travelling – the eight-hour flight, the plushy super king waiting on the other side. He puts it down to the way the world feels different, this side of the Atlantic. The privacy he feels come over the two of you, like sneaking into the next room: your voices muffled through the wall, your movements reduced to vague shadows beneath the door.

He watches you through sleepy eyes as you prance around the suite in the morning, twirling in and out of the bathroom while you get ready for the day. He wonders if this is what you’re like every day – if you spend your Monday mornings beaming like a little kid, toothbrush hanging lopsided from the corner of your mouth, white bubbles lining your gums. He wonders why he’s wondering. Why a part of him wants to see that version of you, too.

This version – now following his lead down Avenue Montaigne, doe-eyed and wonderstruck – is over all too soon. He’s dragged from her, from you, before he’s ready to leave.

His phone vibrates in his pocket right as he’s leading you out of some ridiculously overpriced jewelers – an irritating reminder of his meeting in an hour’s time.

“Fuck,” he whispers, holding you steady as you spin around to glimpse at the baroque building. “Hey, pretty girl,” he squeezes your hand, “I got some bad news.”

Your bottom lip pouts, eyes gleaming. It’s enough, he thinks, to convince him to stick around. If you asked him to, he’d text Jean-Marc right now and tell him to fuck off. But you tell him to go, tell him you’ll meet him back at the hotel once he’s done and you’re tired. With a teasing smirk and a tiny wave, you see him off down the cobbled street. He watches from the back window as you set off again, heading towards another iron-gated store.

Denis pulls up alongside the towering hotel, totters around the car to meet Joel as he stretches out of the Maybach. The square-jawed man stands with his hands linked, and nods enthusiastically when Joel thanks him.

“The shopping – I will take it back to the hotel,” he assures his boss, a wide smile on his lips.

He’s a good guy, Denis. He’s chauffeured Joel to five of these meetings over as many years – he knows the drill by now. Knows it’ll be a couple hours and a few whiskeys before he gets another call to pick him up.

His nodding doubles, more obedient when Joel asks him to make sure he listens for your call. “You mind stayin’ nearby that part of town?” he asks. “Just so – when she’s done, y’know…”

“Not at all,” Denis says, flapping two palms to the ground. Swatting away Joel’s concern, his worrying, his missing you.

He replies, a little absentmindedly, passing by the head of gray hair with a distant smile. “Thanks, Denis. See you later.”

Five meetings, five trips over here to be pestered by some obnoxious little man in an obnoxious little robe and obnoxious little loafers, and still, Joel never knows what to expect. He strides beneath the golden archway entrance into a domed lobby, every surface spotless and shining; marble counter in the center with a symmetrically-suited clerk sat behind.

She stands and smiles politely to Joel as he approaches, recognizing him with a flutter of her eyelashes. He feels the absence of your arm on his, an ache at his elbow.

“Monsieur,” she croons, pale fingers reaching for the telephone. She whispers something softly into the receiver and then nods, folding her painted lips together as she places the handset back into its cradle. With a floating hand aimed at the elevator behind her, she says, sultry and dreamlike, “He is ready for you.”

Joel fights an eyeroll with every fiber of his being. He wanders round the circular desk, bunches his shoulders into the tight elevator, and jams his thumb into the button marked P.

The doors shudder open when he reaches the top floor. He steps out slowly, waiting for the Frenchman to pounce on him like some kind of wild cat. Wouldn’t put it past him, Joel thinks. As he’s scanning the room, counting the six bouquets dotted around, there’s a single clap from behind the veiled curtains. A silhouette out on the terrace.

Jean-Marc swings between the sheer white, calling out to the lonely figure in his entryway. “If it isn’t my favorite American,” he sings, taking Joel by the arms and squeezing roughly. “How lovely to see you again, Joelie. Please, come.”

The sunlight blinds Joel when he steps out into it, peering over the city skyline under low brows. Jean-Marc is already sat at the top of a thin, glass table, pouring golden whiskey into a square glass and scooping two bulky ice cubes in. The nectar swirls around when the glass is held out to Joel, the ice tittering as he accepts it.

The table, a rocky terrain of pain au chocolat and brioche, pools of citrus spreads and dishes of butter. Joel keeps his hands to himself as Jean-Marc slaps jam onto a croissant, bronze flakes fluttering all over the table as he attempts to regale Joel with some investment into a casino.

“Riccardo says it is too much; I told him to go to hell. We will double the cost of the place, I know it, Joel. We have the eye for things like these, men like you and I, hm?”

Men like you and I, Joel thinks, lips tilting. He balances the glass on his thigh, watches the ice cubes turn over themselves. He thinks of you, thinks of the man you see him as. Thinks how tall he stands against the man Jean-Marc must see sat opposite him right now.

Thinks how rotten, and ugly, and how small the latter is. How easily you and your words could crumble him. All show, all sitting on perfect terraces with pretentious dickbags disguised as friends, drinking pissy whiskey with a plastered smile on his lips.

How comical it all is – the sound of yapping across the tabletop, These idiots would pay millions for manure if you painted it golden, the sprawling sheets of green-leafed plants, the headache-inducing flowers, the buckled loafers and the signet ring catching the sun.

How much he misses the weight of you on his hips, forearms flat on his chest, ear against his heart. The sound of your laughter lilting in his ear. The rosy smell of your skin and the feel of your eyelashes, featherlight on his cheek. He feels the distance between the two of you like elastic strung apart, stretching thinner and thinner, weaker and frailer, ready to snap into two halves at any moment.

“Anyways,” Jean-Marc says, lifting the wine bottle shakily. It clinks brashly against the lip of his glass, a painful scrape. Joel wonders if he’s already halfway to hammered. “Tell me how you’ve been, Joelie.”

Joel tells him he’s been fine. Business is fine. Money is fine. Company’s doing fine. Everything’s fucking fine. Easiest answer to avoid further questioning, to satiate Jean-Marc’s constant thirst for news, or intel, or just plain gossip.

He slips up, though. Makes the one colossal mistake he spent all morning hoping and praying and drilling directly into his brain that he wouldn’t.

Jean-Marc asks how his flight was, sticking the damp end of a cigarette to his bottom lip.

Joel says, “Good, yeah. We got here, maybe, ten o’clock last night.”

And Jean-Marc’s eyebrows arch. His hands freeze, match held against the striker strip. “We?” he asks, white stick flapping between his teeth.

“Uh,” Joel shifts in his seat. Your gentle wave, the corners of your lips, the toss of hair over your shoulder. It’s as though Jean-Marc can see his thoughts played on a reel before him, the haste with which Joel attempts to wipe you from his own mind. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, “Jerry ‘n Lisa. Len and Pol.”

The Frenchman’s eyes narrow, a grin pulling on his pink lips. “We,” he says again, whipping the match roughly against the strip. Speaking into cupped hands, a cloud of white billowing from his leathery fingers, he murmurs, “Joel brought company with him to Paris, yes? Who is the lucky tourist? Une petite amie?”

Joel’s tongue dabs at the sickly wash of whiskey on his lips. He thinks to grab the fucker by the throat, throttle him until the idea of you rattles from his skull, spilling back into Joel’s safe hands where you belong.

He almost fucking lies. Almost says it’s just Martha, or Drew, or his fucking mother. But Jean-Marc is like a rat, scurrying along after a source of water. He’ll find it in the end. They always do.

He breathes your name, reluctant to let it go. Jean-Marc cocks his head, leans in, a swirling snake of silky smoke lifting from the cigarette between his fingers. Joel repeats it, voice louder, but flatter. Breaks it into too many syllables. Lets his host hear every bite of annoyance.

“She’s my assistant,” he says, and Jean-Marc claps again.

“Your assistant! How wonderful. And where is she today? She is not…” his fingers circle the air, disturbing the trail of smoke, “…assisting you?”

“Gave her the afternoon off.” Joel lifts his glass to his lips. The geometric shape amplifies his voice, bass like the growl of a bear. “Busy couple days. She deserves some downtime.”

He hates the sound of your name as it peels from Jean-Marc’s tongue. Like a hangnail, the residue a gorge of bloody, torn skin. Your name is Joel’s favorite sound, he realizes now, and the way this little asshole keeps butchering it boils an anger so hot and so quick under his skin that he’s not sure he can hold it at bay.

It’s not as if he owns you or your name – far from it. He has no desire to be anything more than a placeholder: somewhere for you to slot your hand, rest your head, curl your body against. Still, he feels a direct protectiveness over you right now. An impulse to stand in front of Jean-Marc’s tiny figure, arms wide, stopping him from picturing you or learning about you or meeting you.

Which is, of course, exactly what the little fucker suggests.

A wet pff sound as he rids his mouth of bitter smoke, and he offers to host breakfast in the morning.

“No, no, we, uh –” Joel’s hands are up, like pleading with the man, whiskey kissing the lip of its glass, “– you don’t have to – Look, Jean-Marc, I’m sure you’re busy enough with all –”

“Nonsense!” Jean-Marc waves a hand. Ash sprinkles down the cuff of his robe. “It would be my pleasure. Shall we say, ten?”

Joel grumbles, eye following the flight of a bird in the distance. What are you doing right now? Are you back in the suite, trying on the outfit you picked out together? Are you still wandering down the streets, drinking up the lavish city like a perfect little cocktail of bliss and wonder?

And what the fuck does he have to do to excuse himself, to come find you, to wrap his arms around you and never let you leave his side again?

He feels idiotic. Juvenile. Like a stupid little teenager, pining for his junior year girlfriend. The feelings all sharp and brittle, prodding his heart roughly anytime he thinks too hard on them.

When he looks back to Jean-Marc – the cigarette tearing closer and closer to his fingers, an expectant smile on his lips – he concedes.

“Ten is fine,” he says, and suddenly, the sky casts over.

You’re on the terrace when he finally returns to the hotel room. Head aching from the alcohol and forced conversation, he drags himself over to you.

The sight of you, hair lifting in the breeze, the sweet smell and soft touch under his hands feels like the pouring of honey on a raw throat, like cool water lapping at his waist on a scorching day. And he needs more, and he feels the saliva pool beneath his tongue, and you’re touching him and talking to him and all he can think about is replacing his saliva with you – with every drop of you that you’ll lend him.

You follow his every request – parting your legs, making room for him between them, opening yourself to him like coming home after work, like sinking deep into your shared bed, like pushing your salt-slicked fingers on his tongue and chanting taste me taste me love me need me.

Petals opening, shards of orange separating. His cock throbs in his pants when he feels the circle of your hips against his jaw, the taste of sweet, sweet nectar spilling from your center. His clothes still smell of the smoke from Jean-Marc’s weedy lips; the sweat on his skin borne from three hours sat in the sun, dehydrated by whiskey, discussing money and gold and then money again.

He doesn’t want to fuck you here, like this. As that puny, pompous prick he’s felt like since the second he wandered through the Frenchman’s hotel doors. He can’t. You deserve him clean, new. You deserve the Joel you think he is – yours. Affected by your touch alone, moved by the gleam in your eye. You deserve him, Joel decides, on your terms.

And that same night, stood in the same spot, dregs of sunlight replaced by molten moonlight, staring at the dazzling Eiffel Tower against the deep blue sky – that same night, when he turns and clocks the silhouette of your body just feet from him, he realizes that this is it.

He’s sure he thinks you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, standing in the dim light, your fingers playing with the bust of the silk robe draped over your body. The jewelry on your neck catching the light like his own private attraction, his own little spectacle. Just for him.

He forgets any other version of himself. Shakes them off like seawater flying from his body as he emerges from the ocean. Venus stood before him; hair lifting in the light, palm over her breast. And he doesn’t notice the departure of those old versions; doesn’t feel the way they tear from his skin. His eyes are glued on you, only you, everything around the two of you reducing to dark matter. There is only his awestruck gaze pointed to your radiant form, as though the scene sits alive in the eye of Botticelli or Michelangelo.

Baby, he whispers, and you move forward, dragging him with you under a wave of lust and rebirth.

He stirs the next morning to the feeling of a weight shifting across his body, two divots in the mattress either side of his waist. Something nuzzling, warm and featherlight, into the nook below his earlobe. Wet kisses trailing down his neck.

There’s no weight of you in the crook of his arm anymore. He’s scooping thin air. He lifts it, and his palm meets the baggy cotton of his own T-shirt, draped over your body, draped over him.

A laugh brushes between his lips. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he croaks, voice still low and broken.

“Hi,” you whisper back, voice like silk and sugar and tufts of lustrous clouds.

He opens his eyes and you’re hovering over him. Tip of your nose circling his, hips light as air across his own.

You look so fucking cute, he thinks. He’d take what he had last night – you, dripping in black lace and bound by satin straps – every night for the rest of his life, if he could. If you’d grant him it. But, this. This.

You – in Joel’s clothes and nothing else. You – the curl of your hair now a lazy wave, the smoky afterthought of your half-removed makeup. The smell of sex still lingering on your skin, the taste of Joel still home on your tongue. Each part of you laced with a part of him.

You – holding yourself up over him, less than an inch apart, and all Joel thinks to do is wrap his arms around your back and let you drop onto his body; his strong, solid body, which accepts the weight of you with only so much as a tiny grunt over his lips when you fall on top of him.

You giggle. He swears he feels butterflies in his stomach. He prays you don’t feel them, fluttering purposefully against your ribcage.

“You’re an idiot,” you mumble into his collarbone, words curled by the smile on your lips. You suck a mark into the hot skin, teeth and flesh and sel et sucre, and then push off from his chest, nudging his thighs wider with your knee.

Your tongue drags a wet trail down his chest, from solid sternum to suppler stomach, following the thickening of hair the lower you move. You leave wet kisses along the crests of his hipbones, the gentle slope of skin leading you to the wide base of his cock, already stiff.

Joel’s breath hitches when your tongue sweeps across it. Your eyes lift and lock with his, fingers taking a heavy hold of him. He smiles, tongue sitting patiently behind his teeth.

“Go on, angel,” he nods, “put that pretty little mouth on daddy.”

You obey instantly, as hungry for it as he is, your tongue swiping from the base of him up, curling around as you reach the head. Swollen, gleaming, slit dripping with slick precome that you lick with just the tip of your tongue and send a roll of pleasure across every nerve in Joel’s body.

He falls back, hands searching for the back of your skull as your lips sink further down down down, tightening around the smooth skin, stopping only when they meet the tuft of hair decorating his dick. His tip pushes against the back of your throat. His head begins to spin.

His back arches, hands anchored on your head, holding you steady as you bob up and down. His shoulders push heavy into the mattress, tummy sucks in until the points of his ribcage mold through his skin. And, oh – you’re so soft with it, so wet and so warm and so good with your tongue, kitten licks over his tip, wet fist wrapped tight around the width of him.

You lift your hand and meet his halfway up his stomach, fingers intertwining, Joel’s knuckles instantly whitening.

“Doin’ so good, baby,” he groans, gasping when your throat constricts around him again.

You gag, choking with a wet grunt, but you never pull away. A quick pause, a heavy breath from your nostrils, and your movements resume.

“’s alright,” Joel coos, fingers rubbing against the back of your hand, “you got it. Atta-girl, fuck.”

His hips begin to lift, slowly jerking up into your mouth. He looks down, loosens the grip you have on his hand only to run his thumb delicately across your cheek, dabbing lightly at the tears in the corner of your eye.

You suck hard around him, cheeks hollowing, tongue flattening to his underside to let him fuck your mouth – a rhythm of sopping sounds and heartbeat hums from your throat. He’s close. He’s so fucking close.

“Just like that,” he tells you, and you blink up at him. Moans muffled by the mouthful of cock, saliva and sex slipping from your swollen lips. “Fuck, baby, I’m gonna come. You’re such a good girl – you want daddy to give it to you?”

Mhm, you mumble into the warmth of his cock, the vibration of your throat on the eager skin enough to send Joel over the fucking edge. He throws his head back, lifts his hips up to you, and fills your mouth at the same rate he fills the room with the sound of his orgasm.

You take every last drop. You’re so good for him. Once he stills, once the screaming in his ears subsides, once the room slowly desaturates back to normal, a faded, blurry normal – he sits up and hooks his hands under your arms, pulling you up into him.

You collapse against his chest for the second time this morning, giggling and licking the last of his come from your mouth. Joel guides your jaw towards his, lips meeting in the middle, and licks the salty aftertaste from your tongue.

He rolls you both over, your thighs sitting safe on his hips.

“I know,” you sigh, head rolling against the curve of his arm beneath, “I know. You don’t gotta tell me.”

“Tell you what, angel?” he asks, one eyebrow lifting.

“Best head you ever had. I know.”

He scoffs, lips finding the hinge of your jaw. You giggle into his ear, a sound softer than birds cooing at the break of dawn, sweeter than the first bite of ripe fruit – the sharp taste bursting across his tongue and coating his teeth in sugar, numbed by the holy coaxing of feathered doves.

“You’re good with it, I’ll give you that,” he murmurs, and the giggle erupts into a laugh which fuels him enough to follow your roll out of bed, tear his shirt from your shoulders, and slip into the shower behind you, kneeling before you when you turn to look.

Joel’s second encounter with Jean-Marc in as many days, goes about as well as the first.

He balls his fists as he introduces the pair of you, watches like a caged and bound animal as Jean-Marc’s eyes loop all around your face, your shoulders, the pull of your dress around your waist.

He knows he’s being quiet. The glances you keep stealing at him tell him you know it, too. He wishes there was something he could say, something his lips might be able to carve into a neat little sentence. Tongue sanding the jagged edges of what he’d really like to say into a joke, a quip to ease the tension you so obviously feel.

But he can’t. His tongue isn’t blunt, isn’t defensive. It’s sharp like the kiss of venom, protective and aggressive. He knows he’d do better to hold it tight between his teeth.

The best he finds himself able to do is keep a heavy hand on your thigh, let you wrap your fingers around his own, squeeze you in place of whispering in your ear.

You hold your own, up against Jean-Marc. He knew you would. He learned less than a week into working with you, not to underestimate you. Your quick tongue, the million and one observations hidden behind the flash of a frown. He knows you can read Jean-Marc – probably better than he can, having known the guy ten years.

It doesn’t make it feel any safer, though. Luring you into a lion’s den. He knows you’ll make it out alive, but he can’t stand the thought of the claw marks in your skin.

That feeling washes over him again – that urge scored so deep into his bones that it hits marrow, to put himself between you and anything which might come to harm you. He swallows it down with the acidic sting of orange juice – slots it somewhere safe in his chest until he can assess whatever the fuck it is. Whatever the fuck it means.

His hand tightens around your leg when Jean-Marc mutters something to his assistant. Joel decides against asking you what it means, for fear he’ll tear the Frenchman limb from limb, strips of satin robe strung across the paved patio.

The assistant – tall, thin, looming over you like impending doom on legs – offers to show you the view of the city. And as Jean-Marc settles into your empty chair, the image of that torn satin robe shunts closer towards reality.

“I wonder if you might indulge me,” Jean-Marc slithers, pinching thin air with one hand and resting the other on the back of Joel’s chair.

“I wonder,” Joel mutters, finger tapping angrily on the table.

“She is a wonderful character. Beautiful, and very smart, I can see. I would be crazy not to ask, you must understand, Joel –”

He can’t help himself. He bites before Jean-Marc lays the trap. His head shakes. “She’s – she’s –”

And suddenly there isn’t a single word in the English dictionary worthy of describing you. Not a single combination of letters, of sounds, of syllables and phonetics that would do you justice.

He settles for, “I wouldn’t be anywhere without her.” It feels fucking redundant. It is fucking redundant.

Jean-Marc nods. “And you know that I see the value in things, hm?”

Joel dead-eyes his opponent, gaze narrowing. “What are you sayin’, Jean-Marc?”

“Well,” he shrugs, gesturing to the shadow pointing out the Eiffel Tower, “Paul is fantastic. Dedicated, hardworking. But it is a lot, for one person. I am sure you can understand, being that you have two assistants yourself.”

“And you wanna take one of ‘em out from under me?”

Jean-Marc chuckles, shaking his head. Tutting. Teeth grinding. He senses the bitter tone, hears the distortion of words squeezing through gritted teeth. “Not at all, my dear Joelie, not at all.”

Placating. It pisses Joel off more.

“I simply would like to raise the question of: would she like to be…taken?”

“Taken?”

“Hired. By me.”

The smug grin which pulls over taut lips incites Joel with a desire to punch the luminous veneers from their gummy holders. His fist balls again, nails digging harshly into his palm. He swallows roughly.

“She seems…she seems happy enough where she is to me.” He glances over, catches your eye for a fleeting second before Paul’s ghostly hand perches on your shoulder and turns your attention away again. Resigned, he adds, “You would have to ask her. I ain’t speakin’ for her.”

Jean-Marc’s leer only grows. “Ask her,” he repeats, nodding. “That is an idea.” He pushes out of his chair with a squeal of wood across stone, calling to the party, “Why don’t we take a drive? There is so much of the city I would love to show you – both of you, of course.”

Before he knows it, Joel’s on his feet, too, panic hammering through every muscle in his body. He tosses some half-assed excuse to the breeze; a half-truth, a desperate attempt to pull you away from the beady eyes and sharp claws of Jean-Marc and his assistant, and back over to his side. He takes your arm and scatters, pulling you past four, five, six bursting bouquets, your heels clicking along the polished floor, your head spinning.

He can feel the blood thrashing through his veins as the elevator arrives back in the lobby. Can see the shadow of Paul the assistant still over your shoulder, the place his hand sat like charcoal on white linen. He feels red hot, anger mixed with panic mixed with a word he hasn’t let slip just yet. He covers it by answering your questions shakily, diverting the ones about the conversation on the terrace.

And then you’re back in the safety of Denis’s car. You’re back to being on your own, together. No third set of eyes watching your every move, studying you like you’re some doll to be observed, or worse. You’re touching him again, holding his arm, caressing his cheek. His breathing eases, his body relaxes into the backseat of the Maybach.

You tell him you’d like to see the Louvre. So Joel takes you to see the Louvre.

Joel Miller has never been in love.

He’s said it, sure. Said it plenty to Avery.

G’night, love you.

I’m so proud of you, sweet; I love you so much.

Thanks for makin’ dinner, babe, I love you.

It began to take the form of breath, passing over his tongue with as much ease and instinct as his lungs would push out air. She looked at him a certain way – he’d say he loved her. They’d talk about the future – he’d tell her he loved her. They fought, over his working hours or the interest rates at different banks or whose family to spend Christmas with – and he’d remind her he loved her.

He meant every single one. He did, truly, love her. He loved her auburn hair, the way it’d sweep over her shoulders like a wave of fire. He loved the way she would pause to take thirty photos of the sky at sunset. He loved how homely she was, how simple and warm she could be. Her recipe books lining the shelves in her kitchen. Her pajamas folded neatly at the foot of her bed, waiting for her at the end of the day.

He loved her enough to spend four years with her, a life split nearly down the middle. Never seeping into one another. His side of the bed, and hers. His items in the fridge, and hers. His fucking bathrobe, and hers.

But right now, standing in a jam-packed room, maneuvering awkwardly around museum guides and backpacked tourists, avoiding the knee-height glass barriers and dodging fucking selfie sticks – Joel knows: he has never been in love.

Not until the moment he turns from some headless bust to search the room – the dark marble walls and great, carved arches; the white Parisian sky illuminating everything in a pale glow. Not until he catches a glimpse of you amongst the sea of bodies – stood before the Venus de Milo, staring up in wonder at Aphrodite like she’s the first thing in the world you’ve ever truly seen. The gentle lean of her body, the low sling of marble fabric around her waist, the soft dimple of her navel.

The way your eyes scan every detail of her form – every fold draped over her thigh, ever chisel mark and chip in her torso. The round swell of her breasts and the wavelike swirl of her hair. Barely blinking, afraid to lose sight of her for even a second.

Joel’s never been in love. Not until this very moment.

He only turned to make some quip about…well, now he can’t fucking remember, can he? Something irrelevant. Something so mundane, so meaningless, so dull that he wishes he could take back every word he ever said to you and use the breath more wisely – use the time spent making stupid jokes and work orders, just to look at you. Watch you, like he is right now. Every other thought, every worry and concern drop weightlessly from his mind, with such ease that he doesn’t feel the loss.

Your fixed stare up at the statue’s set face, the slow pacing of your heels, ankles crossing over one another as you pivot around her. And the look of wonder on your face – as if Joel instantly recognizes eight-year-old you, thumbing through the pages of the first art book she was ever gifted, copying the curled hair and round shoulders of the marble goddess in a pencil sketch.

Haloed by the towering windows behind you, arms crossed over your chest. Lips melting from a content smile to agape, and then pinning back in a smile again.

And suddenly – he can’t remember the flame of hair over his ex’s shoulder. Doesn’t remember a single meal she ever cooked for him. In the blink of an eye, he realizes he doesn’t want a life neatly split anywhere.

He realizes that his life, the way he wants it, was always meant to be meshed with yours. Intertwined so tightly that there is no his and hers. Last night at dinner, you couldn’t decide between the bœuf bourguignon and the confit de canard, so Joel ordered both – as well as what he wanted – and the two of you picked at three separate meals. Holding out forkfuls to feed one another, comparing and judging them like professional chefs on a fucking cooking show.

Back at the hotel, you fell asleep in his arms. Your head nestled under his chin; your arms curved around his shoulders. In the center of the bed, laying at an angle. When he got up this morning, the robe he threw around himself smelled like your perfume. The terrycloth on your shoulders, tinged with the weak scent of whiskey.

None of it – not the relationship you had before any of this happened, not the strolling over one boundary to the next, not the blurring of lines between colleague, and friend, and lover – has been neat. None of it has made any sense. And maybe that’s why he fucking trusts it so much.

Joel spent the first two weeks after you fooled around in his office swearing he wasn’t that guy. Staring himself down in the mirror with a balled fist, a pointed finger that said, You don’t sleep with your fucking assistant, you idiot.

And now, standing opposite you in a crowded room and only seeing you – he knows. He finally gets it.

He loves you. He – no, fuck.

He doesn’t just love you.

He’s on his knees, dagger through his heart –

blood spilling all over the pristine floor –

pathetic and adolescent in its nature –

butterflies tearing through his stomach as destructive as a hurricane –

in love with you.

He thinks to say it. To wander over and kiss your shoulder, hook his chin into your collarbone like he did in the Dolce and Gabbana store, and whisper, Hey. I love you. Did you know that?

But he knows that’d be fucking insane. Knows you’d probably unstick yourself from him and back up, tripping in your step. Paris ruined.

He knows he’d probably get so far as curving around your back and then bottle it, anyway. The words would die in his throat. You’d just lean back into him, none the wiser. You’d still make his heart pound.

Pound the way it does when you reach for his wrist and drag him off into the next room, and the next, and the next. And with every piece of art your eyes fall upon, another fragment of your soul is revealed to Joel. The depth of da Vinci, the color of Bruyère. The scale of Veronese and the beauty of Canova.

And with every part revealed, a desire blooms in him to learn the next part. Understand you; know you better than he knows himself. See you, the way he’s seeing you right now.

He takes his ex’s lead, when you’re stood in front of the Mona Lisa. All those fucking sunset photos, like she was afraid to forget what it looked like. The thought becomes urgent, pushing past every other meaningless word in his head.

He taps you on the shoulder, says your name lightly. When you turn, he’s already holding the phone up, watching your delayed motions through the screen. Please don’t let me forget this. Don’t let me forget you, like this.

“Smile,” he says, and you do.

“You’re cheesy,” you tell him, wandering off from the painting.

He’s still staring at the photo. At your dimpled cheeks, your red lips. Staring at your eyes, seeing a new glint in them that wasn’t there before. Like eight-year-old you smiling back at him, trusting him, knowing him.

Joel breathes, “She’s beautiful,” taking your waist in a steady arm to guide you out of the room.

You misunderstand him. He knows it. He doesn’t correct you.

She’s beautiful – the Mona Lisa. But she only became beautiful the second you laid eyes on her. The second she handed you a piece of your soul, the transaction laid bare for Joel to witness. A bucket list item ticked, or simply your childhood self, stood before one of her own seven wonders.

Everything is only beautiful after it comes into contact with you.

There’s a change in you, the morning that you leave. Something low-lying, melancholy and blue. Joel feels it under your skin, in the grip you keep on his hand the entire car ride from the hotel to the airport.

“You good?” he asks, walking up the steps of the jet, shelled around you. Safe, with him, safe with him.

You nod, but you’re watching the Maybach roll off, rounding the corner back to the airport. The same way you watch the city disappear beneath the clouds as the plane takes off.

The same way you glance over to him, your glossy eyes twinkling, pearly tears swimming across your waterline. Joel gets it. Figures he feels much the same.

He leads you slowly back through to the dark cabin bedroom, where you peel the shirt and sweats from your body. He watches from the bed, arm outstretched and inviting you to burrow into his side, curl around his body, loop your legs through his. His own little Aphrodite, the curves and the dimples and all the beauty to go with her.

He sinks his shoulder to let you nuzzle into him, let your slow-closing eyes follow his movements like rocking you back and forth to sleep. You link your arm through his, locking your bodies tight together. Joel slows his typing down, moves gentler, so you can fall asleep without being nudged too much by his arm.

You mumble something into the sleeve of his tee. He pauses. Looks down at your already closed eyes, your parted lips.

“What’d you say, baby?”

You take a deep, slow breath. Already sleeping, he thinks. And then, in the sigh that escapes from your mouth, you whisper to him.

“Please don’t ever leave.”

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Always In My Heart✨

Pre-Outbreak! Joel Miller x fem! reader

A/N: I lost my best fur baby today. October would’ve been 3 years since I adopted him. From a stray on the streets to a spoiled house cat. He battled so much. From FIV+ to broken teeth to diabetes and then to cancer. He was the best kitty ever and was my very own first cat, so he was extra special. I wrote a little one-shot to try to express how hard this loss is for me and to try to cope. I miss you, little Biscuit. Mama loves you 🥹 This is for everyone who’s ever felt the loss of losing a beloved pet.

Summary: Losing a pet is never easy, but you’re not alone because Joel is right there with you, keeping you afloat.

Word Count: 1.2k

Tags: Grief, love, soft Joel, losing a pet, angst with comfort, no use y/n, no outbreak au

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Drip. Drip. Drip.

   The misty rain pelts on your drenched skin, and you’re cold. You’re so very cold. You can feel the chill burrowing down to your shaking, fragile bones like they may break at any moment. 

   Thunder booms through the gloomy sky, lightning flashes in the far distance, and you swear you can hear the faint cry of a lost soul deep in the woods. Can almost hear your favorite meowing coming from the covered grave in front of you…

   The grey clouds completely cover the sun, the pattering rain seems to mourn just like the cold tears that stain your cheeks. You feel lost, broken, just like your heart is. Completely shattered.

   The crunching noise of the shovel meeting the earth is almost too much for you to handle. This is too much. On your knees, fingers curling in the hollow dirt, your jeans ruined from the muddy ground. And you can’t look up, can barely open your swollen eyes as you mourn the loss of your favorite cat who had made you so very happy. 

   He was your entire world.

   You miss him so much. The feel of his long, soft fur. He felt like velvet, smelled like a warm summer’s day, and you miss the way he’d curl up on your shoulder at night, purring with affection and love. You miss his little meows, the ones that would echo down the long hallway. It always was your favorite thing to wake up to.

   But now he’s gone. Faded into the afterlife when the cancer became too much. He was a fighter, the strongest fighter you’ve ever known. But now he’s just a precious memory. 

   And it hurts. God, it hurts.

   Your tears blur your vision, your face buried in your dirt covered palms, fighting the bitter sting of losing your best fur baby. You only had him a few short years. It wasn’t enough time. And now he’s gone…

   The sobs escape your lips, and you’re now a blundering mess on the ground, asking God to just give you one more day. One more day of long cuddles and top of the head kisses. And his slow blinks. The ones he’d give you every single time you told him how much you loved him. 

   You just want him back, but life isn’t fair, and pets don’t get to stay nearly as long as you’d like. Life is cruel, and you wouldn’t wish this awful pain on your worst enemy.

   You shrink against your drenched raincoat, not even caring that your hair is tangled and dripping down your back. You don’t much care for anything right now; all you can feel is the large hole that’s gaping in your broken heart.

   The rain continues to pelt down on your shoulders, your body shaking like you’re stranded in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The frigid waters are dragging you under, and they’re about to swallow you whole.

   Just when you think the dark depths will win, strong arms encircle your back and envelop you into a warmness that soothes the screaming voices in your head. 

   “Hey. Easy now, sweetheart. Easy.” His thick, deep drawl shrouds you in comfort while big teardrops fall against his dark green flannel. He cradles the back of your head with one hand, the other gently drawing soothing circles down the middle of your back.

   “I… I didn’t get enough time, Joel. It wasn’t enough. I should’ve done more. He could’ve had more days. I didn’t…”

   “Shhhh. S’alright, babygirl. You did more than enough. You gave him the best life he could’ve had. Do you know how lucky he was to find you? You were the best cat mama I’ve ever seen. You loved him so much, and he loved you very much,” he coos, pulling you closer to where you can smell his woodsy cologne and a hint of tobacco wafting off his tongue. 

   He feels like home. He is home.

   “You really think so?” you sputter out, tears breaking over your lash line and falling onto his soft button-up shirt.

   “Look at me,” he says gently, his hand cupping your chin and tilting your face up to look into his soft brown eyes. Eyes that make more tears spill over the edge. He catches them, wiping them off with the pads of his thumbs and softly traces them down your cheeks until you feel warmth flood your insides. “You’re such a brave girl, my love. So very brave. And you were nothin’ but loving with that cat. Even made me fall in love with him, sweetheart.”

   You giggle, your breath shaky and eyes misty. Even when you’re sad, Joel Miller can make the rainy days turn to blue skies. “He loved you, Joel. He followed you everywhere you went in the house. Especially in the mornings when you made your coffee.”

   He laughs and shakes his head, his brown eyes a little teary from the memories. “Yeah, he sure did. And I’m gonna miss him a lot.”

   “Me too,” you squeak out quietly, gripping onto him like he’s your lifeline. 

   He leans forward and traces his plush lips against your forehead, leaving you breathless with the semblance of comfort he leaves on your skin. He’s like a blanket of warmth, and he’s just saturated you in love.

   When he pulls back to look at you, he pushes a wet strand of hair behind the shell of your ear and lingers there on your cheek, sparks radiating through his touch. “I love you, sweet girl. And I know this hurts. It hurts like hell, but you’re so strong and brave. You’ll get through this. It’s gonna take time, but I’m right here to help you through it. You’re gonna be okay, sweetheart. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but you will be. And I’ll be here through it all with you.”

   A tear slips from the corner of your eye, and then you’re crashing into him, throwing your arms around his broad back as you sniffle into the soft material. “Thank you, Joel. For being here for me. For helping me lay him to rest in our backyard, for loving him as much as you love me.”

   His fingertips brush your skin, and then your head tilts back automatically, knowing what that touch means. He leans in and places a soft, lingering kiss on your lips, the kind you want to melt in, one that tastes like honey and longing and pure comfort. When he breaks the kiss, he places another on the top of your head and pulls you flush to his chest, strong arms enveloping you once more. And it feels like peace, a place you can rest and bring life back inside your worn body.

   Joel brings you to life time and time again. And this time is no different. 

   “‘Course, sweet girl. I’ve got ya, always. I love you,” he whispers, blanketing you in love that only Joel can make you feel. 

   Suddenly, you know you’ll be okay. It might hurt for a bit, but Joel will always be here. Even on your worst days, he keeps showing you that he’ll never leave you struggling. He’ll be here for it all, loving you till the end.

[anniebass]

baby don't be mad

1.3k word actverse ficlet under the jump rating: M tags: dialogue-heavy, beginning of the relationship, the boys are arguinggg, old man eddie's being a clueless slut, and also a dweeb, and steve's being... a person that rly needs therapy lol

Rapid catchups, they name it, though it doesn’t really need a name, it’s basically just talking. Early on Eddie realizes he doesn’t know all that much about his sexy old-but-new long distance serious boyfriend, that he possesses a fuckton of outdated information, that, duh, people change, especially in the long-ass time they spent apart. That the habits and opinions of a twenty-year-old shithead don’t necessarily last until someone’s forties.

That evening, they do the rapid catchups, starting off easy, prompted by the takeout dinner they have at Steve’s: best Asian food, go, at which without a second thought Steve says Chinese, while Eddie goes with Japanese, love me some sushi, yum. Later, when they’re full of kung pao and mapo tofu, lazily digesting on the couch, half-watching an old movie where Sharon Stone saunters across the screen and smolders at bad men, Steve says: you have to sleep with a woman, any woman in the world, dead or alive, go.

Eddie groans and slides down the couch, throws his hands up: dude, I don’t know! Uh, like maybe— Cleopatra? Or maybe one of those amazonian greek warriors with one boobie?

So, no one you actually know the face of? he says, with a little smirk.

Man, I don’t— I mean, there are some beautiful women walking this earth, like stunning stunning women I can’t get enough of, but that don’t mean I want to fuck them! My willy shrinks at the thought, he explains meekly, and shrugs, clicking his tongue: I dunno, maybe Eartha Kitt? She seems very fun.

Good choice, mutters Steve, and to Eddie’s your turn he tilts his head, scratches his nose: I don’t know if that question really applies to me. But if I had to have a sex list, it would be… Linda Evangelista? Or Sharon, she’s hot. Or— yeah, Monica Belucci, Jesus. Her, definitely. If not her then Cleopatra, that’s actually a great answer, she must have been good for all that shit to go down around her, he says with a smile, and Eddie sighs dreamily, oh, I’d love to watch. From the closet, imagine myself in her place. In a little egyptian wig, he adds, to which Steve snorts, rolling his eyes.

Alright, my turn. Best casual sex you’ve ever had, go, says Eddie, and Steve hums at that, leans back on the couch, rubbing his chin, mumbling under his breath, until he sighs and says: I actually didn’t have that much of it beyond my teens, and what I had back then was very… teenaged, y’know. And in that short gap between my first and second wife I slept with just three people, two dudes and one woman, and neither of those was mind-blowing. The guys were kinda disappointing, I thought after so many years of straight sex I’d be blown away, but it was just… okay. Actually—, he adds, shaking his head: it sucked. I was drunk, they were drunk, I don’t remember much of it. Or don’t want to. I remember stinky balls. So, I dunno—, he says, and sighs, and glances at him: am I a big loser if I say the best one was when we reconnected? Could say it was still casual back then, right? When we fucked in the church, or by the pool, or—, yeah, there was a lot of it, on that trip.

It really was magical, agrees Eddie, smiling at him.

So, uh, your turn, says Steve. Best you've ever had, go.

Oh, man, mutters Eddie. I know my answer to that. Japan, in the mid-nineties. We were on tour and stayed for a few nights in Tokyo, and I got to explore the city, research shit with the help of a very discreet translator, and finally, on our last night there, I ended up in a gay bar. Very hush-hush, a basement place hidden away in some grimy back alley, he says, lowering his voice into sultry tones of gossip. Met a guy there, this… slightly chubby middle-aged businessman type, suit and tie and briefcase, wedding ring on his finger, very regular looking guy, and we drank sake through the night, sang some karaoke, and ended up in some seedy by-the-hour love hotel. He didn’t know who I was, didn’t speak a lick of English, I was obviously drunk, but I still remember that night like it was yesterday. God, just— the way that guy fucked me, the way he seemed to know every inch of my body without having seen it before, the way he just knew what I wanted without any language, it was insane. We did it a few times that one night, practically without stopping, and never saw each other again. I actually jerk off to that memory to this day.

To this, Steve lets out a small hm, purses his lips and leans back, crossing his arms, and Eddie clicks his tongue, leaning closer, touching his shoulder: aw, don’t be jealous. That was casual, but out of all people, of course you are my number one, no contest. I just— remember that one time in Japan, because it worked so well without language, and that’s always kinda hot. Language of love, all that cheesy stuff. Up to that point and following it, it'd mostly happen with some hot Brazilians.

Okay, he says.

Eddie sighs, watching his face: Steve, you know that’s what my life was like back then, this neverending barrage of hookups. And most of those weren’t even that good, like, you talk of stinky balls? I met dozens, slobbered over them anyway like they were fucking Ferrero Rocher!, he says to a small groan in return, then sighs, speaks softer: being with you is a completely different quality from that, even from my previous relationships. It’s way different. With Marcell, we both slept around, there wasn’t much that we had in common beyond, like, incredible attraction at the beginning, and the fact that we work in the same industry, could endlessly talk about that. And with Zu, we— we really loved each other, but we weren’t a good fit. It was this weird thing where she needed someone more masc, but also I needed someone more masc, he says with an amused scoff. We were two bottoms in love, and it’s hard to make it work in the long term, without fucking other people. We’re way better off as friends. And the other dudes I dated, it was just— me being a drunken asshole, most of the time. I was a very shitty boyfriend for a looong-ass time.

There’s a stretch of silence, and Steve slides down the couch, still frowning: man… I just wonder why you asked that question in the first place. Because it seems to me like you wanted to brag a little about this incredible hookup you had in fucking… Japan. Do you miss fucking other people, Eddie?

He sighs, rakes a hand through his hair: Steve, I literally just told you I don’t. I might romanticize it, the— the way I might romanticize being on drugs, but I don’t want to go back to that. I asked because I want to know everything about you! I dunno, I— I guess I like Japan. It’s such a weird place, I really want to go back there, he says and inches closer, placing a calm hand on his thigh: come with me. Like, for two weeks or something. We’d take the girls with us, go in the summer or for the spring break. Would be cool to just wander around, shop, sing karaoke, eat tons of good food. Go to Kyoto, see the geishas, tea ceremony. Go to hot springs. Japan’s truly like no place you’ve ever been to.

I didn't know you liked it that much. A trip does sound nice, says Steve, with a small smile. Emily would go crazy, she loves those cartoons. Chels would like it too, I think.

Eddie smiles and squeezes his leg: sounds like a plan. Also, just to— get it out of the way: from the moment you first kissed me, I stopped thinking of us as casual. I was, like, fully fully back in love with you in point two seconds. Even before that, to be honest. If I ever for a single moment considered that a hookup, it’d totally blow that businessman out of the water. If you want, I could show you, uh, how I blew him out of the— fucking—, he falters, then snorts: sorry, failed metaphor. But you catch my drift.

Yes, please, says Steve.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

In Bloom 1

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, allusions to trauma, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: After wasting much of your youth in a toxic situation, things are starting to look up. That's until you meet a certain flower seller.

Characters: Cole Turner, short!reader

Note: Tomorrow is beach day for me.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The city streets seem to slant around you, looming outside the car windows, blurring at the edges. Your displacement adds to the effect, making your dizzy, leaving your hands raw as you wring them compulsively. You shrink back into your seat, shying away from the world that seems so scary to you. 

Aunt Bev is completely unbothered. She sings along to her favourite 80s bop as she keeps speed with the rest of traffic. She's always in a sunny mood but that day, she beams even brighter. When you asked why, she was almost stunned by the question; 'well, sweetheart, it's your birthday!' 

You forgot. Or didn't care. You never really celebrate. Your last birthday you can barely discern from all the other grim days. You try not to think of that life you had before Aunt Bev showed up to drag you into the light. You suppose it's probably been just under a year since. 

As if sensing your grey thought, she reaches to turn the volume down. She resumes her firm grip on the wheel and peeks over quickly. She smiles as she stops at the changing light. 

"You get a free scoop. You got your ID?" She says. 

You nod. That's one of the things that's new to you. Before you never even had a library card. Before, it was like you never even existed. As far as the world was concerned, you didn't.  

You look down at the purse in your lap. Your cousin Lena gave it to you. She said she never used it and it suited you better. There was a lot she handed over, though without any real concern. Her and your other cousin, Mason, have so much, they hardly know the difference. 

You stare at the embroidered petals on the black velvet. Lena's wrong. It's too nice for you. 

You tear your hands apart and lift the flap. You slide out the small wallet within. Another inherited piece. You slip out the ID card and stare at the photo. It doesn't really look like you but you've never really been able to recognise yourself. Your features always struck you as unfamiliar. 

You remember when you went to fill out the paperwork. Standing in front of that lens, staring into its black eye, and the sudden flash. You tuck the card away and shove the wallet back in the depths of the purse. 

"Lena's making you a cake," Bev says, "she always loves an excuse to make a mess of my kitchen." 

You try to laugh, it's more a crackle. That's the thing about Aunt Bev, everything is so careless to her, so easy. It all feels so strange to you. You don't fit but no one else seems to notice. 

"Mason should be there but heavens knows he's always late. That's not my doing, by the way, your uncle's always been horrible about time," she scoffs. 

You hum to acknowledge you're listening. The mention of your cousin and uncle make you uneasy. It isn't that they're bad. No, they're so nice, like Lena and Bev, but they're men. You try not to hold that against them but you've never been very comfortable around them. Not that you spent much time around male counterparts. 

"Twenty-five," she preens, "exciting." 

You clear your dry throat, "yep." 

You tuck your chin down and fidget with the strap of the purse. Twenty-five. Halfway through your first decade of adulthood and you still feel like a child. It's nothing to celebrate but Aunt Bev sees everyday as a reason. 

She puts on her signal and waits in the line of cars. You squint through her side and see the bustling of vehicles and people in a large lot. All this for ice cream. You told her you aren't particularly hungry even but she insisted. 

She turns and rolls into the lot, finding a spot amid the tight lines. She sighs and pulls the visor down to check her dyed waves in the mirror. She's always so put together. She tried to help you but you don't like the feel of mascara and you had an allergic reaction to the lip gloss. She didn't try again. 

"Alright, ice cream!" She snaps the visor up, "do you know which flavour you want?" 

You unbuckle your seat belt and shrug, "I don't know what they have." 

"Fair," she tilts her head as she opens her door, "I'm feeling a good old vanilla cone." 

You get out and shut the door. You hook the purse on your shoulder and meet her by the hood. You walk in step with her, peering around at the other people streaming towards the other side of the lot. There’s a large archway leading to a large plot of booths and stands. It’s a market of some sort, the kind you’ve only seen on television. 

“I thought we were getting ice cream,” you say as you grip your purse. 

“They have ice cream. I have another surprise. For your birthday,” she insists, “I wanted to buy you a gift.” 

“Oh? I don’t need one.” 

“I want to,” she says, “me and Lena used to come here all the time. You’ll like it.” 

You don’t argue. You have no right to. She’s doing you a favour. Another one.  

It’s crowded but everyone seems happy. You’re not used to all the noise or clamour. A woman pushes a stroller ahead of you as her husband chases a lively toddler past her. You press your chapped lips together and hold in your unease. 

You’re not the best in these sort of situations. Too many people, too much going on. Just going down to City Hall to get your ID was a lot. The hospital too. Those stiff, cramped plastic chairs and people filling even the space between them. 

You keep your shoulders curled in as you walk with Bev. You end up behind her, following her lead, stopping where she stops, looking at whatever she looks at. She points out a crystal sunflower necklace and you smile and nod. When you see the price, you frown. 

“Maybe something else. I don’t wear jewelry,” you say. You don’t wear it because you never had it. 

“It would be so pretty,” she remarks. 

“No, really, it’s... nice, but not for me.” 

You sidle on. There’s a table of soaps so pungent they make your head cloudy, and candles that look like whipped desserts. You cross to another booth and Bev buys some local honey and apple butter. She likes the honey in her tea in the evening. She always makes you a cup too. 

She shows you the wildflower honey giddily and points you onward. You stick close, following her direction as it keeps your head from spinning. You go to crocheter’s stand with stuffed animals meant for the children shouting and running around more than you. That whale might be cute but you’re not a child anymore, are you? 

You carry on. Bev shows you several other things. A little compact mirror with mother of pearl on the case and a hand-painted wooden chest you could put on your dresser. The dresser she bought in the room she gave you in the house she pays for. 

“You really don’t need to buy my anything. The ice creams good enough,” you say as your doubt bubbles over but it’s too loud for her to hear you. And she’s too distracted. 

Aunt Bev stands on her toes, though she’s already a tall figure, and waves at someone. She grabs your wrist and you wince as she pulls you through the swaths of people. You want to tear away as her grip makes you itch. You don’t like being touched. You’re not used to it. 

She pulls you to another row of stalls and stops before a medley of plants. There's a little chalkboard sign in the corner that reads ‘Cole’s Corner’. Pots line the top of the table, cacti and spider plants and succulents. Their green and lovely and lush. 

Bev lets go and you stare down at them. They’re familiar. They’re pretty. You could smile if your ears weren’t burning from the bustling people around. 

You’ve always known soil, always known the smell of pollen and the tough roots of unwanted weeds. When you weren’t trapped in your room, you were stranded in the garden, searching for bright petals or nursing wilting stems. Out in the dirt, you didn’t have to worry about anything. 

Often Aunt Bev found you in the plot she allotted you among her rose bushes and tulips. The space you made your own with the gnome you painted yourself. That was one of her little crafts she liked to do. She always had an idea for something or the other; waxed-linen to use as reusable bowl covers or tie-dye tee shirts. 

You stare down at a pot of aloe vera. The pot is clay; the base is brown and the top is painted white. You admire the jutting rigid leaves as the chaos around you settles into the background. You lean in closer at the burst of colour behind it, a bunch of pleasant pink begonias. 

“Cole,” your aunt chirps, “busy today.” 

“Sure is,” the man behind the table answers and your eyes flick up as you nearly jump.  

You hadn’t seen him. You were too distracted by the fauna. You don’t know how you didn’t. He’s tall and his blue eyes twinkle as they meet yours. You quickly shy away as the sight of his soft hay brown hair lingers in your mind. 

“This your sister?” He asks. 

“Oh, Cole, don’t be silly. You can flatter me all you like. You’re still a horrible salesman.” 

“Usually works,” he chuckles, “daughter?” 

“You’ve met Lena,” she chides then introduces you by name, “this is my niece. Hon, this is Cole. He grows these all himself.” 

“Ah, the niece,” he snaps his fingers. “I remember.” 

As he turns away you continue to peruse. Your cheeks are burning. You’re suddenly not as content to browse the plants. Not as you feel the sting of that man’s gaze nipping at you. It’s just the way he’d looked at you. Maybe just that he’d even saw you. 

Suddenly, a pot wrapped in burlap is set down in front of you. You examine the yellow petals and peek over at Aunt Bev. She grins and her gaze trails between you and the man. You gulp and turn back to once more consider the flowers. 

“Daylily,” you murmur. 

He leans in and lets out a scratchy noise, “that’s right.” 

You suck in your lower lip. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Your lashes flick up then down as you can’t figure what to do with yourself. 

“You like flowers? Your aunt says you spend all your time in the garden.” 

You shrug, then nod, and once more dart a look over at Aunt Bev. She said all that? To him? Why? 

“How about that one?” She comes closer as she reaches for her purse, “it’s her birthday. I’d like her to get something nice for her.” 

“Can’t go wrong with day lily. They keep bloom for a while but each blossom only lasts about a day,” he turns the pot slightly as he speaks, “symbolic of devotion and forgetting worries. They brighten the place right up.” 

“So?” Aunt Bev nudges you with her elbow. 

You dip your chin, “um, sure, okay. Thank you, Aunt Bev.” 

“Flowers are always a good gift. These ones won’t need much in the winter either. They’ll come right back,” he explains, “is that all?” 

“Yep, I think you’ve bled me dry,” Bev kids as she hands over her money, “I only have so much room left in the backyard.” 

“Ah, don’t got that problem on the farm. Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with all the land,” he counts out her change from a metal box. 

“Must be nice. I swear, living in the city can be so... suffocating,” Bev mopes as she tucks away the coins. “Go on, hon, you wanna carry your flowers?” 

You mutter your acquiescence and step forward to reach for the pot. Before you can, that man, Cole, slides it out of your grasp. “Wait, one minute.” He turns and digs around in a crate hidden beneath the perpendicular table, “it’s your birthday, isn’t it?” He pulls out a ribbon, the same colour as the daylily, “just put a proper bow on.” 

He ties it up in a drooping uneven bow. You peek up at his face as he gives it a helpless smile and shrugs, “not perfect but... happy birthday.” 

He pushes the pot towards you and you cautiously take it. His large hand brushes yours and you quickly bring the flowers against your stomach, recoiling a step back from the table. His fingers fall onto the table and he taps them. 

“Oh, wait,” he turns once more and digs around, this time in a bag on the top of the table, “Marvita brough these over from her booth.” He takes out a small box and lifts the lid to reveal an array of macarons in a variety of hues, “I can’t eat them all.” he shoves the box at you, “please.” 

You don’t move but Bev eagerly accepts one; a pink one. “Go on,” she urges, “live a little, birthday girl.” 

You scrunch your mouth up and slant it this way, then that. You take a cookie; a green one. As you hug the plant with one arm and retract the other, you remember your manners. A tingle runs through the back of your hand, a memory of those lessons, as the ‘thank you’ tumbles off your tongue. 

You look up and once more your eyes meet. You blanch and swiftly turn away. 

“No problem,” he says brightly, “hey, Bev,” he calls as she goes to shuffle away, “next week?” 

“Eh, I don’t know, my husband’s been on me about the spending,” she laughs, “we’ll see.” 

“Oh yeah, see you then,” he snorts, “you too, I hope.” 

“Uh, bye,” you wave with the cookie and hurry past your aunt. You know he’s talking to you but you can’t face him. He’s just being nice and you won’t be back. 

“I love those, they’re so pretty,” Aunt Bev reaches over to touch the petals, “such a nice man, isn’t he?” 

[thedarlingdearestdead]

Midnight confessions

Summary: Neither of you can sleep and you both have feelings, they are revealed!

Warnings: Full on smut, little plot. R18.

Word count: 1,690

“You should be asleep.”

You startle out of your thoughts. “So should you, General Skywalker.”

He smiled in the dim light of palace quarters which had been provided for you, as Jedi ambassadors on Bespin. “I couldn’t.”

“Me neither. Something feels unsettled here.” You were wearing just a light white shirt and a pair of sleeping shorts, hair undone in messy curls around your head. Your appearance was far from the neat Jedi presentation he was used to seeing. You were shining in the moonlight. “I feel unsettled.” You meet his eyes across the room.

“You feel it to?” He asks, curious and desperate for you to see his true meaning.

“I’ve felt it since I boarded your ship. Since seeing you after such a long period of time had past. It’s like…”

There was a long pause. “Like what?” He asks, moving across the room, closer to you.

“Like nothing I’ve felt before, like nothing I should feel.”

He nods, finally coming to a stop in front of you. “And if I told you I did know this feeling? That I felt it even then?”

You looked deep into his eyes, searching for the truth and finding the sincerity you had come to expect from Anakin Skywalker. His confession sent a shiver down your spine. It was a secret you both had kept buried for years, a feeling that had grown quietly in the shadows of your duties as Jedi.

"Anakin, you can't mean… We can’t” You choked out, his hand reaching out to your face.

“I can. We can.” His voice goes husky, desperate, his eyes searching yours in the darkness. 

The room seemed to shrink around you, and the air grew heavy with unspoken desires and longing. Anakin's fingers brushed against your cheek, and you leaned into his touch, your body, and mind both, weakening.

"We've dedicated our lives to the Jedi Order," you whispered, your voice barely audible, your breath uneven. "We have responsibilities, Anakin. We can't just throw it all away."

“But can you resist this feeling? Can you suffer, and make me suffer, all for a code?”

You let your eyes flutter to the ground, losing them briefly, trying to gather your thoughts and your resolve. The Jedi Code had always been clear: emotions, especially romantic ones, were to be avoided. Yet here you were, standing in the moonlight with the man you loved, torn between duty and desire.

Anakin takes your chin in his hand and lifts your gaze to meet his. You see the fire in his eyes, the same passion that’s burning within you. “I can’t resist it anymore, (Y/N). I’ve tried for too long. I've fought it, but it's stronger than me. And now, after seeing you again, it’s stronger than anything.”

He leans in, his lips hovering just above yours. You can feel his hot breath on your skin, feel the tension building between you. You know you should resist, that you should push him away and leave the room, but you can’t. You’re powerless to his touch, to the feelings that are surging within you.

Without another word, Anakin closes the gap between you, pressing his lips to yours in a fiery kiss. His hands move to your hips, holding you close to him, as he deepens the kiss. You’re lost in him, in the passion that had lain dormant inside of you for too long.

"I know it's not easy," he said softly, “But I think we can make it work.”

He started kissing at your neck and you melted into him, the last vestiges of your resistance dissolving under his lips. 

Anakin's arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer, deepening the kiss. You felt his hands move down your back, sending shivers down your spine, and you knew there was no going back.

Nothing could stop you now. You and Anakin were in a world of your own, a world where only the two of you existed. He lifted you up in his arms, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, never breaking the kiss.

Anakin carried you to the large sofa in the center of the room, and gently lay you down. He looked at you, searching for any sign of hesitation, but all he found was burning desire. You wanted him as much as he wanted you.

He kissed you again, his lips trailing down your neck, your collarbone, and finally pulled down your nightshirt, reaching your breasts. He took one of your nipples into his mouth, and you gasped in pleasure. You allowed yourself to be swept away by the passion you both felt, in this moment, all that mattered was Anakin. 

Your hands moved to his beautiful curly hair, digging into the strand at the back as he continued his attack on your chest, the moan he let out sent shivers down in between your legs.

He removes your top completely, leaving you almost completely bare to him. He grins when you try to take his too. He leans back on the couch, on his knees in between your legs to strip it off. 

You gaze hungrily at his body, shaped from an adolescence of heavy training. He is slim but hard and toned with muscles and a spattering of scars. You are stunned into silence which makes him grin with a dangerous look in his eyes. He must know how much you want him, how much you’ve always wanted him. 

You feel yourself growing impossibly wet and pull him to you hungrily, wiping the pride off of his face as he melts into you. He kisses you on the mouth and returns to sucking and biting at your breasts, removing your own top completely and causing you to arch your back into him. He groans at the sight.

Anakin moves lower on you, kissing a line down your stomach, pulling down your sleep shorts to reveal your core. He takes a moment to push your legs apart and stare at your entrance. You feel the heat rising in you and feel yourself growing aroused by the intensity of his gaze. You want to kick him, make him move, make him so something. You’re getting impatient as he takes his time, stoking your thighs and playing with you what you would call an impossible cruelty.

“Look at me” Anakin says and you respond to the dominant command in his voice. He gazes deep into your eyes as his fingers trail through into you, finally, eliciting a moan from you. “You’re so beautiful.” He says breathlessly, and you pull him back down to your lips. “I love you.” 

Anakin moves his fingers through your wetness, exploring your folds and teasing your clit just a bit, just enough to learn you, watch you, tease you. You feel the air grow thick with tension as the feeling of his hands invades you, his moves gets faster and your breathe becomes more short. Then he swoops forward, face first and his tongue joins his fingers, you almost scream, bringing your hand to your mouth to muffle your voice. 

“Don’t stop” You say, though he shows no sign of wanting to. On the contrary his moves only become more desperate, more intense as he laps you up, the fire in your stomach grows ever more, burning down all of your past defences, wondering why you ever had any in the first place. Why you and Anakin hadn’t been sneaking away to do this for years. 

Then suddenly you meet your crescendo, biting hard on hand as you thrust into his face, coming all over him. His groan vibrates through you, shaking your sensitive core. He doesn’t give you much time to recover before taking one last stroke at your juices then coming up to kiss you on the mouth.

The taste of yourself on him makes you see stars, and the way he thrusts himself into you a moment later gives you a vision of the entire galaxy. 

He is rough and desperate and claws at you ferociously. His mouth takes a constant place on yours, his hands tracing down your body, his fingers gripping at your own and digging you further into the cushions. All the while he thrusts at a furious pace. 

“Force, this is more than I could ever have imagined.” His voice was so gruff and gravelly and his eyes were shut as he breaks from kissing you to breathe hard above you. 

You take the opportunity to kiss at his neck and bring your leg up to change the angle slightly, you catch him off guard and hear his breath hitch followed by a hard groan. 

You are both reaching your limit, your movements are long and drawn out and your breath comes in short gasps as each of you gets ready for that final push. Then Anakin begins to thrust faster, his rhythm turning erratic and fierce as he growls out in pleasure. You can feel the heat rise in you again as he moves in you, rubbing against the right spot, and you feel your chest tighten again on the verge of your second orgasm.

“Ani-“ You manage to mouth out.

As he slams into you again, he calls out your name and you feel the last of his control break apart, pushing you both over the edge. Anakin's face tenses as he emits three hard grunts, his last for a while, into your neck, each one of them triggering your orgasm. You clench to his body, nails digging into the skin of his back as your insides shake and your insides fill up with him. 

It is minutes later that the two of you can see, and breathe normally. It takes minutes more for you to move, both exhausted from your activity, from the emotions which came with it. You had crossed a line that you could never come back from. With Anakin. And it was amazing. You find yourself grinning into his shoulder and he looks up at you with the exact same expression on his face. 

This was the start of something…

[iliketangerines]

Thank you so much for Dark Raiden with innocent reader!Maybe part 2 for that?like when he had enough of this feelings and go straight to reader and propose it to her and hold her I'm his arms (they're too good and I can't get them enough)

docile as a lamb pt. 2

a/n: mmmm, i want him to fuck me so badly. also, i do NOT condone the behavior at the end in real life

pairing: lord raiden x afab!reader

warnings: nsfw (MDNI), overstimulation, pussy eating, fingering, squirting, somnophilia, slight breeding kink, dubcon near the end, dacryphilia, mating press, nipple play

Raiden stares at you from across the room, eyes taking on an unnatural glint as he stares you down, almost like a predator sizing up its prey

he’s deathly still as you explain the problem to the soldiers, but they huff and point a finger into your chest as they complain that they need the technology now

Raiden feels his fingers twitch as you shrink away from the soldier, who uses their size and muscle to tower over you

you say that you can’t do anything about that, that they damaged the hardware and that the the technology in general needed to be replaced and that isn’t your department

the soldier hisses you and gets much too close to you, and you tremble in place, unsure of what to do against your superior

Raiden walks over to the soldier and places a hand over the soldier’s shoulder and squeezes tightly, making sure that his eyes crackle with lightning as the soldier looks up at him in fear

the god asks if he has a problem, and he digs his fingers into the flesh of the soldier’s shoulder, making them wince in pain

they stutter out a ‘no’ and scamper away the second Raiden lets go of their shoulder, and you let out a sigh of relief and thank Raiden

you ask him if you can repay him, that he’s been doing a lot for you, keeping the unruly soldiers off you who thought they could boss you around because they’re your superior

and that he’s been keeping you company, and you look up at him through those eyelashes, sending Raiden’s blood flowing downward

he clears his throat to try and distract from the thought, and he tells you that he’d like to meet you later tonight, that he has something to show you

you light up and pat his shoulder, asking him when and where to meet you, and he gives you a time and location in the hangar

he watches you walk away, and he can see the way the skirt you’re wearing ride up your thighs and how your shirt shapes around your body just right

Raiden turns around and wanders around the base aimlessly, waiting for the time to pass until he can finally take you out on that date, and he paces impatiently

he wants to claim you now, have you stowed away from the world, mark you up and keep you as his own personal lover

but he has to draw you in first, and so Raiden waits, irritated that he was to waist to long to lure you in

none of the soldiers dare to ask what’s got Raiden so short-fused, and the day passes by slowly as he waits in the hangar for you to arrive

finally, as the sun starts to dip low on the horizon, you arrive, wearing a pretty little dress that emphasizes your curves, and Raiden wants to flip up the dress and fuck you right now

but he restrains himself and takes your hand and leads you out of the hangar as you chat with him about the rest of your thankfully uneventful day

he takes you outside of the compound and helps you walk on the rocky terrain to the cliffs, stopping a few feet from the edge just in case you fall down

he chats with you as he waits for the sun to set just a little bit longer, and you seem excited, perhaps a little confused, but you don’t seem to mind

but finally, the sun dips down, and the moon comes out

Raiden concentrates and summons the clouds to surround the moon but still shine through the window of clouds, and they grow dark and gray

you hear thunder come, but no rain falls

the god lets out a breath and feels the red lightning run through his fingers, through the current in the air, how it gathers in the clouds

he draws his hands up and flicks his fingers, sending the red lightning into arcs that combine together to form a beautiful display of his power

he puts his full concentration into the display, but he can still hear your gasps of delight and amusement as he controls the lightning to bend to him

he gives one final burst of lightning to flash through the sky before letting his arms fall to his side, and he take a glance at you

you look amazed at the display, and the clouds disappear, letting the moon shine through and shining on your features just perfectly

you tell him that it was amazing, that it was beautiful, and Raiden decides to make his move

he tells you that you’re more beautiful and tilts your chin up to look up at his tall frame properly, and even in the night, he can see your flush at the comment

but you don’t move away, rather your chin rests its weight into his hand, and you’re left speechless as he leans down in close to you

he comes down close enough so that you’re underneath his hat as well, and he can see you strain to get as high as you can on your toes to meet him

you presses his forehead to yours and asks if you will be his, so that he can kiss you, touch you, ravish you as he pleases

you nod, and Raiden smiles as he closes the distance between you two, bringing his arms to circle around your waist and lift you into his arms

you squeak as your feet lift off the ground, but you still melt into the kiss and grip onto Raiden’s shoulders as he presses his tongue into your mouth

he feels all-powerful, like he could take on the elder gods and win right now as he kisses you, and it’s better than he could have imagined: you’re so much sweeter than he thought

he can’t get enough of you, and he could taste you forever

but you pull away from him, his lips still chasing yours, and you take deep breaths as you stare into his eyes and bring your hand up to cup his face

you hesitate for a second, but then you tell him to ravage you like he wanted

Raiden head spins as he hears you, and he immediately transports you both in a flash of lightning to his bedroom

he presses you into his plush bed, lips smashing against yours and moving fervently as he hands claw at your dress, but he grows impatient and rips your dress and bra off

you gasp and whine into his mouth about something, but Raiden doesn’t hear as he sees your chest fully exposed to him, plush and full and so soft

he trails his kisses down your neck and chest until he latches onto your nipples, and he nips and sucks on the sensitive bed, using his hand so squeeze and knead the flesh of your other tit

you moan at the feeling, and your hands fly down to remove his cowl and grip onto his white hair, and he groans at the feeling of you tugging at his strands

he licks at your nipples, circling around the bud with his tongue, before pressing a firm lick into it and then nipping it

Raiden loses himself in the taste of you, and you whine as he leaves your chest in hickeys and bite marks

finally, he pulls away and admires how your nipple is puffy and sore before moving on to lavish the other one is the same attention

your hips buck up into his, and he grinds down into you, moaning at the feeling of his cock rubbing against the fabric of his clothing

the image of your pussy flashes through his mind, and Raiden immediately detaches from your chest, giving it one more appreciative squeeze, before shuffling downward

he presses his tongue into your clit through your underwear, needing a taste of you right now and too impatient to remove your panties right away

it makes you whine, and the rub of the fabric against your sensitive clit with Raiden’s tongue pressing firmly into your clit has you whimpering into the air and arching your back

Raiden moans and grips onto your thighs, bringing you in closer to him as he laps at your pussy through the fabric

but finally, he grows tired of the barrier, and he reaches his hand to rip off your lacey panties and dig his nose into your puffy clit as he tastes you

Raiden is in heaven, you taste better than anything the Earthrealm could offer, you’re so sweet, so delicious, so pliant underneath his hands, and he fucks you on his thick tongue

you tug at his hair, head thrown back, as you grind your hips into his face, and you whisper his name like a prayer as he pleasures you

you’re so tight around his tongue, and he can imagine how tight you’ll be around his cock, how he’s going to stretch you out

Raiden grinds his cock into the mattress as he continues to fuck you on his thick tongue, and his fingers dig into your thighs and send small shocks of electricity through you as he loses his composure

it makes you whine and squirm in his grip as your hips buck into his face and your pussy clench around his tongue as you near the edge

you can barely warn him, voice breathy and high-pitched, and Raiden hums into your pussy, needing to taste your release, to taste how he pleases you

you keen and tug at his hair as you cum, and Raiden laps at the taste desperately, as if he’d never taste it again

your taste was only for him, your whines were only for his ears, your body was only for his touch, he pants into your pussy as he glances up at you

and you’re so beautiful as your chest heaves up and down as you come down from your high, and Raiden can’t help but place his tongue firmly into your clit to watch you twitch in his arms

he wraps his lips around your clit, keeping watch of your reactions carefully, as you whine and moan squirm in his grip as he flicks your clit with his tongue

you cry out in overstimulation as he brings you to another orgasm, and he hums at your taste flooding his mouth again

he needs more, needs to taste you again, and he brings his thick fingers from your thighs and slides them in between your pussy lips before sliding them into your drooling cunt

he fucks you on his fingers ruthlessly, curling them to press into that sweet spot that has your head tilting back and your whines grow needy

Raiden’s doesn’t let up, fucking you on his fingers, covering them in your cum, watching you turn into a blabbering limp mess as you sob that it’s too much

but he doesn’t care because now you belong to him, and he will take what he wants, he is a god, and he will not let anyone stop him, not even you

he has you breathless and squirming, and then sobbing and crying as your push at him, but he’s so much stronger and you finally go limp on the bed and take his fingers and tongue without even a noise of complaint

you twitch on the bed every time you come, and Raiden still can’t have enough of your taste

but his cock aches in his pants, and he decides he wants to feel you around his cock more than he wants to taste you

he slides his fingers out from your pussy and detaches his lips from your pussy, and he licks his fingers clean of your release, moaning at the taste

he stands up, towering over you, but you don’t even react mind mush and eyes lidded over as he undresses himself

he puts your legs over his shoulders and slides his cock in between your folds, biting his lip at the feeling before finally notching his tip

he shuffles upward, sliding his dick into you, and you finally react, letting out a soft cry at the stretch as tears brim in your eyes again

Raiden pushes you into a mating press, and he groans at the feeling of your soft thighs pressing into his chest, fucking into you roughly before you’ve had time to adjust

he kisses you deeply, swallowing your cries of pain and pleasure, and thrusts his hips and out of you at a brutal pace as he loses himself to the feeling of you clenching around him

he can’t control himself, and he can feel himself buzzing with electricity, making you whine into his mouth and twitch underneath his hold

with every thrust, his pelvis slaps into your clit, sending jolts of pleasure up your spine, and you can’t control yourself as you cry and squirt on him

it only amplifies the electricity, and it has your pussy spasming around Raiden’s dick, causing him to get faster, to fuck into you until everyone knows you’re his

he chases his own high, pace growing sloppy as he continues to kiss you, and he groans loudly into your mouth as he buries himself deep and cums inside of you

he finally stops thrusting and just let himself spill his seed deep inside of you, marking you as his forever

yes, you’d be his consort, his lover, his toy for him to use and love and ravish

not that you knew that right now, not when you’ve passed out on the bed

Raiden pants heavily as he stares at your sleeping figure, but his cock still twitches inside of you and aches to breed you

well, you belong to him now anyway

[legend-the-dumb-jock]

Stephen was the above average joe. Muscular. Huge package. Standing at 6’4”. When he walked into a room people stopped and stared looking a the muscled specimen that heaved the room. And with large size 16 feet you could hear him coming too.

Stephen had a perfect life but where someone is so perfect there has to be a downfall. Stephen’s was that he always took advantage of those close to him. He was able to be so muscular and hot spending all his time in the gym and never once helping his boyfriend, Matt, pay for rent. He was a leach. Every night he would come home dripping sweat. Kick off his massive shoes leaving them where they fell. He would drop his dirty sweat clothes in the hall way and never clean after himself. Then while still dropping sweat, flop down on the couch. Staining even more than what he already has. But it was time. And his boyfriend had had enough.

While Stephen fell asleep like he always did on the couch, his boyfriend still in front of him with a menacing glance. Holding the book he had from his family he began to chant the spell to make Stephen change.

Stephen was dreaming about plowing the hot gym bunny. Bending him over the sink and thrusting himself in. And all the while began to scream while he was having sex …

“….and this vessel must change to meet this new form!” His boy friend finished reading. And then he seen the fine print,,, there had to be an agreement from the one the spell was going to effect. He began to panic. How would he get Stephen to agree to…”YES YES ! FUCK ME !!!” Matt’s mouth dropped. How could this have happened in a more perfect moment. Stepping back slowly he hid the book. Now. Watching as his boyfriend began to change.

Soon Stephen’s well defined abs began to push outwards. His legs began to get fuller and he also began to shrink in height. His pecs quickly lost all definition as they were hidden under a thick layer of fat and his stomach continued to balloon out warden. Hair began to sprout from ever office of his body giving him in a thick coat of fur. His feet got shorter becoming a size of extremely wide and thick size 11s. He had little sausage toes now while his fingers fattened up. His butt began to inflate and sag as it widened and his back began to grow wide to match. A thick unkempt beard began to grow out of his face while he started balding. What was once a hunk before now looked like an out of shape 45 year old man. Matt smiled at his creation. Knowing that there was more to come.

Matt woke up to screams from the living room. Walking in he seen Stephen looking at his phone and trembling. “What the fuck has happened to me !!�� Matt asked him. What he was talking about. All a part of his plan to make Stephen lose his mind. He was going to treat Stephen like the fat older man he was now. Even though he was the only other person in the world now that would remember what he is really supposed to be like. “Phen. You need to stop acting weird. It’s time for you to go to work. I wasn’t able to wash your janitor uniform though. “ Stephen just looked at him. Whatever happened seemed to have changed reality he thought. He had to get out of there. And sadly. It seems as though the dirty uniform was the only thing that would fit him. Before he left the apartment Matt handed him some pills “don’t forget your pills Phen. You know you need your heart meds and that cholesterol needs to come down. Try not to eat those 4 double cheeseburger for lunch again” he said as he kissed Stephen’s fatter face.

Work was hard for Stephen. He found that at his new size and short let height he was screed on all aspects of life now. He was the lowly janitor of the gym he worked at ! And people would just throw dirty clothes on him and expect him to always be at their whim for cleaning. During his lunch break he wanted to find a way to fix this. He had to get his old body back ! But then he caught glimpse of it. The burger signs. And drawn by an impossible force he walked over. Walking through the doors he was greeted by the cashier. Working his wallet out of his pocket with his meaty hands he paid for his food. 5 double cheeseburgers. And he ate ever bite. Licking the grease from the wrappers and his fingers. He was forced by some unseen force to be the fat animal he looked like. Walking back home he could help but feel winded. His lunch should have. Been enough to make him feel full for days but his stomach was growling like an angry bear. He felt so tired. As he walked through the apartment door he shuffled his wide feet down the hallway and looking in the mirror began to cry.

Somehow during the day he had gotten older. And much bigger. What little muscle definition he had was completely gone. Now his stomach was rock hard and protruding in an impossible beach ball stomach. Completely bald with white facial hair. Matt came around the corner and Stephen cried. He pleaded for Matt to remember him. “Phen. Are you ok? I know you’re jealous of my youth. But we’ve talked about this. You’re a 61 year old man. You have to come to terms with that!” And he walked off. That number reverberated in Stephen’s head.

Walking around the beach no was no longer fun for Stephen. He was getting looks now but not for his hot young body. It was for the massive beach ball he carried. He had been stuck like this for a whole month at this point. Continuing to try to find a way to change back there just has to be one. Matt came walking up to him with food. “You know one day. I’m going to stop giving into her hunger. We gotta find someway to get you. Lose weight Phen”. Phen aggressively at the multiple cheese burgers, fries and shake that Matt had brought him. Matt watched his creation. Everything from that night with spell had come true. An intense appetite that never went away, old age, massive bloated stomach with no muscle definition, and all the pains that would come with his body being like this. He knew that Phen was trying to find a way back. To get his old body back so he could be happy. But little did he know, that the Matt altered the working of the spell. “And when you agree to this the changes will be permanent”.

[thedustyleaves]

Do you have any tips on coming up with pose? I looks at your kids fullbody drawing and im in awe on how you can make different unique pose but still similar concept.

Aw gosh, thank you!

I needed to think about this one, because it’s something I do subconsciously, so thank you for asking such an excellent question!

What I really like doing when I'm drawing poses is capturing something mid-motion, especially mid-sentence.

Because of my hyper-phantasia, I can picture my illustrations in my head, and they're always in motion and with sound, sometimes with smells, etc. Then I take a snapshot of that and try to capture it.

If you prefer to thumbnail or need to have the images laid out before you, I’d suggest filming a short video of yourself doing the pose to feel it out. I do this myself when the image in my head isn’t clear enough! It helps me find out what my body is actually capable of doing.

For example, in this scene, I knew I wanted Dakon, Christie, and Kain to all be looking at Raki, so they had to surround him to fill out the composition.

I wanted a window to bring in a source of light and to give it that noir feel. Since the windowsill isn’t particularly wide, I knew that whoever was sitting there would have to support themselves somehow. So Christie is using her hand and left foot to balance herself (because it’s important to keep a hand free for coffee) and she's the shortest one of the bunch. Thinking about physical stuff like that helps bring physicality to the scene and makes the poses varied by making them function within the physics of the world.

For something like my vampire illustration, where everyone is sitting (or standing), I wanted their poses to reflect who they were and match the composition as well. I used Raki’s more outgoing personality to take up a wider space in the illustration by having him lean across and physically open up with his arm out, and point up at the paintings behind him.

Dakon is more reserved, and I wanted that to be in his pose as well, but without him shrinking away, so he’s leaning on Kain’s chair while supporting his feet, so he’s not that short in the picture.

For Christie, sometimes simple is best, and I felt like she could carry herself by simply standing tall and proud, with the little surprise of the axe in her hand. Dakon and Christie also mirror each other, by facing opposite ways.

Kain’s pose is probably the simplest but most “effective” because it’s so dead-on, symmetrical, and demanding of attention. He wants you to look at him, if that makes sense. So they’re all doing the same thing but in a variety of ways to show personality and to work with the picture itself.

For something like my kids halloween illustration, (or in my comic when they’re all together and walking), I try to focus on their legs never being in the same part of the walk. So Christie and Dakon are at the extremes of the walk, but with opposite legs forward. Kain and Raki are both mid-walk, but one is running and the other is trying to look scary with a lifted leg.

I have a soft spot for mid-conversation faces as well because it brings an image to life when it’s not just >:( or :D all the time (although Kain is 99.9% always :DD). This is an old one, but I think it’s one of the images where I’ve leaned into mid-convo the best. I did it to try and make it more obvious that Dakon is pointing at something or someone he wants to talk more privately about, hence why he’s also leaning into Raki.

I hope that was somewhat helpful!

Is there any specific illustration you were thinking of maybe? I can always try to break down my thought process behind a particular drawing as best as I can!

[ivymarquis]

Say You Won’t Let Go

A Zombie Named Fred

Pairing| John Price x F!Single Mom!Reader Rating| E Word Count| 2.9k Kinks/Content/Warnings| Post Apocalypse!AU, Single Mom!verse, pregnant reader, the author is still on her bullshit about the pepperoncinis, they’re both a little crazy but it’s the end of the world, the author does not have first hand experience nor a formal education on pregnancy, John is giving soft dom vibes

First Chapter | Previous Chapter

Not even 48 hours in and you’re having your first argument.

You can tell by his expression that you’re not giving him the expected response. However he’s clearly no shrinking violet and doesn’t cow to your anxiety-turning-agitation.

“I was only gone for a bit and you were asleep,” he defends himself, standing his ground.

You pry your gaze from the stash of goodies he very obviously acquired with you in mind, the wheels in your brain clearly turning as you decide how much effort this will warrant and if you’re willing to expend that effort.

You’ve been a loose, limp thing for him to drag around as he sees fit. No protests so far as he uses his teeth to scruff you.

“You didn’t even tell me! It’s dangerous out there- what if something had happened?”

“I’ve been in far worse situations, Love, I can assure you that. If I’d have told you last night would you have still gone to bed?”

No.

The apocalypse has taken societal norms and attachment styles and turned them on their heads with no hope for recovery.

This man is a complete stranger to you and yet he is firmly entrenched as the center of your social circle at the moment. You most assuredly would not have responded well last night.

Your silence is loud, giving away the answer entirely.

“I needed you safe, tucked away, and not fretting,” you can feel yourself being mollified against your will, softening back up despite your desire to still prickle in displeasure.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be here until it’s safe to leave,” he continues, “and you are in no condition to be traveling far- we need supplies stocked while the area is still mostly clear from the last herd wandering through.”

That is the one good thing about herds even if they’re an absolutely terrifying sight.

Lions and tigers and bears might be scary predators, but living predators aren’t mindless killing machines. They act in a reasonable way for their species. Leave them alone, don’t fuck with their offspring and don’t make yourself look like easy prey, and they will likely leave you alone.

Zombies? The virus eats away at any rational reasoning or need to sate an ingrained desire. They want to bite, to consume, to spread the virus.

So put together a group of several hundred or several thousand and they are the stuff nightmares are made of.

But if you survive a wave of them wandering through, they pick up any stragglers in an area. They’re gregarious, for whatever that’s worth.

Still terrifying though. The peace in knowing that the local zombie population drops drastically is knowing the price comes at more individuals being added to the herd.

In short, now is about as safe a time as ever to scavenge.

You’re still staring him down, still resisting acquiescing to him on principle.

Of course, there’s little doubt that the captain views your displeasure on par with a disgruntled kitten- yowling and hissing and batting at him but harmless and ineffective.

He steps towards you- close enough he makes you tilt your head to maintain eye contact. “You can just say “Thank you” and go enjoy your peppers, Love,” he asserts, offering you an easy out.

The thought crosses your mind to dig your heels in and be stubborn.

But just the mention of the jar of pepperoncinis placates you as your craving from yesterday returns in full force, pulling your attention away from John and to the jar sitting on the counter.

He’s got you hook, line, and sinker and he knows it too.

“Thank you,” you yield, once again becoming soft and pliant in his hold.

“You’re welcome,” he steps away then, eyes following your every move as you slip past him and do in fact beeline for the peppers.

It’s the end of the world- you can have peppers for breakfast if you want to.

The only problem though is you can’t get the damn jar open.

There are certain changes with your body that you expected with the discovery of your pregnancy- the swell of your belly and your breasts, the stretch marks that criss cross your skin- and some that you learned first hand and it’s annoying.

It’s your body starting to relax itself to prepare for labor, you were told. The tendons and ligaments relaxing. Hips widening.

It also makes your grip weaker which is so incredibly frustrating.

John is at your side in a moment, prompting you with a “Give it here,” to hand him the jar to twist the lid for you.

Any lingering surliness from the discovery of John’s midnight stroll abates entirely as the smell of the peppers hits your nose.

He looks pleased with himself, giving you back the jar as you thank him.

The rest of the day passes peacefully between the two of you. This is not a permanent home, so no renovations or improvements to be made. The biggest line of defense you have here is blending so well into the rest of the abandoned houses that nothing will draw unwanted attention. The windows covered and boarded. There’s no true perimeter to check. You don’t want to catch anyone’s eye by wandering around outside.

You’ve been on the move for so long, constantly fighting and scrapping that it is nice to just sit in one place. The preggie pops despite their silly name are a Godsend. You feel like a person for the first time in months rather than a vessel just waiting to vomit at the wrong provocation.

You get nosy, looking through photos and albums of the owners. The man’s name is Fred. The woman’s name is Wilma.

There’s a fucking lego set that Fred and Wilma never got around to opening. You alternate killing time between working on that and reading. You’re in no hurry, taking your time. John putters around doing something but swings back every so often to check on you.

Eventually you will need to sort laundry, but that can probably happen in a day or so and doesn’t need to be right now.

The water still works so you figure you can just wash your clothes in the sink and then hang them somewhere outside to dry. Simple, but will occupy some time and establish a sense of normal for you. Maybe you can find some sort of clothes line if there’s not one already.

Once again the sun sets and John comes to round you up for the night and herds you up the stairs. You settle into your bed and hear John getting ready over in his and yet despite the fact your pregnancy exhausts you, you can’t sleep.

Your ears are honed in for any sort of attempt on John’s end to sneak out again.

You try to quell the concern and anxiety coiling within you, but everything is a feedback loop just building intensity until you feel like you’re going to snap.

Sleep is a lost cause at this point.

Getting out of bed is a process so you’re not rendered immobile like a turtle on its back. It takes a moment but you manage on your own.

No sooner than you sneak out to the landing you have your answer if John is still in the house. It’s not obnoxiously loud, but you can clearly hear the sound of him snoring on the other side of his door.

Your anxiety quells with the knowledge that he’s still here but doesn’t dissipate entirely.

Not quite ready to return to bed, you decide that maybe a quick snack (something other than the pepperoncinis, the baby says) is in order.

Despite being a grown adult, there’s a part of you that feels akin to a teenager sneaking out of the house.

You are not going to leave. Unlike a certain captain, you don’t have a death wish sneaking out in the middle of the night. While the soft sound of his snores assure you that he’s still sleeping you know he’d be displeased knowing you’re about to venture down the stairs by yourself.

You’re careful- equal parts trying to avoid the parts of the stairs that squeak because you’re not sure how light a sleeper John is, and equal parts simply not wanting to eat shit on the stairs. God forbid you give his concerns credibility- you don’t even want to think about what he’d do.

You haven’t been downstairs after sunset since the first night you stumbled into the house. John rather jealously keeps you herded upstairs.

You contemplate what the baby wants for a midnight snack as you cross from the stairs through the living room and into the kitchen.

Chef Boyardee sounds appealing and you don’t care about eating it cold- which is a plus because it’s one less thing for you to do versus something you’d want to eat warm.

The quiet in the house gives you time to come up with stupid fucking ideas like looking out the windows.

By and large you have been leaving them alone. There hasn’t been any sort of conversation about it between you and John, but you feel you’ve got enough of a read on him by now.

The main defense you two have is that the neighborhood is abandoned and there’s nothing special about the outside of the house. If someone happens to be strolling by and sees you moving the curtains in broad daylight- well, that seems like a good way to get your ass chewed on by John. Hence why you’ve left the windows alone.

But it’s nighttime and you’re alone.

The windows at the front of the house are boarded up, but in a slapstick, hurried fashion- there’s large gaps you can peek through as you bring your opened can of ravioli.

The street is deserted which is exactly what you expect. Not so much as a zombie shuffling through.

The neighborhood seems like it was beautiful before the end of the world. The kind of place that you always fantasized about living in.

What a weird way to get what you want.

Your mind wanders, focusing on the practicality of the fact you need to wash your clothes.

When out in the wild and forced to survive how you can, you learned to make do with dirty clothes that were lived in far longer than you prefer. But if you’re going to be cooped up in the house until your little hostage evacuates, it would be a good idea to clean them.

Curious if the backyard already has a clothes line, you carefully peel back the curtain blocking the view-

Only to be greeted with the sight of a zombie standing on the back porch right on the other side of the glass.

Your startle reflex has been trained out of you. There’s no big yelp or jump or dropping your food. Making loud noises like that can get you killed in situations where you might be able to survive if you can sneak away unnoticed.

Safely on the other side of the glass and obstructed by darkness- the zombie cannot see, hear or smell you. He gives no reaction to you, clearly having no knowledge of your existence.

You realize rather quickly that this is Fred, albeit far more gray and decayed than in the photos of him in the house. You wonder what happened to Wilma.

(It’s the goddamn apocalypse so you know statistically what happened, but a macabre curiosity for the details eats at you)

It’s not often (re: ever) that you’re in a situation to just…observe the undead. Always keeping an eye on them, always keeping tabs on what currently holds their attention, but never just a passive observation. They’re always a threat and you’re always trying to figure out how to get by or through them unscathed.

The small flick of you moving the curtain might have initially caught Fred’s attention but without the confirmation that you’re a meal to be devoured he shuffles slowly and moves away from the glass.

He’s caught in the yard, confined by the perimeter fencing. No chance of joining the herd.

You wonder why John hasn’t killed Fred yet. A singular zombie isn’t much of a threat.

Maybe he hadn’t seen Fred? The curtains had been drawn shut when he picked this house and he just kept them that way?

Seems unlikely, but arguably plausible.

You don’t see any sort of established clothing line to dry your clothes after you wash them.

You’re so fascinated by the Fred situation that you’re oblivious to the fact that John’s snoring stops. Or his door opening. Or his pause at the landing, eyes falling to your open door. Or his descent down the stairs and the huff of relief when he lays eyes on you.

You are not oblivious to the way he snarls “What in the devil are you doing?”, closing the distance between the two of you to haul you away from the glass.

The drop of the curtain catches Fred’s attention again but not enough to do more than cast an eerie shadow as he approaches.

“Why is there a zombie in the backyard?!” You keep your voice low as you hiss at John despite acquiescing as he pulls you along back towards the stairs.

“He wasn’t worth the bullet but that was before I realized you were going to go opening doors in the middle of the night!”

“I wasn’t opening the door!” You protest, suddenly aware that this conversation isn’t entirely unlike this morning’s argument when John slipping out in the middle of the night had ruffled your feathers.

“Then what are you doing down here?” He stops at the foot of the stairs, his question answered as his eyes land on the can in your free hand.

“I was eating!” You hold up the can as a beacon of your innocence, not missing the way the agitation on John’s face softens ever so slightly.

You take advantage of the opportunity to pull your arm out of his grasp.

He doesn’t try to wrestle you back into his grip- satisfied with your reasoning and the confirmation you hadn’t gone bat shit insane trying to let zombies into the house in the middle of the night.

In another life, one where the dead stay dead, you think maybe you’d still be able to wrap the captain around your finger and make him fold to your whims as easily as you accept his.

You’re pretty sure, however, that it’s just your delicate state that’s got him yielding to you. That keeping you alive, and ultimately getting you and your baby back to this settlement that he and his group watches over gives a sense of purpose where he’s otherwise aimless, trapped like an animal in a vivarium until he can safely find his way back home.

“Go finish your food,” he tells you firmly- still far more subdued than moments ago.

Again, not unlike this morning when he diffused the argument then.

Both of you are still maintaining your ground, but finding a way to keep the peace- you’re all the other has got in this situation.

He hovers as you make your way back to the kitchen- the moonlit shadow of Fred gone from the curtains, implying he’s aimlessly wandering the yard.

You don’t have much left of it, which is a good thing because eating while being watched just feels weird. You know he wants to drag you by your scruff back up the stairs and situate you for the night.

And that’s exactly what he does after you quickly clean after yourself.

Always with him and the stairs, he guides you up while following behind.

Where he throws you for a loop is when you expect to slink off to your own room, only for you to find one of his arms wrapping around your torso and cutting you off from your intended destination.

“Need to make sure you don’t go sneaking off again,” is all the reason he gives as he herds you towards his bed.

He’s the one who started all this by leaving last night on his own, but you decide to not light that particular candle. You can admit to missing the comfort of sharing a bed, and that the nights have been getting colder as fall begins to give way to winter.

Before the end of the world, you’d be giving this a long hard think. But the rules are different now- the way you interact and mesh with people has changed so drastically. Everything is in the fast lane.

You’re utterly dependent on John. Been at his mercy for days. If he was going to do something, surely he would have done it by now?

So you yield to the arm pressing lightly at your side- a request that while stern is not escalating to a demand.

You let him guide you towards his room.

A wave of exhaustion hits that holds your interest more than the decor of the room- there’s no personal touches or stashes of goodies hidden away. You get yourself situated under John’s watchful eye, and yet somehow it feels weirdly intimate to watch him so you look off at the wall as he gets in.

John stays on his side between you and the door, you stay on yours and if he says anything you don’t hear it. One second you’re blinking at the wall and the next you’re out like a light.

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

Hi hi! Fic prompt if you fancy it;

"I know you're used to doing this stuff alone but would it kill you to let someone actually help for once?"

With a bit of whump on the side?

Have a great day :)

Nonny, you definitely fueled my creativity with this, and I'm very grateful, thank you! So, it's not much, but as this was unexpectedly not the only prompt I received today, I thought I'm gonna make a short collection of all prompts resp. fics I'm doing for those prompts. That being said, I will probably use every prompt I've been gifted today, just not very quickly, and I appreciate your patience. So, for the first prompt, have this:

Love Can Only Heal

— Don't be afraid to feel Cause love can only heal —

"You know, I'm disappointed, Evan."

Buck doesn't fancy being a disappointment – yes, he's used to it, just not to hearing it from Tommy. Tommy, standing at the threshold to Buck’s loft, this look in his beautiful eyes. However, it looks more like concern; like honest, downright intimate care.

"D… disappointed?"

Buck is genuinely confused, but he’s also quite distracted. Tommy leans in the doorframe like a high school bully, he undoubtedly has the physical qualities of someone who won’t stop at hurting you with words. Then again, this is Tommy, and besides the somewhat worried gaze, his eyes are nothing but soft. That’s an extremely confusing charisma.

"Are you going to let me in or…?"

Tommy's fleeting gesture includes the hallway and the doors of Buck's neighbors, and for a second, another very contradictory feeling arouses. Buck doesn't want to disturb his neighbors, but he also wants the whole world to see Tommy. Tommy, who has kissed him and whom he has kissed (oh, and way more than that) and with whom he can imagine a host of new things, the most innocuous of which is to make up for the canceled dance at Maddie's crashed wedding reception.

Buck limps to the side and Tommy enters, and as always, his sheer presence seems to fill the loft. It's as if that wide open space shrinks to a minimum until there are only Tommy's eyes, still resting on Buck, but – thank goodness – anything but disapproving.

"If I had a penny for every time you broke your foot, Evan…"

"... you'd have two, which isn't much, but funny that it happened twice," Buck replies automatically, and now they're both grinning, and that's when he knows everything’s going to be okay. He just knows.

"It's not my fault, by the way," Buck adds, limping over to the couch and patting it cheekily for Tommy to sit down, "no one could have guessed that just as I was digging that puppy out of the rubble, there'd be a piece of ceiling coming down."

"Of course you'd rescue a puppy in a burning house that's almost collapsing," Tommy replies softly, and then he does that thing again.

He puts two fingers under Buck's chin, lifts it; Buck's heart beats hard in anticipation of a kiss, but no. Tommy's eyes strangely resemble Buck of the puppy he pulled out of a pile of debris, but there’s also something else in them... it's not really disappointment, it's more like... hurt.

"But I don't quite understand why I have to hear this from Maddie, Evan."

The way Tommy says Evan... if Buck didn't actually feel a little guilty – because now he knows what's going on, now he realizes – he'd probably pounce on the pilot for good. They’d make out on the couch, because that’s basically where Evan sleeps since the accident, and then… Tommy wait’s for an answer, that’s clear. If only Buck’s mind wasn’t so empty.

"I... uh…" Buck isn't particularly good at apologizing. He spent his whole life apologizing for existing, and it never helped.

"From Maddie," Tommy continues, "and not from my boyfriend."

Buck's face becomes as hot as that of a kid caught in the act.

"I just didn't want to..."

Everything Buck might say collapses in his mind like a ridiculous house of cards; the thoughts seem stupid to him. Perhaps that is simply his fate. Maybe he will never get away from being an eternal disappointment to everyone in his life.

"Evan," Tommy says, and there's something in his voice that makes Buck look up, "do you trust me?"

Buck's heart skips an extra beat. Does Tommy know he's repeating the exact words he said to Buck on their first night together? It opened up a whole new world for him. And only now does he really understand how far this goes. Being genuinely wanted. Loved, even, in a completely different way than he is used to.

"Yes," he simply replies, grasping Tommy's hands and holding them tightly, because this is something to hold on to.

"I know you're used to doing this stuff alone but would it kill you to let someone actually help for once?" asks Tommy, and it's still unbelievable that Tommywants to be that someone.

There’s an answer on the tip of Buck’s tongue, and he quickly swallows it. Because yes, sometimes even Evan Buckley can control himself. He could have said that he only broke his foot, that he can still walk (well, limp), that he doesn't need any help. He could refer to their often so different shifts making it hard to see each other more often, and there's Maddie and the rest of the crew to help out, but… That’s not what Tommy meant, and he knows it. 

"I'm a lousy boyfriend, huh," Buck says with his crooked grin that defuses many situations, but Tommy immediately shakes his head.

"Evan Buckley, you're everything I want, get that in your thick skull," he says sternly, yet there's that glint in his eye, "and I don't want you to change, all right? I just want to, ugh..."

Tommy is adorable in his embarrassment, gesturing broadly, searching for words.

"I know," Buck says, and now there's probably something in his tone that makes Tommy sit up and take notice. Because he really knows what Tommy wants, and that's something that none of his previous partners ever actually wanted, not even Abby, at least not like this.

He wants to be a part of Buck's life, a real part, not a decoration, not a fleeting affair. Not an exciting party topic, or just the guy you call when you need a place to sleep. Tommy gives his all, he puts all his heart into this. So far, Buck had the most profound conversations with Tommy and, as strange as it sounds, the most profound sex. Above all, though, emotions deeper than anything he’s felt before. Truer than everything he’s felt before. Yes, Tommy gives his all, and that’s why Buck has to do the same.

His phone is lying on the floor in front of the sofa; in this life, Buck will never be tidy, but right now it is lying there very suitably. He takes it, and as he taps on it, he almost hears Tommy's frown.

"What are you doing, Evan?"

"Here," he replies and holds the mobile in Tommy's face. "From now on, you're the first, all right?"

Tommy once told him that he was a pretender for so many years. He’s had years of practice in turning his face into a mask, showing whatever those around him expected him to be, to feel. He doesn't do that anymore, and he knows that he doesn't need it with Buck, something that delights him greatly. And so it is not surprising that Tommy's facial expression quickly changes from irritation to something very, very soft. Well, a bit like a puppy after all.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his eyes seeking the same confirmation as his words.

His name is at the top of Buck's contact list, under emergency contact. Maybe that's only flattering for someone like Buck and Tommy, only understandable for people like them who risk their lives for others and so often fall by the wayside themselves. Tommy understands. He exhales a bated breath, and it sounds like a sweet sigh of relief.

"Very, very sure," Buck replies, and he doesn’t mean just this silly gesture, of course.

He means it all. He’s in it, he’ll give his all. And Tommy?

Tommy knows, and he smiles.

[intheshadowsbehindyou]

Specifically the support team with a tall fem! Reader! (To be detailed like 6'0ft and over 6'0 if in heels)

Just admit you people have mommy issues. I cannot take this ask seriously lord please help me.

Tall Fem!reader with the TF2 Support mercs

Warning: mildly NSFW. why are you doing this to me. I’m a gay cis dude irl

Sniper:

- Fucking short circuits. Think brock levels of simping from pokemon. Maybe not outwardly but on the inside he’s promising you the world. Wishes to be your little step tool. Every time you play rough with him he becomes a submissive little shit. Goes “oowwww :(((“ when he’d otherwise not. Other Mercs are outstanded on how fast you humbled him. Regardless of your relationship with him he’ll ask you if you could be his mother figure because his current mother is.. Well I mean she’s dead. This is entirely non-sexual.

- 50 points if goth girl and 100 points if trans girl. He’s into men and nonbinary folk too but whenever it’s a girl, it’s always mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry.

- Gets oddly soft with you and nobody else. Becomes clingy and desperate for your attention to the extent of protecting you on the battlefield and overall showing off with his shots. Becomes more awkward than he usually would. Stumbles over his words and panics when speaking to you. You find it cute.

————————————————————————-

Medic:

- “Ah! Yes! the new person. Hello little fräulein!” He immediately turned around and waved to greet you the first time… Before slowly realizing your head was higher than his shoulders and trailed his eyes upward. Meeting your gaze with awkward silence. He had bent down suspecting an innocent, small and adorable woman and so had to immediately stand up and straighten his posture. A majority of girls from his village were abhorrently short.

- “Ah… I see…” He turns away and fixes his glasses. Going back to whatever the hell math he was jotting on his chalkboard. You could vaguely make out it was some sort of failsafe for in case the medigun failed to deploy charge. You were more intrigued over the fact you were taller than this man. You leaned over his head to check your height— Which made him nervous of course.

- “Must you be so nosey? Hah! Relax. It’s not a shrink ray or anything!” He joked. You didn’t know if you should be offended by that or that or not. “Of course, mind you, I do know how to make that. But I don’t have the time nor resources sadly. Then again, everybody must be shrunken to you.” Medic then proceeds to suppress his mild attraction to you; instead opting to tear you to shreds with his sick roasts about your height. Wow, somebody’s insecure.

——————————————————————-

Spy:

- BARK BARK BARK WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!!! Heterosexual beams primed. Neurons activated. Eyes bulge out of head awooga awooooga

- ONE single glance of you is all it takes and his seduction skills become second nature. The next day you find roses on the end table next to your bed. With a letter, written in flawless english incursive about meeting you on the roof of the base after sunset. The letter even had hints of his sweet smelling cologne on it. Talk about overkill.

- Well you see him there and he’s there, leaning against the railing with his suit unbuttoned. His tie hanging loose on his neck and treating himself to a glass of wine. “Ah, pardon me mademoiselle, I’m afraid the deserts of this country are a bit.. Harsh on me sometimes.” You have never seen such a cheesy display in your entire life. There’s even a picnic table there with candles and dinner. You almost wanted to dropkick him because of how disgustingly sweet this was. Yuck.