#non-cutting processing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

phantom-dc · 5 months ago

Text

Bruce sighed.

He never thought he would die like this. When he started out as Batman he was certain he would meet his end fighting the criminal underworld of Gotham. When he got older and life got stranger, he believed he would die fighting off a threat like Joker or Deathstroke, maybe even Darkseid. Being used as a human sacrifice to the King of the Infinite Realms was not on that list, let alone being a willing sacrifice.

Unfortunately, it had been necessary. An asteroid was on collision course with Earth. The asteroid had a colony of sapient alien life on it, so destroying it was not an option. As the League grew desperate, Constantine revealed a similar incident had happened a few years ago. The King of the Infinite Realms had, along with his subjects, turned the Earth intangible and both the Earth and the Asteroid had survived. Constantine isn’t sure why or how, but there are signs an extremely powerful ghost had merged realities and in the process erased the memories of this event from the entire population of Earth! The only reason Constantine knows about it is because a Demon with time-based powers told him during one of their poker games. Summoning this King was risky, as they had no idea what the King would want in return, but this entity seemed like their best bet. Now Bruce thinks they had been wrong.

Superman pulled Bruce out of his thoughts:

“Bruce, are you sure you want to go through with this? If we work together, we might be able to-”

Bruce cut him off:

“No, Clark. You heard Constantine. If we do not hold up our end of the deal, the Ghost King could simply make his ally, this “Clockwork”, reverse time to before the planet was saved. The Earth and the asteroid will still be destroyed, killing everyone on both. This is the only way.”

Clark looked dejected. He knew his friend was right. The King had turned the entire Earth intangible with one hand! He knew the League couldn’t defeat this foe, not without help. Any being that could help them would demand even more bloodshed in exchange, though. One human life in exchange of saving the entire planet had been a steal, according to the Justice League Dark. Clark looked at Bruce:

“Are you going to put on your cowl? This will be the only chance you have to tell the other Leaguers who you are.”

Bruce looked at his cowl. He had taken of his suit, so that his family had something to bury. But to reveal his identity to anyone other than Clark....

“I will keep it on. Even if I die here, I cannot risk anyone finding out my identity and using it to get to my family. I hope the League understands.”

Bruce is pulled into a hug. As Clark holds him as close as he can without breaking bones Bruce cannot help being filled with regret. He wanted more time with his family and, dare he say, friends. This was not how things were supposed to go. Clark pulls away and seems to want to say something:

“Bruce, I just want you to know, I-”

“WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON, B?”

Suddenly Nightwing enters the room, along with the entire Bat-family. Even Alfred and Oracle, donning masks, are there. They looked confused and scared, which made sense. They had all been summoned to the Watchtower, and when they had seen non-field members there as well they knew something was very wrong. Robin stepped forward, demanding an explanation:

“Father, what is happening? Why did you ask for us here? Explain yourself this instant!”

Red Robin looked ready to fight, staff in hand and in a low stance:

Where is the danger? Who is the enemy? Do you have intel for us? ARE YOU BEING MIND CONTROLLED?

Spoiler yanked at Red Robin’s cowl, pulling him out of his paranoid spiral:

“Easy, Captain Paranoid! Let him speak!”

Red Hood was clearly agitated. It was never a good sign if he was asked to the Watchtower:

“The fuck is going on, old man? Are you dying or something? That’s my stick, not yours!”

Bruce steeled his nerves. This was not going to be an easy conversation. How does one tell their family they are going to die and there is nothing to be done about it? Things had been going well for them, too. Dick and he hadn’t fought as often anymore, Jason had not called him names when he patrolled Crime ally last week, Tim hadn’t done anything that could be considered villainous (that he knew of) and Damian had not stabbed any goons for a month. Truly things had been good. Bruce knew this would mess it all up. He feared Jason would start killing again, or Damian would take out his grief on the criminals or Tim would… Well he had no idea. Last time Bruce disappeared Tim blew up so many LoA bases (he still wasn’t sure whether there had been people inside or not), so it was anyone’s gue-

“Sir, could you please elaborate on why we are here? I’m assuming it has something to do with the reason for this dreadful cold, and perhaps your lack of a shirt?”

Bruce sighed. Alfred always knew how to get through to him. With a heavy heart he told them everything. He would sacrifice himself for the survival of both planets. There was nothing to be done about that, and he asked them to please accept his decision. Naturally everyone was outraged. Amidst the chaos, Orphan asked a question:

“Why you?”

Bruce explained that, according to Constantine, the King had asked for a single sacrifice in return: “To feast on a non-magic, non-meta mortal human that will not resist being consumed.” It had pointed specifically at Batman, making sure they all knew which one it wanted. There had been no time to negotiate the prize, so he had accepted. After that it had left immediately for Earth, turning it intangible so the asteroid flew through harmlessly and fulfilling its end of the deal. Orphan seemed to think for a bit, before speaking up again:

“We’ll miss you.”

She hugged Batman. The others, realizing there was nothing they could do, at least not before facing the King, joined in as well. Bruce told them how proud he was of everyone. That they were strong and brilliant, and to please protect each other and Gotham in his stead. He thanked Alfred and Oracle for their help over the years and to please continue to support the others with the same strength they used to help him. After a moment they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Wonder Woman had entered the room. With a saddened expression, and a dented doorhandle that showed her tension, she had come to collect her friend.:

“Batman. It’s time.”

Bruce nodded at her. Thanking her, he tried to leave with her, but was stopped by Alfred. After a quick hug, Alfed offered Bruce a cookie from the plate he had brought along:

“Every man deserves a final meal. I’m sorry this was all I have to offer.”

Taking a grateful bite, Bruce allowed himself to indulge in the taste of home.

“Thank you, Alfred. This means more to me then you realize.”

Steeling himself once more, Batman and the others followed Wonder Woman to the main room. It was the largest room in the Watchtower, several stories high with observation platforms, security screens showing cities all over the planet and a teleportation platform. As they approached the room, Batman was surprised by the cold that radiated form the entrance. Opening the door the source of all the cold and grief became visible to the group. Signal had to shield his eyes:

“What the hell!?!”

There it was, the High Ghost King of the Infinite Realms. A giant being, which had been so large they had to move to the observation platform to speak with it. Even then it towered over the heroes. It’s skin impossibly dark, with constellations spotting its tail & torso. The stars converging on its lower arms, making it look like it was wearing glowing white gloves, the same as a strange symbol on his chest that seemed important. The stars on its neck blending seamlessly with its hair, yet leaving its head completely dark aside from a few little spots on its face. The only facial feature they could make out where 2 Lazarus green eyes, focused on the new arrivals. On its hand, a ring with a skull on it that had freaked out the Lanterns. On its head a dark crown covered in patches of frost, and its own Aurora Borealis spreading from it. The room had already been partially covered in frost simply from the King’s aura. Power emanated from it, which had caused several members that had been dead and revived before to kneel on reflex, which was frightening even if they managed to get up on their own again.

Martian Manhunter had tried to peek in the Kings mind, hoping to find a way to convince the King to spare Batman, but he had been unsuccessful. As soon as he tried his knees buckled, and he had been pushed out. Ever since the Ghost King had radiated frustration. Now, as Batman entered wearing only his cowl and some spare pants, that frustration seemed to spike dangerously. Was the King upset he had been left to wait for his offer?

"What the fuck is this? I didn’t ask for a striptease, especially from some old Frootloop!”

“Constantine, what’s wrong? What is it saying?”

Batman was worried. He had not expected more anger from the being when presented with the offering. Looking at Constantine, he saw the magician frantically looking through the pages of his books, desperately looking for a translation.

“Hang on, mate. I’m doing my best here! Ehrm… no, that’s not right… Something about mating? Maybe he likes you, Bats. He also said something about “the absence of clothing” so…

Suddenly he is cut off by a strange sound coming from the Ghost King. It makes a strange motion with its body and its giant maw opens, as more of those sounds escape. It reminds Robin of Alfred the Cat when he has a hairball. However, there is more sound in the Watchtower now. The Red Hood is clutching his stomach as he is doubling down in laughter.

“HAHAHAHA!!! WHAT? HOW THE FUCK DID YOU TRANSLATE THAT BADLY? HOLY SHIT!”

The Ghost King stops making the noises, and it’s eyes snap to Red Hood. It moves it’s head closer to him, casually passing it through the barrier Constantine had put up. Constantine’s swears in surprise, but the King seems not to care as it “speaks” to Red Hood:

"Oh, thank the Acients! Someone who understands Ghost Speak! Can you PLEASE help me and translate for us? This trench coat guy is terrible, and somehow twists everything I say in the worst way!"

Red Hood relaxed, looking up at the Ghost King’s giant head.:

“Sure man, no problem. I’m pretty sure he is using like 3 different dictionaries to get this far. I saw him first translate Ghost to Pixie, Pixie to Gnome and Gnome to Demon before telling us in English! So, what’s up?”

Batman was stunned. The Ghost King actually face palmed. What the heck was going on?

"Of course he is. That explains why it sounds like he is putting this through Google Translate 4 times! These guys summoned me to save the Earth, which, totally cool. Happy to help! But a summons makes it official, which means I need to get an offering. I can’t leave without it or I face a mountain of paperwork from some stupid bureaucratic eyeballs for not following proper procedure. But I can always ask something simple and get it over with. No biggie, right? WRONG.”

Red Hood actually grabs a chair to sit on. Not even in a somewhat respectful way, he is sitting on it backwards, casually leaning on it.

“Oh, boy. How badly did they fuck up? Gotta be big since Batman over there is ready to be eaten?”

The King glares at Constantine, who puts up his bravest “time to out-bollock a Eldritch Demon” face. The King is not impressed:

"Man, I asked, and I quote: “I’d like to eat a regular human meal that doesn’t fight back, like that guy would eat!” I wanted it to be clear I didn’t want blood, or corpses or virgins or any of the other horrible things stupid cults try to give me! I just wanted a burger or something! But then Mr. triple dictionary over there somehow turns that into: ‘’I wish to feast on a non-magic, non-meta mortal human that will not resist being consumed, and it must be that one.” I’ll admit I was pointing at one of the non-supers, but that didn’t mean I wanted to eat him! I just wanted to make sure it was normal food, something that doesn’t fight back!”

Red Hood looked confused, asking if the King’s food usually fights back. The King rolls it’s eyes:

"In life, I lived with mad scientist parents who treated lab safety as a suggestion at best and a chore for teens at worst. Put enough samples in the fridge and you get a whole new type of Thanksgiving trauma. Dang, I’m getting even more hungry. I’d love some turkey right now. Could you get them to bring me some food? That way I can have my sacrifice and leave…”

Red Hood stands up. He asks if the King can wait a few more minutes, claiming that after all that frustration he deserved something better. Getting a nod from the Ghost King, the Red Hood suddenly shouted over the platform railing towards the waiting Leaguers:

“FLASH! Get your squad up here, and bring pen & paper! I got a job for y’all!”

Zooming up every member of the Flash family gets a list of things to get and a warning not to tell the Bats what’s on it, or Red Hood will shoot them in the knees. Looking at the lists, they quickly caught on what was going on and promised they wouldn’t tell. This was way too funny! Red Hood does a fake bow to the King, clearly amusing himself.

“Don’t worry, your Hungry-ness! Your sacrifice is being prepared! Anything else we can assist you with?”

The Ghost King seems to tilt its head in amusement. Whatever Hood was doing, it was working, which honestly was the only reason nobody had tackled him to the floor.

"Actually, if you could get that Frootloop to put on a shirt that would be great. He is shivering and honestly, I’m worried he’s going to poke someone’s eye out with a nipple. Why is he shirtless anyway? Please tell me he wasn’t actually trying to seduce me or something, he’s old enough to be my dad! Gross!”

This caused Red Hood to again double over in laughter. Everyone was confused, what could possibly be so funny in this situation? Constantine had frantically tried translating during their conversation, but it had gone too fast for him. He gave up when the King mentioned eyeballs and seduction, accepting he wouldn’t get anywhere like this. Batman however couldn’t resist his need to know everything anymore.

“Hood, report! How are you communicating with the entity?”

Red Hood turns to Batman, walks past him and towards Alfred, grabbing one of the cookies he had brought with him. As he walks back and hands it to the Ghost King, he starts to explain:

“Honestly, not sure. It feels instinctive, like a second mother-tongue. Pretty sure it’s some sort of “dead-guy-language” you learn when you die. Speaking off: Turns out Constantine is a VERY unreliable translator. Spooky here is actually pretty chill! He used you as an example to make sure we knew what he wanted, not to demand you as a sacrifice. He is in fact pretty ticked that you guys tried to feed B to him. Speaking of: Batman? Put a shirt on, for fucks sake. You look like you’re going to freeze your tits off.”

This earned a round of giggles from Green Lantern & Green Arrow. Now that the tension had left the room, other Leaguers also smiled in relief. Besides, it’s always fun to see Batman being the butt of a joke. Sure enough, Batman let out a frustrated sound, that got the rest of the Bats to join in on the fun. They understood that their dad in fact felt rather silly right now, which meant that they had more to gossip about soon. Constantine now was wondering what Hood was up to:

“Mate, I did my best! Sorry for not being fluent in every language in existence. What the hell did you send the Flash to get? The bloke is a scientist and denies magic when it’s right in front of ‘im! What could they possibly get that I couldn’t-”

At that moment, the Flashes zoom out of the Zeta tubes and zoom across the observation deck. After a few moments of red and yellow blurs, the deck is covered with tables filled front to back with food! Picking up a receipt that fell to the floor, Batman realizes this is take-out from all over the world. Seeing a puddle of Lazarus water grow on the floor, he looks up. The Ghost King is actually drooling! Red Hood steps aside and gestures to the feast:

“Welp! There is your sacrifice! One. And I also quote: “regular human meal that doesn’t fight back, like “that guy” would eat!” Well, more of a feast then a meal, but I’m sure a big guy like you can finish it, and you can always take home the rest I guess. Bon Appetit!”

Opening his giant maw, the Ghost King digs in. Well, as much as he can. He actually looks kind of silly eating everything with a tiny fork. Still, judging from the purring sound emanating through the Watchtower it’s to the Kings liking.

"DUDE, THIS IS SO GOOD? I need to know these restaurants! You want a bite for helping me out? You saved me SOOO much annoying paperwork, I was about to bail!”

Picking up a plate of karaage, Red Hood took of his helmet revealing a second mask underneath and dug in as well:

“Don’t mind if I do, this smells fantastic! Oh shit, you should try this stuff, it’s great!”

Red Hood being allowed to partake in the offering so casually caused Constantine to do a double take. He realizes he seriously misjudged this entity. Still, that didn’t explain the horrific stories about him. He would need to do some digging into that, maybe with Hood as a translator. For now he takes a swig of his drink. The world was saved, no one died or lost their Soul and he didn’t make any new enemies he thinks. Plus, Batman felt like an idiot, and that always made the Brit smile.

All in all a good day!

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dc x dp #dp x dc #batman #ghost king danny #jason todd #red hood #john constantine #phantom dc #my writing

4K notes · View notes

abby-howard · 6 months ago

Text

Finished a non-work art piece today :>

I carved about 60 wings out of craft foam for this. Process pics below the cut:

Each wing had three parts, and I made 4 templates so there was decent visual variety!

I stapled down the wings and added struts between the layers to make them stand out from each other, and attached the hands with expanding foam.

Then I gave it a coat of spray paint, added faux fur as down to help cover the expanding foam and blur the edges, and drybrushed every wing with gold to help them stand out.

The end!!

#my art #sculptural relief #cool wings #make your living room 1000% more ominous with this one really hard trick

4K notes · View notes

gracieheartspedro · 4 months ago

Text

Me and The Devil

pairing: qz!joel miller x fem!reader

how to help the palestinians and what it means to write for the last of us characters

description: joel seeks out revenge on the man who stole from him. he finds you in the process. 14k words

warnings: mdni!, dark content, DUBCON, joel is a bad man, no mention of age (but joel is older than reader), murder, weapon use (g*ns), mentions of drug and alcohol, excessive alcohol consumption from reader, nicknames for reader (sweetheart, little one, etc.), stockholm syndrome, forced withdrawals from alcohol, mentions of non-con, forced proximity, physical violence/assault, reader is freaky and insane, reader has a vagina and boobs, sub!reader, dom!joel, orgasm denial, masturbation, unprotected p-in-v, oral (m receiving), fingering, throat fucking, cumplay/cum eating, dirty talk, name calling, spanking. PLEASE LISTEN TO THE WARNINGS.

author’s note: hi everyone! this fic came to me literally like... january of last year. it sat in the docs forever. and then my wonderful and beautiful friend @amanitacowboy told me to pick it back up and it spiraled from there. she also helped me edit, so i've forever indebted to you, lindsey!! it's probably the meanest joel you will get from me. some of the story has loose ends, but it's intentional *brow wiggle* (; also thank you @pedgito for listening to me blab about this shit forever. lindsey and ali have heard every detail and tidbit in this fic, I swear. thank you for putting up with me! anyway, hope you dirty lil whores enjoy this one!

You thought he was a myth.

The crime-riddled streets of the Boston QZ seemed to lace different stories about him together. You could not understand how a pill dealer could also kill countless guards and top honchos. People would conjure up the wildest lies about the man, so you were always morbidly curious.

You would sit in your apartment organizing the weapons you and your partner laundered through the streets of the QZ, pondering what it would be like to meet the man. You were never the one to deliver the weapons, only ensuring you were getting what you paid for. Your partner, Roger, would dispense the weapons to God knows who.

It was enough to get you by. You never ran out of rations and your alcohol dependency was never a problem.

You were too young to be this beat down. That’s what Roger would tell you, at least.

But the truth of the matter was that before the QZ, you were free-roaming the US with no purpose. You killed a lot of people. When you arrived at the QZ with an ounce of ‘normalcy’ within your reach, you promised yourself never again. The darkness you harnessed would have to be forced down, sitting in the very pits of your being.

When you met Roger, he just needed someone to live in his apartment and watch his stash when he was gone. You did just that and eventually, you formed an odd bond with the older man. He would let you count his rations and drink his liquor. Four years later, you depended on him to bring you back alcohol in return for your watchful eye. If a shipment came in late, you would panic, thinking your addiction would get cut off. You needed something to numb the scrambling thoughts, violent tendencies, and crippling anxiety.

After one tough deal, Roger stumbles back to your shared apartment, venting about the man.

“Fuckin’ Joel screwed me again. Gave him two .22’s and the motherfucker shorted me a bottle of Oxys.”

You were already too far gone to listen to the rest of the rant, finding yourself dozing off on the couch. The alcohol too often consumed you, sending you into dark nightmares that would have you waking up in the dead of night screaming.

By the time you woke up, though, Roger was no where to be found. Him being gone was not the worrisome part, though.

No, what worried you was all the drugs and guns he left out on display.

Springing up from your spot on the couch, you instantly get to work hiding the paraphernalia. When you grab a handgun from the table where you remember Roger sitting before you close your eyes, you feel eyes on you.

You are still drunk and now your stomach is churning. You feel like you may throw up.

There’s a figure standing by the window. Too tall to be Roger.

Your instant dazed reaction is to hold the gun up, and point at the large man who stands in your messy bedroom. You blink away the sleep that’s still in your eyes and stumble a bit as the intoxication still riddles your bones.

“You were sleepin’ when I came in,” His voice is slow and deep and it sends chills down your forearms.

“Who are you?”

You managed to sound pretty confident, even though you were scared shitless. You had not been so rattled since you almost got bit by some infected a year ago. You can make out his clothes, but that’s about it. Dirty jeans, an old green flannel with holes, and dark brown boots.

“‘M Joel. Roger ever told you about me?”

He finally turns to face you. You’re shocked to see a handsome dark-haired man and not some damaged old mug. His eyebrows are perpetually furrowed it seems, but you could also tell he was annoyed you were pointing a loaded gun at him.

You were so terrified, you could not even speak.

He puts a hand up, holding it over the barrel of the gun. “You shouldn’t be pointin’ that at me, sweetheart.”

You just nod, slowly putting down the weapon. You did not want problems with him. You knew what he was capable of.

You also knew your aim would be off if you did try to shoot, still feeling like you were rocking on a boat.

“Sorry,” You mutter, bringing the gun down and to your side. You swallow hard as his eyes rake your entire body, “Yes, he’s told me about you. Other people have, too.”

He looks pleased with that response. He steps away from the window and begins to saunter over to you. His footfalls are heavy. You assume it is because of his filthy brown boots. Or maybe it was the intimidation factor he was playing for you. He did not need to scare you, because you were fucked up and not on your game. He could kill you at any time. Why has he not killed you yet?

“What have people said about me?”

You gulp, sucking in a whiff of his musk. He somehow still smelled good, even though it looked like he had been rolling in the dirt. His hair was pretty greasy but the curls laid perfectly on both sides. He looks like a guy you would avoid in the street, especially in this QZ. The attractive ones were usually the ones who would take advantage of any woman who looked their way.

“They said you’re dangerous,” You manage, holding the grip of the gun a bit tighter, “That you have killed a-a lot of people.”

“Yeah,” Is all he says, before stepping an inch closer, “Yeah, I have.”

You can not look away from him. You are so rattled at the fact that he is good-looking. You vividly remember hearing a couple of dealers talk about how formidable he was and for some reason, you mocked up a man who looked like The Joker from Batman.

He inspects you and your gun and crosses his arms, almost like he is guarding himself. “Now tell me… What did Roger say when he came home last night? I need to know how to handle this situation without spillin’ any more blood.”

You start to panic a bit, but you know you can’t be rash with your emotions. You did not want to be more blood that Joel Miller spills. You did not need to be a notch in his belt.

But you also did not want to rat out Roger. He had done so much for you and you knew deep down, he cared for you in his own sick ways. If you told Joel everything, would that come at cost to him?

What were you thinking? He was a dead man.

He notices your demeanor change and his eyes soften. “Don’t worry, little one. I don’t kill just anyone. Unless they cross me. You haven’t crossed me, have you?”

You do not know why or how, but tears start to spill from your eyes. You know you are not guilty of doing him wrong, but you have heard before that it does not matter in his eyes. By proxy, you are associated with the man who fucked him over. You would be next.

“I have not crossed you, Mr. Miller,” You start to slur a bit, your face getting wet quickly with more tears, “Roger just said you fucked him over. I was too fucked up to hear the rest. Said you didn’t give him enough oxys.”

Joel raises one hand and grabs the bottom of your chin. His skin is rough and callous against your sheeny skin. His whole aura gives off danger. You are too afraid to look at him. You’re trembling, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“That fucker stole them all, that’s why. When I tried to get him to confess his wrongdoings, fucker dipped out of there,” He explains, using his thumb to push one of your falling tears, “We followed him and luckily he swallowed too many pills even to realize we were breaking in. You were pretty out of it, too.”

“I w-was d-drinking last n-night,” You knew you had to get ahold of yourself. You were like sand in his hands, slipping right through his fingers. You were so easy to get information out of. “Where did you take him?”

Joel clicks his tongue, tilting your face so your eyes would look into his, “Don’t worry bout that, sweetheart.”

“Is he going to die?”

“Probably.” He states plainly, his eyes scanning your figure, “You’re going to show me where his stash is and ‘m gonna take back what’s mine.”

Your heart sinks to the floor. Roger was all you had. Without him running the guns and ammo, you had no way of income. You could not do these things yourself, especially now that Joel Miller knew who you were. No one would come near you when they heard he paid you and Roger a visit.

“I’ll show you,” You respond, trying to steady your voice. “Are you going to kill me?”

It was selfish. With him admitting to having to kill Roger, you knew you were fucked either way. Without a dealer or runner, you had no earnings. You were going to rot away in this apartment, dying from starvation. Joel killing you would be a mercy killing and from the sounds of it, he did not show much mercy.

“Just tell me where everything is.”

You shake your head as you step back away from him. Your instinct is to hand him the gun in your hands, proving to him that you are not a real threat. You grab the barrel and give him the grip, shaking it in his direction. “Here.”

He stares at you, the divots on his forehead still prominent. He slowly lifts his flannel. You first see his hairy tummy and then you see he has a 9mm strapped in his waistband. “Don’t need it, sweetheart.”

You keep the gun extended out to him, “You can have another.”

There’s a beat of silence, a bitterness in the air.

“Are you stalling?” Your blood runs cold. You were not, you were just afraid and unsure of yourself. You also assumed he would want your weapon so you would not use it against him. So many assumptions run through your head, that you are not even aware you are creating more uncertainty for him.

Your eyes drop, looking at the gun. “No, sir. Here… Follow me.”

You turn on your heels, walking back out to the dining room, right off the kitchen. You scoot the table away from the rug, the ammo and pills on the table vibrating as it moves. Joel watches your every move, the same unimpressed expression written on his face. You put the gun down on the table before you get on your knees at the corner of the rug. You pull it back, revealing a large trap door Roger installed before you moved in with him. It had a deadlock on it that was only able to be opened with a code.

You think for a moment, your muddled brain trying to remember the numbers.

8-3-6-7-1-9-6-9.

You say it out loud as you open it. When it clicks, you pull down and unhook it. As you toss it away from you, you hear Joel clear his throat. “Move.”

You instantly throw your hands up, crawling back onto your knees and sliding away from the trap door. You glance back at the tall man, seeing he has his gun trained on you. You did not even hear him pull it out. You sit back, pressing your shoulders into the wall opposite of the entrance of the storage cut-out. It’s lined with different drugs, handguns, some shotguns, and lots of pornography.

Joel chuckles darkly, looking into the unit. “Seems like you two are freaky, huh?”

You never assumed Joel thought Roger was your lover, but the inclination made you want to throw up. You shake your head, “He was. Not me.”

His addiction never really affected you in any way. He saved those vices for when he was alone. You do recall one night accidentally walking in on him doing something very disturbing that was forever etched inside your brain. Jerking off over a pillow with a magazine full of very young girls. You never looked at him the same way after that.

Roger was sick in the head, but he gave you drugs. He gave you alcohol. He gave you a place to stay.

Joel clicks his tongue, crouching down to loot through your stash. “You’re too young for’a man his age, anyway. Too pretty.”

The hairs on your arms and shoulders raise at such a comment. You cock your head to the side, watching the man curiously. He thought you were pretty.

He does not say anything else the rest of the time he is picking up bags of pills. He inspects each one, sniffing some of the bags as he does. The illumination from the window in the dining room lights up his face with golden stripes. It made you take note of his amber eyes. They were not dark brown in the sunlight. You can hear people on the street from the partially shattered panels, some dragged-out footsteps, and some hushed conversations. Screaming for help would be no use, people hear women screaming in the streets in broad daylight and do nothing. This QZ was not about justice. It was every man for himself.

Joel stands up, tucking his gun back into his waistband. His eyes laser toward you and you feel his gaze pierce you. “Stand up, you’re comin’ with me.”

You do not try to hide your fear. While you knew better, you silently hoped that he would just shoot you here, let you drown in your own blood in the comfort of your own home. But he was going to take you to a secondary location. You would be dying on his terms.

You push yourself up off the floor, your feet stuttering as you walk over to him. “Can I put on some shoes?”

He nods almost robotically. He watches you carefully as you drag yourself across the living room. You start to realize how torn up the place really is. Roger must have put up a fight because the side table is in pieces on the rug. You step around the splinters and grab your boots. After you tie up your laces, Joel is yanking you up by your bicep and dragging you into the dark alley your apartment opens up into. You were so fucked.

Joel is a harsh man, but he does not kill you.

You did not understand why he kept you around. You were eating his food, occupying a room in his apartment, and you were going through horrific withdrawals. He refused to give you an ounce of alcohol. The first couple nights at Joel’s, you were so sick that you violently shook for a whole day straight. You begged Joel through the door to shoot you and put you out of your misery. It was the worst feeling in the world. Your heart felt like it may beat out of your chest.

After the third day, your shakes had subsided and your mind was a bit more clear. You still felt like shit, but it was tolerable enough that you just laid in bed and stared at the floral wallpaper in your new bedroom.

You did not mind being spared, but being locked away was almost worse than death. You noted the mold smell the day you arrived in Joel’s apartment. You could not stop smelling it, no matter what you did. You kept telling yourself you would get used to it, but it always lingered. He restricted you to a bedroom where the window was completely caged. You had spotty natural light that only really peaked through in the evenings.

Joel would bring you a small meal every morning, usually stale bread and a mug of water. On rare occasions, his footsteps would stomp over to your rotting wooden door and he’d unlock the door to feed you for lunch. That only happened twice, though, and it was a bare-bones meal. But every night, right after sunset, he would barge in with a Spam sandwich and a cup of ice water. You would sit on the rusty framed-out bed as he sat in the armchair in the corner of the room by the window. Occasionally he would have a sandwich for himself, other times he would just sit there and watch you slowly eat the meal he provided.

And for some sick reason, you always thanked him.

He would never reply, his jaw slack and arms crossed. You only heard his voice a handful of times since he brought you here.

After two weeks of isolation and staring contests over dinner, Joel finally asked you a question after you finished your Spam sandwich. “Do you want to shower?”

You had not washed yourself in weeks and you could smell yourself. The idea of being able to shower was so appealing, that you actually smiled as he asked it.

Joel guided you across his expansive apartment into his bedroom. The entire place was falling apart, but Joel’s room seemed completely untouched by the times. It smelled like pine as soon as you bounded through the threshold. His bed was made up perfectly, with two pillows on each side. His side table only had one single lamp and a novel that’s title was in another language. Joel snatched you away from soaking up his oasis and forced you into the dated bathroom. He shuts the door behind him, clicking when he rattles the handle.

You swallow, “Are you joining me?”

He shakes his head, turning and grabbing the bar of soap on the edge of the vanity. “No, ‘m just making sure you don’t try anything.”

You narrow your eyes at him, not completely believing him. Joel had not made any moves towards you, so you are not sure why you are suddenly skeptical of his intentions. Even if he did try something, you knew you could not do anything about it.

You were at Joel’s mercy. You did not completely comprehend why he was locking you down in his home and you did not get why you were just going along with it. You used to be a ferocious fighter, but after everything with Roger, you did not know where else you would go if it was not with Joel.

You turn your back to him, hesitantly undressing. Your clothes were disgusting, stained with sweat marks that you left when you were going through withdrawals. As you drop them onto the cold tile, Joel clears his throat.

You cannot remember the last time you were nude in front of another man. Another person. It had to be over 10 years. “I got ya some new clothes. I’ll grab them when you get in the shower.”

You just nod. While you were grateful for new clothes, you were still confused as to why you were here. As you turn on the water, you peek back at Joel. He is not looking at you, he’s looking out the window. His hands are tucked in his pocket and you have truly never seen him look at peace. His face is relaxed and his shoulders are eased down.

You use your hand to gauge the water’s lukewarm temperature before you slip in behind the curtain. The bathtub is an off-white color. As soon as you get under the shower head, you note the dirt and grime combining with the water and spinning down the drain.

You use the bar of soap Joel gave you to clean off your frigid skin. The scent is just a hint of lavender. It must have been an old bar and with age, the smell has faded. As you massage it in, you hear the door creak open and click shut. You assume it’s Joel doing what he told you and then your mind circles back to your previous observation.

Why is Joel doing this?

You ponder the idea that maybe he is a sadist psychopath who just likes the idea of having someone held captive. But you had heard a lot about this man, and while he was a murderer, you never heard about him kidnapping or hurting women. If anything, he was easier on women who did him wrong.

But you were not a woman who did him wrong. You did nothing to him. You simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You did exactly what he asked and then you went along with his plans for you.

Maybe he was just lonely?

His deep voice slices through your thoughts, “You almost done in there?”

You nod even though he cannot see you. “Yeah, I’m almost done.”

You rinse the soap out of your hair and turn off the faucet. You peek your head out from the curtain and Joel stands there with a towel in his hands. He laid a pile of clothes on the sink and you noticed that your clothes were gone from off the floor. Joel extends the towel to you and you reach around and grab it.

It’s scratchy, but it absorbs all the beads of water off your body. You wrap it around your body, tucking the end under your right armpit. You pull back the curtain and Joel is still standing there.

You step over the edge of the tub, letting some of the droplets run onto the cold tiles. Joel’s eyes never leave yours, but as soon as you step towards the clothes on the counter, his eyes trickle down your body.

Your heart picks up when his hand comes up to your cheek. Your natural reaction is to flinch away from him, but his motion is quicker than you. He wipes away a water drip off your cheekbone, pulling it down to your jawline. “All better?” He asks, his voice low. You nod, sheepishly. “Yes, thank you.”

He smiles.

“So polite. So pretty.”

And then he leaves you alone, clicking the knob shut as he exits the bathroom.

You get dressed quickly. Joel somehow knows your exact sizes because the cargo pants, long sleeve, and undergarments are a perfect fit. You never even managed to find clothes to fit you this well when you were doing your own stealing and looting.

His words rattle around in your head and you start to panic a bit. You start to formulate a plan. You had to stop thanking him. You had to stick up for yourself a bit more. You had to see where your boundaries were with him. You had to figure out his motive.

It was scary. Daunting. But you knew you could not live like this much longer.

You reach out for the door, but the knob was already turned and being pulled forward. Joel stands by the entrance of the door and you stride out, your head held a bit higher than usual. His face shows confusion, but you do not falter.

“I’m still hungry.”

It is like all the air is sucked out of the room. Suddenly, Joel is nine feet tall and you are an inch short. Your voice was confident enough to pass, but it was like he saw right through you.

“I fed you.”

You swallow, your eyes averted from his face for a moment, “Can I have a snack?”

His frown is more memorable than his smile. It is a permanent fixture in his big scary man aesthetic.

“A snack?”

You almost want to laugh at his condescending tone. But you also realize how you are playing with fire and at any moment this man could snap and kill you. You had to know if you were able to test him, see if you could truly ask him for something and he would be willing to give it to you. This would be your lesson.

So you nod, very matter-of-factly.

He is looking at you like you have four heads, but he bites.

“Fine, I’ll getcha a snack. Why don’t you have a seat on my bed?”

His cadence is giving him away. You can already tell he is not good at hiding his annoyance. You hesitantly walk over to his bed, plopping down rather obnoxiously. Your feet swipe the rug like a child’s would as you wait for him to return to the room. When he comes back, he has a single piece of beef jerky between his fingers.

You narrow your eyes at the so-called snack. You hated cured meats and you were sure to let him know that. “Jerky?”

You are really testing him now. And you can tell by the way his chest rises and falls in one quick breath.

“You seem very ungrateful, little one.”

You reach out to grab the bark but he snatches it back in a quick motion. You crinkle your eyebrows at him, trying your best to feign innocence. With the way he is staring daggers at you, you should fear his next move.

“Beg.”

You feel like your chest cannot take any more air in. Your hand is still hanging in the air, trying to reach out to his offering, but his hand is holding it far from your grasp.

You do not want to beg, this standoff would be part of your resistance to his captivity. In your mind, something would have to give way eventually. You could not sit around and just take his crumbs and passive weird behavior. So, you shake your head no.

“Go to your room. You’ve pissed me off,” His tone is abrupt and rushed. You do not want to push this further, knowing that you have made it an inch with him and were not completely ready to run the mile. You needed to game plan your next move.

You stand up, walking painfully slow to the door and leaving his space. His steps trail behind you, ensuring you did what he asked you to do. You can smell his musk, which makes the hairs on your arms stand up. He smelled good for a man as rugged as him.

When you reach your bedroom door, you grab the handle and turn around to face him. He stares down at you, his pupils dilated.

You make one last plea. “So, no snack?”

You regret saying it immediately. He puts the jerky bit up to his lips, opens them deliberately, and takes a huge bite of the meat. It pulls apart with a crackle and watching it, you know it probably would hurt your teeth if you did something like that. His flexed jaw is a lot stronger than yours. His action is animalistic in a way, reminding you of a lion tearing into an antelope.

And for some reason, it brings a rise of heat from your shoulders to your cheeks. Watching his teeth gnaw on the jerky sends your mind traveling to la la land.

His voice forces you out of your thoughts. “Go to bed. Now.”

He stopped bringing you breakfast. Instead of your usual routine, Joel started giving you one small meal a day. You start to resent him and by the looks he is giving you, he is still bitter over your whole scheme with the snack.

You woke up hungry, which only started your day off wrong. You are regretting ever testing him in the first place. You were biting the same hand that literally fed you. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you should be grateful he is even keeping you alive. Why are you even trying to rock the boat with him? In some weird twisted way, he gave you a second chance. You were completely sober from alcohol going on a month now. And while most nights you grieved the burn of it going down your throat, your mind was more clear. You felt more grounded in reality. You did not want to go back to the way you were. Sure, you were hungry, but you were not plastered and sleeping 18 hours a day, and that seemed like a fair enough trade.

But the ache of your chest started to set in. You were feeling impulsive. You do not clearly remember how your body felt before you started drinking so much, but you do recall the aggression that would riddle your bones from time to time. The knee jerk reaction just to let loose. It had gotten you in some very sticky situations, but it was a sort of rush you craved.

After three days of the stalemate, he brought you the Spam sandwich and a short cup of water for dinner. You do not look at him when he walks into the room, and you do not thank him.

You had to get on his good side again. Somehow.

“Are you on a hunger strike or somethin’?” His deep Southern drawl always extending out the end of his sentences. You loved hearing it.

You shake your head no.

“You stopped giving me breakfast,” You grumble, reaching out to the plate he offers you. He shrugs, plopping down in his usual chair in the corner. He does not have his dinner in hand tonight. He leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

“You were bein’ an ungrateful little bitch. I am offerin’ you a second chance here and you are not appreciative,” He states, almost sighing. You grit your teeth at his name for you, but you decide it is not worth the argument.

You take a bite of the stale bread. The moan of your stomach subsides for a moment.

“I am appreciative…”

He sits back, his shoulders flexing under his jean button-up. You scan his body, noting his dirty clothes and muddy brown boots. He was always tracking things into your bedroom from the bottom of his shoes and it ate away at your need for wanting things more clean. Your sober mind needed tidiness.

He grunts, “Doesn’t seem that way, sweetheart. Didn’t thank me just now.”

You try to get your thoughts in order before you respond. You take one careful bite into the sandwich, trying to read the man sitting in front of you. He got you sober. He feeds you and houses you even though he could have shot you in the face for being involved with a man who screwed him over. And he is not a bad view to look at when you eat.

“Thank you, Joel.”

He stands up and saunters over to you. As you swallow your bite, your eyes trail up his large frame. You start to worry a bit. Maybe he did not see your answer as genuine.

His thumb begins to trace the outline of your jaw, before slowly making its way up to your cheekbone. You grasp onto the plate tighter, your eyes piercing his as he focuses in on your lips. When you think he’s about to pull away, his palm goes over your mouth and his hand squeezes your cheeks together. His grip on you is painful, his fingers sinking into the divots of your upper jaw.

“You are receptive to feedback. Which is a good thing…” He trails off. Your heart starts to pound against your rib cage as you wait for the other shoe to drop. His hand jerks your head to the right, inspecting your side profile. “You will be good for me.”

You do not know what he is insinuating and are too afraid to speak up. You dip your head down, trying to promise him silently. Yes, I will be good. Please don’t kill me.

He slowly lets go of your face. He brings his thumb up to his lips and licks the very tip of the finger. You watch him bring it back down to your level. You flinch when he brings it up to the very corner of your lip. He wipes away at something like a father would to his young child who had food left on their face.

Joel was violent. But he was quiet about it and that scared you. He moved with such intention and you found yourself occasionally hypnotized by his aura. He was unlike any man you ever met. It could be the fact that others around you made him out to be some enigma, but maybe he was one.

You finally manage to speak up, the sudden tender touch starkly different from the aggression just minutes before.

“What do you want with me?”

It comes out as a whisper, but with Joel being so close, his ears perk up.

His face does not change from the steeled expression. “Time.”

He gives you breakfast one morning. You have been sleeping in, trying to use slumber as a substitute for food and it seemed to work for a couple of days. Joel brings in a plate with eggs and some stale bread. You had not seen him bring in eggs before and it shocked you. Your eyes almost well up in tears when he hands it to you in bed.

“Thank you, Joel.”

He sits in his usual spot and watches you scarf down the meal. “I am going to be gone for a couple of days.”

Your eyes shoot back at him, confusion laced in your countenance. “What about me?”

“I’m letting you have access to the kitchen and living room. You’re not allowed to leave. The door will be locked from the outside.”

The thought of being alone for that long scares you. Your thoughts start spinning. Why is he leaving you? Why would he let you be alone? Would you be able to eat?

Joel can see the cogs turning in your brain.

“You are leaving me alone?”

He claps his hands on his thighs as he stands, “I have a run to make. I usually have other guys do it for me but I gotta do this one myself. You will be okay.”

For some reason, your instinct is to worry about him. Going out of the QZ walls is always a very dangerous feat and you knew he would be unprotected from the elements and infected. Joel seems more than capable, but anything can happen. What would happen if he died out there?

“How long will you be gone?”

The question comes out desperate and you do not mean it to. You crawl out from under your covers, planting your feet on the ground. You suddenly felt hot. When the cold air hits your bare legs, you realize that you forgot you discarded your pants in the middle of the night. You were just in your underwear in front of him.

Joel’s eyes flicker down your unclad legs. You had a good radar when it came to men checking you out and as much as you did not want to admit it, you knew Joel was doing just that.

His lips twitch, “Not long. Two days, max.”

You cross your legs, holding your hands in front of your crotch in an attempt to try to shield yourself a bit. You watch him meander over to you, his steps purposeful. Once he reaches about a foot away, your breathing slows as his hand trails up your arm.

You felt this tension rise within the room and for a second you think he may act on his reaction to your legs. But instead, he just clears his throat. You are a bit disappointed and you do not know why.

“I’ll be good, Joel.”

You survive the first night. You busy yourself with stuff around his apartment. You decide that you would not snoop through his belongings, only organizing the kitchen cabinets and alphabetizing his record collection. You had found a sense of purpose, filling your day with pointless tasks.

When the second night comes, you decide that you finally need a shower. Joel did not tell you that you could use the bathroom in his room, but you became aware that the other tub did not work and was covered in mold. The smell in the bathroom was enough to make you gag.

You were starting to reek of body odor and you did not want to sleep another night smelling the way you did. Plus, you knew the soap you used when Joel called you pretty was in that shower. He could not be that mad.

So, you tiptoe into his room and wander into his bathroom. When you flick on the light, you notice some of his beard shavings in the sink bowl. To the left of the shower curtain, you spot a jumbled pair of boxer shorts. You feel a pang in your stomach. His face appears in your mind. You cannot stop yourself from imagining him in the room with you, just like he was when you stripped for your shower before.

You step into the cool water, letting it soak you as your hands traveled around your body. Your nerve endings were buzzing as your thoughts pondered the idea of Joel being there with you.

The glimmer of his eyes when you were pantsless days before still rattled around in your head. You had not been desired in so long and with that action alone, Joel made you feel wanted. The tension was so palpable. His close proximity to you, the occasional gentle touches, it was enough to fill your mind with all the dirty possibilities.

Your hand travels down to between your legs. At first it’s only to clean, but as you explore, you cannot help but slip your fingers between your folds. The titillating motion is enough to have you throwing your head back in pleasure. You squeeze your eyes shut, thoughts drifting to how you need an explosive release and you sickeningly want Joel Miller to give it to you.

Your pointer finger and middle spread your folds, rubbing carelessly and eagerly. You have not felt this driven to orgasm in years. You recall the sight of Joel’s stomach the first day you met him. Then you think about the boxers right outside of the shower next to you. Your thoughts spin and suddenly he’s naked in your mind.

Your hand only moves quicker with the thoughts. Your clit is aching with such intensity, you are shuttering and using your free hand to balance yourself on the tub’s wall. The water is pounding down your chest, dripping through the valley of your breasts.

Your eyes open a bit as you try to find your footing and you notice a bar of soap that’s covered in his short hairs. You snatch it up, bringing it up to your nose as your lips quirk up into a smile.

Of course, it smells like him.

You finger yourself faster, his name spilling from his lips as you press the bar into your face. It is almost like you are imagining it is his face stuck to your face.

“Joel… Oh my god, Joel-”

The sound of the curtain being ripped away from its spot makes you completely jump out of your skin. His fierce brown eyes raking down your completely nude frame, hunched over and in a compromising position. He slams his fist against the faucet, shutting the water off in one swoop. You drop his soap to the floor, scrambling backward trying to dodge his rage.

He is pissed.

His hand wraps around your bicep, ripping you out of the tub and onto the tile. Your hip hits the ground first and it sends a shooting pain up your back. He is panting like he just ran a mile, standing over your sopping naked frame.

“What are ya’? A bitch in heat?” He spits. You are so dazed and a bit afraid, you start to shake and raise your hands in defense.

He squats down to you, his eyes scanning your dripping body. His hands work so quick to reach out and grab your face. With clenched teeth, he brings your face close. “Answer me.”

His grip is tight on your face and you do not know if you can even respond effectively. You feel your core pulsate with the way he has a hold of you.

“I-I wanted to s-shower.”

He mocks you, “I-I… You are fuckin’ yourself in my shower like a dirty whore.”

He turns back to check to see if he actually saw you holding his bar of soap. It’s in pieces at the bottom of the tub surround. He pulls his hand away but the sting still remains.

“I-I’m sorry, Joel.”

His gaze falls upon you again, a little less aggravated. “Dry off and get dressed. Sit on my bed when you’re done.”

Your mind is all over the place when you sit down on Joel’s bed. He is not in the room but you hear him in the kitchen moving around. You hear the clatter of some plates and then him grunting.

When he barges in,you can tell he is annoyed still.

“You reorganized?”

Your heart pounds with uncertainty. You did not believe that would ever set him off, but you are starting to realize you have gauged Joel incorrectly. “Yes.”

He stops his pacing, his hands still propped up on his hips. “Why?”

“Because I needed to keep busy while you were gone. I also went through and-”

“Alphabetized the records. I saw.”

Nothing was getting past him. Your breathing is labored, the idea of him killing you for helping him be more orderly is so pathetic. You had to go out in a better way.

You clench your hands in your lap, “I did not mean to make you angry.”

He does not say anything, staring at you with an askane expression. He pivots to the dresser beside the bed, opening up the top drawer. He pulls out a pair of gray sweatpants and a beat up white t-shirt. He folds them meticulously, stacking them and then handing them to you.

You reach out for them, putting them in your empty lap.

“Put them on and get under the covers.”

Of all the things he could have said, this surprises you the most. “In my own bed?”

“No, this one.”

You look back at his perfectly made bed. He wanted you to sleep with him?

“Joel-”

“We are tryin’ somethin’ new tonight. Change your clothes while I take a shower with my soap, and be under those covers when I get out,” His outline of directions is seriously rattling you to your core. You felt nervous but almost excited?

You watch him turn on his heels and amble over to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Your stomach sinks when you hear the lock click. You look down at the clothes he gave you, raising them up to check the tags.

Just your size.

His bed is way more comfortable than the mattress you were cursed with. The blue quilt feels soft and worn under your fingertips. You lay on your back, feeling out of your own body. You hear the water shut off in the bathroom and your heart starts racing. You hear the rip up the curtain and some small stomps as Joel must be exiting the shower.

When the door creaks open and you see him standing in only some boxer shorts, your breathing hitches. His hair is brushed backward and his hairy upper body is a sight to behold. You silently wished you had this image earlier when you were rubbing your clit.

He walks over to his dresser, the same dresser he pulled clothes for you out of, and grabs a plain white t-shirt. He tosses it over his head, pushing his arms out of the holes on the side. It was slightly stained at the collar and it was see-through enough that you saw his dark chest hair still.

“You are sleeping with me tonight,” He announces, walking over to the opposite side of the bed. Your stomach flips when you watch him pull the blanket back and crawl under the blanket. You observe how drastic his mood shifted from ripping you out of the shower. Why did he want you in his bed? What was his end goal? Your core is still sticky with your desire. You secretly wish he would just take advantage of you already.

But he does not even turn your direction. You watch him face his back to you, tuck one arm under his pillow and shut the lamp off.

Your mind starts to race. The bedroom door is unlocked, you can see it in the moonlight. You could easily slip out of the bed in the middle of the night and head for the front door and run.

But it’s the same thought that slipped your mind when Joel left you a couple days ago. You could have jumped out a window, rigged the doorknob to the apartment to get out, but you just never did. Instead, you sat idle inside Joel’s apartment and waited for him to return.

And now you have access to him when he’s at his most vulnerable. What was preventing you from sneaking a pointy object into the bedroom and stabbing him directly in the throat?

Because you needed him. And while your demented and violent thoughts of all the ways you could kill him rattled around in your mind, you knew deep down you would never do it. You craved the need to impress him. To be good for him.

He’s silent next to you, not a sound leaving his body. You are not even sure if he is asleep when you slowly turn on your side, facing away from him as well.

Somehow, you sleep better in his bed than your own.

The routine changes after that night.

Joel wakes up as soon as the sun breaks the sky and he leaves you in his bed as he prepares you breakfast. When you hear the door reopen, you always wake up to his frame standing over you with a plate. You rub your eyes as you grab the handoff, propping yourself up on his headboard. He would sit on the end of the bed, nibbling on his own meal.

And then he starts asking you questions.

It starts off with him asking you where you were from originally. You explain how you traveled with a group of people that were essentially raiding other established communities. You had escaped the Baltimore QZ when a bunch of people got infected practically overnight and there was no oversight. When you got out, the people who survived with you became vicious and desperate.

Then he asks you about your relationship with Roger.

You give him the overview. You tell him you relied on him to fund your mind-numbing habits and he left you to look over his stash. When you press him about what he did to him, Joel gives you those eyes. Almost to say “you don’t get to ask the questions here.”

Most days you sat on the couch and read his collection of books. You were not the fastest reader so it took days to get through some of the stories. He had a lot of books about space and a variety of science fiction. He would leave every day, running his usual business. When he got back home, you would still be planted on the sofa, reading. He would slam his keys down and get to work on your Spam sandwich.

Every other night you would shower. After the soap incident, he kept his soap on the very top corner of the shower. When you first noticed it, you smiled sickly.

The sleeping situation is the same every night. You lay on your back, Joel lays on his side, completely facing away from you. Sometimes in the middle of the night, your arms would brush his back and he would stir. You tried your very best not to test his limits even though you had no real clue what they were.

One particular night, the window he kept cracked was letting in the most frigid air. You always ran cold while Joel was like a furnace when he slept. He radiated enough heat to keep a whole house warm. But this night you were shaking under the quilt, your toes feeling like they may fall off.

You turn on your side, facing his expansive back. You are so deliberate with your movement that when your arm falls over his waist, his body jolts. Instead of slapping you away or turning to face you, his body just stills completely, not even a rise and fall of breath.

“What are you doing?” He asks through the darkness, his sleepy voice. Almost wholesome.

You stifle a response, trying your best to sound confident. “I’m cold.”

He finally breathes out, his arm moving down over yours and holding it against his waist. Your heart races so hard you can hardly fathom falling asleep, but at least you were warm.

You start to do it every night, even when the air is balmy outside. You settle on your side, your arm swinging over his waist and pulling your lower half taut with his butt. You never expected you would ever be spooning Joel Miller every night, but here you were, wearing his clothes with your pelvis flush to him.

Your hand finds his hips one night while you adjusted your position. Your hand graces right below his waist and you feel his member half-hard in his boxer shorts. It makes your eyes snap open, the shock of your body waking him up. Your hand does not move, though. You hover it over that spot, curiously wanting to touch him through his shorts.

“Do you feel me?”

His voice makes your throat tighten, unsure of how to respond to such a question. So you just hum and shake your head.

He takes your reluctant hand and pushes it down to his clothed cock, his body pushing back into a bit. Your mind is still a bit fuzzy from your slumber, but when you feel him harden under your touch, you do not want to stop until you finish him.

He is deliberately moving your hand around, pulling it over and under his boxers until you are touching his bare cock. You shutter at how large it feels in your hand and you cannot even see it from how you are laying. Your hand cannot completely wrap around it due to its girth.

“Joel…” You practically whimper, clawing his back to get him to lay back so you can see him. He does not budge, still laying on his side.

Your hand massages the very base of his dick, his curly hair poking your fingertips as you do. You are so eager that as you jerk him off, he grabs your hand to start guiding you slower. When your hand graces his tip, he hisses.

“Gotta take me slow, girl,” He groans, holding your wrist so tight you know it will be bruised in the morning. You do as he says, slowly and methodically following how he likes to be jerked off. After a minute, you can hear his shallow breaths increasing as you bring your speed up just a bit.

“Are you gonna cum?”

You try to say it in a sultry voice, but it comes out rushed and desperate. You just want to see him seize by your own hand. Joel grunts, his grip on your arm practically stilling your movements before he can even finish. You resist his persistent handle on you. You craved to make him orgasm. Eventually, he pushes his hips forward into your hand, sighing as he releases.

You feel the ropes of cum spill all over the back of your hand. As soon as the warm seed empties onto you and his tummy, he rips back the covers and stumbles into the bathroom. He shuts the door so fast, you hardly see him through the dark.

You look at his clear-white fluid on your knuckles and smile in satisfaction.You want him to see your next actions.

The bathroom light spills into the room as he holds out a wash rag to you. It’s obvious it’s the one he just used on himself. You shake your head, bringing your hand up to your lips, extending your tongue, and licking the spend off your knuckles. You swallow, willingly.

He gawks at you, his eyebrows still knitted together, watching you clean off your hand entirely. “Didn’t even need my help. What a good girl.”

You wake up with Joel standing over you. It rattles you a bit, his stare zeroed in on your face.

“Mornin’,” He uttered, holding out a small pile of clothes for you. “We are goin’ on a field trip.”

The last thing you expected after jerking the man off last night was an outing. You sit straight up, holding out your hands for him to shove the clothes in your palms.

“Where are we going,” You stammer, pushing the covers down your legs.

His eyes rake down your body as you stand up, almost standing at attention in front of him.

“You’re comin’ to work with me.”

You look down at the clothes he has given you. Some cargo pants, a short sleeve gray top, and even a new pair of underwear.

This is the first outing you have had since being with Joel, so you are a bit nervous thinking about how the outside world may be. It cannot be any worse than it already was, but you worried about how you would be perceived walking down the street with Joel Miller.

The more you ponder the idea, you start to feel more reassured than anything. If you were placed beside anyone, you would want it to be with the guy everyone feared. No one would ever think to give you a hard time.

Joel’s line of work was dangerous but it was also a powerful role to have in this fucked up world in the QZ. You were on the right side of the insanity, in your opinion. Joel was your protection in some demented fucked-up way.

You get dressed as he makes breakfast. This morning, he decides to make you two some eggs that he said were getting old so he had to make them. He likes his eggs runny, so you had to like yours runny, too.

You two sat at the dining table as you ate. He scarfs his down in a minute, while you take your time to savor the different flavor. You missed eating food that was not Spam or plain bread. Joel notes your painstakingly slow chews.

“Hurry up, we got places to be.”

The people on the streets pay mind to you now. Before, when you did leave your former place with Roger, everyone kept their heads down. Occasionally people would slam into you with their shoulders, acting like they could phase right through you.

When you walk with Joel, people move out of the way.

The alleyway is not too far from Joel’s apartment. He forces you to walk in front of him, copying every step you make with his loud footfalls. He grabs your shoulders to direct you down a concrete staircase that seems to lead to nowhere. At the bottom, a brute man stands with his arms crossed. You hesitantly stop right in front of him, your eyes taking in all the scars littering his face.

Joel grunts. “She’s with me, Pete. Thomas and Garrett in there with him?”

The man, who’s now known as Pete, just nods minutely. Joel pushes the door beside him open and grabs your forearm to drag you through the threshold. It’s a dimly lit hallway that smelled like dampness and gunpowder. There’s two light bulbs dangling from the paint chipped ceiling that guide you to the end of the hallway. Joel pushes open the door, and you smell that familiar metallic smell.

It was a smell that leaked into your dreams occasionally. It’s so overpowering you can almost taste it.

When you walk in, the room is occupied by three men. Two are standing over the other, their bodies blocking the entirety of the scene. You do note the huge puddle of blood on the floor near a knocked over wooden chair. Joel clears his throat and the two men step away looking at Joel, then you. They have to be around your age, maybe a bit older. The blond man speaks up first as he scans your body.

“Bringing your kid along for the show?”

You glance over at Joel who’s jaw tightens. You watch his whole demeanor shift, his body becoming rigid.

“Get out of here, Garrett.”

The blond man furrows his brows, not understanding why he was really being directed to leave. You can sense a bit of hesitance. “Joel, I’m just kidd-”

“Get the fuck out, now. We don’t need you.”

The man scrambles past you and Joel, shutting the door behind him. The dynamic Joel and his men have is very easy to figure out. Whatever he says, goes. The look the other man is giving him is that of unease.

“He confessed that he stole from our stash. More than once.” Joel walks forward, drawing his gun out. Finally, the man on the floor comes into full view.

And you recognize him.

He was a pill smuggler that had come over to Roger’s a couple times before. He always gave off the vibe that he would take advantage of anyone, especially a woman. He would whisper things about you to Roger and you remember a couple times when he had inappropriately touched you. You believe his name to be Don. Maybe Ron.

His eyes are swollen and bruised. His lip is completely split open and he has a gnarly gash on his left cheekbone. He is tied up, his arms and legs bound by ropes and zip ties.

You are not at all phased by blood, but his beaten body is a bit hard to look at. He was not a nice looking man already, and surely the swelling was not helping him.

His lips part almost like he is about to speak up, but Joel swipes the butt of his gun across his face with insane accuracy.

One thing about you was you did not turn away from violence. Now that you are sober, it's easier to recognize that something was off for you to be so unfazed by the savagery. You sickeningly enjoyed watching people get their karma.

You had no context as to why this man was bound and brutalized in this random basement, but you knew Joel had good reason to set him straight.

“Donny boy, I thought we were friends,” Joel’s voice is dripping with sarcasm. He seems in his element as he squats in front of the man, “And you fucked me over good. Sold out people only to get yourself in this position. Pretty fuckin’ dumb.”

Don can hardly sit up, his body completely tilted with his elbow propping up his entire body weight. You can tell he is struggling to respond, but you hear the faintest voice quip up.

“I told the truth, please,” He begs as he attempts to sit up more. Joel grabs his shoulder roughly, balancing his back on his butt. “I won’t do it again.”

You cannot see Joel’s face, but you know he does not believe that. His shoulders slot back a bit as he stands up and turns to face you. His face is straight, not showing any emotion at all. You notice the gun still in his hand, his finger completely off the trigger.

“You know him?”

You just nod, your eyes peering down at the gun he has directed at you. His eyes flicker back and forth, seemingly contemplating what to say next. He pushes the weapon into your hand, his fingers curling around the grip so that your hand would follow suit. You watch every meticulous move, pulling the safety clip, slipping his hand away and gesturing towards the man.

“You’re gonna kill him.”

Your eyes fly open, unsure if this problem should be dealt with by you. The promise you made to yourself when you stepped foot in this QZ rattled around in your brain as you tried not to show Joel your irresolution. Your mouth is dry when you gulp, “Why?”

His hand presses on your back as he pushes you towards the guy. You are about 2 feet from him and Joel’s face is so close to your ear. It’s the closest he has ever been to you. You can feel his breath on your lobe and neck and it makes bumps scatter across your body.

He raises your arms, pointing the barrel towards Don. As soon as he does that, Don starts begging. His voice shaking, sweat pooling on his forehead, tears pricking at the corners of his swollen eyes.

Joel’s voice is so hushed over Don’s pleas. “He is the one who told me about Roger stealing from me. Little did I know, he was stealing from me, too.”

It is like a switch goes off in your brain. Your eyes are trained forward on the trembling man but it is as if the whole world went quiet when Joel stopped speaking. You hear white noise in your ears and your mind shuts off for a nanosecond. Your pointer finger slots between trigger guard and trigger and you squeeze, your aim right at his head.

You feel the spray explode across your face and suddenly you snap back to your reality.

Your body was overtaken by the need to please. The need to impress Joel. It was also like your own sick revenge. This man is the reason Roger was dead. The reason you got ripped from your normalcy. Your brain had no time to catch up to your body’s actions. Instead of flinching or falling backward away from the body of the traitor, you stand over him like he’s some commodity in a circus. With wonder and curiosity, you lower the gun and smile.

Joel steps beside you, his face expressing fervor.

Finally facing him and forgetting the other man in the room who was just a witness to the scene, you speak up.

“Did I do good?”

A small semblance of a grin spreads across his lips. “Very good, sweetheart.”

You and Joel do not stay in the room long after. Very quickly, he ushers you into another room where he checks a cabinet full of guns, looking over each other and counting in a hushed tone. You hear bounding footsteps in the hallway and men talking amongst each other.

The voices are rushed and surprised. One states, “She didn’t even flinch. Joel’s lucky to have her.”

You feel a tickle on your brow and itch it absentmindedly. As you pull your finger back and look at it, it is stained red.

You find a shiny surface in the room of arms and paraphernalia, glancing at your own reflection. The smear of blood goes across your forehead, while the splatter itself is speckled across your cheeks like freckles. Joel stops what he is doing to check you out, his steps trailing up to your back. His breathing is quite labored and as you stare at your own mirror image, you note the look he’s giving you.

His hand goes across your chest, his finger tips starting to dance across your décolletage.

“We gotta clean you up. Can’t have you walkin’ the streets lookin’ like you killed someone.”

He says it while he rubs the blood across your chest, smearing it and massaging it into your skin.

You loved it when he touched you. Even if it was roughly, you counted yourself lucky that Joel felt the need to do so.

“But I did kill someone.”

Your voice does not have any hesitance, you are simply stating facts. Joel’s chin tilts upward, his hand grabbing your shoulder and jerking you around to face him. His face is practically millimeters from the tip of your nose.

He grunts, almost like he’s clearing his throat. “And you didn’t even second guess me. I didn’t even need to push you, you just did it.”

You smirk to yourself, enjoying the slight praise he is giving you.

“And here I thought I was testin’ ya.”

Your eyes flicker up to his, trying to see right into his soul. Testing you?

“Did you not expect me to do it?” You bite.

“I had an inklin’ you’d be loyal. Consistent. Even a bit violent. But I didn’t expect a killer.”

Your chest rises at his statement. You are trying to manage your breathing as his words have a visceral effect on you. It was like he was talking dirty to you. Why did his impression of you mean so much? Ever since you met the man, you were at his mercy and you got off at his reassurance. It was like he was your new vice.

His right hand traces down your bare arm, while his left grabs your jaw. “Let’s get you cleaned up and home, how ‘bout it?”

You agree with a jerk of your head.

Once you walk into the apartment again, you are reminded of the smell of mold again. When the scent hits your nostrils, you scrunch your face. Joel is quick to notice the expression because his eyes and hands have not left your body since you shot that guy. He has been watching your every move.

You toe off your shoes by the front door as Joel tosses down the keys. He takes the handgun out of his waistband and places it carelessly next to them.

When he turns to look at you, he crosses his arms. He is studying you as you unzip the jacket he offered you. It was only to cover the blood that stained your new outfit.

“Take it off slow.”

You shoot him a confused look, still trying your best to follow his instructions. You shrug the jacket off your shoulders, letting it purposefully fall down your arms. The blood on your clothes has left semi-permanent spots on your skin. Once the clothing pools to the floor, you stand there at Joel’s mercy.

He clenches his jaw, nodding slowly as he inspects you. “Now the shirt.”

You do not second guess his next directions. You grab the hem of your shirt and draw it upward over your head. The fabric goes across your lips and nose lifting them up awkwardly. You smile when you drop the next article next to the jacket.

The anticipation makes your pussy pulsate. You have thought about this moment for longer than you care to admit.

“Pants.”

The pants are buttoned so you fumble with getting it undone before you are shoving them down your goosebump-ridden legs. When they get to your ankles, you use the opposite feet to step on the fabric and pull them off your feet. You kick them further away than the shirt and jacket.

You are only in your underwear in Joel’s living room. He is looking at you with such confliction. You have never felt very self conscious until this very moment.

“Should I keep going?”

It is an innocent question, but there is lustful intention behind it. There would be a point of no return if he did answer it.

“I was gettin’ there,” He steps towards you, his guise not giving away any of his next movements. His face was still unyielding. “Panties first.”

Your breathing hitches when his fingers wrap around the elasticity of the waistband.

“I’m still c-covered in blood-” “Shut up.”

You nod, sliding the underwear down and revealing your already dripping core. He sucks in a big breath of air as his hand reaches between your legs and swipes at your wetness with the pads of his fingers. Your entire body tenses, the feeling so foreign and exciting that you cannot contain your gasp for air.

Finally his expressionless face changes to a small twinge of a smile, “Dirty fuckin’ girl. Have been wantin’ this for a long time, eh?”

You are afraid to admit it out loud so you just nod. His fingers still make work through your folds and your knees feel like they may buckle with every swipe. Joel notes your position and grabs your face with his left hand, squeezing your cheeks so hard it forces you to look at him and stand up straighter.

His fingers dip into you briefly, making squelching noise so loud that you both groan.

“Joel,” you whimper, sounding desperate and hasty.

He leans forward, pressing his lips to yours. It is a passionate act you did not expect. You did not know that sex would Joel would mean open mouth kisses, but you are thankful for it. His hand releases its grip on your cheeks and wraps itself around the base of your throat. Your lips slip open for his tongue, letting it explore every inch of your mouth. His fingers are making their slow methodical movements around your clit, driving you absolutely insane with desire.

Your body seems so in tune with every movement he makes, but as you makeout with him, you realize it is because he has molded you this way. To curve and bend to his every will and way.

And you loved every moment of it. You thirsted for this type of control. You knew you would not have to worry or have a second thought, ever. Joel was already ten steps ahead and thinking out everything for you.

He pulls away from the kiss, his eyes flickering between your lips and eyes. You note the red tinge of blood on his lips from kissing yours.

“Get on your knees.”

You obey, whining when you realize that means he would no longer be keeping your pussy warm with his hand. Once your knees hit the hardwood, his hands are making work at his belt and jean buttons.

“You know how to suck dick? Or do I gotta do all the work for ya?”

Your eyes fly open at the vulgarity. You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, “Yes, Joel. I’ve done it before.”

Having his dick in your hand last night was one thing, but seeing it for the first time is jarring. He is definitely the biggest you have ever had the pleasure of being in front of. He can tell by the look on your face that you are a bit stunned.

“Let’s see how you do,” He inches his waist closer to your face and slightly ajar lips, “Open.”

Complying is what you do for Joel.

You open your mouth nice and wide as he inches his cock into your warm mouth. You close your eyes, trying to focus on not disappointing him with your gag reflex. You try your best to relax, but his watchful eye is making you feel disoriented.

He pulls out, letting you take a breath, only to push back in more forcefully. You try to stop his intrusion by putting your hand up on his hairy bare thigh, but it is no use. Your closed eyes prick with tears as Joel pulls out again, this time he is slapping his dick across your mouth.

“Keep those fuckin’ eyes open and on me. Open nice n’ wide and relax that fuckin’ throat.”

His demands needed to be met, so you nod and adjust your position, laying your tongue out. He inches in again and instead of resisting, you relax and watch him through your eyelashes. His face twists as he draws back, his cock getting so impossibly close to the back of your throat. When he hits your gag reflex, you grip onto your own thighs tightly to contain the urge to empty your stomach. He smiles sickly at your reaction. “Poor girl,” He teases, snapping his hips forward again. Another gag. “Can’t fuckin’ take me? Guess we will have to train that mouth and throat, huh?”

He keeps fucking your mouth as your eyebrows draw together in concentration. Joel’s loving every moment, watching you writhe under him. Your wetness is pooling on the hardwood and you can already hint the embarrassment you will feel if Joel notices.

You hollow out your cheeks, attempting to assert yourself in the situation. When you do that, Joel pulls out completely. He leans down to grab your arms and lifts you off the floor, dragging your shins against the uneven wood planks. And to your horror, he notices the wetness on the floor. “Drippin’ on the floor like a wet mop, ain’t ya?”

Joel’s eyes were always dark brown, but they look black with his eyes as dilated as they are. His grip on your arms is very assertive and when he pushes you back over the arm of the couch, you can feel your heartbeat in your ears.

“Please, Joel.”

He grabs you up by your armpits, dragging your body across the couch. When you're lying flat, he settles himself between your legs, holding your right leg taut with his hipbone.

“Keep begging,” He demands, a smug expression taking over his face. His eyes scour your entire body, “My little killer.”

The word sends your body into overdrive and you start grabbing at his body, trying to take what you want. He fights your hands, grabbing both of them and pinning them against the throw pillow right above your head.

You want to confess everything to him in that moment. The very moment you laid eyes on him, you wanted to give yourself to him. In every single way possible.

“I want you.”

“I know you do,” He grabs the shaft of his cock and begins his torture. Sliding it through your soaked folds and humming in satisfaction. You lift your hips, trying to get him to slip it in, but he is always quicker than you. “Desperate, ain’t ya?”

Before your face can react to his mocking, his hips snap forward, fully sheathing himself inside you. The meat of your thigh presses against his waist, trying to hold him in that spot, but he does not let up. The pressure is almost too much but the pain is appallingly satisfying.

You cannot even remember the last time you felt this. Your previous sexual encounters were usually hasty and boring. Most were not consensual and left you feeling gross and deprived of release.

The build up between you and Joel was a months long endeavor that left you feeling borderline insane. You could not help but let your desire for him fester.

His pace is not slow in the slightest, but it is calculated. You manage to widen your legs a bit allowing more space for his thighs to take up. As he kneels between you, you get a great view of his muscular flexed thighs.

Joel was a specimen. You could not stop yourself from admiring such a sight, especially when his hands are all over you and his dick is driving into you over and over. You had never been in love, never seen it first hand even, but you knew you love this moment. You love Joel for making you feel so good. That’s not a feeling you have ever had for anyone, let alone a man in this sick world.

“Oh my god, yes,” You clamor, your hands still locked over your head. The tension you feel in the pit of your stomach feels like it may explode, “Please, please.”

He repositions himself, releasing your wrists and pushing your legs up. You are folded in half while his upper body falls over you. You can already see the glistening of sweat across his neck and shoulders. His body locks you on the couch as he continues rocking into you.

“You don’t cum til I say, got me?”

He fucks into you harder now, and from this angle, you do not know how that will be possible. A couple more thrusts and you know you are a goner.

“I feel it,” You choke, trying to clench to prevent yourself from letting go before Joel’s instruction. “Joel.”

“I said hold that shit back,” His pace only speeds up, like he is chasing his own high, “Not ‘til I say.”

The friction is too much. You tug your lip between your teeth and you bite so hard that you start to taste blood. He is not letting up and you know the rope is about to snap. No matter how hard you try, when your eyes roll back and your body goes rigid, you let the release take over everything.

You are screaming, your voice cracking as you do. Joel’s hip stutter when your pussy tightens up around him, but you know he’s only slowing down because you did not listen.

Your limbs feel like jello and being that you are unable to really shift or move below Joel anyway, you just lay there limp. Joel flexes his arms and you can tell as he pulls away from your body that he is pissed.

“Roll over.”

You knit your brows together, still trying to manage your breathing. “I’m sorry-”

He slaps your thigh, the sting prickling down your entire leg. “Roll the fuck over.”

The motion takes almost all of your energy. When you are on your stomach, Joel hauls your ass towards his pelvis. With your ass up in the air, you can feel the cold air hit your spent cunt. Your head is tilted, only able to see Joel in your peripheral vision. He looks down at your pussy, dragging his cock head through your seams. You note how he smiles coyly.

When his lips purse and spit starts to dribble out, you start babbling all sorts of nonsense. The spit lands perfectly between your pussy lips and the top of his red tip.

“You know what happens to girls who don’t listen?”

You keen as he pushes his cockhead into your cunt, “What?”

“Punishment.”

The thrust is so powerful it has your body almost slamming back onto the sofa. As he ruts into you, the moans that come out of you do not sound human. You are already so sensitive from your orgasm, you know that it takes practically no touch at all to set off the chain reaction again.

His grip on your ass will leave bruises, just like all the other bruises he has given you in the last couple months. You count all of them like trophies. All the time Joel has touched you.

When the grip turns into open hand spanking, you know your ‘punishments’ would be something you would enjoy tempting time to time.

They are brutal. With each thrust, his palm comes down on your left ass cheek. All the while, his right fingers are digging scratches all along your ass and thigh. Between the sounds of the smacks and his balls slapping against your skin, you are being sent back into an ever-growing burn in the pit of your stomach.

“Fuckin’ pussy is squeezin’ my cock,” He mewls, his voice gravelly, “You like gettin’ spanked? Hm?”

You restrain yourself from screaming out that you love it. You settle for just, “Please don’t stop.”

You can hear him chuckle behind you, his actions continuing as he bucks into you.

“You’re lucky ‘m feelin’ nice.”

His hips start to stutter as you continue your mewling over his cock. He reaches out to your shoulders, pulling you upward and locking his arm around your neck. He has you in a loose headlock as he fucks you. Your hands rest on your forearm, your nails digging so hard that you leave small half moons on his freckled skin.

His other arm finds its way between your legs, swiping your clit as his thrusts become more labored. Even with the pace slowed down, the small titillating circles he pushes into your sensitive bud sends you over the edge again. As you fall apart in his arms, he spirals into his own climax, fucking his seed so deep into you that you will probably have it dripping out of you for days.

The husky moans he lets out as he empties himself inside you rattles in your eardrum. It was like music to your ears. You finally got what you want.

“You came again without permission.”

You do not respond, just grunt and fall onto the couch.

Your body is humming still. Joel’s half-hard cock is still standing at attention as he stands up and walks over to the kitchen. You grab the back couch cushion and push yourself up to watch him wander over the sink. His hand reaches for a kitchen towel and he wets it under the sink faucet.

His ass is so perfect and you silently curse yourself for not grabbing it when he was balls deep in you.

“Come ‘ere.”

You scramble up, your legs wobbling with each step. Joel’s eyes scan your entire body again, enjoying the sight of you so bare in front of him. “Didn’t think you were the one for aftercare.”

He furrows his eyebrows, as he extends the towel to you. “I ain’t. Wipe yourself up.”

Your heart pangs against your ribcage. For some reason you thought being so intimate with him would bring something different out. You are sorely mistaken.

The anger you felt earlier, the blind rage, takes over all your nerve endings again. You cannot stop yourself from lashing out after such a high. A high he gave you.

You slap the towel away, tilting your chin up at him. He has never seen you defiant. His face twists in confusion.

“You made me kill for you. Then you fuck me. And you can’t even give me any decency by wiping your fucking cum off of me?”

The words are like vomit coming out of your mouth. You ever thought you would talk back to him like this. It is the kind of thing you could have been killed for months ago. But now, you both are in vulnerable positions. You want to prove a point. Look at me, appreciate me, love me.

“Excuse me?”

His tone is threatening. But so is yours.

“You heard me.”

As silence cuts through the air, you notice the gun Joel put on the kitchen counter next to a broken coffee pot. He sees you eyeing it and goes to reach for it, but you are closer and a bit faster than him. When your hand wraps around the metal, you point it directly at his hairy chest.

Proving a point with violence was always your specialty. Before the alcohol, and now, after the alcohol.

“You fuckin’ bitch,” He bites, his lips tightening inward, “You put that shit down now.”

You are steady with it, your finger not on the trigger, but only millimeters from gracing it. “No.”

“You’re not gonna kill me. Not after all you just did for me,” His voice is more clipped, his words staggered. His hands raise in the air, almost in surrender. “Put it down.”

You are not sure what your next move should be. The rage now turns into confliction.

You have screwed yourself for snapping so quickly at him and now he was never going to trust you. Threatening him with words would be one thing, but pointing a gun at center mass was absurd. While you wanted to get your point across to him, you knew this was overkill. Your fuse was so short and your urges were unkempt. Acting on impulse was going to get you in major trouble.

In the time you are second guessing your actions, Joel’s already springing forward and snatching the gun from you. You are easy to disarm when you are not prepared for a naked man springing at you in your time of contemplation. Joel grabs the gun, pushing you backward into the kitchen counter and points it at you.

“Now…” His southern drawl carries out the word. Your heart is pounding, the same way it was racing last time Joel trained a gun on you. This time was different. Instead of a look of contempt and uncertainty, he appears to be offended by your actions. “You know damn well that shit ain’t gonna fly with me.”

“Joel-” “Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” He steps closer, the gun still trained on you, “You know better, don’t ya?”

The coldness of the barrel on your right collarbone is enough to send you over the edge. Your eyes flicker between his chest, his lips, to his eyes, “I do. I don’t know what came over me.”

His eyes reflect a silent consideration. He is trying to figure out if he believes you or not. You silently pray he does even if you do not fully believe yourself.

“You are too quick to react to someone tellin’ you no. Knock that shit off now or else we will have bigger issues.”

You knew those bigger issues would lead to Joel putting you out of your misery. You would have to work on impulse control. “It won’t happen again. I will work on it.”

“You’re lucky I love that pussy of yours or else you would have a hole in your fuckin’ head.”

Love.

“You love it?”

He smirks at your candor. He did not even realize he said that. “Get on your knees and beg for my forgiveness. You don’t have time to get a big head.”

“On my knees?”

He clenches his jaw, withdrawing the end of the gun from your skin. It leaves a small circle indentation, solidifying that next time, there may be a much bigger one there. “On your knees, little one.”

divider from @/saradika-graphics

2K notes · View notes

jaxon-exe · 3 months ago

Text

I’ve seen that future…

If you had told Danny that joining the justice league would mean getting up at the ass crack of dawn to go to some stupid meeting, he never would have joined. Well that not fully true but he might have agreed to have a Zata tube installed in Amity. Even with how much he hates those things it still seems like a better idea now that he is flying through space trying to catch up with this stupid satellite. He was already late thanks to Skulker, which means he missed his perfectly times window to catch the watchtower in orbit so now he’s here playing catch up.

He didn’t even bother to slow down from his Mach 20 pace when he reached it. Just turned intangible and shot through the window into the meeting room. He was expecting to get scolded for being late. Or for his dramatic entrance but he was not expecting the other members to not notice him at all on account of them arguing.

Taking the golden opportunity to get out of a scolding, (he did not want to be the victim of another bat glare) he kept he’s mouth shut and floated down to Hal. Who seemed to be sulking off to the side of the fight. “Dude, what’s gonna on?”

“Batman,” the name was spat like a curse. “Had plans on how to take us all out.” Hal waved to the screen before him, inviting Danny to look.

“Really?” He floated to the screen, seeing files with each leaguer’s name. After a moment of hesitation, he clicked on his own.

“Yeah! Can you fucking believe this?” Hal growled out. “He planned on how to kill us all and is now acting like we’re the unreasonable ones.” Danny would normally be shaken by Hal’s anger. The guy so rarely got truly anger that it startled Danny every time. In that moment however he couldn’t bring his attention way from the screen. It was a decent plan. Risky, unlikely to work but decent. The fact Batman did this at all though. “You think you know a guy, right? Phantom?” Hal asked when he saw the ghost wasn’t responding to him.

Before he could continue his questioning Phantom shot off across the room. All leaguers that could keep up with the ghost speed braces from a fight when they saw him heading straight for Batman. They were anger with him yeah but they didn’t want him dead. They all knew Phantom was physically capable of doing that and had only seen him fly this fast in battle.

Their concern turned to confusion however when Danny stopped dead still just before the dark knight. Looking the man over before reaching to the side, Danny’s hand disappearing into a green vortex that appeared out of thin air. When he pulled back, a small metal box, no bigger than a watch box, laid in his hand as he presented it to Batman.

“This is a blood blossom.” The soft words cut through the tense silence. “It is one of, no it is the only thing that can kill me. For good.” Batman looked at the box, then at the boy. Determination sat on his brows despite the tired sadness that coloured his eyes. “If I…” His eyes broke away from the white lenses. “If I go bad. Please. I understand you don’t want to kill. So please, give this to someone who will kill me.”

No one moved for a moment as they processed the request. Emotions shifting wildly in them all. Superman’s landing on anger. “Why would you give him that?!” He stepped forward. “He already plans to kill us all why would you give him that?!”

“Because I’ve seen that future.” The conference was stated plainly. Melancholy waiting down on the boy as he turn to the others. “The realms are different than here.” His trembled. “Time works differently. You can walk into tomorrow and run into yesterday. Every possibly future exists within the realms.”

He scanned each heroes face as his voice harden. “I’ve seen what happens. I know what happens if I turn.” Danny took a deep breath as he met superman’s eyes. Gazing at him with eyes that saw more than what was in front of him. “I killed you first Clark.” It was stated as fact. Non of them could bring themselves to doubt him. “Then Diana. Then Hal. One by one each one of you were killed… by me.”

His breath came out frosted, his emotions making it hard to keep from freezing the watchtower as he turned back to Batman. “You survived the longest. Out of everyone here you got the closest to stopping me. In that reality however, you didn’t know about ghost. Didn’t know how to fight me.” He held out the box again. “Please, I can’t let that future happen.”

Everyone was stunned. Watching in silent shock as the horror of what Phantom said sunk in. Batman recovers quickest, slowly reaching out to grab that box which he now identified as being made of lead.

“Thank you Phantom.” There was more to those words than what it may appear. A silent reassess that the ghost picked up on.

#dp x dc #dp x dc fanfic #I just felt like writing this #prob won’t continue it so soz for that #just feel like this isn’t mentioned enough #like Danny being scared of becoming Dan and being thankful that Batman has contingency plans

2K notes · View notes

yandere-daydreams · 2 months ago

Text

exhibit #1 - dacryphilia

an installment of the freak shit march gallery showcase.

pairing: yandere!alhaitham x reader (genshin).

length: 2.0k.

warnings: non/con, student + teacher, rough oral sex, wildly unbalanced power dynamics, academic stress, degradation, mild infantalization, and forced helplessness.

The worst part was – it really wasn’t that easy to make you cry.

Before enrolling in Alhaitham’s class, you could only remember it happening twice. Once in adolescence, when hearing that your adoptive guardian had lost his life during an encounter with a group of thieves, and later on, after you failed your first attempt at the Akademiya’s entrance exam with a score so low, it could be expressed in single digits. It wasn’t that you were the stoic type – no, you and Alhaitham had nothing in common, let alone your dispositions. You just preferred to express yourself in more productive ways. Something so irrational, so hysterical, didn’t come naturally to you, and it never had before. You just didn’t cry.

Hence why it was all the more frustrating to be seated in front of Alhaitham’s desk for the fifth time in as many classes, fighting back tears. Your latest paper, an analysis of mythological tropes shared between the ancient folklore of Sumeru’s desert and forest regions, sat in front of you, drowned in red ink and creased from careless handling. You were sure his notes were thoroughly scathing, but so much as thinking about trying to read over them left tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, a fresh sob rising into your throat. It was humiliating. It was pathetic. Children cried over bad grades, not adults. Not you.

If Alhaitham noticed your distress, he kept his concerns to himself. His narrowed gaze remained centered loosely on the book in his right hand, the pointer finger of his left tapping idly against the tabletop. “I’m sure you understand why I can’t accept this,” he started, disinterest thick in his tone. You might’ve found some amount of comfort in his boredom, if it hadn’t been so degrading. “The Akademiya holds certain standards of quality for its students, and the work you’ve submitted is—” A measured beat, a shift to his inclination. “—less than. The orthodox course of action would be supervised revisions, but given the severity of the corrections needed, starting from scratch seems more advisable.”

You tried to control your breathing – five seconds in, five seconds out. The tactic was mildly effective until Alhaitham glanced up from his book and, rather jarringly, you processed he expected you to answer. “…I understand,” you managed, keeping the tremors in your voice down to a slight, nearly imperceptible shake. “But—”

Alhaitham cut in. “But?”

Your chest started to ache, and you realized you’d stopped breathing entirely. “It’s just—I do have other courses this semester, and the amount of time I’ve dedicated to your rewrites—It’s starting to affect my other classwork.” And your social life, and your psyche, and your physical health. You couldn’t remember you’d fallen asleep without a quill in your hand. “I’m sorry, but if there’s any way I could get any amount of credit for what I’ve already done, that would—”

“That would be letting personal circumstance circumvent academic merit.” The knot lodged in the base of your throat tightened. You balled your fists in your lap and counted to ten. “To give you any amount of credit, the work you’ve submitted would have to be worth any amount of credit. Unfortunately, it isn’t.” His gaze shifted to you. “Is that clear?”

You opened your mouth, but it was too late. The dam was busted, the pillar split, and despite your best efforts, the totality of your despair came crashing down around you. You tried to set your jaw, to shut your eyes, but the sobs escaped regardless – tiny and whimpered, fractured by unsteady breathing and your own failure to choke them back. The tears were almost worse, more pathetic, more childish – staining your cheeks and dripping down your chin, spotting the collar of your uniform. You pawed at your face with your sleeves, but that only drew more attention to your instability. If you’d had any less pride, you might’ve fled his office entirely, but the only thing worse than breaking down in front of your professor would’ve been breaking down in front of your peers. You couldn’t take their coddling attempts at kindness, their cooed assurances that Alhaitham really wasn’t that demanding, not after you knew what he was expecting. You couldn’t make yourself seem anymore hopeless than you already were.

Alhaitham, at least, had the decency to keep his mouth shut. He watched on in silence before sighing, setting his book down, and pushing himself to his feet.

He rounded the desk with no great sense of urgency. You were sobbing into your hands when he came to a stop next to your seat, and for one brief, horrifying moment, you thought he might actually attempt to comfort you. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, though, his voice remaining painfully neutral as he spoke. “You need to pass my class, don’t you?”

“Y-yes.” It was a required credit, and you’d missed the unenrollment period. Trying to back out now would be nearly, if not flatly, impossible. “I’d do—”

“Anything, I know. Save put the bare minimum amount of thought into your assignments, apparently.” You felt him reach down, raking his fingers through your hair. “And you mean that? Anything I’d ask of you?”

Had you been a little more lucid, a little less sleep deprived, you might’ve noticed the cloying note to his last question, the uncharacteristic warmth to his touch as his hand slipped from your scalp to your check, a thumb idly brushing away your tears. But, you were distraught beyond the point of reason, and the last of your energy had been spent on a paper he hadn’t deemed worth his time, and it was all you could do to nod into his hand.

Alhaitham, practical as always, wasted no time. “Get on your knees.”

…

Where there might’ve been shock, there was only dull dread. You’d heard about things like this before – tutors holding study materials over the heads of desperate lower-classmen, department head leveraging funding against the morals of insecure young scholars. Of course, you’d always assumed you would never fall into something so obviously depraved, and of course, you sniffled pathetically as you lowered yourself to the floor, collapsing onto your knees in front of Alhaitham. He let his hand drift to the back of your head, its weight settling against your scalp. You tried not to think about why he might want to hold onto you.

He took the initiative, mercifully. You were still biting back pitchy little cries as he shrugged his pants low on his hips, taking his cock in his free hand. Horrifyingly, he was already stiff. You couldn’t tell which had gotten him hard – the idea of the act itself, or the opportunity to exploit a student.

Alhaitham pumped his fist over his length, tightening his grip as he reached the flushed head. His eyes never left you. “Do you know what you’re doing, or will you need remedial courses in this subject, too?”

You pursed your lips. “That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

You weren’t looking forward to this, but having to keep talking to him suddenly seemed like the worse of two evils. You managed to swallow back the last of your tears as you leaned forward, awkwardly replacing his hand with your own. He carded his fingers through your hair as you took his tip past your lips, letting it sit on your tongue. The taste was earthy and bitter, with something more acidic playing just underneath. In another context, it might not have been entirely unpleasant, but right now, it only made you want to wretch.

Shutting your eyes, you soldiered on. Guiding him into the hollow of your cheek would’ve been easier, but Alhaitham was quick to correct you – jerking your head upright as soon as it started to lull to the side. He held you in place as he bucked his hips, the head of his cock bumping against the back of your throat as the girth of his shaft forced your jaw open. You gagged around him, but if Alhaitham cared, it would’ve been impossible to know. There was an airy grunt, then a click of his tongue – a teacher correcting their pupil’s latest mistake. “Breathe through your nose. If you pass out, we’ll only have to start over.”

The bastard. The heartless, sadistic bastard. Your hands shot to his legs as he thrust himself deeper into you; manually nodding your head in time with his languid strokes. You would’ve been better off going limp, letting him do what he needed to and ending this that much sooner, but something primal and contrarian in the darkest depths of your mind spurred you to try and keep up, to bob, to dig your nails into his thighs and stop your throat from seizing around him. The pressure was the worst part – all force, no relief, the gnawing awareness that you were losing air paired with the alien weight of something occupying a part of you that was meant to be vacant. The tears were back in an instant, leaking from the corners of your eyes, joining your spit where it was starting to spill out at the corners of your lips, and Alhaitham groaned, twitching against the inside of your throat.

“This doesn’t mean you won’t need regular tutoring sessions.” His grip tightened, blunt nails biting into your scalp. You whined in pain as he pressed your nose to his stomach, holding you there for a second, then another before jerking your back. “Home visits should prove to be the most effective. You’ll come to me, of course. The student accommodations are too public – it’ll distract you.”

You started to shake your head, but Alhaitham held you still, keeping you concentrated on his cock. By now, his pace was steady, his face flushed, his cock battering its shape into your throat. Tasting him wasn’t an option, anymore. It seemed to coat your tongue, drip down your throat, slather itself over every part of you it could infect. You cried out around his cock, and Alhaitham cursed, his hips stuttering against your mouth. “You’ll come to me, every day, and I’ll—fuck, I’ll—”

Suddenly, violently, he pushed you away and pulled out of your mouth. His hand made it to his cock in time to pump once, twice before your black-rimmed vision was spotted with white, before thick ropes of something hot and terrible were being painted over your face. It was all you could do to blink, to stare, to wonder why he was still looking at you with that awful, frigid intensity. You wished he would look away. You wished you’d never taken his fucking class at all.

You opened your mouth to say as much, but something thick dripped off of your upper lip and onto your tongue. Numbly, you let the bitter, corrosive taste wash over you, and then, you broke down.

What little pride you had left wasn’t worth salvaging, anymore. You sobbed and shook unabashedly, wailing like a child as his cum cooled on your skin. Alhaitham made a passing effort to hush you before kneeling to your height and taking you in his arms. With no strain whatsoever, he carried you back to his seat and fell into it, keeping you bundled against his chest. “You’ll come to me, every day, and I’ll make sure you’re not thinking about anything beyond you and I,” he finished. “That way, you’ll only have to remember what I tell you to.”

Alhaitham paused, sighed. “That is, if the General Mahamatra doesn’t decide to expel you from the Akademiya altogether. Trying to seduce an instructor is a very serious offense. You won’t need to worry about studying after word spreads.”

Rather than draw back, you melted into him, burying your face in his shoulder. For the first time that you could recall, Alhaitham let out a breath of a laugh, holding you that much closer. His lips pressed into your temple – the imitation of a kiss. “But that’s not surprising, is it?”

If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought you felt him smile.

“You were always going to need someone more capable to take of you.”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yandere genshin impact #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin imagines #yandere genshin #yandere alhaitham #alhaitham x reader

1K notes · View notes

monstersflashlight · 3 months ago

Text

Magic dick

A/N: It's been a while since I posted something non-request or commissioned, so here. Also, what’s more romantic than a glory hole?

Non-identified monster x fem!reader || glory hole, free use (kinda?), oral sex, dirty talk

Ending Valentine’s Day on a monster club isn’t what you were expecting, but definitely welcomed. The dance floor is great, and you talked and almost humped a couple monsters. You are keyed up and ready to ask one of them to bring you home for the night, but when your friend asks for a bathroom break, you follow her.

That’s when you see it.

There’s a door at the back, a black door with only one sign in the front that says “Let a magic dick decide your destiny”. You turn to your friend with a smile, she’s already shaking her head.

“No,” she cuts your overexcited self. "Let's go, come on," your friend says, pulling you away from the door. But you dig your heels on the floor.

"Dude, come on! It says Let a magic dick decide your destiny. We need to try it!" You know it’s very unlikely she would say yes, but you want to. You want to end your Valentine’s on a high note, and what a better note than a monster dick.

"I don't wanna try a magic dick," she says, almost exasperated.

You look at her, clasping your hands and begging her: "But I do! Come on, pleaseee!" You try to sound as annoying as possible.

"Ugh, okay, I'll wait here. Go in, have fun, if you aren't out in 30 min I'm coming in, though." She rests her back against the wall and takes her phone out, dismissing your very happy-self.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," you say as you kiss her cheek loudly and open the door.

Your excitement and anticipation can’t barely keep up with the instant joy that fills your insides. You don’t have time to process why do you feel like that, though.

At the other side there’s a colorful wall with all kinds of genitals painted in pastel colors: human, monster, alien, robot… There’s so many and in so many shapes and colors that it looks almost cozy, like something you could see in a Monstagram post or something. But you don’t focus on that for very long, because in the middle of all of that, there are three holes… and one of them is occupied.

It’s in a pretty combination of purple and green, and it has ridges under the tip, forming almost a crown that looks like it could drive you into oblivion if they rubbed against your G-spot. You lick your lips, your mouth salivating at the idea of tasting him. You don’t know what kind of monster he is, but you can almost picture him with his head thrown back and maybe… maybe horns. Yeah, you’d like if he had horns.

You approach slowly, measuring your steps so he’s at least surprised when you touch him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” He starts cursing as soon as you wrap your hands around his shaft.

You aren’t expecting such strong reaction, but it ignites something inside of you that drives you a bit insane with desire. You always preferred partners that were vocal, and the monster on the other side of the wall definitely is.

He’s so big, bigger than any dick you’ve ever seen before, and it’s making you all kinds of hot and bothered. “Hi there, I hope you don’t mind if I help myself here,” you tell the monster, not expecting him to say anything else, but being surprised when he does.

“Are you... who are you?” He sounds choked out, almost as if he’s holding back already and you have only touched him.

“A human,” you simply say, amusement clear in your voice. You don’t know much about glory hole etiquette, but asking for somebody’s identity is probably not it.

He takes a deep breath, sniffing the air audibly. “You smell… Fuck, you smell so good.” He groans, as if your smell is good enough to give him pleasure. His dick twitches in your hand, and well… Maybe your arousal is clear to him? You aren’t sure, but you don’t really mind it, you want to suck his cock and get out of there.

You chuckle, not the first time somebody said that to you tonight. “You can smell me from there?” You ask back, spitting on his dick and using it as lube as he whimpers pitifully.

“Yes. Fuck, yes.” You go faster, your hands working in tandem over his shaft as he bulks against the thin wall.

The sounds he’s making are desperate, and you can feel your pussy tingling as you fall to your knees in front of the hole. You think about saying something, but you end up just leaning forward and taking his tip on your mouth, your tongue softly touching the ridges at the crown until he’s begging you to take him deeper, to move faster, until he’s crying so loud you are sure even the people on the dance floor can hear him. But you don’t even care about it.

You only care about the dick in your mouth and the pathetic sounds he’s making, bulking against the wall as if he’s trying to get as far as possible down your throat. But he can’t. You have all the power, and that excites you. That drives your desire higher and higher until you are drenched and your clit is mirroring the pulses of your heartbeat.

“You are great. Fuck. You are doing perfect. You are perfect. Such a pretty mouth, such good tongue over my shaft. Holy fuck…” He’s chanting all kinds of nonsense, but you don’t answer, too busy swallowing around the shaft in your mouth. You hum a response, making the monster groan very loudly. “Goddess, darling, that feels so good…” His voice breaks in another groan, one that makes your insides twitch and your free hand travels down.

You rub your clit over your panties, thanking the universe for wearing the cute little dress that allows you to touch yourself easily. “Are you touching yourself? Fuck, that’s so hot! Get yourself there, darling, please.” You don’t even question how he knows, but knowing he’s aware of your hand in your panties makes you swallow around him, groaning around his shaft. “Finger that pretty pussy for me. Make yourself come with my dick in your mouth.” His words are exhilarating, you’ve never been with somebody who didn’t make dirty talk sound corny, but good damn it if he isn’t helping you out with that dirty mouth.

You do as he says, rubbing your clit at the same time you jerk him off, your mouth too little to take all of him, not even half. He doesn’t seem to care, cursing and screaming for the Goddess as you drive him crazy with your mouth and hand. You push two fingers inside your welcoming pussy, rubbing the heel of your hand against your clit.

The combined sensation between your hand and the cock in your mouth is enough to make your eyes roll back into your head, the symphony of your mixed moans ascending you to heaven. Your back and knees hurt, but you don’t care, you can’t care. You are so close. So, so close…

“I’m… I’m coming. Goddess, fuck. Holy fuck. Come with me, darling, please, let me smell your orgasm…” His words mean nothing, but they are enough to drive you over the edge.

You clench around your fingers at the same time he screams and your throat is filled with his seed. He tastes sweet, almost like pie (the joke in there isn’t missed). You hum around his shaft until he’s begging and crying out, pulling back as you smile and run your tongue over your lips, catching the last drops of his release. You lick your own fingers as you get up, humming happily and sated.

“Wait there,” he grunts across the wall, the dick disappearing completely as you wipe your mouth and get your dress down.

You chuckle, walking to the door and opening to find your friend looking over your shoulder. You turn around just in time to see a very big, very scary purple and green monster barreling down the hallway, dick still wet and hanging out his open pants.

Turns out the magic dick could predict who would be your soulmate, and nobody was expecting for you to be the mate of the dick in question… Not even him.

#monster #monster fucker #monster imagine #monster x human #teratophillia #monster x reader #terato #monster boyfriend #monster fuqqer #monster kink #monster love #monster lover #monster romance #monster smut #monster x you #monsterfucker #monsterfucking nsft #monster original #non-identified monster

2K notes · View notes

shotmrmiller · 1 year ago

Text

pornstar au

f!reader x simon 'ghost' riley

3.7k words (sorry)

tw: teacher-student relationship but it's just a scene for porn. explicit. horrifyingly so.

You burst into the classroom and stride purposefully towards your professor, who is seated in his leather chair, engrossed in his work. Impatiently tapping your foot, you waited for him to finish marking essays. However, after 5 minutes, your patience with this unbearable man ran out.

"Professor."

He hums, a deep sound coming from the back of his throat yet doesn't look up from what he's doing. A real piece of work, he is. How fucking aggravating.

"Professor Riley," your voice takes an irreverent tone.

The hand that had been writing non-stop comes to a sudden pause, and he finally directs his attention to you. Meeting your gaze, his dark eyes are hooded, his lips set in a firm line. His job is to literally deal with students, yet he dares to look annoyed.

"Are you gonna tell me what's wrong 'r am I gonna have to learn how to read minds?" he states.

Taking in a calming breath, you clench the crumpled essay in your hand. "Can you explain to me why you failed me on this? I did exactly as you asked!"

He must know precisely what you're talking about because he simply turns back to the papers on his desk.

"Tha's your problem. You did exactly as I asked, with no thought behind it. Just wrote the bare minimum, if you can even call it writin'. It's copy-paste," Professor Riley sets the pen down and leans back in the chair.

"I need ya to use tha' head o' yours when in this class. Otherwise, you'll fail the rest o' your classes too."

Fucking hell.

Professor Riley shifts in his seat, seemingly done with the conversation, and finishes, "If tha's all."

Shit. Your pause is too long, and the director calls it. Fuck.

"I'm really sorry, Ghost, I didn't mean-" Your words of apology dissolve into thin air as his strong hand finds its place on your hip— giving it a gentle, but firm squeeze.

"S'all righ', love. Mistakes happen. Matter fact," his eyes drift from you to behind you to beckon someone with two fingers. "C'mere, you."

It's the set assistant, and he's brought the script with him. Ghost swiftly stops him from handing it to you, instead pushing it onto the assistant's chest. "Won't be needin' tha', thanks. Tell the director tha' we'll be ad-libin'. Now sod off."

The assistant follows his command in haste, scurrying off to follow Ghost's instructions.

"Hey," he murmurs. Your eyes meet his, feeling the intensity of it quickens your heartbeat. "Say whatever you like, just remember to follow the storyline, alright?"

Follow the storyline. In porn. The irony isn't lost on you, but you bite the side of your gummy cheek to keep from laughing. "Yes, sir."

He drops his hand from where he held you slowly, seemingly almost reluctant to let go. "Ready?" Ghost's thin lips curl into a smirk when you nod at his question. "Good girl."

Your fingers tightly grip the flimsy material of your uniform skirt at his praise, and warmth pools in your lower belly.

His good girl.

A high-pitched voice cuts through your thoughts, signaling the restart of the shooting. You exhale a long breath, unclenching your hands in the process.

Action.

"If tha' all." Ghost reaches for his pen when you frantically grab onto his Oxford sleeve.

"Wait, Professor, please! I can't," you stammer, "I cannot fail this class! My parents would kill me if I studied abroad only to flunk. The tuition—"

His tone is authoritative as he abruptly cuts off your lengthy excuse. "Enough. Nothing can change the mark I've given you."

Your ears pricked up at his wording, and the corners of your lips pulled up into a roguish smile. "No?" Ghost stills before turning to face you, countenance blank. "Nothing at all, Professor?" With a coy tilt of your head, your wide, doe-like eyes meet his as your fingertips trace an alluring path from his forearm down to his knuckles.

"I really can't convince you in any way to change that grade for me?" You lean on the edge of his wooden desk— skirt so short it doesn't even graze the surface of it— and lightly curl your hand around his pointer finger. "It can be our little secret, Professor Riley," you purr.

Ghost lifts a single brow, and settles back into his seat, arms crossed over his barrel chest as his eyes travel from your feet to your exposed cleavage, fixating on the soft skin peeking out from your uniform top.

"Please?" his hushed voice reverberates inside your skull. "I promise to be a good girl."

That catches his attention, eyes flashing to yours, the fire behind them hot— you hope it burns you.

"'Sat, right? Tha' changes things now, doesn't it?" Ghost rolls his chair back, away from his desk, and spreads his thick legs apart in invitation, arms resting on the rests— the dictionary definition of casual. "Convince me then, pet."

"Yes, sir." Sauntering to stand in between his legs, you swallow thickly— the bulge in his groin was quite frankly, intimidating. You've had large, but this was in a league of its own.

"You gonna do it from up there? I know I'm bigger than average but not tha' big." A huff escapes from your lips. A whole comedian.

Knees pressed into the cold, tile floor, you expertly undo the button of his trousers and with his help, pulled them down along with his pants— just enough for his cock to spring free.

Bloody fucking hell.

His cock is monstrous. It rested against his belly, heavy and thick. The pink tip slightly peeking from under his foreskin. There was a groomed thatch of coarse hair at the base, and his balls were also heavy— one hanging lower than the other.

Ghost leans forward and cradles the underside of your jaw with one large hand, fingers gently caressing the delicate skin of your cheek, while the other pumps his rigid cock in anticipation. "Not scared, are ya?" His grin was wicked. "I promise it don't bite."

Grabbing his wrist, you maneuver his hand so that his thumb now rests on your soft lips. "Might not, but I do, Professor." And catch the tip of his finger between your blunt teeth, the subtle sting of it making him hiss.

"Perfect, pretty girl," he says, almost inaudible. His words of praise are for you alone— not for the scene, nor the camera. You peer up at him through your lashes, mewling softly at the expression on his face.

His brow was set, hooded eyes sultry, a rosy hue across his cheeks and nose, and lips parted as he panted quietly.

Delicious.

Ghost then pushes his thumb further into your slick mouth and hooks it behind your bottom teeth, delicately pulling you closer to him as he tips his head down— taking his thumb out with a pop. His warm breath fans across your face as he moves closer until his lips connect with yours. He slid his tongue into your mouth, tasting of frosty mint and his own unique taste.

Your hands come up, fingers digging into the meat of his thighs when he grasps your wrist and moves it to the focal point of his desire— his breath hitching when you give his cock a firm squeeze. Ghost bites your bottom lip before breaking away, a guttural noise escaping him when you begin to stroke him. "Tighten your hand around—" he breaks off, moaning against your kiss-swollen lips when you comply.

He threads his fingers through your hair that sits at the base of your skull, curling them into a fist and tugging back— craning your neck, hair pulled taut.

"So obedient. Jus' f'me, love?" you hum cheekily, a mischievous grin spreading across your face.

"Would you hold it against me if I said no?" he chuckles under his breath, the grip on your hair tightening marginally.

"I'd say tha' you're lyin'." He sucks in a breath when you press down lightly onto his slit with your thumb. "Cheeky."

He loosens the hold he has on you, feeling your scalp prickle with tender relief, and relaxes back into the chair. "All yours, sweetheart."

That light wasn't getting any greener, so with a grunt, you shifted your weight, ignoring your aching knees, and wrapped your lips around his cock.

Barely.

The salty bite of his arousal and musk spread on your tongue as you took him in deep, stilling once he hit the back of your throat.

"Fuck, look at me."

Slightly tipping your head back, you do as he says, your throat closing around him as he slips in even further.

"Fuckfuckfuck," a hiss, "such a hot little mouth, just swallowin' me righ' up." Your lungs burn with the lack of oxygen, forcing you to pull back to gasp for air. Ghost squeezes himself at the base and taps your cheek with his saliva-coated length.

"A dirty slag like you, jus' takin' me like a professional. Tha' what you are? A professional cock sucker, love?" he taunts. Your pussy clenches when he calls you a slag, pressing your thighs together in the hope of some friction; Something to alleviate the throbbing ache in between your legs.

Ghost with eyes as keen as ever, notices. Damn.

"Oh? Little harlot likes to get degraded, does she? Reminded of her place? How I'd love to teach you exactly where you belong, but tha' wouldn't be you convincin' me to change your bad grade, now would it?"

His cock taps on your swollen lips. "Another time, hm? Now open. Make me see reason."

Ghost's wish is your command. With enthusiasm, you take him in your mouth, slowly bobbing your head, place a hand right under your lips, and twist with every push and pull.

It's sloppy, spit covering your hand, dripping down to his balls. Your jaw aches, a burning pressure a little under your ear, but what gives you the strength to continue is the loud moans coming from Ghost. He holds nothing back, his hand engulfing the crown of your head while he gently pushes you down. A performer down to his very bones.

You were about to pause the recording, the pain in your mandible and knees almost becoming too much when he suddenly pulled you off of him.

"Wha—?" Ghost seizes you by the upper arms, forcibly bringing you to your feet, disregarding your pained whimper, and places you on the sturdy desk.

He's curling his fingers into the waistband of your frilly knickers, slipping them down your legs and pocketing them. There's a quiet popping sound when he bends his knees, going eye level with your bare cunt.

In a hushed tone, you say, "This isn't part of the scene." Ghost drags his eyes from your glistening slit to your face, gaze suffocating, smothering the very air in your lungs.

"Just a taste, love." He curls one hand under your thigh, lifting it to perch it on the edge of the desk, the other he throws over his strong shoulder. The only sound in the room is your soft moans as he expertly slides his warm tongue through your slick folds, sending waves of pleasure through your body.

By god does he eat pussy like it's his job. Peering down at him, you can't stop the sounds that spill from your mouth when his tongue visibly splits your pussy lips open, flicking at your clit, lapping up your arousal like it is honey. You take hold of his short hair, tugging at the strands as each swirl of his talented tongue pushes you closer to your peak.

His eyes cut to yours when he presses a thick finger into you, drinking in your desperate expression as you keen, begging for more, blabbering about it being so good, yet not enough, please god more.

Ghost curls his finger, only taking a second to find your sweet spot, and pushes— bursts of light flashing in your peripheral vision. You begin to rock your hips unconsciously, chasing your ecstasy, and Ghost simply flattens his tongue, letting you grind against it.

You teeter on the edge of bliss, a tightening in your stomach, right under where his finger is. Shaky exhales leave you, the leg that's on the desk visibly trembling from the tension that threatens to snap you in half.

He presses a kiss to your sodden pussy, and croons, "Gonna come f'me?" You jerkily nod.

"Yes fuck yes, I'm gonna come for you, just for you, Professor Riley pleaseee—" your blathering turns into a high-pitched squeal as he lightly sucks on your pearl, hips lifting off the desk as a blinding orgasm crashes into you, pleasure bursting through your very core, cunt pulsating with every wave of ecstasy around Ghost's finger.

He wastes no time in rising to his feet and slotting his mouth over yours, the taste of your slick strong, potent on his tongue. Ghost breaks away, his breath smelling of your desire. "Exquisite, like ambrosia. Addicting."

Ghost's hand cups your sensitive quim and whispers, "Think you can take me? Tha' orgasm took a lot outta ya."

Silly question. "I'm a big girl, Ghost. I can take it."

He licks the front of his teeth and glances down to where his hand rests. "Course you can, love. Turn around f'me."

Your movements are sluggish as you turn over onto your stomach, rising to the tip of your toes as you present yourself to him.

Ghost grabs the sides of your waist, and flips your skirt up, tucking the edge into the waistband of it. His hands palm your cheeks, thumbs digging into the meat of your ass to spread you open, completely exposed to him.

"Fuck me if tha' isn't the prettiest sight I've ever had the pleasure of seein'." He doesn't acknowledge your scoff as he spreads your hands out, placing them flat on the table— enveloping your hand with his own, intertwining his fingers with yours.

His leans over your semi-prone body, cock gently prodding at your entrance, gliding easily through your folds. "Ready?"

Arching your back, his tip slips inside, just barely. That's your answer.

You can hear the smarmy grin that spreads on his face, and wanted to snark back but you're rendered mute when he pushes in. Your eyes cross at the stretch of his cock, a feeling so sublime you know that no one will ever be able to duplicate. Your fingers tighten around his as you mewl when he bottoms out, hips flush against your arse.

Ghost sucks in a breath through his teeth when you shift your weight, and whatever you did has him sliding in deeper— turning his hiss into a guttural groan. "Fuck, you have no fuckin' idea how good you feel."

Probably not, but you have every idea how good he feels.

"You okay, love? Took me so well like you were made jus' f'me. So warm and soft, tight like a vice around my cock. Pretty pussy split wide open, stuffed full of me." He speaks unfettered filth to you, dripping over your ears like molasses, thick and syrupy. Your head feels heavy on your shoulders— dizzy, drunk on his scent, his cock that's got you tearing at the seams.

Then he begins to move, pulling out until an inch remains inside, and pushing in until he's nudging the plug of your womb, feeling a deep pinch under your navel.

This is what it's like to get fucked by Ghost. The one everyone covets after, hoping he drags down the very heavens with his bare hands and lays it at their feet. And here he is, fucking you. A newbie, a fresh face no one knows yet, a name that'll probably never grace the front page.

You doubt his motives are altruistic, but goddamn does it not matter; Not with the way he's carving a space inside of you that only he will ever fit in, or the way he's curling his free hand around your neck, thumb pressed right over your racing pulse.

He lowers himself until his strong chest is to your back, his teeth nipping the tip of your ear. "The moment I saw you gettin' fucked by Johnny, I knew I had t'have ya." Your walls clamp down on him involuntarily, wrenching a pained noise from him. "Fuckin' hell, I knew this pussy would be magical."

Ghost's lips skim over the shell of your ear before pressing a chaste kiss on it. "Lemme hear how good I make ya feel, pet. Don't hold back on me now." He grinds into your arse, going in so deep that it feels like he's trying to push past the entrance of your womb. "S'alrigh'. I'll jus' have t'pull 'em outta ya."

He releases you, placing both hands flat on the desk, on either side of your shoulders. "Take em for myself, make 'em mine." Straightening all the way, he digs his fingers into the soft flesh of your waist.

"What a view. Perfection." He rolls his hips, rhythm languid, loud squelching noises coming from where he fills you. "Drippin' cream all over my cock, pet. Can't tell me this isn't 'cause of me."

How the fuck can he still talk? How is he coherent? Why isn't his brain turned into mush like yours is?

"Fuckin' ya speechless, am I? Oh, sweetheart, but I'm barely gettin' started." Ghost slowly pulls out, and curls his hand around your shoulder, nudging you to turn over. "On your back, now."

You lazily flip over, hair sticking to your sweat-slick skin, and he hooks his arms underneath your legs and drags you to the edge until your arse hangs from it. "I wanna see that pretty face when you come." He wastes no time in sheathing himself back inside your swollen channel, walls fluttering at the invasion.

Ghost hooks one leg over his shoulder to lean forward, pinning you to the desk with his upper body, and maneuvers your other to wrap around his wide waist. "That cock drunk look on your face makes my balls tighten, what a fuckin' expression you've got, christ," he growls. "Knowin' I put it there makes it all the better."

He gives you a chaste kiss on the lips and gives you a smile that is all teeth. "Now let's make you sing."

Grunting, he straightens. plants his feet firmly, stance wide, and begins to fuck you. The videos of the famed Ghost you saw are nothing, nothing, in comparison to real life. His full weight is behind every spine-jarring thrust, it makes your teeth clack, it rattles your brain inside your skull. He does it so perfectly because at no point do you feel any discomfort, not even a twinge. It's all a pleasure that blazes, an all-encompassing heat that threatens to swallow you whole, burn you from the inside out.

His cock punches the breath out of your lungs, wails clawing out of your throat, and it's so good, so fucking good— god, maybe he is god, you don't know, everything is so blurry, hazy—

All senses focus on the sudden touch between your legs, an expert thumb drawing tight circles on your slippery clit and there's no way you're going to survive this—

"There she is, the girl I saw in the video. Tha's an expression I see in myfuckin' sleep. Give me what's mine, pet. Let me feel you, cream all over my cock."

He's relentless in his pursuit of your climax, a wave of pleasure so intense, it just might drag you out to sea, drowning you.

Ghost, the fucking god of sex, stops his ministrations to spit on your pussy. Spit. From his full height, a glob of warm saliva drops to your mons, and he smears it with his fingers over your pussy lips before rubbing your clit. His thrusts slow in pace, turning into a firm snap of his hips, making sure you feel every ridge of his cock, and in less than a minute, your spine arches off the desk.

Your mouth opens into a silent scream, lids snapping shut as you break underneath him, warmth gushing from where he's continuously sinking into you, a steady, slow rhythm that never ends.

"Came all over me, didn't ya? Bet you didn't know you could even do tha'."

You didn't.

"Jus' for tha', I'm gonna give you somethin' in return, yeah? A little reward for bein' so good," he praises.

Your tongue is heavy in your mouth, swollen and thick, and unconsciousness creeps at the very edges of your mind.

All you can do is lie there and take it, his sloppy thrusts, his harsh panting until he moans, "'m close, so fuckin' close," and with whatever remnants of strength you have left, you use to squeeze him tightly— unwilling to let go because his come is yours now, you've earned it.

"Come in me, Ghost," you whimper.

That does it. He slams his hands on either side of your head and borderline roars out his release, cock twitching inside of your used cunt, filling you with his spend.

Cut.

Ghost's breathing is labored, a harsh pant that fans over your overheated skin, damp with sweat.

His brows are furrowed, his eyes squeezed shut, gulping in air and shivering in the aftershock of his climax.

To be fucked by Ghost is to see the Garden of Eden behind your eyelids.

Now you understand. You understand why he has no equal. He is unparalleled.

Jesus Christ, you're fucked. So, so fucked.

He slowly opens his eyes and peers down at you with a wolfish grin.

"Perfection."

A week later, your video with Ghost is the most viewed on the entire website. Not one other video even scratches the bottom of where your video sits.

Ghost truly is the king.

Curiously enough, your friend is the one who lets you know that Mr. life-altering cock himself never kisses during work. Not once in any video of his has he ever kissed, apart from a short pressing of lips to skin.

Your heart traitorously flutters at the thought of it meaning something more. Catching feelings when you get fucked for a living is not the move. But there's no stopping it from misbehaving, especially when you receive another script, to make another video with Ghost.

Another. one.

Fuck. Fuck!!

You cannot wait.

@mishaglass

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley smut #simon ghost riley x f reader #simon ghost riley x reader #cod mw2 #cod mwii #simon riley x reader #cod #cod smut #simon riley x you #simon riley #pornstar!au #simon ghost riley x you

6K notes · View notes

vunblr · 4 months ago

Text

Toy Soldier (part 1)

Bit by bit, torn apart. We never win, but the battle wages on for toy soldiers.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Warnings:Warnings: 18+ only. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Eventual Smut. Dark Content: Depictions of Physical Wounds. Psychological Trauma. Canon-Typical Violence. Mentions and depictions of Non-Con (both characters as victims).

Summary: She had been the tool Hydra used to keep him operational; he, the weapon manipulated by their tendrils to execute their ambitions. Years after breaking free, fate Sam Wilson brings them together once more. Now, they must navigate the challenges of forging a connection beyond the twisted dynamic that once bound them in the past.

Word Count: 5.6.k.

notes: Even though this fic will include the tone I usually maintain in my stories, there will be flashbacks to unpleasant events that might be triggering. Please read the warnings carefully, and if I’ve missed any, feel free to let me know. More tags will be added in the future.

The cell reeked of bleach and iron, a suffocating blend of sterility and blood. She sat huddled in a corner with her knees drawn to her chest, shaking from the lingering aftershocks of what they had made her do mere hours ago. A steel table in the center of the room bore the evidence: blood-soaked rags, reinforced restraints, and instruments that glinted menacingly under the harsh light.

The door creaked open, and she flinched instinctively. Her pulse quickened as they rolled him in on a gurney, his body was impossibly broken again, but somehow, still alive. The Winter Soldier. His mask was cracked, exposing a bruised cheekbone, his metallic arm hung at an unnatural angle, wires sparking like dying fireflies. His tactic suit was shredded, revealing deep gashes that glistened with dark blood.

"Fix him," the handler barked, void of empathy. He tossed a clipboard onto the table, detailing every injury, every broken bone, every expectation to her work. "We need him ready by morning."

She didn’t move at first. She never did. But the familiar press of a gun muzzle against her temple jolted her into action. They didn’t tolerate hesitation.

Her bare feet slapped against the cold tiles as she approached the table. Soldat’s chest rose and fell unevenly, his blue eyes were half-lidded and glassy, staring past her into the abyss. She wondered, briefly, if he even felt the pain anymore, or if the agony had simply become a part of him, stitched into his body like the scars of the wounds she was forced to erase.

She laid her trembling hands over his chest, cutting the remnants of the suit and rushing her power forward like a tide, knitting sinew, mending fractures, restoring what should have been allowed to rest. His body convulsed as the healing process awakened raw nerve endings. He groaned low in his throat, a sound of both relief and torment and her eyes burned with unshed tears.

"Good pet," the handler sneered, patting her head, "Keep going."

As the minutes dragged into hours, her hands moved mechanically, weaving muscle and bone back into place. Every touch drew more from her, siphoning her strength to pour life into a body that shouldn’t be able to withstand such brutality. The process left her light-headed, and her vision started blurring at the edges, but she didn’t dare falter. They would notice. They always noticed.

As her hands pressed over a jagged wound on his side, a faint tremor ran through his body. His breath hitched, shallow and uneven, and his eyes fluttered open. Glassy and unfocused at first, they slowly, impossibly, found her. A vacant gaze, yet somehow piercing, locked onto her face as if trying to understand who she was and what she was doing.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words spilling out before she could stop them. She kept her voice low, trembling, her fingers brushing the edge of the wound as she worked. “I don’t want to do this. I’m sorry.”

His gaze didn’t falter, even as she murmured the apology again, with a cracking voice. He didn’t speak -he probably couldn’t- but the weight of his stare felt like an answer. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

More time passed, and the room emptied. The guards left her alone with him, trusting her to finish her work under the ever-present cameras. The sterile silence closed in around them. She wiped the sweat from her brow and whispered again, “I’m sorry,” her voice breaking completely now. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

Soldat blinked slowly, almost as if acknowledging her words, but his body remained still. Her fingers lingered over his shoulder where fresh skin covered what had been a deep gash, and couldn’t stop herself from caressing his bloodied temple before going back to mend him.

By the time she finished, her legs felt like water, barely holding her upright. The Soldat’s breathing had evened, the jagged cuts on his skin replaced by fresh, pale scars. His metal arm still hung limp, but it wasn’t her area of expertise. He looked human again, or as close to human as Hydra would ever allow him to be. She allowed herself to caress him again as if that gentle touch could make up for what her actions on his body entailed, his endless torment.

When the door creaked open, the spell was broken. The handler barked a question she didn’t hear over the roaring in her ears. Then he stepped forward, inspecting her work with a critical eye. He tugged at Soldat’s extremities and poked his body, then he turned to her with a smile that chilled her blood.

“Well done,” he said, sickeningly sweet. “See? You’re still useful. You’ve earned yourself another day.”

The words felt like a slap, a grim reminder of her reality. She wasn’t a person to them. She was a tool, an extension of their will, just as much a prisoner as the man she had just saved. Her power was her curse, chaining her to a life of servitude. And for what? To keep the Winter Soldier standing. To ensure he could carry out their dirty work, kill their enemies, and endure whatever horrors they deemed necessary for him to endure.

The handler gestured to the guards. “Take her back. She’ll need her strength for tomorrow.”

They grabbed her arms, dragging her toward the door. Soldat's eyes shifted for a moment, trailing her as they walked her out, his gaze still glazing but faintly flickering with awareness. Then the door slammed behind her, sealing them both back into their respective hells.

----

The cryopreservation always left her disoriented, the passage of time reduced to a murky void of nothingness. Days, months, years, they blurred together into a haze she couldn’t untangle. Based on the count of the meager breakfasts slid through the cell door, it had been two days since they’d pulled her from the tube. Her body still ached from the cold, and the numbness clung stubbornly to her limbs.

When the metallic clank of the cell door jolted her from her thoughts, she instinctively tensed. Two guards stood there, gesturing sharply for her to follow.

The halls they guided her through were unfamiliar. These weren’t the sterile corridors leading to the medical bay. These walls were darker and the air was heavier, and the faint hum of machinery was replaced by an unsettling silence. Confused, she knit her brows but swallowed the urge to ask.

When they descended a narrow staircase, her stomach sank. The flickering lights cast long shadows against concrete walls. They passed rows of heavy metal doors, each marked with faint rust and grime. No cells with bars, no windows, just solid slabs of steel.

Her breath hitched when they stopped in front of a door near the end of the corridor. One guard yanked it open with a screech that set her teeth on edge. The other shoved her forward, barking a single command: “Fix it.”

The door slammed shut behind her, and the sound echoed in the cramped room. She stood frozen, since the stench hit her like a physical blow: blood, sweat, semen, and something else she couldn’t place.

Her gaze darted around the sparse room. A cot pushed against one wall. A table cluttered with ominous instruments. And in the corner, barely illuminated by the flickering overhead bulb, the Soldat.

Her breath left her in a shaky exhale as she took him in. He was curled into himself, naked, trembling despite the heat radiating from his abused flesh. Blood and cum stained his thighs, while bruises painted his skin in grotesque patterns. His wrists and ankles bore the raw marks of restraints, and burns and welts layered over old scars, turning his body into a tapestry of pain.

But it was his face that shattered her. A blank mask with hollow and distant wet eyes, haunted by whatever horrors had left him in this state.

She forced herself to move. When her shadow fell over him, his head snapped up and his vacant blue eyes locked onto hers. The movement was sharp and instinctive, but he didn’t lash out, didn’t flinch. He simply stared, as though he were looking through her rather than at her.

She paused for a moment, crouching to his level, resting her hands lightly on her knees. “It’s okay,” she murmured, her voice steady. “I’m here to help you.”

He didn’t respond. The haunted emptiness in his expression pierced her chest. He didn’t deserve this. “I know,” she said softly, inching closer. “I know it hurts. I’ll do what I can.”

She reached for him carefully, brushing his arm. His muscles tensed under her touch, but he didn’t pull away. Gently, she guided his arm away from where he’d been clutching his side, revealing the bruises and burns scattered across his flesh. Her stomach churned, but her hands remained steady. She had no room for hesitation, no time to falter.

As she worked, she whispered to him, not apologies this time, but reassurances. “I’m with you now, I’ll make this right, even if it’s only for now.”

As expected, he didn’t speak, didn’t move beyond the involuntary twitches of his battered body. But his eyes stayed on her, betraying a silent acknowledgment, a fragile thread of trust.

She tried to focus on the burns on his chest, the raw welts along his ribs, anything but the bruises and blood marking his inner thighs. But eventually, she had no choice. The damage there couldn’t be ignored. Swallowing the bile rising in her throat, she shifted closer, and her hands trembled for the first time that day.

She couldn’t comprehend it. Couldn’t understand how anyone could twist a man into this, into something pliable, stripped of will, used like a puppet for their every vile whim. The red book and the chair had shattered his mind, and then they’d wielded that power not only to carry out their heinous crimes but also to satiate their carnal perversions.

“Soldat,” she said softly as she crouched closer. “I need to see the rest.”

His chest started to rise and fall in shallow breaths. His lip was caught between his teeth, bitten hard enough to draw blood. The distant, vacant expression he’d worn before had given way to something else now, resignation, or shame.

“I know,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. “I know it's private -should it be-, and it hurts a lot… but I promise I’ll make it better, yes?”

Her tone was as soft as she could make it, the kind someone might use with a frightened child. For a moment, there was nothing. Then he exhaled and shifted ever so slightly, granting her access. The movement wasn’t much, but it spoke volumes. He didn’t fight her. He didn’t resist. Even now, after everything, he complied.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Her hands moved carefully, brushing his battered flesh with as much gentleness as she could muster. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her focus on the healing, not on the tears threatening to spill over. Every touch she had to make felt like another betrayal of his dignity, but she couldn’t leave him like this, they wouldn’t leave him like this.

“It’s not fair,” she said under her breath “Fuck, it’s not fair.”

Every so often, her gaze flicked to his face, but he didn’t look at her this time. His eyes were closed, and his body was eerily still except for the faint shudder of his breathing.

—-

Some days, she wondered if he resented her. If he was even capable of that. She wasn’t the one inflicting the pain, wasn’t the one abusing him, but she was the one who ensured he survived it. She pieced him together, over and over, a cruel kind of mercy that prolonged his torment. Without her, they wouldn’t have been able to keep breaking him the way they did.

It haunted her.

Sometimes, it seemed like he remembered her. On the rare occasions when his body was whole and he wasn’t immediately dragged back out for another mission or another “session,” his vacant gaze would linger on her. Just a flicker of recognition in those haunted blue eyes, something that made her wonder if, somewhere beneath the chaos they’d inflicted on his mind, a part of him knew who she was.

Other times, he didn’t seem to know her at all. He would stare past her like she wasn’t even there. She didn’t know which was worse: the possibility that he hated her or the possibility that he didn’t think of her at all.

-----

Nine years had passed since her escape from their clutches. Nine years since Captain America and his team put down Pierce and dismantled Hydra’s plans, the Soldat went missing and she got away in the chaos of the fight.

In the early days, survival had been a constant struggle. She’d wandered aimlessly at first, her coarse, prison-like clothes drawing stares from strangers who gave her a wide berth. The world was unrecognizable: a kaleidoscope of flashing screens, roaring cars, and people glued to strange, glowing devices. Everything felt faster, louder, and infinitely more confusing than the world she remembered.

For a couple of days, she kept to the shadows, but the hunger and desperation eventually pushed her to the edge. One night, trembling and exhausted, she walked into a police station. The officer at the front desk glanced at her with a mixture of suspicion and concern, likely wondering if she had escaped from a mental institution. And maybe, in a way, she had. She tried to explain, spilling out her words in a garbled mess of decades-old trauma. She told them about being taken, about Hydra, about the years spent in cryo. The officer raised a skeptical eyebrow and asked her to sit while he "sorted things out."

She knew they didn’t believe her. Not until one of the younger officers, fresh off patrol, walked in with a nasty road burn on his arm. She didn’t think, just acted. In seconds, the wound knitted itself back together under her glowing hands. The room fell silent, every set of eyes fixed on her in a mix of fear and awe.

From there, things moved quickly. The police dug into her story, and to everyone’s shock, her name and photo flagged a cold case from October 1962, a missing person report filed by her family. A woman who had disappeared without a trace, and presumed dead after two years of fruitless searching.

But what the police uncovered was too big for them to handle alone. They passed her case to federal authorities, and soon, she found herself in the hands of people who promised her a fresh start, though she quickly learned that nothing came without strings attached.

The feds helped her establish a new identity, gave her a place to live, and taught her how to navigate the modern world. In exchange, she worked for them using her mutant powers to heal injuries, aid covert operations, and clean up the messes no one else could.

Still, the past lingered in her mind, haunting her in the quiet moments. She often wondered what had become of the Winter Soldier, since freedom, she realized, was not the same as peace.

In the years that followed, she began piecing the fragments of her past into the puzzle of the present. The world had changed in ways she struggled to comprehend, yet she adapted, carving out a relatively ‘normal’ existence.

Then, one day, she heard his name.

James Buchanan Barnes.

She learned about him in bits and pieces from news reports and whispered conversations among the people she worked with. Steve Rogers' best friend. The Winter Soldier.

The details unfolded like a tragic epic: framed in a terrorist attack, slipping under the radar, fighting in Wakanda, only to vanish in the Blip. And then, five years later, he returned. His face, no longer the blank mask of the Soldat, appeared on screens everywhere as the government pardoned him under strict conditions: mandatory therapy and restricted accommodations, a leash that kept him just shy of true freedom.

She watched every news segment, every interview. He wasn’t the weapon she remembered. There was something different in his eyes. Half-masked pain, certainly, but also humanity. He was trying, struggling to reclaim himself, to exist in a world that only knew him as a ghost or a monster.

It wasn’t an obsession. At least, that’s what she told herself. It was curiosity, concern, a connection she couldn’t sever no matter how hard she tried. Because no one else could understand what they’d been through. No one else had seen the depths of his torment, or felt the same chains biting into their skin.

She hadn’t planned to ever contact him. The idea terrified her. For all she knew, his fractured mind might not even remember her. Worse, maybe he did and resented her for the role she’d played, for the way she’d prolonged his torment under Hydra’s commands. Those thoughts were enough to keep her at a distance, safely watching from the shadows of her new life.

But life and destiny had their ways of unraveling carefully laid plans.

-----

Her work with Sam Wilson had started as another government assignment, one of many designed to keep her powers useful and her secrets buried. Yet, somewhere along the way, it had turned into something more. A friendship. He didn’t know about her past -no one did, actually-. He only knew the version of her life the government had scripted, a fabricated identity polished to perfection.

Leaving that aside, she liked him. He had a way of making her feel less like a displaced ghost and more like a person. Sometimes, they hung out after missions, sharing laughs over beers or stories about the ridiculous situations they found themselves in. And when he came back from a mission bruised or limping, she always tried to help.

That friendship had led her here, to a bustling backyard party, with warm laughter and music filling the air. Sam’s birthday celebration. She had accepted his invitation without thinking much of it, expecting a relaxed evening with a few familiar faces. What she hadn’t expected was to see him.

Standing at the drinks table, not the Winter Soldier, not the cold, empty Soldat she remembered, but James. His shoulders were relaxed, his hair shorter, and his blue eyes clearer than she’d ever seen them. He looked... alive in a way that left her breathless. For a moment, she froze, and her stomach twisted into knots. But there was no turning back now.

Not when he lifted his face after grabbing a glass of soda, only to find her mere inches away, rooted in place and staring at him like a rabbit in the middle of the road.

Her breath caught, and the world around them seemed to fade into a blur of laughter and music as his piercing blue eyes locked onto hers.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. The faintest flicker of something -recognition? confusion?- crossed his face. The glass in her hand suddenly felt heavy, and she tightened her grip around it as her heart raced.

“H-hi,” she managed to mutter, almost lost beneath the hum of the party.

He tilted his head slightly, deliberately, as if weighing her. For a long, agonizing moment, he simply looked at her with an unreadable expression. Then his lips parted, and a single word escaped from them, low and hoarse.

“You.”

Her stomach dropped while her mind scrambled for a response. Did he remember her? Or was it just the way her face stirred a distant and fractured memory?

“I-” she started, but the words tangled in her throat.

His gaze darted over her, taking her in: the way she clutched the glass like a lifeline, the way her shoulders tensed, the way she made one step back as though retreating was an option.

Sam’s voice cut through the moment, cheerful and oblivious. “Hey, Buck! Flirting already with one of my girls?”

Bucky flinched, the spell breaking as he snapped his gaze toward Sam, stiffening his posture. “I’m not f-”

“Don’t be a dick with her,” Sam interrupted, grinning as if he were the greatest matchmaker alive. “She’s good people. Y/n, this is Bucky, a pain in the ass but a good friend. Bucky, this is Y/n.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened, his expression still unreadable as his eyes flicked back to her. He didn’t speak, didn’t offer a hand or a smile, just narrowed his eyes slightly, like he was trying to solve a riddle only he could see.

Her pulse thundered in her ears, and her instincts screamed at her to move, to flee, to escape his scrutiny before his fractured memories pieced her together.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she squared her shoulders and forced her lips into what she hoped was a polite and not-too-awkward smile. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice much steadier than she felt.

Bucky studied her for a moment longer. Finally, he gave a slight nod, stepping back as though he’d decided she wasn’t worth the effort of figuring out. “Yeah. Same,” he muttered before turning to leave.

As he moved away, she exhaled, a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her grip on the glass trembled, the adrenaline coursing through her leaving her both relieved and strangely disappointed.

“Don’t take it personally,” Sam intervened, leaning in with a knowing smirk. “He specializes in a heterogeneous game of staring, brooding, and groaning. Dry comments here and there, too.”

She let out a soft, nervous laugh, grateful for the break in tension. “Good to know,” she murmured, still gripping the glass tightly.

Sam patted her shoulder with the easy camaraderie of someone who had no idea the weight of the moment that had just passed. “He’s not so bad once you get past all the walls. Might take a while to crack that nut, but hey, who knows?”

-----

Two months later, Sam called her for a job.

“It’s a simple mission,” he’d explained. “Poland. The higher-ups want you to stay at the safehouse most of the time in case something goes wrong, but if we need someone to move unnoticed -play tourist, fetch intel- they figured you’re our best bet.”

She hesitated for a beat, her instincts screaming at her to say no this time. But she had never ditched a mission before and Sam will be there, so she agreed.

When she climbed aboard the military plane early the next morning, with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, she almost turned around and fled.

Bucky was already sitting there, strapped into his seat, with his arms crossed over his chest. His expression was as closed off as ever, and his gaze was fixed somewhere on the cabin wall. Her stomach dropped, and before her brain could process what she was doing, she turned sharply on her heel and headed straight for the cockpit.

The pilots greeted her with raised brows, clearly surprised to see her there before takeoff. She forced a nervous smile, chatting with them about flight logistics, weather conditions, anything to stretch the time and delay the inevitable.

“Shouldn’t you be back in the cabin?” one of them asked eventually, glancing at her curiously.

“Just thought I’d keep you company,” she replied, slightly strained.

The hum of the plane’s engines growing louder reminded her she couldn’t hide forever. She exhaled deeply, gripping the doorframe. Maybe, she could slip into some corner, unnoticed once the plane was in the air.

But life wasn’t so kind.

“Sam’s voice came loud and clear, calling her. “C’mon, you’re holding us up!”

Bucky’s head turned, locking his sharp gaze onto her the moment she entered. His expression didn’t shift -no frown, no surprise- but what she saw in those blue eyes made her knees threaten to buckle.

She forced herself to take a steadying breath. “Hi,” she greeted the two men quickly, her voice barely above a murmur, before moving to the furthest seat she could find.

Her hands fumbled as she pulled a book from her bag, flipping it open without even checking the page. She pretended to read, scanning the same line over and over as if the words might somehow shield her from the weight of Bucky’s stare.

Sam furrowed his brows, glancing between them with a mix of confusion and curiosity. He’d been prepared for the usual brooding and disagreements from Bucky -his default settings on most missions- but he’d expected her to be more engaged. She’d always been sharp and chatty, quick to offer solutions or crack a joke, but now she seemed... distant.

He leaned toward Bucky, “Did you scare her off already before I got here?”

Bucky shot him an unimpressed sidelong glance. “I didn’t say a word.”

Sam, determined to break the awkward silence, leaned back in his seat and raised his voice. “Alright, we’re stuck in this tin can for the next few hours. Someone better start talking, or I’m gonna make us all play twenty questions.”

She forced a small smile, though her eyes remained glued to the book. “You win. I’m reading.”

He huffed dramatically, shaking his head. “Tough crowd.” Then he turned back to Bucky. “Guess it’s just you and me, Buck.”

Bucky didn’t respond, his gaze flicking toward her briefly before settling on the wall ahead. His expression remained impassive, but his metal fingers tapped against his thigh, the only sign of some internal debate.

-----

After a while, Sam, ever persistent, leaned forward, and turned to her “So,” he started, casually but probing, “you ever been to Poland in other mission before? Got any recommendations for pierogi spots or are we flying blind here?”

She hesitated, tightening slightly her fingers on the edge of her book. Avoiding interaction had been her plan, but the pointed look Sam sent her way made it clear he wasn’t going to let her off the hook.

Finally, she closed the book with a soft sigh, forcing herself to meet his expectant gaze. “No, never been,” she replied, cautious. “Though I think I read somewhere Kraków’s old town is nice.”

Sam grinned, seizing the opportunity. “Kraków, huh? I’ll take that as a vote to play tourist if we get the chance. “Maybe you can even guide us, seeing as you’re good at blending in.”

“I doubt we’ll have time, Sammy,” she said quickly, trying to deflect.

“Oh, come on,” Sam teased, leaning back in his seat with an exaggerated grin. “You’re one of the friendliest people I know. You’ll probably charm us into some exclusive spots. Earn your keep!”

She let out a soft, nervous laugh, shaking her head. “I think you’ve mistaken ‘friendly’ for ‘quiet enough not to get in trouble.’”

Sam smirked, undeterred. “Nah, you’ve got that vibe. People trust you, and open up to you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how often you walk away with more intel than anyone else.”

Her fingers tensed slightly on the edge of her book, but she forced herself to smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment... I think.”

“It is,” Sam replied, his tone warm and easy. “And I’m just saying, if we do get downtime, we’re counting on you to find the good spots.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she managed to say, though her stomach churned under Bucky’s relentless stare.

He hadn’t said a word, but the weight of his gaze made every exchange feel heavier like he was dissecting her responses, searching for cracks in her calm facade. She refused to look at him, focusing instead on Sam’s cheerful grin.

Sam clapped his hands together. “That’s the spirit. See, Buck? She’s already proving more useful than you.”

Bucky huffed, the barest flicker of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth before disappearing. “Yeah, well, let’s see if she’s still useful when things go south.”

Her stomach tightened at his words, though she kept her face carefully neutral. It wasn’t outright hostility, but the skepticism in his tone felt like a challenge, a warning wrapped in a dry comment.

Sam rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Man, you’ve gotta work on your people skills. Not everyone you meet is gonna double-cross you, you know.”

Bucky didn’t respond and bit his lower lip as he looked away, clearly done with the conversation.

She forced a small smile, trying to defuse the tension. “I think he’s just saying I should prove myself first.”

Sam shot her an encouraging look. “You don’t need to prove anything to him. Trust me, you’re good-”

“Sam,” Bucky intervened almost dryly. “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking. This isn’t sightseeing. It’s a mission. If she’s not-”

“I can handle myself,” she interrupted, managing to keep her voice steady despite the sudden rush of heat to her face.

The fact that she addressed directly to him got Bucky’s attention. He turned, locking his gaze onto hers, and for a moment, the silence between them felt heavier than the thrum of the plane’s engines.

“Guess we’ll find out,” he murmured, leaning back slightly in his seat. He kept staring at her sharply and unyielding. After a beat of silence, he added, “And, actually, what exactly do you do?”

Fuck.

The question wasn’t casual, she could see it in the way his eyes stayed fixed on her, a glint of something just beneath the surface. He knew. He was waiting for her to say it, to confirm what he already remembered but was pretending not to.

Sam raised an eyebrow, looking between them. “Bucky, come on. She’s solid, alright? I wouldn’t bring her along if she wasn’t.”

Bucky didn’t even glance at him. His attention stayed locked on her. “I didn’t say she wasn’t solid. Just curious what her... specialty is.”

She forced herself to take a steadying breath. If he wanted to play coy, fine. Two could play that game.

“I’m good at staying unnoticed,” she said, feigning a casual tone “Recon, blending in, getting intel…” She shrugged lightly, as though explaining her skill set was just a routine part of the job.

Bucky tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing in faint amusement. “That it?”

She gave him a polite smile, curling her fingers around the edge of the book on her lap. “Well, I’ve been told I’m handy in a pinch. Let’s just say I’ve got a knack for fixing things.”

His lips quirked, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Fixing things, huh?”

“Yeah,” she replied smoothly, ignoring the way her heart raced under his scrutiny. “Little cuts, scrapes, that kind of thing. Nothing too fancy.”

Sam, oblivious to the subtle tension between them, chuckled. “Don’t let her undersell it. She devours. Saved my ass more than once, you wouldn’t believe the absolute carnage I've seen her mend.”

“Good to know,” Bucky commented, with his gaze still locked on her. There was something in his eyes -something sharp-, almost daring her to break first, but she didn’t flinch.

“Just doing my job.” She added, her eyes still glued to the unreadable baby blues.

Bucky leaned back, the corner of his mouth twitched as if he wanted to say more but decided against it.

Sam glanced between them. “It's pretty early for a staring contest.”

She didn’t answer; she just smiled at him and returned her focus to the book. He remembered, she was sure of it.

Still, if he wanted her to confirm it outright, he’d have to try harder. For now, she’d play his game, and she was determined to win.

-----

The safehouse was a two-bedroom apartment in an old building that groaned with every step. It was cramped but functional, the kind of place that wouldn’t draw attention. As they settled in, Sam tossed his bag onto one of the worn couches and stretched like a cat.

“Alright,” he said, grinning at her. “Do us all a favor and work your magic in the kitchen. I haven’t had a proper meal in weeks, and I can’t survive on takeout and those protein bars Bucky packs.”

She raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. Cooking would give her something to focus on, and it was the perfect excuse to isolate for a couple of hours.

“Fine, let’s see what I can do,” she muttered, scurrying inside the kitchen.

“You’re the best!” Sam called, grabbing his jacket. “I’ll be back soon, gotta meet a contact nearby. You two... play nice.”

The sound of the door closing made her grimace. She exhaled slowly, tying an old apron on her waist as she dug through the sparse pantry and fridge. Within minutes, she was chopping some potatoes, humming Animals while she was at it, because fuck it all.

She felt the weight of his gaze pressed against her back like a physical thing before she heard him. He stood in the kitchen doorway, quiet and unmoving, a presence impossible to ignore.

Her grip on the knife tightened, but she didn’t turn around. “Need something?”

“No.” The simple word carried so much weight that it made her pause mid-cut.

She exhaled slowly and resumed her task. “Then why are you standing there?”

He didn’t answer immediately, and the silence stretched until it became almost unbearable.

“You’re good at it.”

Her hand froze. “At what?”

“Pretending.”

She forced herself to keep chopping, while her pulse hammered in her ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” His tone didn’t carry malice, but the words felt heavier than any accusation. He leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms. “I remember you.”

Her chest tightened, and the room suddenly felt smaller. “You’re mistaken,” she said flatly.

“I’m not.” He took another step forward. His tone was soft, but the words were unrelenting. “You were there. Hydra.”

Next Chapter ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky hurt/comfort #bucky barnes fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x curvy!reader #bucky x curvy!reader #the winter soldier x reader #winter soldier x female reader #winter soldier fanfiction

2K notes · View notes

tsunaso · 1 month ago

Note

HEAR ME OUT

Aventurine and his partner have been together for a while when they somehow try working through Aventurine’s past trauma by showing him what a true master is like (reader)

Note - heavy bdsm, master/slave, anything else you’d like but I would prefer this being a healthier one so not non/con or forced

Thank you! 💖💖

“LET ME SHOW YOU WHO I AM”

pairing. Sub!Aventurine x Top!male reader

synopsis. In where Aventurine finally submits on his own terms, he learns what it means to be touched without being taken. — 4.3k

warnings. mdni, nsfw, amab reader, master/slave kink, collaring kink, light bondage, fingering, blowjob, handjob, overstimulation, begging, dirty talk, praise kink, degradation kink, subspace, aftercare, safe word use, past trauma, discussions of past abuse, implied SA (not graphic), hurt/comfort

The room was quiet.

Not sterile. Not cold. It smelled faintly of lavender and wax polish—warm light spilling from a shaded lamp. The blinds were drawn. The door was locked.

Aventurine stood in the center of the room like a model in a glass case, posed. Perfect. Still. He had removed his gloves first. Then his rings. Then his coat. Every motion methodical. Almost clinical.

You’d seen him negotiate with CEOs more relaxed than this.

You sat on the edge of the couch, legs slightly parted, arms resting on your knees, watching him like he was something fragile. Not in the way that meant he’d break—but in the way that meant he already had, at some point, and learned to glue himself together into someone flawless.

And he was flawless. That was the problem.

"You're not breathing," you said quietly.

Aventurine blinked. Then inhaled like he forgot that he needed to. A short, clipped breath. He forced a smile. "I'm just… preparing."

"For what?"

He paused. "To give you what you want."

You let that sit. Let him feel it.

Then you stood—slow, controlled—and stepped into his space.

"Look at me."

He did. Carefully. He always looked carefully, like his gaze was a scalpel and he was afraid to cut too deep.

You reached out, brushing your knuckles against his jaw. He didn’t lean into it. He didn’t flinch either. He simply absorbed the touch like it was something he had to endure—an input to be processed, not felt.

“I want you to listen,” you said. “And I want you to listen as Aventurine. Not as someone performing. Not as a client trying to impress me. As you.”

His throat worked as he swallowed. “…I’m listening.”

“I’m not asking you to submit because I want to dominate you.”

He stiffened.

“I’m asking you to submit because I want to keep you safe.”

A silence followed. Longer this time.

You let your hand fall from his jaw and gently, deliberately, took his hand in yours. You turned it palm-up—his fingers were smooth, trembling ever so slightly.

You pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist.

“That’s the only reason,” you said. “Everything else—the commands, the structure, the rules… those are tools. Not punishments. Not games. They're ways to show you something you weren’t allowed to believe.”

He stared at you, eyes flickering. “Which is?”

“That being owned can feel like being protected.”

His lips parted—then closed again. He didn’t speak.

But he was still listening.

So you guided him to the couch. You sat down first, then tugged him forward by the hand until he was kneeling between your legs. Not to humble him—to center him.

"Now," you murmured, letting your fingers brush along his throat. “Let’s make something clear before we go further.”

Aventurine swallowed again. You felt it beneath your fingertips.

"You are mine only if you choose to be. And that choice doesn’t disappear just because you're in a collar or calling me Master."

His breath hitched. Slightly.

"You have a safeword. And you will use it."

You felt him tense—but it wasn’t fear. It was confusion.

“Why?” he asked softly. “Do you think I’ll regret it?”

“No,” you said. “I think someone else made you believe you weren’t allowed to.”

He froze.

And there it was.

That flicker. That twitch beneath the surface. You saw it behind his eyes—how he wanted to deflect, wanted to throw on that trademark smirk and laugh you off, pretend none of it reached him.

But it did.

Because the first time you called him "slave," he hadn’t flinched. But he hadn’t melted either. He had looked like someone waiting to be hurt. Obedient, yes—but not present.

You didn’t want that again.

“I don’t want obedience like that,” you whispered.

His lashes flicked up. His eyes were wet—but not crying.

You kissed the space between his brows. “I want your devotion. Your trust. Not your fear.”

He went still.

“…Then I don’t know how to be yours,” he said softly.

You tilted his chin up.

“That’s okay,” you said. “I’ll teach you.”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　𓆩♡𓆪

The collar was black. Supple leather, lined in deep velvet. Not flashy. Not harsh. Nothing sharp or ornamental. It wasn’t a trophy. It was a promise.

You fastened it slowly around Aventurine’s throat, adjusting the buckle until it sat snug against his skin, resting in the hollow between his collarbones. His breathing had grown shallower with every click, every brush of your fingers. But he didn’t pull away.

He didn’t stop you.

And now—now he knelt.

He looked beautiful like that. Not just in the aesthetic sense, though he always had a way of appearing curated, even when undone. No—this was deeper. He looked like something offered.

The room was low-lit. Heavy drapes. No mirrors. No performance. Just you and him, framed in candlelight and silence. Your voice was the only thing allowed to break it.

“You’re trembling.”

His eyes flicked up, fast. Shame tightening his jaw before he could stop it.

“I’m not—”

“You are,” you said gently. “And that’s okay.”

He exhaled like the air had been trapped in his chest for years.

You reached out, brushing his hair from his forehead, slow. He didn’t lean into it, but he didn’t pull back. Still learning. Still testing the depth of the space you’d carved open between you.

“I want to hear you say your safeword.”

“…Now?”

“Yes.”

His lips parted, then closed again. A flicker of pride, of resistance. Not defiance—just fear dressed in finery.

You tilted his chin up, thumb dragging along the edge of his jaw.

“Say it for me, Aventurine.”

“…Citrine.”

The word hung in the air. Soft. Almost delicate. Like it didn’t belong in his mouth.

“Good,” you murmured. “That word is power. Not weakness.”

You saw it flash in his eyes. That old wiring. That ache. The way he’d been taught that power only came through performance or control, through being sharper, cleverer, faster.

And now here you were, asking him to surrender.

You reached for his shirt. Silk, crisp, fitted. The kind of thing he wore like a second skin. You undid the buttons slowly, not ripping or demanding, but unwrapping him like something valuable. Something earned.

By the time you slid it off his shoulders, his breath had quickened again.

“Color?” you asked softly.

He blinked. “Huh?”

You smiled. “Give me your color.”

“…Green.”

Safe. Uncertain, but safe.

You trailed your fingers down his chest—bare, smooth, too still.

“I want to see you move when I touch you. Not freeze.”

He swallowed hard.

You leaned in, lips brushing just beneath his ear. “You don’t have to be perfect here. You just have to be mine.”

He shivered.

“…Yes, Master.”

There it was. That subtle quake beneath the surface. Not fear. Relief.

You reached for the tie you’d laid on the bed earlier—rich crimson silk, soft and long. A blindfold, if needed. A restraint, if wanted. But tonight, just a tether. You looped it gently around his wrists behind his back—not tight. Just a suggestion.

“Sit back on your heels.”

He obeyed.

You let the silence stretch, letting him feel the leash of your presence even without a word. Your gaze burned into him—watching the way his chest rose and fell too fast, the way his fingers twitched behind him, even restrained.

Then you spoke. Low. Commanding. Steady.

“Say it.”

He blinked, caught off guard. “Say… what?”

“Who you are.”

His throat bobbed.

You took a step forward, letting your fingers trail beneath the collar at his throat.

“Say it, Aventurine. Who do you belong to?”

“…You.”

“That’s not enough.”

He shuddered.

“I belong to you,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m your slave.”

The words cracked on the edge of something old—something raw.

And you knew. That this wasn’t the first time he’d said it. But it was the first time he wasn’t punished for saying it wrong. The first time he wasn’t being used like a toy to be broken and left behind.

This was the first time he said it and wasn’t afraid.

You stepped around him slowly, trailing your hand across his bare shoulder as you did.

“You’re mine,” you said, voice smooth as heat. “Because you asked to be. Because I said yes. And now… I’m going to show you what that means.”

You stopped behind him, let your hand drop lower, brushing the curve of his spine.

“You’re going to listen.”

Your hand slid lower—over the waistband of his slacks, down to his thigh.

“You’re going to obey.”

You knelt beside him now, brushing your lips over his temple.

“And if I touch you and you shake, I’ll hold you.”

He let out a small sound—too raw to name. You felt his breath stutter. His entire body leaned just slightly into yours. Like the tension in his shoulders had finally started to give.

“Color?” you asked, voice warm.

“…Green,” he whispered.

You smiled.

“Good slave.”

His eyes fluttered shut. His lips parted. And for the first time since you’d collared him, Aventurine didn’t look composed.

He looked free.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　𓆩♡𓆪

You guided him onto the bed slowly. Not forced. Not posed. You didn’t bend him—you invited him. And he followed.

The sheets were dark—deep maroon silk, soft enough to slide against bare skin without a sound. The collar caught the light in a subtle gleam as Aventurine lowered himself down, legs folded beneath him, arms still behind his back. You sat in front of him, letting the room fall to quiet.

He was breathing a little too fast again.

You reached out, cupping his jaw in one hand. His lashes fluttered.

“Color?”

“…Green,” he whispered.

Your thumb stroked his cheek. “You’re doing beautifully, treasure.”

His breath hitched again, this time from something that almost sounded like relief.

You leaned in and kissed him. Soft. Just once. And when you pulled away, you saw the dazed flicker in his eyes.

You didn’t ask for more yet. You just started touching him—slow strokes of your fingers over his chest, his arms, his thighs. Mapping. Worshipping. Letting him feel like something sacred.

“You’ve been holding yourself together for so long,” you murmured, tracing the hollow of his hipbone. “You don’t have to anymore.”

Aventurine’s body twitched under your touch, heat flashing across his face. He was already hard—aching against the front of his slacks, pulse pounding through him in quiet, desperate waves.

You kissed his collarbone, then lower. “I want to see what you look like when you come apart.”

He made a noise—small, breathy.

“I want to see how messy I can make you.”

Another whimper. This one sharper.

You undid the button on his slacks. Pulled the zipper down with slow, steady fingers.

"You’ve kept yourself so clean," you said. "So controlled."

You slid his pants down, along with his briefs. His cock sprang free, flushed red, already leaking.

"But this isn’t clean," you whispered, wrapping your hand around the base. “This is filthy. Needy. And it belongs to me.”

He shivered violently. You felt his knees twitch beneath him.

“You’re mine, Aventurine.”

He nodded. “Y-Yes, Master.”

You pumped him slowly—light pressure, thumb teasing over the slit. You kissed down his thigh as you worked, feeling the tension begin to fracture.

"That’s it," you whispered, lips brushing his inner thigh. “Breathe for me, pretty boy.”

He did. He tried. He was panting now, head tilted back, fingers clenched behind him like he didn’t know where else to hold the sensation.

“Such a good thing,” you crooned. “So obedient. So sweet. So ready to break.”

Your tongue flicked over the tip. He jerked—gasped.

"Color?" you murmured against him.

“…Green,” he rasped. “F-fuck—green—”

You hummed in approval, then dragged your tongue up his shaft, slow, tasting every drop he’d spilled.

"Look at you," you whispered, mouth just above his cock. "So wet already. You’d let me ruin you with just my tongue, wouldn’t you?"

He moaned—loud.

So you took him in. Not all the way. Just the head. Just enough to pull a shudder from his hips before you pulled off again.

“Not yet,” you murmured, hand stroking him again, firmer. “You don’t get to cum until you beg.”

You leaned up, lips brushing his ear.

“And not like a businessman,” you whispered. “Not like a negotiator. Like a whimpering little thing.”

His cock twitched in your fist.

"Say it."

“I—”

"Say what you are.”

“…Your p-pet,” he gasped.

You squeezed.

"Not good enough."

“I’m your—your toy—your slut—”

"Good," you growled. "Getting closer."

You tugged his head back by the collar, made him look at you.

"You’re mine, aren’t you?"

“Yes—yes, I’m yours—please, Master—please let me cum—"

And then he choked on a sound. His whole body jerked.

And the word fell from his lips:

“Yellow.”

You froze.

Not in fear. Not in failure.

In readiness.

Your hand left his cock instantly. You released the collar. Your voice softened.

“Hey.” You cupped his cheek. “You did perfect. You’re safe.”

His breathing was erratic. His eyes were glossy. But he wasn’t panicked. Not quite. Just too much. Overwhelmed. Drenched in sensations he’d never let himself feel before.

“I didn’t want to stop,” he said, voice breaking. “It just—just hit too fast—”

You nodded. Kissed his temple. Held his jaw steady.

“You did everything right,” you whispered. “I’m proud of you.”

He shivered. A small sound leaked from his throat—frustration. Shame. Something old.

You held him.

“You said yellow,” you murmured. “Not red. That means we slow down. We breathe. We check in.”

You reached for the silk tie around his wrists, undoing it gently.

He was trembling now.

And when he whispered, “I’m sorry,” you cut him off immediately.

“Don’t apologize,” you said. “Not for taking care of yourself. Not with me.”

He went quiet. Eyes searching yours.

“…So we can still—?”

You smiled.

“We’re going to continue. If you want to. And this time?”

You leaned in, kissed him slow, deep, open-mouthed.

“I want you to give me your surrender.”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　𓆩♡𓆪

He was still shaking when you brought him back to the bed.

Not from fear. Not from regret. From how much it was.

He let you hold him without asking. Let you kiss the top of his head, run your fingers down the back of his neck, cradle him in your lap like something precious. And when your hand slid to his thigh again—he opened his legs without hesitation.

“I want you inside me,” he whispered. “Please.”

Your fingers traced the line of his inner thigh, featherlight. “You sure?”

His breath caught.

Then, “Yes, Master.”

You smiled, leaned in, and kissed the side of his mouth. “Then I’ll give you what no one else ever did.”

He blinked, eyes fluttering.

“What’s that?”

You kissed his throat, tongue dragging over the edge of the collar.

“Time.”

You laid him out like he was something sacred—chest to the sheets, legs parted, cheek resting against a silk pillow. He looked wrecked already. Hair wild, skin flushed, cock twitching against his stomach. He still had the collar on.

Your hand ran down his back slowly, fingers trailing the curve of his spine. You watched his hips twitch in anticipation.

And then you whispered, “I’m going to stretch you open now.”

Aventurine shuddered.

“Not like them,” you added, voice low and warm. “Not fast. Not hard. Not careless.”

You pressed a kiss to the small of his back.

“Like this.”

Your hand slid between his legs, parting them more. You took your time with the lube—warm, slick, worked between your fingers before you ever touched his hole. You let your thumb rest against the rim, not pushing, just being there.

“Breathe for me,” you whispered. “Color?”

“Green,” he rasped. “Fuck, I’m green—just—please.”

You slid one finger in. Slowly. No resistance. Just heat. Just a shaky, desperate moan beneath you.

“That’s it,” you murmured. “That’s my good boy.”

He gasped into the pillow, his whole body tensing—then softening.

"You're so tight," you praised. "So soft inside. You were made for this."

You curled your finger, watching the way he arched, hips twitching.

“M-Master—”

You hummed, kissing the dip of his back.

“I know. It’s good now, isn’t it?”

He nodded, whimpering.

You took your time. You didn’t rush the second finger. You didn’t stretch him to watch him squirm—you stretched him because you wanted him to be ready. You wanted to give his body the chance to welcome you.

Not endure you.

Aventurine was panting now. His cock leaked freely onto the sheets. Every twist of your fingers sent a sob through him.

“You’re doing so well,” you whispered. “Letting me open you. Letting me feel how warm you are inside. This hole is mine now, isn’t it?”

He moaned—wrecked, high, humiliated.

“Yes, Master—it’s yours—just yours—”

You slipped in a third finger, carefully, watching his back arch as he cried out.

But he didn’t say yellow.

He didn’t say stop.

He pushed back.

You grinned.

“Oh, you’re greedy now,” you murmured against his ear, one hand reaching around to grip his leaking cock. “You want it all, don’t you?”

He whimpered. Nodded. Twitched in your hand.

"Say it."

“P-please,” he sobbed. “Please fill me—break me—fuck me full—I want to be yours inside—please, I need your cock—”

You laughed—low, hot, proud.

“Oh, my sweet little slut.”

He gasped—choked on it.

You leaned down, kissed the back of his neck. Then whispered, “You like being called that now, don’t you?”

“…Y-yes—”

“You like being my toy. My slave. My obedient little hole.”

His whole body seized.

“F-fuck—!”

You pulled your fingers out—slow, careful, teasing.

He sobbed at the loss.

You lined yourself up, pressed the tip against his stretched, slick entrance.

He pushed back instantly.

"Greedy thing," you growled. "Beg for it."

“Please, Master—please—fuck me—ruin me—make me your cumdump—please—”

And you gave him exactly what he asked for.

You sank in.

All the way.

Slow. Measured. No brutality. No rush. You slid into him inch by inch, letting him feel it, letting him open around it, letting the stretch burn sweet and thick as your cock filled his aching hole.

Aventurine gasped—his voice a cracked moan as his body trembled beneath yours.

“Oh, f-fuck—” he choked out, knuckles white as they dug into the sheets.

You leaned down, one arm braced beside his head, the other gripping his hip tight, keeping him spread open as your cock bottomed out, balls resting snug against his skin.

“There it is,” you whispered into his ear. “Feel that? That’s me, inside you.”

He whimpered. You felt the clench around you—tight, slick, hungry.

“This is what you needed all along. Not a man who takes. A man who fucks you like he owns every inch.”

You pulled back—slowly—and thrust in again, long and deep, your cock dragging against the sweet spot that made his legs shake.

He moaned—loud, broken. His cock throbbed untouched against the sheets.

You kept the rhythm slow, heavy, grinding deep with every thrust, pushing the sound out of him with every roll of your hips.

“Y-you’re so deep,” he gasped. “I—I can feel you in my stomach—Master—please—”

You kissed his neck, teeth grazing the collar. “You’re taking it so well. My pretty little whore.”

He shuddered. “Yes—yes—call me that again—”

You thrust deep—he jerked, crying out.

“Say it.”

“I’m your whore,” he whimpered. “I’m your obedient whore—use me—please—just—”

He clenched around you, hole fluttering, walls pulsing like he was already about to cum.

You grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back.

“Don’t cum,” you growled into his ear. “Not until you break for me.”

Aventurine whined, a high, needy sound, mouth open, drool slipping down his chin as you kept fucking into him—slow, deep, deliberate.

“Faster,” he sobbed. “P-please—Master—please fuck me harder—need it—need you to ruin me—”

You slammed in hard. He screamed.

“Oh, that’s it,” you growled. “You like it now, don’t you? You like being fucked stupid.”

“Y-yes—yes, I do—please—don’t stop—”

You pulled the leash tighter, using it to anchor him as you began thrusting fast, hard, pounding into his slick hole until the slap of skin-on-skin echoed with every deep, bruising thrust.

“You gonna cum like this?” you hissed. “Face in the sheets, used, leaking, begging?”

“Yes—yes—I’m your cumslut—I’m yours—only yours—”

His words collapsed into gasping cries, voice breaking every time your cock slammed into that same aching spot deep inside.

You reached under him, fisted his cock—already wet, throbbing, twitching.

“You want to cum, slut?”

He nodded frantically, tears slipping down his cheeks.

“Then fucking ask.”

“Please—Master—please let me cum—let me make a mess for you—please—”

You grinned.

“Cum for me, slave.”

He screamed.

His body seized, hole clenching so tight around your cock it almost pushed you over the edge. His cum splattered across the sheets in thick, hot streaks, and he collapsed beneath you—shaking, moaning, drooling, trembling with every aftershock as you kept fucking him through it.

He was babbling now. You didn’t need to understand. It was all yours.

You growled low, thrusting one last time and spilling inside him, hot and thick, grinding deep as you filled him to the brim. He sobbed into the sheets—completely broken open, your cum leaking from his fluttering hole as he whispered, “Thank you, Master,” again and again.

You kissed his shoulder.

“You did so well for me,” you murmured. “So good. So obedient. So mine.”

He made a small sound—something close to a sob—but there was no fear in it.

Only peace.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　𓆩♡𓆪

You didn’t let go of him. Not once. Not when he came undone under you, not when his body collapsed into aftershocks, not when his sobs started—quiet and broken, into the silk sheets.

You stayed inside him, shallow and warm, one hand on his waist, the other splayed across his chest. His breath came in shivers. His body twitched with every small pulse of aftershock, still spread open, still marked by you.

And still, he whispered, “Thank you, Master.” Over and over again. Like a prayer. Like a child afraid of silence.

You kissed the back of his neck. Gently. “You don’t have to thank me for not hurting you.”

His fingers curled in the sheets. He didn’t answer right away.

You pulled out slowly. Your cum dripped down the inside of his thighs, hot and wet, and he didn’t move. He just exhaled—long, cracked, like the last of his performance was melting out of him.

You left only briefly. Warm towel. Cloth. Water. When you returned, he hadn’t shifted.

He was still kneeling.

Silent.

Shaking.

You moved behind him and eased him into your lap. Chest to back. He folded like he’d been waiting to. You wrapped your arms around him and held him there—wet, ruined, open—and he let you.

You cleaned him gently. Slow, soft, reverent. Not possessive now. Not hungry. Just present.

“I want to hear your color,” you whispered.

“…Green,” he breathed. “Just… slow.”

“Slow is good.”

Another breath. Then, quieter: “I don’t want to go back to my room.”

“You won’t.”

You tightened the towel around him, pressing your palm over his heart. The leather collar was still warm under your fingers.

“Does this still feel good?” you asked, thumb brushing it.

“…Yes.”

“Does it still feel like a leash?”

“No.”

“Good.”

You tilted his face toward you. His eyes were red, wet, shining.

He swallowed.

“I kept waiting for it.”

You blinked. “For what?”

“For the part where you stopped asking,” he said. “Where you just… took.”

Your breath stilled.

He looked down, shame creeping like old blood into his voice. “They didn’t ask. Not after I was sold. The first ones just—”

You adjusted your hold—firmer now. Grounded.

“I know.”

“There was a man who called me by my serial number,” he said. “Said names were for people.”

You didn’t speak. You held him tighter.

“I used to think… if I offered it first, let people use me, I was in control. If I moaned loud enough or spread my legs fast enough, maybe they’d forget I didn’t want it.”

His voice cracked. His jaw clenched.

“But none of them ever stopped.”

You found his hand. Laced your fingers through his.

“…And you did.”

You didn’t say of course. You didn’t say I’m not like them.

You said: “You said yellow. So I slowed.”

And something inside him shattered.

He didn’t break pretty. He broke real. Face crumpling, shoulders shaking, tears falling hard against your skin as he buried his face in your chest and wept.

Not from shame.

From being seen.

You rocked him gently. Back and forth. Holding him through every sob, every tremor, every time he tried to apologize only to collapse again.

“I didn’t think I could ever be like this again,” he whispered.

“Like what?”

“Soft.”

You closed your eyes. Kissed his hair.

“You’re not soft. You’re just safe.”

His breath hitched.

“I don’t remember the last time I felt wanted,” he said, voice thin, “without needing to win something first.”

“You didn’t win me,” you murmured. “You let me hold you.”

His lashes fluttered. His voice dropped to a whisper:

“…Was I good?”

You cupped his cheek, thumb wiping a tear from his flushed skin.

“You were perfect.”

He laughed. It broke halfway. “I look pathetic right now.”

“No,” you said, smiling. “You look mine.”

He flinched—just slightly—but he didn’t deny it.

You kissed his nose. Brushed his damp hair back.

“Can I ask you something?”

“…Anything.”

“What do you want me to call you now?”

You didn’t rush it.

“You can keep Aventurine. Or Slave. Or…” You paused. “Kakavasha.”

He blinked.

His breath caught in his chest.

“I haven’t heard that name in so long,” he whispered. “It feels like it belongs to someone else.”

You nodded. “It does.”

He looked at you, startled.

You smiled.

“But maybe… that someone still lives here.” You placed your hand gently over his heart.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His throat worked. His lashes fluttered.

You leaned close, nose to his cheek.

“Until you decide… I’ll call you what I see.”

He swallowed.

“And what’s that?” he whispered.

You kissed the edge of his collar.

“My beloved.”

911 notes · View notes

pomidaea · 6 months ago

Text

Part 1 of my ghoul designs. Starting off with Rain and Dewdrop ✨

Feel free to ask questions cause I'd gladly share my creative process, it's just that idk where to start :')

Headcanons and explanation about their design and respective elements under the cut:

Water Ghouls

They have thin and small horns that can easily break off. Their horns are meant for display purposes and not for butting heads with other ghouls

They have the thickest and longest tails among the ghouls. Due to this, they are one of the 2 elements that have non-prehensile tails. This does not however stop them from using their tails as a whip for smacking things and other ghouls as a warning

With what they lack in horns and defenses, they make up for being venomous/toxic

Colors = cool colors (red, orange, yellow are rare)

Rain

His tentacle-like hair is affected by his emotions. The stronger the emotion, the more curly it becomes. If he's bored or sad, it goes limp

Tends to drag his tail while he walks, easily trips. On more than one occasion, his packmates accidentally stepped on his tail

Has a venomous barb on his tail

Fire Ghouls

They have goat-like horns that point inward, a fire orb can appear when they use their magic

Wide mouths that have slits on the cheeks. These openings act as a vent to help regulate body temperature

You can tell the maturity of the ghoul by the color of their flames (Blue = young/inexperienced, Red = old). If their flames are green, something is wrong

Colors = ranges from warm colors to black/brown only

Dewdrop

Some water ghoul features carried over after his transition. The gills on his neck act as a replacement for a fire ghoul's mouth vent

Blind eye effect: The fire transition gave his eyes a foggy look. Vision is completely fine but it seems like he's always staring blankly into space

Had his hair cut off days after the transition by Aether and Mountain because they were worried about him. He was ripping locks of his hair from his scalp to calm himself (think of a bird plucking its own feathers)

His hair grew back during Copia's papacy but it now grows unevenly and needs to be constantly fixed/tied back

#the band ghost #nameless ghouls #nameless ghoul fanart #rain ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #my art

2K notes · View notes

natalieriess · 10 months ago

Text

FIRE ALONE...CAN SAVE OUR CLAN...

Full illustration from the hardcover jacket cover of WARRIORS: THE PROPHECIES BEGIN Volume 1 + some details!

Process, WIPs and detail rambling under the cut:

Sara and I rarely get to do detailed, non-comic page illustration work, and wanted to get some painterly texture to set this apart from regular comic panels. We did some tests early on in the process:

(inked lineart on the left and graphite lineart on the right)

Sara used some soft, chunky (8B!!!) graphite pencils to get the storybook texture we ended up going with. I also used a gritty digital "gouache" brush to softly paint the whole illustration, and used a watercolor texture overlay I had on hand for added crunch.

These are the rough sketches I sent in to our editor and designer- I normally do a rough color pass at this stage. It's a little extra work, but it's worth it to not feel totally lost on color later in the process.

(Pencils by Natalie, printed and handed off to Smo, who "inks" with a heavy graphite pencil)

More WIPs...I think it looked pretty good in black and white too, honestly!

Thanks everyone for all of your kind words about the book so far! I'm already drawing volume three ;w; see you in a year!

#illustration #warriors graphic novel #warrior cats #spottedleaf #smgoetter

2K notes · View notes

drgnflyteabox · 8 months ago

Text

the lusty cabin-dweller

pairing: ghost / Simon riley x fem reader summary: your life gets wider when you find an injured man outside of your cabin. tags/warnings: Skyrim!ghost, secrets, graphic injuries, some angst, facial injuries, nursing Simon back to health one stew at a time <3, listen to this for the vibes, vaginal + anal sex, oral (f), animal attacks, blood, processing an animal for meat and fur, violence, death (non-major), mention of Skyrim racism, softdom!Simon, some backstory, please hmu if i forgot anything, one bed trope, simon backstory adapted to skyrim lol (so past abuse, murder, theft, domstic violence) but nothing graphic w.c: 5k

Honey-nut is squealing again. Some days you think she might not be worth the milk and cheese she gives you for all the trouble she causes. A high, strange bleating cuts through the chilled night air like a knife, sharp and terrifying only for a moment.

She's been at this since Frostfall. Maybe it was the weather causing Honey-nut distress - she was getting old, after all. For a goat.

In the time it takes you to trudge out of bed, pull on a wool shift and a fur, two things happen: one, Honey-nut stops bleating, and the woods surrounding your cottage becomes deathly silent.

Two, a crunch.

Just one, but it's enough. Someone is outside.

For a brief, hysterical moment, you worry for Honey-nuts safety. Have they hurt her to be quiet? No, you'd have heard that at least. Your breath comes fast, chest squeezing. Bandits? Probably not. It's a decent hike up to your wooden cottage. But it is nearing winter, and soon it will be Sun's Dusk. It's not unheard of that they'd be looking for a place to take over for the colder months.

Your hand goes to your heart, fingertips touching your throat. Be calm, you tell yourself. You aren't helpless, look. The axe, leaning by your front door. You can see in the dark well enough, and you're more familiar with your homestead than they are.

The axe feels right in your hands. Too-familiar, weighty, deadly. You touch your ear to the door, trying to reign in your fear. Nothing. Then, a wheeze, strangled and restrained like whoever it is can't afford to be heard. But you have heard it, and you push the door open.

"Show yourself!" You shout, voice surer than you feel. Your knees quake a little, but your grip on the axe is strong.

The animal pen is a mere few steps away from your front door. Past the front garden, it's wide open aside from the little shelter you built the past Mid Year. A foot sticks out, clad in armor.

"I'm armed," you add. "You're not getting anything from me!" The world is dark, the woods quiet. Adrenaline burns in you, bright enough to guide your steps.

"You gonna kill me with that, girl?"

Gruff voice, like scraping rocks. Coming into view, you see that this man poses no threat. He's half dead, slumped and pale, clutching his side.

"Who are you? What's your business here?" The axe is a deterrent, now. Just for show. You hold it above him, but nearly drop it when you see his face. It's sliced right through the middle, from his forehead to his jaw. "Oh, gods-"

"Mind yourself with that," his eyes flit to the axe. "Or put me out of my misery now."

Your shoulders dip down, lowering your weapon. Guilt crawls into your belly and settles there when you notice that yes- his feet are armored, but the rest of him is dressed in miners attire. White, coal-dusted shirt. Workman's pants, tucked into woolen calf wraps. God, he must be freezing. Maybe that's saved his life, staunched the bloodflow. It's tacky on him, not shining wet like you expected.

"What's happened to you?" You cringe at the sound of your voice. It's gone from fierce defensiveness to cloying concern, staring only at the blood staining his skin.

He breathes hard, staring at you a moment. It's hard to tell what he's thinking, what he's feeling. Outside of obvious pain. Leaves around you shiver in the breeze, a light snow beginning to fall when he finally speaks.

"Bandits," he grunts. "An ambush." Every word is a fight, a wheeze. Empathy drives away caution and you drop your weapon in favour of kneeling beside him.

"Come on, then. Let me help you," lifting him is a monumental task, even with him helping. He's as big as horse, thick as one too. Legs like tree trucks that hold him up just barely, feet sliding weakly on the uneven ground.

Looking back, Honey-nut watches you bring him through the doorway with a judgmental twinkle in her eye. Maybe it's time for goatherd pie.

///

Your bed is too small. His feet hang off comically, and the wood creaks under his weight. It'll have to do. Your mother would have beaten you black and blue for this - for inviting a stranger in, for settling him in your bed without so much as a what’s your name? But you know how to stitch and turning away someone in as bad a shape as he is would weigh on your conscience.

You light the sconces along the wall, and then a lantern to keep by his bedside. Warm, orange light fills the cottage, flickering every so often, inspiring calm.

"I'm no healer," you warn him. "Nor an alchemist." It’s not necessarily a lie. You had done a brief stint as a volunteer for the temple of Kynareth, lending your hands and your time to help nurse wounded soldiers. There had been supervision then, though. Guidance.

"I’m shit out of luck for choices, sweetheart,” his facial wound leaks a little when he speaks, blood running down the side of his face in thin rivulets. The wound at his side, however, is what worries you the most.

“Let me,” you murmur. Your fingers find the edge of his shirt, pulling them out of his pants, and up, up, gently. Looking him in the eye, watching his pain win over his weariness.

Another gash, swaddled in cloth wrapped sloppily around his middle. Without moving him you have to cut them off, slicing off his shirt at the same time. This one bleeds sluggishly, skin shredded, like he’d been dragged over coarse rock.

He words slur, energy leaving him. Mumbles under his breath things you can’t make out, and don’t try to. You’re busy rinsing, cleaning, and patting his ribs dry. Tensing every so often, he breathes hard through his nose to offset the pain. Mumbles some more, hands making fists.

It’s bad, but he’ll live. Exhaustion might trump over all, anyhow, what with how his eyelids have begun closing. Through the slit of them his eyes are pale, like sunlight through deep blue ice. Blonde lashes, stark against the dirt and coal smearing his skin.

You work in silence, letting him sleep through this one so he’ll hopefully be unconscious for the work you have yet to do on his face.

“Who did this?” You whisper to no one. You’re a breeze in the night, alone, hunched over this man and wiping his face with a cloth.

Clear of blood and grime, you gather a sewing needle and dip it into the lantern flame. Stitching is easy, but on his face? You falter a moment, worried, until you think of how proud men often are of their scars. Boasting battles won and creatures slain.

It’s that thought that pushes you through to the end, weaving the needle through until he's sewn and clean of blood.

///

Sweat and iron. The smell of it, sharp and salty, sea foam and earth, is the first thing you're aware of.

Then, the light of morning. Pale, almost white, invading through the windows in rays. A chill. Your eyes open with a not insignificant amount of effort, back twinging in different places as you become aware of the world again.

"Awake?" You startle, jerking up. It's the man from the night before, laying as he was, a little curled against the pain and big as an ox. "W's startin' t'think you'd sleep all day."

"It's morning, is it not?" You're not used to talking this early - or at all. "How's the- how are you feeling?"

He grunts, shuffling. His wrapped side has some blood peeking through, little spots of leakage, not enough to lose your head over. His face has swelled some overnight though, and you're awake enough now to hear the muffled quality to his voice. Part of the cut pulls his upper lip tightly. You wince.

"Just wait. I have something for the," you pause, crossing your space on stiff legs to find the bookshelf. Clay pots, glass bottles, books. Ah, here it is. "For the pain." It's some elixir. Purchased the last time you'd made the trek to Markarth from Muiri, the alchemists apprentice. It brings forth a distant memory of pain, of twisting your ankle running after Honey-nut.

Your ankle hadn't quite healed right, but this was good for when winter came and stiffness made the pain worse again.

He eyes you wearily as you approach. Suspiciously. As if you haven't been helping him out of the kindness of your heart…

"This will help," a promise.

"Don't need'it." He slurs, then cringes as it pulls his lip again.

"You'll recover faster if you're in less pain."

In the end he acquiesces, if not just to take the edge of the purpling that's beginning to show on the edges of his bandage. Broken ribs, maybe?

///

Chores need to be done whether or not there's an obstinate patient in your bed. Honey-nut needs to be milked, and she fights you every step of the way. You discover her pen open from last night and sigh with relief that she's still there.

The chickens have laid eggs for you, and you collect them diligently in your apron. Then, the garden. And finally a sweep of your traps in the woods.

Just one rabbit, but it's enough. You hope the man likes stew, and that his swelling goes down enough for him to tell you his name.

///

He tells you his name is Ghost. Strange, but you've heard stranger. Maybe he's a follower of Namira, you wonder not without an inkling of apprehension. Ghost is quiet, even as he heals. After you'd made yourself a straw bed on the other side of the cabin, you'd wake to him sitting up and stretching. Testing himself. Always silent.

The exhaustion was the worst of it. One nearly empty bottle of elixir later, the swelling on his face has gone down significantly. His ribs sore but on the mend. It was sleep that he needed, and lots of it.

Days passed like this. Switching bandages, wiping and cleaning, cooking enough stew for two. Nearly a week until he was up and about insisting to help around the cottage.

"No need," you tried to gently push him back into the warmth of the open door. He was too big, and having none of it. "You'll be better in no time."

He was just so tall. Were he to stand still at your doorway, half his face would be covered by the top of it. Despite his condition, you could tell that your initial comparison to a horse was completely on the nose. Stocky as a boar, arms thick as mammoth tusks. Hairy like blonde wheat shining in the sun. You'd noticed as much, watching him rest, watching his eyelashes flutter on his cheeks as he dreamt.

///

Ghost works like you're paying him in gold. He sweats, arms swinging down over and over again above the chopping block. There's enough wood to last three winters now - maybe four. Every job he takes is finished to excess. Your roof has never looked better, re-thatched in rotting places and swept clear of mildew. The old wood fence in your garden? Replaced.

Honey-nut finds her new favourite person when he dismantles what he calls shoddy work, and rebuilds her a shelter twice as big. The chickens are still weary, but enjoy receiving the kitchen scraps he tosses.

"There's really no need for all this," you insist again, because he's come back this afternoon with an elk on his back.

"Didn't need to fix me up, either, did'ya?"

You break it down together. Ghost does the harder part, while you take cuts of meat to dry for jerky. The rest will go into a venison casserole, with juniper berries.

"Hey- Ghost?" You call. He's skinning the rest of it for furs. "I'm off to gather some berries for dinner."

A nod, and you're off.

Your basket is old, woven, carried once by your mother and now you. Silly, but special all the same. It's stained with many years of berry collecting, many years of winter nights spent tucking into fruity crostatas or summers full of juniper mead.

The hills are rife with the low, rough trees. They grow like weeds here in the Reach, mountain pocked with patches of light green and little blue berries. Once, as a child, you'd made the mistake of eating one straight off the branch. Bitter as burnt coffee, it was lesson you'd learned through tears of laughter with your mother. A happy memory.

Does Ghost have a family? You wonder again about him, about why a man like that is wasting his time mining. He could've climbed the ranks as an imperial and been a General or - divines forbid - a stormcloak. You prayed he wasn't so craven as to follow Ulfric and his band of Nord supremacists.

It's this distraction that leads you right into the waiting jaws of a sabre cat. Quick and silent, it reminds you of your patient for an absurd moment before you're tripping backwards, basket full of berries scattered and forgotten. Your hip makes contact with the ground hard, pain lancing through your joint like a spear.

Fuck, how could you be so stupid? This was a mountain, leagues away from the nearest town. Sabres, bears, wolves. You'd always, always used awareness as a first precaution. Sight, sounds, keeping your ears tuned to the slightest crack in a twig. If not, there was the bow and arrow stowed away under your bed.

Now, you were caught unawares. Muscles under it's fur rippled, a low growl in it's barrel chest, creeping toward you. Adrenaline burned through you like a fever, hot and electric all at once, freezing you in place by the weight of your heart in your stomach.

Stendarr's mercy, dying from an animal attack after living years on the craggy peaks of the mountains, avoiding ambushes and robberies. Living on goats cheese and chicken eggs, nothing yet achieved. What a waste. Miserable, hopeless tears prick at your eyes. Your breath leaves you in quick, desperate puffs. Running wasn't an option - it would only encourage the sabre. Sovngarde, here you come-

"Aaarghgh aaaaa!" A roar. Loud, ringing in your ears, as fierce as a cave bear. It's Ghost, jumping through the brush towards you with his arms above his head. "Bugger off!" He's screaming loud, voice cracking a little, the stitches at his lip tearing just enough for droplets of blood to fall.

"I'll put you down!" It's nonsense, but it's loud, and he's massive. Taller than the sabre even if it stood on two legs. When he reaches you, he steps in front of you. Shields you.

The face-off is likely less than a few minutes, but it feels like time moves as slow as honey. Ghost faces of the sabre, screaming like a madman, beating his chest and waving his arms. It creeps backward, hissing and fighting, but is cowed by his stance and size.

When it's disappeared through the maze of juniper trees, he turns to you. Extends a palm rough like bark.

"How long have you lived here, again?" His voice grates as usual, made worse by his shouting.

Your face heats in embarrassment. "A few years. I'm not usually so distracted," you dust your dress, patting yourself. Twigs and dirt fall from the wool. "I swear. I got lost picking berries."

He snorts, like you're stupid. You feel stupid.

The basket is half empty when you call it quits, tired from fear. Ghost is hunched beside you, holding his ribs again, rubbing his lip almost compulsively.

"Stop that, you'll get a thicker scar," you reach for his elbow.

"Don't care much about that, love," he shrugs your hand away.

Dinner is made in silence. It's a miracle you have the energy, but while you're physically drained your mind is running in circles. You watch with concern as he sits gingerly back on the bed. The pain in your hip pulses with sympathy, pulsing heat travelling down your leg and up your back.

"Need me to take a look at anything?" Besides his obvious discomfort, you'll have to fix his face back up. You'd prefer for him to be in a welcoming mood.

"I can handle it," Mr Stoic over here. "Did'ya take a fall?"

You drop dried frost mirriam into chopped, boiled potatoes. Then a pad of butter.

"Yes, but I'm alright," the cream sauce comes together, ladled over the venison. You're out of eidar cheese, but Honey-nuts goat cheese crumbled over everything is perfectly fine. Ghost eats like a furnace taking coal, anyhow.

"Let me see," he's up close. Again, you've been taken unawares. A sharp inhale like a gasp, heart beat picking up, breathing in the smell of him. It's gone from bloody to pine, to earth, to fresh wood. His hands find your hip and you hiss, trying to jerk away. In doing so you press your side into his chest, curled close, warm not just from the fire. "It's alright, sweet girl." He murmurs into the top of your head.

This tenderness is new. His fingers are as gentle as you've seen them in the last few weeks, pulling up the thick skirts of your dress and assessing the tender skin. It's a little hot to the touch, painful. The rough pad of his thumb brushes against you softly, making you whine.

His lips brush your hair, not quite kissing you, but affectionate nonetheless. You're close enough to see his throat bob when he swallows.

"Just a bump, huh, sweet girl?" He takes over, mashing the potatoes, setting out plates at your little wooden table, guiding you by your lower back.

You eat in relative silence, thighs brushing, a tension bubbling to the surface like stew on the fire. He spares you a few glances between bites, still wincing whenever he has to bend down.

"I'll take a look at that again before bed," you speak through a mouthful of creamy venison.

Sure enough, he's reopened some of his stitches. Not worst case scenario, but you spend a few minutes hunched over and bandaging him up again. He stares at you intently, eyes so clear and focused you wish he wouldn't. It makes your hand shake.

Moving to get up and back to your straw bed, his arm shoots out as quick as an arrow and takes your wrist in his hand. His stare is the same, squinting at you like he's waiting for you to confess something. Like he's waiting for you to give in.

"You're not sleeping on the floor," he says, sure, chest puffed. "Not with your hip. Come on now, come lay down." Gently, he tugs you down. Protests make it to the tip of your tongue and nowhere else, not with the promise of a mattress on your sore muscles and screaming hip.

It's too small though, much too small. Already he was hanging off, shoulders taking up the entire width. You curl forward, on your good side, facing away from him and into the dark. The cabin is still warm from cooking dinner.

His breath puffs on the back of your neck, hand finding your arm and stroking up and down. Soothing you. He curls around you, following the natural bend of your body.

"Simon," he whispers.

Your brow almost touches your hairline. "That's not my name."

"No," his reply is half spoken, half physical. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, bicep under you, cradling you, his big bear paw hugging your shoulder. A stray pinky ventures dangerously close to your nipple, fingers spread. "It's mine."

The world widens. "Yours?" You breathe in, out. It's trust, is what it is. He's giving you a piece of himself, this stranger, for you to hold. "Simon," you taste it in your mouth. "Simon."

He laughs against your hair. "Was watching you," he confesses. "After we got- after the ambush. Walked for days, till I found you."

"How long did you watch?" You're curious, if not a little suspicious. "You weren't casing it, were you?"

"No, nothing like that. Couldn't keep walking," he sighs loud like a dog. "Hadn't eaten, hadn't drank. Needed to know if you were somewhere I could stay."

"That's why Honey-nut was losing her mind," the realization is half funny, half scary. By the eight, you really hadn't noticed someone living so close-by for so long?

"Honey-nut?"

"You've met her, Simon. She's the goat."

"Ah," he snorts. "I've been calling her Molag-Bal, for how she's got us in the palm of her hand."

"Simon!" You shriek with laughter, shaking until he squeezes you from behind. So close his heartbeat taps against your back.

///

A week goes by, and each night is the same. You wake together, sleep together, eat together. Simon regains his strength and his wounds turn into scars. His face is deeply marked, but you've never known him another way. Truthfully, it adds to his handsomeness. There's a ruggedness there that one can only develop living in the rough.

The air gets colder, frigid in the mornings and nights. Light snows have begun falling, and Honey-nut begins her bleating until you put up the winter wall of her shelter, boxing her in. The chickens slowly cease laying eggs, bundling together, clucking at Simon when he checks for the seasons last bounty.

The time to make a trek to Markarth is creeping. You need dried goods, grain, seeds for spring, dried meats, elixirs - everything. It'll be your last trip before you're stuck in the freezing mountains with nobody but Honey-nut to talk to.

Books are your salvation during the cold months.

"I have to get supplies soon," you break the news to Simon early in the morning, when the light just barely creeps over the craggy peaks of the mountains. "In Markarth."

There. It's over with - telling him. You know you're being a coward by not asking directly, but you need to know. What is he going to do now that he's healed? Spend a few more months with you? You're still mostly strangers, practicing domesticity together, but strangers nonetheless.

"Can't go to Markarth," he says.

"Why's that?"

Simon looks at you then, eyes hard and tender at the same time. He grimaces a little, scar twisting wit his expression.

"Used to work there," A pause. "Used to… mine there."

"What?" Cidhna mine is for prisoners. You take a small step back, shaking your head. "What?" You repeat. Cidhna mine? Is that how- oh. His injuries, his waiting to see who you were before approaching. By the gods, you've been tricked!

"You tricked me-" you start, upset. Was he a killer, a robber? Images dredged from the recesses of your mind float to the surface. Men, fire, your mother cut down before you.

"No, no," he interrupts. He's shaking his head, not quite stepping forward but leaning toward you. Eyebrows drawn up, palms facing you in supplication. "Sweet girl, I," he looks around then, as if the words will appear written in smoke from the hearthfire. "Listen to me please," he pleads.

"Tell me what you did!" It's a near-shout, but you're upset. He's been cozying up to you while running from the law. Not that you're a total stickler for rules, but the men at Cidhna mine aren't there without reason.

The most secure prison in Skyrim.

"I will, I'll tell you. Just sit down please, sit with me." He pats a chair, sitting in the one beside it. Beseeching you. "Cm'ere, sweet girl. M'sorry."

///

You sit quietly while he tells you, choking a little on the rising tide of emotions. The biggest question is should you believe him? This story of his past, his father, a childhood spent learning to steal and bully to survive. Elixirs for a brother hooked on skooma, food for a mother grown sickly from her husbands abuse. Eventually getting rid of his father altogether, and wining up in Cidhna.

"If what you say is true," your voice wavers, throat tight with emotion. "Why not tell me?"

He shrugs his shoulders, looking up for a moment as if asking the divines for guidance.

"You never asked."

For a moment, you want to be indignant. You laid with him, cooked for him, wiped blood and sweat off his brow.

But he's right. You never asked, never thought to - just wondered, minded your business, content to help someone in need of it. The feeling of betrayal loosens in your chest, releasing it's vice grip on your heart, a calmer acceptance taking place.

The position it leaves you in is awkward, even if you're content to believe him. You've been too yielding since you met him. Accepted him into your home, accepted his story. Ambushed by bandits? A silly lie, now that you think of it. Vague, believable. Easier than explaining that guards had slashed him as he escaped imprisonment. That he couldn't go back because he was so recognizable.

You don't speak as you get ready. It's not an angry silence, but one brought by embarrassment. How stupid he must think you are, cozying up up to him like that.

The question of where he'll go burns still in your mind, in your gut. You're nervous, fingers shaking a little as you wrap long strips of warm wool on your calves, forearms, and between your fingers. Your dress is double-layered, boots sturdy.

It's a trip and half, lugging everything. You're on foot until you reach the nearest inn, and from there you rent a horse and cargo carriage. Easier from there, with Jazbay the white mare to pull you along.

"I know someone in Cidhna," Simon interrupts your thoughts. He's always tall, imposing, a little intimidating. Now he looks as sheepish as a man like him can look. "Could you…" He extends his hand, a letter clasped in it.

You grimace, but nod curtly.

"Thank you, honey," he breathes a sigh of relief. Honey. That ones new. It fills you with warmth.

"You're welcome to stay with me," you blurt. Impulsive, stupid. Brought on by the familiarity of his affection. "For the winter, I mean."

He's across the cabin in two steps. He presses his front to yours, hands cupping your cheeks, thumbs gently rubbing your cheekbones.

He kisses you, then, and everything slides into place. Your stomach tightens, hands coming up to grasp his shoulders, gasping into his mouth. It's wet, lips smacking noisily, the only sound in the near-frozen forest. Acceptance, sweet and buttery. This is a man whose never had a home.

"I can't stall any longer-" you try. He interrupts you with his mouth again, long kisses like it's reviving him, revitalizing him. "I gotta-"

"Shh, sweetheart," he hums lowly. Gods, you've never been this wet. It soaks into your cotton underwear, clit pulsing in time with your heart. "Let me take care of you, yeah?"

///

He's so solid, firm muscle and hard cock. It leaks between his legs, bobbing with his abdomen where he's kneeled on the floor, face in your cunt.

"Simon!" You're shouting, unabashed. Years have passed since anyone's touched you last, and you're sensitive as a maid, gripping his too-long hair almost meanly. Simon licks you like a starving man, slurping, letting you drip and then sucking it off your skin. His fingers find the entrance of your pussy, fitting himself in two at a time.

Once you've begun, you can't stop. He fucks you on the bed, letting it creak dangerously. Bends you over the table, cock dragging in and out of you deliciously. You shake and shiver in his arms, wrung out and insatiable all at once.

"Can I have you here, sweet girl?" He thumbs at your other hole, dipping in, kissing your inner thighs.

"Yes, gods yes, Simon," you drag his name out. Si-i-mon. It sounds good that way, breathy, not spoken but moaned and screamed. It's late evening, dark, colder now that you haven't lit the fire.

No need, when his cock is as hot as coals and slides between your arsecheeks like a divining rod. Your pussy is aching and hot, too-sensitive. You're belly down on the bed again, hands gripped in the sheets.

When you deliberately relax your muscles, he fits his fingers in your ass using come as lubricant. Spits down onto you, watches you start to rub yourself into the bedding desperately.

"None of that," he pants, pulling you up by your hips. A whine builds in your throat, which he shushes by pushing his other two fingers in your cunt. You yelp, moving toward him and away from him. He keeps you still, firmly holding your hips.

You come, tears beginning to leak into your sheets, when he presses his cock against the notch of your hole and pushes in.

A long, deep groan from the pit of his stomach starts and doesn't stop until he's sheathed. You're frozen, stuck in a gasp that doesn't end, filled to the brim.

Simon begins to rock, shallowly, stealing your breath and breathing it back into you with every thrust. It's then that you begin to make sound, crying out and fisting the sheets, rocking your hips with him. He reaches around, leaning down to kiss your shoulders and play with your clit at the same time.

"Not gonna last," he says into your skin. "Gonna come inside you again."

You're easy - so sensitive that if he breathed on you long enough you're sure you'd peak. His fingers twisting and pinching your clit is pure madness, and you tighten like a vice around him as you yowl your last orgasm of the night.

His hips snap into yours roughly, abandoning your clit for the flesh of your hips, pounding, dragging, grunting into you as he finds his own release.

Half-asleep, you fell him roll over onto his side and turn your head to face him. He's smiling lazily, stroking your skin, still sweating from exertion.

"I'll come with you tomorrow," he whispers.

"I thought you couldn't come to Markarth?" Confusion prickles at you, brows coming together. He finds the furrow with his thumb and smooths it away.

"I can't, honey. But I can come down and wait for you."

"You will?" Hope rises in you, in tandem with affection.

"Always," his voice is a soft murmur.

"Tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow. Goodnight, sweet girl."

#cod x reader #cod mw2 #task force 141 #141 x reader #drgnfly writes #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #skyrim au #i truly don't know but i had fun writing it #hehe #cw dubcon #tw dubcon #cw murder #idk what else to tag #i love skyrim #i dont know shit about goats #genuinely this is jokes but i've been playing a ton of skyrim so here you go

2K notes · View notes