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somewhere-at-the-burrow · 1 month

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𝒜𝒩𝒮𝒲𝐸𝑅𝐼𝒩𝒢 𝒬𝒰𝐸𝒮𝒯𝐼𝒪𝒩𝒮

— 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐠𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 | @tubadorashifts

(( these questions are amazing! i have so so much i want to say about my life at hogwarts that i get overwhelmed aaaa so this is PERFECT! this is also my longest post yet, so buckle in yall i'm about to overshare on the internet ‼️))

1. If you’re DR is set in the 90s/70s - How different is it to modern day? What are some changes you like and what changes did it take a while for you to get used to?

this question might be difficult to answer, as in my DR I am fully involved in the wizarding world and I don't really have that much contact with the muggle world, but definitely the technology! that might seem like a no-brainer and something to be expected when shifting to Hogwarts, but I wasn't expecting how different it would be. the hardest thing for me to adapt to was not being able to pull out my phone to take a picture whenever I wanted to. there were so so many little moments when I was at the Burrow where I would have the most perfect photo idea and I would realize I don't have my phone and realize I left my old film camera in my room. getting used to carrying that thing around and learning more about it (as my dad (arthur) brought it home for me one day and we fixed it up in the workshop!) is such a hassle sometimes. AND I HAVE TO DEVELOP FILM... which is rewarding in the end but sometimes I miss the instant gratification of a smartphone!

a change I do like is the style of music, both wizarding and muggle. I feel like the popular wizarding bands definitely reflect the 90s atmosphere in music, with many different new songs that have changing sounds in alternative rock and sometimes even annoyingly catchy pop songs. many other wizarding bands have themes that go all of the way back to classic jazz, so the range is INSANE. the music is truly so immersive, as the wizarding community is generally in favor of playing all types of music (at parties etc) both wizarding and muggle. truly an education!

2. If you’re part Veela/Metamophmagus/Mermaid/siren/werewolf etc. what is it like?

being a siren is still a change I am getting used to in my new DR, but it is absolutely something out of my biggest fantasies. as a girl who loves the sea and all her mythology, actually being a part of the sirens and learning about all of their folklore is a sacred experience I hold so dear to my heart. the life I have lived as a siren (even though my actual shift was quite short) feels so innate and like something I won't ever forget.

with being a blood-related siren comes many many things I didn't fully expect. there is a siren language (which I can speak in that reality), rituals and ceremonies that I noticed, and certain abilities that are passed on through family. there is also the wizarding public, who looks to sirens with curiosity because they are so closely related to merpeople and veela, yet they have such a distinct culture of their own. because there are so little sirens that engage with the wizarding world, I am kind of known as "that siren girl" and sometimes people say it negatively, but it is usually people who take the merfolk classification of "beast" very seriously and they are a bunch of idiots CONTINUE

3. Where do you change into your robes on the Hogwarts Express?

the Hogwarts express is completely different (length wise) on the inside than on the outside. when I first got onto the train, I was completely blown away when the twins and I walked into a long compartment that looked almost like a diner. they were serving pear & apple cider and I thought it was so cool that they had a bunch of different train areas. I walked around with Ginny during our train ride, and we found a bunch of these changing rooms / bathrooms and I remembered changing there in previous years so that is where we went!

inside of these bathrooms, it definitely has an expansion charm because it feels small while also having a lot of space for many students?? kind of like how the train expands or shrinks to fit the amount of compartments needed? also, these rooms are definitely hot spots for seeing other students bc tell me why I saw half of my year while I was in there for maybe 20 minutes??

4. If you’re an exchange student - How does the sorting ceremony work? Do you get sorted with the first years regardless of what year you’re in or do you get privately sorted somewhere else, like Dumbledore’s office?

this has only happened twice that I remember, and both times the students were sorted before the first years and Dumbledore gave kind of a mini introduction to their year and where they came from. personally, I would've been so scared to be individually introduced like that, especially in a new school with people I've never seen before. But Hogwarts is just kind of crazy like that, and the random outings by staff in front of the entire Great Hall never get boring I SWEAR!

5. Is Hogwarts a lot different to how you imagined? Is it like the movies or was there any changes?

I'd like to say the hours I've spent touring the castle on games like Hogwarts Legacy would prepare me for it, but I was still absolutely blown away (and I don't say that lightly)! the biggest thing for me was the sheer height of the castle! it is kind of a thing among newer Hogwarts students to not look up at the towers from the ground, as some people get this kind of reverse-vertigo? other than that, it definitely has the same vibe as the movies, except things feel waaay more spread out in my DR. I swear, in the movies Harry and Ron are getting to class in ten minutes, and I can barely get to my next class with my 30 minute passing time IT IS SO STRESSFUL. especially when I go from Care of Magical Creatures all the way to Advanced Herbology on tuesday mornings LIKE I AM RUNNING they are on opposite sides of the castle. I get the same feeling when I walk into the Grand Staircase and see all of the steps. I'm definitely debating adding a floo-network for easier transportation, but it is quite fun to feel like i'm getting a workout while exploring my favorite place ever!!

6. What are some classes you weren’t expecting to like as much as you did?

def divination! everybody kind of hates on divination for being a class that people only take when they have a free hour and nobody really takes it seriously, but I love the atmosphere so much and it feels like the kindest part of the castle when I am in my Advanced Div. 1 class. because I am in the advanced class (which prepares for OWLs), everyone there genuinely wants to be there and I am obsessed with the teacher student ratio of that class. there are probably less than ten students taking advanced divination and we all know each other so well and so far it has ended with us practicing techniques on each other or just filling in professor Trelawny on what is happening throughout the castle. sometimes in a class that small it just ends up being a bunch of divination nerds gathered around a table with the professor reading tarot or something ! it is my little safe haven in a castle so obsessed with intense schedules and such

6. And the opposite - What are some classes that you didn’t end up liking?

in my uni-structured Hogwarts, you can stop taking certain basics classes after your third year, so DADA was OUT. i never really liked that class because I remember always thinking that the environment was super energetic and one of my friends (??) El was kind of my academic rival in that class and that mf never left me alone. i am definitely built for more personalized classes and that is okay! Hogwarts has something for everyone once you pass the basics! also, FUCK HOME STUDY CLASS. i signed up for that class because it was supposed to be a general home economics class that teaches basic spells for around the house (like cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc) but the professor is an absolute NIGHTMARE and she reminds me of rita skeeter somehow?? also, Fred and George took that class as a joke (seriously, nobody has any idea why they took it), and now it is just constant bickering between professor and students. every time I've stepped into that classroom this week, I've wondered, "how are the boys going to harass professor reen today??"

7. Is it strange to be in Hogwarts if you grew up watching the movies? Id imagine it to be a bit surreal

it is so unbelievably surreal. my first night at hogwarts, I hardly got any sleep because I was so overwhelmed with excitement (and I say that so sincerely). all I wanted to do was run around the castle at night and talk to my roommates for hours and I couldn't wait for breakfast because everything felt so amazing. I have been shifting for a couple of years, but Hogwarts was always the place I had been waiting to go to and I wanted it to be special and when I finally was there and I was running my hand on the castle stone behind my bed it all hit me. my entire childhood felt complete. I wasn't worried about anything anymore, and I couldn't believe that I finally made it to the place i'd considered as "home" almost my whole life. in addition, hogwarts no longer felt like something I had only seen on a screen. when I shifted back a day ago, I went on pinterest and saw some photos of the dorms and the great hall and it felt so strange? kind of like if you saw a photo online of a place you've been to in your daily life, and you knew the way around even if the photo didn't show every detail? there was a new awareness of having lived in these places, and I had memories attached to simple things like a photo of the Great Hall from the movies!

8. Have you made any friends in school that aren’t mentioned in the books or movies? Talk a bit about them

if you've seen any of my previous posts, I talk about my little group of friends that live in Ottery St. Catchpole (and some of them don't exist in canon)! one of my closest friends is a girl named June Smithey, and she is a slytherin in my year. we both take advanced div. together and she is so sweet!! her twin brother is El, but he doesn't seem to like me very much and is always competing with me for NO REASON. he always has to hang around us though bc he is Cedric's best friend and sometimes Ced and I are attached at the hip. another best friend of mine is a girl named Vanessa Nacky, and she is a sixth year prefect. everyone calls her Nessa, and she is such a mum figure to all of the younger students and she is so liked by everyone in every house! she is dating Oliver Wood and they are so insanely good for each other I CAN'T THINK OF A BETTER COUPLE TRUST ME

9. How long does the Hogwarts express take? If it takes very long - apart from talking to friends, what things do students usually do to occupy their time on the train? Are there different types of games in the wizarding world or popular magazines among witches/wizards?

the Hogwarts express usually takes 7-8 hours! apart from talking, some of my friends and I read the old issues of the Hogwarts newspaper (called the Hogwarts Legacy) and we speculated about what the next year would entail. there is also the diner-areas where they serve small lunch-like snacks (unlike constant candy from the trolley) and different drinks! also, in the movies they made it seem like students could only stay in their compartment the whole time, but that is not how it was like during my journey. people constantly got up to go visit with other friends and see each other after summer, so talking never really got boring! people also compare collected cards (which is a big thing in the wizarding world) and there is even a couple of chess tables in one of the train cars. other than that, reading and sleeping are very popular, as the first day of term is always a very late night and sometimes people just need a little quiet time!

10. What is it like sharing a dorm? Who are you sharing a dorm with and do you like your dorm mates?

thankfully, I went into my DR already being best friends with my dormmates, so each night really felt like an organized sleepover! we each have our own little alcoves where we can keep our stuff and our beds, so I never really felt overwhelmed being in a busy dorm. I share a dorm with Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Iris Fawcett, and Fay Dunbar! I am thankful that most of these lovely girls are on the quidditch team with me, so we really are very close and we spend many nights talking from our beds when we should be asleep :') the whole situation did turn out very well for me, though, as some people in Hogwarts do not like their dormmates very much and are stuck wishing they can become a prefect to get their own dorm. (cough, percy and oliver wood)

11. What is quidditch like? Do you like it or have you decided it’s not for you?

I am OBSESSED with quidditch. in my desired reality, the quidditch season hasn't started yet, but I scripted that I was going to become seeker and I am so unbelievable excited! back at the burrow, we played many small games in the back field, and even though I scripted I would be great at the sport, I genuinely enjoy trying to learn new tricks and improve my ability in other positions (i will never be a good beater I swear 😔). quidditch is such a ceremonial experience for students at Hogwarts.. and there is really no escaping it!! I grew up fascinated by the whole strange concept and rules in this reality, and even if you think the whole idea is stupid the crazy crowd will definitely make up for it bc we all band together for quidditch!!

also, if you choose to get involved in the different leagues and tournaments, there is truly so much content and magazines that are released weekly YOULL NEVER GET BORED! quidditch is such a culture in the wizarding world, and it is comparable to muggle sports leagues and all of the devoted fans that sit down weekly to watch. at the burrow, when the league games are broadcasted on the WWN, we crowd around the radio in the kitchen and sometimes even have dinner while the game is playing if it goes late! and don't even get me started on the WORLD league...

12. Is there anything in the wizarding world that surprised you?

the amount of errands the average wizarding family goes on! to the average movie watcher, it feels like during the summer the students all go home and then the only places the parents go are the Ministry. this was far from the truth for me! at the burrow, mum (Molly) would let me take the floo-network to Diagon Alley whenever I needed to get my film developed, and sometimes she would let some of us go in groups to get supplies / materials for crafts we are doing etc! also, there is another common wizarding market in Birnam that many people go to for fresh produce and lots of cooking things. Molly goes pretty frequently, and when I went once over the summer, I saw people from school there and it is kind of a small hangout spot for wizarding families. another common place to go is Prelly's, which is in the heart of diagon alley and everyone AND THEIR MOTHER has been to Prelly's. it is comparable to a grocery store, except everything is marketed magically and it is so chaotic in there all of the time. that store is so cherished in the wizarding world, I don't think i've ever been to a magical household that doesn't have something from Prelly's. I was so surprised to learn that even wizards had places to shop for groceries 😭

13. What is your favourite place to spend time in Hogwarts/Hogsmeade? Do you have a secret place where you and your friends hang out?

I haven't gotten to explore Hogsmeade that much yet, but inside of Hogwarts there is a small inter-house common room that is called the Selkie Commons. it is located near the main Viaduct and it overlooks the lake through big windows in the stone. it gets its name from the series of stained glass dividers that show pictures of yellow selkies as you enter the room! this place isn't very secret, though, as many people come here to study and sometimes it can even get kind of loud late after dinner. however, this place is technically considered a Study Hall, so it closes at 10:30 and we are limited to hanging out inside of our common rooms :,)

other than that... the art wing. there are certain classes offered for magical art, and a lot of my friends also dabble in those classes because they are such a nice break and the evironment is truly amazing! there is a main studio space, so sometimes we sit in there after school hours, but there is also a little gallery hall that is filled with art books and student works over the years, and sometimes it is fun to sit in there and talk with the portraits and experience the art that students have made years before me. nobody really goes in this specific gallery hall, so we can usually hang out in there late at night until it closes!

15. What are some things in your DR that you couldn’t live without?

my "endless quill"! when we went to diagon alley to shop for school supplies, I used a good portion of my personal money to buy that quill, as it was a newer model that was becoming more popular among students. I didn't know how useful it would be until I actually started using it day-to-day in class! at hogwarts, we are allowed to use pencils and sometimes pens on little notes, but for assignments it is strictly quill and ink and I HATE redipping my quill every couple of lines. I think it is so genius and I am so glad I saved up for it bc it is SO WORTH IT. if you have experience shifting to hogwarts and writing with normal quills, you might feel my pain ‼️

another fun thing is my shared journal! my friend Iris enchanted these journals that can be written in and seen by each other, kind of like Tom Riddle's diary but for multiple people. whenever my main friends and I are separated in the castle or in vastly different classes, sometimes we will leave little notes for each other and then they will all see it the next time they open the journal. we have useless conversations with our friends in different houses in the middle of the night, and it is like our little wizarding form of texting. IT IS MY FAVORITE!!

16. Does butterbeer taste as bad as it does here? (I tried it a couple years ago on the Harry Potter tour in England and it was so gross)

i'm probably so biased (as I LOVE the taste of butterbeer here), but I can say that it does taste slightly different than what it does at the Harry Potter theme park when I went. the cream soda base mixed with the butterscotch topping is definitely an aquired taste, but in my DR it is not as fizzy and it has more buttery undertones? I definitely agree that the fizzy soda they use in this reality is a little jarring, but when I tried it in my desired reality it just warmed my body and left me so comfortable?? I am such a fan, and I have spent so many nights in this reality trying to replicate the recipe bc IT IS SO GOOD. so far, i've found that adding butter extract really helps! i'm a butterbeer defender till the day i die ‼️

17. Spill some drama about random students. Like who cheated on who, what student is a little bitch etc. lol

oh my fcking god I have so much I could say?? I never anticipated talking all about the "random" students, but i am finding that spilling drama about some of these idiots is so enjoyable and if anyone wants more posts abt this I CAN DELIVER ‼️

to begin, I think we should talk about a seventh year slytherin man named Matteo Pearce. he has lots of family in italy and he was doing school years at some fancy italian wizarding school, and he recently just came back to hogwarts this year?? BAD CHOICE. for some reason, the ENTIRE student body is obsessed with him and he always goes around saying seductive shit in italian and i hear the older gryffindor girls giggling about it all the time in the common room. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL—— before he left, he was dating a gryffindor named Poppy (Matthews, i think?) and they kind of had a bad end to their relationship when they moved. so poppy went all GIRLBOSS and became Head Girl, and now all of her "friends" in her dorm hate her bc she has been ignoring Matteo even though he CLEARLY fancies her still. so, on the SECOND week of school, Poppy decided that she would speak to him again and get on good terms, but when she found them he was snogging a DIFFERENT gryffindor girl (and one of poppy's "friends"). the other girl was named Holly Lauren, but when we found out it was her, none of us were surprised bc Holly is always starting things and we could've guessed it was her. I always think it is so funny bc in Fred's second year of school he was actually trying to be friends with Holly (he had a little puppy crush) and every time that girl does something irresponsible I remind Fred of the bullet he dodged ‼️

also, Louisa Bones has a huge crush on Cedric, and she tells EVERYONE but Ced actually likes her roommate Mia Edwards more and won't stop talking about her. which sucked for me to hear bc I was trying to make Cedric my man but whatever 😔

18. Is there any holiday traditions that Hogwarts has?

I haven't been there long enough to experience a lot of the well known holidays, but during the equinox we have a Mabon feast! this is one of the main times during the year that the classic Hogwarts apple pies are made, and the Cooking Club always has sm fun with it!! as for christmas/yule season, in my desired reality there are yearly Yule Balls that occur during Yule, and there is always a giant party for older students that is had and it is tradition for people to try and stay up all night and then sleep on the train that goes home for holiday. kind of like a giant all night celebration before heading home to family!

I am also so so excited for the Halloween feast because we get the day off and a lot of the students carve the pumpkins that are displayed around the castle / in the Great Hall. also, the newspaper ( the Hogwarts Legacy) always makes a giant Halloween edition and from what I've heard it is pretty amazing (and has a lot of secret sections!)

19. Have you been to any of the other Wizarding schools and what are they like? Have you met any of the students?

I will come back and semi-answer this question when we have the Triwizard in a couple of years! I do want to make a Beauxbatons transfer student DR though, just to practice my mediocre french ‼️

(( I covered question 20 already!))

21. Favorite spell to do in your DR?

this is so basic, but definitely Accio. I never knew how much I would love a spell until I got to use accio for the first time! I don't usually use it for grand things though, and it usually occurs when I am getting ready in the morning and I have something across the room. but it is random all of the time and I think it is making me lazy but oh well!! my non verbal / wandless use of accio is also improving tremendously, but that is something that usually comes innately with sirens! IM LEARNING!!

22. If you’re related to someone in the books or movies - what are they like?

being related to the Weasleys is one of the best choices I have made in ANY desired reality. at first I was worried that I wouldn't fit in in some way, but when I first shifted and Ginny came running into my room with the newest Seeker Weekly and I got to experience the dynamic play out, I knew that these lovely people would impact my life in more ways than I could imagine. For starters, having Molly as a mum is like having another best friend. she is always there to recieve my letters, and she is also there for each of her children when they write. sometimes we wonder if all she does is write to us, because we each get personalized letters and she genuinely enjoys hearing about what happens in our lives. Arthur is the most uniquely supportive of dads. he may be gone most of the day at the Ministry, but he always takes time to pick up things that he thinks we would like so we can fix them together in his workshop. the older siblings are hardly around, but they do write and Charlie and I have surprisingly kept in touch! (mostly because of my magical creatures class HE LOVES that someone else is interested in it). Percy is quite similar to how he is in canon, but when he is genuinely happy it is so contagious to be around. recently, he confessed to dating Penelope Clearwater, and we got to have her over for dinner. certain people bring out the best in him! the twins are as expected! since we all have birthdays in april of the same year, we were inseperable throughout childhood. something I love is how involved I am in the creation of their little business! they get so passionate about the things they care for, and I think other students assume they don't care, but that is far from the truth! the weasleys are so family oriented and we take family dinner and talking about our days very seriously! they all have hearts of gold and the compassion of that family is so admirable <3

if you've read this far, thank you so much for sticking around and letting me explain this life of mine that I hold so close!

as I was writing this, I only realized how little I actually covered and how much I could talk about my DR. I still can't believe that I have finally shifted to Hogwarts??

happy shifting everyone!

tonight is your night!

— 𝐝𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐧𝐞

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unholyhelbig · 10 months

Note

part 4 mob boss mommy *i mean natty oops*

Title: The Oversight [Part 4/7]

Ship: Female!Reader x Natasha Romanoff

Wordcount: 4325

Warnings: Gun imagery, heights, unecessary tension, horrible grammar, and funnel cake

[A/n: Heads up, I wrote this while I had the flu & a pretty bad fever, so it's not my greatest work. Thank you all for the postive feedback!]

Main Masterlist | Read my stuff on AO3 | Leave Requests

“Hit me.” Natasha’s words were growled, a low rumble compared to the warm spring breeze that produced nothing but a balmy environment. Sweat glossed her collarbone, moved against expanses of skin that you had let yourself imagine, but had never seen. She was a distraction, despite being your instructor.

Her wrapped fist made contact with your jaw, a metallic taste coating your tongue. You let out a grunt of protest, fingers quickly working against the area to ease the throbbing pain. “That wasn’t fair,”

“You think they’re going to play fair? Focus up. Hit me.”

There was something about being this close to Natasha that formed a pit in your stomach. You were meant to have skin on skin contact, though most of your mornings for the past two weeks had been spent at the gun range, she had deemed you ready enough to learn how to fight. It was an art, you figured, not just something you could blindly go into.

For the first fifteen minutes of your day, you had watched Natasha and Kate spar. Yelena was standing next to you, a borderline predatory gaze on her face. You’d realized that it was one of the only emotions she harbored, and that Clint was rightful in his fear. Still, her attention was not focused on you, and that was good enough for the time being.

Instead, it was homed in on Kate. “I have been teaching her for nearly a year now.”

“She’s good.”

“You do not have to lie, y/n. She’s sloppy, reckless. Look how calculated Natalia is.”

Those emerald eyes were tracking every move the taller girl made. She’d initiated contact with Kate’s ribs, with her knees, and her shoulders. She’d fallen to the grass more times than you could count, but she still got up. That’s what seemed to count around here. Even as green a brown stained her workout gear, and as purple blotches of dead blood rose to the surface of her skin.

“It pays to learn fighting styles. That is something the Danver’s family does not understand. They hire whoever they can. Bodies over skill, it can work in some situations, but not all.”

“When did this… war start?”

“Mm, the power struggle has been raging for decades. Our parents, and their parents, and their parents before them. Both of us were trained to take over the family business. Men, they fight with their hearts and not their heads. When Carol and Natalia took up the mantel, things only got worse.”

You felt silly, growing up on these city blocks, and not realizing that a fight bigger than yourself was raging just within the shadows. You supposed that was a good thing. If you knew, you’d have taken Ronnie out of here in a second.

Kate hit the ground for a fourth time, the air knocked out of her lungs. She still had enough left to groan and prop herself up on her elbows. Natasha chuckled, the sound bubbling past her lips. This was much too fun for her.

“She is fragile.” Yelena nudged you with her arm. You frowned. Kate accepted the outstretched hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She looked dazed. “Do not tell her I said so, but she was looking for a project. You have to give it your all. For both of your sakes.”

You drew in a breath to respond, but Yelena clapped a hand on your back before taking a step toward the dueling duo. “Alright Nat! I think you’ve tortured Kate Bishop enough. Do not break her.”

Kate was bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet, her fists raised in a defensive position. Her lip was split, rusty crimson against the corner of her mouth. “I can do this all day.”

“You do not have to.” Yelena’s nose scrunched up “You stink. Go take a shower.”

The blonde shoved Kate playfully towards the house, trailing behind her and murmuring things in Russian. She’d left you alone with Natasha, something you had become quite accustomed to. In your workout gear, you felt more than a little exposed, her stare raking up and down your form before her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink than they already were.

The two of you had sat on the lawn chairs as she wrapped your knuckles, had you punch the palm of her hand to see how much blowback it would cause. You were holding back, and you both knew it. Her last command had been non-negotiable.

When you swung your right hand towards her jaw, Natasha wrapped her fingers around your wrist. She had flipped you onto the ground with enough force to knock the air from your lungs. You’d flailed in panic instead of going limp like Kate had.

You’d dragged Natasha down on top of you. Her body weight was warm from the beating sun, her elbows on either side of your head. Natasha’s knee was between yours, pressing into your core. You let out a small gasp at the sensation, pulling in her musky scent of sweat and clove.

Stray strands of russet hair framed Natasha’s face as she peered down at you, her chest heaving, each breath pushing her closer to you. Her nose was brushed against yours. The two of you were impossibly close, soul-crushingly so. You were certain that she could feel your heartbeat through your shirt.

She made a quite noise “Pet, if you wanted to get me on top of you, all you had to do was ask.”

Your gaze had given you away, and Natasha suddenly had a shit-eating grin against her lips. You hooked your legs against hers an arm wrapping around her waist. In a smooth move, you had her flipped against the grass, eyes reflecting the blue of the cloudless sky. She nearly seemed impressed, and you preened at the stare.

That was before her knee came up and knocked the wind out of you for the second time. You grunted, rolling off her. The two of you stared up at the sky for a few moments before she hoisted herself up and offered you a hand. You batted it away out of habit, rising on your own.

“When you fall, you fall with grace.” Natasha said, her voice stoney, right back to her serious self. “That way you don’t end up like we just were.”

“And if they ask?” you lifted an eyebrow at her, a hint of malice in her voice. She took a step closer to you, and that ever-intoxicating scent filled your lungs once more. Your ribs still ached from her kick, fingers massaging the sore spot. However, all of your movement halted.

Her voice was murmured and rusty. “I don’t want anyone else on top of you.”

“Okay,” You whispered, throat suddenly tight. “Then show me how.”

Veronica had the excited reflection of light in her eyes. They scanned the traveling fair that had been set up in the park bordering the harbor and a square city block. Each year, tents with local vendors would go up, rides and carnival games in their stead.

The scent of kettle corn filled your lungs, a mix of sweet and salty that reminded you of your own childhood spent here. It was the one constant that every foster family took part in. Sometimes you’d be given a stack of tickets, others, you’d get enough for a large cup of the best lemonade you had ever tasted.

Her hand tightened around yours, squeezing in excitement. Despite your current situation, you couldn’t help but smile. The soft sound of music and the light breeze was enough to make your forget about your aching muscles, and the light sweater that you had thrown on to hide the bruising against your shoulders, your arms, and collarbone. Natasha had really done a number on you.

“Jimmy is a nice guy, he really is, but the whole magic thing is driving me nuts.” Darcy used her forefingers to pinch off a bit of blue cotton candy, shoving it into her mouth. She talked around the melting sugar. “Seriously, he spilled my coffee all over my lap attempting a card trick and then attempted to mop it up with a never-ending handkerchief.”

You snickered at that, earning a look cut from glass. “What? I’m sorry about your drycleaning, but it is kind of funny.”

“Yeah, whatever. I just have to grow a backbone. He doesn’t try to pull that shit with Monica. No one tries to pull that shit with her.” She knelt in front of Ronnie, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “You’re not going to tolerate stupid magic tricks, are you?”

She was met with a silent, but amused stare, her eyebrow lifted. You’d been leveled with that look more than once yourself. It dissolved you into more laughter. “Alright, alright. No magic for the kid. Does the Ferris Wheel count as magic?”

“Well sure, but only at the worlds fair.”

You rolled your eyes but effectively tugged them both into the line. It had always been one of your favorites. It gave you a good look at the city you called home. Of course, your view of that city had been stunted lately. It never truly changed the beauty of the lights and the way they reflected off the water.

Your shoulder came in contact with chilled leather, your attention having been trained on fishing through your pockets for the small red tickets. Your eyes shot up, ready to rush out an apology until the words stopped in your throat.

Seeing Natasha outside of her manor was jarring. She looked nearly the same, a tight-fitting black T-shirt and a leather jacket draped over her shoulders. Her hair was loose, unlike it was at training earlier in the day, cascading down her shoulders. Her make-up was light, her unripe stare pouring into yours. That bewilderment melted into her cool exterior as if it were never there in the first place.

“Natasha,” the word poured from your lips before you could stop it, and the corner of her mouth quirked up in amusement. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I can take a hit” She stated matter-of-factly. You were well aware of the fact, and you had to stifle a shiver as it worked its way down your spine. Hours before she had been nestled so perfectly on top of you.

Your cheeks heated up and you glanced sparingly at your friend, her own eyes going back and forth between the both of you. It was then that you noticed Clint, towering over Natasha with his arms crossed over his chest. He gave you a finger wave, and you lifted your chin in return.

“I’m Darcy, you are?” She was beyond forward, and it made you internally cringe. She reached her hand out to the very woman that ran the city. It was like sticking your hand in the lions enclosure covered in steak sauce.

“Natasha,” her words dripped with a subtle hint of her accent “This is Clint.”

“Howdy,” he knelt then, Veronica was clinging tightly to your leg, peeking around tentatively. She hugged you closer as he spoke. “You must be Veronica.”

The woman in front of you softened as you had never seen before. Her eyes grew brighter, though you could pin that on the circulating lights of the Ferris Wheel. There was a genuine smile on her lips as she looked at the girl who hugged you ever close.

“She doesn’t talk much, I’m afraid.” Your hand moved comfortingly to her shoulder. Ronnie seemed comfortable, if not excited about the rides that were teeming around them.

Nat smiled at you “Oh, I’m sure she’ll speak when she has something to say.”

Ronnie’s death-grip on your leg seemed to loosen a bit as Clint straightened up. Darcy continued to scrutinize you and Natasha, something mischievous in her stare that you didn’t exactly care for. She rocked back and forth on her feet and directed her attention to Clint.

“How good are you at skeeball?”

“An absolute beast.” Clint replied.

“What do you say to a challenge? I bet I can kick your ass with the power of science. Winner springs for funnel cake.”

You picked up on the subtle look Clint gave Natasha and the even more subtle wave that she responded with. She blew an amused breath. Darcy stretched her hand towards Ronnie and wiggled her finger. “Kid, you staying or going?”

This time, Ronnie looked up at you for confirmation and you gave her a small, encouraging nod. She dislodged herself and wrapped her hand around Darcy’s. The promise of flaky and sweet funnel cake topped with powdered sugar was too tantalizing.

Admittedly, you were used to being left alone with Natasha at this point. Though it had mostly been in a business capacity. She seemed almost shy now, the line for the Ferris Wheel inching ever so closer.

“We can still go on, if you want.” She suggested.

“Yeah, yes. Of course.” You replied, “that would be lovely.”

“Your friend is very persistent.”

“She’s harmless, really.”

“And your daughter. She’s beautiful.” Natasha shoved her hands into her pockets, the two of you inching closer in line. “Just like her mother.”

Once again, you could feel the breath lodge in your throat, your cheeks flushing with fire. She was so bold at moments, and you remained silent in your conquest. There was no telling what was overstepping, though she blinked at you expectantly.

You fumbled dumbly with the tickets in your pockets, presenting them to the attendant. You both ended up in a cherry red car lined with nice leather cushions. Natasha’s thigh was warm against yours, her thick scent coating your lungs. Her arm was around the back of the cart, and a familiar sense of safety settled within you.

“You worry about her,” Natasha said to fill the silence as they loaded each cart. It lurched forward and back, making your stomach turn. “I didn’t start speaking until I was nine years old. My mother, she was so concerned that she rushed to be every specialist that money could buy. Whole days spent driving to different counties, just for them to say that same thing. Nothing is wrong, and I’ll talk when I’m ready.”

“What was that moment? The one where you were ready?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The thing about being quiet, is that people tend not to notice when you’re in the room. My father protected Yelena and I from his world for as long as he could, but eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves, and others. I watched him give a man his last drink before shooting him between the eyes.”

“Fuck, Natasha.” You murmured.

“He doesn’t know I saw that. I ran as quietly as I could back to my room and hid under the duvet like a child. Something snapped in me that day and I no longer wanted to be silent. I suppose the fear of displeasing either of them ebbed the words from me.”

She was being vulnerable in front of you, a side that you had never seen. There were always her subtle touches, and her purred words that would hit the pit of your stomach. You’d watch as she gave unwavering commands to Clint, to Yelena and Kate. But this was different. This was her.

The city sparkled around you. Tricolored lights reflected off the blackness of the causeways that lapped listlessly at the harbor. If you squinted, you could almost make out the mansion where you spent most of your time.

The carnival buzzed below. Her scent was overwhelming, so warm and welcoming despite her danger. And dangerous she was. It was alluring, exciting. You looked at her, eyes pouring with emotion. Not so much pity, as she would snap your wrist at the fact. But a simple understanding.

Tentatively, you reached up and cupped her cheek. You both were too far above the ground to be realized and the simple gesture was one of good faith. Surprisingly, she leaned into your touch, making a quiet, relieved noise.

Your voice was whispered, “You didn’t deserve that. You were just a kid.”

She had closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth of your contact. Her features were so soft, so broken in this moment that you resisted the urge to kiss her frown away. Before you could contemplate it, the Ferris Wheel lurched and she gently took her fingers and wrapped them around your wrist, lowering both of your hands into her lap.

“She’ll talk,” Natasha gave your hand a squeeze “give her time.”

Natasha cleared her throat as the cart neared the end of its journey. She pulled away entirely, her arm still along the back of the seat. When she leaned closer, you could feel the weight of the gun in the inside pocket of her jacket. Seriousness had lidded over her eyes once more.

“We have a job tonight, and I want you to come along.” She said, breath hot on your collarbone.

You were suddenly snapped back to reality. Natasha was in fact the head of a crime ring that you had unwittingly stumbled into. Up until now, aside from the brutal beating, it had almost felt like child’s play. She’d relearned you how to shoot, and you knew the very basics of fighting. But, you were far from her Winter Soldier stand in. You weren’t even a toy soldier.

She sensed your hesitancy. “I have a meeting at a restaurant downtown. It’s not going to go south, but if it does, I need you there. You won’t be alone.”

“Clint?” You asked.

She shook her head “guys got a family of his own, he must spend some time with them outside of work hours. Kate.”

You fought back the noise that threatened to escape your throat. You didn’t doubt Kate, but you certainly doubted yourself. You didn’t have your own weapon, and the threat of leaving a restaurant with a bullet lodged between your ribs became very real, very quickly.

She chuckled at that, “I trust her. I trust you. Just stand there and follow her lead. Look hot and intimidating.”

“Is hot really a requirement?”

“Not really, but you pull it off.” There was a switch in her again, one that had been flipped effortlessly as she grabbed the collar of your sweater and pulled you impossibly close. You were nearly sitting in her lap. “Don’t fail me on this, y/n. It’s imperative that you do as you’re told.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You swallowed thickly as her hands wandered your side expertly. It took you a moment to realize that she had pulled the gun from her own coat and silently transferred it to yours before she released her hold on you. You had admit that you missed the touch instantly.

She stood from the cart when the attendant unlocked the door, reaching her hand out to you. You took it was ease, letting her help you onto the metal dismount. There were no words exchanged as you readjusted the weapon as slyly as you could muster, hands shoved into your pockets a moment later.

“I don’t know what to tell you, dude.” You could hear Darcy’s voice from within the crowds. It was easy to spot them, and you swore you saw the ghost of a smile on Natasha’s face. “The kid kicked both of our asses. Split the difference and pay up.”

“Yeah, fine.” Clint fished out his wallet and placed a couple of bills in Darcy’s waiting palm. “The price of carnival food these days is outrageous.”

Kate had presented you with a leather holster that fit snuggly around your chest and abdomen. She’d tightened the straps, your arms halfway raised. It felt a bit like a dressing room at the mall, her breath hot on your cheek as she tugged the center strap to make sure it was secure.

“Natasha likes us to be presentable.” She handed you a dark jacket to throw over the contraption. “Inconspicuous and deadly. But still presentable.”

You followed Kate’s lead. Natasha was to drive to the restaurant, and the two of you were to follow in a separate car. It was important to stay quiet unless you were spoken to directly by Natasha. Kate seemed at ease on the ride over, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel to an incoherent pop song.

The holster pinched you uncomfortably, but you were so deep into your own fear, your own reluctance, to pay much attention. Kate shot you a look, hard in her nature, and then softer when she glanced at you a second time.

“You’re much too tense” she flicked off the radio, delving you into a comfortable silence. “Lower your shoulders and relax. It’ll be an uneventful night.”

“Right,” you let out a shaky breath “uneventful.”

“Look, I can’t imagine how jarring this is for you. I would have shut down by now, changed my name and gone into witness protection if I was thrown into this life the way you are. Without a choice. But, we can make the best of it and do what we can to protect Natasha.”

“It seems like she can handle herself,”

Kate chuckled “Oh, she can. But she doesn’t keep us around just for protection. It’s a big city, she wants people she trusts. She wants a family. And I know it might not seem like it, but her welcoming you into her inner circle… it’s a blessing. Just like we’d go to bat for her, she’d do the same for us.”

You swallowed the dryness in your throat as Natasha pulled her car to the curb in front of a russet brick building. Kate did the same expertly, shutting off the engine. She clapped you on the shoulder, giving you one more encouraging smile. “One night at a time, y/n. Follow my lead.”

Kate opened the door for Natasha, and you had to keep your jaw from dropping on the ground at the sight of her. Her long leg stretched onto the sidewalk, her hand squeezing Kate’s in return as she helped her from the vehicle.

She wore a maroon dress, one that had a slit down the leg that left little to the imagination. The color matched the shirt Kate had given you earlier, everything orchestrated to a tee. The woman looked at you approvingly before she took striding steps towards the front of the building. Out of habit, you held the door open for you, another look sparkling in her dark eyes.

It was a restaurant that you had never set foot in. There was a sour, yet pleasant, scent of vinegar and cabbage masked with that of freshly baked bread and beef. The walls were painted deep green, black and white photos of rolling hills placed above empty tables.

It was clear what table you were to be led to. There was one in the center of the restaurant that was set up with a bottle of wine, and water. A candle burned in the middle, shading the woman who occupied it with shadows that stretched her delicate features. She wasn’t alone.

The woman had cropped blonde hair at the shoulders. Her hazel eyes were calculating, clocking Kate and yourself immediately. Kate pulled Natasha’s chair back, allowing her to sit before she took a step back. You flanked her sides, arms behind your back and stare trained straight ahead like a sentinel.

“Two,” the woman smiled devilishly, hiding it behind a glass of deep red wine. “Are you compensating for something, or someone?”

The woman who stood much like you did behind her boss was not masking her contempt towards you. She was familiar in an irking way that you paid no mind to. It was in passing, you were sure, but it was one of those itches that would worsen until you could scratch it with your whole hand.

“Not at all,” Natasha replied cooly, “I believe there was something you wanted to discuss?”

“Mm, there was. You know the Maroni property on the west side.” She leaned forward, placing her glass down. Her lips were stained in a dark red that matched Natasha’s dress. “I want it.”

“That’s a horrible way to say please.”

“Natasha, we both know it doesn’t serve you in it’s current position.” She put emphasis on the name.

“I fail to see how that matters. Just giving you the property is out of the question. That’s not how this works, but I do admire your gumption.”

“Then how exactly does, this work?” She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. Both you and Kate tensed. The vaguely-familiar woman behind Carol shifted on her feet in the slightest movement. “You kill one of my men and offer nothing in return?”

Natasha lifted her eyebrows “Exactly. This isn’t a bartering system, and it never has been. If I give you this building, it will change everything and I’m not much in the mood for a power struggle. What do you need it for?”

She seemed to falter “I don’t have to answer that. I’m offering to buy the property from you.”

“It’s not for sale.”

There was finality in her voice that rocked the room into silence. She hadn’t touched her wine, nor her water, and you figured she wouldn’t. Carol glowered at her, clearly not used to having her endeavors squashed with such ferocity.

Natasha took a steadying breath. “Is that all? It’s late and I’m tired of your graveling.”

She let out a sigh and crossed her legs, drumming her ringed fingers on the cloth-laid table. The flames in the candle seemed to react to her impatience. Kate’s jaw clenched and unclenched as she leveled the woman behind Carol with a fierce stare.

“I suppose. I want you to remember this moment, Natasha. I offered you a deal.” She stood and dramatically sighed once more. “This could have been easy.”

Kate always kept her eyes on Carol, on the woman who followed behind her with her hands shoved into her pockets. The darkness of a previous scar littered her collarbone. She had the same stare that Bucky had, that same determined anger that came with years of meetings with higher stakes than this.

“Oh, and Nat.” She stopped just short of the door, turning to face the three of you.

Kate reached for her weapon, and out of a blind trust, so had you. It was warm from its housed place against your side. In that moment, you knew that anyone else in the room would be a quicker shot than you. Still, your heart was beating quickly in your throat.

“I don’t know where your Winter Soldier is, but this is a sorry excuse for a replacement.” She laughed, a mean sound. “A kid and a burn-out… you should’ve taken the deal.”

She left without another word, leaving you in a chilling silence. For a few long moments, Natasha stared at the table, at her reflection in the syrupy red wine. Her fingers brushed against the glass, frowning.

“I’m twenty-three.” Kate let out in a single breath, eyes drifting from you.

“Don’t look at me,” You whispered back, “I am a burn-out.”

[Taglist🕷♡: @dumbasslesbi, @lostremind, @toocreativeforausername @autorasexy @eringranola @mikookaaaaaao @marvelwoman-simp @pacmanmiles @mostlymarvelsstuff, @mrsrushman, @milfsandtittyenthusiast, @random-raccoon4, @ravenromanova, @mysticalmoonlight7, @ahintofchaos @cowboyboots236 @lissaaaa145]

#Natasha Romanoff #Natasha Romanoff x reader #Natasha Romanoff x you #Natasha Romanoff x y/n #natasha romanov #natasha romanov x y/n #Natasha Romanov x reader #Marvel #Marvel Au #Kate Bishop #Mafia Au #request

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nipuni · 3 months

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Blog time Hello! We are back from our trip! I'd say I'm feeling refreshed but coming back to sweltering dry heat shut down that feeling very quickly. Now we are even more determined to move to the seaside within the year though 🏃‍♀️ It's incredible how much of an effect on your health the weather can have. These days we have been hiking for around 8 hours a day in the mountains and coast without breaking a sweat in 17-22ºc high humidity weather. In contrast, today back home we walked to the store five streets away in a dry 33ºc sun and we felt like throwing up and never leaving the house again lmao and it only gets much worse until september aaaa I can't wait to move out of the city and start a new colder and quieter phase of life where I don't have to dread the coming of summer every year!! But at the same time I've been feeling this trepidation about settling down somewhere permanently, I realized that every 5 years or so I get the itch to move somewhere new and it worries me a bit tbh, I hope it is just my fear of commitment acting up and the fact that we just haven't found the right place yet. And the longer we spend in this place the more we feel like it will be the right one so I'm hopeful!

We have also been watching more of David's filmography! we watched Des, Single Father, Recovery, Bad Samaritan and Deadwater Fell. We enjoyed Recovery, Single father and Deadwater Fell the most, all were really good!! then Des was decent and Bad Samaritan was terrible. But as expected David steals the show every time and you end up sitting through the most ridiculous scripts just to see him give it his all and elevate the whole thing with every scene lmao the sheer range of this man!! let me gush for a second, he goes from the most charming and pitiful train wreck you would kill to protect to the most terrifying monster of a person so effortlessly you can hardly tell it's the same actor. He is so outstandingly good at every role!! Anyway I love watching our little shows of our favourite guy with Nicolas everyday, it has been the highlight of my year 🥰

I've also been meaning to get back into games but I just can't find the right one! I tried the whole cozy farming/survival/sandbox game thing and came to the conclusion that it's not for me, I don't find them engaging enough so it ends up feeling like a time sink 😞 I also thought of going back to FFXIV but the new expansion doesn't sound like something I would really enjoy and while I love RPG I'm finding it hard to commit to 40+ hours of storyline lately, BG3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Disco Elysium have been sitting in my library for ages now and I can't bring myself to play them even tho I want to!! I'm hoping DA4 will get me back into the RPG mood. I've also played Hades II but I'm all out of content until release! Maybe shooters will do the trick, something fast paced I can play for a little bit as a distraction from work. I've been meaning to check how Warframe is doing too, I love it and haven't played in ages, and every time I check it's like a completely different game so that could be fun! but I'm rambling now, if you have any game recommendations let me know! I hope you are all doing well 😊 I'll get back to drawing now and will share some sea pictures later!

#nips blogs #personal

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trulyumai · 8 days

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sweet wine and messy lips

pairing: emperor geta / empress! reader

synopsis: in which geta and his wife get drunk. even clumsy and lost in a stupor, the emperor still tries to adore you in his own way.

warnings: geta talking down to people, grabbing.

a/n: im re-entering my heimdall phase (gow2) so be on the lookout for that and I apologize in advance for another hyper fixation taking me over completely

enjoy!

your hand nudged the goblet towards geta, tipping it ever so slowly to his lips until a bright maroon dusted across the pink expansion.

“try it— you’ll like it my liege I swear it!”

Geta only scoffed, his cheeks red with drunken clumsiness.

“get that away from me, wife. I’d rather drink poison than to sip on such a disgrace of wine.”

you pouted instantly, already drunk yourself, the sweet wine wafted off your figure like a cheap oil. “pretty please, husband? it’s got all the flavors you like,”

listing them off slowly, your other hand began its decent up his arm and finding passage massaging his shoulder. Geta, ever soft for your hands couldn’t help but relax in such a comforting hold.

“cherries, a hint of cinnamon—“

gods you smelled divine.

so sweet, so alluring to the man that he could sweep you off your feet right then and there.

“did I say grapes? it has honey too, just the right amount—

“wife,” the emperor shuddered. your fingernails found their way up his chest, lightly circling and smoothing their way across it as you were lost in thought, too busy naming of ingredients instead of paying attention to the now flustered lord.

“wife!” Geta interrupted, seizing your moving hand with his own ringed one.

fearing you did something wrong, your posture instantly froze; rigid and stiff.

‘calmly, you fool.’ Geta’s thoughts rang out, his grip lightened and with a feathery touch made its way to the jawline just in front of him.

clenched and tightened with stressful thinking.

“I… apologize, little wife,” he finally gritted out. you were so beautiful tonight. it’s as if the stars molded across your eyes and lit up the expansion of your pupils with untold dreams and conquests.

He wanted to drown in them.

“im tired, hm?”

your lip wobbled before a look of surprise took over the reddened and messy features you displayed.

“of course, my emperor! how could I be so silly?”

getting up off the man’s lap, you felt a tug upon the material of your robe.

it was light, but firm enough for you to turn your neck back around with a slow uneasiness and to the emperor once more.

he laid comfortably against the seat, sagging into it while his legs spread with enough of a widened expansion for your body to mold into.

his arm, the one that wasn’t connected to your delicate robes— sat against the ginger hairs littering his head, with his fingers pushed against the pale temple, making his upper body lean to the side.

he looked relaxed. happy, one might say.

“you will return with me, won’t you, wife?” although it sounded like a question, you knew it wasn’t.

even in your drunken state, the man’s stature—his temper is a trait you won’t easily forget.

so instead of having one more glass, like you had intentions of doing, you nodded in agreement.

it’s all geta needed to hear, or rather, see before clumsily gathering himself out of the throne.

instantly, the party goers raised, bowing their head completely before the man could demand them of it.

usually, the emperor would make a show of this. mumble on about how well trained they are, how obedient.

“their more like animals,” he would scoff, laughing vehemently while tugging you along. possessive fingers grazing your waist with the cool feeling of the rings brushing against any revealing skin.

such a touch brought you back to the present, cold and calculated against the backside of your dress.

following your husbands bounding steps, you avoided the looks that were thrown your way. it wasn’t wise to get drunk in front of so many people, you knew it wasn’t.

but geta had insisted.

“we’re winning the war, dearest.” he had all but giggled, pouring heaps of wine into your (once) empty goblet.

“I ordered it special for you, drink up before Caracalla gets to it, hm?”

you had peered into the drink with newfound interest. a little smile entered your face and pushed against your cheeks. such a sight almost made the emperor flustered—he’d blame it on the wine, most definitely.

it was indeed a light red, the color of the sweet wine you always loved to sip on. upon closer inspection, the smell made its way up and into your senses.

what was a few drinks? you had thought. And with a quick note of appreciation to your husband, the goblet had graced your lips.

who knew it would bring you here, barely holding yourself up against geta as you both made way for the chambers?

his left palm spread out easily against your back. with a firm hold he took lead, guiding you through the stone walls and to the bed that was calling his name.

his other hand braced against the rough wall to the side—just in case he needed to push against it.

“husband?” he heard you call out, with a low drawled out hum, geta responded.

“thank you for the wine.” your sweet voice spoke so low.. so softly against the muffled laughter and voices that spilled out of the throne room.

his fingers came up to the back of your neck, seizing it with a loving grip before his lips crashed upon the top of your head.

he had aimed for your cheek, but this will do.

“anything for you, lovely.” geta purred against the softened locks, already his arms snuck their way under your buttocks, groping and touching the flesh there.

the guards had to move a bit behind, just beside the corner of the wall to avoid any further groping and kissing that was being displayed.

it was turning out to be a sweet night indeed.

#x reader #fanfiction #gladiator x reader #gladiator #gladiator ii #gladiator 2 #emperor geta x you #emperor geta x reader #emperor geta #emperor caracalla #joseph quinn x reader #joseph quinn #joe quinn #movie #drunken ramblings #drunkenness #fluff #kinda

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yeyinde · 1 year

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ode to a conversation stuck in your throat

Captain John Price x Reader

》 WORD COUNT: 12,7k

》 WARNINGS: 18+ | MATURE: allusions to smut but nothing graphic/explicit

》 TAGS: Gender-Neutral Reader. Angst. Mutual Pining. Idiots in Love (but in Romania). Fluff. Love and Romance described as death and decay and broken religious imagery. Y'know. The usual Yey tags.

》 NOTES: I recently got into Augury (just a fancy word for bird watching, innit??) so this feels more whimsical and nonsensical than usual. Good luck with this one, lads.

It's like clockwork.

A text comes—some variation of are you awake, or are you home? in that strange Price-esque way he manages, even through the stark face of a message (biting derision, Gaz calls it, adds: man can't pretend to be a little less angry even over text)—and then a phone call.

Always after midnight.

Devil's hour.

When your phone rings at half past three in the morning, hearing Price's gruff perfunctory greeting of "alrigh'?" bleeding through the phone, and right into your ear doesn't surprise you anymore.

(Not much does, really.)

These phone calls are a strange, almost paradoxical thing that both happens often enough not to be considered rare, and yet: it still seems outlandish enough each time it happens for you to ever really let yourself expect it. Odd. Price doesn't strike you as the type of man to need to rely on his friends—the seldom few he does have, you often joke (always a shade too close to the truth like most jokes are; the one that makes him dip his head in a nod of quiet acquiesce, and make you wonder if you went too far)—but he's never given you a reason for them.

Never answered why.

They just—

Happened.

(Over and over and over again—)

The brief conversation in the oddest hour of the morning started a new tradition. A routine. Expecting a phone call from Price at least once a week was now so commonplace, you almost felt empty when days had passed, and your phone never rang.

He can't sleep. Neither can you.

And so, he calls you.

It's not always about a mission. Most of the conversations that take place are about absolutely nothing. Everything, sometimes, when you pry apart the bones locked around your chest, and bare your insides to the warm cellphone clutched in your hand. To the voice on the other line.

A man you know—have known since you first stepped into his training ring, and into the orbit of Captain John Price—and barely understand at all.

You know everything about him—his name, his title, where he grew up, went to school, his favourite food, his least favourite drink, what he does after a mission; his greatest fear, his biggest worry, the insecurity that gnarls in his chest, and the weight of the world that sometimes feels like it might splinter his bones, grinding them into gun cotton—and nothing at all.

The reason why he called you all those months ago, invited you on a mission you had no real part to play in, and why he still does is a mystery.

(Loneliness, maybe.

Insomnia, you find, is more bearable when it's shared between two.)

But that was before.

The last phone call you got from Price had been nearly three months ago after you touched down in Heathrow following a botched mission in Tenerife.

You heard the murmurs about Shepherd, about Zyani that trickled through the mess hall (when there was no battle to be fought, they gossiped), and so his radio silence makes sense considering he was halfway across the globe for the bulk of it.

In the midst of it, though, you would find yourself staring blankly at your phone, screen black and void of any calls, and wonder if it had anything to do with your offer. With his swift rejection.

When it rings after an aching expanse of time, you can't place the gnarled tension in your chest. The uncomfortable feeling that blooms in your heart at the sight of his name flashing in neon blue.

Price seems almost surprised to hear your voice on the other line instead of the monotonous droll of your voicemail.

"Up for a trip?" He asked when you cleared the sleep from your throat, and rubbed blearily at your eyes. "Jus' me and you."

It feels like nothing at all had changed since he last called you with an offer to accompany him to Tenerife.

"Just like old times," you murmur, a touch distant. Hedging.

"Right," he says, words glueing to his throat. You hear the click when he clears it, and pretend you're only pulling the phone away from your ear to check the time.

Half past three. Of course. Of course.

"Got a proposition for you."

Typical Price: he gets right to the point.

There is no staying up talking about everything, nothing, and all the in between until well past five in the morning when your alarm sounds for your run. Or his for a shower before heading into headquarters at Hereford to reach a new class of hopefuls when he isn't saving the world with his infamous team.

The very same one he refuses to let you be a part of.

(Better on your own, he says.

You think you'd be better with him—

His team. Team. Not—)

The blooming heat under your cheeks is never acknowledged in the sanctity of your lonesome bedroom with his rough voice pitched low enough to squeeze through the little holes of your speaker. Tucked away to pine while still somehow making a fool of yourself.

You're only half listening when he murmurs about his proposition.

It's a simple mission, he tells you. The usual grab and go.

Usual, because only in this work could kidnapping bad people in foreign countries be considered normal. Routine.

(Legal, kind of.)

"It's in Romania," he murmurs, and the tinny sound of his voice through the old dial phone of the inn he's staying at between missions makes him sound lighter than he usually does. Airy. "I know you liked visiting the last time—"

It drags a snort from you. "Yeah, on holiday. Something about this whole ordeal tells me I won't be enjoying mici in Târgovişte much."

"Well. Consider this a pre-paid holiday. I'll do all the work, you just 'ave to sit there, and—"

"Look pretty?"

"—listen."

You hum. "I think I'm much better at looking pretty than I am at listening, John."

"Yeah," it's dry, derisive. "Don't I know it."

Silence lapses between you—intentional, of course. He's letting you think it over. Weigh the pros and cons of a free trip to Romania. With four hands and two heads you could clear it up before the allotted time frame, giving you those extra, precious few days to linger in the country.

Tying up loose ends is what will end up on the official report. Discouraging witnesses from coming forward with stacks of Euros stuffed deep in their pockets.

Making sure no stone has been left unturned—the Americans, in particular, like that one. They never ask questions when you wax about patriotism, and ensure there's no chance of calamity. They like their ends tied, and their witnesses happy.

It's all a cash business. More than enough money wired to an infant account under an preconstructed name. Passwords and identification handed to you in a sealed envelope. It's unlikely that anyone would ever track said witnesses down to discover the person given hush money was actually a nightclub in Mamaia or a fancy pub in Cluj.

Illegal, of course. Should you ever get caught, you'd be reprimanded. Punished. Made an example of.

(But who doesn't skim a bit from the top? Especially when the pile is given to you by the military.)

"Fine," you huff, and aim for some semblance of acquiescence in your tone despite knowing full well that you've yet to turn down these impromptu partnerships with him since they started two years ago.

Moldova. Egypt. Chad. Canada. The Philippines. Taiwan. Tenerife. Your odd partnership has taken you further across the world than the sedentary office job of pretending to make a difference ever did.

The place he said you were better suited for. You refuse to wonder what that means.

"Okay. I'll go. But I'm not doing anything at all except enjoying the Romanian countryside."

"Wouldn't expect any less from you."

You want to say, then why bring me at all? Why not take Gaz or Soap or Laswell? Why sideline me so blatantly only to keep asking for my help when it's never really needed? but the words are stuck in your throat. Trapped in their esophageal prison.

Instead, you say: "count me in then, I suppose," and wonder when you became such a coward.

"Mm. I should let you get some sleep, then."

You make a noncommittal noise in the back of your throat. It's been three months of nothing but unanswered texts that gradually faded into nothing by the third week. An island of uncertainty. Worry. Dread. Fear. Wondering what you did wrong, and coming, quite conclusively (and indignantly) to the conclusion that you didn't.

Hearing his voice again, tinny and always shades softer than you've ever heard him speak before, unearths the sarcophagus you laid your feelings inside; a sudden and abrupt disinterment of everything you tried hard to ignore. The desecration cracks the tomb wide open. The flood of everything you tried to bury blooms; the foetid sickness of your festering wants taste a little bit like regret, and even more like hope.

Helpless, your finger gnarl around the blossom of what laid bare, bones and rotted flesh, and the weight of it in your palm feels more comforting than ever before. Made more potent, you think, by the absence of him.

It's an unignorable truth that you missed him.

And so, you cling to the offering like it's a sacred trinket.

"How—," the words are rough, gritty, when they slip through the moulted dirt clogging your throat. Dredged up in the wake of the sudden excavation. You swallow hard when he makes a noise. Force yourself to claw through the humus. "How are you, John?"

You want to add something you know will make him huff, call you cheeky, something a little coquetry in the wake of your exhumation. Such would be your exequy, but the words are buried once more when the dirt shifts as he draws in a deep, staticky breath.

He's not usually a loquacious man in person, but something seems to crack open, shift, when it's well after midnight. A secret, a new side of him, shared only with you.

You don't expect him to respond. You hope, but you don't assume.

When he sucks in a breath, a staticky little noise that reverberates through the receiver, victory snakes across your vertebrae. Unwarranted and unearned, but the stinging reminder of it does little to stop it from nursing on the marrow of hope pullulating inside of you.

"Been better," he offers, and the muted shift of him relaxing into the starchy pillows cuts through the line. Settling, you think, for the beginning of your routine. "Didn't have much of a chance to call you. How've you been?"

"Been better," you echo, a wry twist of humour snaking across your lips when he offers a huff in response. "Lots to get caught up on, I suppose."

And you do.

You talk about nothing. Everything.

Your darkest secrets were spilled out in those phone calls at Devils Hour—fears, uncertainty, failures. This is no different. He tells you about Shepherd blinding them all with his dedication to the cause. About how he would have let Laswell rot to save his own arse, but knew, of course, that not letting Price and Gaz rescue her would have raised even more alarms.

They cornered an animal, he spits. One who led them around by the nose for years.

Bloody American Politicians, he grumbles.

No better than the bloody English, you snark back. At least they're honest about their motives when it all comes tumbling down around them, and don't hide it under layers of the blooded elite. Of status.

He mumbles to himself for a moment before begrudgingly conceding your point.

It buzzes in the static. A lapse in the midst of espionage tainted catch-up that makes your hindbrain tense for what he might say next.

He shifts, then, offers even softer than the hello he greeted you with:

"What about you? Get up to any trouble while I was gone?"

He listens to you bisect yourself in a midnight confessional, letting your rotted guts tumble out in deep lags of silence you wish weren't as comfortable as they are.

He talks, too.

Tells you about woes of nepotism, and the muppets they send him for basic training. The fleet of soldiers he doesn't want to carry on his back, but does anyway. The losses he couldn't prevent. The monsters he made.

"I wouldn't change anything," he always says, as if you don't know him by now. As if you need reminding of just how tar-coated his heart really is. "I'd do it all over again."

You say, "I know, John." And when you hear the hitch in his breath, you add: "you wouldn't be you if you did. I trust your judgement—no matter what."

Explicit trust. He runs from it.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. It always sounds a little bit like a mourning toll.

"I… should let you get some sleep."

It's something he always says during your late night phone calls.

Par the routine, the same question claws through the mess of words unsaid in your oesophagus until it reaches the seam between your teeth and lips.

Why me, Price?

But every tradition has its rules.

You let him run, and wonder if he feels as cleansed as you do after baring your soul to someone who knows you better than most of your closest relatives, your friends.

(Or if the silence that lingers when you hang up feels just as oppressive and empty to him as it does to you.)

Wishful yearning.

Instead, you say: "try to get some sleep, John. I'll talk to you later."

And then, like the hypocrite you are, you lay awake and wonder why.

He meets you at Heathrow, and really—

It sometimes surprises you just how intimidating a man like Price is.

He glowers down at the phone in his too large hand, eyes downcast, and brows pinched by whatever is irritating him now—emojis, you later discover.

(Bloody things make no sense to me, he grumbles, shoulder knocking against yours when you make yourself comfortable on the plane.

You gently remind him he's barely even forty.)

Price is an indomitable man.

Tall. Broad shouldered. The heft of his bicep is actuated when he curls his hand around the strap of his duffle bag, muscles bulging. Flexing.

It's hard not to stare at him.

His shoulders roll back when you approach, eyes flickering up from unravelling the nuance of modern text messaging from a man who came out of the womb a fully fleshed adult with a mortgage.

The corners of his eyes relax from their narrow slits when recognition bleeds into ashlar blue. His mouth parts a little; the flash of nicotine stained teeth.

The furrow of his brow flexes like it wants to smooth itself out, but something passes across his face—unknowable, brief; the incipient markings of something that makes him look a little more at ease in the bustling confines of Heathrow (hell on earth you have both very quickly, and unanimously, acknowledged)—and it's pulled back together. Irritation, but not at you. Never at you.

(But if not at you, then who?

Why, you wonder, does he always look so cross in your presence?)

He clears his throat. The grumble of his voice, full and robust, and so different from the tinniness of a phone, nearly makes you jump when it glides across your ears, abrasive and raw. A rough growl.

(You wonder sometimes if the brassiness of his timbre is from choking back apoplectic snarls all day.)

"Took you long enough."

You huff. "London is a nightmare at this time of day, John. As if you could've gotten here any faster."

"You chose to live in it."

Another sigh falls from the split seam of your lips. "It's not that bad."

"London smells like shite."

"As if Liverpool smells any better," you volley back, watching the subtle shift in his expression fade from the pinched world wariness almost permanently etched into the lines of his face into something more relaxed. Agreeable. Or rather, as agreeable as Price could be in the middle of Heathrow, and surrounded by people.

He opens his mouth, then, as if to remind you of the sea-salted scent of Liverpool, briny and bitter. Smog and hardwork. Oil, gun cotton. The city smells like the working class. Blue collar. Hands gnarled from the factories, and stained permanently with grease.

A distinct thrum of pride, of home, rumbles through him with each new add-on to why Liverpool, in his opinion, is the best choice to call home.

(And London, he always adds, if only for another barb, another insult in your choice, always reeks of selfish ambition. The kind that rots your insides into something askance, and is deprived of decency.)

His biggest gripe with London, however—

"They never fuckin' smile."

You passively nod in agreement—you mostly get looks of outright suspicion when you smile at passers-by in central London, so: point to Price—and then undercut the small victory he gains with a mocking grin in his direction.

Price's nostrils flare when he catches the derisive bite of your lips curling over your teeth.

"You think you're smart, mm?"

"I'd rather hope so, considering."

"Bloody annoyin' is what you are, considerin'—"

His words are swallowed by some boarding announcement ringing shrill overhead. You pull away from him, and the mocking smile fades into some facsimile of genuinity when you watch him shake his head, put-out and already annoyed by whatever thought skimmed through his thoughts.

London always seems like a sore topic, but you've known him long enough that the edge in his voice is less severe and more mocking. There is a distaste for the city, but the reason has evaded you much like—

Well. Everything else.

You've thought about asking why nearly hundreds of times in the past, but that line of questioning has always been a terrifying endeavour. There is a locked door: a proverbial floodgate keeping all of the other why's at bay. Opening it now, in the middle of a crowded terminal, feels reckless. Stupid.

It's nearly four hours from here to Transilvania.

You think of all the insubstantial reasons he could offer, and find the idea of them all rather bitter. Anguishing. It sends a ripple of hurt through your chest, and the sting alone is enough to seal your lips.

Words stuck, once more, in the back of your throat.

Price says nothing when you quiet, eyes flickering between the throng of people rushing through the terminal, listless and impassive.

There is always a degree of separation between you and him whenever you meet in person, as if the personal, raw conversations whispered into the early hours of the morning are just some strange dream. A fugue wanting, unslaked and bothersome, that ripens inside your virgin sulci. A sickness that manifests in the fibrils of your desire, covetous and greedy; gnarled gyri breathes life into the dreams you reach for until the delineation between reality and fantasy wanes, fades to cinders.

So, you bite your tongue, letting the noxious words pollute, rot, inside their esophageal prison, and pretend the claw marks on the walls aren't from your own bloody hands.

You follow his lead, and he's always seemed so content not to speak of the vulnerability you whisper into his ear. The fear he rasps about at quarter to four.

Gone, then. It doesn't exist when you can see the lapis of his eyes listing toward you periodically, expression oscillating between a rendition of something that feels a little worrisome, and—

Tenerife.

That unnameable thing that broke through the gleaming sapphire when you whispered his name, and broke your own rules for the very first time.

(You'll call me anyways.

Does it bother you?

Never. Wished you called more—)

You turn away from him, from the weight in his gaze when it finds you. Worried, somehow, that a single look will be enough to ferret the secrets out of you.

A man in fatigues lingers in your periphery, standing awkwardly by the Starbucks entrance. He nods sharply when you catch his eye.

"Guess we're up," you murmur, smile fading into placid neutrality. Getting caught riling up Captain John Price won't win any favours back in the concrete vacuum of Hereford. "Ready, cap?"

If he notices your sudden distance, he says nothing about it. His eyes drop to the phone clutched in his hand, before he rolls his massive shoulders.

"Suppose so," he grumbles, slipping his phone into his pocket.

Out of sight.

Selfishly, you wonder who else he calls late at night, and find the burn of bitterness, jealousy to be some torturous form of retribution.

It burns like a knife to your gut. You wallow in it.

Price isn't a man known for his garrulity, and so, when he takes his seat on the plane, and immediately reaches for the files stuffed haphazardly into the zippered fold of his duffle bag, you take no real offence the undeniable abolishment of conversation.

You're used to it, really.

Silences that stretch on, culled by the hum of the engines cutting through the thin air some several hundred kilometres above sea level, are nothing novice.

In turn, you take to flipping through the worn, jaundiced pages of a book you packed away in your carry-on specifically for this. Whatever secrets lay nestled in the crease of his rumbled folders doesn't matter to you—not yet, anyway—and you're content to enjoy something that you can pretend to be immersed with for the four hours you'll be sharing the scant space that separates the two of you.

Pretending, of course, being the operative word.

Price is a breathing furnace. The seams of his tight jacket crackle with unbridled heat that wafts against your arm when you settle into the chair. There is no armrest allotted to you with his sinewy bulk taking up most of the aisle and middle seat, and you feel each exhale when his frame almost melts into your own.

Broad shouldered. Thick biceps. A tapered waist. Thighs quite nearly the width of a gnarled, hardened fir. It's hard to find space, privacy, with him bleeding out around you. It's hard to concentrate on anything that isn't the muted press of his covered flesh on yours, and, rather illicitly, the way it makes you feel.

It's a rush of singular emotions nearly indistinguishable from each other, but all leaving you feeling like a raw nerve scrapped from muscle, and dissected from bone. Flayed with just a touch.

The tremulous wake of them makes your body fight against the onslaught of the roaring deluge that rips through you. An amalgam of wishful anticipation, trepidation, and fear of being caught. Discovered. Having your dirty secrets, the one's you're not willing to share over a tea after midnight with a man who, despite knowing his greatest fear (the lives of his team over the stakes of everything, everyone, else), and his proudest accomplishment (getting the fuck outta Hereford while he still had the chance), galvanised out of you. Spilled into the open air.

It comes too close to the lowered inhibitions you felt in Tenerife to ever sit well in the churning pits of your stomach.

And so, you try to force some semblance of distance between your bodies despite there being none. The curved ledge of the plane window digs harshly into your forearm, but you still press into it more.

Welcoming the ache, almost.

It doesn't feel good, but it's a harsh reminder that the feelings pooling inside of your chest are wrong.

A part of you, then, almosts hopes that the pain will soon become an almost Pavlovian reminder whenever you think of Price, and of—

Everything.

Negative reinforcement.

(Price and you; the thought brings pain.)

He mistakes your tension for nerves, and drops his chin down when you keep wriggling about, struggling to find a modicum of distance between the weight of him pressing against you.

His expression is always oscillating between lour surliness and a pinch of frustration, and something in the middle of the two—glum, you think: stoic impassivity weighed down by heavy shadows—but the usual ire dims as the jet lurches down the runway. It's washed away in the tenebrous that leaks in from the empty interior of a military craft where it's just you and him and the pilots.

A world where the stench of London dissipates into the familiar filtered scent of recycled oxygen that wafts through the open vents. Sterile, almost. Void of the grime, the pungent smell of stale petrol on the wet pavement, the distinct scent of the tube—sweat, fungus; putrid and ripe with something mouldy; tobacco and marijuana—and old cigarettes.

(Smells like shite, he'd gripe if he knew you thought of it with fondness.)

When he looks at you, you have to force yourself to remember hierarchy, propriety. Decorum.

Distance. Reality.

It aches, but you push it down. Swallow the words until they leak back into their cage, glued against the soft tissue of your oesophagus, and force something neutral, unbothered in your countenance while pretending as if you weren't choking yourself to death.

"Alright?" He murmurs, words uttered low. Susurrus, almost. It's different from the phone calls where his voice is relaxed, muted; saturated in an ease, a warmth that lacks the usual snarl choked in the back of his throat. He talks with a degree of distance. Boxed into the role of unflinching, infallible leader even in this microcosm that bubbles between you.

Still. It makes the air in your lungs stutter all the same.

"Fine."

He hums, and the guttural vocalisation is adorned with the flat press of his disbelief. Price isn't the type to pry, though, and he takes your virginal lie with a mere shift of his eyebrows; a soft buoy of skepticism that is just scrutinising enough to let you flee if you so wish.

You do, and so, you take it. Offering him a tight smile that you know will never reach your eyes, or any semblance of believability, but it's the most you can manage over the drumroll of your heart (now making serious threats of breaking through your ribcage, and leaping out of the jet), and the shallow gasps of your breath, a desperate struggle to quench the flames billowing in your lungs.

He's so warm, you think, that he burns you. Fire spread from the heat of him, catching on the cindered embers lying in the soft fibrils of your being, and igniting you in a flameless smoulder.

Price nods once, and you're unsure if it's in a gentle acquiescence of your bold-faced lie, or your quick prevarication, but you find yourself mimicking it all the same.

Good, then. Settled.

But he leans down instead of returning to the urgent press of files and papers all neatly stacked in a manila folder, and you come undone at seams when the scent of him envelops you.

Crushed tobacco leaves, stale smoke, ambergris and vetiver.

The headiness of his smell smothers you, and makes your hindbrain tense at the familiar, enticing miasma that seeps into your lungs, and fills your sinuses until it washes everything out but the gun cotton, and leather he reeks of.

"Hmm, a bit early to start lying," he rasps, the words just as brittle as your crumbling resolve. "Ain't it?"

Your breath shudders out of your lungs. Caught, then. Called out. The idea of confessing everything to him, all at once, passes through, but it's immediately dismissed. Shoved back into whichever crevasse it slunk out of.

The fact that it even drifted through, sneaking past the tightly guarded prison it was kept in is enough to make you fluster.

As if to hold them in, you sink your teeth into your tongue to keep from speaking the words that still echo in your head, and offer nothing more than a simple shake of your head, and some facsimile of a wry smile tossed in his general direction.

He hums again, and the coo rumbles through his flesh and ripples across your skin. Electric shocks. Static buzz. The vibration of it shakes the doors of the mausoleum where everything is left to moulder, rot.

A plume of nicotine dusts across your nose when Price shifts in his seat, much too small for a man with such broad shoulders, and thick thighs, and when you breathe in the heady scent of it, your head spins.

"We're all entitled to our secrets," he murmurs. His hair scratches against the fabric when he turns his head, chin notching down to bore into the side of your face. It's all you'll offer him when the rattling at the doors of your tomb dislodges a piece of rotten wood; lignin crumbles to the floor around you in stripped, fleshy white. A hole big enough to sink your fist through.

"And that's fine, but—," his tone dips, timbre scorching through you when he speaks. The words are gritty, and coarse. They sink into your ears until the flesh is rubbed raw. The change in pitch makes you look up, wordlessly following the command that tangles around each vowel. Sharp, authoritative. This isn't John right now. It's Captain Price.

His pelagic eyes are hardened into firm, dense sapphire lined with unbreakable obsidian.

"But," he stresses the word again, brows arching high on his forehead until three, four, lines are carved into the pale skin. "Those secrets can't interfere with the mission, yeah?"

His stare is intense. Firm. Unyielding. He doesn't look away. Doesn't cower under the strange, too hot sensation that fills your head whenever you're forced to make eye contact for more than a few moments.

It occurs to you, then, when he holds your stare for three, flinching inhales, that the only reason he's saying this is because he knows. Maybe not everything, maybe not all of it. But he knows enough that you're acting strange. Odd. Not yourself.

Price sits back, and the loss of his intense stare boring into you, stripping you down to basal parts—raw and vulnerable—allows air to inflate your burning lungs. Oxygen bubbles and seeps into your bloodstream so quickly that you feel a little sick with it. Dizzy.

"We clear on that?"

His expression is guarded, pinched.

You swallow thickly against the deluge of emotions that run down your spine, and wonder what he knows. What he pieced together already. It makes your heart slam against the flesh and bone cage it's prisoned in.

His flat, phlegmatic expression seems to wobble. A frisson ripples, and splinters his reticent resolve, and he looks, in that moment, like the man who speaks to you late at night about his biggest worries, and fear. Touchable, reachable. It's a sharp contrast to the impenetrable man who stands at the top of the command post, and makes decisions of life and death. A stalwart leader made human.

You drink it in, trying to make sense of the softening of his gaze, the tremble of his moustache as his lips relax into an even line, but it's indecipherable. Unknowable. You struggle to piece the pensive, almost contemplative look together, but the gingerness in his expression snaps shut.

All at once, it's forced back, and pulled taut. The drawing of a bridge.

His lips flatten into a grim line. A divot forms between his brows. The tick in his jaw speaks of frustration, but—

Not at you. Never at you.

You can't make sense of the enigmatic distance in his eyes—a floating island in the middle of the open ocean. Separated by the turbulent sea.

Something changed between you. You feel the incipient shift trembling through your bones; a novice crack. The plates deep below the surface surge, and split; shattering into the other. The waters froth white as something begins to emerge from the depths.

A new landmass, maybe.

"Alright, then," he rasps, turning back back toward the files spread out on his lap. "Try to get some rest. We'll be jumpin' into the thick of it when we land."

You can see the hesitation in his eyes. The uncertainty in his mein. It's a sharp juxtaposition to how these strange missions usually unfold, where you both pour over documents, and leads, and have easy conversations between sharp, playful barbs, and impish quips to always devolve into some debate over something trivial.

The silence is stifling. Oppressive.

Tenerife, you think, when you drunkenly stumbled down the stairs, and into his arms, and—

Coldness. Frigid distance. He cut you off after that, and it was radio silence until last night when he called you.

You don't know what it all means, but Price is startlingly observant when it comes to you, and you wonder, with your heart thudding in your throat, just how much you gave away.

A snag in the middle of lush green. You tremble.

Into the thick of it, huh?

His words haunt you.

(But when don't they?)

The novel—a neo noir mystery disguised as a romance—does little to capture your attention. Threads of interest snag on the ends of the protagonist's steadfast determination to not to let crime run rampant in the city he's taken a reluctant appreciation for, and to rescue his penultimate damsel from the crumbling affair she's trapped in with a married man of the mafia, but it dwindles after the discovery of the red herring.

It sits, untouched, in your lap as you gaze out of the circular window. Plumes of thick, white clouds blanket the world below the plane, and look dense enough for you to almost believe you could stand on the curled peaks of the cumulonimbus. A mirage, maybe.

(Or wishful thinking: you've always enjoyed chasing the unattainable.)

The sky above is a midnight blue that fades into lighter shades of lazuli as curves around the earth.

A shade lighter, flecked with greens and golds and greys, and it might have looked just like his eyes.

(Chasing, always chasing.)

The shock of it makes your leg twitch as your muscle tense back into that familiar state of constant fight or flight that Price always seems to put you in. Stage fright. Fear of discovery.

Sometimes you wonder if it would be easier to just spit the words that have been coagulating in the back of your throat for years out now into the world, and let him run from them.

Flee, like Tenerife.

Does it bother you?

No, I wish you called my more—

—can't, love. Can't do that, you know I—

Dreams pop like rubber balloons around you. The snap of the recoil blisters your skin.

A lesson, then, that there are certain words that should never be uttered, or mentioned.

He drew a sharp delineation between you and him. A line in the sand. Uncrossable. Unspeakable.

Unignorable.

Your heart aches, but you know it'll soon pass. Soon. Soon—

"Ready?" He asks when the wheels of the plane kiss the solid ground with a jolt, and the single word feels more augury than you'd like.

It feels almost instinctual, then, to glance through the small window, eyes listing to the pale blue sky. Two chaffinches chase each other in the blooms of white, their plumage harsh against the idling clouds overhead.

"Sure," you say, and wonder if he'd asked the same thing when you touched down in Tenerife. It doesn't matter. You shake the thought from your head, and try not to linger on the birds.

Leave it for Agamemnon.

Despite his insistence to the contrary, it turns out to be the exact opposite of what was promised.

Your idyllic vacation to the Romanian countryside is forfeited for the cold interior of Brașov where the man you're after, Iulian Mitrea, is hidden somewhere in the near hour long commute from here to Sinaia.

Somewhere, of course, because no one is willing to tell you anything at all. From the moment you landed at Târgu Mureș Transylvania Airport, help from anyone within the country evaporated, dissolved. Mistrust was rampant between the soldiers here to help you on your hunt.

You couldn't blame them, really. Not when their orders to stall, delay, and interfere came directly from above.

It makes sense when you're trying to capture a well-known friend of several high ranking politicians worlds over.

The pinch in their brow as they say, we don't know where he is, despite confirming only an hour earlier that they did, in fact, know where he was speaks volumes to their reluctance to participate in this farce. It needles inside of you because despite the irritation of the delay, you get it.

If they help you catch him, their name will be in the report. People will talk to you. You get to go home with a wanted man nicely wrapped in a bow for Lady Justice, and they stay behind and face the ramifications of letting a man go who greases paws with men in power—politicians, businessmen, foreign diplomats.

So.

You get it. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow when you see them on the radio each time you get closer.

It'll be a wait and see mission until someone either relents enough to let you get a headstart, or the bigger people in power finish the behind the scenes negotiations to protect as many people as possible from the fallout.

Either way—

You're landlocked in a city that's never felt more hostile to you; stuck in stasis in the middle of a brutal winter.

The inn is nice, you suppose. Old architecture. Its age sings with each movement you make against the wood that is nearly three generations older than you. It's plumed a dusting of disuse that sneaks into the corners where it rots, and stinks of mildew.

But it feels unwelcoming each time you catch the eye of a soldier, a local police officer. The lady behind the counter of the front desk is oblivious to the tension bleeding between everyone, and offers toothy smiles whenever she catches you. Eager, you think, to talk to someone who doesn't respond in clipped tones.

You soak up the rapid Romanian, and try to remember the phrases you picked up—much to her amusement.

Her hand fixes itself permanently against her chest with each new pronunciation of the Romanian alphabet you pick up—breve, circumflex, S-comma, T-comma—and she seems eager to listen to prattle on in stilted Romanian with more appreciation than the men who are meant to be your partners.

They linger, listening in on each conversation you have with the woman. Combat every effort of your futile attempt to salvage some holiday from this mess.

They undermine Price at every junction. Cut his opinion down until it's shredded paper snowflakes on the icy cobblestone. A forgotten arts and craft project now mushy from the snow blanketing the world around you in an endless white prison.

It's easy, you think, to just give up.

But you know Price.

Despite their delays, and mutterings to each other every time a lead pops up only to quickly slip through your fingers, he doesn't falter. He won't. Not until this is seen through.

He'll fight to the bitter end.

(You think he just might prefer to do his fighting on the battlefield instead of dabbling in subterfuge.

So.

You do it for him.)

Your efforts amount to a burst vessle: a rumbling eruption spewing anger and tension at your feet like an angry volcano.

And with it, you feel the words you try to swallow down buoy to the surface.

This mission makes you feel like little more than some ornate polyptych, folded away for convenience sake, and unravelled in the privacy of his borrowed office.

It's there where Price poses questions, and piques at you for more information.

His tongue is too thick when he tries to speak the language echoed around you, unable to catch the proper slur on the t-commas and drag the breve out the way it should be spoken. It sounds somehow more French than it does Romanian, and you resolve to take the mantle of lacklustre translator for him, wondering whether he took your words as coming only for the holiday as sincerely as possible.

It makes a needle of fondness grow in the gyral folds of your beating heart. A sudden deluge of empathy, and affection that makes you idealistically moony-eyed at his penchant for keeping promises.

Still.

It's unneeded.

You take a proactive role in trying to find the man who keeps evading the grasping fingers of the law (however twisted it might be), and make it quickly known to him that you're here as a partner, at his behest, and not as some fancy tchotchke to be placed, indiscreetly, on the sidelines.

It's unlike him, though. And you wonder more about the potential ramifications of this mission each passing day that you're stuck in the stifling confines of some luxury inn where the men around you whisper furiously to prevent your success.

You ask him about it, and receive a piercing stare in response. A gruff, don't worry about it. This is my muck up, not yours.

It hardens your resolve.

All it takes is a few words whispered while rolling sarmale, and you manage to find a man in Brașov who might be hiding the person you're looking for.

Information that turns out to be more fruitful than anything else thus far.

You tuck it close to your chest. The man is landlocked and stuck, hidden in plain sight by the soldiers there to help you. He isn't going anywhere.

But you might be.

The lack of progress is noted by the people who requested your aid on this—the ones that must have conveniently forgotten that the person who kidnapped foreign dignitaries was also the man they had over for summer parties at their luxury estates in Dorobanți.

They dangle Price's visa over his head during a massive row after—yet another—delayed piece of information is forwarded to you by the local police. By the time it lands in your hands, on his desk, it's too late.

More blocks. More opportunities to catch the man squandered, lost to politics.

The schism between Price and them widens. A wide chasm, uncrossable.

You catch his eye, and wonder if you should share the secrets you keep, but you don't. Not yet, anyway. There's a mountain on his shoulders. A mess of politics that you know makes his blood boil.

You want to ease the burden. The tension.

But it doubles to a new height when one of the men jabs his finger in your direction, eyes blazing, and calls you his assistant.

"My what?" Price's words are eerily calm despite the gyre welling in blue. "What did you say?"

The man doesn't back down. Neither does Price.

It's his warmth by your side, unflinching, as he stands tall and guarded, leaking anger and ruin at the slight against you. A white night in red-hot anger.

You've fought your own battles, cutting your knuckles on cracked teeth until bone embedded itself into your cartilage like a macabre set of brass knuckles in jagged ivory. You throw punches like you're fighting for your life behind the screen of a computer that ticks away for eight hours, and pretend the emblem on your lapel doesn't weigh you down to the pavement below. Your own weight to carry.

And you don't need this, don't want it, and a little part of you wants to rebel, to throw your fists around like they're the white-hot slugs spat out of the barrel of a firearm, but it's tapered down when he seethes beside you.

His hands curl into fists before swinging up, latching onto the straps of his tactical vest. A defensive manoeuvre, you once thought, but now you know better.

Price isn't clinging to the woven fabric to keep himself steady, to ground himself. It's to keep those burly fists from sinking into the gullet of the first man who wanders too close to the rapacious maw of a starving beast.

Your eyes are fixed on the hairs dusted over his knuckles as he flexes and tightens his grip until they bleach white like dead coral, sharp bones threatening to break skin.

Those hands once pressed you tight to his front, holding you steady as you stumbled through the haze of want, and longing, and kept you steady as the boat rocked with the calm waters of the neverending sea.

(—wish you called more—

—don't know what you're sayin', love. What you're startin'. Gonna let you turn around, and pretend this never happened, mm?—

—but—)

They tightened then. Hard enough that the skin around your hip bones bulged between his thick fingers. Your flesh filling in his gaps. His eyes dropped there, fixed on the way you fit between him despite the pain that bloomed where his fingers dug deep.

(—jus'... Walk away, love—)

Tenerife feels like a dream. A wisping cloud of want dredged from the depths of your subconscious yearning.

But the ache in your side where his hands rested the night before kept you from casting away the words as drunken ramblings and masticated dreams.

Those hands whiten under the strain of holding himself back, and you recognise the colour as the same shade when he held you. Paperweight. Featherlight. You wonder, then, your eyes only for him as the world you've been invited into erupts into chaos and blame tinged with the palpable weight of unwelcomeness and claustrophobia when he hasn't been holding himself back—

"Talk about 'em that way on more time, and I'll stick your goddamn heads on a post for that slimy bastard you want to protect so fuckin' bad to see—"

—from you.

You find him near the window, gazing out at the snow-covered roof-tops of the sprawling village below.

He stands, his back angled toward you, with one hand curled around the crystalline glass, filled with three fingers of scotch—the perfect amount, he stresses, and gives credence to his sincerity with each winkle in his brow—and a lit cigar in the other.

Price brings the cigar up to his lips, eyes roaming across the smear of lights in the distance. You catch the spark when he inhales, the orange intensifying into an angry red.

It casts a halo of orange on his face, and the fire makes him look somehow older and younger than he really is. An timeless visage of a man who, hours earlier, was recklessly throwing himself into the very same fire he syphons from as it burns the tobacco in his stem.

The brief flash of red is complemented by the harsh dandelion-yellow from the illuminated city when it spills through the glass, frosted with condensation from the heat in the room, and the brutal chill kept at bay by a two inch glass panel.

He's a composition in contrast.

The only light inside the room is from the kindling fireplace, and the jaundiced lamp on the desk table, spilling over the documents you'd come to talk to him about. The dimly lit interior bathes his back in a clouded tenebrous, darkening the crevasses, divots, and the contoured folds of his body until they're shadowed in the gloam. It's perfectly juxtaposed to the highlights that catch in the warm golden glow of the sleepless city just below.

A perfect chiaroscuro, you think.

The sight of him, then, at peace—or as close to it as he can manage—steals the air in your lungs. The words on your lips.

The look on his face is pensive, yet coloured in a hue of consternation that seems to quiver through the dark pools of blue gazing back at him. A ripple of disquietude. A splash of rumination. It all coalesces into an unfathomable knot of emotions that bloom in the deep divot of his brow. Ones you can't even begin to unravel.

(But your fingers itch to try.)

There is something about him in absolute stasis—completely unguarded, and unburdened by the devastating world around him—that spools under your skin like a fever. A webbing nebula that weaves with the threads of venial sin until it tangles around you.

When it tightens, it feels like a noose.

This moment of privacy between him and the thoughts locked tight inside his head makes you feel a little bit like you're intruding on a moment not meant for your eyes. A sacred thing. A voyeuristic spectator.

You should leave. Let him have the sanctity of this moment to himself, where the pensive, introspective look etched into his brow is shared only with his reflection, and no one else.

An unwitting birefringence. A glance inside Pandora's box.

You try to tiptoe back in the direction you came from, a manila folder tucked under your arm, but the wood is worn. Aged. The floorboards creak when you press your heel into them, letting out a loud, jarring noise that seems to reverberate through the arched ceiling, and against the frosted glass that encompasses the vast majority of the eastern wall.

Loud enough, you think, to crack the class. His reverie.

Price makes a noise in the back of his throat when he turns to you, brows drawn tight in wordless displeasure at the intrusion. Recognition bleeds into ashlar blue. His shoulders ease when he sets his steeled gaze on your cringing form, one foot out the door, and the other fixed firmly in your mouth.

The way he relaxes when he finds it's just you melts some of the embarrassment away. The tension dissipates, sheds itself from his coiled muscles pulled taut from carrying the weight of everything on his broad back.

(The world, then, is tucked into the corner when he dropped it earlier.)

"Sorry," you murmur, hiding another wince. "I didn't realise you were—" Brooding. Another grimace. Your foot slides deeper into your mouth. "Uh—"

"It's fine," he says, his voice hoarse from the growling threats he made against the Romanian diplomats who insisted on your help only to shrug off everything he suggested.

He clears his throat before he speaks, taking the brief lull to drag his gaze down your form. Tendrils of something soft liquify the hardened edges of sapphire—a look you haven't seen on him since Tenerife—but it pauses at the folder you try, and fail, to discreetly tuck further into the crevasse of your body. Hiding it, futilely, from view.

Something sours across his face. The half melted azure firms into unbreakable obsidian.

"Business as usual, then?"

You huff. "Not if you don't want that."

Price inhales deeply at your words, and you know that he can't. He won't.

You mourn the loss of that soft, unfathomable look on his face when the only concern he had was the condescension from his breath hiding the view of Sinaia from his appreciative gaze.

A look full of something aching. A want, maybe; a need. Things you can't begin to connect to your stalwart captain.

But then you think, again, of Tenerife. When he caught you mid-stumble, hands heavy and hot on your flesh. The look on his face ages younger than the grey around his temple would lead you to believe.

"Careful," he murmured, eyes lighter somehow as he pulled you in closer to his side. "Can't go falling all over the place."

It was your quip of, "but you'll catch me, won't you?" that made him feel almost reachable when he turned away from you, the tips of his ears dusting a pretty pink.

"Jus' watch where you're goin'."

You think about it now—about the unfathomable distance between the stars.

Between you, and him.

(And then of broken walls you mend with your own hands.)

"Jus' bring it here," he mutters, moving toward the desk cluttered with everything he was trying to avoid. The desk you brought him back to. It pinches something sour inside of you. "I'll 'ave a look at it."

Price sets the glass down, and reaches for the crystal ashtray left near the edge of the table. When he drags it closer to the fish-shaped map of Romania, decorated with little red stickers of possible hideouts for the man you're supposed to be catching, you count four ends of a cigar in the mess of ashes, all smoked down to the stem.

Concern gnarls in your gut.

"Busy day for you, Captain?"

All he gives in a noncommittal grunt in response before eying the chair with a touch of wariness as if sitting down now will prevent him standing up again. It might, you think, tentatively taking stock of the neverending pages on the desk just waiting for him to tackle. A ceaseless maelstrom that tries to drag him down that endless abyss that leaves stress marks on his forehead, grey hairs around his temple, and grinds his bones down until marrow below is exposed to the rotten air.

He doesn't sit. A pointed gesture.

The heels of his palms rest on the edge of the table, and he leans forward over the papers strewn in his familiar organised chaos, and drops his head down between the bracket of his arms, locked at the elbows.

He's the very picture of exhaustion.

"I don't have anything good to share with you," you murmur, tone low and susurrus as if raising above an octave will shatter the fragile glass that houses the two of you from the brutal storm outside these four walls. "Mostly a complete repeat of what already happened—"

"Bullshit," he grinds the cuss out like the potency of his tenor will somehow strengthen it into a hex. "Fuckin' politics."

"Nothing we haven't dealt with before," you note, turning to lean against the desk. You mirror his pose in the reverse, fingers curling around the ledge. "It'll smooth out eventually."

He considers your words, lids sliding to half-mass. Lost in thought. In—

Something.

You're not privy to the war in his head. The battle he struggles through.

But you want to be.

You'd give anything to fight alongside him in this moment of quiet contemplation. To aid him in the pursuit of victory, and help ease the burden he carries on his broad shoulders. A weight that makes his heels dig deeper into the ground than any other man you've met. Gravity falls on him harder than the others, but he never folds. Never falters.

Something shifts when you tilt your head toward him, waiting. Watching.

Irritation drips down, polluting the cenote until it's a gyre grey. Clouded with the poison of choices that lay in front of him.

"Maybe," he settles on, rolling one shoulder to alleviate the burn in his tense muscles. "Would be easier if they'd just bloody listen—"

"They will."

His eyes flicker up to you, curling with something playful, you think. Or as close to mirth as the shadows in his brow will allow.

"You gonna make them?"

The tone of his voice—smoke cured, molasse thick—is blunt, but—

Baiting.

Loose tendrils of smoke weep from the end of his forgotten cigar, and curls in the air between you. You taste ash, and feel the burn of nicotine when you breathe in.

It does little to quell the spike of nerves gnarling in your chest; the itch under your skin.

Something brims in your pulse. A rapaciousness that seems to burn through your arteries until they're blistered from the heat. You lean back on the desk, knees locking until your legs are straight to alleviate the anxious knot growing in your stomach.

His gaze drops to your legs when your ankles cross, sliding up to the softness of your thighs now spread plush over the wood.

Another shift. Poisoned grey darkens into thick tar. Bog water. You wonder how long it would take for anyone to find you if you sunk below the thin film of pleats, swallowed whole by the fen.

Imprisoned in his clutch.

"For you? Anything—"

The words slip out before you can stop them.

His head jerks up. The roundness of his almond shaped eyes can only be derived from your slip-up, to your unintentional confessional between secondhand smoke, and borrowed nicotine.

A mistake, you think. An accident. A follie.

But the words are lodged under the syrup-y thick water that leaks down your throat.

You swallow again, but it feels like you're drowning.

An impasse. Brutal, and uncrossable. You wonder what he might say, what he might do, and try to ignore the ache in your chest, the bitter throb of anticipation as the lines in his brow deepen, darkening with the stains of his indecision.

That same wellpool of emotions buoys in ashlar blue when he stares at you, plain faced and—

A touch uncertain.

It's strange to see him so unsure, so hesitant.

Price isn't a man who falters in the face of anything. Who concedes, and surrenders.

His tenacity is what drew you to him. That staunch perseverance that you sometimes wish you could fill each hairline fracture in your soul with. To somehow syphon the staggering presence of him, indomitable and ferocious when he needs to be, into your marrow where it'll congeal and paint the walls of your bones with the same stalwart dedication to a singular gospel that he carries with ease.

He huffs, then, and the exhale reeks of stale cigarette butts in a damp ashtray.

"Don't know what you're getting yourself into, love—"

Something flickers across his face, and you wonder if he even meant to say it. Or if the endearment slipped out, oiled by the same elixir that covered your throat and coaxed something closer to the truth, to your hidden wants, out of the depths of your yearning.

It's unfathomable, though. The mere idea of it being drug from the same hidden well as yours itches between your ribs; a blossom of something featherlight. Hopeful.

When you look at him, eyes scouring the dividing lines between the face he shows the world—the one with a deeply furrowed brow and obsidian clotting in the crevasses of liquid sapphire; a stalwart sense of detachment, and pointed distance—and the one he shows you.

With you, though—

With you, he's always asymmetrical.

A singular brow notching up at something audacious you said; one side of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin. The flash of teeth when you murmur under your breath about the stuffy politicians you're meant to be saving.

Rusted picket fences. Faulty hinges. Open, lax. Void the usual symmetry that makes him Captain John Price; a stalwart presence on the battlefield, shoulders strong enough to lift the morale (and morality) of every soldier under his commands. Has to, you think, or he might implode, crumbling under the stifling weight of his utilitarian choices, and the actions guised under the moral grey dust of patriotism.

It clings to him. Scars shaped like canines: the teeth of an old, rotten dog. Nightmares in absenteeism.

He never tells you about them, ever; but you've gotten more than a handful of phone calls during devil's hour to know they haunt him just as much as they do you.

(And if you've taken to turning your ringer on as high as it will go—just in case—then that's a secret between you and midnight blue sheets.)

The look on his face now makes you think of that mission in Tenerife, when his fingers curled around your wrist after landing in Heathrow. Warm, flushed skin. Rough like a cat's tongue when it slid over your flesh.

He stopped you from leaving, eyes shaded in stagnant blue as the taxi idled in front of you.

"Could go for a coffee. Want to come?" He asked, and it was unlike him to stall, but the prospect of more time, and coffee, numbed you to it all.

You didn't give it much thought, but the words feel almost sibylline now. Hindsight, you think: that pesky little thing that makes you feel like Lleu, caught in the crosshairs of a feud between Arianrhod and Gwydion.

Over burnt, bitter beans and coffee flavoured water, he said: "don't get much sleep anymore."

"Our late night phone calls don't bore you to sleep?"

It was a pawkish barb not meant to be taken seriously, but Price, you find, is percipient when it comes to you.

"No, they don't." He shifted in his chair, eyes cutting toward the mid-morning haze dusting the streets of London in a fine periwinkle blue. He looked older, somehow, in the virginal rays of the dawning sun. The words that slipped out felt softer, subdued in a way that made you wonder if they were meant to be uttered at all. "I sleep much better after them, actually."

Price has a strange ability to leave you both speechless and full of words. Of things, mundane and inconsequential, that you long to spill out over the linoleum countertop.

More often than not, they're just naked, bare. Raw words not yet shaped or formed into any semblance of meaning, but ones you want to say, anyway. If only to keep the conversation going. To keep him around a moment longer.

(After all: if the conversation does end, he can't leave.)

But your lips are glued. Words stuck in the wet ashes that congeal in your throat.

Your eyes followed the breadcrumbs of his gaze, and found the quieted road of Liverpool Street staring back at you. Drenched in cobblestone grey, and smeared in industrial neon. An uninspiring visage of some secluded corner tucked away from the tourist trap of central London.

The near hour long drive from Heathrow to London for a cup of coffee is another mystery. Why he invited you where, of all places, isn't known to you.

He paid for the coffee, the taxi. Said nothing at all but walked you back to your flat in London, the place you stay after each mission brings you back to Heathrow. It's a near twenty-nine minute commute in the opposite direction.

Said no when you offered him a place to sleep for the night, and you tried not to let the bitter sting of rejection show while his fingers curled around the wooden frame of your front door, knuckles turning white from the strain of—

Hindsight, you think.

The shift in his gaze when his hand snared around your wrist. When he hailed a taxi for burnt coffee in the middle of a city that he couldn't stand—a place you'd heard many tirades about in the middle of the night, all leading back to the same reason for his staunch hatred of London: it's too bloody far from Liverpool. Too bloody far from him.

When he turned to look out the window to watch your reflections contrasted against drab, grey London.

Earlier, when he was gazing at the city below.

It clicks, then.

He wasn't staring out the window. He never was.

"Why didn't you come into my flat?" You ask, words thick. Heavy.

His nostrils flare. "What—?"

"That night in London, after Tenerife—I asked you to spend the night. Why didn't you—"

White knuckles. The look on his face was—

Pensive. Dusted with consternation. Just like—

Now. Then. All the moments in between.

Like many things in conjunction to this, it's probably your fault. An unignorable truism that sits under your skin like an itch you can't scratch no matter how viciously you claw at your dermis.

You could have asked, but it wouldn't have mattered.

The answer was staring at you this whole time.

Why he called you in the middle of the night. Why he never even bothered to entertain your application to join the 141. Why he looked so troubled when you invited him in. Why he kept you at arms length this whole time, but let you see the gnarled ruins of his soul in the middle of night.

The delineation of your relationship was drawn in the distance of a phone call at midnight, ones made not because he was lonely or bereft of comfort—

But because he could hang up before he said too much. Widen the gap with a press of his finger.

You can see him try to pull back again. To put a distance between you greater than this lonely hotel in the middle of Brașov to Orion's Belt.

Words—stay, don't, why—caught in your throat. They refuse to come out. A conversation trapped. One you can't start.

(You've always been better with actions than words.)

And so, you kiss him instead.

A cacoëthes.

It's less of a kiss and more of a messy punch to his mouth with your blistered lips.

Your trembling fingers curl into the straps of his tac-vest. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes.

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. Words, you think, like: what're you doin'? or this is sexual harassment and I swear to god I'll sue—

You don't let him finish. Don't let him start, either.

You fall back on the desk, yanking on his straps. He jerks forward.

You meet, clumsily, in the middle. An awkward assemblage of limbs; bodies cut across each other like an unfinished T.

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss.

There are moments leading up to this that, in hindsight, make everything seem almost inevitable. The look on his face. The ache in your chest. It blooms from the same vine; a want in spades. You almost weep when he groans against your mouth, teeth knocking together. You taste heme in the back of your throat, and nearly choke on it when his fingers curl under your jaw, holding you steady as he tries to devour you whole.

It sheds threads of kismet, and tastes a little of finality when you brush your lips against his again, meeting in the middle: a perfect equilibrium. Absolute congruence.

(Or, maybe, it's the thrill of his taste that shades everything else in a roseate veil; that swallows down the other moments, trials and tribulations that felt more gruelling than your training, and lets the others surge to the surface. Moments of heartache, and pain, and—

And it doesn't matter, you think, a touch delirious; not when you know what his hands feel like when they curl around your waist, when his fingers dig into your skin, and he pulls you closer.)

"Listen—" the word is mangled in his throat; charred from the fire that burns in his lungs. "You need to know what you're getting yourself into."

"You say that like I haven't been thinking about it for years, John."

It sobers him a bit. He pulls back until a thin strand of space sits between your wet lips and his moussed beard.

The implication in your words makes his eyes darken. Lids fluttering.

Want, palpable and thick, pulses in the charged atmosphere between you. A microcosm of your own design: a place carved from stone, ashlar, and shaded in the midnight blue of his eyes. A roseate gossamer falls, veiling you in that corusating haze that makes the world look prettier than it really is.

Shades of rose.

The breath he pulls in is tremulous.

When he speaks, it sounds like an orison. A plea. "That so?"

It's a weighted question. Benediction paints his throat, stains the words when they slip out.

"Kept me waiting for quite a while."

"Didn't think you were waiting." His hands sear your skin when they slide up your back. His forehead falls, resting against yours. "Not much to sit around and pine over, love."

It makes you scoff, a wet noise in the back of your throat. "You think I answer my phone in the middle of the night for just anyone?"

"No," he murmurs. His hand lifts, cups your cheek in the seat of his palm. "But I'm not jus' anyone, am I?"

"Nope. Your a walking contradiction on how—sometimes—nepotism isn't all bad—"

"Watch it."

"Or what, John?"

You're distinctly aware of the age-old idiom about playing with fire, but when he dips his chin, and narrows his eyes at you like that, you find you don't really care much about getting burned.

His nostrils flare, eyes dark, and hungry. A warring pelagic storm looms over ashlar. Gyre grey. Arsenic white. You want to stain the tips of your fingers in the liquid blooming in his gaze.

"Might need to teach you a lesson in respect."

"Might need to teach you not to keep someone waiting."

His mouth is searing it when it presses to yours.

"Touchè."

Price tastes of saltpetre.

Thick, ichorous. An heady elixir that sits heavy on your tongue, leaking down the back of your throat when you swallow.

A fine sheen of nicotine paints his teeth from the forgotten cigar burning in the ashtray on the table, and when you swipe your tongue across them, chasing the secondhand buzz, it feels anxiolytic. Your head is a slurried mess from it all, and the way he feels beneath you.

Hard edges, broad—massive.

His chest expands with each deep inhale. Shoulders tense with the effort of holding himself back. A fact, you find, is more intoxicating than the nicotine on your tongue, or the saltpetre blooming in your veins.

The width of his thighs make your muscles burn when you perch your knees on the cushion beside them, the stretch a deep burn that feels more arduous than a workout.

You're not supposed to be kissing your captain.

To be sat on his lap while his big hands roam your skin, sliding down the knobs of your spine, thumb pressing the grove of each one. Massaging your sides when you gasp into his mouth, a wet noise full of the burn in your joints, the want in your belly—an ache, a need for more. More. More—

It was meant to be professional.

At work, on the field, in the stuffy headquarters of the SAS building in Hereford, it's meant to be distant. Cold. And—

And not this.

Not spread open in his lap, one palm cupping the soft cheek of your ass and squeezing until the flesh bulges from between his splayed fingers. Not heaving his name out in a palpable supplication drenched in want. Need.

Needy.

"Look'it you," he'd rasped into your neck hours earlier, slick with sweat from your impromptu training lesson in the comfort of his office. "So fuckin' needy—"

And you were. Are.

"C'mon, cap," you gasped, nose pressed taut against his temple, tongue chasing the briny tang that saturated his hairline. "Give it to me—"

He did.

Over and over and over again. Bending you over hard wood of his desk until your face was full of reports and papers, missions and confidential files on things, and people you'd rather not think about while your captain was spreading you apart with his tongue, and three fingers, and—

It was too much. Not enough. A paradoxical realm where pleasure and pain melded into a single entity. It's veins coursed with a potent cocktail of everything you could easily become addicted to—oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins rich enough to make you dizzy for aeons when it saturated all those gullible receptors in your head—and when he touched your skin with his bare hands, you felt the prickle of it leaking into your bloodstream.

The rough husk of his voice rasping out his pleasure in your ear is an audible opiate; euphoria condensed into decibels. It rattles your synapses. Your bones. You quiver under his bulk, eager for more.

Aching for it, really. Want him so badly that it hurts.

Even after he'd taken his time to prepare you, made you cum from his mouth, his fingers, more times than the chemical slurry of your melting mind could ever try to keep up with, it isn't enough.

Wasn't.

His cock feeding into you, stretching you open around the thick of him, until the world around you was awash in pure bliss in the most beautiful shade of blue, wasn't enough.

"More," you gasped, nerves throbbing like a bruise. Bones battered, rusted from the force of him taking you over and over again. "More, John—please—"

He obliged each time. Sliding home until all you could feel was him pulsing inside of you. The heavy weight of his hips notched against your ass. The branding heat of his hands gripping your hip, fingers curling around your shoulder, as he held you steady for him.

(Over and over again—)

Price smells of tobacco when he leans in close. Damp ash. The wet end of a cigarette butt. Stale smoke. Mossy, loam. You breathe in the bitter scent of him until it floods your lungs, clotting in each fibril until it's heavy with the tarish resin that leaks from the end of burning cigar.

"Greedy fuckin' thing," he hissed in your ear, fingers delving into you, feeling his release squelch around him. "Ain't you?"

"Always," you huffed, struggling through the onslaught of your mind buzzing for one more, just one more hit, and your body screaming for respite. "Always for you, John—"

"Stubborn, mm?"

He didn't give you one more. John is attune to you in ways you'd never anticipated. He just—knows you. Can easily see through the desperation for victory clawing at your throat, sinking it's nails into the delicate skin of your jugular, and hissing rapacious demands that rattle through your vocal chords.

When he meets the apogee of your mettle, he pulls back. Edging away from the battered fold of your limits once he brings it to a new precipice, a new level.

Price pulled you against him when your fawn-legs quiver, knees threatening to buckle, and tucked you against his chest, a protective embrace while he murmured words of gratitude, admiration, into your crown.

That was hours ago, and now—

The hunger rears. Your want is a perfect personification of greed, lust, pride, gluttony all coalescing into a molten desire that spools together, knotting tight against your chest where it tightens in a vice. A pretty bow of your searing need for the man whispering heavenly words of ardour into your damp skin.

"Price—"

He stops the whine with a nip of teeth against your jugular. "Come on, now," he bares the flat of them on your skin, pinching soft tissue between his incisors. "Rest a bit, love. Jus' wanna hold you, yeah? Jus' like this."

He leaks benzene, arsenic, and formaldehyde when he murmurs your name into the sticky column of your throat.

(And when he whispers it so softly, reedy benediction dipped the brush of his blunt affection, how could you ever deny him anything?)

Your arms thread around his nape, wrists locking together behind him.

The ticking of the clock on the wall is just another reminder of how little time you have, and yet—

"Stay," he murmurs against your jaw, whiskers scratching your chin.

Jet-lag. Exhaustion. Wishful thinking.

Whatever the reason might be, you pry your lips apart and choke out the words that have rattling inside your head from the moment you felt his chest bloom beneath your palms, and knew—without any doubt or uncertainty—that you would follow this man to hell and back if it meant you stand inches away from him for the rest of your meagre existence.

A tortuous whim. An exquisitely agonising proposition.

But you've always been rather smitten with poems that break your heart into pieces. Ones where you leave a little part of yourself between the lines that eviscerate your pericardium until you taste heme in the back of your throat.

Price reminds you of those poems. Ones that blugeons into you with a force so heavy and full, it feels as if it was written just for you. A pain so robust and brutal, that you're sure the lines in Times New Roman were first etched into your bones before they were spilled across the stark white page in black ink. Rotten blood between the pages of your barren soul.

Your fingers run through the mess on his crown, slick with sweat from earlier, and you nod, mind wandering down that path that leads to closed doors, a locked mausoleum, and with your bruised knuckles, broken nails, and bent fingers, you pry it open.

Finally, finally—

The words claw up your throat, grasping at the stretch of freedom within reach, and you—

Let them go.

"Wouldn't go anywhere without you."

(Not ever again.)

#this feels somewhat complete but it's been bumming about in my drafts for ages now and it's about time it left the nest #sorry for all the bird imagery i found a pair of binoculars in my shed and suddenly i think i'm Attus Navius #captain john price x reader #john price x reader #captain price x reader #john price #captain john price #captain price #goddd i hate tagging stuff #can i just not???#like if u wanna read it come check out my blog but i am sick to death of these goddamn tags

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postitforward · 2 years

Text

Mental Health Spotlight: Jasmine Marie, Founder of black girls breathing®

Jasmine Marie is a speaker, breathwork practitioner, and the founder of black girls breathing®. Her work is innovating the wellness, healthcare, and research industry by making mental health services accessible to Black women while filling in the gaps of data and research available on this underserved and underrepresented demographic. Marie plans to impact one million Black women and girls with her work by 2025. She is a serial founder with a past life in global haircare brand marketing and an alum of NYU Stern. The impact and range of her work to date is expansive—ranging from underserved minority communities to stressed-out college students and executives. She’s brought her expertise to elite colleges such as Harvard Business School, Columbia University, and Cornell University, and her client list includes corporations such as Estée Lauder Companies, Under Armour, Capital One, Ford Motor Company, Facebook, and Twitter. Marie has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America, VOGUE, Forbes, Harper’s Baazar, Marie Claire, Glamour, Nylon Mag, Wall Street Journal, and Black Enterprise, to name a few.

What is black girls breathing®? And why was it created? black girls breathing® is a safe space for Black women to manage their mental and emotional health and heal trauma in their bodies with breathwork and community.

I created black girls breathing® after finishing my breathwork training and seeing so few facilitators that looked like me yet knowing how much chronic stress and trauma (generational, societal, etc.) and decided to create it. I used my background in business to help me develop a model where we could provide this work accessibly.

Do you have any secret hobbies, skills, or interests?

I don’t think I have any secret hobbies but for a while, I would always feel embarrassed whenever anyone asked that question, as a lot of my hobbies can maybe seem boring to others lol. But I love to read. Reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I love having quiet time…any activity that allows me to feel refreshed, sit with my own thoughts and enjoy my solitude. I think because I deal with so many people’s energy that in my spare time, I just like to spend time with self. I love to cook though…it’s a very meditative activity for me that allows me to unwind from my day.

How did you get started in this work? And why is it important to you?

As mentioned above, after my breathwork training, I realized there were so few Black breathworkers. But before that, I found breathwork while being stressed out after graduating from business school at NYU and working in beauty in NYC. My nervous system was so fried I began having physical symptoms…rashes and an inability to sleep. The doctor would see me and always say, “This is stress. How can you reduce your stress?” Fast forward to me finding my first breathwork class and falling in love with the way it allowed me to just feel more space in my mind and body.

WOW — ONE MILLION Black women and girls breathing by 2025 what an ambitious goal! What impact do you see this having?

It is an ambitious goal, but in 2020, we fundraised $55k to make our work accessible for one year. After the year was done, it was so clear that we couldn’t stop there. So many Black women needed this work, and we would hear that over and over again. So I decided if I was going to do this work, I was only interested in creating real impact and a goal that would signify that. Imagining 1 Million Black women using breathwork as a tool to regulate their nervous systems, heal from compounded trauma and reduce the effect that chronic stress has in our community (health challenges linked to chronic stress: heart disease, high blood pressure, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, fertility issues, and the list goes on) will not only affect them but our community as a whole. Ending the passing down of generational trauma and normalizing healing.

What would you suggest to people who feel like they cannot find the time to breathe or practice mindfulness?

I would first affirm that it’s okay they feel that way. Western society has done a great job of making us feel that anything outside of productivity is not only a waste of time but the least important thing we should make space for. Making time for yourself for any mindful activity can be eased into and it can start with being more aware of the present moment and practicing that action on a daily. Maybe you create a routine where every morning for 3 minutes right when you get up, you take a moment to be still, notice your breathing pattern and focus on each and every inhale and exhale.

Why is Black representation important in this industry?

The wellness industry isn’t unlike other industries where Black representation is lacking. I think it’s important to see other Black women caring for themselves because, historically, we’ve been taught to do the opposite for oh so long.

Where do you find joy?

I find joy with my family and my loved ones, in intimate moments with friends, in good food and conversation, and in being able to create something and see it grow, shift, and evolve.

Want to learn more about black girls @blackgirlsbreathing?

Check out their website!

Breathe with us on March 27th @12pm EDT during their Mindful Monday Breathwork for Anxiety session on Tumblr Live

Ask black girls breathing all the questions on your mind for IssueTime on Navigating Anxiety in an increasingly digital, lonely world

Take the pledge with black girls breathing®

#meditation #mindful monday #mindfulness #mental health #well being #tumblr live #black girls breathing x tumblr #black girls breathing #self care #healing #take the pledge #mental health matters #menhealthmatters

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lillified · 4 months

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regarding your piece “outlaws” is it intended to be like an apartment or a spaceship? until corrected, and probably still after, i’m choosing to believe that swindle is doing the equivalent of living in his van

that being said, where *do* the other (they don’t let him inside 💔) decepticons live? I don’t think it’s been shown thus far

hey, that’s a great question!

the “outlaws” piece you see is from an earlier point in the war, and the location is Swindle’s passenger ship, The Knave. It isn’t meant to be a living space, but he’s converted it and uses it a bit like an RV/motor home. Since he spent most of his time (and kept a lot of his stuff) in there, it was one of his prized possessions. In the Outlaws pic he has it parked in a mostly Autobot occupied part of downtown Protihex, where he operates it like a caravan to sell weapons and things to patrolling soldiers.

This actually brings up a great opportunity to talk a bit more about locations, specifically airships and spaceships (I promise it’s relevant to the main Cons);

So, there are many different types of aircraft (beyond the Bots who can physically fly, obviously). On the smallest side you get tactical drones and fighter craft, which are either remotely manned or manned by one Bot, who physically controls the ship by hooking up to a sensory chamber-style pod. These are much less ideal than having a flightforme, but were developed out of necessity, given the central Cybertronian government and fliers have tended to be on opposite sides at different points of history (this trend remains true for the Autobots, who are at a severe deficiency).

Next up are scout ships, which fit a small squadron of Cybertronians (think the size of the X wing in starwars).

After that you get into passenger ship territory, where aircraft have multiple rooms. Swindle’s ship fits this category. They aren’t intended as mobile residences and moreso exist to carry large quantities of ‘Bots over a longer distance, like a train or a cruise ship with basic amenities, but as the war progressed it was hard not to find different uses for them.

Passenger ships can be very specialized, and the only major difference between the larger varieties and true warships is that passenger ships aren’t outfitted with guns or any other involved defenses. Ferry ships are extremely massive passenger ships designed in Nova’s expansion era with the intent of carrying nearly a city’s worth of people across space, to populate new colonies. As suggested, most of these ships were built well before the war, so their defense capabilities weren’t geared for conflict.

The last category, as suggested, are warships. Most warships were manufactured during the war, but there are some that were recovered from pre-Quintesson era. These can range in size from the capacity of a small hotel to an entire military base, or even a city. Their scope is only limited by the ability to fuel them, and many warships were designed to act as mobile camps in the event of crisis and exodus.

As of the current day, the Decepticons have essentially been exiled. The last major conflict on Cybertron put the Autobots in control of most major territories and left both sides materially decimated. Until they can regroup and establish resource control again, the only real strategy the Decepticons have is to lay low and survive.

This leaves Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Lockdown, Ravage, and Knockout on the Determination, which is a small scale warship. Like many slapdash offensive craft, it is flimsy and unreliable, but currently their only real option.

You haven’t seen most of it, but I can give you some sneak peeks:

you’ll see what these are for very soon…

As of right now, that’s all I have for you on spacecraft! I hope that answered your question :) thanks!

#transformers #ask #text post #text #lore

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maliciousblog · 5 months

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Big Bad Wolf (Chan)

You were on semester break scrolling through job websites looking for a part time job in hopes of getting a little extra cash with tuition fees burning a hole in your wallet.

You kept answering the listing until you couldn't keep your eyes open deciding you'd get back at it during the morning setting your laptop on the night stand and proceeding to snuggle under the covers letting sleep consume you.

When morning comes you sorted through your kitchen running low on ingredients settling for some stale toast with butter. Sipping on your black cup of coffee recoiling at its bitter aftertaste as you scroll aimlessly in hopes of a reply to one of the listings.

Your heart lept when the ding of a notification caught your eye.

It was for house help. The pay was decent and the demands seemed reasonable.

Clean the house and cook two meals a day didn't seem that arduous to you.

The only problem was that the house was about an hour away from where you lived.

Given that you hadn't had any luck finding a job in over a week and the current condition of your apartment you didn't have much of a choice now did you.

Replying back the employer informed you to come over the next day at 9 am sharp.

The proceedings day you woke up extra early not wanting to be late on your first day.

Wearing a simple red dress.

And catching the first bus out of town to the house.

You watched as the city faded away as you moved closer and closer to the countryside.

The bus dropped you off at the house as the you got down you swear you saw a slip in the calm palour of the bus driver from a stoic stare to one almost of pity.

You brushed it off as him probably pitying your sorry state.

The house looked a lot bigger in person than it did on the website moving forward you rang the bell only to be greeted by a man with an unsettling smile on his face.

He welcomed you inside into is not so humble abode.

With high ceilings and plush carpets running the expanse of his beautiful Victorian style mansion.

The Chandeliers glistening in the early morning light casting small rainbows throughout the house.

Something that you noticed the house was adorned with large beautiful windows. Which would probably be a pain to clean.

Drawing you out of your train of thought the man introduced himself as Bang Chan.

He insisted that you call him Chan correcting you each time you addressed him as Sir with slight annoyance.

He gave you a brief tour of the mansion and showed you where the cleaning supplies were located and instructed you on your duties for the day.

You were to dust the bookshelves.

Do his laundry.

And cook him dinner.

With that he left you.

From what you gathered from your brief conversation with him you found out his father used to own a couple of factories and mines around town with his untimely death they were left behind to Chan along with this house. Forcing him to move back home from the city

From what it seemed like he lived alone spending most of his time in his study managing his various businesses.

The house wasn't too dirty.

You plugged in your earphones as you proceed to get your work done.

At the end of the day informing him of all the things you did and excusing yourself for the day.

Saying your goodbyes.

This went on for days making you fall into a routine you would wake up every day go to work come back home.

It was almost comforting he was a good boss never gave you too much trouble and was always kind to you.

Occasionally engaging in conversations mostly asking you questions about your life and interests. Whenever you tried to shift the conversation to him he always geared it back to you. He took great pleasure in knowing more about you.

His questions didn't make you uncomfortable it was the way his eyes lingered on you that didn't sit quite well with you.

The way his smile never reached his eyes.

The way he snuck glances at you when he thought you wouldn't notice.

Today was like any other day with him.

He listed out your duties for the day and when you finished the last one which was to cook him dinner you knocked at the door to his study informing him of you completing your duties.

He followed you out as you were about to grab at the handle of the door he stopped you gently placing a hand on your shoulder.

"Y/N won't you be a doll and join me for dinner tonight.

My chef is quite a good cook."

He chuckled nervously. Looking into your eyes for any form of affirmation.

" Sir it's getting late I really should get home".

"Chan " he corrected annoyance evident in his tone.

"Come on doll don't be like that am I that much of a bother, can't you share a meal with me.

It gets so lonely in the house. It's the least you could."

He said painfully gripping your arm.

You nodded letting him guide you to the table.

As he shoved you down onto the seat.

Watching you squirm in displeasure brought a smile on the sick bastards face.

You looked so innocent so pure.

In contrast to the colour of the red dress you were wearing.

It was the same one you wore the first time he saw you.

He couldn't wait to eat you up.

You were so pretty so oblivious of the danger that lurked in the house you so carelessly roamed around.

He would watch as you went about sweetly unaware of his presence.

Maybe it was the loneliness of being alone in the mansion that got to him. But he couldn't help feeling a little hurt each time you left once you finished work.

He couldn't get enough of the rush of joy he felt when you returned the next morning.

You were so perfect to him.

You brought life into the dull shell that he called his home.

He was tired of having to wait for you to be his.

He was staring at you as if you were his prey as you anxiously tried to shove dinner down your throat so that you could leave as soon as possible.

You were right you were his prey you were a helpless little bunny and he was the big bad wolf just waiting to sink his teeth into your tender flesh.

He recounts the days he has to make do with his hands to satisfy himself thinking about you having you bent over his study and now he couldn't wait to replace it with the real thing.

You abruptly stood up declaring that you had finished your meal excusing yourself.

He didn't say anything as he watched you leave.

Stalking you from a distance and you tried to pry open the main door in a desperate attempt to leave his clutches.

" You're not going anywhere. Now be a good girl and behave I would hate to have to hurt you".

"This isn't funny Chan let me go now".

You said trying to sound confident but it came out as a scared plea.

" Do you see my laughing...

Tell you what I'll give you a fighting chance.

I'll count till 100 and if you can find a way to escape by then I'll let you go.

If not you'll let me have my way with you.

Now go on bunny hop away.

I'm giving you a head start use it we'll."

Without a thought your legs began to move before your mind could process what was going on as you bolted his voice counting down in the background no matter how far you ran through the halls of the maze like house you could still hear him counting down the numbers as the little hope you had left in you started to vanish with each passing number.

10... 9....8....7....6...5........

He was getting closer you could almost feel him at the back of your neck claws ready to sink into you.

Against better judgement you ran into an open bedroom getting under a bed. Hiding yourself the best you could...

4..... Come out come out wherever you are

3..... Bunny I can smell your fear it gets me excited...

2..... You can show yourself now and I'll save you

from a little pain and try to be gentle...

1....... Ready or not here I come.......

He stepped into the room you watched seeing his boots at eye level as he searched the room ripping open the door of the closet letting out a disappointed sigh.

Seemingly content with his search he moves into the next room.

That was until you felt his claws sink into you dragging you out from under the bed effortlessly throwing you onto the soft mattress.

As he placed his entire body weight onto you stardling you making it hard for you to breath.

He moved down..

Grabbing your face forcing you to look at him nails painfully digging into your flesh.

"Found you bunny. You should have hopped faster".

Placing his lips onto yours engulfing you in a passionate kiss you couldn't help feel nauseated by the lack of oxygen.

Your hands reached out to push him away struggling to break free from his animal like hold you.

You were met with his hand connecting with the soft skin of your face. The pain spreading across your cheek like fire from where his skin connected to yours.

Your head swinging to the side from the force of the impact.

Tears involuntarily slide down from the radiating pain.

" I told you to be good . I swear I don't like hurting you. It hurts me too. So be good for me won't you doll. Be good and I'll treat you soo well. I'll make you feel so good".

He said as he pressed sofr kisses on your assaulted skin.

He was lying you knew he took great pleasure in your pain.

It was the first time you had seen his smile reaching his eyes and tears cascaded down yours..

His hands reached down for his clothes freeing him from the constraints.

After which he reached for the hem of your dress.

Admiring it before he ripped it to shreds.

"You always looked beautiful in red. Just like the first time I saw you. Like little red ridding hood.

You know this is your fault.

It's your fault for being so damn tempting..

Now I'm just going to have to give into indulgence don't I".

He said as he laid hungry kisses around your body occasionally drawing blood which he happily lapped up.

As he eventually reached your core lapping up your juices which you so shamelessly enjoyed as his tounge swirls around you core earning soft mewls of pleasure from your mouth.

He put into two of his digits increasing his pace as you were about to reach you release he abruptly stopped earning an impatient whine from you.

Only soon to be replaced by his member..

The new stretch causing you to whine out in displeasure and tears one again began to spill form your eyes he softly kissed them away as he began to slowly move in and out out of you.

As he increased his pace the lewed sounds of skin slapping and your moans began to fill the room.

As he pounded into you as you desperately clutched onto him.

Chasing your release which he gifted to you fucking you through your high as he chased after his own.

Filling you up.

Once you were sober off the high of the extacy.

He had you wrapped in his arms head resting on his chest did you realise he wasn't wearing a condom.

Noticing your alarm he just held you close rocking you to sleep whispering sweet nothings to you.

He would take care of you.

He wasn't lonely anymore.

He would love you forever........

#dark #dark fic #kpop #yandere #yandere fic #yandere kpop #dead dove do not eat #dead dove fic #horror #yandere bang chan #bang chan #chan skz #yandere stray kids #stray kids #skz #stray kids fanfic #horror fiction

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celassa · 22 days

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Mooncloth robes, a headcanon

MOONCLOTH, ELUNITE & MOONSTONES

To be a Priestess of Elune is not only dedicate ones entire self to the Goddess but to also strive to serve their people in the various capacities of which that is necessary. Ranging from humanitarian efforts, spiritual guidance or a source of strength during eras of strife. Every aspect of a Mooncloth is able to be utilized by a Priestess in one way or another to amplify their Divine-given capabilities.

Mooncloth

The bulk of the garb is able to be turned into makeshift bandages that can cleanse impurities and/or corruption from wounds. Also if placed over a wound, a Priestess who may find her inner well of magic waning, can magnify their healing magic through the mooncloth fabrics.

Tailors tell that the first recipe for Mooncloth was scribed by Elune herself - Heroes of Azeroth

Elunite

Is most often used for the decorative ornamental workings atop the mooncloth. Elunite is a fine metal that is considerably harmful to Demons and the Undead. It causes harm to these currptive types by mere touch alone. Often Elunite is crafted into weapons for its innate effects against the undead and fel-fused beings.

Elunite ore is incredibly fine and is believed to be blessed by the Mother Moon herself. -The Shade of Elura

Moonstone

In relation to Mooncloth robes, moonstones are most often use to adorn the more decorative Mooncloth robes. Moonstones themselves can be left as offerings for the deceased or at shrines for Elune. Additionally, a Priestess may channel her divine magics through the Moonstone. The stone acting as a conduit of sorts.

A Moonstone is an artifact that is able to causes an eclipse that blocks out the sun and creates an artificial night. -Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

REGIONAL INFLUENCES

The Kaldorei have a deep connection to the land. They view themselves as much as part of the cycle of nature as the flora and fauna. Priestesses are no exception to this and some may even draw upon the region where they took their priesthood training or their homeland to decorate their Mooncloth Robe.

Winterspring

Priestesses who took host in the snow capped landscape of eternal winter may have Mooncloth Robes that are very decorated with moonstones and Elunite. As if to mimic the regions hoar frost (the sparkles on the snow) or the icicles that dangle from every tree branch. Theirs may also be adorned with feathers to commemorate the regions local Moontouched Owlbeast population. Or fur to line their garbs from a good game.

Darkshore

With the expansive shoreline and near constant overcast, Priestesses from Darkshore may decorate their Mooncloth Robes and decorative adornments with shells. Some even decorate the bodice of their garb with sewn in shells that mimic beadwork. Pearls are also sought after. In some cases a Priestesses may spend years collecting pearls of varying color to mimic the phases of the Moon.

Ashenvale

Within the heavy overhang of canopy are various types of flora. Priestesses who trained here or were raised in Ashenvale may decorate their Mooncloth Robes with Spider's Silk from the webs spun by Wildthorn Venomspitter's. The embroidery may also be decorative in the shape of leaves or local flowers. Often a Priestess may embroider their sleeves with imagery akin to the Purple Lotus which is native only to Kalimdor.

Feralas

With the station of the Sentinel Army residing in Feathermoon Stronghold, Priestesses from the area of Feralas may wear more practical garb. Often forgoing the lengthy sleeves and skirts and wearing a set out trousers with an off hanging Mooncloth skirt. Elunite decorum is also more common here. Including but not limited to pieces that have been crafted to be used as weapons just as they are meant to be worn.

ACCESSORIES

It is not uncommon for a Priestess to wear pieces of jewelry with the intention to always have an offering to Elune on hand. or to leave at a shrine or burial stone of the deceased. A Priestess may also gift an accessory to one whom is enduring a time of strife or unease, intending for them to wear the blessed accessory themselves for good fortune or respite.

CRAFTING A MOONCLOTH ROBE

One does not simply obtain a Mooncloth Robe. A Mooncloth Robe is made specifically for the Priestess who is going to wear it. Once they have completed their trainings within the Sisterhood and are nearing their graduation into Priesthood, a student will begin the necessary preparations to create their own Mooncloth Robe which signifies their station in Kaldorei society as a Priestess.

Mooncloth can be taken from the robes of fallen Priestesses' and repurposed. It's not uncommon for a Priestess to take the Mooncloth from an aunt, mother or sister's robes and refashion them for herself if they themselves have fallen in Battle. To carry on the legacy of their relative or loved one by their endeavors.

Felcloth can be purified by ritualistic ceremony and subsequently makes Mooncloth. This is most common as the ceremony demands that the Priestess collect Felcloth which is adorned by those of Demonic Influence, or demons themselves. The soon-to-be Priestess would set out, either alone or with fellow students, and clear out an infestation of demons. They would then collect the Felcloth necessary for their purification ritual and return to their respective Temple.

Now more than ever the repurpose of Mooncloth is popularized since the fall of the Legion. Some robes are the result of several repurposed Mooncloth Robes.

This headcanon is a culmination of varying ideas spanning over the course of years. This headcanon did not start with me and certainly it won't end with me.

#world of warcraft #kaldorei #night elf #kaldorei rp #night elf headcanon #kaldorei headcanon #night elf priestess #kaldorei priestess #mooncloth robe

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pis3update · 5 months

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PowerMax on Resorts now count as a valid gym object by Dandelion Sprout

"Among the more infamous oversights that was done during EA's development of Sims 3 expansion packs, was that Showtime's PowerMax 50x120 chin bar was not counted by Island Paradise as a gym object that would improve resort ratings. With this gamemod, it now does. The Buy Mode values "Resort" and "ResortGym" have been added to the existing object's OBJD values, and the result is therefore not CC. PowerMax will show up in "Resort" > "All" (alongside its usual "Entertainment" > "Sports" listing), but will not show up in "Resort" > "Miscellaneous", due to the difficulty of adding a "FunctionSubCategoryFlags2" section to OBJD files that didn't already have such a section. ———Notes——— • I tried to do the same for other gym-esque objects, e.g. the driving range, WA's martial arts training dummy and board breaker, and AMB's sliding pole, but the game didn't make the "+" sign show up for any of those. • This gamemod was a side-effect of tests I did to see if it was possible to force Island Paradise to have more than 3 maintenance per resort (It refused to do so). • The one main image covers every aspect of what the mod does, as far as I can tell."

More Info + Download @ MTS.

#Dandelion Sprout #ts3cc #default replacement #fix

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seniorpollinationtechnician · 4 months

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The ORION team stumbled across a previously undiscovered planet during a routine atmospheric probe. Their spacecraft, equipped with advanced long-range scanners, detected unusual energy signatures emanating from an uncharted region of space. Initially, the readings were faint and erratic but as they drew closer, the signals grew stronger and more distinct, piquing their curiosity. That next morning, before the debriefing, each team member meticulously prepared for the mission. Jorlan started by running diagnostics on all their devices. While waiting, he delved into the latest data collected from their recent missions and analyzed the raw data streams in order to compile the data into a series of comprehensive reports, complete with visualizations to make the information more accessible for the team. Zerath began his day long before anyone else with a demanding training session. Afterward, he reviewed the latest intelligence reports with Zyri. He considered various scenarios they might encounter, from ambushes to environmental hazards, and outlined responses for each. Meanwhile, Zyri tried to decipher the energy signatures to no avail. Velana spent the morning in the laboratory where she conducted final analyses on biological samples collected from their latest expedition. Each observation was carefully documented, contributing to the growing body of knowledge about the new life forms they encountered. Despite extensive records, there was nothing that could prepare them for what was to come. As each team member entered the briefing room, they were greeted by a large, central table surrounded by ergonomic chairs, each equipped with individual data screens. The room’s walls were adorned with interactive displays showing real-time data feeds, star charts, and mission objectives. The central holographic projector hummed to life, displaying a rotating 3D model of the planet they were orbiting. The planet's surface appeared rugged, a vast expanse of reddish-brown terrain marked by deep canyons. Dust storms swept across the surface, creating an 3D render of swirling particles. Velana stood at the center of the room, her eyes scanning the holographic display that projected a detailed topographical map. "Preliminary scans indicate a complex network of underground caverns," she began, "These caverns may harbor unique alien life forms adapted to the harsh, subterranean environment." Zyri tapped her datapad and outlined a few zones of interest. "There are also unusual energy signatures emanating from deep within the caverns. If we can decipher their source, it may open new avenues." Zerath stepped forward, his expression serious. "While the scientific prospects are promising, we must proceed with extreme caution. The unstable terrain and frequent dust storms pose significant risks. We don't know what kind of creatures might be lurking in those dark caverns and any misstep could be deadly. Stay alert and stick to the safety protocols." Jorlan stepped up and tried to surpress a smile as he tapped his handheld device to project schematics on the center console. "Before we go, I’ve got a new piece of equipment that I’ve been dying to field-test: a helmet. It isn’t just about protection; it’s equipped with an integrated augmented reality display, advanced environmental sensors, and a real-time communication system.” He carefully pulled out a few high-tech masks, placing them on the table with a sense of pride. The masks were impressive, designed with a sleek, modern aesthetic that spoke of advanced engineering. The main body of each mask was made of a lightweight, durable material with a matte black finish, giving them a streamlined, almost futuristic look. Across the front, a curved transparent panel covered the mouth area, allowing for clear visibility of the wearer's facial expressions while still providing protection. As the debriefing came to an end, the ORION team geared up and prepared to descend to the planet's surface.

#ts4 #the sims 4 #ts4 legacy #the ■■■■■■ legacy #the sims

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ino-takumas-baggy-sweater · 7 months

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A Second Chance, A Father's Curse - Part 6 (Ryomen Sukuna x Reader)

This is a bit longer than usual because it took me a while to find a stopping point that I felt made sense, but I'm really excited to keep writing this series, after all it's only just beginning! Thanks for your patience :)

Part 5 here

Warnings: None

Word count: 3.9k

“Mustard leaf,” The small murmur makes you look up from your desk. You hadn’t even heard the door open, but in front of you stands your man-of-little-words royal advisor. He tilts his head, his question remaining wordless, and you sigh, “Good morning Inumaki, no I am not alright, but I suppose it’s partially my fault so I have no right to complain,”

He frowns and pulls a chair up, resting his elbows on the desk, “Salmon,” He encourages you softly, “Salmon salmon,” You take that as encouragement to speak up about your woes and so you put down your pencil, “I can feel him out there,” You murmur.

“I can feel his pain clearly now, I can feel how uncomfortable he still is here, he pretends for my sake but I wish he would tell me what he wants,” Inumaki pulls a blank sheet of paper and borrows your pencil, scrawling something quickly. News of his father?

You shake your head, “Nothing so far, but the coronation is in a few days…” You trail off, rubbing the scar on your cheek, “It seems his paranoia has rubbed off on me, I haven’t slept well since this happened,” You gesture to the thin line of crudely healed skin. He taps his masked chin with the tip of the pencil before writing something else: My technique, help you sleep?

Seriously contemplating it for a second you get lost in the idea of finally getting a full night of rest but you shake your head, “As much as I’d appreciate the help, I can’t risk not being of right mind if something does happen, I need to be able to lead my people especially this close to the coronation,”

“Bonito flakes,” He grumbles, pushing the paper towards you again. You cannot lead on no sleep. “He’s right, you need sleep my lady,” Gojo’s voice rings out from the doorway, which you once again hadn’t heard open.

“What are you doing here? What happened at the training session?” You ask quickly, pushing to your feet and stepping around the desk towards him. He pushes his hood back, adjusting the blindfold over his eyes and dipping his head respectfully, “Ryomen is incredibly strong, and more than willing to learn, but occasionally I have noticed that he struggles with internal conflicts. I don’t know if this is some remnant curse placed on him by his father or if this is just his lingering discomfort,”

You look back out the window past your desk, leaning your hands on the old cherry wood as you sigh. “Your highness,” Gojo says, “I have reason to believe that Ryomen’s bloodline, on his mother’s side, was incredibly powerful. Maybe even more so than his father,” You clench your hands into fists, trying to control your breathing.

You’d brought him here, if he turned out to be a threat it would be your fault. But… he’d been so willing, so pliable. Maybe even too pliable. You’d never wanted control of him, you’d only wanted to save him from his father.

His damned father, seemingly the root cause of all of this. “Jin Itadori doesn’t have a recorded domain expansion, but Ryomen is strong enough that there is no doubt he does, maybe even one without a barrier,” This makes you look back at the blindfolded sorcerer, your blood going cold, “…What did you just say?”

It’s not as if you’d doubted it for a second, from the moment you met him you knew deep down he must’ve had a domain, whether he knew it or not. Heck, you had one and you aren’t even half as powerful as he is.

“Mustard leaves!” Inumaki exclaims towards Gojo, before grabbing your hand and making you look to him instead of getting lost in your thoughts, “Salmon, salmon,” He emphasises the positive affirmation of his linguistic range, “Tuna,” He grabs the paper again and shows it to you.

Do you trust him? You look up into his purple eyes, slowly shaking your head, “I don’t know, I don’t know, can I anymore?” You whisper, “What is his domain? What is his technique?” You ask Gojo. “We… haven’t figured that out yet, in fact he doesn’t even know that I’m here, I came here to talk to you while he spars hand-to-hand with Geto,”

Your shoulders droop again at the mention of your personal guard, “I still need to apologise to him,” You murmur. “You did nothing wrong,” Inumaki’s voice is a bit hoarse and hesitant, but there’s no chance that sentence could affect you in any way despite the soft wave of cursed energy that washes over your ears, “He should apologise,”

Gojo slaps a hand over his mouth and Inumaki apologises quickly before falling quiet again. “Sorry your highness!” Gojo blurts, before poking his tongue out, “Blegh! God I hate when you do that,” Inumaki grumbles wordlessly and folds his arms, making you smile slightly at the mishap, “Gojo will you fetch Geto for me? Tell him I need to speak with him,”

He nods, “Oh, and let Ryomen know he’s free to sleep in the castle tonight if he wishes, I know how cold the sorcerer tower can be, I’ll have the maids prepare the room across the hall,” You bite your thumbnail a little, “I… I think?” “You think?” He raises a snowy eyebrow, half turned to leave. “I…” You shake your head, “Yes, tell him that, Inumaki will you tell my maids to prepare the room opposite mine?”

Your advisor nods, writing the instruction on a separate piece of paper before the two men leave, allowing you to slump back into your chair. You pick up the pencil again and scrawl down a quick note addressed to your husband detailing first an apology, then your wish for him to become accustomed to Iqoria in his own time, and finally informing him that your decision was not made without hesitation and anxiety, but you need him to come to you when he is ready and you will no longer command him if he doesn’t wish to be commanded.

Once the letter is finished there is a knock at the door and you sign it, “Come in,” You look up at Geto who looks nervous, something you hate seeing on his face particularly because he’s been your rock for almost your entire life. A second older brother, a guardian, someone you can lean on. Now he looks like a scared dog, hackles raised, a cut on his cheek matching your own.

“You wished to see me your highness?” You screw your eyes shut for a moment, rubbing your forehead to try and rid yourself of the memories of your bloody nightgown, “Yes, please sit down,” You gesture to the chair Inumaki left behind.

He moves to sit, keeping his hands neatly folded in his lap as you look up to him. A drop of blood trails down his cheek and he scrunches his nose slightly, trying to ignore it as you quietly watch him. You reach over the desk and wipe your thumb over the cut, feeling him flinch slightly as your energy stings the wound, sealing it up neatly.

It won’t scar, not like yours has. “Suguru,” You murmur, bringing your arm back to your body, his blood drying and making the tip of your thumb slightly tacky. “Your highness,” He breathes, refusing to meet your gaze, “You have my sincerest apologies for the way I have been acting since the ball in Khoccadia,”

You hadn’t summoned him here for this, but you know he needs it so you allow him to continue.

“I… Forgive me for overstepping but you are my sister, not by blood but by soul, and… and I don’t want to lose you. The prince is powerful, more powerful than anyone I’ve ever met before, and if I can’t protect you from him if the need arises then what use am I?” You can sense his frustration, he stands and starts pacing the room, his strides long as he flexes his knuckles.

After he does a few laps of the room he takes a deep breath, “Your highness, please say something,” He whispers.

“Y/n,” You reply softly, “Suguru, it’s always just been Y/n for you,” A tear slips down his cheek through the smear of blood, leaving a clean trail, “Our societal standings would say the opposite,” You shake your head, “This isn’t the ancient times, Suguru, you grew up alongside me,” You stand up, smoothing out your skirts, “Though we quarrel now and then, I don’t want to stop being able to trust you. I want to be able to look to you if I need a shoulder,”

Though you don’t move around the desk to him, he still dips his head slightly at your words, “I accept your apology, and would like to extend my own, in the hopes that when Ryomen’s discipline training is complete you will return to your post as my personal guard, renewed and stronger than ever,”

You see his shoulders stiffen slightly and he looks back up into your eyes, searching for something within them, “You… still want me to protect you?” You nod, “Of course you will have the help you always have had from the other guards, but I need you Suguru,” You say simply, “I am to be Queen, and the Queen chooses her guard, does she not? Who better than the Captain himself?”

He nods, “Yes, she does, thank you for your kindness princess,” He whispers as if he still doesn’t believe it. You nod, satisfied with how the meeting has gone, “Now, the coronation is in three days and I expect you and your guards to be looking their best, understood Captain?”

He nods, his smile returning softly, “I will make sure of it,” “Go then, and take my blessings and well-wishes for the guards with you,” He sweeps out of the room with renewed confidence, but yours is only crushed more so. With a wave of your hand the door is pulled shut by one of the guards outside and you sit heavily back in your chair, rubbing your temples with fingers sore from writing all day.

A few rogue thoughts cross your mind and you find yourself wishing for company, but loathing the idea of conversation. You don’t know who you would call to talk anyway. Ryomen doesn’t want to be around you right now, you sent Inumaki away, Shoko would just tell you about your parents and even your maids have become closed off in the wake of your brother’s death.

Perhaps they fear that you’ll become harsher upon your ascension to the throne, but what good would that serve you? Turning your own people against you would be a foolish move, especially now.

Your mind begins to wander amongst a dark forest of thoughts and questions you’re not even sure you want the answers to. Why was Ryomen so powerful? Who was his mother? Why do you feel so drawn to him? And why can’t you shake the sickening feeling that something awful is happening beyond the city walls?

His father, of course, must be rallying his forces to march on your kingdom. This you’re sure of, you didn’t personally meet the man but you could tell just by looking at him that he doesn’t play by halves. No, there’s something else, something just beyond your sight that you can’t put your finger on.

You scribble another letter, marking it with the royal seal, before leaving the room with your head held high, both letters clutched in your hands. The first, detailing a search mission, you give to Gojo’s apprentice Yuta Okkotsu, equally strong to his teacher and loyal beyond mortal ties. The second, addressed to your husband, you ask Yuta to deliver before he leaves as you don’t know which room Ryomen will seek refuge in tonight.

“You didn’t think I’d just let you leave, right?” A voice pierces the darkness and a form melts from the shadows. It’s Megumi, and Choso puts himself between the Shikigami user and his brothers, “Not without a fight it seems,” The man growls, his hands clenched as he summons his energy.

Thanks to his father’s experiments Choso is no longer human, cursed with his father’s ambitions and his toxic pride he finds himself unable to die from his own technique, a form of extensive blood manipulation that hasn’t been seen for many centuries. He knows he must reveal this trump card to his brothers if he wishes for them to escape, but before he has the chance to make a move Megumi steps fully into the light, brushing a few stray hairs from his face.

“Come on, your dad will be able to sense us going, if we want to get out it has to be quick,” Choso hears Yuji sigh with relief behind him and he reluctantly lowers his guard, “You’re not here to stop us?” “Look I ran away from one awful family, I’m not about to stop you from running from another, in fact I’d much rather go with you,”

Kechizu shifts on Yuji’s back, “Is that Megumi?” He asks quietly, “Is he coming with us?” “Yes, yes he is,” Yuji murmurs, “But we have to go now,” The group makes their way under the protection of Megumi’s shadows to the stables, where they take no more than three horses and ride out into the night, Eso sharing with Choso and Kechizu still clinging to Yuji.

Megumi out the front leads with Nue high in the sky, keeping watch behind. They stay off the main roads, barely able to see Nue above through the trees but following behind Megumi’s confident form as he pushes a path through the underbrush on his black stallion.

They ride well into the morning as Nue calls out every so often, warning them of travellers or hunting parties, but none are so foolish as to stray from the path and stumble into the runaways.

“We will reach the Creyarean district by midday, I recommend we stop there to eat and then continue on, if you wish to reach Iqoria as close to the coronation as possible we cannot waste time,” Megumi informs the group as he drops back slightly, “Does your brother know you’re coming?”

Choso and Yuji exchange a glance, “He doesn’t,” Eso answers for them, “But… but he won’t send us away, will he?” He looks to Choso, “He might be mean but he loves us, right?” Choso finds he cannot reply, only nodding to the fifteen-year-old. Eso and Kechizu are so small for their age, both sharing Choso’s technique which came from a close family of lords they were related to distantly by blood, but Yuji inherited an ancient family technique from their mother’s side instead.

Ryomen had ended up with a deadly combination of Jin Itadori’s technique and something he’d never revealed to them from his mother, something that amplified his power beyond safe limits and had driven Jin Itadori to curse the castle with a powerful suppression technique. It had taken a toll on the five boys, Ryomen the least, and weakened them all so much that Choso found he couldn’t perform his duties or attend to his studies to their fullest.

Now that they were free, now that they were gone, Choso could feel the cursed energy surging through his body, could feel his connection to his brothers through their blood clear as the sun shining above. It also meant he could reach out and sense Ryomen in the mist, more shrouded than the other three because of their different lineage, but still there. Still alive.

He didn’t know if he was comforted by the knowledge, but it certainly made him feel better to be able to sense all of his brothers again. “You stay here, I’ll go and get food from the market,” Megumi breaks into Choso’s thoughts as they approach the edge of the outer Creyarean district. “You can’t go in there alone-!” Yuji exclaims, but Megumi shoots him a glare.

“You two stand out too much,” He looks between Yuji and Choso, “And we can’t leave Eso and Kechizu on their own, just stay here,” He urges his horse towards the buildings, “If you see Nue without me, ride like the wind for Iqoria and don’t look back, once you’re inside their borders you should be safe,”

None of the boys liked that answer, that meant leaving Megumi behind in an unfamiliar place with people who more than likely wanted to kill him for assisting their escape. Once the Captain is gone, Yuji looks at Choso, “We’re not leaving him behind,” He grunts, “I don’t care if you’re older, this is non-negotiable,”

“If we’re not leaving Megumi behind, then we’re sending Eso and Kechizu on without us,” Choso shoots back, standing his ground, “They’re still not strong enough to help us,” “We’re strong!” Eso complains, but Choso shoots him a look, “Kechizu cannot navigate the world unaided as of right now, and you can barely control your technique, you’re no match on a battlefield with experienced fighters, understand?”

Eso slumps down onto his butt, Kechizu shuffling until he’s sat nestled against his brother’s side, “Just… be careful,” Kechizu murmurs, looking up in Choso’s direction with his black eyes, “Please big brother,” The black haired prince clenches his fists, gritting his teeth, “I would tear apart the heavens and the earth to keep you all safe, careful comes second, that is my non-negotiable,”

Nothing in this world can prepare you for the overwhelming loneliness of your bed inevitably being empty tonight. Despite the fact it has been a few days since you liberated Ryomen from his cage at your side, you felt even less prepared to return to your chambers where you know the sheets will remain cold even with the fire in the fireplace set to burn until the morning.

So its at your desk you remain, the dying light of the sun at your back not serving as distraction enough to make you raise your head. You’ve been reading up on old coronation customs, reading the literary accounts of your mother’s coronation and looking through the designs you chose for the day itself.

From your dress, the flower arrangements, jewellery and most importantly the tiara which will serve as your unique ‘casual’ diadem separate from the official state crown. Your mother had a hand in designing it, you could tell from the ways in which it would inevitably complement your features such as your face shape and hair type.

After signing a few official documents regarding civilian movement and protection orders, you lean back in your chair, slipping your feet out of your comfortable heels and tucking your knees up to your chest. It can get so daunting in the endless quiet, the stone floor of the castle layered with thick carpet dampening almost every sound and making you feel isolated.

Minutes pass and you eventually curl up, the chair big enough to support you sitting sideways pretty comfortably, resting your head and taking in the details of your skirts. Maybe you could go to Geto, but would he welcome you with open arms or do you still need to regain his loyalty? Inumaki is a no, you’ll just be tempted to ask him to put you to sleep.

“My lady?” A voice beyond the door calls for you and you look up, inviting them in. It’s one of the guards stationed at the door, her face young but downturned with worry, “Do you wish for us to accompany you to your chambers?” She asks.

You stay quiet for a few moments before sighing, “I do not wish to return to the emptiness of my rooms, but if I must then I will,” She smiles softly, “Surely you do not intend to sleep in here my lady?” You smile sadly in return, “In fact that is exactly what I was intending,” After a few moments where the guard shifts awkwardly, unsure of what to say, she bows her head.

“Come, allow us to accompany you to your rooms, it will be much more comfortable despite the emptiness,” Eventually you stand, leaning down and grabbing your shoes so you don’t have to put them back on, “Lead the way then ma’am,” You gesture with an arm and the pair of them, the other a middle-aged gentleman, guide you unobstructed through the halls back to your room.

You’ve been unable to look at the bedsheets without seeing flashes of blood, feeling twinges of phantom pain in your cheek, “Will you be alright?” The female guard asks you, her hand resting on the doorknob as you stand just inside, thinking deeply. You look back to her, “Yes, I think I will be, will you send for Shoko? I want to see if she can do anything about this scar,” You gesture to your face.

With a nod, the door swings shut and you’re alone once more. This is what you dreaded, being left with only your thoughts for company, but you decide to passively fight back by quickly drawing a bath for yourself to cleanse your mind. The warmth envelops your body and you sigh, slouching down until just your head is above water. The foetal position becomes your safe space, your ankles crossed and legs hugged tightly to your chest.

It’s not long before you doze off, the weight of the day finally pushing you under as you go back over everything, making sure you didn’t forget anything important. “Your highness?” A call from your room rouses you from your drowsy state. You’re irritated for a few seconds before you remember you called for Shoko, “In here,” You grumble.

“Your guards said you wanted to see me about the scar?” She asks as she comes into the bathroom, moving until she’s sat beside the bathtub on the floor, “Is it bothering you?” You reach up to it, bringing your hand out of the water and running your fingers over where you know it lies, “Not visually, but it stings from time to time,” You explain, “Can you get rid of it?”

She nods, “It’s also probably a good idea because it cuts through one of your tattoos,” She murmurs, examining it a little closer as she leans over the tub, the ends of her hair draping into the water and getting wet. Her thumb passes over your cheek and though you feel nothing, she nods to herself, “There, now you’ll be perfect for coronation day,” She blinks drowsily, “Any news from Khoccadia?”

You shake your head, “I wish he would just do something, I hate waiting, every passing day is another day that my people are threatened by an enemy I cannot strike first,” You sigh, leaning your head back, “Will you pass me a towel?” She stands up and grabs one of the fluffy white towels on the shelf nearby, leaving it at the edge of the bath for you to grab, “Will you be needing your maids?”

You shake your head, “As much as the silence is killing my morale, I need to be alone,” You scoop some water and rub it into your face a little, “I’ll be alright, go get some sleep yourself,”

She leaves, and you spend a good few minutes crying. At least this way nobody will be able to tell when you get out of the bath, or tomorrow morning when you wake up.

Where are you when I need you the most?

Where is anyone when I need them?

It’s only a matter of time.

After all, we have him now.

We have everything we need to topple the thrones of man.

“This is going to be fun!”

I hope you're all enjoying it so far :) much love

Part 7

Taglist: @love-jelly @nousija

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x you #ryomen sukuna #jjk x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna x reader #jjk x you #suguru geto #satoru gojo #choso kamo #yuji itadori #geto suguru #megumi fushiguro #toge inumaki #inumaki toge #shoko ieiri #yuta okkotsu

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thewritingbeforesunrise · 1 month

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BALLERINA - Oneshot

A Night In Paris.

18+ ONLY - MINORS DNI

A Jake Kiszka AU.

A/N: I missed Iris and Jake so much that I felt the need to write this little something. This scene takes place before the Epilogue. You can find the entire story here. I highly recommend reading it entirely before this one.

Pairing: Physiotherapist!Jake x Original Female Character (Iris)

Word count: 5.1K

Warnings: NSFW 18+ONLY, graphic sexual content, oral (f! and m! receiving), unprotected sex, fingering, feelings.

_____________________________

The doorbell rang and Iris jumped a little. Her hand slipped and she almost stained her cheekbone with her mascara brush.

She quickly abandoned the item near the washbasin and watched in the mirror how her cheeks instantly blushed a deep shade of red.

Then she ran to the door, straightened her already perfect dress with trembling fingers, took a deep breath and opened it.

He was there, finally, but she couldn't believe her eyes. The sight of him outside her door felt like a fever dream.

Endless seconds passed and neither of them said a word, too busy taking in each other's presence to waste time transforming thoughts into words.

Iris had somehow forgotten how disarmingly beautiful Jake was, so the moment she laid eyes on him for the first time in months, she felt truly overwhelmed.

His hair was longer than the last time she had seen him and fell in loose waves around his face and past his shoulders. It looked so soft she wanted to sink her hands into it.

He was wearing black tailored pants, a barely-buttoned black shirt and he had a black corduroy jacket folded under his harm.

At that moment it occurred to her that she had always seen him wearing a scrub or training clothes. That was the first time she saw him in casual clothes and a little shiver ran down her spine at the realization.

He looked divine.

Deliciously divine.

The more she looked at him, the more his cheeks turned pink and the wider his grin became.

He knew she was taking him in and, to be honest, he was doing exactly the same.

Her dark green dress was extremely simple, she was wearing her hair down and she had barely any makeup on, but, to him, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

After what felt like forever, he was about to speak but she interrupted him by jumping into his arms and wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a tight embrace.

Her hands caressed the expanse of his back slowly because she wanted to make sure he was really there and not a figment of her touch-starved mind.

The warmth of his body that she could feel through his shirt confirmed to her that he was, indeed, there in the flesh and she had to bite the inside of her cheek hard not to burst into tears.

She buried her face into the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. The scent of his cologne and shampoo brought her back to the moment when they first met, in that anonymous hospital room many months ago.

He had been a breath of fresh air that day and continued to be so even now. The need she had for him was a longing she had never experienced in her life. Her heart swelled with love so intensely it was scaring her a little.

He broke the embrace just to gently grasp her cheeks into his trembling hands and kiss her on the lips so slowly she almost felt like fainting.

“Hi.” He whispered onto her lips after a while.

“Hi.” She answered back, losing her ability to speak other words into existence altogether as she lost herself into his beautiful dark eyes.

She felt as if his lips were a magnet she couldn't separate from so she just kissed him again and again, dragging him slowly inside her flat by his hips.

His hands wrapped around her waist and he squeezed her body closer to his, deepening the kiss and leaving her almost out of breath. Then he maneuvered her so that she had her back pressed against the wall next to the door without even separating from her lips. They kept licking into each other's mouths fervently even forgetting to properly shut the door.

“I missed you so much it physically hurt” he whispered against her lips, keeping her body close to his, as if he was afraid she would disappear at any moment.

“Right here” he grasped one of her hands and placed it in the middle of his chest, where his heart was.

She felt her head spin when he made her hand touch the soft skin of his chest and a little tear fell down her cheek when she focused on the beating of his racing heart.

“I felt a hole right there, too. I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore.” she told him in a sliver of voice, clinging onto him, with tears streaking down her cheeks.

She had him, finally, and she wasn't going to let go.

He had teary eyes too. But those were tears of happiness this time.

The distance and the past tension between them had taken an immense toll on them both, but, at that moment, they were totally overwhelmed by happiness.

He kissed her tears away and then her lips again.

He started placing quick pecks onto her lips as her hands caressed his cheeks.

He was so gentle at first, but quickly the kiss turned heated and passionate.

Her hands snaked into his silky locks and tugged a little, making him groan into her mouth.

He pushed her against the wall a bit more and she whimpered when she felt his arousal pressing against her thigh.

They were both out of breath but they refused to separate from each other even for a second.

After a while, he finally parted from her and leaned his forehead against hers, panting heavily.

“We should stop, baby, or we are going to be late” he whispered, trying to restrain himself from taking her right there.

God, she had completely forgotten about the reservation she had made a few days prior.

She mentally cursed herself for planning a dinner when all she wanted to do was stay in her flat and be consumed by him till morning.

She tried not to let him see that all she wanted to do was cancel plans and she had to agree with him.

“You are right, we should go” she replied, trying to catch her breath.

It took every ounce of self control she had to keep at bay the unbearable need to be one with him that she had been feeling since that dreaded morning when she had left him on that sidewalk.

They hastily parted and helped each other fix their crumpled clothes and disheveled hair.

Iris grabbed her purse and jacket from the armchair in the hallway and she was ready to go.

They exited the flat and she was locking the door when Jake placed a lingering kiss on her neck from behind her, inhaling the scent of her perfume deeply.

A shiver run down her spine at his touch and then she gasped when his strong hands grasped her hips and turned her around.

He crashed his lips onto hers again, stealing her already labored breath away.

Suddenly, they heard someone clearing their throat at the other end of the hallway and they parted at lightning speed.

Iris hid her face in his chest as they both tried and failed to stifle a laugh.

Then she grasped his hand and started running down the corridor, passing a elderly lady who was muttering unintelligible things, probably snarky remarks towards them. They greeted her swiftly.

“Désolé, Madame, bonsoir!” Iris said while running down the stairs with Jake in tow.

Jake repeated her words and she felt wetness pool in her panties at the sound of his deep voice speaking French.

It was her turn to corner him this time, pressing him against the wrought iron railing of the staircase and stealing one last kiss before exiting the building.

He held the door for her like a true gentleman and grasped her hand in his when they started walking towards the restaurant feeling like the luckiest man in the world.

The restaurant Iris had chosen for her first dinner with Jake was called Lou Lou and was very close to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.

When they arrived, a very kind waitress greeted then and led them to a cozy table in the corner of the room, right next to the window.

Jake gasped when he sat down and pointed towards the window with an astonished expression in his eyes.

“Look! The Basilica is right there! I can almost touch it” He exclaimed like an excited little boy.

She followed his gaze and her eyes filled with wonder at the sight.

That place was probably one of her favorites in the entire city and, despite seeing it from her flat every morning, every time she laid eyes on the bright white stone and sinuous structure it was as if she saw it for the very first time.

She watched the Basilica but soon after her gaze drifted to Jake who was taking in that beauty with sparking eyes.

They were brought back to reality by the waitress who came back with menus and placed them in front of them.

But Iris was so distracted. Her mind was elsewhere.

She kept watching Jake and the Basilica but she ultimately fixated on Jake.

She truly couldn't believe her eyes.

He was there. For real.

He was still watching outside, mesmerized by the city during golden hour so she took her sweet time admiring him.

Her eyes started tracing his features all over again, to commit everything to memory.

He looked so handsome that her heart hurt watching him.

Her eyes slowly drifted from his warm eyes that were threatening to melt her to his perfect plump lips that she couldn't wait to feel and taste again.

His smile made her weak at the knees and she mentally thanked the universe that she was sitting down or she would have collapsed on the floor.

The glittering of his necklaces caught her attention and she focused on the expanse of his chest that was left almost entirely exposed by his barely-buttoned shirt.

She felt herself blush with the inappropriate thoughts she was having about the man sitting in front of her.

But those inevitably worsened when her eyes drifted to his hands. His strong fingers were adorned with antique rings she had never seen.

She remembered how those hands felt on her body. They made her feel so safe when he was holding her during rehabilitation and yet they set fire to her soul when he touched her in a way she had never been.

She was transfixed and lost in her head to the point that she didn't even hear him when he cleared his throat to catch her attention. He had to call her name and grab her hand gently to do so.

“Hey baby” he whispered, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb gently “Are you ok? You are scaring me.”

She felt her cheeks blush the deepest shade of red and started blabbering an excuse when he grasped her hand in his and squeezed.

“Yeah, sorry. I was… thinking” she whispered while playing with a strand of her hair nervously.

That wasn't necessarily a lie. She was debating with herself If she should tell him that she just wanted to leave that restaurant with him and go back to her flat so that she could finally have him.

Her need for him was so intense that she couldn't even think straight.

Iris blushed even more when the waitress arrived to place their orders and noticed both their menus lying still untouched in front of them.

Jake was embarrassed too. He apologised profusely to the waitress and asked for five minutes more.

When the woman left, he smiled sheepishly at Iris, with a guilty expression in his eyes.

She was so lost in her own head admiring him that she didn't even notice he was doing the same.

Their need for each other was almost palpable and crystal clear in their eyes and they both acknowledged it at that moment.

Jake grasped the menu and pulled it open quickly, prompting Iris to do the same with a gesture of his hand.

His gaze was intense when he met her eyes from the edge of the menu before saying something only her could hear.

“Let's find something quick to eat, so we can go home and have what we are craving for.” He whispered, staring into her eyes and leaving her completely out of breath because of the fire she saw in them.

As soon as their respective spoons hit with a little clink the plates of the desserts they had just finished, Jake was already getting the check despite Iris's reproaches.

When they exited the restaurant, the crisp evening air hitting their flushed faces was a relief. In front of them through a few trees they could see that bright parisian diamond that was the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, heart of Montmartre district.

Iris felt Jake's arms slither around her waist from behind and his mouth hot against her ear.

“Let's go take a few pictures in front of the church ‘cause that's the last holy thing we are doing tonight.” He whispered, making her shiver and bite her bottom lip hard at the sound of his raspy voice.

They climbed up a few steps and found themselves in front of the church. Behind them the city lights glowed like a million little stars in the clear night.

Iris felt a little overwhelmed by everything that was happening. Looking at Jake in front of the Basilica with the city in background was making her feel very lucky.

She couldn't even imagine her life without him.

When he turned to face her and she focused on his beaming smile, a little happy tear fell down her cheek.

Jake was by her side in a second.

“Are you ok, baby? What is it? Are you hurt?” He said cradling her face in his hands and examining her face closely.

“No, Jake…just-” Iris tried to say but her voice broke.

He looked genuinely scared by her behavior. He wrapped his hands around her again.

“I'm ok, I'm just so happy that you are here” she finally said in a sliver of voice.

She watched as his face visibly relaxed after hearing her words. The anguish in his eyes disappeared giving way to happiness and love.

She focused on his dark irises, that were adorned by the reflection of the city lights below them.

After a moment she couldn't take it anymore. She grasped his face and kissed him, stealing his breath away.

When she broke the kiss, his mouth chased hers adorably and she placed her index finger against his lips to stop him.

“Let's go home. I need you so bad.” She whispered and then grabbed his hand and started running down the stairs, towards her flat.

Ten minutes later they were finally in front of Iris's apartment complex. They were both panting from the run but Iris was a bit more used to the many stairs in Montmartre than Jake.

“How many fucking stairs are there in this place?!” He exclaimed, out of breath. His exposed chest was shining with a light sheen of sweat that made his necklaces stand out even more.

Iris laughed at his expenses and, when the main door opened, she ran up the last flight of stairs, trying to escape from him, jokingly.

A gleam appeared in his eyes as he started chasing after her.

She reached her door and fumbled with the keys but he caught up with her and trapped her against the wood with his body. He placed his hands beside her head and his chest pressed against her back.

His hot breath against her neck made her shiver and she whispered his name against the wood of the door when his hands gripped her hips and he pressed himself against her back.

“You have no idea how much I need you” he whispered before licking and sucking the skin of her neck, leaving a mark there, and rutting his hips against her ass.

He turned her around quickly and crashed his mouth to hers while grasping the keys from her hand and opening the door.

They stumbled inside and Jake closed the door with a kick of his boot.

They managed to switch on the hallway light and then reached the kitchen table in the dark. Without a thought Jake sat her down on it and started kissing up and down her neck as she took off his jacket and started fumbling with the few buttons of his shirt.

Then, unexpectedly, he knelt down and quickly lifted her dress to her waist.

He grasped the sides of her panties by her hips and met her gaze with a desperate and needy expression in his sweet eyes.

“Please, baby, I need a taste.” He said, leaning his forehead against her knee. “I've been fucking dreaming about it.” He confessed then, making Iris gasp.

She quickly helped him take off her panties and spread her legs for him.

His eyes rolled back into his skull at the sight of her and he cursed loudly grabbing her legs and placing them on his shoulders.

The moment his hot breath fanned over her flushed skin, she felt herself contract around nothing and she snaked a hand into his hair to remind herself he was real.

When his lips finally made contact with her center, she sobbed his name out loud and her grip into his hair tightened.

The euphoric sensation that started coursing through her body the more his lips and tongue caressed her was making her body shake.

The lewd wet sounds coming from between her legs made her blush and grit her teeth as her back arched repeatedly.

“I could eat you out all night, baby, you taste so sweet.” He whimpered against her skin and pressed his face even closer to her center, as if he couldn't get enough of her.

She moaned his name when his lips enveloped her clit in their hot embrace and his index finger circled her entrance.

Her gaze lowered towards him and she saw he was already watching her, with such burning desire that she was ready to beg him to just devour her.

But when her mouth opened, just a little whispered plea left her lips.

His other hand tightened his hold on her thigh and he gently slipped his finger inside her.

A sigh of relief left both their mouths and Iris felt already close to her orgasm.

“I'm going to add another, baby” Jake whispered and slowly slipped another finger in, making Iris's legs threaten to close around his head.

All it took for her to unravel completely was a sharp curl of his fingers and a particularly harsh suction on her clit and she was whimpering Jake's name over and over while bucking her hips against his mouth.

He kept going, gently but relentlessly, helping her ride the intense wave of her orgasm.

When she started coming down, he slowed but didn't stop his movement, unable to part his mouth from her pussy.

Suddenly, Iris's hand slipped from his hair to the back of his neck, where his necklaces were. She grasped the thin silver cords he always wore and tugged upwards, prompting him to stand up in a not-so-gentle way.

He stood with a groan and, the moment she saw the state he was in, she wished she could burn that sight on the back of her eyelids so that she could admire him like that forever.

His pupils were dilated and he was panting. His chest was covered in sweat and it was rising and falling rapidly.

His lips were parted and his tongue was slightly out of his mouth because she had dragged him away from her exactly when he was about to lick into her folds again. His mouth and chin were covered in her arousal and were glistening in the low light coming from the corridor. A few strands of hair clung to his sweaty neck and some next to his mouth, wet with her arousal.

He looked positively drunk on her pussy. And not even remotely ready to stop.

“I need all of you, Jakey” She whispered onto his lips before dragging him towards her mouth by the grip she had on his necklaces and kissing him in a clashing of teeth and tongues, tasting herself on his sleek lips.

The hand that wasn't holding him slowly made its way down his chest and reached the button of his trousers. He hissed when she slowly started to massage his erection through the fabric and grasped her hips with his hands.

His head fell backwards with a low moan when Iris's hand slipped inside his pants only to discover he wasn't wearing anything underneath. Her hand made contact with the flushed skin of his member and she gasped at the feel of it, strong and delicate at the same time.

She wrapped a hand around him and he cursed loudly at the first stroke she gave him, leaning his forehead against hers.

After a moment, she removed her hand altogether and he whined only to be reassured that she was, indeed, not going to stop, when she unzipped his pants and tugged them down, freeing him.

“You are so beautiful Jake” she whispered on his lips before wrapping a hand around his erection and starting to stroke him with a gentle rhythm.

He moaned and cursed when she made him suck her thumb in his mouth and then started stimulating his flushed tip with her wet finger while quickening the rhythm of her strokes.

A moment after he begged her to stop.

“Iris, baby, please, you have to stop or it's game over for me” he said through gritted teeth, begging her with his eyes too.

But Iris didn't stop. She tightened her hold around him and quickened her pace, making the most beautiful desperate sounds leave his lips.

Just when she knew he was a step away from the point of no return, she stopped, removing her hand from him altogether, but keeping a tight hold of his necklaces.

He cursed and growled watching as a smirk spread on her face.

“You look so angelic but I know better, baby” he whispered onto her lips before grasping her face and kissing her deeply.

He broke the kiss to take off her dress and Iris spoke, almost completely out of breath.

“Do you think we can make it to the bedroom?” She said before latching her lips to the sweaty tender skin on his neck and collarbone, making him whimper.

She successfully distracted him enough to be able to slip down the table and kneel onto the ground in front of him, finally face to face with his member.

“It's out of question if you keep this up.” He said, watching her from above and biting his lower lip as her tongue circled his tip.

“You know, Jakey? The thought of this beautiful cock of yours occupied my mind too. More than I'd like to admit honestly” she confessed, licking at the underside of it and sucking the tip into her mouth.

He grasped the table behind her for balance with a struggling expression in his eyes and took a deep breath, trying his best not to succumb to her ministrations.

“Shh Jakey, relax. We have plenty of time. Tomorrow is my day off and I have no intention of leaving this house. Just let me make you feel good now.” She told him and he visibly relaxed.

"You are right, angel. It's just…I'm so afraid to wake up and discover this was just a dream. I cannot believe I am here and you are too.” He whispered, shaking his head in disbelief and caressing her hair.

“Do you feel this?” Iris asked and kissed his tummy.

He nodded.

“And this?” She nuzzled her nose against his inner thigh.

“Yes.” He whispered.

“And this?” She took the tip of his cock into her warm mouth and started sucking on it while bobbing her head slightly.

“Fuck.” He cursed and answered “Y-yes”

“This is real, Jake, I'm here and I'm yours.” She said before plunging him to the back of her throat and making him lose his mind.

He grasped her head in his hands and caressed her cheeks, trying not to lose himself as he felt as if she was sucking the soul out of his body.

His toes curled when her throat constricted around his cock and he moaned her name unashamedly as he twitched and came.

A few seconds later, when he had finally calmed down, he helped her up and kissed her.

She started guiding him backwards towards her tiny bedroom without breaking the kiss. They laughed as they bumped into many things and almost broke a lamp but got closer and closer to the room, until Jake turned her around and pressed her against the wall.

“I'm so sorry, baby” He whispered onto her lips.

“What for?” She asked him, a little worried.

He looked her in the eyes and smirked before bending his head to whisper into her ear.

“Your neighbors will probably hate you when I'm finished with you” He said sultrily, making a shiver of anticipation run down her spine.

“I can't wait” She laughed and grasped his hand, tugging him inside her bedroom.

Once inside, he stopped with a gasp when he saw that, from the blinds that were still open, he could see part of the basilica in front of which they were earlier that evening.

They started kissing again and stripped out of the last items of clothing that were still separating them before Jake sat on the bed and Iris straddled his lap.

“Perfection, you are perfection” he said, caressing her hips and legs. His gentle fingers lingered on her long-ago injured leg and she imperceptibly squirmed away from his touch when his index finger skimmed along the scar on her thigh.

But he noticed, like he always did.

“Are you ok?” He asked then, a little worried.

“Yeah, just a little sensitive” she replied, trying to hold back from kissing him again.

She was impatient to be one with him and he knew that.

That's why he took his sweet time stimulating her, first with his fingers and then with the head of his hardening cock.

“Relax for me” he whispered onto her lips, finally guiding her hips downwards.

She hissed at the feeling of him filling her excruciatingly slowly, a feeling she had missed so much during their time apart.

A loud moan left their lips when finally he was inside her to the hilt and her walls contracted around him.

The first up and down motion of her hips caused her eyes to roll back at the overwhelming pleasure coursing through her body and his mouth opened in a silent moan at the feeling of her warmth enveloping him.

His hands grasped her ass and started guiding her slowly up and down on his cock, kneading her muscles gently and helping her ride him.

They kept whispering sweet praises to each other and soon they started panting and their movements and kisses turned more and more heated.

They couldn't take their eyes away from each other, too afraid to wake up from the best dream and discover it wasn't real.

Iris's thighs started burning because of the exertion but she refused to stop. Her nails dug into his back for leverage and he groaned into her neck.

Jake slithered his thumb into her mouth and then started circling her clit delicately, making her walls contract around him even more.

Then, he started placing kisses along her neck and collarbones. When his lips latched on one of her nipples, her back arched harshly at the euphoric sensation.

“I love you” she whispered suddenly in his ear, feeling her orgasm barrel towards her like a herd of wild horses.

A little tear streaked down her cheek, quickly followed by another and another.

When she finally met his eyes and noticed that he was crying too, it was game over for her.

She spasmed and contracted around him screaming his name in pleasure over and over again.

He helped her ride out her orgasm thrusting his hip upwards and wrapping his arms around her body to keep her impossibly close.

When she started coming down from her high, her thigh muscles were burning and she had to slow her movements considerably.

“Jake” she whimpered, feeling her muscles almost cramp.

He immediately noticed her discomfort and reassured her with a gentle forehead kiss.

“It's ok, let me help you” he whispered and then, in a swift motion, turned her around, pressing her into her mattress and reveling in the sight of her with her hair splayed out on the comforter and her mouth hanging open, panting and waiting for him to reach his peak.

He grasped her injured leg and kept it bent against his hip with a gentle hand while he entered her again and started thrusting, chasing his high.

She moaned his name again, slowly caressing his body, moving from his strong shoulders to his lower back, reveling in the feeling of his muscles rippling with every thrust.

Her hands ended their journey on his ass where she grasped and dug her nails in the soft skin, spurring him on to take what he needed.

Their eyes met again and he cursed loudly squeezing his eyes shut, before leaning his forehead against hers.

“I love you, Iris” he whimpered and with one final thrust he groaned loudly and came inside her. He hid his face in her neck and whimpered deliciously over and over again in the throes of pleasure.

Then he collapsed on top of her, spent and panting.

She wrapped her arms around him and kept him close.

She kept caressing his damp hair and untangling his knots with her fingers as their breathing slowed.

After a moment, Jake lifted his head from her chest to look her in the eyes with the sweetest expression.

“Hi” he whispered on her lips.

“Hi” she answered, unable to stop a grin from spreading on her lips.

“You know that I love you, right?” He went on with a grin that matched hers.

“I do. But I quite like hearing you say it” she replied, biting her lower lip.

“I love you, Iris” Jake said then and his words echoed crystal clear in the room.

“I love you, Jake” Iris whispered onto his lips and kissed him intensely.

They were still connected and she gasped when she felt him twitch and grow again inside her, a sensation she had never experienced before.

Her walls spasmed around him and he groaned at the feeling.

They ended up not sleeping a wink that night, putting to good use every surface of Iris's apartment and making up for lost time, for the joy of the neighbors.

The next day they relaxed till midday and then they took a stroll through Montmartre district. It was very poetic and Iris couldn't believe that finally Jake was there with her. They went around hand by hand and when they weren't, Iris kept turning around to see Jake there smiling at her.

When it was time for Jake to go to the airport, they parted with heavy tears but with the promise to see each other again very soon.

____________________________

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