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cumironi · 14 days ago

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BLESSED BY THY CLEAVAGE, AMENNN ᵎᵎ

feat. geto suguru, shoko ieiri

sum. “daddy got them for me yesterday.” you said. and daddy you mean is geto suguru and shoko is your friend. and friendship so fucked up you let her sit on your face while geto got his dick inside you. it is the power of your tit$? maybe..

wn. non-sorcerer au, college setting, geto is a mess, reader is shameless, tits are a weapon, pu$$y-drunk geto, shoko is hot and mean, worship-level oral (reader receiving), face-sitting, titfucking, deepthroating implied, unprotected vaginal $ex, internal ejaculation, cumplay (leaking, smearing), overstimulation, reader squirts (multiple times), finger $ucking, nipple play, cum on tits, aftercare / caretaking, slowburn smut, power dynamics (passive reader / active partners), possessive geto, bratty reader, filthy dirty talk, praise kink, mild degradation, shoko joining mid-act, threesome dynamic (ffm), oral fixation, reader is overstimmed and praised for it, physical restraint (holding reader down), swearing / explicit language.

a/n. let’s be real, i think both of them like girls with big tits.

geto’s apartment was the kind of place that looked cleaner in the dark. it was one of those college-boy hovels that had clearly been nice once, or maybe it was just expensive, which was not the same thing. the lights were warm but shitty, one too-yellow bulb flickering like it owed rent. outside, the sky was a bruised sort of purple, summer clinging to the air like spit, like the whole world had been licked and left to ferment. a sliding balcony door was cracked open to let in the sticky summer air, but mostly just let in moths and city noise. there were half-empty mugs on the table, a bong under the couch.

when you get there, the door was already unlocked because geto thought locks were fascist, or maybe he just liked tempting fate. either way, it creaked open with the familiar little ghost-sigh of a hinge that hadn’t been oiled since second year. the first thing you saw wasn’t geto.

it was shoko, half-draped across the floor like roadkill, holding a lit cigarette above her face while she let ash fall dangerously close to her bare stomach, and she had one boot up on the coffee table. the tank top she wore was black and paper-thin, no bra, naturally, her shorts undone like she'd given up halfway through peeing. she tilted her head toward you like an owl on ketamine.

“about time,” she said without looking at you, exhaling a lazy spiral of smoke that drifted straight toward the ceiling fan. “was starting to think you choked on your own tits walking here. and what the fuck are those.”

the loud clack of your boots on the hardwood echoing like you were making a goddamn entrance. which, to be fair—you were. your tank top wasn’t even that low-cut. okay. it kind of was. maybe a little slinky. maybe a little too tight, the kind of tight that rode up when you breathed, and you had to tug it down with a crooked hand and pretend not to notice. your skirt wasn’t helping either—barely longer than a wide belt, paired with boots too heavy for the season, but fuck it, you looked hot. like dumb hot. like, failed-a-midterm-and-still-smirking hot.

“shoko,” you said, stepping into the thick warm air of geto’s living room, “is that any way to greet a friend? and they’re boots,” you said, posing just enough to make them creak a little. leather, knee-high, chunky heel. dangerous. like if a stripper got possessed by a demon and still made rent.

“friend?” she snorted. “you show up to suguru’s place dressed like that and call it friendship?”

“maybe i just like the ambiance.” you dropped your bag by the floor next to the bong. “and talk about your boots,” shoko said, dragging smoke into her lungs like it owed her something, eyeing the expensive material. “what are they doing in my eyes.”

you didn’t even take them off. you walked around like you owned the fucking place, clomp clomp, tits bouncing with the rhythm of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing and didn't care if she gave someone a cardiac episode. you stood over shoko like you were presenting a thesis. “daddy got them for me yesterday.”

she stared up at you. blinked. blinked again.

“…you’re gonna have to specify which daddy.”

“the one who’s not your sugar daddy yet,” you grinned, toeing at her thigh gently with your boot like you were about to step on her for fun. “suguru.”

“jesus christ.” shoko rolled away from your leg, smoke curling behind her. “suguru! your bimbo just tracked hell into your apartment!”

“they’re not shoes,” you shouted toward the kitchen. “they’re boots! it’s different!”

geto’s voice filtered through the apartment, hoarse and half-laughing. “they’re still from outside, babe.”

you turned to the kitchen archway with your hands on your hips, tits practically launching a coup from your neckline. “they’re not dirty! they’re special! they match my tits!”

a pause.

then, “…what the fuck does that mean,” shoko said, sitting up.

“they’re both dangerous,” you declared, and then promptly posed like you were in a perfume ad designed by perverts. you even did the little bounce. the one that made your chest jiggle in that perfect, slow-motion, anime-opening kind of way. “anyway, this place smells like feet and bad decisions.”

“you forgot dick,” came geto’s voice from the kitchen. he was shirtless. not like he was trying to be sexy about it—just wore those threadbare gray sweats, low on his hips like they had a personal vendetta against dignity. hair half-tied, face flushed from leaning over a rice cooker. “and curry. i reheated the one we got last week. it’s probably fine.” and he turn back to the kitchen.

“probably?” you echoed, walking with your boots across the carpet that had definitely seen better years. you passed shoko, who gave you a long side-eye, then a longer front-eye when your boobs jiggled as you bent to pick up a pillow off the floor.

your tank top was obscene in a very “this was never meant to be outerwear” way, and your mini skirt had no business doing the bare minimum. not that anyone was complaining. not really.

“jesus,” she muttered, flicking ash into an old instant ramen cup. “how the fuck did your tits get so big? those weren’t like that last semester.”

“i worked out.”

“with what, gravity?” she made a circling gesture toward your chest. “you bench-pressing planets?”

you flopped onto the couch behind her, letting your arms fall over the backrest like you were trying to get arrested for indecency. “they just... grew. maybe i hit second puberty.”

shoko reached over and tugged at your tank top like she was checking a label. “second puberty’s a myth. you’re lying. you either got implants or a demon’s blessing. spill it.”

“you wanna feel them?” you offered sweetly, voice honeyed and shameless.

“i always want to feel them. that’s not the point.”

from the kitchen, geto said, “do i need to be here for this? or can i just watch?”

“shut the fuck up,” shoko called, “you’re already shirtless, pervert.”

“you’re in my apartment,” he called back, emerging with three mismatched bowls of steaming curry, one chopstick set already missing. he dropped the bowls on the coffee table and gestured vaguely to the mess. “eat before i change my mind.”

shoko didn’t move. she was still staring at your chest with the intensity of a scientist trying to understand a new species. “okay but seriously,” she said, “you used to have, like, regular tits. now they’re... menace tits.”

“menace tits?” you repeated, grinning.

“like if you leaned forward too fast someone might get a concussion.”

geto sat on the floor, too tall and too casual, already scooping curry into his mouth like he hadn’t slept in two days. you follow to sit beside him. “they are kind of violent. like, threatening. in a good way.”

you pointed your spoon at him. “you’re just mad they didn’t happen to you.”

“i’d kill to have tits like that,” he said around a mouthful. “i’d start a cult.”

“you did start a cult,” shoko said, mouth twitching.

“not for tits, though. that was ideological.”

“sure,” you said, “ideologically horny.”

geto shrugged like you’d just handed him a compliment, licking curry from his thumb before he reached over to grab a napkin—and grazed your thigh with the back of his fingers like it was an accident. it wasn’t.

you pretended not to notice. shoko absolutely noticed.

“you two gonna fuck right here or should i go smoke on the balcony?”

“please,” you said, already giggling, “you’d just press your face to the glass like a cat.”

“damn right i would,” she said, dragging her cigarette to the filter. “free porn and curry? i’m not moving.”

and somehow, that was the real vibe of geto’s apartment: filthy, sweaty, comfortable. you’d never been somewhere more disgusting that still made you feel like curling up and letting the night rot slowly around you. the air was hot, the curry was too spicy, shoko was drunk off her second beer and already making plans to fight god, and geto kept looking at you like he knew exactly how that tank top was going to end up by midnight.

and he wasn’t wrong.

geto finished his curry with the kind of single-minded focus you’d expect from a man who’d been fasting for enlightenment but gave up when he smelled something fried. he licked his thumb again, sucked a speck of rice off his knuckle, and looked up at you through his lashes like he knew. like he always knew. like he was in on some joke your thighs were telling in a language only perverts spoke.

“you still haven’t taken those boots off,” he said, voice slow and syrupy, the kind that soaked into your spine.

“and i won’t,” you said primly, crossing your legs just to watch his eyes track the motion like a dog waiting for a treat. “they’re part of the outfit. they’re a lifestyle choice.”

“they’re a threat,” shoko muttered, setting her empty bowl on the floor and lighting another cigarette with the dying embers of the last one. “to national security. to mental health.”

“you’re just mad they don’t match your tits,” you replied sweetly, leaning back into the couch cushions and pulling your tank top up in a useless attempt at modesty that just made everything worse. “they couldn’t,” shoko said. “your tits are... chaotic evil.”

“they’re misunderstood,” you argued, grabbing your beer again. “they just have ambition.”

“they have range,” geto added, finishing the last of his beer. “you could balance a wine glass on them or smother someone to death. versatility.”

you raised the can in salute. “exactly.”

shoko stood, suddenly, like the couch had become spiritually uninhabitable. “i’m going to smoke something illegal on the balcony before i get emotionally invested in whatever’s about to happen here.”

“too late,” you called as she slid the glass door open with a screech and stepped out into the heavy night.

then it was just you and geto. the apartment hummed around you—dim, hot, cluttered. the fridge buzzed like it had trauma. the clock ticked unevenly. somewhere in the building, a dog barked once and then gave up. and geto... well.

he shifted closer. not much. just enough that his knees brushed yours, and his hand landed lightly on your bare thigh. not high. not low. just... there. a placeholder. a punctuation mark between all the things you hadn’t said out loud yet. “you know,” he said, thumb stroking a lazy arc across your skin, “i keep thinking about what you said earlier.”

you blinked, faux-innocent. “i said a lot of things.”

“the part about your tits matching the boots.” he looked so serious, and that made it worse. “i didn’t get it at first. but now... now i see it.”

“do you?”

“yeah.” his voice dropped lower, like it was dragging itself across velvet. “they’re both dangerous. built for worship. you don’t walk into a room with those things—you arrive.”

you let your head fall back, laughing—breathless and soft, because of course he was turning your bullshit into poetry. you could feel the heat of him next to you, his palm heavier now, fingers edging higher with that slow, reverent menace he was famous for. “what are you doing, suguru,” you asked, tipping your head toward him.

“just appreciating a gift from god,” he said.

“you’re not even religious.”

“i am now.”

you snorted. “oh, please.”

he looked at you. really looked at you. eyes dark and steady, like they were made to stare, made to drink in slow details—the glisten of sweat at your collarbone, the delicate strain of fabric over full curves, the way you were smiling like you hadn’t already decided how this night was going to end.

then his voice dropped even lower. almost a whisper. almost holy.

“can i touch them?”

you raised your eyebrows. smirked. leaned in close enough for your breath to touch his jaw.

“which one—boots or tits?”

his smile split like a secret, soft and wide and so full of bad ideas it made your thighs twitch. “both,” he said, already sliding his palm higher. outside, shoko lit something that smelled like it should be illegal in three prefectures and muttered, “god damn it,” to the city below.

and inside, geto’s hands found reverence.

geto’s hand not moving fast. just pressing—heat through skin, weight through muscle—like he was waiting for permission he already knew he had. and maybe he did. maybe you were both just playing the long game because drawing it out was part of the sick pleasure, like edging a conversation until the whole room ached from the subtext.

the air was heavy. smelled like smoke and leftover curry and something warmer, muskier. something you. sweat and perfume and laundry detergent from your tank top. geto inhaled like it was the first real breath he’d taken in hours. like it was better than any spell he’d ever learned.

you were watching him watch you, and it was stupid. it was so stupid, the way he looked at you like your tits were preaching. like your whole chest had something to say, and he was ready to listen. eyes locked, lips parted, and that thumb of his drifting higher now, tracing the hem of your skirt like he was testing gravity.

you didn’t stop him.

“you’re being weird about this,” you murmured, voice sticky with amusement. low and lazy, like you’d just woken up in a stranger’s bed and decided to stay. “i’m being respectful,” he said, immediately. “these are divine objects. you don’t just rush in.”

“you’ve seen me naked before.”

“yeah,” he said, dragging his gaze up your body. “but not like this.”

you cocked your head. “what’s different?”

he didn’t answer immediately. just slipped his hand under your skirt, high on your thigh now, palm curved like he wanted to hold all of you there, in that handful of skin. “you know what’s different,” he said finally, soft and dark and smiling. “you’re dangerous now.”

you snorted. “i’ve always been dangerous.”

“yeah. but now it’s weaponized.”

you leaned back into the couch, legs spread enough to make it a problem, your boots still on like a crime scene waiting to happen. “you gonna make an offering to the tit gods or what?”

“i said respectful,” he repeated, but he was already moving. already shifting his weight, one knee between your thighs on the couch cushion, the heat of him crawling up your body like ivy in a horror movie—slow, creeping, inevitable.

his hands, finally, found your waist. slid up. thumbs brushing the underside of your tits where the fabric clung indecently tight. he didn’t grope. not yet. he held, like they might break. like they might bite. “jesus christ,” he breathed, reverent and stupid and hungry. “they really are bigger.”

“i told you,” you said, pleased with yourself. “second puberty.”

he made a noise in the back of his throat. it might’ve been a laugh. might’ve been a death rattle. “i can’t believe i get to live in the same timeline as these.”

“you’re welcome,” you said sweetly, and arched just enough that they pressed against his hands more firmly—soft, heavy, straining through the thin, sweat-damp tank top.

his breath hitched.

“you gonna cry?” you asked, almost teasing, but there was something soft in it too. “need a minute?”

he shook his head slowly. “nah. just... giving thanks.”

and then he leaned in.

not to kiss your mouth. not yet. no. he dipped lower—lower—mouth brushing your chest like it was sacred ground. lips parting, breath hot through the fabric, and then a kiss, gentle and obscene, right between your tits. not biting. not even licking. just pressing his mouth there, full and warm, as if he could pour something of himself into the space and let it stay.

“okay,” you whispered, voice shaking just enough to feel real. “now you’re being weird.”

“can’t help it,” he mumbled into your skin. “they’re majestic. it’s like looking into the sun. if the sun had cleavage.”

“do you want me to take the top off or are you planning on praying through cotton all night?”

he looked up, eyes dazed and adoring and wrecked.

“i think i want to die between them,” he said.

and you believed him.

he didn’t look away when you pulled the straps down.

you hadn’t even said anything, hadn’t made it a moment—no dramatic glance, no cheeky little tease. just lifted your hands with lazy grace and tugged both straps of your tank top off your shoulders, letting them slip down your arms like they didn’t matter. the neckline fell low—too low—and then lower still until the thin fabric couldn’t hold on anymore. your tits spilled free like they were tired of waiting, heavy and flushed, nipples drawn tight from the heat, the sweat, the way geto was breathing.

his mouth parted like it was automatic. like he needed more oxygen just to process them.

“holy shit,” he muttered, voice dropped into that ruined octave of someone who’d just witnessed the divine and was trying not to weep about it. “okay. okay, i get it now.”

you hummed like you were bored, even as you shifted your hips slightly, thighs parting wider, the skirt barely clinging to your dignity. “get what?”

he didn’t answer. just leaned forward again—lower this time—and pressed his face into your cleavage like he was returning home after war. both hands came up, cupping, lifting, reverent but not shy anymore. his thumbs circled your nipples, brushing them soft at first, then with a little more pressure, watching them stiffen under his touch like they were shy at first but warming to the attention. his mouth followed, lips parting, tongue flicking once against your sternum before he just let his whole face sink between them.

you laughed. a breathy, stunned thing, disbelieving. “you okay down there?”

a muffled, “no,” came from his mouth, buried in the valley of your chest.

you tilted your head back against the couch, eyes fluttering shut. the heat of his breath, the scratch of his stubble, the weight of his body leaning into yours—all of it made your skin feel too tight, too present, like you’d been reduced to sensation and tits and the ache between your thighs.

and then—

the sliding door screeched open again.

“oh my fucking god,” came shoko’s voice, flat and annoyed and high as sin. “i was gone for five minutes.”

you cracked one eye open. “welcome back.”

she was standing there, one hip cocked, a half-finished joint between her fingers and the most unimpressed expression you’d ever seen on a human face. “suguru, are you motorboating our friend’s tits?”

he didn’t move. just gave a muffled, “mm-hmm,” from the plush safety of your chest. “you’re so fucking weird,” she muttered, stepping back inside. the glass door clicked shut behind her. “both of you. all of you.”

“don’t act like you weren’t thinking about it,” you said, breath hitching as geto’s hands slid up to cup the full weight of your breasts, squeezing experimentally. “thinking about it and walking in on it are two very different emotional experiences,” she said, dropping onto the arm of the couch again, her usual throne. “and i don’t remember giving consent to a live sex show.”

“we’re not even fucking yet,” you said, voice going soft around the edges as geto’s tongue finally found your nipple, slow and obscene. “it’s just—appreciation.” shoko exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “you’re treating her like a museum exhibit,” she muttered. “a slutty one.”

“interactive,” you corrected, arching just a little when geto sucked harder. “like the science center.”

geto finally lifted his face, lips slick, eyes unfocused. “shoko. give us a minute.”

“give you a minute?” she echoed. “you’ve been face-deep in titties for the last ten. what’s left?”

“spiritual awakening,” he said without hesitation.

shoko rubbed her eyes like the conversation itself was giving her wrinkles. “i’m too high for this. also not high enough.”

“you’re free to join in,” you offered sweetly, not really expecting anything, just basking in the ridiculousness of it all—legs spread, tank top around your ribs, one of jujutsu tech’s finest licking your tits like he was trying to memorize them with his soul, and shoko sitting five feet away like this was normal.

she blinked at you.

paused.

then said, “no, i’m emotionally married to apathy. but thanks for the invite.”

and then, because she couldn’t help herself, her gaze dropped. lingered. for a second too long. at your chest, at geto’s tongue flicking your nipple again just to make you squirm. her eyes narrowed, calculating. critical. “okay,” she finally said. “i’m sorry, but they really are too big. it’s not natural. you need to get them registered.”

“they’re emotional support tits,” you breathed, barely able to speak through the pleasure curling up your spine.

“they’re a threat to public health,” she shot back. geto just groaned, nuzzling back between them like he could disappear there, like there was nowhere else in the world worth being. and honestly? maybe there wasn’t. geto had your tits in his mouth like they were the last goddamn miracle on earth.

and he was so slow about it. he wasn’t even sucking anymore. just licking—flat-tongued, reverent strokes like he was trying to commit the taste to memory. one hand held you steady, splayed wide across your ribs. the other was still tucked under your skirt, palm heavy on the outside of your thigh, fingers twitching now and then like he was thinking about moving them up, and then deciding not to—yet.

your head was tipped back against the couch, mouth slack, one boot heel digging into the cushion like you needed leverage against the slow drag of his tongue. you weren’t making a sound. not a moan, not a whimper. just breathing. open. ruined.

and to the left—there she was.

shoko. leaning against the far arm of the couch, still in her half-buttoned shorts, one leg folded under her, the other kicked out wide with a casualness that didn’t match the way her eyes were pinned to your chest. the joint in her hand had gone out. ash clung to it. she hadn’t moved to relight it. “you’re both disgusting,” she said finally, voice dry, eyes not leaving your tits.

“takes one to know one,” you murmured, without looking at her.

she scoffed. shifted her weight to near you. her shoe knocked against the side of your thigh, not gently. “and what, i’m just supposed to sit here while he acts like he’s breastfeeding?”

geto didn’t even lift his head. just muttered, “she taste better than milk.”

shoko made a noise like she was going to throw up, but her fingers were already toying with the hem of your skirt, just to the side of geto’s hand. you didn’t stop her. didn’t even flinch. your whole body was heavy and humming, caught in that low, thick pulse of being watched.

and fuck. it was hot.

because shoko didn’t move fast. she didn’t push. she didn’t grope. she touched you like a scientist dissecting a problem she wasn’t sure she wanted to solve. her knuckles grazed your thigh. then her nails. light, precise, tracing the edge of where your skirt had rucked up. you could feel the bite of her rings against your skin, cool and sharp and utterly deliberate.

“you’re just letting this happen,” she said, not even trying to sound surprised anymore.

“you’re doing it,” you breathed, finally turning your head toward her. “you joined in.”

she raised an eyebrow. “and?”

you didn’t answer. couldn’t, really—not with geto sucking one nipple deep into his mouth, tongue circling, slow and obscene. your hips jerked once, involuntary. shoko’s hand slid higher in response, palm settling flat against the bare skin of your inner thigh, her thumb just brushing the crease.

there was a pause.

a long, thick silence, broken only by your breath catching and the faint, wet sound of geto’s mouth. “you want her to beg?” shoko asked, voice low now. lower than you’d ever heard it. geto’s mouth popped off your chest, lips wet and kiss-drunk. he looked up, blinking slow, his hands still warm on your ribs.

“she doesn’t have to,” he said.

and then, to your utter ruin, he added—

“she’s already praying.”

shoko looked at him like she was about to punch him in the face. or kiss him. or both.

“you are so full of shit.”

but her hand stayed where it was. her thumb slid closer. you could feel the heat building between your thighs, throbbing in your chest, crawling up your spine. you wanted to say something snarky, something flippant, but all that came out was a shaky exhale and a noise that wasn’t quite a moan.

geto leaned over, resting his head between your tits again like he belonged there. one of his hands found your waist and squeezed, grounding you.

and shoko, that bitch, just watched.

watched your mouth go slack. watched your chest rise and fall with each breath. watched the place between your legs ache for attention. and then she smiled—sharp and slow and awful.

“i want to see what you do when he fucks your tits.”

you blinked at her.

“i want to see,” she repeated, voice soft now. almost curious. “what that looks like.” geto made a low sound against your chest. something dark. pleased. possessive. “you can watch,” he said, shifting, finally moving back—his lips leaving your skin, his hand slipping down to your skirt. “but only if you’re good.”

“define good,” shoko said, eyes hooded, fingers still resting between your thighs like a threat.

you swallowed.

and spread your legs a little wider.

geto shifted back with the kind of gravity that only belonged to people about to be adored.

he slid off the couch cushions and settled on the edge of the couch like a god descending to be fed — legs wide, jaw loose, hair slipping from the mess of his tie like it wanted to watch you too. there was something careless about it, the way he sprawled there, cock still hidden behind the slouch of gray sweats that clung low and soft and damp at the waistband. his bare chest gleamed faintly under the shitty yellow light, marked by heat and your mouth, a smear of your lip balm still ghosting the edge of one pec.

“here?” you asked, already slipping off the couch with your knees hitting the shitty carpet in one dull, obedient thud. it was hot. stupidly so. your thighs still trembled from where shoko had touched you, still open just a little too wide as you knelt between his legs like the position itself was enough.

“right there,” geto said, voice low and thin like it was being dragged out of his lungs. “fuck, baby, look at you—just right there.”

you looked up through your lashes, tits still bare and high and flushed, your top bunched under them like it had surrendered hours ago. he hadn’t even pulled himself out yet, and the heat between your thighs was already stupid, embarrassing. shoko made a quiet little noise — not a word, just a breath, the sound of someone watching and refusing to blink.

then she moved.

she didn’t say anything. just slinked off the arm of the couch and dropped beside geto like it was her seat all along, one bare thigh brushing his, the lit joint still smoldering between her fingers. she didn’t look at him. she looked at you — on your knees, eyes bright, breathing hard — and for once, she didn’t say anything shitty. no joke. no sarcasm. just… watched.

“you gonna be good for me?” geto murmured, voice wrecked now, sweet and fucked and soft, dragging one hand through your hair while the other braced against his thigh. “you gonna make me lose my mind down there?”

you smiled with teeth. “only if you ask nice.”

he laughed — a short, broken thing — and leaned his head back against the couch.

“please, baby,” he said. “come make this cock feel like a blessing.”

you didn’t rush.

your fingers curled around the waistband of his sweats, thumbs tucked in slow like you were pulling apart the final seal on something dangerous, something volatile. the moment the elastic gave, his cock spilled out like it couldn’t wait — tall, heavy, flushed an angry dark pink at the tip and thick in that rude way that felt like a punchline. veiny, twitching, needy — and absolutely aware of the way your mouth parted.

shoko whistled low under her breath. “jesus christ, suguru.”

“don’t act like you haven’t seen it,” he said, breathless.

“not like this.”

you dragged your eyes back up his body. his abs were fluttering. his jaw was clenched. your hand wrapped around the base, and he groaned — full chest, full throat, like the touch alone was too much after being teased between your tits for so long. your thumb circled the head, slick already leaking at the tip like he’d been waiting for this the whole fucking night.

“look at that,” you murmured, voice low and thick. “he’s already crying for me.”

“he’s sensitive,” geto breathed, hand still tangled in your hair. “needs to be treated right.”

“don’t worry, baby,” you said, leaning forward now — mouth open, tongue just barely flicking the swollen head. “i’ll take real good care of him.”

you licked the tip. slow.

not a suck — not yet — just the soft lap of your tongue over the bead of precome, circling, savoring, letting it smear across your lips like gloss. he gasped above you, thighs twitching, and shoko’s breath hitched beside him.

you looked up. caught his eyes.

then pressed your tits together — full and warm and heavy — and lowered them onto his cock like a curtain falling on a final act.

he exhaled like he’d been holding it all night.

his cock fit too well between them, the weight of it obscene, the head nudging up near your collarbone while the rest disappeared into the soft press of your chest. you gave a slow little squeeze, letting your cleavage swallow him, letting that thick shaft pulse against your skin while you kissed the tip, sweet and patient.

“you see this, shoko?” geto’s voice was wrecked now. one hand cradled the back of your head, the other gripping the couch cushion beside him. “fuckin’—she’s spoiling me.” shoko didn’t answer immediately. you could feel her looking — the heat of it, the scrutiny, the way her silence felt like approval.

“i’m jealous,” she said finally, voice quieter than it should’ve been.

you grinned against geto’s cock. “you can help.”

she didn’t move. not yet. just exhaled and watched, breath held like prayer.

you rocked your shoulders slightly, dragging his cock through the cleft of your tits, slow and steady, the friction just enough to make him curse. each pass painted your skin with precome, messy and sweet, and when you leaned forward to take the head into your mouth again — just a kiss, just a taste — geto moaned like he was already halfway to heaven.

“f-fuck, baby,” he gasped, hips twitching. “you’re perfect. you were made for this. look at you — down there, all soft and fucking beautiful — you’re gonna kill me.”

you let the tip pop free of your lips, smiling up at him like it wasn’t already insane how hard he was shaking. “i’m just getting started, daddy.”

shoko made a low sound beside him.

and your hands pressed your tits tighter, welcoming him deeper into the heat.

shoko had been silent for too long.

not like her. she usually filled the room with snark when things got too heated — cracked a dirty joke, rolled her eyes, insulted you just to keep the tension manageable. but now? now she was watching — watching the way your tits cradled geto’s cock, how the thick shaft dragged slow through the valley of your chest, slick and twitching and pink at the tip. watching your shoulders flex, your fingers sink deeper into your own skin to press them tighter together, to make the pressure unbearable.

geto was falling apart.

you could hear it — in the little gasps, the way his voice kept cracking when he tried to speak. the praises fell in fragments now, choked off between moans, soft-spoken worship turning sloppy. “fuck, baby… so warm, so fucking soft, can’t—can’t think—”

you had your mouth open, waiting for the head of his cock to peek up again, and when it did, you licked it. just a tease, tongue swirling around the ridge like it was a spell. he shuddered violently, thighs flexing under your knees, one hand gripping your hair like he didn’t trust himself to let go.

and then shoko moved.

she didn’t ask.

she just leaned in, slow and quiet and deliberate, the way she always did when she made up her mind about something she shouldn’t want. her hair fell over one shoulder, long and messy and smelling like smoke, and her face came level with yours — so close your cheek brushed hers. her eyes flicked down. locked on the head of geto’s cock as it swelled thick and flushed, smeared with your spit, slick with arousal.

and then she opened her mouth.

you paused. just for a second. lips parted. breath caught.

and watched her take the tip in.

geto made a sound that wasn’t a word — just a broken, animal fuck dragged out from the base of his spine. his head slammed back against the wall behind the couch, one hand fisting in the cushion, the other still clinging to your hair like it was the only thing anchoring him to reality.

“holy shit, shoko—what the—fuck, are you—fuck—”

but she didn’t speak.

she just closed her lips around the head of his cock — your tits still wrapped around the shaft, still moving — and sucked. hard.

you felt it. all of it. the heat of her mouth at your chest, the way her tongue flicked against the slit, the obscene, wet sound of her lips wrapped tight around the crown while your tits moved in tandem, gliding up and down the shaft like a prayer answered in motion. your hands pressed together tighter, pushing the flesh in just enough to squeeze him more, just enough to feel the way he pulsed and twitched with every pass.

“oh my god,” you whispered, watching her work — the elegance of it, the intent. “you’re so fucking good at that.” shoko didn’t reply — just looked at you out the corner of her eye, cheeks hollowed around the tip of his cock, eyes gleaming with something far too smug.

geto was gone.

“please—please don’t stop—fuck, you’re both gonna kill me—shit, just like that, don’t stop—”

you didn’t.

you kept your rhythm, slow and steady and mean, sliding your tits up and down as shoko suckled the head of his cock like she was feeding on it. her tongue flicked, circled, coaxed more precome to spill across your skin, wet and messy and obscene. you could feel it dripping now, collecting in the curve of your cleavage, sliding down your sternum. you pressed them tighter, kissed his base, licked the skin where your chest met his body.

his hands were everywhere — on your head, in shoko’s hair, clawing at the couch, grabbing nothing. his whole body trembled with tension, hips rocking up now despite himself, fucking into your tits and into her mouth in short, desperate little jerks.

“fuck, i’m—i’m gonna—i can’t—” his breath was breaking apart, fingers clenching, voice nearly gone. “gonna cum, fuck, fuck, i’m—”

you squeezed. shoko sucked harder.

and he broke.

he cried out — high and wild and helpless — and came between your tits and into her mouth, cock pulsing hard against your skin as he jerked forward, hips twitching, thighs tightening under your hands. his whole body bowed forward, gave in, as ropes of hot come spilled over your breasts and into shoko’s mouth, messy and loud and filthy.

shoko pulled back with a long, wet slurp, licking her lips like she’d just tasted something rare. she looked at you — and then at him — and smirked.

“you boys never know how to shut up when it counts.”

you were still holding your tits around him, come dripping between them, breath coming fast.

geto was a wreck.

slumped back against the couch, eyes half-lidded, chest heaving, hair sticking to his face. he looked like he’d seen god and survived — barely. “holy fuck,” he whispered, hoarse and raw. “i’m in love with both of you.” you glanced at shoko. she rolled her eyes. “you’ll still be in love after we make you do it again.” you smiled. and licked your lips clean.

geto was still catching his breath.

he looked like sin and salvation rolled into a single man-shaped pile of regret, sprawled on the edge of the couch like his spine had given out. one hand was limp in your hair, the other sliding down shoko’s thigh like he forgot what limbs were for. his cock twitched weakly between your tits, still glossy, still twitching like it hadn’t accepted it was finished yet.

and then, very calmly, shoko stuck her tongue out.

held it there. eyes half-lidded, amused.

and let a thick, glistening bead of geto’s come drip off the tip — slow, heavy, obscene — until it landed with a wet little pat against the top of your breast.

you blinked up at her.

she looked like she was tasting irony.

you didn’t move. just raised an eyebrow, still cradling his softening cock between your breasts like it was a religious relic. “seriously?”

“waste not, want not,” she said, shrugging. and then she leaned in.

her mouth met yours with no warning, no lead-in, no tenderness — just heat, the sharp edge of her teeth against your lower lip, her tongue slick and tasting like smoke and the faintest aftershock of geto. you groaned into her mouth, and she kissed you like she wanted to shut you up, hands sliding around your waist, one rising boldly to your chest.

geto groaned. a helpless, ruined sound. “that’s so hot.”

“shut up,” shoko muttered against your lips, not meaning it, not stopping.

her palm dragged upward, slow and obscene, smearing the mess across your breasts — his mess, still warm and slippery — until it streaked across your sternum, your nipples, slicked your skin in some holy combination of filth and fondness.

you gasped against her mouth, and she grinned.

“look at this,” she said, sitting back to admire her work. her fingers gripped both tits, lifted them, gave a squeeze that made you gasp again. “fucking disgusting. you look like a crime scene.”

“thank you?” you said, trying not to laugh.

but then she added — with her chin resting in her hand and her eyes full of smugness so rich it was practically spilling over —

“you look like someone just tried to baptize you with his cock.”

and you snorted. violently. choked on your own breath, bent double with a laugh so loud it startled even you. geto, still too weak to speak, wheezed out something that might’ve been “holy shit” and covered his face with one hand.

“shoko,” you gasped, clutching at your ribs, “you’re a demon.”

“a sexy one,” she said, licking her thumb clean with deliberate slowness.

geto, blinking slowly from his position of post-nut devastation, peeked between his fingers. “if i die right now, i want my tombstone to say ‘death by tit and tongue.’”

you dragged a pillow off the couch and threw it at him. he caught it with his chest, groaned, and collapsed backward like it had been a mortal wound. “okay. round two in… twenty minutes.” shoko lit another cigarette, perched back on the armrest like nothing had happened. “that’s generous.” you laid back against the carpet, chest bare, skin glistening, heart still racing.

filthy. loved. ridiculous.

somewhere in the corner of the room, a moth slammed itself into the glass door and bounced off. “this place needs to be burned down,” shoko said. you sighed. “but it’s kind of… home.” she looked down at you, chest marked with sweat and spit and a stupid amount of affection.

“…yeah. unfortunately.”

twenty minutes didn’t pass.

maybe ten. twelve if you were being generous. it wasn’t like anyone was counting.

you were still half-sprawled on the floor, your body sticky with evidence, one leg cocked up against the couch while shoko rested a heel on your thigh like she was claiming territory. geto had relocated to the floor, slouched against the couch frame beside you with his sweatpants pulled up only halfway, looking more like a mythological burnout than a man.

nobody was saying anything. not yet. the air was full of post-orgasm haze — too hot, too heavy, the kind of silence that buzzed just under the skin.

then geto shifted.

just enough that his thigh brushed yours, and your eyes dropped automatically to where the waistband of his sweats was tugged halfway down, revealing the start of a cock that had no business twitching again already.

you didn’t say anything. you just tilted your head.

he caught the look and grinned.

“what?” he said, voice low and wrecked. “she kissed you, your tits are still covered in my come, and i’m not supposed to get hard again?” you rolled your eyes, but your stomach flipped traitorously, heat climbing again with that lazy, stupid inevitability. your thighs pressed together. your voice came out drier than intended. “you sure you’ve got another one in you?”

“baby,” he said, dragging his palm down the flat of your stomach, “i haven’t even started yet.”

shoko snorted from the armrest. “someone’s cocky.”

“someone’s confident,” he corrected, already crawling forward on his knees, palms bracketing your hips like he’d never stopped touching you. you lay back willingly this time, arching under the weight of his hands, your whole body humming with anticipation, the ache between your legs reigniting like it never left. you expected him to go for your mouth, your tits, your thighs—

but instead he leaned in close. lower.

and breathed against your navel.

his hands slid under your thighs, pushing your legs up, open, spread and vulnerable, and then— “wait,” shoko said lazily, “before you ruin her again—” geto paused, blinking up from between your legs like he was being interrupted mid-prayer. shoko leaned forward, flicking your nipple with the tip of her joint. “are we switching this time? because if i don’t get some of this, i swear to god—”

you let out a breathy laugh, half-moan. “you want top billing?”

“we co-lead now,” she said, and flicked the nipple again for emphasis.

geto didn’t protest. just pulled back and looked at her, then at you.

“fine,” he said, and leaned over to kiss you, really kiss you this time — deep and full and tasting like your own breath, like smoke and salt and the ghost of your earlier laugh. “but I get to fuck her with your tits again when we’re done.”

“babe,” you whispered against his lips, “we can do that in the morning.”

“or in the shower,” shoko added, already crawling over your legs, straddling your thigh like she didn’t care that the floor was still sticky. “or while you’re eating breakfast. multitask.” you opened your mouth to say something smart, something stupid— but her mouth found your throat, and the words turned to noise.

geto leaned back to watch — one hand still stroking your thigh, the other fisting gently in his sweatpants as his cock swelled again, so hard so fast it almost looked painful. “fuck,” he muttered, “this is gonna be worse than the first time.”

“worse?” shoko said, licking a stripe up your neck.

“worse,” he said, voice gravel and heat and promise. “like… begging level.”

you groaned.

“good,” she said, cupping your tits again, smearing the leftover mess with a grin so sharp it could gut. “i like when she beg.” shoko's mouth on your neck was sharp, almost mean — no build-up, no tender teasing. she didn’t kiss you like a lover. she kissed like she meant it, like she had something to prove. her teeth caught your pulse just to feel it jump beneath them, and her tongue followed, hot and rough, tasting the salt of your skin like it was hers to devour.

and fuck — maybe it was.

you were pinned under her hips, her thigh between yours, the weight of her pressing down just enough to make your back arch and your breath catch. her hands were already on your chest again — still slick, still marked from earlier — squeezing your tits like she wanted to see if the memory of geto’s cum was still warm on your skin. it was. the smear of it caught her fingertips, and she laughed, dark and quiet and thrilled.

“you’re a fucking mess,” she said, dragging her thumb across one nipple, watching it pebble under her touch. “and you love it.” you whined something that might have been a yes, but your voice cracked too hard in the middle.

geto was still kneeling off to the side, half-forgotten in the haze, but his gaze never left you. his cock was heavy in his hand again, long fingers stroking slowly from base to tip, his other palm flat against the floor like he needed to ground himself or he’d float. his eyes followed shoko’s tongue — the way she licked across the top of your chest like she was tasting the aftermath, chasing the flavor of earlier sins.

“i’d say i’m jealous,” he murmured, voice rough and thick, “but watching this? might be better.” shoko didn’t even look at him. she just leaned down and bit your tit — not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to make you jolt. “stay still,” she said, mouth full, voice sticky with mischief. “i’m not done feeding yet.”

your legs twitched. your fingers dug into the carpet. and still — you stayed.

because you wanted to. because her voice in your ear was pure fucking command, and her mouth on your chest was making your pussy throb in a slow, devastating pulse. she moved lower — lazy, sliding her body down yours like she was melting over you — and kissed the underside of your breast, then your ribs, then your stomach, each press of her lips hotter than the last.

you looked down just in time to see her part your thighs.

and grin.

“ohh,” she breathed, like a dirty secret. “you’re dripping.”

your hips bucked.

“i haven’t even touched you yet,” she murmured, dragging one finger up the slick mess between your legs, slow and easy, spreading you open with the kind of casual confidence that made your spine bend. “this is all from getting your tits licked? that’s so fucking cute.”

geto groaned, a real one — helpless, reverent. “don’t tease her too much.”

“she likes it,” shoko said, then turned her head just enough to make eye contact with you. “don’t you, baby?”

you nodded. too fast. too breathless.

“use your words,” she said, slipping one finger in. just the tip.

“yes,” you gasped, voice cracking. “yes, i like it — please, shoko—”

she rewarded you by sliding in deeper.

slowly.

her finger curled inside you just right, and her mouth returned to your tits, tongue wet and unhurried, licking the slick remnants of earlier off your chest like she wanted to clean you with her mouth. geto’s hand was working faster now, his breath coming in shuddering waves, his eyes locked on where shoko’s fingers disappeared into your cunt, where your thighs trembled against the floor.

and still, no one rushed.

because this was worship. this was slow destruction. this was filth as intimacy. shoko added another finger, kissed the tip of your nipple like an apology, then leaned back to watch your face while she curled her hand — hard and sudden, precise.

you cried out.

“fuck,” geto whispered, like it was being wrung out of him. “she’s so—fuck, shoko—don’t stop, don’t—please—”

“shh,” she said, not looking at him. “you’ll get your turn.”

and then, to you, “you ready to come, sweet thing?”

you didn’t speak. couldn’t. just nodded, body slick and arched and soaked in need, begging in every line of your skin. shoko’s smile turned vicious. “good.”

and her mouth went down.

shoko’s mouth met your cunt like she knew it — like this was muscle memory, like she’d dreamed it before and memorized the weight of your thighs and the shape of your hunger without ever admitting it out loud. her tongue slid against you slow, too slow, a hot wet stripe that made your hips jump off the floor and your hands fist in the tangled couch blanket beside you.

you moaned — long, drawn-out, cracked open like prayer — and she didn’t pause. just grinned against you, then did it again.

“holy fuck,” you gasped.

geto had gotten to his knees. his hand still on his cock, lazily stroking, and his other hand drifted to your breast, thumb brushing your nipple with that same devastating softness he'd started with. the contrast of her tongue between your legs and his hand on your chest was maddening — soft and hard, sharp and slow, together like they were building you up to collapse.

“you taste like you’ve been waiting for this all day,” shoko muttered between licks, her voice muffled but smug. “she has,” geto murmured, leaning down to kiss your jaw. “kept those legs closed through a whole dinner and half a blunt.”

you groaned helplessly. “i’m gonna fucking die.”

“not yet,” shoko said, and sucked.

your back arched, thighs twitching against her cheeks. her tongue flicked, circled, teased your clit like it was a secret she was trying to coax out, and her fingers never stopped — two of them buried inside you again, curling with every slow drag of her mouth, pushing up into you with devastating rhythm.

geto kissed your neck. your shoulder. his cock nudged your hip now, slick and pulsing and ready, but he wasn’t rushing it. he watched you come apart under shoko’s mouth, eyes hungry, reverent, overwhelmed. “she looks so fucking pretty like this,” he whispered, brushing your sweat-stuck hair from your face. “you gonna come for her, baby?”

you nodded, whined, bit your lip until it stung.

“use your words,” shoko growled against your cunt, and the vibration made you twitch.

“yes, yes, please, shoko—don’t stop—”

she didn’t.

she doubled down.

mouth moving faster, tongue flicking harder, fingers fucking up into you with that sharp, perfect curl, over and over, and geto’s hand rolled your nipple just right, pinching it gently as he whispered filth against your ear, “you’re gonna soak her fingers, aren’t you?”

“gonna scream for us?”

“go on, baby — make a mess. be loud. let her taste all of it.”

and god, you did.

your orgasm slammed through you without warning — sudden and hot and full-body, hips bucking into shoko’s mouth, hands scrabbling at the floor, voice breaking into a cry that filled the whole disgusting, beautiful apartment.

shoko moaned when she felt you clench.

kept licking.

kept fucking you through it like she wanted everything, and you gave it, gasping and twitching and almost sobbing with how good it was. geto was breathing harder now, his cock wet at the tip, hand jerking faster. “shit,” he said, “fuck, i’m gonna—fuck—” and when shoko pulled her mouth from your cunt, she turned to him, hand still fucking you lazily — and said, “then come on her tits again. she misses it.”

and geto broke.

he leaned over you, panting, cock sliding between your sticky breasts with practiced ease. you pressed them together for him, still dazed from the orgasm, still shaking — and watched his face collapse as he thrust twice, once more, and spilled everything all over your chest with a strangled groan.

heat. wet. everywhere again.

you laughed — half-crazed, half-gone. shoko just wiped your brow with the back of her hand, like she’d done something generous. “you’re welcome,” she said, casual as ever, smearing the mess across your tits again. geto dropped beside you, spent and grinning like a man reborn.

you, somewhere between them, a ruined shrine in boots and sweat.

you could still taste her on your lips. or maybe it was your own orgasm, lingering bitter-sweet under your tongue. either way, the air was hot again — hotter, somehow — and your body wasn’t yours anymore. it was theirs. sore, open, glowing. you were slick in all the places that mattered and some that didn’t. your chest gleamed with geto’s second confession, still drying sticky under the curve of your tits.

and still — you wanted.

shoko sat next to you, her breathing steady but deep. her hair stuck to her neck in damp strands, lips wet, her face unreadable in that dangerous way. she was flushed — not just from exertion, but from wanting. she hadn’t come yet. neither had geto, this round. and that heat, that tension, was everywhere. it clung to the room, thick as sweat on skin.

you pulled your hand down from your breast and dragged a finger through the mess. held it up for her to see. “you look like you still need something.”

shoko didn’t answer. not with words. she just stood.

she pulled her shorts down slow, like a dare, one inch at a time, revealing black cotton underwear soaked through with wet and the bold indifference of someone who knew exactly what she wanted. she didn’t make it sexy. she made it inevitable. “i haven’t come,” she said, stepping out of them. “and you have a mouth.”

geto groaned. “fuck.”

you smiled. wide. wrecked.

and then, slow, still lying back on the floor, one leg bent, body open and welcoming — you looked up at her and said, “then sit on my face.”

the words hit the air like a punch.

shoko blinked once. her mouth twitched. and then — she grinned.

“don’t mind if i do.”

geto was already moving — kneeling between your thighs now, hands on your knees, spreading you open with that same reverent touch he’d used all night. but there was something hungrier in it now. something deeper. he was still hard, thick and flushed and dripping against his stomach, his cock slapped up against your pussy with a wet sound that made both of you twitch.

“fuck,” you muttered, looking up at him. “you’re still hard?”

he leaned over you, hands framing your hips, voice dark and too calm.

“i told you,” he said. “i haven’t started yet.”

and then shoko straddled your face.

no warning. no hesitation. her knees hit the floor on either side of your head and her cunt hovered inches above your mouth — glistening, soaked, swollen from teasing and denial and her own fucked-up sense of control. you reached up, bracing your hands on her thighs, and pulled her down.

you licked her first.

your tongue dragged up the full length of her pussy, from her entrance to her clit, slow and hungry, and her whole body shivered above you. “jesus—fuck,” she gasped, one hand flying to your hair, gripping hard. “okay. okay. yeah, like that—”

geto groaned like he was going to come just watching.

he lined his cock up with your entrance, dragging the head through your folds, teasing the opening — already so open, so slick from earlier, that you twitched beneath him the second he touched you.

and then he started to push in.

slow. so slow.

his cock stretched you with aching, unrelenting pressure, inch by inch, and your moan was lost against shoko’s cunt, muffled and vibrating into her as she gripped your hair tighter and rolled her hips into your mouth.

“holy shit,” she gasped, voice going thin. “she’s good at this.”

geto gritted his teeth, sinking deeper, breath ragged.

“she’s good at everything,” he muttered, hips pressing forward until he was fully buried. “fuck, you’re so tight, baby—still? after all that? fuck.”

you moaned again — helpless, overwhelmed — as shoko began grinding down on your mouth and geto began to thrust, slow and deliberate, hips rolling into you with the full weight of his desire. every drag of his cock sent sparks through your spine, pressure building again already — your clit brushing his base, your thighs trembling open wider.

shoko was shaking above you, panting, one hand braced on the wall, the other tangled in your hair as your tongue circled her clit and your lips sucked, steady, intent.

“fuck—fuck, she’s gonna make me come like this,” shoko gasped, hips rocking harder now. “god, you—you're filthy. so fucking good—yes—just like that—don’t stop—”

geto was still watching.

watching your mouth get used like a toy. watching your tits bounce with every thrust. watching you give everything and ask for nothing but more.

his thrusts picked up — still slow, still deep, but harder, more claiming now. his hands held your hips in place, fingers digging into your skin, dragging you down onto his cock with every snap of his hips. “you’re gonna make her come,” he whispered to shoko, voice dark with pride. “and she’s gonna take me like a good fucking girl while she does it.”

you moaned — a wet, desperate sound lost in shoko’s cunt — and your hands tightened on her thighs, holding her down, eating her out like your life depended on it, tongue moving faster now, deeper, swirling, flicking.

she cried out.

and her whole body tensed.

“fuck—i’m—don’t stop—fuck, i’m coming—”

her orgasm hit like a slap — sharp, sudden, full-body — and she gasped, legs trembling, hips frozen as your tongue dragged her through it, still licking, still devouring. she came hard, grinding helplessly into your mouth, and when she finally started to breathe again, she collapsed forward, catching herself on the couch, hair falling around your face like a curtain.

“holy shit,” she breathed. “she just ate my soul.”

geto groaned above you — hips stuttering.

“fuck,” he panted. “don’t say that, i’m—i’m so fucking close—”

but he didn’t let go yet. you were still wrapped around him, shaking, wet, ruined under both of them. and he wasn’t finished. you didn’t stop.

shoko’s orgasm pulsed against your mouth, her thighs trembling around your head, her hips jerking slightly as sensitivity spiked in all the places she could no longer guard — and you kept sucking. kept your lips wrapped around her clit, kept your tongue moving in tight, precise circles like you had something to prove.

because you did.

you wanted to ruin her. you wanted to see what she looked like when she couldn’t stay sharp — when her sarcasm melted, when her voice cracked, when her body begged in place of her mouth.

and you were close.

she gasped above you, breath caught in her throat, one hand clawing blindly at the couch cushion behind her while the other braced on geto’s shoulder, fingers digging into the meat of him just to stay up. her legs twitched around your head, threatening to clamp down, but your arms were already locked around her thighs, pulling her down, keeping her there, refusing to let go.

“fuck—fuck—baby—” she choked out, hips trying to escape the pull of your mouth, “she won’t stop—suguru—fuck—”

geto was still between your legs, his cock sliding in and out of your cunt with a rhythm that was deliberate and slow, every thrust sinking deep, stroking that soft, unbearable place that made your toes curl. his hands gripped your hips, thumbs digging into the flesh just above your pelvis, keeping you anchored while he watched the way you devoured shoko like it was instinct.

his voice came in a rasp. “she’s fucking addicted to you.”

shoko didn’t answer. couldn’t. her head dropped forward, her forehead brushing geto’s chest, and you felt the moment it broke her again — the whimper, the involuntary twitch, the choked sound that slipped from her lips when she tried to say stop and it came out as please instead.

and then, shaking, she leaned down.

not away. down.

her spine curved forward, folding over you, one hand catching herself on your chest, fingers brushing the slick mess of geto’s come from before. her head rested briefly against his stomach, sweat-slick hair tangling against his abs, and then—

then her mouth opened.

and she licked his cock.

he groaned, deep and shocked, his hips faltering as her tongue dragged across the base where it disappeared inside you. you moaned against her cunt, thighs clenching around his waist, body arching from the floor at the double heat of them — him inside, her on top, and now both of them touching.

shoko’s mouth was slow. exploratory. she kissed the base of his cock where it slid into your pussy, wet and obscene, then flicked her tongue lower, just beneath the ridge. your cunt clenched in response, fluttering tight around him, and geto’s hands flew to her hair before he could stop himself.

“fuck, shoko—”

he gripped the back of her head, not pulling, just holding, tangled in the mess of her hair like he needed something to hang onto. she looked up at him from under her lashes, still licking, then reached between your legs with her free hand and dragged her fingers straight through the slick mess between your folds — your wetness, his come, her spit — and pressed her thumb hard to your clit.

you screamed into her cunt, back bowing off the floor.

she gasped. “fuck—she’s twitching—”

“don’t stop,” geto said, voice hoarse. “don’t you fucking dare.”

and she didn’t.

her mouth dipped lower, licking your clit from time to time with little, almost tender kisses between her filthy worship of geto’s cock. her thumb circled faster now, rubbing your clit in rhythm with the thrust of his hips, in rhythm with the shake of her own thighs as she stayed on your face, even as her cunt trembled with aftershocks. your arms were still locked around her legs, holding her there, and now your fingers slid down to grip her ass, pulling her tighter, closer, mouth still sucking, still devouring.

you could barely breathe. you didn’t need to.

this was oxygen. this was saturation.

geto was panting now, close to the edge but holding himself back by some shred of control, sweat dripping from his jaw onto your chest, hips rolling in slow, grinding circles as he watched shoko lick where he entered you, rub your clit while you moaned into her pussy like a prayer on repeat.

“you feel her?” he whispered, teeth clenched. “feel how fucking tight she gets when you do that?”

shoko didn’t answer.

she just licked again.

and your body shook.

geto wasn’t thrusting anymore.

he was grinding.

his cock still inside you, deep and hot and so fucking full, but his hips rolled instead of slammed, his pace thick and deliberate — like he was sculpting your pleasure with his body, building it slow so you could feel every inch of what he gave. every pass of his cock dragged over something in you that made your spine curl and your thighs twitch, and the weight of him, the heat of him, the tension just below breaking — it was fucking suffocating in the best way.

you could hear him breathing. every exhale a prayer. every inhale like he was tasting you through the air itself. “you hear yourself, baby?” he murmured, voice barely stable, grinding deeper. “you hear how fucking wet you sound? how messy you are? jesus fucking christ…”

and you could. it was obscene — the wet, slick noise every time he moved inside you, the soft suction of his cock parting your walls, the way your cunt fluttered around him as shoko rubbed your clit and kissed the slick joining of your bodies like she was blessing it.

your mouth was still on her — your tongue still buried between her folds, licking her through the afterglow, drawing out every little tremor her body gave you in return. she twitched every time you circled her clit, hips rolling gently, almost helplessly, but she didn’t move away.

she gave it to you.

shoko’s thighs framed your face, sticky and flushed, and your arms stayed locked around them, holding her down — not just because you needed her, but because she let you. and now, her mouth was moving again — slow, lips parting in gasps, her cheek pressed to geto’s stomach, her forehead against the slick lines of his abs, mouthing the base of his cock where it stretched your pussy wide.

and her voice — her voice was finally wrecked.

“she’s—fuck—she’s still licking me,” she gasped, shuddering as your tongue slipped against her clit again. “i can’t—suguru, she’s not stopping, she’s fucking—”

“don’t make her stop,” geto growled, one hand tightening in shoko’s hair. “fuck, she’s so good like this. let her eat you like you deserve it.”

you moaned into her, a broken, feral sound, your mouth slick with her, your whole body pulsing with heat — and she felt it, the way your moan buzzed into her cunt, and she trembled. her grip on your breast tightened, and she let out this raw, real sound that barely resembled a laugh.

“she’s—god, i think she likes being used like this,” she panted, pressing her fingers harder against your clit now, fast little circles that made your hips buck against geto’s cock. “fuck, baby, you’re dripping—like, pouring, you’re—how are you still so wet—”

geto leaned in then, voice a low rasp at her ear.

“because she wants it.”

his words landed like lightning.

“she wants to be filled again,” he hissed, driving his hips in deeper with that same agonizing slowness. “wants you on her face. wants my cock in her pussy. wants us to take her apart, shoko. over and over.”

“fuck,” shoko breathed, hand jerking slightly between your legs now, thumb catching your clit just right.

and you screamed into her.

not because you came — not yet. but because it was so close now, it was right fucking there — and every word they said, every stroke, every flick of tongue and hand and cock just stacked it higher, made it worse, better, everything. you pulled your mouth away just long enough to choke out, voice slurred and ruined beneath her:

“don’t stop—don’t stop, please—please, i’m—i’m almost there, fuck—”

“we’ve got you,” geto said, kissing your thigh, mouth tender against your shaking skin. “we’re right here, baby. gonna make you feel everything.” shoko was panting again, her hand messy now, dragging through the slick between your folds, smearing it over your clit and back down again, her mouth soft and wet at the base of geto’s cock.

“she’s twitching,” shoko whispered. “suguru—fuck—she’s gonna come.”

“not yet,” he growled, fucking in just a little harder now — still slow, but firm, deep enough to make you see stars, deep enough to make your breath leave you in bursts. you sobbed beneath them, your legs shaking, your pussy gripping him with every slow thrust. “you can take it, baby,” he said, voice molten with praise. “so fucking good for us — mouth open, cunt open, just taking everything.”

you whimpered. body thrumming.

and still — still you hadn’t come. not yet. but the edge was right there. and they weren’t letting you fall. not yet. they were going to hold you at the edge until it was deserved. your entire body was shaking.

legs trembling uncontrollably, arms still locked around shoko’s thighs, mouth open against her cunt, lips wet and swollen, tongue still lapping despite the way your moans kept breaking the rhythm — and above you, they kept going.

shoko’s fingers moved faster now, circling your clit with relentless accuracy, each pass dragging sparks through your nerves like they were wired directly into your spine. she had her whole weight settled against your face, her voice cracking now, no longer smug, just wrecked — gasping your name, cursing under her breath, begging you to keep going even as she ground against your mouth with uneven, desperate rolls of her hips.

“fuck—fuck—baby—your tongue, oh my god—”

and geto — geto was a problem. a sin. a punishment and a reward.

his cock was still deep inside you, every slow, thick thrust making you feel like you were being split in the sweetest, most unbearable way. and he hadn’t lost his rhythm. he never did. his hips snapped forward at just the right angle to drag across everything you needed, his fingers holding your hips open, tilted up just so he could fuck into the deepest part of you.

and he knew.

he could feel it.

the way your cunt clung to him tighter with each pass, the way your thighs twitched, how your breath kept coming in those high, gasping sobs, how you couldn’t even form a word anymore — just sounds. raw, honest, helpless.

“baby,” he panted, sweat dripping down his throat, his hair stuck to his face, voice gone thin, “you’re—fuck, you’re right there, aren’t you? can feel you fucking clenching—so tight, shit, just a little more—shoko, don’t stop—don’t you fucking stop—”

shoko moaned. “i’m not—I’m not—she’s so fucking wet, suguru—she’s gushing already—”

“do it, baby,” geto said, thrusting harder now, deeper. “fucking come for us. let it go. let it all out—”

you choked. a soundless scream.

your whole body snapped.

and then — it hit.

your orgasm tore through you like an earthquake — sudden, violent, all-consuming — your back arching off the floor, mouth pulling away from shoko’s cunt with a desperate sob as your body convulsed between them. your legs kicked out, your arms went rigid, and your cunt squeezed around geto’s cock so tight it knocked a guttural moan from his throat.

“fuckfuckfuck—she’s coming—!”

and then—

you squirted.

it burst out of you in a hot, wet gush — sudden and unstoppable, spraying across his cock, down your thighs, splashing against his stomach and pooling under your ass. your whole body jerked with it, hips lifting, stuttering, grinding helplessly as you cried out — loud, high-pitched, fucking ruined.

“oh my god—” shoko gasped, yanking her hand away as wetness drenched her wrist before she move from your face. “she—she fucking squirted—suguru, she—”

geto groaned so loud it echoed. “fuck, that’s it, that’s it, baby—good girl, holy shit, look at that, look at how messy you are—so fucking beautiful—”

your chest heaved, your mouth hung open, hands shaking as you tried to ground yourself — but you couldn’t. your body kept twitching, little aftershocks ripping through your core, pussy still fluttering around geto’s cock, thighs still wet and spread, and the air smelled like heat and sex and you.

shoko leaned over you again, kissed your mouth, slow and messy and open, and whispered against your lips, “that was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

geto was still inside you, still holding you open, voice shaking.

“you okay?” he asked softly, forehead brushing yours. “you with us?”

you nodded — barely. barely.

your voice was wrecked. but your smile was satisfied.

“…fuck.”

and from the look in their eyes, they weren’t done yet.

not even close.

your lungs were still catching up.

your legs had lost the concept of tension.

your mouth was parted, your whole body twitching in these soft, unsteady ripples of after, and yet —

they weren’t letting you go.

shoko had moved behind you like smoke curling under a door, slow and smooth and suddenly there, her bare skin hot against your back, her breath brushing your neck. and before you could fully realize it, her hands were on you — one on your chest, cupping a tit like it belonged to her, the other sliding down your stomach with unhurried purpose.

and geto… he was still inside you.

he hadn’t pulled out, hadn’t stopped moving. his cock was still seated deep in your soaked, fluttering cunt, his hips rolling in lazy, dragging circles that made you clench involuntarily every time he bottomed out — like your body couldn’t decide if it was overstimulated or starving for more. he was warm, panting, his hands bracing on either side of your hips, fingers flexing against your skin like he was grounding himself just to stay in.

“look at you,” he said hoarsely, voice all grit and honey and awe. “still dripping.”

and it was true — your inner thighs were glossy, slick with the aftermath of your last orgasm, the floor beneath you tacky with it, and yet the drag of his cock only made it worse — made it better. you felt too open. too full. and when shoko’s fingers brushed your clit again, featherlight and precise, your whole body twitched forward like someone had pressed a button.

“s-sensitive—” you gasped, barely audible, body jerking instinctively.

“i know,” she said into your neck, kissing just behind your ear. “but that’s the best time, isn’t it?”

you whined — high-pitched and fucked-out — as her fingers dipped lower, sliding through your folds like they were testing the temperature of a pool she already planned to dive into. she circled your clit, slow and measured, drawing soft, spiraling patterns that sent lightning through your belly.

“you’re still so wet,” she murmured, voice low and amused. “so soft. open. fuck, you feel like something blooming.”

geto groaned behind you, voice wrecked. “she’s perfect.”

and then — like it was choreographed — they moved together.

geto’s hips began to thrust with more intention, more pressure, the thick drag of him stroking deeper now, less teasing, more claiming, his cock hitting that spot inside you with brutal accuracy. and shoko’s hand on your pussy didn’t let up — her fingers sliding lower, pressing inside you with his cock, feeling how he moved within you while she curled her touch just right to grind your clit from below.

you cried out — an honest, desperate sound — your body pulled taut again in an instant.

“you’re gonna give us one more,” geto whispered, leaning forward so his forehead met yours. “you’ve got it in you, baby. just one more. come on — let it go for us.”

shoko moaned against your neck, her mouth open, her breath hot as her hand on your tit squeezed harder. “let us see it, baby. let us feel you come again. make a fucking mess.”

and god.

you did.

you shattered.

the pressure coiled so fast it almost hurt — a surge of heat and friction and wet crashing through your body like a wave, and then you came again, harder this time, your cunt seizing around geto’s cock, your hips jerking forward against shoko’s hand as another rush of liquid burst from you — gushing — spraying down over geto’s thighs, soaking your own, a high, keening moan escaping your throat as you lost control completely.

geto’s hands flew to your hips, holding you down as he groaned, voice breaking, and thrust once — twice — and then came inside you, deep, spilling himself with a sound that bordered on worship. his cock twitched inside your soaked, fluttering pussy as your squirt ran down both of you, his come mixing with yours, messy and thick and perfect.

shoko’s arms tightened around your waist, anchoring you, and her mouth kissed your temple, your shoulder, your jaw — little grounding points as your body kept shaking.

“there she is,” she whispered. “look at that. fuck, look at what you gave us.”

geto’s forehead was pressed to your collarbone now, breath hot and uneven, and he was still buried in you, his cock softening slowly in the slick warmth of your cunt.

you didn’t speak.

you couldn’t.

but you smiled.

and you let them hold you there — fucked-out, soaked, trembling — with their hands on your skin and your breath still coming in ragged gasps.

and for now, that was enough.

you didn’t even know you could come like that again.

your whole body was already trembling — pulled taut between geto’s cock driving into you so deep, dragging through your soaked cunt with that thick, deliberate rhythm, and shoko’s fingers slipping tight over your clit, her palm warm against your pussy, her mouth still pressing hot little kisses to your neck like she was winding you back up just to tear you open again.

and you were already wrecked — thighs shaking, breath stuttering, jaw slack — every nerve fried and buzzing, the echo of your last orgasm still burning between your legs like a brand. but they didn’t stop. they wouldn’t stop. not with the way geto’s voice had gone soft and fucked and mean, whispering right against your cheek, hips rolling slow, dragging moans out of you with every push.

“you’re gonna do it again,” he breathed, panting now. “you’re close, baby, i can feel it—she’s twitching, shoko, fuck, she’s already so tight—”

“come on, sweet thing,” shoko murmured behind you, her hand dragging up your stomach to palm your tit again, squeezing like she needed something to ground her. “just one more. let us have it. be good.”

you whimpered — a ragged, high sound — and your legs kicked out a little from the floor, your thighs starting to tremble uncontrollably again.

“fuck,” you gasped, eyes squeezing shut. “fuck, i can’t—i can’t—i’m gonna—”

“yes,” geto growled, fingers digging into your hips. “do it. let it go, baby—let it go for us—”

and then it hit.

your body snapped forward — back arching hard, mouth falling open in a scream you couldn’t hold back — and your cunt clamped down around his cock so tight it felt like you were trying to keep him inside forever. your whole body shuddered, and then —

it spilled out of you.

a burst — no, a flood — soaking everything.

you squirted so hard it splashed audibly against geto’s thighs, sprayed down both your legs, a rush of hot, wet release pulsing out of you in waves, soaking the floor, your thighs, him. it didn’t stop — your body kept pulsing, clenching, jerking — another gush pouring out, and another, until your skin was wet, slick with it, and your voice cracked in a gasping sob.

“oh my god—fuck—i’m squirting, i can’t—i can’t—fuck, fuck—”

“fuck yes,” geto moaned, frantic now, his rhythm faltering, eyes locked on the way you fell apart around him, the way your slick poured down over his cock, milking him, drenching him. “you’re so good, so fucking perfect, oh my god—fuck, i’m—”

and then he snapped too.

his hips slammed deep one last time, hands gripping your waist so tight it left finger-shaped bruises, and he came with a broken, breathless groan — hips twitching, cock pulsing deep inside you, hot ropes of come spilling into your still-spasming cunt, mixing with your slick in a messy, thick flood that made your legs jerk again.

“fuckfuckfuck—i’m coming, baby, i’m coming—so deep, you’re taking it all—jesus fuck, you’re so tight—don’t stop, don’t stop—”

your body was still twitching.

you couldn’t breathe right. your arms had gone weak. your cunt was still pulsing around him, squeezing like you wanted to wring out every last drop of him, and your chest was heaving, your mouth open, spit on your lips, thighs spread and wet and still leaking.

your orgasm hadn’t even ended when he started to come undone.

he was still inside you, deep, buried, the warmth of your pussy wrapped tight around his cock, spasming with each violent aftershock of your release. you’d soaked him — he was dripping, thighs slick from the flood of your squirt, skin sticking to yours as your body jerked and twitched beneath him, helpless and holy and fucking perfect.

and geto was gone.

he was gripping your hips like he didn’t know what else to hold, knuckles white, arms shaking, trying so hard to keep his rhythm — but he couldn’t. he couldn’t stop watching the way you fell apart, the way you cried out, the way your cunt pulled at him like it was begging for every drop he had.

“fuck, baby—fuck—fuuuck,” he gasped, voice climbing a full octave. “you’re—you’re milking me—you’re gonna make me fucking explode—”

shoko was still behind you, one arm around your waist, her hand splayed low across your stomach to hold you in place. she was panting too — from the effort of keeping you upright, from watching the way he broke over you.

geto slammed in deep once — a shuddering, desperate thrust — and froze, his whole body locking up like it couldn’t handle the weight of what was coming.

“oh my god—fuck, i’m—i’m gonna cum—i’m cumming—fuck, fuck, baby—”

and then he did.

his mouth fell open and he cried out — loud, high, helpless — like the sound had been ripped from somewhere inside his chest. his cock throbbed hard inside you, thick pulses that you could feel against your walls, and his come spilled into you in long, hot spurts — so much, too much, filling you until it started to leak out around his cock, dripping down onto the floor already slick with your mess.

“take it—fuck, take it, baby—look at you—taking all of it, holy shit, i can’t—i can’t—oh my god—”

he was moaning through it, voice cracking, hips twitching with each contraction, his head dropping to your shoulder like he’d just run out of strength. every little movement pulled another whimper from him, another twitch of his cock, like your body was still squeezing more from him, not letting go.

you were barely breathing. limp. fucked-out. but god, you could feel it — the way he gave in to you completely, the way his voice broke, the way his body collapsed against yours like you were home.

and in the silence that followed — your heart pounding, his breath shaky against your throat — shoko whispered into your ear, breathless and hoarse: “you broke him.”

and geto, still shaking, still deep inside you, laughed a little. a broken, stunned sound.

“yeah,” he said, voice wrecked. “she did.”

the room was quiet now.

not silent — not completely. the hum of the old AC unit sputtering through the vents, the buzz of the city bleeding in from the balcony, the occasional drip of something onto the floor — maybe sweat, maybe come, maybe just time catching up.

you weren’t moving.

you couldn’t.

your legs were still spread, your body trembling in slow, confused pulses. your cunt was soaked — full of him, leaking from the stretch of geto’s cock still softening inside you, and the mess was a problem that no one seemed interested in solving. you could feel it sliding down your ass, thick and warm, pooling on the floor beneath you, mixing with what you’d already given. and above it all — the heat of shoko’s body, still wrapped around you, her breath damp against the shell of your ear, her hand lazily stroking your stomach like she was grounding you back to earth, one slow touch at a time.

geto hadn’t moved either.

he was slumped against your front, cock still inside, head resting between your breasts, mouth open, breath dragging in long, exhausted pulls like he didn’t know how to recover yet. his hands were on your hips, thumbs absently drawing slow circles into the meat of your skin, like he was still feeling you come — or trying to convince himself it had actually happened.

none of you said anything. not for a while.

and then shoko sighed.

“...we're gonna need to mop.”

you laughed. or tried to. it came out more like a wheeze.

“fuck off,” you mumbled, voice hoarse. “your fault.”

“you’re the one who squirted like a busted pipe,” she muttered, but there was no bite to it. just warmth. she kissed your temple. “you’re also the one who let me sit on your face like it owed me money. so maybe we call it even.”

geto made a soft noise against your chest. something between a laugh and a whimper.

“i think i died,” he murmured.

you tilted your head to glance down at him. his eyes were closed. his hair was stuck to his face. he looked wrecked. gorgeous. “you didn’t die,” you said, softly, fingers brushing through the strands at the back of his head. “you just got fucked like you deserved it.”

he groaned. didn’t even argue.

shoko snorted. “you look like a priest after a very bad exorcism.”

“shoko,” he said, muffled against your skin, “please shut the fuck up.”

you smiled. you couldn’t help it.

and even though your body ached, even though your thighs were sore and your mouth was raw and every part of you was coated in sweat and spit and come — you felt good. warm. surrounded. held. you shifted a little, enough to make geto groan and finally, finally slide out of you with a wet, obscene sound that made you all flinch and laugh at the same time.

“jesus christ,” he mumbled, sitting back on his heels, staring down at your cunt like he’d just watched something sacred happen. “look at you.”

shoko reached around and smacked his chest.

“stop being weird about it,” she said. “we already ruined her. no need to narrate it.”

he held up his hands, mock-surrender. “sorry, sorry. it’s just… beautiful.”

“gross,” she said. “also accurate.”

you exhaled, finally sitting up, wincing as everything shifted inside you, dripping out with gravity. shoko helped, her arms still around your waist, keeping you upright even as your muscles protested. your skin stuck to hers. geto leaned in and kissed your shoulder, then your chest, then your stomach — each one slow, sweet, like thanks. like apology. like devotion.

no one rushed.

no one cleaned up.

you sat there together, sticky and stupid and smiling, soaked in everything you’d done.

“so,” shoko said finally, yawning. “we ordering food, or…?”

you were on the couch now.

well — in the couch, really. sunk so deep into the threadbare cushions that your spine was probably imprinted on the frame. your legs were folded weirdly under you, thighs still sticky, hair still damp with sweat. your body felt like it had been used as a chew toy by god and then left to ferment.

but you were warm. and clothed. sort of.

geto’s shirt — the long, oversized black one that smelled like laundry detergent and weed and boy — hung off you like a flag of victory. nothing underneath. nipples occasionally ghosting against the cotton. thighs on full display. but it didn’t matter. you were fed. or about to be.

the pizza box was open on the coffee table, steam still rising from melted cheese and garlic butter crusts. one slice in your hand. three bites in. you chewed slowly, like every fiber of your soul depended on this exact triangle of bread and grease.

across the room, shoko was on all fours in her sleep shorts and an old tank top, holding a damp towel and grumbling audibly as she wiped the floor near the couch legs. the puddle she was crouched over definitely hadn’t come from spilled water.

geto — completely naked, still glowing like a house spirit who just got laid by a god — was on his knees nearby, using one of his bath towels to blot a dark patch that probably counted as a biological hazard. “shoko,” you said sweetly, mouth full, gesturing toward the corner of the room with your slice. “you missed a spot. right over by the speaker. there’s like… a whole-ass trail.”

her head snapped toward you.

you didn’t even flinch. just took another bite.

“are you kidding me?” she barked, sitting back on her heels and letting the towel fall to the floor with an exaggerated flop. “you’re just sitting there like a little royalty gremlin in his shirt while we mop up the trail of fucking devastation you made?”

you nodded, chewed. swallowed. “mm-hmm.”

“bitch.” she dragged a hand down her face. “you’re the one who squirted like a popped soda can.”

“well,” you said, licking grease off your thumb, “i’m too weak to clean.”

“too weak?”

“i’m sensitive.” you patted your own thigh gently. “my pussy’s still trembling. it’s tragic, really.”

“tragedy would be if i smothered you with this pizza box.”

“shoko,” came geto’s voice, soft and half-laughing from the floor. “let her be.”

he didn’t even look up from where he was scrubbing a mysterious corner with one hand and balancing a slice of pizza in the other. he looked unfairly serene. still naked. still glowing. like post-nut enlightenment had lifted him to a higher plane and now he was just… chill.

“she made the mess,” shoko snapped. “she should clean it.”

“you helped make the mess,” he said calmly, biting his slice. “and i don’t see you complaining when you were riding her face.”

shoko froze. looked back at you. then at him.

“okay,” she said after a beat. “valid.”

you gave her a smug little grin, then groaned and curled sideways on the couch, tucking your legs up and pulling geto’s shirt tighter around your thighs. they“plus, if i try to get up right now, i’ll probably fall over. i’ve got post-orgasm jelly spine. you want me to faint in the puddle?”

“god, you’re insufferable,” she muttered, going back to wiping with a vengeance. “geto, this is your fault.”

“i’m not complaining,” he said, still on his knees, wiping slow, humming under his breath like a man who’d just emptied every ounce of himself into someone he loved. “this was the best kind of crime scene.”

“disgusting,” she said.

“you’re welcome,” you offered from your seat.

shoko wiped aggressively at the corner spot you pointed out, muttering something about bodily fluids and the price of friendship.

geto laughed, low and warm.

you took another bite.

and for a long, sticky moment, everything in that fucked-up apartment was perfect.

1K notes · View notes

cherry-lala · 2 months ago

Text

Some things Don't End, They Echo

Part 1, Part 2

Pairing: Female! Reader x Remmick

Genre: Southern Gothic, Supernatural Thriller, Dark Romance, Psychological Horror. Word Count:11.4k+

Summary: The dance continues in a world unraveling at the seams, where ghosts wear familiar faces and every silence hides a price. As Y/N moves through shadows thick with hunger and half-truths, she must decide what kind of freedom is worth the ache—and whether redemption can bloom in soil soaked with sorrow.

Content Warning: Emotional and physical abuse, manipulation, supernatural themes, implied and explicit violence, betrayal, transformation lore, body horror elements, graphic depictions of blood, intense psychological and emotional distress, explicit sexual content (including bloodplay, coercion, and power imbalance), references to domestic conflict, mind control, and religious imagery involving damnation and corrupted salvation. Let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Here it is—Part 2 (and the final chapter) to The Devil Waits Where Wildflowers Grow, the one so many of y’all asked for. I enjoyed watching this, even with exams beating me around. Writing it was a comfort, a catharsis—and your support on Part 1 meant the world. Thank you for every comment, like, and reblog. You kept me going. As always, I hope it haunts you just right. Again, Likes, reblogs, and Comments are always appreciated.

Taglist: @alastorhazbin, @jakecockley, @dezibou

The room smelled like lavender and starch, thick with the stillness only Sunday mornings knew.

Mama hummed a hymn under her breath, the notes trembling like moth wings in the golden light.

I stood still in front of the mirror, hands folded over the folds of my white cotton dress.

White gloves. White socks with the little lace trim.

The picture of innocence, shaped by hands that still believed innocence could be preserved if tied tight enough.

Mama’s fingers, careful and calloused, smoothed my sleeves. She tucked a wild curl behind my ear and smiled at me through the mirror — a tired, proud smile she saved only for mornings like these.

“Pretty as a picture,” she said, her voice carrying all the love and all the fear a mother could fit into a few words.

I blinked.

And the world shifted.

I turned in her arms, meaning to reach up and hug her.

But somehow, suddenly — I was taller.

And she was older.

Her hands trembled on my shoulders, confusion flashing across her lined face.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Mama asked. Her voice cracked at the edges. “Why are you cryin’?”

I hadn’t even realized I was.

A tear slid hot and slow down my cheek, dripping onto the lace.

Before I could form words, Mama gasped — a raw, wounded sound — and stumbled back, the white ribbon slipping from her fingers to the floor like a dying bird.

I spun toward the mirror.

And saw it.

Saw me — but not the girl I was.

Not even the woman I thought I’d grow into.

No.

The thing in the glass wore my face, but wrong.

Eyes black as cinders, ringed in a seeping red that ran down my cheeks like melting wax.

My mouth hung open — a silent scream caught behind broken lips.

The white dress, once so carefully pressed, now bloomed with stains the color of old blood.

Mama pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.

Her voice came out in a whisper too full of knowing to be anything but truth.

“The devil has visited you… and left a raven’s feather at your door.

And you — you accepted it.”

I spun toward her, arms reaching — pleading —

“Mama, no—!”

But the floor cracked open first.

A black mist poured out like smoke from a curse long buried.

It wrapped around her ankles, her knees, her throat.

Her body jerked once — then dissolved into ash, crumbling through the air like burned prayer paper.

And through the mist, a mouth formed.

That mouth.

That smile I had trusted.

The one that once whispered safety under the stars, now pulled wide in a predator’s grin.

The world tilted.

Blurring.

Fading.

I came back to myself with a ragged breath, choking on the thick air of a dark, unfamiliar room on the floor, cold sweat clinging to my back, the faint flicker of an oil lamp casting long shadows across the walls. The room dim and silent, except for the slow creak of wood… and the quiet hum of breath that wasn’t mine.

Sitting across the room, watching me carefully — was Stack.

At first, my heart leapt — a familiar face in a world gone cold.

I almost ran to him — almost — until I caught the gleam in his eyes.

Not brown.

Not human.

But white.

Blazing and empty as a snowfield under a full moon.

His smile stretched just a little too wide.

Predatory.

Slouched in the chair across the room, arms folded, watching me with a patience that felt wrong.

“What…” I rasped, backing toward the dresser, “what happened to you?”

My voice trembled. “What are you?”

The mirror above the dresser caught me just as I turned.

I saw my own eyes — or what used to be mine.

Pitch black. Red glowing like coals flickering deep in the hearth.

A fire that didn’t warm — just warned.

I stumbled back, mouth opening with a soundless gasp.

Stack chuckled, low and lazy like the devil warming up a sermon.

“I’m like you now,” he said, tilting his head as if showing off the whites of his eyes. “Well… kinda. He gifted us freedom. From all that heartbreak, all that heaviness. Gave you freedom the way you thought was best.”

Desperation gripped me.

I lunged for the window, tearing the heavy curtains aside.

Sunlight poured in.

It hit my skin—

and the world fractured.

It wasn’t fire.

It wasn’t pain.

It was terror.

Ripping through my mind like a pack of wolves.

The golden light twisted into knives, slicing into every hidden corner of me — dredging up every buried fear, every secret shame, every broken promise.

The sun I used to love—

the warmth that once kissed my skin—

now roared inside my skull like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.

I collapsed, a hoarse, broken scream tearing from my chest.

Clawing at the floor, at the walls, trying to escape what was already inside me.

Stack watched.

Silent.

Almost sad.

He reached out with a casual hand, pulling the curtains closed again.

The light vanished.

I lay there, a trembling wreck, sobbing into the dusty boards.

Stack crouched low beside me, voice dropping soft and cold as winter mud:

“She’ll learn,” he said.

“This life’s better for her.

True freedom.”

His boots scraped the floor as he stood again, leaving me crumpled there.

The door clicked shut behind Stack, and for a moment, the room was quiet again — too quiet.

Then came the sound.

Soft boots on old wood.

He was here.

Remmick.

The air changed with him, thickened until it tasted like copper on my tongue.

He crouched beside me, slow and easy, like he was soothing a frightened animal.

His hand brushed against my hair — a pet, a comfort, a mockery.

“You’re all better now,” he crooned, voice low and soft enough to make my teeth ache. “Sometimes… the first taste of freedom’s too sweet for a belly that’s been filled with bitterness too long.”

I jerked away from his touch, scrambling back until my spine hit the cold dresser behind me.

The mirror rattled above it, showing me both of us:

Me — trembling, broken.

Him — smiling, patient.

Like a god admiring a sculpture he’d half-finished.

He didn’t follow.

Just stayed crouched there, red eyes gleaming like coals, eyebrows lifted in that innocent, boyish way that used to warm me from the inside out.

Now it just made my heart twist the wrong way.

Not because I hated him.

Because I still loved him.

And love like that…

It’s worse than hate.

It’s the knife you twist in yourself.

I choked on a sob, the words clawing free without thought.

“Why did you turn me into this monster?” I whispered. “This ain’t freedom… it ain’t even enslavement. It’s worse.”

Remmick’s mouth pulled into something almost pitying. Almost.

He stood slow, dust shifting off his shirt.

“I only did what you asked of me,” he said, voice syrupy sweet. “Don’t talk like I didn’t give you a choice. You wanted this, darlin’. You begged for a way out. I just made the decision easier.”

His words spun the air — circles with no end, no beginning.

“But it’s alright,” he drawled, stepping back, giving me room to breathe and suffocate at once. “Once I find lil’ ole Sammie… this lick of freedom will be just a taste of what’s to come.”

At Sammie’s name, my heart leapt.

He was alive.

Maybe others were, too.

I clutched at that hope with trembling fingers, already piecing together desperate plans. Run. Warn him. Stop Remmick.

But Remmick chuckled low in his throat, like he could taste my thoughts.

He dropped into the chair Stack had occupied moments before, sprawling like he owned the whole damned world.

“Oh, darlin’,” he said, voice dripping pity. “Don’t be so eager. Sammie won’t trust you no more than he trusts me. Thinks you’re the devil’s pawn now—”

“Fuck you!” I snapped, the venom lashing out before I could leash it.

He didn’t flinch.

Just smiled wider.

A crescent moon smile. Hungry.

“Aw, no need to get upset,” he cooed. “I’m doing this for the best, you see. For me. For you. For all those poor souls that ache for a world without chains.”

His eyes shone when he spoke. Like he believed it. Like he tasted salvation and didn’t even know it was poison.

“You don’t know what’s best for me,” I hissed, fists curling tight enough to split new claws into my palms. “You never did. You preyed on my need for compassion. For hope. Fed me lies, called it love.

You’re no savior.

You’re just a lost soul that drunk the wine of lies and deceived yourself.”

For the first time, Remmick’s smile faltered.

Just a flicker.

He dropped his gaze to his hands, turning them over slow, as if even he didn’t recognize what he’d become.

When he looked back up, his face was empty.

“Never said I was a savior,” he murmured. “Only came to set the captives free. To bring peace to a broken world. And…”

His lips twitched up again.

“Well, I guess I did come to save after all.

Look at you, darlin’. Finally usin’ that pretty head.”

He turned, heading for the open door with lazy grace.

“I’m going to warn them,” I spat after him, my voice shaking with fury and terror. “I’ll find Sammie. Even if it kills me.”

He paused in the doorway, looking over his shoulder.

A shadow stretched long behind him, darker than night itself.

“So stubborn,” he mused. “No vision.”

He tapped his lips, mock-thoughtful.

“But that’s why I didn’t turn you fully.

You fight too much.

You keep me… entertained.”

His smile sharpened.

“But don’t think I came unprepared, darlin’,” he said, voice sinking low. “When I changed you, I made sure you couldn’t end it easy.

Didn’t want you throwin’ yourself into the sun like some tragic heroine.”

He shook his head, tsking.

“I left you more living than dead. Call it mercy,” he said.

His voice thickened, dragging the room down with it.

“And now?

The sun don’t kill you.

It holds you.

Burns your mind.

Plays every mistake, every grief, every lie you ever swallowed — on a loop.

That’s your true punishment, sweetheart.”

He stepped into the hall.

Paused just long enough to drive the last nail into me.

“Now you’ll finally see just how close you’ve always been to the devil.”

The door closed with a whisper of finality.

The door closed with a whisper—quiet as sin, soft as silk over a blade.

And I shattered.

My fists struck the dresser like thunder begging to be heard, splinters flying like a cry unsaid.

The mirror spiderwebbed outward, each crack a fault line in my chest.

The lamp flickered—once, twice—then danced wild shadows across the wreckage of the room.

Shadows that didn’t move like they used to.

I dropped, sobbing.

Raw.

Broken open like fruit too ripe for this world.

Tears carved tracks down my cheeks, hot as blood.

And in the fractured glass, she stared back.

Me.

But not.

Black-eyed.

Twisted.

Monstrous.

I had become the thing I swore I never would.

The thing I once pitied.

The thing I feared.

I had tasted freedom… and drank too deep.

And now?

The devil wore my face.

That quiet little sound—just a door closing—rattled through me like a funeral bell.

It echoed too loud.

Too final.

Like the world had whispered its last breath and left me behind to rot in the stillness.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Not really.

The silence pressed in—soft at first, then tight, cruel.

Like fingers around my throat, wrapping around my ribs, filling the hollows of me where hope used to live.

Squeezing.

I backed away from the door on legs that no longer felt like mine.

My fingers shook—not from fear.

From truth.

Because I understood now.

Not just what I was—

But what I’d lost.

No freedom.

No peace.

No promise.

Just a hollow thing with something vile curling inside her chest.

A mistake dressed in skin.

I staggered.

My knees buckled, and the floor met me hard.

My chest heaved like it remembered how to cry for help, but the air wouldn’t come.

All I could feel was him.

Remmick.

Still here. Still everywhere.

His voice smeared across the walls like oil.

Like blood.

“You’re always closest to the devil.”

And that smile.

God.

That fucking smile.

My hands clawed at my chest, trying to hold on to something warm, something human—

but all I touched was the burn.

It pulsed.

Grief.

Rage.

The taste of love soured and rusted on the back of my tongue.

I choked on it.

Choked on the truth.

Choked on the ache of still loving the thing that broke me.

Because that’s what he did.

He cracked me open and called it mercy.

Called it freedom.

And I let him.

I followed him down, thinking his voice meant salvation.

And now?

Now I didn’t know what I was.

A woman?

A monster?

A memory?

Just a shell shaped like me.

I dragged myself to the mirror, arm trembling.

Bones screamed under skin that didn’t bruise like it used to.

And when I looked up—

She looked back.

Not me.

Not anymore.

Eyes like polished obsidian.

A red glow flickering deep inside like the devil left a candle burning just beneath the surface.

Like coals waiting for breath.

I touched the glass.

It was cold.

And it didn’t feel like mine.

And for the first time—honest and low—I whispered it.

“I’m not strong enough.”

Not for this.

Not for what’s coming.

Not to stop Remmick.

Not to bear this hunger in my blood, this weight in my bones.

Not when part of me…

still wanted him.

Still ached for the sound of his voice.

Still dreamed of his hands.

Still missed the lie of being chosen.

The tears came quiet now.

Not hot like before.

Just steady.

As if I was already halfway gone.

The room swayed, broken, tilting on some axis I couldn’t fix.

I curled up.

Surrounded by shattered glass

and the dust

of a woman I used to be.

Because now I saw it clear:

Remmick didn’t destroy me.

He rewrote me.

And I didn’t know if there was a way back.

Not anymore.

———

Sunlight. Soft, dappled through the canopy overhead like God’s own fingers pressed gentle against the earth.

I was little again.

Knees diggin’ into warm dirt out behind Mama’s house, the kind that clung to skin and crept under fingernails. The hem of my baby blue dress puddled around me, streaked with grass stains and the green breath of summer. My breath came light. Easy. Like I’d never known sorrow.

In my small, shaking palms, a bird fluttered. A little thing — brown wings tremblin’ like paper caught in a storm. It looked up at me with one eye, scared but still trustin’. Caught between dyin’ and hopin’ I might keep it.

“I’m gon’ fix you,” I whispered, voice soft as a prayer. “Mama says you gotta press gentle on the hurt. Let the hurt feel heard.”

I wrapped its crooked wing with Mama’s rag — one that still held the warmth of a stovetop — and moved careful, clumsy. My hands were filled with the shaky pride of a child who still believed love could mend what life broke.

“There,” I said, satisfaction curling around the word. “That’s better, huh?”

It didn’t answer, but it blinked at me. And that blink — Lord, that blink was enough. I set it down like I was settin’ down a blessing.

It stumbled. Hopped.

And then—by some mercy—it flew.

That’s how I remember it.

That’s the memory I held like gospel.

But memory lies.

Because when I blinked—

The world shifted.

The ground grew darker. Wet with somethin’ more than earth. The rag I’d tied ’round that little wing was soaked through — red and seeping.

The bird wasn’t flutterin’.

Wasn’t breathin’.

The rock sat beside it. Just there. Like it’d always been. Heavy. Stained.

And my hands — my baby hands — were red.

I gasped, staggered back like the sky’d tilted.

“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t—I didn’t—”

The screen door behind me slammed open.

Mama stood there, her eyes wide and wild, brimmin’ with fury and shame.

“You killed it,” she hissed, voice like the strike of a switch. “Lord have mercy… what did you do?”

“I tried to help—”

Her finger pointed, shakin’ so hard I thought it might break right off. “You ain’t no healer. You’re a curse.”

The words hit me like stones. Like God Himself had turned His back.

“No,” I breathed. “No, I loved it. I loved it—”

But her face blurred. The edges of her eyes twistin’, meltin’.

The memory broke apart like ash.

And when she spoke again, it wasn’t her voice.

It was his.

Remmick’s voice. That slow, slick honey-coat of a man born of sweet lies and sharpened teeth.

“You’ve always been a killer,” he said.

“You just needed someone to show you how to be honest about it.”

———

I woke with a jolt, lungs burnin’. Another nightmare. Another slice of hell carved from the corners of my mind. I sat up in that dusty bed, heart jackhammerin’. Couldn’t rightly remember how I got there — just flashes of me, scribblin’ out a plan on scrap paper, mind runnin’ circles ’round Sammie.

It had happened twice now. Slippin’ like that. Losin’ whole hours to black. Like my brain weren’t mine no more.

Remmick hadn’t shown his face since. Just leavin’ me to rot in that room, watchin’ from shadows, waitin’ for me to break in two.

And maybe I already had.

Maybe that was the plan all along.

I pressed my hand to my chest. Couldn’t even trust my own thoughts. They felt borrowed. Bent.

Before I could blink again, the house filled with sound.

A choir.

No, not a choir.

Voices — too many, too close. Low and strange.I rose, legs stiff, bones screamin’. Walked slow to the curtain, peeled it back.

Moonlight sliced into the room.

Out there, just past the tree line, shapes moved. Dancin’.

No.

Spinnin’.

Hypnotic. Like they was caught in some kind of trance.

I opened the window without meanin’ to. The music crawled in. Sank under my skin.

It sounded like sorrow strung with sugar.

Before I knew it, the house was behind me. I was out there — feet crunchin’ twigs, heart poundin’. Every step felt like I was bein’ pulled by strings I couldn’t see.

They danced in a circle. Counter-clockwise. Backward. Like time rewound and never stopped.

It almost felt like how it was back at the juke joint, something spiritual. Like a copy to some degree. But somethin was missin. Like eating a lemon but the taste is sweet than sour.

And in the center — Him.

Remmick.

He was smilin’. Eyes like burnin’ paper under moonlight.

He beckoned me forward, just like always. And I obeyed.

He grabbed my arm, pulled me in close — too close. The others danced on, hummin’ Merle in voices that didn’t sound like they came from mouths no more.

“You feel it don’ ya?” he said, his breath warm on my cheek. “You feel this energy, this magic, but you also feel how somethin’s missin.”

I couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t blink.

“That somethin’ missin is Sammie and his gift,” he said, low and smooth. “And the longer we wait, the more time is wasted on not bein’ truly one family.”

“And we don’ want that, now do we y/n?” Mary’s voice cut in like a blade, and there she stood — eyes white, smile gone bitter cold. “We just want to be one big happy free family.”

Tears welled up, but they wouldn’t fall. My body — my soul — refused to spill for them no more.

Then the pressure cracked.

My voice came back, and Lord, it came sharp.

“You say Sammie is that somethin’ missin, or is it really because you can never invoke the ancestors — past, present, and future — like Sammie can? You can never truly have that, because the people you turned will never have that connection that drawn you to the juke joi—”

He snatched my face in one hand. Squeezed ’til my cheeks burned.

His eyes flared, teeth grit.

“You just love to run that mouth of yours,” he said, too calm. “Should’ve just taken over your whole mind instead of half.”

That grin — it weren’t playful no more. It was mean.

“Don’t forget who at the end of the day can break this pretty mind of yours. Did it once. Don’t make me do it again. It’ll be worse than what hell the memories the sun can burn in that head.”

He shoved me hard.

My body moved without askin’. Stepped right back into the dance. Circle never broke.

And all I could do was watch through the window like eyes of mine.

Watch the world spin the wrong way.

Watch myself disappear.

———

The moment I came back to myself, it was like the dark got peeled off my eyes. Breath caught sharp in my chest. I shot up off from the same dusty bed, fast but quiet, hands movin’ like they already knew the truth was waitin’ where I left it. Dropped to my knees and lifted the warped floorboard — the one with that stubborn edge I had to dig at with the crook of my nail.

There it was.

Paper, curled and brittle with dust, still hidin’ where I’d stashed it. I pressed it flat on the little nightstand near the closet, fingers shakin’ as I picked up the stub of that pencil. Lead near gone, wood splintered at the tip — but I didn’t care.

I had to finish.

Didn’t matter if it took blood instead of graphite.

I wrote fast, every word scratchin’ against the paper like a cry from my chest. A warning.

Then came footsteps.

My whole body froze.

Heavy. Sure. Drawin’ closer like the tickin’ of judgment.

Quick as I could, I folded that letter, shoved it back in its hidey hole, laid the board back down — just as the door creaked open.

Stack stood there, leanin’ in the doorway like he owned the place. That grin on his face made my stomach turn damn near inside out. Like he was proud of somethin’ that oughta haunt a man.

“Remmick wanna see you,” he said. “Don’ want no trouble. Just talk. His words, not mine.”

I stood slow, my limbs feelin’ older than they had any right to. Didn’t speak. Just followed behind him through them crooked halls, each step echoing like the house itself was watchin’.

He led me to another room — one I ain’t never been in before.

No bed.

Just two chairs.

And a chess table.

Door shut behind me with a hollow click that made my heart skip. Then I saw it — and God help me, I wished I hadn’t.

Remmick was sittin’ there, leanin’ back easy like a man on a front porch. Blood streaked from his mouth down to his bare chest, open shirt hangin’ loose like he ain’t had a care in the world. At his feet, slumped and still, was a man. Facedown. Dead lookin. Neck at the wrong angle. Gone cold.

I staggered.

My breath caught hard.

“Oh, no need to be worried, darlin’,” Remmick said smooth, like we was talkin’ over sweet tea. “He just got too close to where he wasn’t s’posed to be. Guess he wanted to join the family.”

His teeth shone through the blood. Sharp. Too many.

I opened my mouth — wanted to scream, cuss, beg, anything.

But I couldn’t.

Somethin’ else stole my focus.

“Aw, darlin’,” he drawled, that voice low and syrupy. “You droolin’.”

I blinked — felt warmth on my chin, lifted my hand to find it slick.

Thick.

warm.

“No,” I whispered. But it was true.

“You just hungry is all,” he said. “Come here. I can share.”

And I did.

Or rather, my body did.

Dropped to my knees, crawled across that splintered floor like a dog he’d called home. Every movement wasn’t mine but felt like mine all the same. Like my soul was screamin’ and my limbs just smiled.

He reached down, fingers under my chin, tiltin’ my face to his.

“No matter how much you resist it,” he murmured, “it’ll push back ten times harder.”

Then he kissed me.

Deep.

Long.

Blood warm on my lips on my tongue , seepin’ into the cracks like it belonged there. I moaned — not from pleasure, but from the horror of likin’ it for a split second. My hands climbed his thighs, desperate and trembling, until they found his arms and held on like I could keep myself from drownin’.

When he pulled back, he tapped my cheek real sweet, like a man might to a wife who made his supper just right.

“You look so much better with a lil’ blood on ya.”

My chest clenched.

Hard.

But I didn’t let it show.

“Remmick,” I croaked, voice cracked open down the middle, “why you so hellbent on makin’ me more of a monster than I already am? Can’t you let me fake it — just a lil’, for my own sake?”

He leaned in close, voice soft but cuttin’.

“You ain’t no monster, darlin’,” he said, brushin’ hair from my face. “You just a step forward to bein’ a goddess — my goodness. And if you’d just help me finish the plan, well… the world could be ours.”

His hand cupped my cheek like I was sacred.

But his words?

They tasted like honey poured over rot.

And still — I let it coat my tongue.

Even though I could already feel the cavities settin’ in.

——

Remmick takes my silence as support. I don’t say a word when he comes back with newly turned people or when he’s off on the manhunt for Sammie. I don’t say a word when he seeks me out after another failed attempt of finding Sammie. I don’t say a word when he comes back blistered and burned from the setting sun, cursing that them Natives found him again killing Annie and Mary -though the weight in my chest lifted a bit at that, knowing they were finally free now, along with a few others he so-called new family, saying that we had to leave by sunrise or they will kill us all.

So we fled my note left at the front door. A woman taking clothes off the clothing line from a full day's dry in the sun is who his next victim was. He easily overpowered her and changed her and when she stood back up knocking on her door her husband opened it and invited her in with no hesitation she then turned him. The house was free to roam now. The day passed with no signs of the natives in the area and as soon as night fell again, Remmick was out again hunting down Sammie like a man starved.

He has become restless but so did I. After he left I waited a few before changing out of the bloody dress I’ve been wearing since that night at the juke joint to whatever dress was in the closet in the first room I went in. I threw on a dainty brown hat before walking out of the house to town. I squeezed my hands into fists hoping that Grace didn’t close up her shop too early.

Once I reached town, the moon was high up and most of the businesses were already closed. Some folks were still out, bringing shipments into the shops before locking up. I made my way to Grace's shop, the light inside was still on but the door was locked. I quickly but quietly knocked on the glass and waited. The hushed background noise of conversation outside filled the empty space.

As I was about to knock again I see her silhouette come from the back making her way to the front. She unlocks the door about to make a comment about how the shop is closed but when she locked eyes with me she ate her words. She quickly invited me in before locking the door behind her.

“I got your letter, them natives dropped it off to me earlier in the day.” She said getting straight to the point. “You said very little in the letter but I know it’s more you couldn’t share on paper.”

I nodded with a heavy sigh before hugging her, a sob breaking from my lips.

“Things are so fucked right now, Grace, everyone I knew is gone.”

She comforts me, patting my back, “news broke fast at what happened down at the juke joint, people say it was the klan but didn’t find any body’s. I’m just glad you’re alright,”

“That’s the thing Grace, I’m not alright. Something changed in me and I can’t even trust myself but I know I can trust you.” I gave her another folded piece of paper that I quickly wrote in before leaving earlier and handed it to her. “I know you and Bo know where Sammie and Smoke are laying low at but I don’t want you to tell me just pass this note to him please.” She nodded as she took it from my hand, a determined look on her face.

“I have to go now but please be safe out there, there’s more monsters lurking out there than the klan.”

After our exchange, I quickly headed back to the house. When I reached it there was no one in sight letting me know Remmick was still out on his crazed hunt. I opened the door; I entered the home easily as it didn’t know whether to let me in or keep me out. The clothing I wore tore the veil and I slipped in like I never left.

I tossed down the hat on the table in the kitchen, making my way to the room to change back into my old garbs before Remmick gets here. I opened the door as I began to unbutton the front of the dress.

“Went dancing without me, darlin’?” I jumped in my skin at the sudden voice and turned slowly before making eye contact with the culprit.

Remmick sat in the darkest corner in the room, tapping his long fingers on the armrest of the wooden chair.

“I-I” the lie was caught in my throat as he stood reaching my shocked form. His sharp nails digging into my side and I wince a bit in pain. “No need to lie darlin, I’ve caught you with your hand in the sweets jar.”

I pushed his hands off me as I created space between us, sitting on the small bed in the room. “You knew I wasn’t going to sit here and let you continue your manhunt for Sammie and do nothing about.”

“Who did you meet with?” He ignores my previous words, and I scoff a bit. “No one that concerns you or your heinous plans.” I spit. A choked noise came from my throat as he wrapped his hands around it squeezing it; I gripped his wrist to try to pull it off me but he only squeezed it harder.

“I just keep on letting you get over on me because I care for you and all you want to do is destroy this plan of mines. Don’t you get it? I’m trying to make heaven on earth. Didn’t you want that? �� he lets go of me before taking a step back looking away from my choked form. “I didn’t want that, all I wanted was for you to save me from my life with Frank, from his hands. But now I see it, that you’re no better than him. I guess the devil does come in many forms.”

He sighs before kneeling in front of me, leaning his cheek on my thighs as he caresses them, “I’m sorry, darlin’ I got ahead of myself.” His voice soft now, his emotions giving me whiplash, “it’s just I lost them all today, them Natives never left from checking the premises and they killed them all,” he sounded defeated and I felt elated with this information, he’s at his lowest right now and I can now carve his mind the way I need to.

“Oh wow, I-I’m sorry.” I say sadly, playing the part as I run my hands through his hair in a comforting way. “Maybe we should lay low for a while so they can get off our backs. The more we rush this, the more we lose.” He groaned at my words like he disagrees or doesn’t want to accept it. “I can’t stop; I’ve gone too far.

This is the time I’ve been waiting for centuries and now that I have the opportunity in my grasp I won’t let it slip from me so easily, especially when it’s right in front of me.” I sigh in my head at his words knowin’ it wouldn’t be that easy to persuade him but at least I tried on to the next plan. “Well let me help you find Sammie.” He lifted up from my lap quickly a suspicious glint in his red eyes. “And why would you want to do that?” I can see his walls begin to build itself up again so I quickly respond “because now I see how you truly care to give people freedom from their pain and chains in this world and the longer I sit back and watch the more I wish to make a change even if it has to be by this way.” I say like I was reluctant to the idea but understand him.

He looks at me with those pouty eyebrows like something softened in him from my words, “Darlin’ you don’t know how much I needed those words.” He reaches his hand out caressing my cheek; we kept eye contact before he broke it looking at my lips before locking eyes with me again. Remmick stared up at me like I was the sin he’d spent centuries chasing.

The room reeked of blood and tension, the kind that coils tight and doesn’t let go until someone breaks.

His lips brushed mine—brief, testing—before I grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down hard, our mouths colliding like a war. It was messy, greedy, all tongue and breath and teeth. He tasted like heat and iron and the kind of ache that never goes away.

Clothes didn’t come off—they were ripped. Thread popped. Buttons scattered. Neither of us cared.

He shoved me down onto the bed, hands already between my thighs, spreading me open with a growl low in his chest.

“You’ve been starvin’ for this,” he hissed, fingers pressing where I needed them most.

“So have you,” I gasped, grinding down on his hand. “I can smell it on you.”

He chuckled darkly and dropped to his knees, dragging me to the edge of the bed. His mouth was on me in seconds—no hesitation. He licked like a man denied heaven, tongue greedy and practiced, lips curling into a smirk every time I gasped or bucked or cursed his name.

His fingers dug into my thighs, pinning me open. I came fast, hard, writhing under his mouth—but he didn’t stop. Didn’t let me go. Just kept going like my climax was just an appetizer.

“You gonna beg for me now?” he murmured against me, voice wrecked and low.

I pulled him up by the hair and kissed him hard, tasting myself on his tongue.

“Fuck me,” I snarled.

And he did.

He bent me over, hand in my hair, other gripping my hip like he owned it. When he pushed inside me, it wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t romantic. It was claiming.

Every thrust was deep, brutal, intentional—meant to remind me of what I was, what he made me. My hands fisted the sheets, the wall, his arms—whatever I could reach.

“Look at you takin’ me,” he growled in my ear. “Body’s been beggin’ for me every night.”

I didn’t deny it.

Couldn’t.

All I could do was moan—low and guttural—my mind white-hot with the sensation of him hitting just right, over and over.

We flipped again—me on top, straddling him, clawing at his chest as I rode him rough and fast. His hands roamed everywhere, nails scraping, teeth biting, drawing blood that only made us crazier.

I leaned down, lips brushing his throat, and bit deep.

He gasped—head snapping back, hips bucking up hard into me.

His blood filled my mouth, hot and electric, and I moaned into the wound.

He grabbed the back of my neck and bit me too—shoulder, collarbone, throat. Marking me. Claiming me. Drinking me. His blood mixed with mine, thick and sacred.

“We were made for this,” he groaned. “You feel it too. Say it.”

I didn’t.

But I screamed when I came again, body clenching around him like it never wanted to let go.

He followed, snarling into my skin, coming deep and hard and endless.

⸻

We collapsed together, breath ragged, bodies slick with sweat and blood.

He tangled his fingers in my hair, lips pressed to my shoulder.

But I didn’t close my eyes.

I just laid there, heart still pounding, blood still thrumming, the taste of him thick in my mouth.

Because this wasn’t love.

This was warfare.

And I’d just given the enemy every inch of me.Again.

——

Two Days Later – Nightfall

The house exhaled behind me as I slipped out the front door, closing it with the kind of care that makes no sound—like I was sneaking out of someone else’s life. The sky was dark as velvet—the kind of night that clung close, hushed and watchful. Still. Heavy. No wind, no whisper, just the faint hush of pine trees breathing in the distance.

Remmick was upstairs, lying low like he said. Said the Natives were still lurking, waiting to strike again. Said we needed to be cautious. Said he needed me to go check the edges of the woods, see how close the threat was.

He said it like it was nothing.

Like he trusted me.

So I nodded and played the part.

But I turned toward town instead, boots moving quick beneath my hem, the cold dirt road swallowing each step. The air was damp, alive with the kind of silence that feels like it’s listening.

No one stopped me. No one looked twice. Just another shadow among shadows, passing quiet under the unlit porch lamps and shuttered windows. I walked with my head tucked low, hat pulled firm against my brow. I’d learned how to walk invisible.

By the time I reached Grace’s shop, the quiet felt louder. And I knew before I even stepped close—something was wrong.

The lights were out.

The door locked.

Stillness pressed against the windows like a held breath. No smell of boiling herbs. No faint silhouette behind lace. Just absence.

I knocked once. Gentle.

No answer.

I waited, blood rising loud in my ears.

I was about to knock again when I heard it behind me.

“Evenin’. Lookin’ for Grace?”

My hand fell, slow. I turned just enough to see the man across the street. Older. Thick coat. His store sign swung gently above him—dry goods. He was locking up, half in, half out the door.

I offered a nod. Nothing more.

He chuckled. Not mean, just tired. “She’s alright. Her and Bo both. Took sick, maybe. Word is she’s been out for two days. Bo’s been back and forth quiet-like. He’s home now. Taking care of her, I’d guess.”

His voice was casual, but it didn’t land right. My stomach pulled tight.

“Thanks,” I said soft, barely above the hush of the wind. Just enough to pass.

He tipped his hat and disappeared into the warmth of his store, door shutting behind him like punctuation.

I stood there a beat longer, just watching the door. The silence around the shop didn’t hum with illness. It hummed with absence.

Still—I crouched low and slipped the folded letter under her door. Just like before. Quick. Clean.

Didn’t knock.

Didn’t wait.

Just turned and made my way back to the house, faster now. The shadows felt thicker. The road shorter. Like something was following me home.

———

The house looked just the same as when I left it—tilted quiet, half-forgotten, the way places get when they’ve seen too much. The porch creaked beneath my feet, but only once. I pushed the door open slow, stepping into the stale hush that lived between these walls.

Inside smelled like wood smoke and old iron. The kind of scent that clings to grief.

Remmick was in the parlor, long legs stretched out, one boot propped on the table. He was toying with a deck of cards, shuffling with one hand while the other cradled a glass of something dark. His eyes stayed on the cards.

“Well?” he asked, voice lazy.

“Didn’t see no one,” I said, brushing my sleeves off. “Nothing but trees and dirt. Think they’re gone now.”

He nodded slow, like he already knew. “Good. Gettin’ real tired of lookin’ over my shoulder.”

I walked past him and sank down on the couch, letting my breath out slower than I should’ve. The fabric under me still held the shape of his weight from earlier. He’d been there not long ago, waiting for something.

His eyes flicked up to me once—just a glance—and then back to the cards.

“You did good,” he said. Smooth. Steady. “Ain’t nobody better I’d trust to check.”

I hummed, not bothering to answer.

He didn’t press.

Didn’t notice the way I dug my thumbnail into my palm just to stay here, in this moment, in this lie I had to wear like skin.

Didn’t notice how I was listening—for movement, for footsteps upstairs, for the scrape of someone else in the dark.

I leaned my head back against the cushion, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, where the wood grain twisted into patterns I used to trace in dreams. Now I couldn’t stop seeing them shift like they were trying to spell out a warning.

“You tired?” he asked after a while.

I shrugged.

Remmick cut the deck again. “You been quiet lately.”

“Just thinkin’.”

“Dangerous thing to do in this house,” he muttered with a smirk.

He tossed a card on the table face-up.

The devil.

I stared at it. Couldn’t look away.

He watched me then. Not just glanced. Watched.

I felt it.

“Somethin’ botherin’ you, darlin’?”

I turned my face slow, gave him a smile I didn’t feel. “No. Just tired. Like you said.”

He smiled back, like that answer pleased him.

But I could tell he was listening harder now.

I shifted on the couch and let my eyes close. Just for a moment. Just long enough to make him think I was at ease.

But I wasn’t.

Grace was missing.

Bo too.

Remmick hadn’t suspected a thing. Not yet.

But this plan I’d been shaping in shadows? It was slipping through my fingers like water, and I didn’t know how many more nights I had left before he caught me trying to hold it.

——

The street felt longer this time.

Quieter, too.

I walked with my head down, arms wrapped around myself like that could keep the ache in my ribs from spreading. Remmick was out again, gathering what scraps he could—new bodies, new followers, anyone who could fill the void of the ones he’d lost. And I was left to sit in the hollow of his house, mind chewing itself raw.

Grace hadn’t reached out.

Not a whisper. Not a sign.

Something twisted in me the longer I waited, and by the time I pulled my shawl over my shoulders and stepped into the night, I already knew I wouldn’t come back whole.

Her house came into view at the edge of the lane—familiar and wrong all at once. The blinds were drawn. The porch light was off. Stillness pressed up against the walls like something holding its breath.

I climbed the steps slow.

Knocked once.

Waited.

Another knock.

My pulse started up in my throat, heavy and loud, until—

The door opened.

And there she was.

Grace.

Same face, same eyes, but not the same woman who once whispered promises in the back of her shop.

She didn’t look sick. Didn’t look surprised.

Just tired.

Like she’d already made up her mind before I even got there.

“Grace,” I breathed, relief and confusion tangling in my voice. “I’ve been waitin’ for word—what happened? Are you alright?”

She looked at me for a long moment before she spoke. No hug. No warmth.

Just cool, clipped words.

“I can’t help you no more, Y/N.”

My breath caught.

“What?”

She crossed her arms. “Whatever it is you’re stirrin’ up, it’s followin’ you. You done brought danger to my door, and I can’t let it near Bo , Lisa or me again. Not now.”

I blinked, heat rushing to my face.

“But you said—Grace, you said if I ever needed—”

“That was before,” she said, voice hardening. “Before I realized what you’d turned into. What’s waitin’ in the woods behind you.”

She looked past me then.

Not at the trees.

At what she thought I’d become.

I shook my head, mouth parting, searching for words that might save whatever this was. “I’m still me—Grace, please—”

“I need you to go.”

And with that, she closed the door.

Didn’t slam it. Just shut it soft.

Final.

I stood there, staring at the wood, like maybe it’d open back up and undo what just happened.

But it didn’t.

The porch creaked as I sank down onto the top step, arms limp at my sides. The air had that thick weight to it again, the kind that made your bones ache like they remembered something awful.

My last string to Sammie was cut.

I didn’t even know if he’d gotten my note.

Didn’t know if he was alive. Or hiding. Or already lost to Remmick’s hunger.

I didn’t cry.

Didn’t have anything left in me for that.

I just sat there, for what felt like hours, until the wind shifted and I knew I had to move.

———

The house felt colder when I returned.

Not in temperature—just in presence.

Like it knew something had changed.

I pushed through the door, not bothering to close it quiet this time. The shadows felt heavier. My skin prickled like the walls were watching.

I drifted through the parlor, my steps slow, heavy. Sank into the couch, my eyes fixed on nothing. Time blurred. I could still feel the echo of Grace’s voice, the chill behind her words.

I stayed there until I heard the latch click.

The front door creaked open.

Bootsteps.

Remmick.

He stepped in with his usual ease, closing the door behind him. His shirt was wrinkled. Dust clung to his cuffs. His eyes locked onto me, curious at first.

But I didn’t give him time to ask.

I stood.

Crossed the space in three sharp steps.

And kissed him.

Hard.

His mouth met mine with that familiar pressure, warm and dangerous, and for once I didn’t flinch from it. My hands curled into his shirt, fingers pulling him down into me, my breath caught somewhere between fury and grief.

He staggered back a step with me in his arms, mouth moving against mine with a growl of surprise, then heat. His hands found my waist—firm, possessive.

I kissed him like I needed to forget.

And maybe I did.

Forget Grace.

Forget the weight of a name nobody said anymore.

Forget that I’d lost the only person left who believed I was worth saving.

He didn’t ask what I was running from.

Didn’t need to.

Because Remmick knew what it looked like when something broke in you.

And he knew how to kiss like it was the cure.

Even if it was just another poison I drank too willingly.

Even if I was the one reaching for the bottle Again.

———

I waited until the moon sat high and clean above the trees before slipping out again, coat pulled tight over my frame, the last chill of daylight still clinging to the edges of the wind. Remmick was still hunting what he’d lost — what he thought he could recreate with blood and sweet talk. He didn’t ask where I was going tonight. Just told me, quiet and easy, “Be back before it’s too late.”

Too late for who, I didn’t ask.

The road to town stretched long, silent. My boots crunched softly over gravel, a sound that felt too loud for the kind of thoughts I was carrying. I counted the minutes with each step, mind racing faster than my feet. I needed clarity. Grace’s face hadn’t left my mind since she shut that door in it. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t let it go.

I turned onto Main, the familiar wooden storefronts all shadowed in lamplight and memory. I spotted the dry goods store across from Grace’s shop — the one where that older man had spoken to me before. I approached slow, cautious. The windows glowed from within.

I stopped at the edge of the porch and knocked gently against the doorframe. Not too loud. Not too soft. Just enough to say: I don’t mean no harm.

The man inside looked up from behind the counter. Recognition lit up his face, though he squinted just the same, like he wasn’t quite sure if I was real or not.

“Evenin’,” I said, voice calm but low. “Can I come in?”

He hesitated for a second, then gave a small nod.

“Come in, sure,” he said, walking over to unlock the door. “Don’t often get visitors this late, but it’s your kind of hour, I suppose.”

I stepped inside, the warmth of the store meeting me like a familiar hush. It smelled like cedarwood, dust, and old paper — like things that kept secrets.

He moved behind the counter again, leaning slightly against it as he regarded me. “You lookin’ better than last time I saw you. Seemed a little… restless then.”

I gave a small smile, not enough to reach my eyes. “Still restless.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Ain’t we all.”

I didn’t waste time. “You remember what you said about Grace being sick?”

He blinked. “Sure.”

“Well, I saw her. She ain’t sick. And she wasn’t surprised to see me. She just… shut me out. Like I was poison.”

His frown deepened. He scratched his head, gaze drifting toward the window like the answer might be hiding outside. “I don’t know what’s what no more. She and Bo kept to themselves the past couple days. Didn’t even open the shop since you came by. But I do recall…” His fingers tapped rhythm on the wood. “Something strange.”

He snapped his fingers suddenly, his expression lighting up. “Damn near forgot!”

He ducked behind the counter, rummaging through drawers and stacked papers until he pulled out a folded note — weathered but intact.

“Grace gave me this in a hurry a few nights back. Told me if a woman came lookin’ for her at night — to hand it over. No name, just a description. Figured it was you.”

My fingers trembled as I took it. “Thank you,” I said, voice soft.

He nodded, already turning back to wipe down a nearby shelf. “Hope it clears somethin’ up.”

I unfolded the paper with care, and Grace’s familiar script met my eyes like a balm and a blade:

Y/N—

He got it. Your letter. Sammie read every word.

I don’t have a reply from him — he didn’t risk sendin’ one.

Things got bad quick. Too many eyes. I’m layin’ low for now, maybe longer.

But listen close —

Sammie and Smoke are heading north. Five days from when you sent the letter.

He’ll wait as long as he can, but once the time comes, he has to go.

It’s not safe to stay.

I don’t know when you’ll get this, but you’ll have to move fast. Here’s where to look——

God keep you.

–G

The words rang through me like a bell toll.

Five days.

I counted backward in my head, trying not to panic. Three had already slipped through my fingers. Two remained — if I was lucky. If he was.

I closed the letter, fingers stiff, and slid it into my pocket with trembling care. I turned for the door.

“Thank you again,” I said over my shoulder, not waiting for him to reply.

Outside, the wind bit a little harder. I pulled my coat tighter and walked with purpose toward the alleyway.

No one followed.

The trash can waited like a sentinel.

I tore the note into pieces, sharp and fast, letting them fall into the dark.

Gone.

Gone like the chance I was clawing to keep hold of.

I looked once more at the glowing windows of Grace’s house in the distance. Still drawn. Still closed.

And then I walked back toward the house I shared with the devil — heart pounding like a drum, like war.

——

Remmick was still gone when I got there.

But not for long.

And the next move would have to be mine.

The plan was set. Rough around the edges, held together by frayed nerves and desperate hope—but it was all I had. Tomorrow night, it would be enacted. No more waiting. No more second-guessing.If all went well, I’d be gone.Possibly leaving Remmick behind. The thought pierced deeper than I’d anticipated. A dull ache settled in my chest, one I couldn’t quite name.

I sat on the couch, the room dimly lit, lost in my thoughts when the door creaked open.Remmick entered, exhaling a sigh that spoke of exhaustion. He moved with a weariness that seemed to seep into the room. He settled into a dining chair behind me, the weight of the day evident in his posture.

“Things are moving slower than I’d like,” he began, his voice tinged with frustration. “People are hesitant, resistant. It’s… taxing.”

I nodded, offering a noncommittal hum.

After a pause, he asked, “Any updates on Sammie’s whereabouts?”

My heart skipped a beat. “No,” I replied quickly. “Nothing concrete. The town’s been quiet.”

He studied me for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re sure?”

I forced a smile. “Positive. If I had anything, you’d be the first to know.”

He nodded slowly, seemingly satisfied.The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. I stood, the need to bridge the distance overwhelming. I walked over to him, noting the way his shirt was discarded to the side, suspenders hanging loosely at his waist.His eyes met mine, a glint of red flickering in their depths as I settled onto his lap.

“Just wait a little longer,” I murmured, fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “Who knows? Sammie might just walk to you.”

He chuckled, the sound low and rough. His hand found my waist, pulling me closer.

“Or maybe I’ll find him,” he said, voice a whisper against my skin, “because I never lost him.”

A shiver ran down my spine. I silenced him with a kiss, desperate to drown out the implications of his words. I didn’t want to hear the rest. Didn’t want to know if he was bluffin’ or boastin’.I just needed to forget.

I slid off his lap, down to my knees between his thighs. My hands moved on instinct, unfastening the button at his waist, pulling the fabric down slow. His cock was already half-hard, twitching to life under my touch.

Remmick watched me with a quiet, ravenous hunger, his eyes flickering red like they remembered old wars.

“You sure about this?” he murmured, voice dipped in syrup.

“No,” I whispered. “But I ain’t stoppin’.”

I wrapped my lips around him, taking him slow, tasting the salt and musk of him as I worked my tongue down his shaft. His head fell back, a low groan rumbling from his chest. His hand curled into my hair, not pushing—just there. Guiding. Praising.I sucked harder, deeper, letting him hit the back of my throat, letting him feel every inch of my want and denial.

He cursed, low and shaky. “Fuck, darlin’. You feel like you’re prayin’ with your mouth.”

His hips rolled, shallow thrusts meeting the rhythm of my mouth. He tasted like power. Like a promise I didn’t want to keep.My hands slid up his thighs, holding him steady as he twitched in my mouth, his moans climbing higher. Faster.

Until he bucked hard, one hand clenched in my hair, spilling into me with a growl that sounded like a broken vow.I stayed there a moment, letting him ride it out, then pulled back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, trying to breathe through the weight in my chest.Afterward, the room was silent save for our mingled breaths. I rested against him, heart pounding, mind racing.

He brushed a strand of hair from my face, eyes searching mine.

“You won’t leave me now, would you, darlin’?”

I hesitated, then shook my head slowly.A smile touched his lips. “Good. Wouldn’t want the woman I love to leave me to forever loneliness.”

The words struck me, a mix of warmth and dread curling in my stomach. I buried my face in his neck, the weight of my decision pressing down on me.

——

The moon wore a veil of clouds tonight, like it didn’t want to bear witness to what was about to happen. Half-bright and mean-looking, it hovered above me as I crept away from the house like a thief in the dark. Remmick had already left—gone off chasing ghosts and pieces of a plan falling apart in his own hands. Said he’d be back before sunrise. I knew he would.

And I knew I wouldn’t be.

This was it. No more stalling. No more swallowing screams in that house where the walls watched me breathe. My plan—frayed at the seams and stitched with desperation—was all I had now. And if the stars were kind, it might buy me a few hours’ head start.

I followed the path Grace had described, further from town than I expected. The ground grew rockier, the trees thicker. Shadows pressed in close. My nerves were wired so tight, every rustle in the trees felt like someone whisperin’ my name. But I kept walking. I had to. The house wasn’t far now. I saw it through the branches—a small thing, hunched in the dark with a car parked in front. A flicker of breath escaped me. Relief. They hadn’t left yet. Grace’s directions had been good. I hadn’t been followed. Not yet.

My steps quickened, hope making me reckless.

And then—I froze.A rustle in the trees behind me. Not the wind.

My skin went tight. My body wanted to run, scream, fight—but I stood there locked in place like prey.Then something small burst out of the treeline.I nearly screamed. Nearly ran. But the shape straightened. A face I knew.

“Grace?” I whispered.

She stumbled toward me, her breaths ragged, tears streaking her cheeks. Her dress was torn, her hair wild.

“They got them,” she sobbed, falling into my arms. “Bo—Amy—oh God, I watched them turn ‘em right in front of me. I hid, I ran, but they—they knew, Y/N. They knew.”

I held her close, one arm locked around her trembling body as the other reached instinctively for the gun hidden in my waistband. My stomach sank with her words.

This wasn’t just a ruined plan. It was a massacre in motion.

“We have to go,” I breathed. “Now.”

The two of us ran the rest of the way to the house. My mind was already racing. I didn’t know if they’d followed Grace, if they’d followed me, if they were already here—but I wasn’t about to lose this chance.

I pounded on the door.

It opened so fast it startled me.

Smoke stood there, rifle raised—but the moment he saw our faces, his expression broke wide.

“Y/N? Grace?”

“Can we come in?,” I gasped. “Now.”

“Yea.”He stepped back fast, letting us in. He looked both ways before slamming the door shut behind us.

Inside, Sammie was in the hallway, tense and alert—eyes wide as he saw us. Then soft, just for a second. He was alive.

I rushed to him and pulled him into a hug. The weight of his arms around me almost brought me to my knees. He smelled like sweat and pine and something old and burnt.Then I saw it. A claw mark across his cheek, still scabbed and angry. I reached for it. He lowered his head like he was ashamed.

“Remmick,” he said quietly.I said nothing. Just dropped my hand.Smoke locked every window, checked every corner. We gathered in the parlor, breathing too loud, too fast.We shared what we knew—Grace telling how Bo and Amy were caught. I told them what Remmick had lied about. What he was building. What I let him build.None of us had words for what sat in the room with us. We just knew we had to go.

Smoke pulled a heavy sack from the floor. “We leave now,” he said. “They’ll trace Grace’s steps soon enough.”

I nodded, numb. My hands moved on their own, grabbing bags, helping load the car. It was muscle memory. Fight or flight. Survive.Outside, the wind stirred the trees.Grace tugged at my arm, pulling me aside as the others worked.

“I think we should stay another night,” she whispered. “Just till things calm a little. It’s too sudden. We’ll draw less attention—”

“Grace,” I said gently, but stopped.

Something was wrong.

“G…Grace,” I said again, and my voice cracked. “You’re—you’re drooling.”

She wiped her mouth. But it was too slow. Too calm.Her lips stretched into a smile that wasn’t hers.

“Guess the cat’s out the bag.”

I stumbled back.

“Smoke!” I shouted.

He turned just as Grace’s eyes went white, glowing like a lantern lit from within.

“Ah, shit,” he breathed.

Too late.From the trees, more figures emerged. Calm. Confident.

Bo. Stack. Amy.

Grinning.

Like puppets with the strings still showing.My stomach flipped. I counted bodies.

Annie. Mary. More of them. All the ones Remmick said had died.Liars. Every last one of them. Or maybe just him.

And then—there he was.

Remmick.

Stepping through the trees like he never left them.

He looked just the same. Dusty boots. Rolled sleeves. Hair damp with effort. But his eyes?

His eyes burned.

“Should I call this a family reunion?” he drawled, voice cutting through the night like a whip.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, to cry, to laugh from how stupid I’d been.

“You fuckin’ liar—”

He cut me off with a soft tsk. “Now, now. Don’t give me that, Y/N. You been lyin’ to me since day one. Thought it was only fair to give it back in double.”

The others fanned out, blocking the car, the trees, the road. There was nowhere left to run.

“I kept an eye on you,” Remmick said, stepping closer, every word heavy. “Even when you thought I wasn’t around. Every errand. Every letter. Every secret little knock on some poor girl’s door—I saw it. You think you were foolin’ me, baby? I let you.”

My mouth opened—but I couldn’t find a lie good enough to cover the hurt.

“You played me like a fiddle,” he said, voice suddenly sharp. “But only one of us got stuck. Only one of us saw the bigger picture . And now look what you done. Wasted time. Endangered what I built. You think I waited centuries for this just to let you get in the way?”

His voice dropped to a growl. “I could’ve made you a queen. Instead, you chose to be a warnin’.”

The pain hit like a slap.

But it wasn’t the betrayal.

It was the shame.

Because I had loved him.

Even when I shouldn’t have.

Even now.

Smoke stumbled, wounded and breathing heavy, his arm barely lifting the rifle. Sammie moved to help—but Remmick was already there.

He grabbed Sammie by the collar, mouth open, teeth sharp—

I didn’t think.

I just moved.

Grabbed the gun from the dirt, raised it, and fired.The shot cracked through the clearing.Remmick dropped Sammie, staggering back, shock and fury twisting his face.

He turned to me.Eyes burning. Hurt. Betrayed.

“You really wanna do this, darlin’?” he whispered.

I didn’t know I was crying until the tears reached my lips. “I can’t let you make anyone else suffer. You’ve done enough.”

The moon tilted in the sky, shifting just enough that I could see the edge of morning begin to rise.Sammie struggled to his feet, limping.

“I should’ve never let you play with my plan,” Remmick said, quiet now. “I guess… my love for you was my weakness.”

Sammie grabbed the stake. I saw it. Saw him raise it behind Remmick.

I dropped the gun.I stepped forward.

And kissed him.

Remmick stiffened. Shocked.His hand cupped my face. For a moment, it was just us again.

And then—

“Do it, Sammie,” I yelled.

The stake drove through his back.

And into my chest.Pain like I’d never known.

He snarled.

I gasped.

“You were never meant to be mine in this life,” I whispered, forehead pressed to his. “But maybe in the next…”His skin began to blister then burn. The sun rose.

Screams echoed around us—his followers lighting up like bonfires as they tried to run.He tried to pull away.

But I held him.Held him until the flames took us both.

And everything went black.

———

1985

Somewhere in Louisiana

The market smelled like July holdin’ its breath—hot tar, overripe peaches, and molasses gone sour under the weight of the sun. A Marvin Gaye tune played low from a radio tucked behind a fruit stall, half-swallowed by the hum of cicadas and the thump of crates bein’ moved.

I came for coffee beans. That’s it.

But fate’s got a funny way of reroutin’ simple errands.

He passed me like a ghost wearin’ skin.

Not ‘cause he was fine—though he was.

White tee soft with time, tucked into jeans worn pale at the thighs. Denim jacket slung careless over one shoulder. Boots steady on the ground. Hair a mess like he’d just woken up from somethin’ deep.

But that ain’t why I stopped.

I stopped ‘cause my body knew before my heart remembered.

Like my bones stood still for someone they used to ache for.

He paused. Turned.

Brows drawn in like he was tryin’ to place me in a dream he couldn’t quite recall.

“‘Scuse me, miss,” he said, voice smooth as aged bourbon. “Do I… know you from somewhere?”

I blinked once. Twice.

“I—maybe,” I said. My voice came out soft, like it hadn’t spoken sorrow in years.

He smiled, half-tilted, cautious. “That’s funny. I was just about to say the same.”

I nodded slow. “You ever been down to Mississippi?”

His smile dipped, then stilled. “Once. Long time ago.”

That somethin’ passed between us—

not quite tension. Not quite peace.

Just an old ache that ain’t ever learned how to die.

He stepped closer, like he didn’t mean to but couldn’t help it.

“I know this is a little forward,” he said, reachin’ in his pocket, pullin’ out a worn scrap of receipt paper and a pen, “but… would you wanna grab a drink sometime?”

My breath caught.

Not from surprise.

From remembrance.

That voice.

That tilt of the head.

That kind of question that could rearrange your whole life if you let it.

I didn’t let it show.

“Sure,” I said, smiling faint. “I’d like that.”

He scribbled down a number, handed me the paper like it held somethin’ sacred.

I took it, my fingers brushing his.

“Remmick,” he said.

“Y/N,” I answered, just as quiet.

His eyes searched mine for a second too long. Somethin’ flickered there—like déjà vu grippin’ his ribs too tight.

Then—

“Y/N!” a voice called out behind me, sharp as a church bell on Sunday morning.

“You gon’ make us miss The Movie! Move your feet, girl!”

I turned quick to see Mary, arms crossed, grin wide watching my exchange.

“Oh—sorry!” I laughed, half-startled, shakin’ my head as I gathered my bags. “I’ll call you later,” I told him, already steppin’ backward.

“Hope you do,” he said, lips curvin’ easy.

I turned toward Mary, my heart beatin’ fast for no reason I could name.

Behind me, he watched.

Eyes flickered red—

Just for a second.Gone before the blink finished.

And when I looked back one last time—

he was walkin’ away, hands in his pockets, hummin’ low to the rhythm of a song only he remembered.

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thehoneybeestings · 2 months ago

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𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲

𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐚!𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐤𝐚 𝐱 𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐠𝐚!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

‧₊˚── Synopsis: Sevika has grown awfully fond of the owner of Zaun's only bakery; in fact, she'd do anything for her. So, when a hard heat hits the baker, Sevika can't help but offer a helping hand.

Word Count: 3.3k Content/Warnings: omegaverse! if it's not your thing don't read it; nsfw, top!sev, bottom!reader, soft dom!sev, reader is referred to w fem terms/pronouns, reader has female anatomy, sev has a dick bc i think all alpha's do?? idk im new here A/N: so... heyyyy guys... yes i know this is not on my wip list but i was struck with divine inspiration and who am i to work against higher forces! this is my first time dabbling in omegaverse so i hope it suffices...

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐁𝐞𝐞 ୨ৎ

──˚₊୨ৎ‧₊˚──

There’s something tugging at Sevika.

She’s already scanned the room for what it could be, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. The booth she routinely occupies at The Last Drop feels no different than it ever has, the playing cards and poker chips littering the rickety wooden table in front of her are just as beat up as they always are, and her drunken opponents are as easy to beat as ever.

She’s slouched back against the wall behind her, brows furrowed and eyes trained on the half-empty glass of whiskey dampening its paper coaster. The anticipation buzzing around her shouldn’t feel so foreign; the woman’s M.O. is to be at attention, at all times, with no exceptions. Still, there's a hum of urgency that's much louder tonight than usual. Something is telling her-something is demanding her-to remain alert, attentive, ready to be of service.

Her flesh hand twitches, fingers squeezing around the rim of the glass she holds for a split second.

Someone needs her. Someone needs her now.

She can’t put her finger on who it could be, or why it could be, so she taps at the glass’s rim with it instead.

A voice, gruff after nearly a lifetime of smoking, pulls her from her concentration on ripples running through liquid amber.

“You even payin’ attention?” The ash of his cigar falls onto the table as the hand that holds it gestures towards her chips.

On an ordinary night, she’d shoot the shit. Give him a playful scoff. Tell him that she wasn’t paying attention at all, and somehow, she was still kicking his ass.

But, despite the normalcy of The Last Drop’s Friday night debauchery, despite the inventory she’d taken of her surroundings telling her that everything should be okay, she still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

It’s pulling her to her feet now. She downs the rest of her whiskey as she stands, mumbling something about everyone splitting her earnings evenly as she walks off. Her opponents are left entirely confused and a little bit richer as they watch her stride away with her usual purpose.

Where this pull is taking her, she has no idea. Frankly, she doesn’t care. She no longer feels her stomach wrenching as she tries to fight off the force yanking at her cloak, begging her to go wherever she’s going now. With every step, there is clarity.

Someone needs her. Someone needs her now.

She's getting closer to them. With every step she takes, she finds that her lungs are easier to fill now that she knows this person needn’t worry any longer.

When she ends up at your door, her entire body melts on exhale.

Of all the people in the world, there’s no one else she’d rather be needed by.

Be it the chaos that had ensued just before meeting you for the first time, or the way you seemed to calm her stormy seas at first glance, she remembers it like it was yesterday.

She remembers swinging the bakery’s door open in a panic, eyes wide and wild as they hurriedly scanned the room for a head of fluffy hair dyed blue.

“I’ve got her,” a voice rang out. A voice like honey to match your honeysuckle scent, she immediately noted.

You stood behind the counter, placing a piping bag down and wiping your hands on your blush-colored apron with a shy smile.

Lo and behold, there sat Isha, perched on the marble countertop next to you. She stared up at Sevika with big, innocent eyes; far too innocent for a girl who’d just escaped Sevika's grasp and booked it to the bakery she’d been begging to visit for weeks now.

“She’s quick,” you chortle. “Sugar may not have been the best idea, now that I think of it…”

You look over at the small girl whose mouth was now opening as wide as it could go to take a bite of the blueberry muffin you’d given her. It was too late. She was hooked and sure as shit to be bouncing off of the walls, now.

Sevika’s eyes trail from the crumbs stuck to Isha’s lips to the affectionate smile gracing your own. It was too late. You were sweet as honey, and she was hooked, too.

That was nearly a year ago, now. Trips to the bakery slowly but surely changed from Isha’s demand to Sevika’s suggestion. Eventually, Sevika began visiting on her own; before work to get a coffee, during her breaks to grab a cheese danish, after work to pick up a blueberry muffin for Isha.

It would have been less-than-chivalrous if she hadn’t begun offering to hang around until you closed shop so she could walk you home, would have been impolite to decline the Sunday afternoon taste-testing sessions you’d started inviting her over for.

She’s a gentlewoman. It’s only principle. That’s what she tells herself, at least.

That’s what she tells herself as her knuckles tap thrice on your door.

She starts to feel antsy again when you don’t come bounding to the door as usual, when your honeyed voice doesn't call out that you’ll be right there. She worries even more when you do reach the door, but it doesn’t swing open to reveal a bright smile, a pretty girl covered in flour and smelling of vanilla. Instead, you flick the deadbolt to the right, trail back to your room, and leave the door unlocked for her to enter of her own accord.

Her stomach turns like the doorknob she’s grasping, but as soon as the door opens, she knows what’s wrong.

The blossom of honeysuckle in the spring floats through the air. This much was a given; she knows this is what she’ll smell when she’s around you.

Tonight, though, it’s honeysuckle and something else. Something thick, hitting her like a brick wall. A white musk that nearly knocks her back when it crosses the threshold of your apartment door to meet her in the hallway.

She’s quick to step in and even quicker to close the door behind her. That scent was sure to attract unwanted visitors: Alphas looking to sink their gnashing teeth into something sweet.

She twists the deadbolt back to the left, her eyes darting across the room to find you. When that doesn’t suffice-when you’re nowhere to be seen- she follows your scent trail instead. Follows it back to your room, where her heart nearly breaks at the sight before her.

You’ve got what she figures must be every pillow in the house propped up against the headboard, every blanket you own pushed down to the foot of the bed, and you sit at the center of it all with your legs pulled into your chest, your head buried in your knees, and your arms wrapped around the ball you’ve curled yourself into.

There’s a pedestal fan pointed directly at you, despite the oversized sweater you adorn. You’re refusing to take it off, she bets. Want something soft and warm wrapped around you at all costs, even if it means you’ll sweat through it.

A soft grin spreads across her face as she approaches, slow and steady. It was her turn to calm your storm, now.

She sinks to her knees next to your bed, elbows resting on the flower-shaped throw pillow she remembers you buying when you were out shopping in the square with her one day. She’d taken a liking to it herself, always opting to rest her head on its pink petals as she stretched her long legs along the length of your couch, or holding it close to her chest as the two of you watched yet another horror movie you both knew damn well would keep you up all night.

She tries not to think too much of the fact that of all the pillows stacked upon your bed, it's the one you’ve got right next to you.

Her voice is nearly a whisper when she finally speaks, grey eyes soft and warm as they gaze up at you from her place on the floor.

“Hey, doll.”

All you manage to muster in response is a weary groan.

She exhales through her nose, eyebrows knitting together in concern.

“Rough heat?”

Your muffled sob cuts through the quiet, and her hand flies out to knead your thigh.

Her eyes widen in sudden consternation. Your skin is a brazier underneath her large palm.

“Janna,” she suddenly calls out, eyes frantic as they travel across your figure. “Y/n, you’re burning up. How long have you had a fever?”

She trades flesh for cold metal, anchoring her mech hand to your thigh in hopes that it’ll cool you down. Her right hand splays across your back, rubbing large circles across its expanse as you sniffle into your knees.

“Two days,” you mumble weakly, and much to her dismay.

Two days was too long for you to be in this state, nevertheless alone.

“I thought I’d have been claimed by now,” you admit, your voice wobbling.

“Don’t talk like that,” she commands. “There’s no timeline for this stuff. It’ll happen when it-”

“It’s not like that!”

Your head finally snaps up from your knees, teary eyes locking onto hers.

“It’s not… It’s not that I can’t find anyone. It’s that I can’t…”

Your voice breaks, and her hand trails up from your back to rest on the back of your neck, her thumb massaging the tightness at the base of your skull as she waits patiently for you to gather yourself.

You’re well aware that in the crux of an already grueling heat is not the best time to share an admission that very well could permanently alter your relationship with the woman you hold dearest. You’re also aware that you won’t be able to keep lying to Sevika for much longer.

You wouldn’t be able to keep lying to yourself for much longer.

Your words are still shaky despite the bracing deep breath you take before speaking.

“I can’t stand anyone else’s scent…”

Her hand stills, but her touch doesn’t falter. Her face doesn’t fall.

She’s still here. She’s still steady, still constant, but she needs you to be sure.

“Anyone else?” She asks, her voice low.

A small huff escapes you. You know Sevika. She doesn’t do vague.

She’s going to make you say it.

“I can’t stand anyone’s scent but yours.”

A pregnant pause settles in between the two of you.

And then, her hand is moving from the back of your neck to tuck a tendril of hair behind your ear.

“Do you want me to help?”

You nod fervently, words tumbling from your lips before you can stop them.

“Want you so bad, it hurts; please, Sev, I-”

Her lips crash into yours, stealing your breath away. Your heart is already racing, your core is already throbbing, you’re already whimpering into her mouth.

It was too late. You were sweet as honey, and she’d just gotten a taste.

──˚₊୨ৎ‧₊˚──

It’s been hours. She’s been fucking you for hours.

You nearly feel bad for being so insatiable; only nearly, because she had made it very clear very quickly that you needn’t ever apologize for lasting so long, for needing the next round not even five minutes after the last, for wanting it faster, harder, deeper.

You needn’t ever apologize for allowing her the opportunity to take care of you.

Much to your dismay, sometimes taking care of you meant that she would slow down to check in, insist you take a breather, or get you a glass of water. Sevika knows that what you want is to be ravaged, to let your mind go all fuzzy and your body go all limp as she takes you, claims you, breeds you. Sevika knows that what you need is someone looking out for your best interest when you’re all-consumed by your heat, someone who knows that the responsibility of an alpha is to provide far more than a good fuck.

Still, she isn’t surprised that you nearly burst into tears when her pace begins to relent. Janna knows how hard it is for her to stop when you look so pretty laid out for her like this; legs thrown over her shoulders, hands desperately grabbing at firm muscle and cool metal, brows knit together in pleasure as you cry out for her.

She leans down to press a kiss to the beads of sweat forming on your hairline, and knows she needs to stop anyway.

“Wait, wait, wait,” you plead, wrapping your legs around her waist and rolling your hips up into her own, “please don’t stop, please keep going, Sev…”

She plants a kiss on your shoulder this time, the salt of sweat-sticky skin on her lips.

“You’re getting too hot, baby,” she purrs. “We’re not done, I promise. Just need to make sure you cool off for a second.”

You whine in defiance, and she hums in understanding, but you’re too fucked out to do anything but lay there and let her press a cool rag to your forehead and your flushed chest.

“You feelin’ okay, mama?”

She doesn’t miss the way your lip quirks up into the beginnings of a smirk.

“What?” She asks with a grin, bearing the gap in between her teeth. You’d told her it was cute once. The tips of her ears were dark red for the rest of the day.

“Don’t call me that,” you smile.

She just quirks a brow in playful curiosity.

“Not unless you plan on putting a baby in me.”

Her hands still. Her grin falters. For a moment, you worry that you’ve crossed a line.

Then, glittery grey irises go dark like a storm cloud rolling in. Her eyes are lidded, full of desire. Her jaw clenches, her nostrils flare, her muscles twitch for a split second.

Her head dips down to hide in your neck, but there, she finds that honeysuckle and musk hit her even harder here. You don’t miss the way her body writhes atop your own.

“Careful joking around like that,” she husks.

You buck your hips up in a challenge. “Who said I was joking?”

And then, she whines. Sevika whines.

“Couldn’t get you pregnant if I wanted to, doll,” she resigns. “I’m on suppressants.”

“That’s okay,” you coo, hands stroking up and down the length of her back, her skin warm and her muscles strong underneath your palm. “You can pretend. Jus’ want you to cum inside of me.”

This time, she growls, and you don’t miss the way her canines scrape across your pulse point.

She trails open-mouthed kisses from your neck, to your jaw, to the corner of your lips, breath shaky along the way.

Her resolve is crumbling, her restraint weakening. She had found you in need, and now, here she was, just as desperate as you had been.

“Come on, baby,” you urge, voice just over a whisper. “Take me.”

You're flipped over and pinned to the bed in a second. She yanks you up onto your knees by your waist, and her mech hand travels down your spine to push you further into the mattress while her flesh hand works to line herself up in between your legs. You gasp when you feel her sliding through your slick, whine when she presses an inch in before slipping back out and dipping down to nudge your swollen bud of nerves, groan when she finally presses into you completely, the head of her length prodding at your cervix.

She pants above you, both hands settling on your waist as she gives you a moment to adjust, and as soon as you're pushing back against her, she’s snapping her hips into you. Her grip is bruising as she pulls you back to meet every thrust. Your hands fly out to grab at the sheets next to you, your heady cries of pleasure muffled by the soft pillows piled at the head of the bed.

“How’s that? Huh?”

Her voice is gravelly from exertion. Sexier than it already is. How that’s even possible, you’re not sure. You don’t care. You can’t even think.

Sevika leans down to nip at your earlobe.

“Talk to me, baby,” she rasps. “This what you wanted? Wanted me to fuck a baby into you, hm? Wanted me to make you mine?”

You nod frantically, babbling out a yes, sobbing into the pillow. You bite down hard on your bottom lip, hiccupping against the breath you can’t seem to catch.

“I’ve got you,” she croons, her pace gentler now. “Deep breath for me, doll.”

Her flesh hand interlaces with your own, her thumb rubbing soothing circles into the meaty flesh between your thumb and your forefinger. You nod with a whimper, following her command.

“Good girl.”

She reaches down in between your slick-covered thighs to circle at your clit, rubbing lazy circles in tandem with her slow, deep strokes. She hisses at the feeling of your velvety walls clenching around her, grits her teeth as she begins to speed up.

You make it so damn hard for her to keep it together, reaching up to grab the hair at the nape of her neck and pushing her head down into your shoulder. She knows exactly what you’re asking for.

Her bite.

You’re asking her to sink her teeth into sugar, and Sevika’s always had a sweet tooth.

She clenches her jaw even tighter. Takes deep breaths through her nose. Fucks you into the mattress instead.

The bite will come later. When you’re not in heat, when you’re thinking clearly, when you can comprehend that what you’re asking for is to be bound to her. When it does come- when you do ask for that- she’ll say yes. No question.

She’s been yours since the moment she walked through the bakery’s doors nearly a year ago.

But right now, she’s here to take care of you. Nothing more, nothing in return.

A voice like honey rings out like music to her ears.

“Oh- fuck, don’t stop. Mm- gonna… gonna cum…”

“That’s right, baby. Give me another, yeah?”

And when she latches onto the juncture between your shoulder and your neck, sucking just hard enough for you to feel a dull pinch, you fall apart, her name tumbling from your lips like a prayer.

That’s when she liked her name most. When it came from you.

This time, it’s what pushes her over the edge. It’s all nearly too much; the sound of you moaning her name, your scent inundating her senses, the feeling of you tightening around her, the pulse that thrums against her canines.

Shimmer doesn’t even make her feel this feral.

You can feel her twitching against your walls as she fucks you through your release with a new vigor.

“Fuck,” she grits, “say the word and I’ll pull out.”

“Don’t.”

Sugar meets spice. Your command is stern, and Sevika is good at following orders.

She ruts into you with a broken moan, hissing with each involuntary twitch of her hips as she spills into you.

Soon, she joins you in a leaden slump, her warm body caging you in and her cock still sheathed inside of you. The hum of the pedestal fan and the rasp of your pants fill the room like white noise.

And then, you giggle. A blissed out, breathy giggle that has the corner of Sevika’s mouth quirking up into a smile.

“What?” she pants.

“Nothing. Jus’ happy.”

She hums in contentment. “Feel better?”

“Much better.”

And Sevika can’t ignore the way her heart flutters, the pride she feels knowing she was able to take care of you, the desire she has to take care of you for as long as she lives.

The bite will come later, she reminds herself. Right now, there’s just you. Sweet as honey.

“Good,” she muses. “That’s what I’m here for.”

──˚₊ 𝐄𝐍𝐃 ‧₊˚──

p.s. anybody want pt.2 feat. reader getting sev's bite...?

#sevika x reader #sevika x you #sevika x y/n #alpha!sevika #sevika one shot #sevika smut #sevika arcane #arcane #arcane smut #arcane one shot #sevika imagine #arcane imagine #lesbian #sapphic #wlw

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reiding-writing · 5 months ago

Note

Cold!reader who defends Spencer when’s someone’s making fun of his autistic traits, and the teams like “what?????”

STAGNANT — SPENCER REID!

why would someone ask spencer a question if they didn’t want to hear the answer?

late s8!spencer x cold!reader 1.2k fluff? cold!reader masterlist.

main masterlist.

a/n — the cold!reader roster i have atm has me kicking my feet and twirling my hair, stay tuned

You step into the cramped precinct in a town that barely makes the map, the smell of stale coffee and old paper immediately hitting you.

The air hums with tension—murder cases tend to have that effect on a room. Your team disperses, each member diving into their respective tasks like clockwork.

You stay near Spencer, keeping an eye on the board he’s already scouring, his sharp mind undoubtedly miles ahead of everyone else’s.

It doesn’t take long for the local officers to start asking questions. You’ve seen it before: their curiosity morphing into disbelief as they’re confronted with Spencer Reid in full form.

This particular case involves a peculiar type of soil found on the victim’s shoes, and when one officer, a grizzled man named Officer Moore, offhandedly asks about its significance, Spencer lights up.

“It’s fascinating, actually,” he begins, his voice picking up with enthusiasm. “The soil contains traces of montmorillonite clay, which is common in areas with volcanic ash deposits. This specific type is unique to the western side of the county, and based on the composition—” He gestures to the samples bagged on the table, oblivious to the officer’s quickly fading interest.

Spencer continues, lost in his explanation, his words flowing like water over smooth stones. You watch the officer shift uncomfortably, his expression hardening into impatience. The moment Spencer pauses to breathe, Moore cuts in, looking at you with a smirk.

“Is he like this all the time? Never shuts up, huh?”

You freeze. The room, bustling moments ago, seems quieter now. Your team is too far off to hear, but you’re right here. Close enough to feel the sting of the comment.

Spencer doesn’t notice. Or maybe he pretends not to. Either way, it doesn’t sit right with you. The dismissive tone, the condescension dripping from the officer’s words—it sparks a heat under your skin that you don’t bother to hide.

“Are you stupid?” Your voice is sharp, like a knife scraping metal. Moore’s smug expression falters.

“Excuse me-?”

“You heard me,” you continue, stepping closer, your gaze fixed on him. “If you can’t keep up with what Dr. Reid is saying, that’s your problem. He’s giving you answers—solutions—that you clearly wouldn’t find on your own. So maybe try listening instead of running your mouth.”

Moore blinks, taken aback. His hand hovers near the cup of coffee on the table, forgotten. “I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did.” you interrupt, crossing your arms. “And for the record, if he’s too much for you to handle, then stay out of his way, you’ll murk his IQ into single digits.”

The room is quiet now, the subtle hum of computers and distant voices the only sound. Spencer finally looks up, his expression unreadable. There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes, but mostly he just seems... confused.

Moore mutters something under his breath and stalks off, clearly not willing to press the issue further. Good. You watch him go, your blood still simmering.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Spencer says softly, his voice carrying a note of uncertainty.

“Yes, I did,” you reply without hesitation. “He was being a jerk.”

Spencer tilts his head, studying you. “People say things like that all the time.”

“Well, they shouldn’t,” you counter, your tone firm. “And if you wont put your foot down about it then I will.”

For a moment, he just stares at you, as if trying to decipher some hidden code in your words. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles—small and fleeting, but genuine. It feels like a victory, however minor.

—

Later, when the team regroups, the tension in the precinct has eased, though you can still feel a few lingering stares from the local officers.

Hotch gives you all the rundown of the next steps, his voice steady and commanding as always. You nod along, but your focus drifts to Spencer, who’s scribbling something in his notebook, seemingly unbothered by the earlier incident.

As the team breaks off to get to work, Emily sidles up beside you, her dark eyes alight with curiosity. “So,” she begins, drawing out the word. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?” you reply, feigning ignorance.

“That little showdown with Officer Grumpy Pants earlier,” she says, smirking. “Word has it you tore him a new one,”

You shrug. “He was being disrespectful.”

Emily raises an eyebrow. “To Reid?”

“To all of us, honestly,” you say. “But yeah, mostly Reid. He didn’t deserve that.”

Emily studies you for a moment, her smirk softening into something more thoughtful. “Awe how sweet,”

“Don’t start,” you warn, but there’s no real bite to your words. Emily laughs, raising her hands in mock surrender.

“Hey, no judgment,” she says. “It’s just... very human of you.”

“I’m not a robot.”

She gestures vaguely toward you. “Oh hush you know what I mean,”

You roll your eyes but don’t bother arguing. Instead, you glance across the room at Spencer, who’s now deep in conversation with JJ and Rossi. The earlier exchange seems to have rolled off him, as if it never happened.

But you know better. You’ve seen the way comments like that stick, the way they fester in that moment f hesitation before he speaks. You’re not sure why it matters so much to you—why he matters so much—but you don’t dwell on it.

��

The case drags on into the evening, the pieces of the puzzle slowly falling into place. By the time the unsub is in custody and the team is preparing to head back to the jet, exhaustion hangs heavy in the air.

As you gather your things, Morgan claps a hand on your shoulder. “Hey, Ice Queen,” he says, his tone teasing. “You did good.”

“Thank you? I was doing my job.” you reply, shooting him a bemused look.

He chuckles. “Not with the case, sweetness. Word is you went full gladiator on one of the locals earlier.”

“Word travels way too fast in this team,” you mutter.

Morgan grins. “What can I say? We’re a nosy bunch. But it’s nice to know you haven’t lost your bite now you’re saddled up to boy wonder.”

He gestures with his head towards where Spencer was sleeping on the jet’s couch, wrapped in a cheap blanket like baby.

You fight back the urge to smile.

“I never changed,” you say dryly.

Morgan laughs, but there’s a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Sure you did,”

“No I didn’t,”

He nudges your shoulder, a whisper of “You’ll admit it one day,” before he walks off.

#cold!reader ᝰ.ᐟ #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #mgg #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst

1K notes · View notes

colouredbyd · 1 month ago

Text

Grimmauld: The House That Buried Its Children & The Ones Who Stay

brother!sirius black x fem!black!reader (centered) , james potter x fem!reader

synopsis: within the ancient and noble House of Black, where shadows cling like whispered memories, the story of its heirs unfolds — bound by blood, silence, and a past that never lets go. this is the quiet tragedy of a family built on legacy and expectation, the tale of three siblings — Sirius, Regulus, and you — whose lives were shaped by the name Black and forever haunted by the weight it bore.

cw: grief, trauma, loss of family, sibling conflict, secret romance, emotional and psychological distress, neglect, abuse, war, death, sacrifice, PTSD, intense emotional themes, bittersweet romance, legacy burdens, depression, death, very minor brief hints of suicide, forced marriages, and mourning. (timelines aren't canon compliant)

w/c: 13k (what can i say, the Black trauma is very detailed and long)

a/n: this is probably the best thing i’ve written — maybe the best i ever will — and i won’t apologize for the angst <3

masterlist

1978

It is raining the night Sirius leaves.

Not the kind of rain that arrives with spectacle and fury. Not the dramatic sort that rips through the clouds like a wound or makes the house tremble with thunder’s weight.

But a quieter sorrow. A gentle and ceaseless drizzle that feels older than memory, as if it began long before the sky turned grey and will linger long after the world forgets what it means to be dry, to be warm, to be whole.

Grimmauld Place breathes in that rain like it knows what’s coming, like it has always known, and the halls are colder than they’ve ever been. Not because the hearth has gone dark or the embers have died, but because something unseen is curling into ash in the walls. Something made of shared secrets and childhood echoes and the paper-thin thread of love that once bound a family, now fraying with every breath, every step, every silence.

There is no shouting now. Not anymore. Not since the voices collapsed into exhaustion, into finality.

And even though it might have been an hour ago or maybe two, or maybe longer than that, the house still hums with it, still remembers the shape of the words, the violence of the vowels, your mother’s voice cutting through the air like something sacred and profane all at once—a blade you’ve heard so many times your bones flinch on instinct, and your ears have begun to confuse cruelty with comfort, with home, with love.

You sit on the stairs, knees drawn up and head pressed to the banister, half-swallowed by shadows like the house is trying to hide you or keep you from breaking, and you listen even though it hurts. Listen because it’s the only way you know how to say goodbye without saying it, without naming it.

And down the corridor, your mother’s voice rises again, shrill and bitter and full of rot. But Sirius does not raise his voice in return. Not tonight. Not this time. And that silence is worse than any screaming. That silence is a goodbye carved in stone. It is a decision made in a place too deep for you to reach.

You do not know where Regulus is. Only that he is not here. Not in this moment that has changed everything. And maybe that’s his gift—to disappear when it matters most, to tuck himself into corners and shadows and silences so precisely that not even grief can find him.

Maybe he is in the library with the door shut and the curtains drawn, pretending that thunder doesn’t exist and neither does rain. Maybe he is curled so tightly into himself that to unfold him would be to shatter him completely.

But you are not Regulus. You never were. And silence does not fit in your mouth the way it fits in his—soft and seamless and sharp. You are not good at pretending you don’t feel the world falling apart around you. You are not good at swallowing the scream that’s lodged in your throat or the ache that is blooming beneath your ribs like something alive and vengeful and unspoken.

You are not good at pretending you don’t care.

And tonight, as the rain keeps falling and the house holds its breath and Sirius walks away without looking back, you feel something in you break in the exact shape of him.

You rise when you hear the trunk click shut. You move before you think, your bare feet slipping across the floor as if your body already knows it has to chase him before your mind catches up.

You don’t remember crossing the corridor, only the way your breath falters when you see him at the door—one hand on the handle, the other curled tight around the strap of his bag.

His hair is damp with sweat or maybe rain, eyes bright with something that is not joy, not quite sorrow either, more like finality, like he’s standing on the edge of something and has already decided to jump.

“Sirius,” you breathe, and the name comes out small and frightened, like it used to when you were six and couldn’t fall asleep without his hand wrapped around yours.

He turns, and for a moment you almost forget how to speak.

“Don’t,” you say, and your voice cracks halfway through. “Please don’t go.”

“I have to,” he says, gentle but firm, like he’s already rehearsed it, like he’s already said goodbye to you in his head.

“No you don’t,” you say, stepping closer, arms trembling now. “You don’t have to leave me, Sirius, please. You can stay. We can fix it, I’ll talk to her, I’ll try harder, I swear I’ll—”

“You can’t fix this,” he interrupts, and his voice is rough around the edges, like it’s been scraping against his own ribs. “You shouldn’t even be trying. None of this is your fault.”

Your hands are shaking now, reaching out without permission, fingers grasping for something to hold on to, something steady in a world that’s coming undone.

“But you’re my brother,” you whisper, and your voice breaks entirely, like it’s never learned how to carry this kind of goodbye. “You’re my favourite person in the world. You always were.”

“I know,” he says, and this time his voice shakes too. He drops his bag. Takes a step toward you. “You were mine too. You never had to earn that.”

You want to laugh, or fall to your knees. “So don’t go.”

“I have to,” he murmurs, but softer now, like he’s hoping you won’t shatter if he says it gently enough. “I’ve stayed for as long as I could. But staying... it’s not living anymore.”

“But I need you,” you say, almost like a child, almost like a prayer. “You’re the one who made it bearable. You’re the reason I could stay. If you go—Sirius, if you go, I don’t know who I’ll be without you.”

He’s closer now, so close you can see the shine in his eyes and the way he’s biting the inside of his cheek, like he’s trying not to fall apart.

Then he’s kneeling in front of you, as if to make the leaving softer. As if to make sure you remember his face from this angle too.

“You’ll still be you,” he says, and his hands come up to cradle your face, as if he could hold all the years you’ve shared between his palms.

His thumbs brush the tears from your cheeks, slow and reverent. “You’ll still have the stars in you. You’ll still sing in the morning when you think no one’s listening. You’ll still make Regulus eat when he forgets. You’ll still be light, even here.”

Your lip trembles. “I don’t want to be light. I just want you.”

“I know,” he says again, and this time it sounds like it hurts. “I want you too. But I can’t stay. Not when staying is killing me.”

You press your forehead to his, tears dripping between you, breath shared like it used to be when the world was smaller and kinder.

Sirius’s breath hitches. He leans in and presses his forehead to yours, just like he used to when you were children afraid of thunder.

For a moment, you are six again, hiding under blankets while he told you stories about stars and carved tiny moons into the wood of the headboard. For a moment, there is no family name, no blood purity, no war waiting at the doorstep. Only the brother you loved first.

“Take care of Regulus,” he whispers, voice like wind through a dying tree. “He’s going to need you. Even if he doesn’t know how to ask for it. Even if he pretends he doesn’t want you near.”

“He hates me,” you say, and it stings because part of you believes it. “We don’t talk anymore. We’re twins but we’re strangers.”

“Then love him anyway,” Sirius says, pulling back just enough to look at you again. “Because this house is going to eat him alive. And you’re the only one left who can remind him what a soul is.”

“No,” you say, stepping forward. “No. You can stay. Please. I’ll—I’ll talk to Mother. I’ll make her stop. You don’t have to leave me, Sirius. Not you. Not you too.”

He shakes his head, and for a moment something in his eyes breaks, softens, just slightly, but then it’s gone again and his mouth sets into that line you’ve come to dread—the one that means he’s already decided.

“She’s never going to stop,” he says, voice low and bitter. “She doesn’t know how. This house will never stop. And you—you don’t understand, you think this is just noise, but it’s not, it’s poison, and it’s been inside us since the day we were born.”

You don’t realize you’re crying until he lifts a hand to brush your tears away, gentle like always, like you’re still little and he’s still the one who could fix things just by being there. “I want you to stay,” you whisper. “You’re my brother. You’re the one person I—”

Your voice breaks, and you fold forward, hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt like if you hold tight enough, he won’t go.

“You’re the one person I feel safe with.”

Sirius exhales sharply, and for a second you think maybe—maybe—he’s going to change his mind. That he’ll sit down, put the bag away, crawl back into the twin bed down the hall and wait for morning. But instead he presses a kiss to the top of your head, slow and lingering.

“You were my home long before I knew what that meant,” he says quietly. “But I can’t live in a place that only wants to break me.”

“I don’t care about the house,” you cry. “I just care about you.”

“I know,” he says, and his hands are trembling now too. “That’s why I have to go. Before I forget who I am. Before I become what they want.”

You look at him and realize this is the last time he’ll ever be your brother here. The last time he’ll be Sirius Black of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. After this, he’ll belong to somewhere else. To someone else.

And still—still—you whisper, “Don’t go.”

He closes his eyes. And this time, he doesn’t say anything at all.

He just reaches for the trunk, fingers curling around the handle like it’s an anchor, like if he doesn’t hold on he might shatter entirely. And then he turns, and he walks. Like he’s already gone.

You stumble after him, barefoot and unraveling, your voice rising into something feral, something half-child, half-grief.

“Sirius, please—don’t do this. Don’t go. You can’t leave me here. Not with them. Not alone.” The words come out wrong, cracked and too loud, but you don’t care.

You’d burn yourself down to keep him in this hallway if it meant he’d stay. You reach for him — just his sleeve, his hand, anything — but the world shifts.

You don’t know if it’s the mist curling under the door or your own shaking limbs, but your feet slide out from under you. The marble rushes up and meets you with no softness at all.

Your knees hit first, a dull, ugly sound echoing through the corridor. Then your palms, scraping raw against the cold. A flare of pain licks up your legs and into your chest, sharp and immediate — but not worse than the ache already blooming beneath your ribs.

Blood beads along your skin, tiny red betrayals of how fragile you are. You cry out before you can stop it, a startled, broken sound. Not for the fall, but for what’s walking away.

That’s when he turns. When he finally looks.

His eyes find you — crumpled on the floor, bloodied and shaking, your face wet with tears you can’t seem to stop. For the space of a single breath, he doesn’t move. And you see it then — the boy he used to be. The boy who held your hand through thunderstorms. The boy who carved moons into your bedframe because you were scared of the dark. The boy who always came back for you.

For a moment, just one, he looks like he might come back again. Like he might run to you, drop everything, fall to his knees and pull you into his arms and promise you the world won’t win. That he won’t let it. That he won’t let them.

But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t run back. He doesn’t kneel beside you and press his forehead to yours. He doesn’t reach for your hands or wipe the blood from your knees. He only stands there, soaked in silence, the storm rising behind him like the breath of something ancient and cruel. His mouth opens, just barely, and the words come soft and weightless, as if he already knows they won’t be enough.

“I’m sorry.”

Then the door yawns wide and swallows him whole.

Rain pours in, cold and relentless. It soaks the marble, the hem of your nightclothes, the trembling shell of your body. You don’t rise. You don’t call his name again. You crawl. Fingertips dragging against the stone, knees splitting open with every inch, the sting lost beneath the throb of something deeper. You reach the threshold on hands and knees, soaked and shaking, and watch the place where he used to be.

You wait for him to turn back. To look over his shoulder. To see you the way he always used to, like you were the only part of this house worth saving. You wait for the sound of footsteps, for the thud of the trunk being dropped, for the whisper of his voice promising that he didn’t mean it.

That he’s still your brother. That he’ll stay.

But the silence is complete. And he is already gone.

You kneel there as the blood from your knees stains the rainwater pink, as the storm creeps into the house, into your lungs, into your bones.

You stay until the cold makes you numb and your arms are too tired to hold you upright. You stay because you do not know where else to go. Because nothing feels real anymore, except for the way your chest keeps breaking open in slow, quiet pieces.

You are thirteen years old, and you have never known this kind of silence. Not even in the dead of night. Not even in your mother’s shadow. You will remember this silence for the rest of your life. You will carry it like a second skin, like a wound that never quite closes.

That night, you will wash the blood from your knees in water gone lukewarm.

You will not cry again. Not then. Not in front of the mirror. Not where anyone can see. But the ache will settle into your spine, deep and wordless, and it will never let you go.

You will grow into silence like it’s the only thing that ever wanted you. You will wear it like a second skin, learn its contours, let it fill the spaces where love used to live.

You will master the art of stillness, of holding your breath when you want to scream, of smiling when your throat burns with grief. You will stop reaching for people who walk away. You will become so good at pretending you don’t need anyone that even you begin to believe it.

You will teach yourself to cry only behind locked doors. You will carry sorrow in your ribs like a splinter, sharp and invisible, a secret that hums when it rains. You will speak softly and laugh rarely and wonder, always, if you are too much or not enough.

You will look for Sirius in the curve of strangers’ hands, in the way someone tilts their head when they listen, in every boy who calls you brave without knowing why. But no one will ever be quite him. No one will ever hold your name like it’s sacred.

You never spoke to Sirius again.

Not after that night. Not after the front door of Grimmauld Place slammed like the end of the world. Not after your knees stopped bleeding and your voice forgot how to say his name without splintering.

Not after you wrote that letter two weeks later, alone in the dark, words trembling like a heartbeat you couldn’t hold still. You didn’t send it. You couldn’t. So you folded it and slipped it into the lining of your trunk, where it still waits.

1981

You are sixteen now.

You wear Slytherin green like silk-wrapped steel and walk the halls like the castle owes you something. Your mother calls you her softer one, the quiet twin, but there is nothing soft left in you. Not really.

Not after everything you’ve learned about silence and what it costs. You’ve mastered the art of holding your breath, of keeping your voice still, of curling your fingers into fists behind your back. Regulus watches you sometimes like he almost remembers who you used to be. But you don’t look back.

And yet here you are — beneath the Quidditch stands at midnight, with your tie crooked and your shirt coming undone, with James Potter’s hands at your waist and his mouth pressed to your throat like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

You shouldn’t be here. Not with him. Not with someone who makes the world feel brighter than you know how to bear. But your hands won’t listen. They tangle in his hair, slide over his jaw, trace the freckles across his shoulder where his sleeves are rolled, where his skin is warm and golden and too much.

“Someone will see us,” you whisper, the words barely formed, lost against the breath between you.

James just smiles, that crooked, reckless smile that should not feel like safety. “Let them.”

Your heart stutters. He always does this. Knocks the wind out of you with nothing but his grin and the impossible tenderness in his eyes.

“You Gryffindors are all the same,” you murmur, but the words are an echo, stripped of bite.

“And you Blacks are all trouble,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a warning. It sounds like a promise. Like worship.

His fingers brush your hair behind your ear, soft, reverent, and you freeze for half a second. Not because you want to pull away. Because you don’t. Because when he touches you like that, something in you splinters. Something buried and locked.

You look at him, and he’s still there — real, impossibly real — and you don’t know how this happened. How someone like him ended up here, with someone like you. How he looks at you like you’re not something broken.

And still, you stay. Still, you let him touch you. Because no one else knows you like this. Because with him, you are not a name or a legacy or a weapon in the making.

James doesn’t ask why. He never asks. Maybe that’s why you keep coming back — because he touches you like you’re not broken, like you’re not a Black, like your blood isn’t dripping with secrets that could ruin everything it touches.

He doesn’t flinch when you go quiet. Doesn’t fill the silence with questions or pity. He just waits. Steady. Warm. Like he has all the time in the world to watch you come undone and still choose you after.

“Do you ever think about what would happen if your brother found out?” he asks, his voice low, careful. Not a threat. Not a warning. Just a wondering.

You scoff, sharp and breathless. “Which one?”

He looks at you then, really looks — the way he always does when you try to be cruel and fail. His eyes never waver. “Both.”

You don’t answer.

Because the truth is, you do think about it. You think about it more than you want to. You think about Sirius finding out and looking at you like you’ve become someone else, someone dangerous, someone he can’t save. You think about Regulus finding out and looking at James like he’s something to destroy. A danger. A betrayal. A boy who dared to love the wrong part of you.

Sometimes you think about dying before they ever find out. That would be easier. Cleaner. You could keep this — this secret softness, this impossible thing — untouched by consequence.

James shifts closer, and when he speaks again, it’s not words, not really. It’s warmth. It’s the space between heartbeats. “You’re not your family, you know.”

The sentence cracks something open. You swallow around it. The air tastes like smoke. Like ash.

“Yes, I am,” you say. Quiet. Final. “That’s the problem.”

But you kiss him anyway.

You kiss him like it’s a prayer with no god left to hear it, like it’s the last thing keeping you tethered to the world.

Because here, under the stands, in the dark, with his mouth on yours and his hands at your waist, you are not a name or a legacy or a shadow waiting to fall. You are not a sister, not a secret, not a danger.

You are a girl. Wanting. Wanted.

His fingers thread through your hair, and you let him. You let him touch you like you’re real. Like you matter. Like he doesn’t see the ruin clinging to your bones or the storm sitting in your chest waiting to tear everything down.

And that’s enough. It’s not safe. It’s not smart. It’s not forever.

You always know when he is near.

The air changes first — grows thin, almost reverent, like the world itself remembers. Like the stone corridors remember. Like the dust in the windowpanes and the cracks in the floor still carry his name beneath them.

The sound softens, dims around him. Laughter hushes. Footsteps falter. It’s the kind of silence that used to fall over you both when you stayed up too late, whispering stories by the fire, your shadows dancing on the walls like they had lives of their own.

There was a time when his presence meant warmth. Hearth-smoke and moth-eaten blankets. Winter pressed against the glass while you curled into each other like the last two embers in the world. He would talk about stars — draw them with his voice, sketch them in the dark with words that made you believe escape was possible, that the night sky could make you brave. You would fall asleep to the rhythm of his breathing and wake to find his hand still wrapped around yours.

But all of that is gone now.

Now there is only stone beneath your feet and a bone-deep cold that doesn’t leave you. You are ruins, both of you. You are the silence after a song. You are what’s left when the fire goes out.

You see them just as you’re turning the corner out of the library, a book held tight to your chest like it can keep your ribs from cracking open. Defensive Magical Theory, something dense and forgettable, a shield made of ink and false comfort.

Your knuckles are white. Your fingers ache. Your robes are perfectly pressed, every pleat a performance. Because since he left, you have had to become flawless. You have had to become iron.

And there he is.

In the center of them like a flame, Sirius with his head tilted back in laughter. It is the same laugh that once made you believe the world could be beautiful. The same laugh that stitched broken hours into joy. And now it’s a blade.

Now it cuts. Because he laughs like nothing was lost. Like he didn’t tear himself out of your life and leave you to bleed in the quiet. Like he doesn’t remember the night you screamed his name until your throat gave out and your knees went red on the marble.

He laughs, and you want to tear the sound out of the air.

You remember it all too clearly — the way the front door slammed like a gunshot, the way you chased after him with shaking hands and a voice that couldn’t carry the weight of your grief. You begged him not to go. You begged like a child, raw and ragged and terrified. And he looked back, once, with something like pity.

Now you are ghosts in the same castle. Passing shadows. No nods. No glances. No names.

You walk past each other like graves being dug on opposite sides of the world. And you do not look back. And he does not turn around.

But your heart still breaks in your chest, quietly, every single time.

They round the corner and time thickens, slow as honey spilled on cold stone. His eyes find yours first—piercing through the crowd, through the clatter of footsteps and whispered names.

For a breath, the corridor dissolves. No James, no Remus, no ticking clocks or careless breezes—just you and him, two children once again, sharing a room heavy with secrets and the soft crackle of an old record player spinning lullabies.

But this time, he does not smile. He does not speak your name. He only looks at you as if trying to recall a face buried beneath years of silence, like the memory itself has fractured and turned to glass too sharp to hold.

Your heart clenches, a sudden, fierce knot, because you remember everything—the way his fingers braided tiny plaits into your hair when exhaustion pulled at your lids, the way your small hand reached for his in the dark before Regulus could even string words together, the way he whispered that you were his favorite, that he would never leave you behind.

But he did.

He burned the letters you wrote, one after another—long, trembling confessions stitched with apologies you never owed. Letters full of Regulus, school, a house growing colder and quieter, a mother retreating into silence, and a brother who refused to eat. You signed each with love, fierce and stubborn, because even after the cracks, even after the distance, you loved him still.

Regulus told you he saw the letters in the fire, unopened. Your handwriting curled into ash like a voice that never mattered. And you cried—not in front of Regulus, but later, submerged in the bathwater, where no one could hear.

You cried as if something sacred had been ripped from your chest, as if your brother had died and left only a hollow shell behind, wandering with someone else’s heart inside.

Now he passes you in the hall, silent and cold. Your fingers twitch, aching with memory, yearning for the ghost of his palm that once cradled your cheek—the night he left, trembling breath promising strength, begging you to protect Regulus when he could no longer do it himself.

You nodded through your sobs, because you were always the older twin by a single minute, and he said it meant something—that you were meant to keep him safe.

You have tried. But Regulus does not want your protection anymore.

You pass him in the corridors too—your twin, your mirror just slightly cracked, a shard drifting farther with every passing year. His eyes have grown colder, sharper, his mouth set like a blade forged from quiet bitterness.

Sometimes he speaks, brief and clipped, syllables sliced thin—news, reminders, fragments of a life you once shared but now only touch through echoes. There is no laughter, no whispered confessions in the dark, only the vast, cold distance measured in the space where hurt has settled deep and unmoving.

And still, you ache for the warmth you once knew. You ache when you see Sirius throw his arm around James like it costs him nothing, when he leans in close and laughs against his shoulder, calling him brother with a light that never shone for you.

You hate yourself for it, for the ugly bloom of envy rising in your chest, a bitter flower twisting through your ribs, because James gets to have him.

James gets to be near him every day, to tease him, to bicker with him, to follow him into trouble and hold a place beside him like it was always meant to be that way.

You used to be that person. You used to be the one Sirius reached for first.

Now you walk past them with your chin lifted, your stomach hollow, wondering if he ever thinks about that night.

Does he remember your hands clutching his sleeve? Your voice cracking as you called after him? Does he think of the blood staining your knees and how long you sat on the steps of Grimmauld Place, shivering long after he was gone?

He does not look back now.

But James does.

His eyes find yours and hold you there, a quiet tenderness breaking beneath the weight of unspoken things. He sees the ghosts too, the empty spaces where love was stolen. Maybe he even feels the ache when Sirius talks about his sister as if she never existed, or only existed in shadows and silence.

James tries to reach for your hand beneath the table, tries to make you laugh in the soft places where the world feels less heavy—but it is not the same. It will never be the same.

Because you are no longer the girl you were when Sirius left. You have spent too many nights wondering why love was not enough to make him stay.

And he is not the brother you remember.

The wind moves gently through the willow branches, like fingers combing through hair. The sunlight glimmers through the gaps in its leaves, casting thin golden lines across your cheek as you lie curled against James beneath the canopy of green.

You should not be here. You both know it. This is not the kind of softness your life has been shaped to allow. But here, in this sliver of stolen time, you forget the weight of your name and the way your chest has ached since you were old enough to know that in the Black family, love always came with locks and keys.

His arm is wrapped around your waist, and your head rests just below his chin. Your fingers are loosely entangled on the warm grass. His heartbeat is steady against your back, a rhythm you are slowly teaching yourself to trust.

You don't speak at first. Just listen—to the breeze, the rustle of willow limbs, the distant laughter from the Quidditch pitch.

And you try not to think about how long it’s been since you laughed like that with someone, without feeling like you were stealing it from a world that was never meant for you.

He shifts slightly, runs a hand through your hair, and you feel his lips brush the top of your head. There is something so gentle about him tonight, and it makes your ribs ache.

You know he is about to ask you something. You always know when James is thinking too much.

“Hey, baby,” he murmurs, voice barely more than a breath, hesitant and fragile, like he’s afraid the sound might shatter the space between you. “Can I ask you something?”

You nod, your head heavy against his chest, eyes shut tight as if the darkness behind your lids might keep the world at bay. You already know what’s coming.

“Have you ever thought about talking to Sirius again?”

The words hit you like ice water spilled over skin. Your whole body stiffens, every nerve on fire, the warmth of his arms suddenly burning too bright, too close.

You sit up with a sharp movement, pulling away like his question has scorched you, like it’s a wound you thought had scabbed over but still bleeds when touched.

His brows knit together in confusion he reaches out, as if to catch you before you fall apart, but you shake your head fiercely, as if to say don’t. Don’t reach for me here.

Your voice comes out sharp, brittle, colder than you expected, words clawing their way from a place you’d hoped was buried deep beyond reach.

“Why would I do that?!”

James blinks slowly, the calm in his gaze unwavering, gentle but not naive.

“Because he’s your brother.”

You laugh then, a sound bitter and quiet, like broken glass scraping against old stone. It catches in your throat and leaves a raw ache in its wake. You stand abruptly, arms crossing over your chest as if to hold yourself together, and you turn away, facing the shimmering lake instead, the silver-blue water reflecting back a fractured version of your own haunted eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

The silence that follows is thick, heavy with all the things left unsaid. You feel the weight of his gaze burning into your back, soft but relentless.

And somewhere deep inside, the fight inside you trembles—part pain, part stubborn hope—that maybe if you don’t speak his name, you can keep the memory from unraveling completely.

But the truth is a jagged stone lodged in your throat. You’ve thought of him every day since he left—the brother who once braided your hair and whispered promises like a sacred lullaby. The brother who vanished like smoke, leaving only echoes and cold silence behind.

You want to believe that love could have held him here, that if you’d been enough, he wouldn’t have slipped away. But love in your world is never simple.

James sighs deeply, sitting up beside you with a careful softness that somehow feels like it might break under the weight of your silence. “I just think maybe it would help. You’re hurting, and he’s—”

“Don’t.”

The word cuts through the air sharper than you meant it to, like glass breaking in a quiet room. Your voice trembles, but the edge is there, raw and fierce. “Don’t defend him. Don’t pretend you understand.”

James’s brow furrows, confusion and hurt flickering in his eyes. “I’m not pretending. I just know Sirius. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He was hurting too. You know what that house did to him.”

You laugh, but it’s not a laugh. It’s a bitter crack, like a blade scraping bone. “Do I? Do I know what it did to him? Because last I checked—” Your voice catches, then steadies, voice sharp and jagged — “I was there too. I lived it. I breathed the same suffocating air. I walked those same cold hallways. I heard the same poisonous words about blood and duty and silence that built a prison around us all.”

You turn slightly, hands clutching the grass beneath you until your nails dig into dirt. “I watched those cursed portraits scream their curses night and day, felt the walls shrink closer, trapping my breath. I watched my brother—the only one who stayed—fade, twist into someone I barely recognized, someone swallowed by shadows and cold.”

You swallow hard, the memory like a stone lodged in your throat. “And yet, somehow, he’s the one who gets to hurt? The one you all rush to protect? The only one whose pain matters?”

James shifts uncomfortably, voice quiet but earnest. “That’s not what I meant. Not at all.”

But you shake your head, bitter tears burning the edges of your eyes. “No, James. That’s exactly what you meant.”

Your voice cracks, ragged and breaking, revealing the wounds you’ve fought to hide. “You all look at him like he’s some kind of hero. Brave Sirius Black—the runaway, the rebel who escaped the nightmare of that cursed house. The one who got to find Gryffindor, friendship, love. The one who got to build a new life from the ashes.”

Your chest heaves with the weight of everything left unsaid. “And what did I get? What did Regulus get? We got left behind.”

Your hands ball into fists, digging deeper into the earth, grounding yourself to the pain you can still touch. “I begged him to stay. I cried until I had no tears left. I chased after him on bleeding knees, desperate and small, and he left anyway. Left like I was nothing. Like we were nothing.”

You swallow, voice raw, “He never looked back. Never answered a single letter. Never came home. Not for me. Not for Regulus. And I waited. I waited years, hoping maybe one day he would come back. And you want me to just… talk to him now?”

Your breath catches, broken by the shuddering ache in your chest. The world feels hollow, cruel, and empty around you, and the distance between you and Sirius stretches wider than any words could ever cross.

James’s voice drops, soft and cautious, like stepping on fragile glass. “He was just a kid. He was doing what he had to do.”

You laugh, bitter and broken, the sound splitting the silence like a wound. “And I wasn’t?” The words shatter on your cracked lips, voice cracking with the weight you’ve carried far too long. “I was a kid too. Barely thirteen. And I had to stay. Had to sit at that cursed table and swallow every poisonous word Mother spat about the purity of our name. Had to learn to bite my tongue until it bled, lower my eyes until they almost forgot how to look. Had to be perfect — or at least pretend.”

Your hands tremble as you clutch your knees, the ache raw and alive beneath your skin. “I had to watch Regulus vanish into silence, buried under pressure and cold that no one—not one soul—asked if I was okay. No one ever tried to save me.”

James’s hand reaches for you, slow and hesitant, but you recoil like his touch burns you.

You fall back against the tree, the rough bark pressing into your spine, your palms clutching your eyes as if the darkness can swallow the ache whole. The tears come harder now, hot and unrelenting.

“You think he hurts? You think he cries?” Your voice breaks, raw and ragged like a shattered song.

“Because I do. I do every time I see him walk the halls like nothing happened. Every time I watch you two laugh like you’ve known each other forever, and I wonder if he ever laughs like that for me. If he ever remembered me.”

You choke back a sob, voice barely more than a cracked whisper, “I sit in a common room full of snakes and secrets, keeping my head down, swallowing my pride and my pain, because I’m still there. I never left. I never got out.”

“You don’t get it,” you whisper, but the whisper breaks halfway, splintering like thin glass. You’re shaking now, fists curled into the grass as though it can hold you together. “You never will.”

James doesn’t speak. He watches you the way someone watches a dying star—helpless, reverent, a little afraid.

“You were always allowed to be human.” Your voice wavers, rough with disbelief and years of swallowed words. “You were allowed to get angry, to mess up, to fall apart and still be loved. You don’t know what it’s like to live in a house where love is a chain. Where affection only comes after obedience. Where silence is survival.”

You laugh, but it’s not really laughter—it’s the sound a wound might make if it could scream.

“You have people. People who would tear the world apart if you broke. You have a mother who kisses your cheek and a father who’s proud of your name. You have friends who call you home, James. You’re the sun, don’t you see that? You’re the sun and everyone else just gets to grow around you.”

You’re crying harder now, tears streaking down your cheeks in thick, aching lines. You try to wipe them away, but they keep coming.

“You got to love Sirius without bleeding for it! You got to become his brother in the safety of a dormitory, with warmth and laughter and stolen butterbeer. You didn’t have to earn it in that house. You didn’t have to survive it!”

Your voice rises now, shrill with grief. “You got the best parts of him. The jokes, the loyalty, the fire. I got the version who left. The one who didn’t even look back.”

You gasp for breath between sobs, pressing your palms against your eyes until you see stars.

“Do you know what it feels like to scream for someone as they walk away? I begged him. I begged him not to go. I ran after him barefoot in the cold, my voice going hoarse. And he left anyway. He left me there.”

You pull your knees to your chest, rocking slightly. “He chose to leave. And then he chose you. He chose you over me. Over Regulus. Over every piece of his old life. You’re his brother now. You’re his family. And I—”

You look up at James then, face soaked, lips trembling. “I’m just a ghost he doesn’t talk about.”

The words fall out of you like stones from your mouth, one by one, and each one seems to hurt more than the last.

“You sit around the fire with him and laugh about pranks and broomsticks and I sit alone in the dark, wondering if he remembers the sound of my voice. If he ever thinks about the way I cried that night. If he ever sees my handwriting and feels guilt. Or if it’s just... easier. Easier to forget I existed.”

James moves again, slowly, like approaching a wounded animal. He doesn’t touch you this time. He just listens.

You curl tighter around yourself. “You want me to forgive him. You want me to reach out. But you don’t know what it costs to touch someone who let you rot. You don’t know what it’s like to scream for someone and never hear your name again.”

Your voice drops to a whisper—ruined, splintered, soft.

“He’s your brother now.”

And then, the softest, most broken truth:

“But he was mine first.”

You fold in on yourself completely, hands trembling, heart heaving with grief too old for your bones, and the only sound left in the world is your breath—shattered, uneven—echoing in the hush beneath the willow branches.

James looks at you then like he finally sees the wound beneath your skin. Not something angry. Something abandoned. Something small and bleeding and still waiting on the floor of a house that swallowed you whole.

The year slips through your fingers like water, and you try to hold it tight, but it’s already gone.

It’s strange how time moves differently when you’re pretending everything is fine, the days bleeding at the edges into one another with a quiet rhythm of routine that softens sharp edges but never heals the cracks beneath.

You go to class, you study, you sit beside James under the willow tree and pretend not to ache when Sirius walks by laughing with Remus, a sound that feels like a sun you cannot touch anymore.

You watch Regulus drift further away, his shoulders straighter, his eyes colder, his voice a careful blade you no longer recognize—once a warmth you could finish, now a silence you cannot breach.

You used to finish each other’s sentences; now he barely finishes his own. He doesn’t talk to you much anymore, not really. At the long, silent dinner table, he sits across from you, nodding when spoken to, answering questions like they’re lines from a script he’s been forced to memorize but doesn’t want to perform.

He disappears into his room, each time returning quieter, more distant, as if someone has reached inside him and hollowed him out with a spoon, leaving only a shell that reflects nothing back but shadows.

You want to scream at him, to shake him until he remembers how to breathe, to pull him back by the collar like Sirius did when you were children and Regulus was about to climb too high in the trees, but you don’t.

Because you don’t know if he would let you catch him, and you don’t know if you still have the strength to hold on to what’s already slipping through your fingers.

So you keep your head down, your voice soft, your secrets close, like fragile embers you cannot risk exposing to the wind. And still the year ends.

There’s something about the last few weeks of school that tastes like dread, like metal pressed cold against your tongue, like the low rumble of a storm you know is coming but cannot stop. You walk the corridors counting how many times Sirius glances your way and how many times Regulus doesn’t, memorizing James’s grin like it might be the last warmth you touch for months.

You stop sending letters home because there is no one waiting to read them.

Because summer means going back. Not home. Back.

Grimmauld Place isn’t a home. It is a mausoleum, a cold, echoing archive of all the things you never got to say, the silence between your words etched deep into the walls.

It smells of wax and dust and something darker, something ancient and unforgiving beneath the surface. The portraits still scream behind their frames. The silver still gleams with a sharpness that cuts through the gloom. The curtains block out the sun like heavy lids refusing to open.

Your room remains untouched, waiting in suspended breath for you to return and pretend you don’t hate it.

You dread the silence most. The way it wraps itself around the furniture like cobwebs spun from forgotten sorrow, the way the house watches you with a patient, waiting hunger, as if it expects you to fold back into its cold embrace and fall in line with the shadows that have claimed it.

Regulus is already there. He has been slipping for a while now. You have seen it in the way he avoids certain topics, in the sharp flinch when someone utters the word “Mudblood,” in the way his fists clench so tightly at insults to the Dark Lord that his knuckles whiten, before he tries to play it off as nothing.

His robes darken with every passing day. His smiles become rarer, like a flame too weak to chase away the night. His wand is never far from his grasp, a silent threat held close, as if waiting for the moment he must become someone else—someone you barely recognize anymore.

So you pack your trunk slowly, each movement deliberate as if by folding your robes with care you might fold yourself back into a place that no longer holds you. You close your books with trembling fingers, the pages whispering secrets you cannot bear to carry anymore.

You don’t say goodbye to Sirius because his eyes no longer meet yours, and you don’t say goodbye to James because you know the pain would only unravel tighter if words were spoken.

You watch as Sirius swings his arm around James’s shoulders, already grinning at the thought of staying with the Potters for the summer, and something inside you twists — not anger, not sadness, but a sharp, aching envy that claws at your ribs like a hungry bird.

Because he gets to escape.

He gets to walk into a house that smells like sugar and laughter and freedom, a sanctuary where love is worn openly like a second skin.

He gets to sleep in a room where nothing screams at him in the dark, where the walls cradle him instead of closing in. He gets to sit at a table where voices rise and fall like music, where people eat too much and ask about your day as if it matters, where family is not a story told in fragments but a living breath around you.

And you get the house.

The house with your name carved deeply into the bannister, a cold reminder of roots that bind you to shadows. The house where every unspoken word drips from the ceiling like damp, settling into the cracks until the silence itself weighs heavy and thick.

The house where your mother waits, her eyes colder than winter and expectations sharper than knives, where portraits hiss and leer from their frames like silent witnesses to your undoing. The house where Regulus drifts through the halls like a ghost caught between worlds, already halfway gone, already fading into something you cannot hold.

The house where no one speaks Sirius’s name aloud, where you are still the older twin, and yet each day you feel smaller, as if your own shadow is shrinking beneath the weight of everything unsaid.

You step off the train, and the air already feels colder, a thin frost settling on your skin even though the season has only just begun.

The night tastes bitter with regret, heavy and metallic on your tongue, and Grimmauld Place waits like a patient predator, breathing you in as though you never left, as though it has been holding its breath for your return. It closes the door behind you with the hush of finality, a sound like a tomb sealing shut.

The silence settles on your shoulders like dust, thick and suffocating, a reminder that you belong here — even if you wish with every trembling heartbeat that you did not.

You try not to flinch when the wards hum around you. When the doorknob bites your palm. When the portraits blink awake at the scent of your return. They watch you with knowing, disapproving eyes, oil-painted mouths already ready to spit something cruel.

This house was never a home, but once it breathed — not warmth, not safety, but noise, presence, life. It used to echo with slammed doors and uneven footsteps racing up the stairs, with Sirius shouting something reckless and defiant down the corridor just to make someone angry enough to shout back.

It used to be full of Regulus’s low hum when he thought no one could hear him, that quiet little song he’d hum while reading in corners, while brushing his hair, while stitching up the tear in your sleeve when you’d come back from a duel pretending you weren’t crying.

It used to be full of voices, arguing and demanding and laughing and hurting and always, always living.

Now it is quiet in the way that makes your chest ache, the kind of silence that feels like a punishment rather than a peace. The air tastes like dust, like something lost and forgotten and left to rot behind velvet curtains and locked doors. The carpets still muffle your steps, but there's no one left to hear them anyway.

This is the first summer without Regulus.

Not the shadow version that’s lingered these past few years, the one who walks too quietly and listens too carefully and parrots the words of your parents with a voice that isn’t his. Not the stranger in dark robes who stops humming and starts watching. Not the version who still existed in some half-form, drifting down corridors without speaking, but still there.

No, this is the first summer without him, without the boy who used to read beside you in the library, his knee bumping yours under the table. The one who used to steal sweets from the kitchen and then blame you with an innocent blink. The one who tied your shoelaces together under the table at family dinners and bit back a grin when you tripped on your way out.

That Regulus faded the way ink fades in water — slowly, gently, irreversibly. You didn’t notice at first, only that he laughed less, and then not at all. That his hands stopped reaching for yours. That his voice grew thinner and his silences heavier. You lost him the way you lose something to illness, slowly and with a thousand tiny betrayals of the body before the final breath.

But this time is different.

This time, he did not come back.

No warning, no owl, no quiet knock on your door, no hurried explanation in a whisper only you would understand. Just silence. Just your mother’s lips pressed into a thin line when you asked, and your father’s eyes skimming past you like your question was a speck on his glasses.

You sit in his empty room. It smells like dust and lavender and something that aches in your teeth. The bed is still made. The books are still in their careful order, spines aligned like soldiers. His desk is untouched. His quill still leans in the inkwell.

The window is cracked just slightly, letting in the faintest breath of air, like the room itself hasn’t quite decided if it should keep holding on. There’s dust on the windowsill now — and there never used to be — and that tells you more than anything else. That the room has been waiting. That no one has come back.

This time, he is truly gone.

And you are alone.

You try to shrink yourself into corners. You keep your footsteps light, your voice quieter still. You tie your hair the way your mother prefers it and fold your napkin just so and tuck your wand out of sight at the table.

You speak only when spoken to. You say nothing when the family says things that hurt. You keep your grief compact and clean and buried deep in your chest like a well-folded shirt, like something shameful.

You make yourself smaller every day, and still, somehow, it is never enough.

But this summer — it’s different. This summer, they hand you your fate like a gift wrapped in silver and blood, gleaming like something sacred, rotting like something buried.

You sit at the long dining table, the one with claw-footed legs and too much silence, and you hear the words spill from your mother’s mouth like prophecy. Your father folds his hands, watching you without warmth, without softness, only the calm expectation of obedience.

They tell you the name.

He is a man older than both of them, old enough to have stood beside your grandfather, old enough to know better, but still willing. He is loyal. He is powerful. He will honor the purity of your blood.

He will preserve the name of the House of Black.

You are seventeen. He is not young. You do not need to ask his age. You already feel it sinking into your skin like ice.

Your stomach coils, tight and bitter.

“No,” you say. Soft at first. Like a breath you’re trying to swallow.

Your mother doesn’t even blink. “You will.”

“No.” Again, louder this time. Sharper. The air around you stills.

She lifts her chin, unbothered. “You are a daughter of this house. This is your duty.”

“Duty?” The word tastes like ash in your mouth. “You want me to marry a man three times my age so you can keep the family name alive like it’s something holy. You want me quiet and obedient and grateful.” You’re trembling, but you don’t care.

“I am not a vessel for your legacy.”

Your father rises. His voice cuts across the room like steel. “You will not speak to your mother with such—”

“You don’t get to speak for me,” you snap, voice breaking at the edges. “You don’t get to decide who I am just because you raised me to be afraid of you!”

Silence floods the room, thick and bitter.

“You want to talk about duty?” you say, your voice low, shaking with fury. “Let’s talk about Sirius. You pushed him out like he was nothing. You wrote him off, erased him, like he never belonged to you in the first place. And Regulus—”

You choke, just for a second. But it’s enough to taste the grief under your rage.

“Regulus is gone. And you didn’t even flinch.”

Your mother’s gaze turns to ice. “Sirius was a disgrace,” she says. “Regulus was loyal. We will not lose the last child we have left.”

You laugh. It sounds wrong. Crooked. Cracked open.

“You already did.”

You stare at them — these people who gave you their name and called it love.

“I’m not your child,” you say, the words leaving your mouth like a final spell. “I’m what’s left. After the screaming. After the silence. After all the sons you burned through.”

You do not cry in front of them. You never cry in front of them.

The house taught you early that tears are weakness, that silence is survival, that emotion is something to be buried beneath polished shoes and perfect posture.

But the moment the door shuts behind you, the weight drops. You press your back to the cold wood and slide down until you are curled on the floor, your body folding into itself like it’s trying to vanish. And you cry. Not the gentle kind. Not the cinematic kind.

You cry until your throat burns and your face is damp and your chest feels like it’s being carved open from the inside. You cry the way the walls might, if they could. With all the grief they’ve soaked up over the years spilling out through the cracks.

You cry for every year you were quiet. For every word you never said. For every version of yourself you buried to stay alive in this house.

You feel seventeen and seven and seventy all at once. You feel like a ghost of your own girlhood, flickering between doorframes. You feel the house watching. Breathing. Remembering.

The floor beneath you is cold and unkind, and still you cling to it because it's the only thing solid left. You think of Sirius, and the way he used to laugh so loudly it shook the curtains. You think of him sleeping now in a house full of warmth and sugar and safety, a house where love isn't earned but given, where no one flinches when he reaches for joy.

You think of Regulus, not the boy they mourn in stiff silence, but the boy who once left crooked notes in your textbooks and stared out windows like he was already halfway elsewhere.

You think of the way he disappeared — not all at once, but slowly, like a tide pulling further and further out until you could no longer see where he ended and the darkness began.

And you think of James.

James with his easy smile and his steady hands, who never asks for more than you can give, who touches your shoulder like it means something, who holds your gaze when the room is too loud.

James, who looks at you like there is still something worth saving, like you are not the ruin this house has made of you, like you are more than a name etched into silver and expectation.

You wonder what he would say if he saw you now, curled like a child, broken open in the hallway like a spell gone wrong. You wonder if he would still look at you like you matter. If he would still believe you could be more than this.

But the truth is: you are not Sirius, brave enough to run and let it all burn behind him. You are not Regulus, quiet enough to disappear without a sound. You are not even James, bright enough to belong to a world that doesn’t hurt like this.

You are just you — the one who stayed.

The one who held her breath while the house tore itself apart. The one who learned how to fold pain into politeness, how to wear duty like perfume, how to live without taking up too much space.

You stayed because someone had to. Because someone had to carry the name. Because someone had to keep the silence from swallowing everything.

And now, you are the last one. A girl with no room left to run, with a dress being stitched by house-elves who won’t meet your eyes, with a fate wrapped in silver and blood and sealed with your mother’s satisfaction. A girl being handed over like an heirloom. A girl they call duty. A girl they call legacy. A girl they will call wife.

And you cry not because you are weak — but because you were strong for too long. Because this house eats daughters and calls it honor.

Because deep down, you are still waiting for someone to come back. Or take you away. Or give you a reason to leave. But no one comes. And so you cry.

So you give in. Not to the marriage — no, that would be too clean, too final — but to something slower, heavier, something like gravity or grief.

You give in to the house. To the quiet. To the truth you’ve always known but never dared to say aloud. You let it wrap around you like ivy, creeping in through the cracks in the walls and the bruises you keep hidden under your sleeves. It isn’t sudden. It isn’t cinematic. It’s the kind of surrender that looks like silence.

Each day becomes a ritual of forgetting. You wake late, eyes heavy with sleep you never earned. You push food around your plate until it cools and congeals and no one bothers to tell you to eat. You wander from room to room like a ghost, dragging your fingertips along the wallpaper as if it might remember you.

You reread the same book, the same page, five times, and the words never stick — they slide through your brain like oil through a sieve. You braid your hair tighter and tighter each morning until your scalp stings, until the ache becomes something solid you can carry. You stop speaking at meals.

You stop asking where Regulus went. You stop writing letters to Sirius, because no one writes back and ghosts don’t send owls.

And then one night, when the wind wails like a child outside your window and the rain lashes against the glass with the fury of everything you’ve swallowed, your feet carry you where your mind dares not go.

Up the stairs. Down the hallway. To the door you haven’t touched since he left. Sirius’s room.

You shouldn’t go in. The house groans like it’s warning you. But your hand is already on the handle.

The room is a battlefield.

The bed is splintered, cracked in the middle like a snapped spine. The posters are slashed, half-hanging like open wounds. The wallpaper is clawed down to the plaster. His name, once spelled in bold ink across the wall, is a black smear now — a wound too scorched to read. The air smells like old fire and bitter memory. You step inside.

You lower yourself to the floor with slow, trembling hands, and that’s when it breaks.

The scream tears from you before you can stop it — low and ragged and real.

You cry for Sirius, who ran and burned and somehow found something close to freedom. You cry for Regulus, who disappeared into silence and shadows and never looked back. You cry for James, whose laughter doesn’t belong in this house, whose kindness is a bruise you keep pressing. But mostly, you cry for yourself.

And when there are no more tears left to cry, your eyes catch something under the bed — a soft flicker of gray, tucked away like a shy secret waiting patiently.

Eventually, with trembling fingers, you take up your quill and smooth a sheet of parchment across your desk.

You’ve written to him a hundred times before—maybe more. None of them ever came back. None of them were ever answered.

And this one, you know, will be the last.

Dear Sirius, I do not know if this will ever reach you. I imagine it will not. And even if it did, I cannot picture you reading it. Perhaps you would glance at the ink, then turn away, pretending not to know the hand it came from. Perhaps you have already taught yourself to forget. Still, I write. I write because I do not know what else to do with my hands, now that they have nothing left to hold. Regulus is gone. They will not say how or where or why, only that he vanished, and everyone speaks of him now in the same tone they used when they stopped saying your name. He is gone, and I feel something in me beginning to follow. This summer has been long. There is sun in the air and dust in the curtains and no one speaks above a whisper. They say I am to be betrothed by autumn. He is pure of blood and proper of name and perfectly forgettable. I have already begun practicing how to look content beside him. Everyone tells me how lucky I am. No one asks if I am well. The house is colder than I remember. I think you were the last warm thing in it. Since you left, it has not once felt like home. The corridors are quieter now. The portraits turn their eyes away. Today I found your old toy — Buttons, the little grey dog with the floppy ear. He was under your bed, asleep in dust, but still whole. I pressed him to my face and thought I might fall apart from the scent of him. Smoke and summer and boyhood. I found Honeybell too. Her stitches are split and her eye is gone. But I held her anyway, the way you hold something that remembers what you cannot say aloud. Regulus’s was still in his room. Mister Wisp. The black raven. He was soaked through with rain. His wings sagged. His thread was fraying. He looked like something abandoned. He looked like someone who had waited too long. I placed them on your bedroom floor. Buttons. Honeybell. Mister Wisp. The three of us, in our own way. I sat with them until the sun went down and the house forgot me again. I hope you are safe. I hope there is laughter where you are. I hope someone brushes the hair from your eyes with tenderness. I hope you never once feel as forgotten as we did when you vanished. I want to hate you, but I never could. This is the last letter. Not because I have stopped loving you. That would be easier. No, I am stopping because love should not be sent into silence forever. And I have been silent for too long.

Ta Sœur, Pour Toujours

You fold the letter and press it to your heart, feeling the weight of every word settle deep inside you.

You sit there in the broken room, cradling the worn plushes as the first pale light of morning spills through the cracked window, soft and hesitant, like forgiveness that always comes too late.

The summer stretches endlessly, longer than any before, a slow and quiet rot rather than rest—a soft unraveling that steals breath and hope alike. Time does not move but lingers, thick and suffocating, pressing down on your bones like a heavy secret.

Outside, the war no longer whispers but rumbles beyond the horizon. Names vanish like ghosts, smiles falter under the weight of dread, and the sun mourns openly, bleeding orange into clouds as if the sky itself knew the darkness to come.

Grimmauld Place waits in silence. Its walls have always been cold, but now they hold a quiet deeper than stillness, a silence like held breath, like a house on the edge of swallowing you whole.

And then Sirius returns.

He had never meant to come back, not truly.

But something pulls him through the shadows, not duty, not family in the way you understood it. Perhaps it was memory, haunting and relentless. Perhaps regret, bitter and sharp. Perhaps it was you—the echo of your voice that chased him through sleepless nights, the image of you at thirteen, trembling and begging him to stay, a scar etched deep across his ribs.

So he came back.

By the end of summer, Sirius Black stood before the house he had sworn never to return to, and this time he did not knock. This time he did not wait. The door groaned open as if it had been waiting for him all along. Dust hung heavy in the air, the stench of magic—old, burnt, and wrong—clinging like smoke caught deep in his lungs.

Something had happened here. Something violent. The house was not quiet. It was hollow. Empty. Ruined.

And that was when he found you.

Not sitting in the drawing room, not wrapped in a blanket with a book and tea, not curled in the window seat staring out at a life that had never been yours.

But lying on the marble floor, exactly where he had left you.

You did not die screaming. There was no flash of rage, no final incantation on your tongue, no defiant end befitting the fire that once lived inside you.

You were simply still. Folded into yourself, as if the world had leaned too hard on your ribs and you forgot how to fight it. Blood pooled around you like petals from a ruined bloom, soft and red and blooming in silence.

Your hair fanned around your face like something sacred — a fallen halo, a crown undone — and your limbs lay slack in a kind of surrender that spoke not of weakness but of exhaustion. Like the house had finally exhaled, and you let it take you with the breath.

Sirius dropped the moment he saw you. Not with ceremony, not with noise — just gravity doing what grief always does.

The way your knees once buckled when he walked away.

The way your voice had cracked, trying to stretch the word “stay” into something that could bind him.

The way your chest must have caved in, not from a curse, but from absence. He fell in the way people fall when something inside them has been waiting to shatter for years.

He reached for you. What else was there left to reach for, if not the girl who once braided red ribbons through his coat sleeves, who lined his pockets with honey drops and letters that smelled of ink and lavender, who sat beside him on staircases and said nothing, simply stayed.

He had run for so long — from this house, from this name, from everything that shaped him — but no one ever told him that ghosts have longer arms than memory. That your voice, the soft echo of it, would find him across every burning bridge.

And now you were here. Not thirteen anymore, not crying in the hallway where he left you. But also, not gone from that moment either.

You had never truly moved past the marble floor. He saw it in the way your fingers still curled inward, as if clinging to something invisible. In the tilt of your head, angled just like the night you begged him not to go.

He saw the years between then and now, every one of them, stretched like threads between your ribs — unravelled, fragile, frayed.

He saw the waiting. The tea that went cold on windowsills. The letters that never found their way past trembling hands. The summers that rotted slowly around you while everyone else grew up.

The stuffed animals lined like offerings beneath dust-heavy light. Buttons. Honeybell. Mister Wisp. Childhood turned reliquary.

He saw it all and understood too late that grief does not knock — it carves its name into your skin and waits. It waited for him here.

He pressed his forehead to yours and whispered your name like a prayer never answered. He had lived, but not really. Not in any way that mattered.

You had stayed, but not whole. You had waited so long for someone who was always running, and now that he was still, you were gone.

The sun began to rise, golden and slow, creeping through the cracks like a forgiveness that had missed its hour. It lit the marble floor like a chapel.

But it could not touch you. It could only fall across your shoulder, warm and useless. The kind of light that arrives after the room has already emptied.

And Sirius stayed there. Not as the rebel or the Black heir or the boy who broke free. But as a brother.

A brother who came home too late. A brother who looked at the cost and could not look away.

Time passed for him. He found love. Friends. A family not built of blood, but of choice. He laughed again. He dreamed. He lived. The world opened for him, and he stepped through — a boy turned man, a soul scraped raw but mending, slowly, beautifully. There were hands that held him.

Voices that called him home. Places where the sky was wide enough to forget. And he let himself forget.

And you stayed.

You stayed in the house that swallowed your name like a secret. In halls that knew only how to echo orders and lock away softness. With a father who spoke in sharp edges. A mother who carved obedience into you like scripture.

A twin who disappeared — not all at once, but in whispers and footsteps and doors that no longer opened. You stayed among portraits that scowled at your breath. Among books that weighed more than comfort. Among silences that wrapped around your throat until you mistook them for lullabies.

You stayed. Right where he left you. And the world, as it always did, looked away.

Except this time, the blood wasn’t from scraped knees or childish scuffles.

It was from the war that bloomed like rot through every crack in your home. From the letters you weren’t allowed to send. From the screams you weren’t allowed to make. From the spells you learned not to cast. From the hope you were forced to smother before it ever took its first breath.

And Sirius wept.

Not the kind of weeping that shatters in public. Not the kind that can be soothed by arms or words or tea gone cold.

This was the kind of weeping that hollowed. That stripped him to the marrow. That made him reach for a version of you that no longer breathed.

He wept for the sister whose hands once clutched his in the dark, when the storms rattled the windows and the world felt too big.

He wept for the girl who tucked notes into his pocket when Mother screamed. He wept for the ghost of you still sitting on the staircase, waiting for a brother who never turned back.

He wept for the birthdays you spent alone. For the letters he never wrote. For the words he never said. For the child you were — bright-eyed and bruised and so full of belief.

For the woman you could have been — fierce and aching and free.

For the way you died in the exact place he left you.

And for the way he only came back when there was no breath left to forgive him.

Time seemed to pass, though slower now — not measured in calendars or seasons, but in aches. In absences. In the small betrayals of memory.

For Sirius, time lost its rhythm. It did not tick or toll. It bled. It staggered. It sighed through floorboards and doorways and walls that still remembered the sound of your footsteps.

Time became the color of mourning — the dull grey of ash, the deep bruise of regret, the cold white of hospital sheets that never warmed beneath your weight.

It moved in the dust he could not bear to sweep, in the scent of your perfume fading soft on a pillowcase, in the broken music box that no longer turned, in the echo of your laughter — not in reality, but in the cruel trick of dreams.

He searched for you in everything, in the corners of rooms, in the backs of crowds, in the shadowed silence of the old stairwell where you once sang lullabies to the dark.

And when he found the letter — the one you never sent, crumpled at the back of a drawer, ink smeared as though you’d tried to erase your own voice — he pressed it to his lips and sobbed like a boy again. Like the child who promised he’d take you with him. Who swore you’d never be left behind.

Three plushes laid neatly beside each other, like a shrine to what was once whole. Not toys anymore, but gravestones — soft and worn and sacred.

They should have meant nothing. Just fabric, stuffing, thread. But Sirius could barely look at them without his chest caving in.

His own — hadn’t moved in years. You must’ve thought he’d come back for it. That if you left it untouched, just as he left it, maybe it would bring him home.

Yours was different. It was torn down the middle, the seam split like a scar, like a scream frozen in time. The stuffing spilled out like spilled insides, like something wounded and left to rot. It looked like it had tried to hold itself together for too long, and finally failed.

And Regulus’ — pale blue-grey, delicate in a way only he had been — soaked through and warped from rain. It lay slumped over, waterlogged and forgotten, as if the storm outside had wept it into surrender. The window above had cracked open, and the sky had poured in for hours. Sirius liked to think the heavens had mourned with him that day. That even the sky had broken, just a little.

You never knew, but Sirius never let them go.

Not once.

Even when the world fell apart. Even when the Order returned and war carved new hollows into their lives.

Even when Azkaban loomed like a ghost at his shoulder. He kept them — hidden, at first, under floorboards and false bottoms of trunks. Then folded into boxes labeled with things like “storage” or “old keepsakes,” as if a name could make them matter less.

But they always came back out. Back to his bedside. Back into his hands on sleepless nights. Because they weren’t just toys. They were the last soft things left. The only parts of his childhood that hadn’t turned to ash.

They were what remained of the real family he had chosen — not the one etched into tapestries or carved into rings, but the one built in whispers and quiet dreams.

You, Regulus, and him. Three children clinging to hope like a secret. Three hearts hoping that if they held each other tightly enough, they could outrun their legacy. They could be something else. Someone else. Someone free.

But grief is not kind. It is greedy. It takes and takes and keeps on taking.

So it took Regulus, too.

No goodbye. No body. Just whispers in the dark — that he had gone beneath the water, chasing a kind of redemption Sirius hadn’t known his brother still believed in. That he had died trying to undo what he never had the power to fix. A boy with the name of a star, drowning in a sea too vast to name.

And Sirius had hated him, once — for his silence, for his compliance, for surviving the home that killed you. But when Regulus vanished, Sirius understood he’d been wrong. Regulus hadn’t survived. He’d only delayed the dying. Now it was just him, and the plushes — three relics, three ghosts, three pieces of a family no one ever thought to grieve.

Because what were children like them, if not warnings? What were Black children, if not cautionary tales?

1994

Years later, Sirius will stand before a boy with too-bright eyes and a scar that speaks of wars no child should remember. And in the boy’s grin — wide, reckless, full of sun — Sirius will see James, not as memory, but as marrow, as instinct.

But it's not James that makes him ache, not really.

It’s the quiet moments, the in-between ones — when the boy furrows his brow in thought, or stares too long at the stars, or speaks with a gentleness he doesn’t even know he carries.

That’s when Sirius sees Regulus, not in likeness but in the ache of being too young for so much weight.

And most of all, he sees you.

He sees you in the boy’s stubborn defiance, in the way he fights for others before himself, in the way he loves — fiercely, awkwardly, with every unguarded part of him. He sees you in the boy’s eyes when he reaches for Sirius without hesitation. He sees the child you once were, all scraped knees and wild dreams, asking impossible questions and believing in things too big to name.

And it undoes him. Every single time.

Because this boy, this Harry, carries all the pieces of the ones he lost — but he carries you most of all.

Sirius will not know how to name that kind of grace. Only that it feels like standing in the past and being forgiven by it.

And in that child, in the fragile miracle of his existence, Sirius will understand that love does not end. It threads itself into blood and bone and story. It survives. Even when nothing else does.

And that understanding — that impossible, aching recognition — will be the cruelest grace of all. Because by then, the war will have come and gone, carving its tally marks into the bones of everyone left standing.

He will have buried too many. James, Lily, and names he once spoke with laughter now spoken in silence, in dreams. The fire will have gone out, and Sirius will have learned to live in the smoke. A man half-built from memory, half-held together by loss. He will carry it all, quietly.

The old house on Grimmauld Place will still stand, but he will not return. Some ghosts are too sacred to disturb, and some rooms still remember how to bleed.

Yours will remain untouched — the air thick with dust and song, the bed still hiding three plush toys like relics of a time when the world had not yet shattered. The scent of childhood still clinging to the curtains, as if waiting for someone to come home.

And though the world will move forward without him — blooming and burning and beginning again — Sirius will remain quietly stitched into the edges of it, in every reckless laugh, every act of love carved in defiance, every child who believes that family is something you choose.

Because what he lost cannot be measured in names or battles or years. It is deeper than that. It is a wound shaped like a sister’s lullaby, a brother’s silence, a best friend’s grin. It is the kind of grief that builds a home inside your ribs and dares you to live with it.

And even when there is no one left to speak your name aloud, Sirius will. Not out of duty, but because somewhere within him, the boy who once held your hand still waits in the dark.

He still listens for the echo of your laughter through silent halls, still glances at the doorway like you might walk through, still dreams of a world where everything broken might find a way to mend.

There is a quiet place in him that never grew older than sixteen, still caught in the house where you stayed behind, still curled beside you in the dark, still whispering stories of escape to the ceiling.

That part of him hears your voice when the world forgets how to be kind.

It sees your eyes in every child who refuses to stop hoping, every child with bright eyes and a scar on their forehead — especially the one who looks at him like he is something good.

It believes, even now, that the love you gave was too bright to vanish, too true to ever fade.

Sirius Black remained — not because he survived, but because love, once given, does not know how to leave, and grief, once born, does not know how to die.

And then, years later, it was his cousin who ended him — blood of his blood, born of the same ruin, raised on the same silken lies, sipping from the same poisoned cup. Bellatrix did not strike like chance, but like prophecy, like the final breath of a story written long before they ever lived it.

It was not kindness that undid them, nor mercy. It was inheritance — a name carved too deep, a legacy that devoured its own.

In the end, nothing could tear down the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

Except itself.

For those whose fate was never their own,

for the one who bore the weight alone,

for the one who stayed,

so ends the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

a/n: um..hi? is this too angsty? :(

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neellscapsule · 1 day ago

Text

My Heart — Part Three

summary | your family realizes how much they have missed. the problem is that you are a grown up by now, and terrible hurt by their neglect.

pairing | platonic yandere batfam x batsis!neglected!reader. future conner kent x reader.

warnings / tags | angst, hurt/little comfort, y/n is mentioned as a female, trauma, family issues, mostly trust and daddy issues. they all love each other (PLATONICALLY) they just don't know how to feel it and express it correctly. it gets darker. you are a bit of a yandere later as well.

word count | 5.3k

authors note | hi there!! english is not my first languaje so there might be some mistakes, or not, it can depend :) please vote <3 dick is 28. jason is 23. reader will be 22 in a few months. cass is 21. tim is 20. duke is 18. damian is 13.

conner makes his first appearance :pp

taglist | @cebrospudipudi @jjoppees @corvoqueen @nirvanaxx1942 @lilyalone @aixaingela @lettucel0ver @time-shardz @pix-stuff @galaxypurplerose @cupid73 @theproblemisthattimnotfictional @vanessa-boo @timebomb1101 @chemicalwindexbottle @chiizuluvr @ihavenomuse @mat5u0 @thismessyshe @lovebug-apple @myjumper @angwlart @esposadomd @nisarelle @mrmacwaffles @mazixxss @ememgl @naomi-xxi @bbmgirll @ash0-0ley

previous. next.

The Wayne Manor hasn’t changed.

Not really.

The city evolves. The world turns. Gotham devours itself, spits itself back out, over and over again. But this house… this house stays the same.

The marble under his shoes still holds the faint scuff of childhood racing feet. The wood panels still creak in the same spots — the third stair from the landing, the right edge of the west hallway. The heavy scent of aged paper, fireplace ash, and expensive polish lingers in the walls, impossible to scrub out no matter how often Alfred tries.

Bruce breathes it all in as he steps through the front doors, loosening his tie with one hand, briefcase heavy in the other. Even here, the work follows him. The meetings, the shareholders, the endless faces wanting his attention. None of it ever really stops. It never has.

The Enterprise board meetings bleed into the evening now. They always do. Stacked hours of power suits and shareholders, of dry numbers and brittle conversations, while Gotham simmers just outside the tower walls.

It leaves him tired in a way the cowl never could.

He heads for his study on autopilot, steps measured, jaw tight, already sorting through the files in his head.

But he pauses in the living room.

The faint, flickering glow of the television spills across the dark floor. A faint hum.

His brows furrow.

The television should be off. Alfred is meticulous about the house’s order. Damian never leaves a screen running. Tim is in the city tonight. Jason—well, Jason rarely sets foot in the Manor unless he’s forced. And Dick…

Bruce’s frown deepens when he thinks of his oldest son.

He crosses the threshold into the living room, the quiet hum of static and aged video speakers meeting his ears. The living room is dimly lit, shadows curling across the furniture. The television sits against the far wall, the soft glow of an old video playing, the grain of the footage unmistakable — aged, imperfect, preserved.

The timestamp in the corner reads Gotham Academy Auditorium – March 2019.

And you’re there.

You are not there when he finds the tape. You are far from the manor. Far from Gotham. Far from him.

But you are there on the screen.

Frozen in time.

Dancing.

White.

Ethereal.

Your teenage frame moves with the precise, aching grace of someone born for the stage, wrapped in the soft shimmer of a Swan Queen's tutu, the tulle layered and crisp against your thighs. Your hair is pulled tight into a bun, not a single strand out of place. The stage lights cast a pale glow over your skin, highlighting the sharp, elegant lines of your arms as they stretch and flutter, the ghost of a bird in flight.

Your expression is serious. Focused. But vulnerable in a way Bruce can’t tear his eyes from.

He doesn’t remember this.

The realization roots him to the spot, chest heavy, heart sinking deeper with every note of Tchaikovsky that trickles from the old speakers.

You were— what, fifteen there? Sixteen? Barely holding yourself together behind a mask of effortless poise. And he— God, what was he doing that night? A mission? The Board? Chasing criminals in an alley while his daughter performed like this… and he didn’t even remember.

He studies the video as if his eyes can retroactively imprint it into his mind, as if enough staring will make up for the absence in his memory.

Your movements are flawless. Perfect control. The edges of your face still round with youth. But Bruce knows better than anyone how much pain hides behind discipline.

It’s written all over your face — the stubborn set of your jaw, the ghost of uncertainty behind your practiced eyes, the tightness in your shoulders.

You’re magnificent.

You’re hurting.

And he wasn’t there.

The tape is old. Not from a phone. Not from some bystander’s recording. This was filmed deliberately. Carefully. Preserved as if whoever held the camera wanted to keep you forever.

Bruce takes a few steps closer, his briefcase lowering to his side, forgotten.

His eyes trace the curve of your arms, the extension of your neck, the slight quiver in your breath as you leap, as you land, as you fight to stay within the perfection of your craft.

There’s no memory in his mind that matches this. Not a single one. He’s seen you at galas, at fundraisers, at piano recitals. He’s seen you in training rooms, balancing yourself on beams, sharpening your strength.

But a tutu? Ballet shoes? A studio filled with mirrors?

Nothing.

It’s like a life you had that he never noticed. Like a whole world you lived in while he was busy watching other shadows.

His throat tightens.

You are his daughter. His first daughter. He remembers your birth, born from a weeping mother who loved him too much, who loved you so much. How the red of her face went away, pale to the bone.

He didn't cry her death, but he cried with your first word. He remembers your first steps. Your first trophy in Chemistry. How much you loved to chat his ear off, and how much power you held always above the others.

You move across the stage with flawless control — shoulders high, chin poised, arms unfolding with the softest grace he’s ever seen. Your expression doesn’t falter. Not once. Not even as the music swells and your body pirouettes, weightless, fragile, untouchable.

The video has no crowd noise. No clapping. No background voices.

Only the music.

Only you.

And your face — that perfect, painful blend of determination and sadness. The one he’s learned to recognize far too late.

How many hours did you spend practicing this? How many times did you look for him in the crowd?

He takes a slow step forward, his hand brushing against the back of the couch, eyes never leaving the screen.

You were so small then.

Not a child. Not anymore. But still so… unfinished. Still trying to carve yourself into the version of you that they would finally see.

Finally be proud of.

His throat tightens, a rough exhale breaking free as your final pose holds, the swell of music lingering, your chest rising with practiced, shallow breaths. There’s a flicker of nerves beneath the confidence in your face — like you’re searching for something in the crowd.

You looked… flawless.

Untouchable.

But utterly alone.

The sound of quiet footsteps behind him breaks the trance.

Alfred stands at the doorway, his hands folded neatly in front of him, his expression as composed as ever but his eyes soft, distant, as if he too is caught somewhere between then and now.

The butler clears his throat softly, eyes landing on the screen.

“My apologies, sir,” Alfred says gently. “I meant to switch it off before you returned. It was… keeping me company while I tidied up.”

Bruce doesn’t look away from the screen. “How old was she there?” His voice is low, rough around the edges.

“Sixteen,” Alfred answers, stepping to his side. “The Winter Gala performance. Her first lead role.”

Bruce’s brows furrow deeper.

“I don’t remember this.”

Alfred tilts his head, a hint of something unreadable flickering through his eyes. “No,” he agrees softly. “You wouldn’t.”

Guilt knots tighter in Bruce’s stomach.

“She danced,” Bruce murmurs, more to himself than to Alfred. “She danced. I didn’t know she—”

“She was quite fond of it,” Alfred interjects, gently. “Ballet, specifically. It was not a hobby, not a passing fancy. It was… vital to her. For quite some time.”

Bruce’s chest tightens. “Why didn’t I know?”

Alfred tilts his head, his eyes soft with something like sadness.

“She sent invitations,” Alfred says, his voice careful, not accusing. “Quite a few of them. They were never demands. Only… hopes.”

Bruce swallows hard.

“I’ve watched this more times than I care to admit,” Alfred confesses quietly. “She never saw me filming, of course. But I thought… perhaps one day she’d want the memory preserved.”

Bruce’s eyes darken with something complex — guilt, longing, helplessness.

“She shouldn’t have had to perform for a camera when her family was supposed to be in the audience.”

“Quite right,” Alfred agrees, but there’s no venom in his voice. Just quiet, well-worn sadness.

The video loops, restarting, and there you are again — poised, perfect, heartbreakingly young.

“She was good,” Bruce says, as if that’s the only thing keeping his throat from closing.

“She was remarkable,” Alfred corrects, soft pride threading through the words. “Is remarkable.”

Bruce’s eyes narrow slightly. “You’ve seen her?”

Alfred hesitates for only a moment. “I’ve… kept in touch.”

That shouldn’t surprise him. Alfred always did what the rest of them couldn’t seem to manage.

Bruce runs a hand over his mouth, his eyes heavy with the exhaustion that no amount of hours at the office can replicate. He should’ve been there. At that performance. At all of them. Instead, he’s watching it now — through a screen, through years of distance and absence that not even money or apologies can erase.

“How did I miss it?” The words are barely audible.

Alfred exhales slowly, his posture softening. “You were… occupied. As you’ve always been.”

“Occupied,” Bruce echoes, bitterness curling around the syllables.

He looks at the screen again — your form mid-spin, graceful, celestial, untouchable.

“She was always right there,” Bruce says, voice hoarse, more to himself than to the butler. “Always… there.”

Alfred’s eyes soften further. “Children often are. Until they no longer are.”

The implication twists in Bruce’s stomach like a knife.

“I didn’t… I didn’t see her.”

The butler’s expression softens, but he does not let Bruce retreat into his guilt without resistance. “You loved her, sir. You still do.”

“That doesn’t mean I saw her. I don't know her favourite colour. Don't know if she likes to paint or to draw more. I don't even know her dreams. If what she's doing is actually what she wants.”

Alfred crosses the room, his footsteps light, precise, as they’ve always been. “You were not an easy man to reach, Master Wayne.”

Bruce’s throat bobs. “No.”

“She tried.”

“I know.”

Alfred’s gaze is patient but not forgiving. “Do you?”

Bruce’s breath catches.

He remembers the box Dick threw at him.

The letters.

The tickets.

The invitations.

The recitals.

The soft, desperate handwriting.

He knows now.

He should have known then.

“She wrote to me,” Bruce murmurs, his voice thin, frayed around the edges. “More than I realized.”

Alfred’s silence is answer enough.

“She wanted me there.”

“Yes, sir,” Alfred confirms. “She did.”

“She wanted all of us there.”

“She did.”

Bruce’s hands curl into fists, a familiar tension threading through his muscles.

“I failed her.”

Alfred doesn’t argue.

He doesn’t need to.

“She won’t come home.”

“Would you?” Alfred counters, one brow arching faintly.

Bruce exhales, his eyes dragging back to the video.

“You raised her,” he says after a moment, quieter now. “More than I did.”

Alfred’s shoulders lift in a small shrug. “As I’ve done for all of you.”

“You shouldn’t have had to.”

“Perhaps not.” The older man offers a faint, sad smile. “But I’d do it again. For her. For you.”

The room falls silent again, the soft static hum of the old video filling the space.

Bruce studies your younger self — your graceful posture, the way your fingers float like feathers, the quiet tragedy tucked behind your poised, serious eyes.

You were always trying to be seen.

And he never looked.

“I didn’t even know about this performance,” Bruce admits, the guilt dripping from every word.

Alfred inclines his head, the faintest trace of sympathy in his voice. “She sent invitations. More than one.”

His stomach twists. He remembers the box now — the old letters, the unopened envelopes. The things Dick shoved into his chest like an accusation. His daughter’s quiet, desperate attempts to earn his attention.

“How many?” Bruce asks, though he already fears the answer.

Alfred’s gaze sharpens faintly. “Enough.”

Enough to break your heart.

Enough that you stopped sending them.

Enough that you left.

“She’s angry.”

Alfred sighs, correcting gently. “She’s hurt.”

“It’s the same thing,” Bruce mutters.

“Not with her.” The butler’s voice lowers, steady, knowing. “She’s hurt, sir. But she still loves you.”

“She doesn’t want to come home.”

“Would you, if you were her?” Alfred’s brow lifts again, repeating it with enough hardness that it seemed protective.

Bruce presses a hand to his mouth again, shoulders rigid, jaw tight, eyes burning in a way that surprises even him.

“You think it’s too late?”

Alfred considers that, gaze steady, voice level. “It’s never too late to see your children, sir.”

Bruce exhales slowly, turning from the television, the weight of years clawing down his spine.

But your ghost lingers.

Dancing, weightless, frozen in the grain of an old recording.

Unreachable.

But not gone.

Never gone.

“Keep it on,” Bruce says quietly, finally moving toward his study. “I… want to watch the rest.”

Alfred inclines his head, a quiet pride hidden beneath the lines of his face.

“As you wish, Master Wayne.”

Galas have always been your thing.

It’s ironic, considering how much you claim to hate them.

You’ve always liked the ridiculousness of them — the glimmer, the grand chandeliers that hang like artificial constellations, the free food (god, the free food), the freshest champagne you could possibly imagine, crisp and cold on your tongue. And most of all, you’ve always liked being seen without really being seen. People looking at you like you’re a fixture. A diamond. A Wayne. But never looking close enough to see the cracks. It was predictable.

You’ve always liked that.

You’ve never missed a Wayne Gala.

Well, except the ones over the last four years. But that doesn’t really count, does it? You always had an excuse — busy exhibitions, international commissions, gallery showings too far from Gotham to justify the trip. It’s not like anyone ever reached out to convince you otherwise. Alfred sent a few reminders. A few check-ins. A few invitations in handwriting you’d recognize even if you were blind.

But from the rest of them? Silence.

Not even a half-hearted message from Bruce. Not even a poorly typed text from Tim. Not even Jason, who used to drag you to the dessert tables when you were kids.

Four years.

Four. Years.

And now? Now Dick talks about an invitation, carefully worded, with a little kiss to the forehead, like that’s enough to close a chasm that’s been bleeding open for nearly half a decade.

It took a lot of thinking.

Too much thinking.

It took pacing around your New York studio for hours. It took pouring over the invitation like it was a goddamn riddle. It took staring at the flight options for three days straight without booking anything. It took your manager nearly bribing you with the most luxurious hotel she could find near Gotham’s Diamond District — “You deserve to spoil yourself,” she’d said, “It’s not like you’ve ever stopped enjoying the perks of being rich.”

And she was right.

Why would moving away from the Manor, from them, mean you had to stop living like a Wayne?

You pack light. Just enough. Enough to look like the Wayne daughter you’ve always been, even if you don’t live like one anymore.

You don’t tell anyone you’re coming. Not even Alfred.

Let them be surprised. Let them think you wouldn’t show. Maybe you wouldn’t have, if not for the stupid way your chest tightened when you thought of Alfred standing alone in that sea of Gotham’s glittering snakes.

You check into the hotel the day before. The best suite. Floor to ceiling windows. Egyptian cotton sheets. The kind of place that feels like you’ve stepped into someone else’s life.

And that night, when the gala arrives, you dress like you belong in the stars.

The gown clings like it was crafted on your body — a river of silver and glimmer that hugs every line, the back nonexistent, with a dangerously low neckline that might’ve made Bruce faint if he still bothered to police what you wore. You wear your wealth without apology. You wear it like armor.

And of course, the only rule for tonight — the masquerade.

You slide the pearly lace mask over your face, delicate and sharp at the edges, just enough to soften your features but not enough to truly hide you. It settles against your nose, just right. Just enough for you to choose who gets to recognize you.

It doesn’t take long to find the pulse of the party when you arrive.

The ballroom is suffocatingly familiar, but you slip through the throng like you were born to haunt these halls. They don’t know you’re here. Not yet. You watch them from the corners — all of them.

You spot Dick first, of course — tall, broad-shouldered, radiant in the way he always is, in tailored black, mask dark as his hair, laughing at something Kori says beside him.

Jason lingers near the bar on the other side, glass of scotch in hand, sharp in a dark suit with no tie, his mask sleek, simple, leather probably — watching the room like it’s a battlefield.

Cassandra drifts near the edges, quiet, observant, a shadow that blends in until you know where to look. Stephanie’s at her side, bright and careless in silver sequins and an obnoxiously large feathered mask, grinning as she talks to Barbara, who’s leaning on her chair with a beautiful green dress that compliments her.

Tim’s buried in a conversation with Lucius. Duke laughs with some younger faces you don’t recognize.

And Bruce…

Your eyes catch him like a thread pulled tight across your ribs.

There, near the grand staircase, suited in sharp, quiet black, his mask more symbolic than necessary. Gotham’s unshakable stone.

Selina prowls near him, sleek as ever, her gown a slinking cascade of onyx and emerald, her mask feline and faintly amused, scanning the room like she’s already picked her next mark.

They don’t see you.They’re all here.

They’re all here and they don’t even know you’ve arrived.

You hide at first.

Not because you’re afraid. But because it’s… amusing, in its own way. To slip around them unnoticed. To watch them, burning, oblivious to the weight still hanging between you.

You slip to the bar, sighing in relief at the familiarity of the setup. “Double martini. Two olives. Don’t go easy on me.”

His gaze lingers — not inappropriate, just… curious. Your dress, your mask, the way you carry yourself. You can practically hear the assumptions churning behind his eyes.

You don’t care.

The first sip burns beautifully down your throat, the familiar taste grounding you more than any polite conversation or shallow compliment ever could.

It’s only when someone settles on the stool beside you that you spare them a lazy side-glance, fully prepared to ignore whatever socialite or trust-fund brat is looking for conversation. But the air shifts.

A familiar hum of power. A warmth that prickles under your skin like static.

And then you see them.

Bright blue eyes. The same sharp jawline, same black curls, same Clark Kent perfection watered down with just enough edge to make your pulse stutter.

Conner Kent.

And fuck.

The years have been good to him.

You remember him being cocky when you were younger — flirting like it was his job, making the most of those ridiculous Kryptonian genetics and his boyish charm. You remember finding him obnoxious, occasionally tolerable, sometimes fun.

You also remember how much he looked like Clark back then. But now? Now it’s worse. He’s grown into that face. That jawline. Those broad shoulders. The cocky tilt of his mouth.

His mask is dark, simple, framing his eyes in a way that makes you briefly forget why you’ve spent years avoiding these kinds of nights.

“New York’s finest, huh?” His voice is smooth, playful. “Didn’t expect to see you here, princess.”

You arch a brow, twisting your glass between your fingers. “You recognized me that fast?”

Conner shrugs, his grin widening. “Please. You think a mask and a fancy dress can hide you from me?”

You hum, pretending to think. “Worked on your father just fine.”

His eyes glimmer, leaning in just slightly. “Clark doesn’t look at women the way I do.”

“Oh?” You sip again, not breaking eye contact. “And how do you look at women, Kent?”

“Like they could wreck me if they wanted to.”

You chuckle, resting your chin on your hand. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Not bad at all,” he murmurs, his voice dropping just a touch. “I think I’d enjoy it.”

You tap your nails against your glass, amused. You forgot how fun this little dance was with him — the teasing, the unspoken challenges, the heat that lingers just under the surface.

“You’ve grown up,” you comment, gaze dragging slowly down his figure before sliding back up.

“So have you,” he counters, voice light but eyes serious. “Didn’t realize you’d turn into this though. Kinda dangerous for someone like me.”

You smirk. “You’re bulletproof, Conner.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not weak to something else.”

You laugh, genuinely now, and maybe it’s the first time all night that your chest feels a little lighter.

“Flirting, Kent?” You raise a brow, leaning in just enough to let your words curl between you. “Already?”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity.”

His elbow nudges yours. “So what’s the plan? You hiding here all night or you gonna let your family know you’re back from the dead?”

You pause, rolling your martini between your palms.

“Not sure yet.”

He leans closer, voice dipping low. “Can I buy you a drink?”

You hold up your half-finished martini, unimpressed. “Already covered.”

His grin is shameless. “Dinner, then?”

“Bold of you to assume I’m available.”

“You just got back. You haven’t made plans yet.”

“Maybe I have.”

“Maybe you should cancel them.”

Your lips curl, a sharp glimmer in your eye. “You’re still cocky.”

“And you still love it.”

You don’t deny it.

“You filled out, too,” you allow, smirking faintly. “Congratulations. You finally look your age.”

“Technically, I’m still figuring out what my age even means.”

“You and me both.”

The banter is effortless, dangerous. The kind that makes old walls slip, familiarity weaving between syllables before you even think to stop it.

Conner leans in slightly, voice lowering conspiratorially. “You planning to reveal your identity to the masses tonight? Or just me?”

You swirl your glass, silver rings catching the light. “Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether you make it worth my while.”

His laugh is low, warm, frustratingly attractive.

“You’re playing with fire.”

You lean in just enough to whisper, “I’m the one who taught you how.”

The air between you hums with something complicated. Heavy. Unspoken.

The banter continues, an easy, familiar rhythm neither of you have to work for. Conner’s good at this — at playful deflection, at toeing the line between harmless and dangerous. You’re better. You’ve been playing this game since you were old enough to balance a champagne glass without spilling.

You barely notice how long you’ve been talking — the subtle shift of your legs crossing, the tilt of his body angling closer, the way your laughter slips out easier than you intended.

It’s comfortable.

It’s dangerous.

It’s—

“Y/N.”

The voice cuts clean through the haze of conversation, small but sharp, like a blade sheathed in velvet.

You turn.

Damian.

All stiff posture and narrowed green eyes, black mask perched perfectly across his face. He’s young — far too young to pull off the possessive, territorial glare aimed squarely at Conner — but he tries.

His arms are crossed behind his back like he’s holding himself perfectly still, but you know him — you know the coiled possessiveness thrumming under his skin, the restless edge of a boy who can’t yet control how deeply he feels everything.

You blink, the amusement slipping slightly as you meet his gaze. “Little Bat.”

His eyes flick to Conner, sharp, dissecting. “You’re late.”

“To the party?” You glance around lazily. “Or to disappointing the family?”

“You shouldn’t be speaking with him.”

Conner snorts softly. “Nice to see you too, little Wayne.”

Damian’s shoulders straighten, chin lifting, the scowl deepening. “Your presence isn’t required.”

“I’m a plus one.”

“To whom?”

Conner grins. “Jon. Of course.”

You sip your martini, hiding a smirk. Damian’s glower only intensifies. Conner’s brows lift, but you wave a hand, sighing.

“Damian.” You say his name like an exhale, soft but firm. “It’s fine.”

His eyes cut to you, expression faltering — just a little — the jealousy bleeding into something more familiar. Sadness. Longing. That quiet desperation to know you. To pull you back into the orbit of a family that doesn’t know how to hold you.

You soften, just barely, your fingers tapping against your glass.

“Go terrorize someone else,” you murmur, leaning back. “I can handle myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” His words are low, too old for his age, too heavy for his shoulders.

For a second, the noise of the party dims — the hum of music, the clink of glasses, the distant murmurs of the wealthy. It all fades under the weight of his voice.

You meet his eyes again, steady.

And for once… you don’t deflect.

You see him. Your brother. Your blood. Possessive. Flawed. Hurting.

But still yours.

“Go find Dick,” you tell him gently. “Tell him I’m here.”

Damian hesitates — poised between stubbornness and reluctant obedience.

Finally, he exhales sharply, turning on his heel without another word, disappearing into the crowd like a shadow.

Conner whistles low beside you. “Protective, isn’t he?”

You sip the last of your martini, gaze lingering on the space where Damian vanished.

“Seems like it,” you answer, dry. “Planning to hover all night, Kent?”

“Only if you make it worth my time.”

You sip your drink again, letting your eyes trace over him, your smirk sharp.

“Trust me,” you purr. “I always do.”

He keeps his gaze on you, even when you step away, already knowing Dick's on your way. Conner's hand trembles when you are far enough.

You've always had that power over him.

The flow of the gala presses people into motion — like waves shifting you from one current to the next — and before you can slip away, you see him.

You should’ve stayed at the bar.

The thought strikes you the second you catch sight of him weaving through the crowd — tall, broad-shouldered, the sharp lines of his tuxedo crisp against the glow of the ballroom lights, mask perched slightly crooked as if he forgot it was there entirely.

Dick Grayson.

Golden boy. Gotham’s first darling. Your older brother.

His eyes land on you like a homing missile, the weight of recognition hitting him square in the chest. You see the way his whole expression shifts — from polite party smile to something cracked open and raw — and you have precisely three seconds to brace yourself before he’s barreling through the sea of bodies.

You barely manage to set your empty martini glass down when his arms close around you.

“Birdie!” Dick smiled, achingly fond.

Your body stiffens, shoulders locking as he pulls you in tight — crushing, familiar, suffocating.

You don’t hug back.

Not entirely out of malice. More… discomfort. Half reluctance, half uncertainty. The kind of uncertainty that comes from years of space wedged between you, built brick by brick by neglect and distance and a silence none of them ever really bothered to break.

Your hands make a vague gesture against his back — a touch, not an embrace — more of an acknowledgement than a return. You don’t melt into it, you don’t lean your head on his shoulder like you used to when you were younger and still believed he would always notice you. You don’t really want to be in his arms now.

You want to breathe.

You want to escape the knot forming in your throat.

“Hi, Dick,” you manage, voice cool but not cruel, your arms hovering at your sides.

He doesn’t let go. If anything, his grip tightens, fingers curling against your back as if sheer proximity will undo the years you’ve spent away, as if your presence alone might stitch the fractures shut.

“You came,” he says, pulling back just enough to search your face — to really look at you. His eyes glint behind the mask, blue as ever, full of that frustrating, unbearable love that knots low in your chest. “You actually— Jesus, look at you.”

You resist the urge to step away, tilting your head, expression unreadable. “Looking’s all anyone’s done tonight.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know you,” he says pointedly. “Not like we do.”

You nearly laugh.

Before you can, though, the rest of them close in. Stephanie’s practically vibrating at Cass’s shoulder, bright and eager, grin wide even beneath her delicate blue mask. You catch the subtle way her hand tugs at Duke’s wrist, grounding herself as her eyes flick across you, cataloging every detail.

It starts with Jason — tall, broad, dressed in a black suit sharp enough to cut glass, his own mask sleek and minimal, jaw tense as his eyes drag over you like a silent, protective scan.

“Took you long enough, dove,” he mutters, crossing his arms. His voice is rougher than you remember, older, carrying the weight of too many second chances and not enough time. “Thought you’d ditched this city for good.”

You shrug, noncommittal. “Almost did.”

Jason’s lips twitch, the barest ghost of a smirk cracking through his walls. “Figures.” But there’s relief there too.

Tim clears his throat, stepping forward, hands shoved in his pockets. His mask doesn’t hide the flicker of cautious joy when he steps beside Jason, shoulders loose but eyes sharp. “Hey.”

You raise a brow. “Hey.”

It’s awkward — painfully so — but you let it hang, let the silence linger just long enough to make him squirm before Stephanie bursts in, smile wide, voice bright.

“You look insane, by the way,” she gushes, eyes sparkling. “Like— like movie-star insane. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“You always did outshine us, though,” Duke adds, his grin easy, his voice warm.

You give them both a faint smile, but your heart thrums tight, your pulse skipping at the weight of so many eyes, so many family eyes, trained on you after so long.

“Four years’ll do that,” you reply smoothly, though your grip tightens slightly on your own skin.

Cass steps forward, close enough that her presence hums at your side — quiet, steady, eyes soft. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to. Her gaze lingers on your face, your dress, your mask — and something like relief flickers there, sharp and fleeting.

A quiet understanding passes between you, wordless, raw.

“Welcome back.” Barbara’s voice cuts gently through the haze, her smile warm but cautious. “We’ve… missed you.”

Your lips twitch faintly, too practiced to let the bitterness leak through.

Duke gives you a small nod, eyes sharp beneath his mask. “You picked a good night to crash the party.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” you murmur, though the lie tastes sour.

Damian steps forward, shoulder brushing your side, posture tight. “You didn’t tell anyone you were coming.”

Your eyes slide down to him, amused. “Didn’t think I needed permission.”

He scowls. “You should’ve told me.”

You chuckle softly, unbothered. “Upset, aren’t we?”

“You’re my sister,” he snaps, quiet but fierce, green eyes dark under his mask. “I’m allowed.”

You grab a glass of champagne when one waiter passes by your side, and sip it almost immediately, the bubbles cold against your tongue, but your gaze never leaves his.

“This is so cool,” Duke says, almost a little breathless. “You’re like a legend in our circles, y’know? The Huntress, the prodigy, the one who got out. We used to trade stories like—”

“Duke.” Tim’s quiet warning is a shade too late.

But you just tilt your head, amused, not angry. You flick a glance at him, voice a little cooler now. “Got out? Is that how you talk about me now?”

Jason’s jaw flexes, guilt flickering briefly across his face, but Duke just looks caught, nervous but not apologetic.

“Didn’t mean it like that,” Duke mutters. “I just— you know, you’re like—”

“A ghost?” You offer, arching a brow. “A story the family tells?”

Duke’s grin falters. “No. More like the one that got free.”

Finally — predictably — the weight of the room shifts again.

You feel it before you see him.

Bruce.

Stoic, untouchable, tall enough to part the crowd like smoke as he steps into the loose circle your siblings have unintentionally formed around you. His mask is simple, sharp black against the silver at his temples, but his eyes — dark, unreadable, exhausted — land on you like a goddamn hammer.

The air tightens.

You square your shoulders.

For a moment, no one speaks.

Your father — the reason you learned how to hide your heartbreak behind pearls and piano keys — stands there, watching you like he’s trying to memorize every inch of your face.

Finally, you speak, cool and distant.

“Father.”

His jaw tightens. “You look well.”

You offer a sharp, humorless smile. “Money tends to have that effect.”

“You’re here,” Bruce says, quiet, low, like he doesn’t quite believe it.

You shrug again, keeping your voice level. “It’s a party.”

Dick’s arm slides back around your shoulder, fingers curling lightly, his grin more subdued now, softer.

“Birdie,” he murmurs, almost chiding. “Let us have this one.”

You shrug beneath his hand, not quite leaning in, not quite pulling away.

The others hover, circling like hawks, their excitement simmering beneath the awkwardness, their possessiveness sharper than you remember. It coils through the group like tension on a tripwire — subtle, constant, impossible to ignore.

But your gaze flickers. Not for wishing to be in another place.

Just for wishing to be in another's arms.

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