#take me back brother. it was so much easier back then

[fandoms-x-reader]

Period Cramps

Requested By: @olivia-willo-w

Summary: The brothers find out (thanks to Satan) what a period is and try to help you through yours. The Seven Demon Brothers x Reader Word Count: 2,257

Periods are something that has become so normalized in the human world. 

It's a natural thing that happens to women and it shouldn’t be something to be embarrassed about.

But, in the Devildom, the only other human you had was a male. 

There was no one down there who would understand the process your body goes through once a month.

And that made it hard to talk about it.

You figured it would just be easier to keep them in the dark rather than try and explain it.

But, sometimes when you're on your period, it had a mind of its own.

You were having a bad cramp while at dinner with the brothers and you did your best to hide your pain.

But, Satan could tell you were in pain and he was worried about you. Not to mention, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show his brothers how smart he was.

See, Satan was your resident human expert.

When he found out that a human was coming to live with him and his brothers, he read every book he could find about humans and when he was done with those, he grabbed all of the specific books about females.

He wanted to know everything he could before you got down there.

So, when you were having your period in the Devildom, Satan immediately knew what was happening and was well-versed in the subject.

You had all of the tell-tale signs - mood swings, food cravings, headaches, bloating.

Whatever symptom you had, it pointed to it being your time of the month.

There was a conversation already going on amongst his brothers, but Satan ignored it in favor of asking you, “Are you on your period?”

Everyone froze in place at Satan’s question and your face burned a bright red as all of the attention was on you. Who just asks a personal question like that?!

Satan didn’t mean any disrespect. The way it was presented to him in the books was as a natural, common thing that all women go through. So he didn’t you would have any reason to be embarrassed about it.

And maybe if he had approached you about it on his own, things would have been different. But he just blurted the question out…in front of everyone…in the middle of dinner.

Before you could even respond, Mammon asked, “What’s a period?” And your cheeks felt even hotter as you began to slowly sink down in your chair, wishing you could disappear from this conversation.

“You don’t know?” Asmo asked with a glint in his eyes. Of course, the Avatar of Lust would know what a period is. Considering the amount of human women he had probably met you were sure he was as knowledgeable as Satan was about it.

But there was no way the fourth-born would allow his little brother to take his thunder. “Allow me to explain,” Satan stated.

And for the next few torturous minutes, you had to uncomfortably sit there as Satan explained what a period was in vivid detail.

You watched the brothers’ faces go through a whirlwind of reactions until they were all left sitting there speechless and somewhat bothered.

“Well?” Lucifer’s question broke the silence and you turned to face the eldest. He was making eye contact with you and he continued to ask, “Are you?”

“Is that why you look like you’re in pain?” Belphie asked. “Wait, do periods hurt?” Beel questioned in response.

“Do all female normies go through that?” Levi questioned, his cheeks threatening to burn as bright as yours at the question.

Your cramps weren’t backing down and you were feeling more than overwhelmed at the sudden bombardment and soon everything felt like it was too much.

“I think I’ll skip dinner tonight,” you stated plainly before abruptly getting up from the table and making your way to the bedroom.

The brothers watched you leave, confused and worried about you. Was it something they said? Or was it because you weren’t feeling well?

Lucifer was in a state of surprise when you left the dining room table.

He knew about periods, and he knew it was something female humans experienced.

But, it wasn’t something he had prepared for.

In all of the things that he had done and gathered to ensure you would have everything you need for your stay in the Devildom, that had somehow slipped his mind.

It took him a moment to gather his bearings before going to check on you.

He showed up to your room with a glass of water and medicine to help with your cramps.

He gave you a small smile when you gratefully took the medicine and allowed him in your room.

He looked a little lost, unsure of how exactly to help you. But, if you tell him what you need, he will move heaven and earth to make sure you get it.

You were his responsibility after all. He couldn’t disappoint Diavolo by allowing you to be in pain. And he couldn’t trust his brothers to do a good enough job.

Or maybe - just maybe - he wanted to be the one who took care of you.

Either way, he won’t leave your side for the rest of the night, and if you show any sign of discomfort, he’ll find a way to soothe you.

Mammon was still freaking out about all of the information he had obtained that night.

Periods sounded awful and he couldn’t believe that it was something that happened to female humans - every month.

Mammon was trying to process everything when you left the table and that’s when his mind went from his own train of thought to you.

From all of the facts he was told, one stood out more than the others - you were in pain.

And Mammon was supposed to protect you, so he couldn’t have that.

He excused himself from the dinner table as well before quickly doing a search on his D.D.D. to find out ways to help you.

About a half an hour later, Mammon showed up at your bedroom door, his arms full of miscellaneous objects.

He had everything he could think of - a heating pad, pain medicine, chocolate, and your favorite snacks.

He wasn’t sure what out of those items would help, but he hoped at least one of them would.

He also offered to stay in your room that night and watch a movie with you, which inevitably ended in you falling asleep in his arms, while he held you close.

Mammon is just happy that you felt safe enough with him to let him help you when you’re in this vulnerable stage.

It is a known fact that Levi panics in intense situations.

And you abruptly leaving the dinner table was something he would classify as an intense situation.

He didn't necessarily understand all of the intricacies of your period, but he did know that he wanted to help.

Levi didn't have any idea where to start, so he went to his default of bringing videogames and DVDs to your room.

You bit back a chuckle as you opened the door and saw Levi struggling to hold everything he brought.

You let him inside, grateful of the fact that he was trying and Levi quickly got to work setting up yours and his favorite game.

The fun that you were having with Levi was enough to distract you from the pain of your period cramps.

But that didn't stop him from checking in - quite often - and asking if you were alright.

Levi offered to get you food, something to drink, medicine - anything you would need.

And if you did ask him for something, he moved faster than you'd ever seen to get it back to you promptly.

He may not be an expert in what was going on with you, but he would do just as good of a job as any of the others when it came to comforting you.

As stated, Satan was an expert on everything to do with your period before you even got it.

He didn't need to search anything up or refer to his books.

He figured this would happen sooner rather than later and he was prepared for it.

Like Mammon, Satan gets everything you need. But, unlike Mammon, it’s all already prepared in an emergency kit that he’s kept in his room.

Satan grabbed the bag and went to your room in a matter of moments.

When you opened the door, Satan offered you a brief apology about the events that occurred at dinner. He felt guilty about putting you on the spot like that.

But, he offered to make it up to you by helping relieve your pain.

When you allowed him in, Satan was as strict as a doctor, almost in an overbearing way.

He gave you the medicine to take and instructed you to lay in a way that allowed for the ideal positioning of the heating pad.

And even if it wasn’t the way you wanted to lay, when the heating pad started working, you were thankful for Satan’s expertise.

He stayed with you for the rest of the night, sitting next to you and gently running his fingers through your hair as he read one of your favorite books to you.

It ends up being much more comforting than you would have expected from the Avatar of Wrath.

Asmo may not be like Satan or Lucifer in knowing all about a human period.

But he has had his fair share of experience with it.

And he’s a pro at rest and relaxation.

Asmo let you calm down in your room for a little bit while he set things up in own room. 

He was sure you were upset at all of them for bombarding you at dinner like that.

But, he was hoping that you would let him help you anyway.

When he was ready, he asked you to join him in his room, and after promising he wouldn’t try anything risque, you agreed to go.

When you got to his room, you were met with an overwhelming aroma of essential oils and the sound of soft music playing.

The lights were dimmed so that the room was bright enough to see, but dark enough to relax.

Under normal circumstances, you would have assumed that Asmo was trying to come on to you, but he had promised he just wanted to help.

He led you to his bed and asked for permission to give you a massage.

Being the Avatar of Lust, Asmo’s knows the human body very well, and he knew every technique and every spot that needed to relax, and you felt all of your tension release and your cramps subside.

Asmo had a small smile on his face as you slowly drifted off after feeling relaxed enough.

He would always be there to help pamper you whenever you needed it.

Beel was a bit confused when you left the table.

He didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation. 

And so, playing to his kind and innocent nature, Beel thought something was wrong with the dinner.

He quietly finished the food on his plate before disappearing from the House of Lamentation. 

When he came back, he went directly to your room with bags full of all of your favorite food. No one should skip dinner.

You had to keep yourself from laughing as Beel explained why he brought all of your favorite food and you invited him in to share the food with you.

Beel noticed the pained expression you flashed every so often and when you told him about your period cramps and how that was the reason you left dinner early, Beel wanted to do everything he could to help.

He immediately engulfed you into his arms, holding you tightly into him as his hands rubbed soothing circles onto your back.

You felt your pain slowly going away as Beel’s body warmth underneath you acted as a heating pad and his hands relieved any tension you were holding.

He might not know exactly how to help you, but he’s just as effective in soothing your cramps nonetheless.

Belphie's help almost always came with a witty remark or some teasing no matter who you were or what the situation was.

But, for this particular situation, Belphie tried to be on his best behavior.

From what he heard, this was a hard time for you and he was certain the wrong remark would set you off.

So, he played especially nice.

He came to your room and asked you if there was anything he could do to help.

When you let him in, he asked a few questions about your period and got you a few things.

But, if that doesn't help, Belphie will escalate things.

When most people think of the Avatar of Sloth, they only think about him sleeping a lot.

They don't often recognize the power he had over other people's sleep.

And if you continue to be in pain throughout the night, Belphie will reach a point where he believes sleep is the only way to help you.

And it will be the best sleep of your life, full of amazing dreams to keep any pain of your cramps far away from you.

Naturally, Belphie will spend the night in your room, cuddling you.

But it's just to make sure you get a restful sleep the whole night!

[oogaboogaspookyman]

Buzi fic let's muthafuckin gooooooooooo

B belongs to @ilovejoll !

[REDACTED] belongs to me!

[GOOD TEAM]

Back to that fuckin' camp... Great.

It's dark, it's rank, it's got a rancid, sinister and genuinely discomforting and dark aura, it's the place where one of her traumatic moments have transpired.

Uzi killed and ate her classmates here.

All this for a sighting...

And yet the four walked, around and about, searching like born hunters...

...

That's funny.

Uzi, N, V, and B (don't say anything about the names), they all walked and searched every nook and cranny, whatever cabin they found it's searched, because of this one Solver drone a group encountered that was, and Uzi quotes during the walk to the camp, "abnormally friggin' tall and chuckled a lot"

One guy even reportedly went missing after this encounter.

This new threat must be destroyed, there shall not be a season 2 of this bullshit.

Thud.

"I don't think it's here, weirdo" B spoke. Weirdo. Fuck's sake.

"It's Uzi, strawberry, and i'm sure if we look harder we'll find it, we already got traces of the guy so they must be here!" Uzi was confident after said traces were found... And N didn't seem to know when to quit being optimistic and supportive of Uzi, seriously the moment they got together it's like the entire planet was doomed to deal with these two dorks!

One of those dorks is your brother. You care about him. Do it for him. B sighed at the thought.

"We'll go a little further, and if we find it we kill it and we all go home, but if we don't..." B sounded threatening there, especially getting closer and whispering the next words in her sound receptor.

"You're dead to me. Having wasted our time."

Hot. That's not me saying it, i only say her thoughts out loud

"We'll find the weird analog horror freak, babe! I hate it when she's right, believe me, but we did find traces of this weirdo being around and we still find more!" V popped up from outta nowhere the interrupt the moment of intimacy intense mutual hatred, and showed off a piece of paper in her hand "Like this note i caught in a cabin!"

V flipped the note around, showing off... Something???

Uzi and N felt shivers run down their spine as V showed off the note.

"Haha! That's not ominous at all nope!" N and Uzi said in unison, perfectly. They took note of this.

"Jinx!"

V gagged at the sight of the Nuzi duo chuckling and giggling like little kids. B just glared at Uzi like she was a bad influence...

If it's of any consolation, they bother me too

"You don't get to talk, little shit" V growled at Uzi's tail.

Suddenly they stumble upon a strange... Cave??? In the camp?? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the planet, localized entirely within this camp??

I had some fun while i could, it seems. Smiley face

"Shut" Uzi then squinted, as if it's going to make comprehending easier, and...

[PROCESSING WUTEVR THIS IS]

[◻️◻️◻️◻️◻️_______]

Yes it's a cave! A very ominous, red, fleshy cave that destroyed an entire cabin, turning it into a gruesome wooden outer layer for itself and thus taking it's place!

"aaAAHAHAHAa OKAY UZI UHHH... DO WE ENTER OR DO WE BURN IT ALL DOWN" N chuckled with lots of fear in his voice.

"If we burn the cave it's going to burn the entire forest too, and as much as i'd love that it's very important and i know there's others who love this forest as much as i hate it" Uzi sounds so smart when she explains things, it made N's core flutter... Aside from beating a little too fast at the sight of the cave and the general aura of the camp.

FIND ME

FIGHT ME

HOW WELL DO YOU FARE

Uzi turned around fast.

Oh i know this one!

She grimaced at this, hearing a robotic male voice coming from... Pretty much nowhere and at the same time as if it's behind her, and looked at everyone else to verify that she's not crazy.

N, V, and B all look just as unsettled. She's not crazy then.

"We're going home, gang, fuck this and fuck everyone" B began walking away while holding up two middle fingers.

Something was wrapped around their leg.

Catch

It's Uzi's fucking tail.

"We don't know what this is, it could be something worse than... It, and if that's the case, then we have to put a stop to it... As much as i hate this, it has to be done"

B hates when Uzi is right... They groaned "FINE let's get this over with" as they walked back to the area and swapped their hands with claws...

Let's go down in the belly of the beast...

Haha, Uzi scolded you

"She didn't scold me, freak" B growled at Uzi's tail. Y'know- the moment this thing began to speak, they knew it meant something terrible was coming. (Whether i mean they as in the group or B alone is up to you lmao)

Gross.

It's all wet, squishy, bloody flesh from top to bottom.

Massive, disgusting, grotesque.

This cave is nothing but blood and gore.

As the group walked, something began to pulsate from the ground Uzi walked on...

"GAH ROBO CHRIST!!" It blew up and blood landed on her face and clothes.

V could only giggle. Of course she'd giggle.

"Bite me, what if this happened to you!"

"I'd lick it off, period. Likely tastier than you~"

Uzi just. Glared and made a face that spelled out Why Are You Like This™

Gross, gross, gross, fucking gross.

Giggle

"Quiet you!" Uzi hissed at her own tail. You look crazy rn lol

Gurgling from further away..?

Uh oh spaghetti-os

"What the..??" B knew it meant something was wrong but they couldn't quite put a finger on it...

Until a spot in the ground began to pulsate, as if something was trying to get out and make itself known.

"Holy- V WATCH OUT!" B yelled as she tackled V out of the radius.

A tendril bursts from the ground, the spot that was pulsating before, and attempts to grab whatever was unfortunate enough to end up in it's clutches.

That being B.

"N GET OUTTA THERE!!" And Uzi, as she tackled the frozen in fear N out of it's reach.

B and Uzi are grabbed by tendrils, and right after dragged into the depths of the flesh cave, screaming.

"UZI!!!" N screams, fear in his voice and his heart beating at it's fastest, meanwhile V is quiet, in shock from what she just witnessed...

They've both lost people they care about...

"Ow... Robo god my head..." Uzi said under her breath, slowly getting up from a rough fall...

"Uzi..? Are you okay..?" She heard a familiar voice speak to her, a worried tone in their voice... B???

"No way you're telling me that, strawberry... Yeah i'm fine, i've been through much worse..." Uzi got up and dusted herself off.

B sighed "Let's get this over with before any of us die here, no bonding things, capiche?"

"Alright alright, no need to get pissy over caring about me~" she said smugly before–

"I care because N cares, if he didn't you'd be dead meat the moment we met. He's my brother and a fucking ray of sunshine, so you better behave."

Woah

"..." Uzi didn't know what to feel or think of this... It hit way too hard to really know what to feel... Maybe something like sadness? Something similar...

But she's not a feelings person, she's an edgy tough fighter that became GOD some time ago! She's not gonna let that persona fall apart now!

"Gee alright..." was all she could muster, seeing no other choice of words to respond... Whatever that was.

B swapped their left hand with a flashlight, looking for some sort of exit or way forward...

And a way forward there is. In the shape of a drone.

A freakishly tall drone with a blank, empty visor, also a tattered, dark blue robe and grey spiky hair. It's him.

A song began, somewhere. A very corrupted, broken song, making the sight of him standing all the more sinister.

Excited. Here we go~. Smiley face

You found me!

I'm so glad!

And now

He crouched, going from standing tall to crawling on all fours.

We get to play!

Yay!

Every spoken word, he moved like his body was made of a rubber hose, at times even twitching and shaking.

My name is Pen, and you are Serial Designation B and Uzi Doorman

How does he know all that?!

"Wha- wha- wh- what are you?!" Uzi stammered from the sheer terror, whipping out her railgun as B showed off their right hand, the huge steel claws, and the red nanite acid tail, preparing themself to strike the moment Pen made any move... And subconciously using the other hand to put it in front of Uzi, protecting her.

What am i? Ahhh... Good question there, miss Doorman!

I'm a host of the Absolute Solver, it seems...

His head twitched and shook for a short moment...

And i sense quite a lot of it, too, coming from

He crawled closer, his body clicking like clockwork, somehow not getting sliced and diced by B... Turns out, they're frozen in fear too, shaking.

You

Miss Doorman

His blank, empty, dark visor stared into Uzi's core...

But enough chit chat!

He quickly shifted and thrashed about back away from the two.

Let's get started with the games!

Let's have some fun!

Let's play together!

Just us three!

It's going to be so much fun!

As Pen lifted a hand...

"NO!"

SLASH...

Ah

My hand

B cut it off

Turns out, B did indeed swing forward and cut off one of Pen's hands.

That's something!

Why the fuck does he act like it's nothing

B lunged forward, and got smacked away by the remaining hand of Pen, and said hand is blasted into oblivion by Uzi's railgun. Well. More like whole arm.

"Shit i missed!" She hissed, as she did indeed miss! You missed! How could you miss, he was three feet in front of you!

Rude

Uzi is grabbed by the previously chopped off hand and thrown away from himself like a kid's toy, sending her railgun away from it's owner.

Where did that hand come from?? Can he regenerate?!

No matter, it's a fight he's looking for then it's a fight he'll get...

B and Uzi stand back up to have a go again and let out a war cry as they run straight towards Pen.

LET'S PLAY, FREAK

It's a battle against just another liar.

When Pen is engaged in combat, all he does is scramble, thrash about, climb and crawl around like a spider and lunge forward when they're both lined up, causing both B and Uzi to get tackled and taken down.

When he is down, suddenly the room goes dark and both B and Uzi are grabbed and thrown away like plushies. And yet they keep getting back up to try again.

He likes to fuck with his prey, it seems...

At least it means Pen can be defeated.

Uzi, having landed conviniently perfectly from a throw, aimed her railgun at Pen once more, this time for the core. Which was hard to do, as his entire body moved like he was one rubber hose, thrashing about wildly and bending and shifting and whipping.

"Fuck!" Uzi shouted, which caused Pen to hear her cuss and grab her from afar as he threw B away.

Language, miss Doorman

I don't appreciate that kind of tone

I think i should punish you for that

And i know just what to do

Uh oh spaghetti-os.

"DO NOT TOUCH HER!"

SLASH...

B flew into the scene and chopped off the arm Uzi was trapped in, and suddenly it felt like time slowed down.

Oh holy shit.

The sight of B, in the air having chopped off one of Pen's arms, the one that held Uzi in his grasp, their hair flying in the wind of the momentum. That long, silver, fluffy, absolutely gorgeous hair.

...

B looked at her, apparently taking advantage of time having slowed down, and smiled so sincerely..? Why???

"[I gotcha]" their screen displayed.

She nodded and smiled back, as she fell and landed on her feet, and raised her railgun once more.

"B! Restrain him for me!"

"Copy that." Woah they love dropping that deep voice card don't they.

B, SOME-FUCKING-HOW, swapped their right hand for the laser and cut Pen's limbs off with it in the air in a half-moon swipe, and soon after they manage to pin him to the wall with their tail to his head.

Oh

Well

We had a good run

Well played, duo

See you another day

Bt Ofm kpplfc pm bs sgf kjsskf ovqokf hjqk, bjnjmh gfq spz bs gjt dpqf, gf efks, epq pmdf jm gjt kjef, xgpkf.

Boom

"Thanks for saving my ass back there..."

"It's nothing... Really, it's nothing, it means nothing-"

"Oh my robo GOD B COULD YOU STOP WITH THE TSUNDERE SHIT" B got startled at the sudden yelling from Uzi. They feel scolded now.

"You saved me and i saved you, we saved each other, because we both care about N and apparently each other too- if it's of any consolation i didn't want this either but does it look like i have control over my feelings?! No! No i don't!"

B looked on as Uzi went on her crazy tangent about feelings and reppression and so on so forth, essentially scolding them, and at some point...

"Okay i get it, now quiet! Christ you can be so annoying sometimes..."

...

...

...

Sigh

"Thanks, i guess... We made a good team..."

...

Uzi could only smile at that. They're right, they do make a good team...

"Yeah..."

"UZI!!!!!!"

Here comes big brother

UH OH SPAGHETTI-OS.

One mighty tackle hug full of love from a worried and happy N took her down once and for all! The evil is defeated! (No it's not, i'm being goofy here lol)

And now it's B's turn in getting taken down, from the small yet strong and feisty V, running full speed at B to give a tackle hug too, causing them both to fall down. V then proceeded to kiss the everloving fUCK out of B because god damn she missed them.

"Woag............" Is all B could muster.

"Are you okay Zi?! Are you hurt?! Traumatized?! Did someone try to do bonding things with you that wasn't B?!"

"I'm okay N i'm fine, heheh-" Uzi chuckled and then fell into a giggle fit when N began nuzzling into her neck.

...

Uzi looked at B, who was smiling at her once more. Surprised, then another sincere smile too.

[You did great]

[So did u]

[Thanks]

[Same]

[seduzist]

marriage lesson

alicent hightower x rhaenyra’s daughter! reader

cw. totally based on this drabble, but can be read individually. pseudo-incest smut but mentions of real incest (uncle-niece by arranged marriage), age gap (alicent is old enough to be reader’s mother), can be interpreted as being taken advantage of but it’s consensual so i will add dubcon just to be safe.

as not only a princess, but a targaryen, you knew you had your duties with the throne, doesn’t matter how much you tried to run and hide from it, it was useless, and the time finally came, viserys, the king himself, decided that a marriage between you, the loved daughter of rhaenyra targaryen, and aemond, his middle child, would seal the peace between his children and wife when he’s gone. you had no choice but do it, aemond wasn’t that bad, he always treated you with respect, respect he didn’t have for your bastard brothers and you resented him for it, but decided to ignore since you would have to marry him. you didn’t think many things would change between you after your marriage except for the fact that you would have to have his heir, to lay with him. and that’s exactly what made you nervous.

the anxiety running through your veins on the night before the marriage made you unable to sleep, so you thought that walk around the garden would help to calm your nerves, maybe even fully accept your undeniable future. you ordered your sworn sword to ignore your midnight walk, with the promise that you wouldn’t leave the castle. your steps silently echoed through the dark halls of the red fortress, trying to find anything that could take your mind off the day followed, until you saw the queen at the garden, sitting on a bench next to the middle tree.

“princess.” her soft voice reached your ears before you could think about going back to your bedroom, scared that she might be mad about your late night walks, but she seemed nothing more than pleased at the sight of you, she looked beautiful with her long hair down in curls falling over her back with her white nightgown exposing her arms and shoulders.

“your grace… i couldn’t sleep.” you said, taking a step closer to her, explaining yourself without any hesitation.

“it’s fine, it’s normal to be nervous before your marriage.” she scoffed, suggesting you to sit by her side with a hand gesture. you obeyed, feeling much more comfortable to be on her side, maybe comfortable enough to voice some of your thoughts.

“it’s not the marriage that bothers me… it’s the consumption of it.” you refused to look at her face, preferring to face the garden instead, but you were sure that she was smiling.

“what are you scared of?”

“my mother said it hurts the first time.” the queen let out a little chuckle at your response and you felt like an idiot for a second, before she speaks again, in a much lower tone, something different in her voice.

“indeed, it’s much easier for the man gain the pleasure in the first time than for the woman, perhaps… there’s something you can do that may ease the pain, and give you just as much satisfaction.” that’s when you face her, curiosity in your eyes while doing so.

“what that would be, my queen?”

she seemed very pleased by your question “we should not talk about such things here.” that’s what you remembered before end up in her chambers, almost begging her to teach you how to not feel pain during the act, her answer would be the relief of all the agony you felt the last days, you said, and the merciful queen couldn’t help but give in to your pleads.

“lay down on the bed, i’m gonna show you.” you obeyed immediately, waiting for her next instruction, but that didn’t come, instead, she sits by your side, looking at you for a minute or two, almost like she was in a intern battle, about to do something she could regret later, but soon enough her hand rest upon your leg, going up and hiking up your silk nightgown till your thighs, your entire body shivered at her touch, and she seemed just as much as affected as you. when her hand reached under your core, she stopped, breathing heavily, almost telling herself that was her last chance to stop, she didn’t.

“he’s gonna be on top of you, like this.” she opened your legs slowly and gently, positioning herself between them, but not laying down on top of you, unable to do such a thing, one of her hand held her body up and the other hand was touching you, watching carefully your expressions, mixed in shyness and nervousness, but she could tell you were aroused as her fingers pulled your underwear to the side, finally contacting your warm core. “oh gods…” she paused, whispering those words to herself, still unbelieving she was really doing it, but the whine you let out at the contact made her smile. “when he enters you… that’s when it hurts.” her voice was just above a whisper, if you were just a few more inches away, you couldn’t hear her, the whole atmosphere felt like a secret. “but then, if you touch yourself right here…” her middle finger made contact with your clit and your body had a entire reaction, you put your hand on her shoulder, by reflection, your mouth opened in a loud, surprised sigh, the queen’s smiled grew as she saw your reaction, she could feel her own excitement start to create a discomfort between her legs, but she ignored it.

her fingers started to rub your, once untouched, pussy, playing with your clit, rolling under her fingers in circle motions, you lets out moans under her, as a thin layer of sweat started to form on your skin, your reactions seemed to please the queen.

“see? how good it is? you can ease the pain, you can pleasure yourself.” her words were sincere but you wasn’t the one pleasuring yourself, no, it was her, your queen, right on top of you, her experienced fingers playing with your most sensitive part in the best way on the night before your marriage with her son. you could be naive, but not dumb, in someway, this was wrong, a sin, could be the reason why you were even more eager for it.

“feels really good, your grace.” the title slipped of your lips as a reminder of her place, of your place, but she couldn’t help herself at this point, she was dripping wet and your needy voice whispering those words felt intoxicating, a encouragement for her to continue, she approached her face of yours, and your immediate reaction was leaning in to kiss her, but you couldn’t reach, so you tried again, free from any shame, looking like a adorable desperate mess for her eyes, that’s when she gives in, not just kissing you, but claiming your lips, you were inexperienced, but learned quickly her pace as her tongue entered your mouth, exploring eagerly, you tasted like candy for her, the sweetest of the candies with a pinch of forbidden.

“gods, you’re gonna be the ruin of me.” she finally lets herself fall on top of you, whispering those words before kissing you again, your skins in much more contact, warm and sweaty, eager and hot, she was all over you, her fingers worked so well, her presence intoxicating all your senses, all you could feel was her, the pleasure she was giving you, the pleasure she felt just by touching you, you called the gods name, lost in your pleasure, but that was in vain, not even the gods could help you now, she would be the ruin of you.

[onthat611beat]

꒰ 🍰 ꒱꒱  ꣑୧ 7 𝒱AMP 𝓑ROTHERS X 𝒴OU ? !

𝓐KA .. 𝓓ARK 𝓜OON 𝓑OYS 𝓐S 𝒴OUR 𝓑FS !!

𝓗ELI

♥︎ The sweetest boyfriend ever.. have you seen the way he treats Sooha?

♥︎ Always exhausted after nightball practice but still makes a beeline for your dorm to hang out, help you with your homework.. and if you’re tired too, he’ll just give you the answers :P

♥︎ As calm and mature as Heli seems, he’s honestly a little puppy-like, always following you around, even if you don’t have classes together.

↳ Heli’s hands gently stroked your hair, running the soft strands through his fingers. He particularly loved when you wore your hair down, because it was easier for him to play with it. Truth be told, he felt at ease when he was with you. Heli forgot his schedule when he was with you as well, which is why he was shocked when you suddenly stopped and turned to stare at him.

“Ah.. what is it, princess?”

“Isn’t your class that way?”

♥︎ oh.. he loves calling you princess. if you know the lore, it’s not because you were a princess in your past life or something like my opp Sooha. he just finds it a cute nickname !!

♥︎ don’t be surprised when he suddenly starts showing up in all of your classes, by the way. it’s not like he threatened the teachers to switch him to your classes.

(the other 6 are under the cut!)

𝓙AAN

♥︎ since jaan is a lot like jay, i think he’d act a lot like him

♥︎ he always gives you his jacket, even when it’s hot out. he claims it’s so that no weirdos try and ask you out, but really in all honesty, his heart swells with pride seeing you in his clothes.

♥︎ holds your hand at every given opportunity. he just loves you sm!!

♥︎ possessive, not in the stereotypical “touch her and i’ll kill you 🐺🐺🐺⛓️⛓️🥀” type of way (well maybe in his head) but more of a “yeah she has a boyfriend. 😐” type of way.

↳ “Do you ever get dress coded for not having your jacket?” You suddenly blurted out. Jaan, who had been sitting next to you, seemed caught off guard by the question.

“Well, no, not really. But I’m sure you know that my brothers and I are favored around Decelis, even by the teachers.” He responded, although looking to the side as he talked, as if attempting to recall any memories he could relay to you. Afterwards, though, he cracked a grin, taking one hand and gently ruffling your hair. “But even if I did, I wouldn’t mind. You’re worth more to me than a good school record.”

♥︎ pats your head a looot. even if you’re taller than him. plus….. he coddles you so much. you can do no wrong in his eyes.

𝓙INO

♥︎ very reckless. loves you so much.

♥︎ loves when you come to watch him practice, will do stupid and risky moves just to impress you, even if he ends up falling flat on his face.

♥︎ breaks rules all the time just to be with you!!

♥︎ comes to class with you and will sit in your partner’s seat even if that person has to move

♥︎ hops onto your dorm’s balcony late at night to hang out with you, pounds on your door and makes you groan loudly and shove your head into your pillow bc YOU WANNA SLEEP !!!!

↳ “Um.. Jino?” Your boyfriend turned to look at you, green eyes glistening as he gave you his full attention. “Don’t you have history right now?” You addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that Jino had kicked out the boy that usually sat next to you without any remorse.

“Yeah, I do.” He sat back and nodded, giving you a serious and non-apologetic stare, as if he was waiting for you to try him.

“.. Nevermind..” You felt a slight chill go down your spine, and just looked away. Maybe it was better to just not say anything at all.

𝓢OLON

♥︎ oh boy

♥︎ tsundere … usually i don’t use that word but we’ve all read the webtoon.

♥︎ was shellshocked when you confessed bc he’s always so aloof and mean!! but he didn’t complain .. and he’s the same way as your bf

♥︎ “i didn’t try and walk with you! i just have a class over here.” meanwhile his class is in another building

♥︎ is actually so sweet and doting, but all of that is hidden behind his shy and standoffish demeanor. he’s such a sweetie though..

↳ “Ki—wait—kiss you? I— I.. “ Solon stuttered, blood rushing to his pale face, flushing it red. You stood there in front of him, tapping your lips expectantly. Was a goodbye kiss before classes started such a tall order? You pouted, and Solon tried to reason: “You.. you can’t just ..”

Getting impatient, you stood on your toes and grabbed Solon’s face without warning, pressing your lips onto his. He froze up for a moment, but let his hands fall down and find your waist. Solon was sweet, you just had to give him a little push to make him act like it.

𝓢HION

♥︎ oh boy x2

♥︎ if you thought heli was clingy, wait until you meet shion

♥︎ pouts and will even cry if you don’t hang out with him in between classes

♥︎ i talked about confessing for solon: for shion, he didn’t even confess, just kissed you one day in front of everyone while you were walking to math

♥︎ is so delusional, holds hands with you as he skips down the hallway with you walking behind him, a little embarrassed at how he just cuts through people

♥︎ wants to get married and have kids 💔

↳ “.. Shion, what is this?” You deadpanned as your boyfriend dragged you into a seemingly expensive store. Okay.. you had to admit that you felt a bit bad for saying that: his eyes shined so prettily that you couldn’t say no. With a sigh, you just let him drag you through the doors. Shion immediately tapped his finger on one of the displays.

“Give me your hand..” He gave you puppy eyes, but you replied with an almost warning tone. “Shion..” But he was just too convincing.

With a sigh, you let his hand wrap around your wrist, pressing it against the display case so he could imagine it.

“What are you doing?”

“Just wondering if this ring would fit you.”

♥︎ you thought the marriage thing was just a small headcanon? nope. you two will get married, shion won’t settle for anything else.

𝓙AKAH

♥︎ jakah, like jungwon, would definitely be very chivalrous.

♥︎ suuuch a gentleman!!

♥︎ buys you huge bouquets, pays for your lunch—he’ll even give you his nightball uniform. smiles and brags to his brothers when you walk around in his shirt.

↳ “Hey, hey Jino. You see her?” Jakah nudged his brother with his elbow, pointing at you, who was talking to Heli. The red-haired boy narrowed his eyes, scanning the long-sleeved shirt that was likely a gift that Jakah was about to brag about to him. It read: JAKAH 4 — DECELIS ACADEMY.

“Yeah, yeah, I see it.” Jino grumbled. He looked away, but Jakah pointed again, obviously excited.

“I gave it to her—are you looking?”

Jino let out a groan. Jakah was so affectionate towards you that it was annoying.

♥︎ jakah is also huge on physical touch. he always has an arm wrapped around your shoulder at the least — and he’ll carry you around bridal style at the most. even if you get embarrassed, he’ll only laugh and comment how cute you are when you hide your face in his chest.

♥︎ just like in the webtoon, takes your safety super seriously. you can’t go anywhere alone, especially since (non-sentient) vampires are so rampant .. jakah just can’t take the risk.

^ think of that time when heli said, “[…] i can’t leave sooha’s safety up to chance.”

𝓝OA

♥︎ really aloof, but unlike solon, he isn’t a tsundere type. actually—noa is that type that’s cold to everyone except for you.

♥︎ like jakah, he’s big on physical touch but it’s more natural.. and more subtle. holds hands with you wherever you two go, has an arm wrapped around your waist in public..

♥︎ you thought i’d make a fanfic without someone’s hair being played with ?? nope. noa always invites you over for sleepovers.. loves playing with your hair as you sleep on his chest <3 sings you to sleep until you’re softly snoring on top of him.

↳ “… It’s like a po-oh-oh-laroid love, s—ah..” Noa’s voice faltered and came to a stop. After only a few minutes of singing to you, your eyes had shut, and you’d fallen asleep on top of his chest .. once again. Your cheek was squished against him, head slightly rising and falling as his chest did. Noa found you adorable.

Small grin forming on his face, Noa reached out—carefully, so carefully—to gently stroke your hair, fingers weaving through the strands, cautious to not wake you. He loves nights like this — it made his heart swell with affection just from being able to hold you like this. These were moments that made him realize how genuinely in love he was with you.

𝓣AGS ノ @strxwberriiwithchocolate @superjellyfishhat ask 2 join !

a/n : i revised some small details 9/22/24 !!

[romana-after-dark]

Rooms on Fire: Losing My Religion

Dark!Santiago Garcia x Fem!Reader

Dark!Francisco Morales x Fem!Reader

Dark!William Miller x Fem!Reader

Dark!Benjamin Miller x Fem!Reader

Also: FishBen, and an assortment of other M/M relationships (no Millercest). Everyone is Bisexual

Series Masterlist: Main Masterlist

Spotify playlist

Summery: Madonna has to make a stand.

Warnings and Content:

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT

DUB CON MOSTLY but there WILL BE NON CON. Major character deaths, forced breeding, physical abuse, brainwashing, manipulation, violence, gore, alcoholism/addiction, BIG OLE BLASPHEMY WARNING like this cult appropriates a lot of religious themes and they call reader their Madonna, Santi is called the Pope, like all that stuff. However, this is a cult so I mean. It happens. None of it are my thoughts on religion or meant to make fun of religion or demonize religious people. Disgusting views on virginity. Attempted rape outside the boys. T*m warning. Age gap. Creepy terrible men. Non-reader rape, dub con, violence. Covert incest, massive mommy issues, sexual abuse all around, past grooming by parental figure. no CSA but the victim isn't much older. some Bates Motel type shit. I cannot properly warn you for everything, without just telling the story but consider this a major warning that there are dark dark themes. No one involved here is morally clean, and who you perceive as the good guy cannot be relied on. Don't come to my story and say im romanticizing these things until at least the story ends.

Extra warnings for chapter: Pretty standard tbh

3.6k words

A/N Please know tags have been spotty so check and make sure you're caught up!

"That's me in the corner That's me in the spot-light Losing my religion Trying to keep up with you And I don't know if I can do it Oh no I've said too much I haven't said enough I thought that I heard you laughing I thought that I heard you sing I think I thought I saw you try." ~Losing my Religion, R.E.M

“Will, take her.” Santiago orders Will, and the stronger man tries to take you away from where you cling to Frankie.

Frankie, however, steps away. “No! You aren’t taking her from me!” He looks back and forth between Will, Ben, and Santi. Through the silence, they can all here Iris wailing over Rey’s body in the kitchen. “You’re all fucking insane! None of you get her!”

Ben scoffs. “She doesn’t belong to you, Frank.”

“YES SHE DOES! She’s my WIFE!”

Will steps forward, taking a hand on your leg assertively, looking Frankie in the eyes. His dominance quells the room. “She’s my wife too, Frankie. Let me take her.” In a lower voice, he adds just to Frankie. “It’s gonna be easier if you just go, you know that. I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

Frankie glances at Santi, rage bubbling in him. Will was right. “Sent someone to get Rey’s body, help Iris move him. She’s… she’s not gonna wanna leave his body. We are not making her clean up his blood the way she did Jonah’s, got it?” Francisco rarely spoke this firmly… but he cared about Iris and he wanted Rey’s body respected.

“I will, I promise.” Frankie watched as you left the room in Will’s arms, crying into his chest.

*

Francisco was dragged down the halls, Ben trailing after then after being told to follow, Santi yanking along Frankie’s still-soar arm.

“Show down! Ow!”

“Shut the fuck up!” When they got to Frankie’s bedroom, Santi told Ben to stay outside until he was called. When the door closed, he delivered a crisp slap across Frankie’s face.

“Shit!” Frankie cried, holding his face and tasting blood.

Grabbing his shirt, Santi shoves Ben against the door, making sure Ben hears every Santi is doing to Frankie that he can’t stop. 

“Don’t you EVER disrespect me like that again!” He screams, slapping Frankie again and making his head lul to the side. “I AM YOUR GOD!”

Frankie shoves him back. “YOU”RE MY BROTHER! This whole thing is FUCKED Santi!”

Santi went for Frankie’s shirt, tearing at the fabric and buttons as Frankie tried to fight him off. There was a scuffle, slaps to faces and arms and chest before his shirt was pulled off him, showing the scars on Frankie’s arms. Scars that matched Santi’s. Neatly in a line, they were scabbed and new, bruising still around the wounds, each an inch or two long. Santiago pressed their arms together. 

“Blood brothers, Frank. Blood brothers. You were made for me, I was made for you, you know that, don’t you?”

Frankie winces at the memory, how Santiago laid him down with a knife, cut into their skin together until they bled. On a bed of blood they fucked, sealing their commitment to each other, or that’s what Santi thought the ritual meant. The whole time, Frankie tried to imagine it was Ben.

Santi didn’t let go of his arm, fingers tracing up and down the scarred skin, picking at a scab until it bled. “You’re mine, Frank. Certainly not Madonna’s. She’s here to have our child. And you’re not Ben’s either.”

His eyes went wide at that, going into defense. Deny, deny, deny, or Ben would be dead.

“Santi, no, we’re not- AH!” Santiago ripped the scab, causing blood to spill out.

“Don’t lie to me! I know you fuck him behind my back. Is that why you care so much about Saha? You fucking him too, just like Madonna?”

Bent over in pain holding his arms, Frankie looks up at Santi in anguish, tears in his eyes as he screams. “HE WAS MY FRIEND! HE WAS HERS! FOR FUCK SAKE SANTIAGO NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SEX!” He stood up straight, speaking strong even as he cried. “He loved Iris! He loved Iris only and Ben killed him! That girl lost her father and now is sobbing because of her lover's dead body!”

Santiago scoffs. “That’s your fucking boy toy, not mine. I don’t control Ben.”

“That’s the problem! You and Beatri indulged his every whim, Will protected him from any consequence and now he’s a spoiled slut!”

“And what do you think you are? You live in comfort, in excess even, you get fucked by me, Ben, Will, even sliding your cock into Madonna’s little cunt for hours in those meadows because I allow it! You’re just a cockdumb, petulant child who's mad because the world isn’t perfect! You’re no better.”

Frankie locked his jaw, staring hard. “Yes, I am.”

When Santi closed in on him, Frankie braced for impact. Instead, when their bodies were crowded together, Santi simply opened the door. Ben sat there ont he floor, legs pulled up to his chest like a child whose parents were fighting, looking up at the door with wide blue eyes.

“You hear all that, Benny?”

Ben blinked, “Yeah.” He stands up, his long legs wobbly.

“Ben…” Frankie wanted to say he didn’t mean it, they were all fucked… but Rey’s blood still covered him. It was an odd sight on a boy who looked so young and innocent when he really wanted too. Or needed to.

Terror filled him, afraid Santi was going to hurt Benny, and despite just watching him kill a man in cold blood Frankie felt the need to protect him. He looked so much like that young underweight half-frozen boy in Will’s arms so many years ago. What happened to them all?

Instead of harming him, Santi beconned him in the room and kissed him so tenderly, Frankie hasn’t seen it since they were teens promising to be different from Beatriz. 

Ben made no effort to rebuff. He was taken aback at first of course, this was not the response they were expecting from him. He locked eyes with Frankie as Santi deepened the kiss, and narrows his eyes at his lover. Ben does not take kindly to being insulted. Arms snake around Santi’s middle, Ben grinding his cock against Santi’s stomach, moaning into his mouth. Frankie heard drops of blood drip from his arm into the wood floor. He needed to wrap it up. Instead, Santi told Frankie to get in the chair. 

*

It took everything in Santi to not watch Frankie watching them. To not see his face as he slid inside Ben’s asshole, to not see how much it pissed him off when he made the younger man moan as he sucked on a nipple. He didn’t need to look, however, because he knew, he knew just how badly it was angering Frankie, how it hurt him. Santi fucked Ben the way he knew Frankie liked, slow and tender, lots of kisses. He knew Frankie longed for those soft days so long ago, teenagers sneaking around, falling in love in closets and up in trees. Before Madonna came and fucked everything up.

That’s why they were made for each other. Raised together, brothers, as close and two people could get. From the craddle to the grave, Francisco Morales belonged to him. They were meant to be, their bodies were created by Beatriz to fit together, to bring each other pleasure. Frankie was his eve, the mother, the god of nature and fertility and-WHY COULDNT HE GET PREGNANT?!??!? None of this would have happened if Mother God had allowed them this, if he could fill his lover with his hot seed and create the savior Santiago couldn’t be. They could birth the savior together, Mary and Joseph, Frankie as the Madonna instead of that cunt causing all the problems. 

Santi was sure not to harm Ben, opening him up slowly as the boy moaned like a slut with his asshole clenching on Santi’s tongue, fingers poking their way inside in contrast to the way he liked to ram into Frankies cunt. 

Ben was so tender, so sensitive, his cockhead beat red and slick with precum as Santi slid his thumb around it. He repeatedly pulled back the skin, making Ben moan in wonton madness. He gave Ben the gentle love making he knew his Frank desired, the kind of soft touches Santi hadn’t been giving lately. No, ever since Madonna came he was ravenous. He didn’t like watching anyone inside Frankie, making exceptions on occasion for Will and Ben because he thought he could trust them.

Despite not being threatened or even ordered to watch, when Santiago turned to the chair he saw Frankie watching. santi knew Frankie liked to be watched, liked to be heard, so he wondered how being put as the watcher affected him. Frankie’s face was set into a hard glare, eyes red and burning with tears and his knuckles going white with clenched fists.

Still, his cock was hard in his pants.

*

You cried. And cried. And cried. 

Hysterics paused only long enough for Will to occasionally get some water in you as he held you close. It had been hours at this point, unsure what is happening to Francisco, what was happening to Iris, what would happen to Rey’s body.

Dead. He was dead. Your best friend was dead, Jonah was dead and Iris hated you. Everything was over now. You hold your stomach, realizing how disconnected you were from this baby in you. At month 7, there was a whole child and yet you felt like… like it was in you, not a part of you. There, not connected. You loved the baby, of course you did, you were its mom but… why didn’t you feel like it? Lately, you’d felt like you were just… here to do a job.

Eventually you calmed down, exhausted from the hysterics, and Will held you close to his chest. He calmed you down slowly, gentle hands brushing over your body. You could not fathom how the hands you’ve felt healing your body were the same as the fist that beat Jonah to death.

“Will?” You ask, listening to the beat of his heart. It was strong.

“Yes, my Madonna?”

“What happens now?” You couldn’t tell if he was pausing to think or in confusion, so you elaborate. “Jonah is dead. Rey is dead. I can never see Santi and Ben the same again-”

He sat up a bit to look at you. “You forgave Santi?”

Was Will really this naive? Really? Santiago had violently raped you, allowed your pregnant body to be burned and Will thought you forgave him? You and your baby could have died, and he thought you forgave him? Will was who you trusted. No matter what happened, you’d always trusted your Will, your smart handsome brave husband, your God of War and Medicine, your protection and your healing. 

You can hear Jonah’s voice in your head, begging you to have a shred of survival instinct, to trust your gut.

For the first time, you lie to him.

“I did…” You fib, just a little. “It’s just been a lot lately and… he did something bad. I just can’t forget all of that.”

He nods in understanding. “I get it…  I do.” His fingertips trail over your scarred skin. “To answer your question… I don’t know. I really don’t but… we’re married, we all love you and I know, I know Ben messed up today…”

Messed up? Ben killed your Rey, an innocent man. Your friend. Frankie’s friend. Dead and cut up on the kitchen floor where Iris, for all you know, is still sobbing.

You feel the walls coming up around Will. 

He continues. “But we’ll find a way to move on as a family.”

You were not a family with these people.

“Yeah, yeah okay.” 

*

Iris fell asleep on the floor, durk curls caking in blood as she rested on her lover's stabbed-open chest. It didn't matter. She wasn’t going to get up.

They won. Those fuckers won.

Santiago had beaten her into submission, cutting up parts of her she’d never had the chance to show Reyansh.

Ben raped her for years and years and year and Iris managed to hold on because she had Reyansh and to a certain extent Jonah. Jonah was disappointing, Jonah’s shortcomings were clear and she would never forgive what he tried to do to that poor girl, whatever it was, but the day he died she lost one more person.

But Iris wouldn’t clean up Reyansh’s blood the way she had to Jonah’s. She’d die here in his arms. If Ben wanted to touch her again, he could fuck her dead, rotting corpse. Iris doubted Ben would let anything as simple as death set her free.

*

When she woke up, she was being pulled away from Rey’s dead body. Iris screamed, but that didn’t matter to anyone anymore. Another few guards start pulling Rey’s body away, congealed blood dragging out from under him, and that’s when Iris started fighting. They couldn’t take him. They couldn’t have him. He was hers.

“I’m sorry.” The guard behind her said. Scott, a nice, naive young man. Many guards were loyal to Santi above all else, but Will held the most control. Still, Rey was well liked. With the exception of those who were hardcore true believers amongst the guard who knew Santi’s recent turn on Reyansh, Iris had no doubt they were, actually sorry. It didn’t change the fact she was being separated from her lover even in death.

*

“Just do what he says” Frankie tells Iris, hands planted firmly on her shoulders, eyes intently boring into hers. “He’s gonna fucking kill me for coming down here but Iris, you have to just do it.”

Her eyes burned with tears of anger as she stood near the door to the backyard, underneath the balcony. “What’s happening, Frankie.”

He closed his eyes a moment as he heard the door unlocking. “I can’t lose you too, Iris. Please. I need you with me. I don’t have Jonah, I don’t have Rey-”

“I don’t either!” Iris spat. “What makes you think I want to live after watching that?” It had been hours since she watched her rapist stab her Rey to death, powerless as Frankie held her back. Ben would have killed her too. Should have. 

“I need help! I can’t keep her alive alone, Iris! We have to be a team, for each other, for Madonna, for our ch-”

The door opened, Will bringing Madonna down with a guard. You looked awful. He hadn’t seen you since Will took you away, dealing with Santi’s shit… Blood was still on your nightgown.

“Madonna…” Frankie was no longer pleaded with Iris, went to hug his wife. Will instructed the guard not to harm Madonna in the slightest, and Iris appreciated Frankie’s addendum not to hurt her either, but Iris knew she was a second thought.

“Francisco, what’s happening?” Your hands pressed to his chest, looking up at him. 

Frankie told you the same thing he told her, to just do as we’re told and it would be okay. Iris had a sick, sick feeling. “Trust me.” He said, hugging her. He looked at Iris. “Please.” Then made his exit with Will. Iris heard crowds outside, and wondered what sick, perverted show Santi was going to make you do now? Would he make you hurt her? That was fine by Iris. 

You turned to her, those scared eyes chipping away at the ice in her heart. Iris knew you didn’t mean to get Rey killed, and blaming you for Jonah’s death was unfair and cruel… but she needed to be angry. 

“Iris…” You whimper, wet eyes trickling tears down your pretty face. You held your stomach in fear.

When the door opens, you and Iris are quickly ushered out into the courtyard where hundreds of people looked on. Taking in the scene, Iris heard your heavy breathing. What she didn’t need, was you having a panic attack… When she turned to see your horror stricken face, Iris couldn’t help feel that ice melt a little more. Fuck, you were young. 23, just a child. You deserved better. Iris took your hand.

But you were looking past her. “Iris…” You said with wide eyes. Iris turned around.

On the courtyard, Rey’s body was tied to an X on top of a funeral pyre, strung up and limp and lifeless. She felt sick to her stomach, turning up towards where the four wanna be gods sat upon their ivory tower, daring to look upon her love. She couldn’t read their expressions, but watched as someone lit the pyre. Reyansh’s body went up in flames.

Santiago spoke not to them, but to the crowd. “Reyash Saha is guilty of high treason! As is custom, those closest must dance as he burns. Not even the Madonna is above the will of Divine Mother.”

He emphasized those last words, Iris knew, to put you in your place. You weren’t a goddess to him, you weren’t his mommy dearest. You were a womb.

The music started up.

“DAAAANCE!!!!” He screamed down to you both, and as the smell of burnt flesh filled the yard, you began to dance. It was scared, it was erratic, it was for your life and the life of your child. Iris understood that fear. But she wasn’t going to dance. It’s been a while since the last public burning, 2 years, she thinks, but she’d been at plenty, danced in several. This is not how it was done.

Firstly, this was supposed to be execution. You didn’t burn dead bodies. If a traitor was dead already, the close family and friends were questioned but there was no grand show.

If this were a proper burning, there was a ceremony, there were prayers to Divine Mother, chants.

The yard would be filled with everyone the traitor knew. Most of the guardsmen would be here for Reyansh, the house laborers, townsfolk… not just trying to terrifying to women. If the Madonna isn’t above it, Francisco shouldn’t be either.

No, this was just a show for the girl.

“Iris!” You grab onto her. “You need to dance!” Your words were broken and desperte, but Iris shrugged you off. “PLEASE!” You sob, grabbing her hands to force her but Iris shoved you back.

“I WON”T BE MADE TO DANCE AS MY HUSBAND BURNS!”

“But-” You reach for her, but she slaps your hand away. If the guard cared about the abuse of the Madonna, they didn’t care. The music was too loud to hear even shouting.

“Tell me, is there anything in the world that could convince you to dance as Frankie burned?” The image horrified you, but you remained resolute.

“My baby! Please I know you can’t understand but I need you, I can’t lose anyone else- IRIS PLEASE JUST DANCE!” You scream, pulling on her.

Iris grabbed your shoulders, stopping you. “I’m pregnant too.”

You were frozen in stunned silence. “You… Rey…”

But Iris shakes her head. “I never had sex with him. Ben fucked everyone under the sun and I didn’t wanna chance giving him anything… But I told him, I broke down and told him… he’d figured it out.” Iris feels the tears coming, but forces them down. Don’t let them see you cry. Hadn’t she told you that before? “Rey said… said he’d raise it as his own. That he’d take me away and now he’s dead. And those men up there-” She pointed to the balcony. “Are why. I won’t tell you what to do, because you have your own child to think of, you are much further along, but me?” She pointed to her chest covered in Rey’s blood. “I refuse to give them anymore satisfaction. They cannot take my dignity. I simply won’t let them.”

*

Santiago watched from the balcony, smug as Madonna started dancing. Jesus she was pathetic. He expected Iris to not dance, giving him a reason to kill the brat finally. Maybe he’d take her for a little spin to see what Benny was so gunho about. But Madonna? Weak little thing like that had been trying to play big girl recently, acting tough, testing her boundaries like a fucking teenager and thinking her status protected her. It didn’t. But look at her now, dancing around as her best and probably only friend burned, just like she did, just like her paintings, just like her dad. 

It was amusing watching you try to save Iris. Your empathy was something that he was attracted to. You were sweet, he liked watching you paint. If you had behaved, he could have lived a whole life with you here with him, his Madonna, raising the savior for his roll… But no, you had to have a temper tantrum. You had to whore around as if 4 cocks weren’t enough. And yet, when it came time to really be brave…. You were like a little puppet on a string and he could toy with you as much as he-

What were you doing?

“Santi…”  Francisco tried to sooth as Santi’s knuckles turned white, gripping the balcony with a force as the sound of the music swelled around him. You stopped. Iris put her stupid fucking hands on you the way she put her stupid fucking hands on Ben’s body and tainted you. He watched with rage building inside. She was standing too fucking close.

“Will.” Santi barked, not taking his eyes off you two. Will was the most observant. Frankie could be naive and Ben wasn’t paying attention to most things. “Are they fucking?”

He swore he heard Will sigh. “No, Santi. Jesus fucking christ.”

Then they were conspiring against him. The two girls stilled completely. And then they turned around, looking up at him.

Santiago looked right back. They were fucking dead.

Okay!!! were so close to the end! I think it flashback chapter, then the finale might have to be split lololol.

Not a super eventful chapter, but I thought things needed to breathe before the last pieces. Still, I think enough is here to entertain!!

Thank you to everyone who has stuck through all the hiatuses. Ily!!!

If anyone is interested, I just finished my finale of Blessed Be the Fruit which took over a year for a short series. sorry ;-;

anyway its done!

Love you all soooooo much!

If you like Logan Howlett, check out my new series Be Quiet

Poll time!

LOVE YOU ALL!

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[beauzos]

do you ever just remember stuff you used to watch as a kid and go hunting for it. i just remembered a bunch of old warrior cats videos i used to watch in like 2009 and started watching them and god. i still feel so much affection for these videos. but also, like. you just had to be there i don't think anyone in 2024 is going to get anything from watching demonslyr Warrior Cats spoof vids if you hadn't seen them as a child in 2009 you feel me

[heyitsphoenixx]

.

[winter-spark]

I notice that even though Citron's my fave, I spend more time here talking about Orange and Navel.

I think it's fear of being wrong.

[szappan]

i miss gill & gilbert :-(

[allthatdivides2]

my brain telling me to go back to reading reddie fic 24/7 by making me dream about them last night

[deadsetobsessions]

He could overlook a lot of things, but this was getting ridiculous. You’d think seasoned vigilantes would have better excuses prepared, but Danny had caught that flash of panic that crossed Tim’s face as Danny came face to face with Tim dragging an unconscious Steph to her designated room in the manor.

“Uh.”

“Danny! Uh, Stephanie brained herself- uh, sliding down the bannisters and- pleasedon’ttellBruce.”

Danny blinks, staring at Tim and then very pointedly, very slowly, turned his head back towards the direction he came from: the main hall… where the bannisters were. He wonders what vigilante hijinks they were trying to hide from B this time.

Tim coughs, trying to inch Stephanie away. “Uh. She was doing… cartwheels?”

Danny let his eyes slowly take in the bruises that were clearly not from “cartwheeling in the mansion” on the both of them. There’s a huge bandaged cut on Steph’s forearm and a giant bruise on the edge of Tim’s jaw. Tim’s face twitches nervously, not that anyone else would have noticed- except Danny has enhanced ghost senses and could feel the panic coming off of his adopted brother.

“You know…” Shit, what does he do? Not knowing would be so much easier if these idiots gave him good excuses! “I don’t think I want to know what you two have been up to… but should I be worried for your, uh, physical health?”

“Nope!”

“… Okay.” He says. Tim opens his mouth to make further excuses but Danny adds quickly, “But don’t tell me, because if Bruce asks, I want plausible deniability.”

Cartwheels, Danny’s ghostly ass. Luckily, this show of doubt reaffirms Tim’s belief that Danny believes them all of the other times. Danny grins inwardly, planning capitalizing on the guilt that flashed over Tim’s face.

“Deal.”

“Want help?” The halfa points at Steph, who’s still being dragged over the carpet by a noodle armed Tim. Danny knows Tim’s strong, he’s a vigilante, but it’s funny watching him pretend to struggle.

“Please. I’m so tired right now.” He looks it too. Danny’s brows furrow with genuine concern when he takes in Tim’s drowned raccoon look. He picks up Steph, firmly removing her from Tim’s suddenly weak grip. Being careful to avoid her injuries, Danny nods at the door to her room. Tim cracks it open and does a little showy gesture towards the inside.

“C’mon, we’ll tuck her in and then I’ll tuck you in.”

“What, you don’t have to do that.”

“If you don’t let me tuck you in and make sure you sleep, I’ll tell Alfred who really accidentally poured boiling hot coffee on his azaleas last week. And I’ll sic Dick on you and tell him you haven’t been sleeping enough.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Tim grumbles. “But fine. It’s really not my fault I’m this tired. A missing spleen is hard to handle, you know.”

“Yeah, missing an organ sucks,” Danny says, shit eating grin hidden long enough to catch the contemplative bloodhound look that passes over Tim’s face.

“Which- uh, which one of your organs is missing?”

“Liver.” Danny says, remembering the flashes of pain. He tilts his head away to hide the grin at Tim’s panicked face.

When he tucks Tim in, he pretends to believe Tim’s sleeping act and left his room while mumbling about the Wayne’s clumsiness and bruises and stocking up on bruise cream. He couldn’t even enjoy Tim’s floundering, this time, worried as he is.

——

“Brother.” Danny half turns his head, just to beam a sunny smile at Cass. He signs an exuberant hello. The halfa hangs up his coat as he addresses his adopted sister.

“Cass! What’s up?”

“Dinner.” She smiles back, signing that Alfred wanted them to the dinning room post haste. The main dining room, because rich people were fruit loops and Batman is totally included. Cassandra looks down and gasps.

What…?

Oh. Fuck. Danny glances down. He genuinely forgot about that.

“Huh.”

“Okay?” Suddenly, Cass is right next to him, hand reached out and hovering over the actual knife Danny forgot was sticking out of him. At least it’s where his liver should be, so he won’t have to pretend.

“Oh. Yeah, I’m good. Don’t have a liver.” Danny decides on the spot that he’s not gonna mess with Cass. She smiled the same as him. “Got mugged on the way back but I think they said I could keep the knife, right?”

“Danny.” She’s frowning at him. He feels like he just kicked tiny Cujo. But he doesn’t feel bad enough to blurt everything out.

“Here. You can have it if you want?” Danny casually pulls out the knife and holds the wound together with his bare hands. Cass looks more alarmed. She bodily picks up Danny and starts running.

“Woah!”

Cass throws him at Alfred, gently.

“Miss Cassandra! Why, I never-!” Alfred pauses in surprise.

“Uh. Wow, Cass. You’re really strong.” Danny pipes up, hand still over his gushing wound.

She ignores him, pointing at Danny and telling Alfred, “Hurt. Got mugged. Dumb.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault Gothamites are ready to jump people at any moment. Besides, it’s daytime. It’s not like the vigilante furries are out to save my butt. I think I did really well coming back safe, you know?”

“Hurt. Forgot the knife. Was in him.”

“Master Danny!”

Danny pouts. He also knows there’s a discreet camera in the corners of the sitting room, so he’s definitely hoping he could phase into the cave when Barbara eventually tells the group that he called them “vigilante furries.”

Alfred clucks his tongue and set to work patching him up. Danny tries not to bask in the careful way Alfred tended to his wounds. It reminds him too much of Jazz, if Jazz was British and a man with greying hair.

But because they were watching him and he was watching them in return, Danny noticed the moment Alfred’s hands stalled and Cass’ gaze got intense. What now…?

Oh, fuck, his vivisection scar. Oops. Danny smiled, channeling Dani (his lovely clone sister) at her most innocent.

Cass smiled back, just as sunnily, fists tightening at her side in repressed fury.

——

“Cass? Why’d you call us?”

“Yeah, baby bat. I got a couple o’ smugglers to talk to.”

Cass paces.

“What is it, Cassandra?” Damian tuts impatiently.

“Danny. Has… scars. Autopsy. But was struggling. When cut.”

“What.”

“A vivisection, Master Jason.” Alfred’s voice was crisp and eerily cold. His hands are folded, rage only held back by his sheer will and a well practiced sense of propriety.

“We find. Who hurt him,” Cass snarls. “We. End.”

Jason’s eyes glint green, hands going to his guns. “Fine. By. Me.”

“It does tie in with the dead comment. I wonder what happened to him.” Tim clacks away at the bat computer, furiously looking into the matter already. Bruce has taken to prowling, stressed out at the prospect of one more of his children- not a vigilante at that- getting hurt the way Jason had. Worse, even. A vivisection. He was alive, dissected. Aware enough to struggle. Dick looked like he was torn about hunting down and lunging at whoever hurt Danny to rip their throats out with his bare teeth versus the urge to go back up to the manor and wrap Danny in bubble wrap.

In the corner, Danny was having a quiet breakdown because he came here to watch them react to vigilante furries, not offering to murder the people who vivisected him. What the fuck?? He ran his hands through his hair, invisible.

——

“Oh, by the way, we should consider more daytime shifts.”

“Why?” Spoiler asks Barbara.

“Danny got mugged. And called us the nightly furries.”

“The fuckin’ what-?” Jason chokes out, laughing. Bruce stops his pacing, body language becoming slightly offended.

Danny muffles a laugh only Alfred would have heard.

[yeyinde]

bos taurus | dogmeat series pt., i

mafia butcher Simon Riley x Reader

You don't question your brother when he sends you to drop off packages to his friends, but when the enforcer for the 141 shows up to teach the small-time dealer selling on their turf a lesson, you realize there are different ways to pay someone back with pounds of flesh.

(OR: your brother owes them, and Ghost is content to let you settle the debt. after all, if you wanted freedom, then you shouldn't have caught the eye of the butcher of the 141, should you?)

18+ SMUT. noncon. objectification. marking. kidnapping. threats of violence. unsafe sex (manipulation into unprotected sex). rough sex. size difference. breathplay. 10k of foreplay. light pussy slapping. overstimulation. mafia au.

SERIES MASTERLIST | AO3

The goal is to be as quick and discreet as possible. 

In and out, he says, looping the baggie around his index finger. Inside, a snowfall of white powder settles at the bottom. 

Meth this time. Oxytocin the last. 

He ties it tight before giving the bag a quick shake, breaking up the clumps. Satisfied with the way it looks, he turns toward you. Levels you with a sombre look, the picture of a concerned older brother. 

You almost fall for it. Believe it. But the clouded, flat edge to his gaze undercuts his worry for what it really is. A farce. 

“And if it seems sketchy—”

—run.

But your knees are locked, soles glued to the pavement. You can't move even though everything is screaming at you to flee. 

The problem, maybe, is that there's nowhere to go. Escape cut off, filled by a body, a man—even though the idea, the mere notion, of thinking this behemoth as human, flesh and bone; blood and tissue, is laughable when he's so clearly a beast. A monster. 

He fills up your field of vision. Your line of sight was eclipsed by the thickness of his waist, the broad expanse of his shoulders. Thighs that are as wide as the trunk of a tree. Arms boxing you in. A prison of obsidian. A black shadow. 

In the panic that surfaces, surging to the top like an oil spill, you catch a pocket where he doesn't root. A small alcove between the bend of his elbow and the slot of his knee perched against the wall. Enough room for you to—

“Wouldn't do tha’ if I were you.” 

His voice seems to shake the earth, rolling out of his broad chest like the low, brassy roar of a lion; a rumbling thunderclap. 

You feel sick—

The leather covering his hand is cold when it closes around your arm, grip tight. Bruising. Trapping you with just the slightest effort. 

“Go’ a problem, you and I,” he starts, and it's almost conversational. Might be, perhaps, if the clean, sleek outline of his gun inside the unclasped holster around his ungodly thick waist wasn't threatening you more than the grip he has on your arm. “How do you reckon we can fix it?”

You have a meagre twenty dollars in your pocket. Less money for them to take if things go awry. If they decide that the little girl standing in for her older brother was an easier target to rob—money and drugs—than to settle things fairly. Money, goods. Hand over hand. 

Just like the movies, he'd said. 

Just like the movies, you think when he leans in closer, bulk swallowing you whole. 

There is a pockmark in the corner of his crooked, misshapen nose and the crease of his eye. A scar, maybe. It's circular—almost perfectly so; a silver-pink moon on the angular ridge of his nose. Uneven, craggy, like crumpled printer paper. 

It looks almost like—

You think of the mark on your arm. Soot-stained. The smell of burning hair, tissue. The searing pain. 

“I–I can pay you—” you stammer out, tearing your gaze away from the ugly mark on his skin. A cigarette burn. It makes you shudder. 

He cocks his head slowly like a big, dumb dog, but there's something eerie in the ink spill of his eyes. The soft matte of a saltwater crocodile staring at you from beneath the murk. Calculative. Hungry. 

“Pay me?” He echoes slowly, dragging the words out mockingly. “D’you know ‘ow much trouble your brother is in? For sellin’ ‘ere of all places?” 

“No,” you swallow. It feels like your heart is stuck inside your throat. “I–I just—”

“Run ‘is errands,” he finishes cruelly but you can't deny it. “Ain't you a good little sister? Almost makes me wish I ‘ad somethin’ as sweet as you f’myself growin’ up.”

You don't answer. He doesn't seem to be looking for one, really; just empty words to fill space. To echo in your head, barbed wire around any sense of comfort you might have felt. Punishing cruelty. 

He has the upper hand, it says. He's the one who makes derisive jokes while you tremble in his grasp, and try to make yourself as small, as unassuming, as possible. Hiding from the predator in plain sight. Hoping he passes you over for something bigger, more calorie-dense; the effort to catch and consume you expends more energy than the return. Hardly worth it in the long run. The comfort of a risk-reward ratio, right?

But he's opportunistic, it seems. A snacking scavenger. 

Could eat, it says, like a basking tiger keeping a mouse trapped between his paws, letting it squirm and squeak as he slowly licks his lips. Not enough to fill its belly but enough to satisfy the gluttonous urge a predator has to eat. Sharpening its teeth on flimsy bones. Child’s play. 

It's a fitting image, especially with the way he arches over you, looms; fingers looped around the thick of your arm, holding firm, but not—

Not as tight as he could. 

It's a loose-fisted grasp. Lazy, almost. He knows you won't run—or, at the very least, knows you won't get far. 

You peel your gaze away from his, dropping it to the curve of his shoulders—the width of them is just as dizzying as his height; broad, muscular. Pulling it further down the length of his arm, covered in a thick jacket. Black corduroy. Ashes stain the cuffs. A bulky watch juts out from his wrist. Gold. Glinting even in the grey-blue gloom of an overcast evenfall. 

His muscles tense. Hand tightening around your arm, fingers digging hard. Rubbing muscle painfully against bone. 

A warning, maybe. Stop looking—

But something else catches your eye. Blood red. The colour of meat. A fresh kill. 

The back of his hand has a blooming rose. Petals spread out, unfurled. In the middle, a milky skull sits. Stencilled in boxy, yellow letters is ONE-FOUR-ONE—

You know what it means even as your mind whirs, gears turning, turning; plummeting into a tailspin, making excuses as it falls, dragging your heart down alongside it. An area code. Some special date. An inside joke. 

But you've seen the marking around town before. Heard whispers about them from your brother, his friends. 141, they say, and then: mafia. 

The real deal, he said, puffing around a joint his friend rolled. It's too tight. He scoffs, and rips it out from between his lips. Shitty roll, man, make another one—

Mob. Mafia. Gangsters. It seemed so extreme, Hollywood. Fiction, fantasy, all rolled into one. Tony Soprano. Ralph Cifaretto. Michael and Vito Corleone. Tony Montana. Larger-than-life men created on paper. 

You think your brother thought so too. Child's play. Grown men selling weed to kids for two hundred an ounce. Buying themselves sleek, black cars—G Wagons, Escalades, Cullinans—on the Xanax they sell at clubs, parties. Cocaine. Heroin. 

Nothing to worry about. 

Then his friend went missing. 

Sent out on a routine delivery to drop off cocaine to well-dressed men in suits outside of a local butcher shop. A normal, nondescript Tuesday. 

But he wouldn't answer his phone. Texts were being delivered, read, but no chat bubble appeared. Nothing sent back. Calls went straight to voicemail. He wasn't at home. Wasn't at his mum's. No one saw him. Heard from him. 

Your brother didn't call the police. Didn't report him as missing. 

It's just not what they do, he said. You don't involve them. Ever. 

The most shocking part of it was that no one saw anything. He just vanished. Disappeared—stock an’ all, your brother angrily spits—without a trace, picked up off the streets. 

If it was the police, someone would have said something by now. They're hardly discreet. And a rival—

Well.

The biggest problem was that your brother was blindsided by his own small-time success. An accumulation of little wins bolstered his confidence. Overfed his ego. This fallout was tunnel vision. A refusal to see the bigger picture. 

Or the storm clouds looming on the horizon. 

You'd heard of the 141 in passing. Little quips, anecdotes from the passel of friends that congregated around your brother—often getting high on the couch and watching old cartoons; sharing a joint back and forth between gossip. 

Through rheumy eyes, they'd talk about the real gangsters in town—much to the irritation of your brother—and swap tales of run-ins and feats they heard from a friend (of a friend, of a friend). Most of the guys were known already. Soap and Gaz are the biggest names that cropped up on the streets through reputation alone. Both fighters for a gym. MMA, mostly, but whispers of street fighting and extracurricular activities weren't uncommon. 

Liked the thrill of it, they said. But the worst was a man simply known as the Ghost. An enforcer for the 141—a fucking butcher, more like, Liam cut in, jaundiced eyes widening—the guy who took care of problems. 

“Can't be,” your brother scoffed, lifting off the couch to reach in his back pocket for his wallet. A small anthill of white powder poured into the glass table. “They don't get involved in our shit—”

And for the most part, you're sure that's true. Dealing to the same circle of people—outreach spread through word of mouth—seemed paltry in comparison to the scale of an operation that had a money laundering gym. But the problem was that your brother lacked common sense. His ego often got in the way of foresight. The shadow greed casts blocking out the bigger picture. 

Like—

Territory is territory—regardless of what's being pushed. 

You wish there was a modicum of surprise when his friend turned up. Barely recognizable. Sent right to the morgue as a John Doe. 

Most would see the marks on the man's skin—the distinct lack of blood—as an indicator to abandon ship, find the boss, beg for forgiveness, and maybe even try to strike up a deal. But—

That picture is hidden under his anger. Greed. Selfishness. 

He sends you instead. 

You're somethin’ they ain't expectin’, he said. Won't mess with you.

Right. 

He catches the realisation dripping down your brow—beads of sweat gathering at your hairline; anxiety, fear, churning your stomach—and hums. Cocks his head to the side. 

“Was expectin’ ‘im t’show up, though—” he murmurs, hand tightening around your arm. The pressure, the sting, is eclipsed by the gnawing sense of dread biting viciously into you. “Told ‘im if I caught ‘im sellin’ on our streets again, there'd be trouble. Thought we ‘ad an agreement after ‘is friend. But—”

His eyes cut to yours. It feels like a knife to your guts, sinking into soft tissue. A pain you can't breathe around. 

Won't mess with you, you think, and then viciously—sadly—he knew. Was warned by them and still sent you out. Let you take his place for whatever comeuppance they decided he deserved. 

It should shock you. You almost wish it did. Desperately clinging to the threads of surprise that slip through your oily fingers, grasping onto the nothing but empty air. Numbed to the resignation that trickles in. 

Of course he would leave you here to save himself. Letting you fend off whatever they threw at you alone. Leaving you trapped between a brick wall and a wall of a man. 

The excuses are there. They pool on the tip of your tongue—it isn't me, don't do this, it's my (stupid, selfish) brother you want, not me—but you swallow them down and try not to wince at how quickly they dissipate when you do. It doesn't matter in the end because whatever you have to say won't negate the drugs in your backpack. The empty house you'll lead them to—your brother probably squirrelled away somewhere until this blows over. Half-hopeful you'd call him and say everything is fine, the deal went smoothly. You're on your way back. Or that the debt he racked up with them is settled by you. 

It's half-hearted when it slips out again, caught between resignation and dread. A brittle whisper. A prayer—

“I can pay you. Whatever he owes, I can—”

He's already shaking his head. 

“Too late for that, birdie. ‘sides, I don't want your money.”

He moves back, rocking on his heels to put a small measure of distance between your bodies. In that scant space, he drops his gaze, sweeping it over you. His eyes darken.

When he pivots them down, catching yours, you can't stop the shiver that crawls up your spine. 

That calculative gleam is back. 

“But I think we can work something else out.”

Something else turns out to be ushering you into the backseat of an old Ford pickup. 

The door whines when he opens it. Rust flaking off, falling to the ground by your feet. Your mind reels. Spins comparisons to falling snow, dried blood. 

He hauls you in with his hand wrapped around the nape of your neck, thick thigh sliding between your own to boost you up. The protest—a mindless, reactionary squeal at being manhandled—only makes him chuff. A brief flex of his fingers around the skin of your neck is the only warning he gives before it pulls away, and wraps tight around your waist. His thigh flexes, muscle drawing taut as he shifts his foot up to the running board, lifting your feet off the ground and seating you fully on his leg like a child.

(In his hands, you feel like one, too.)

The motion makes you slip, back glueing along his broad chest with a shallow thump. You feel the rumble of his laugh trembling up your spine before you hear it. 

“Careful,” he drawls, oiled with amusement. “Might slip.”

Anything you could say in response is choked back when he bumps the corded steel of his thigh into the seam of your legs, pushing tight to your clothed cunt. His intention is unmistakable this time. Unignorable. And with the rasp of filtered, balmy air against your crown; the pull of a groan when you rock back into his groin, the noise still slicked with mirth, you feel a knot of dread spool tight in your belly. 

Something else is dragged back to the forefront, coiling like wisps of smoke around you. 

And you knew. It's shocking, you think, but not necessarily a surprise. To call it a dichotomy would be lying to yourself, and so, you settle against it. This notion that what he wants—wanted—is flesh. Not money. Not retribution. 

Not to talk things out like you'd hoped he’d try (grabbing onto the idealistic thread, holding it tight to your chest); bringing you in and forcing you to convince your—stupid selfish greedy—older brother that quitting was the only option. Dangling you—baby sister—over his head in an appeal to his emotions. Familial bonds. Love. 

That thread is cut. Snipped. 

Probably severed when they first came to him with an offer. No strikes against him and yet—

The idea of using you to make him bend was expunged from the drawing board. It's not even a plan b, or c, or z. 

And—

You knew. Have known. Maybe that's why it's so easy to swallow around the panic when it lances through your chest, climbs up your throat. You can think and feel and breathe around this dagger in your back like it was there the whole time and you've only just noticed it now. 

Nothing but a small, whispered oh in the roiling polyphony of your emotions. 

It sits there as he manuevers you into the passenger seat of his truck, your head spinning around the indescribable sensation of being woefully cognisant despite the paralysing fugue pressing against the bubble of stark awareness that keeps it at bay. It manifests itself as a numbed sort of shock. Or more accurately—

Indifference. 

Defeat. 

His hand brushes your cheek, the snag of dry leather against humid skin tugs uncomfortably at your flesh, stinging as they dance down to your jaw, the delicate line of your vulnerable throat, skimming over the curve of your breast—

And it's too much. Too present. Too real. 

Autopilot. Dissociation. Derealisation. All of these concepts slip past the bubble of hypervigilance, skidding the surface like a pebble thrown over a lake. Out of reach as he unashamedly gropes you, barely making an effort to mask his actions as just buckling you in. 

You pretend, though. Curl your fists around the sides of the seat, fingers digging into the worn foam. Head lulling back on the headrest. Eyes fixed out the window as he walked around the front, head and shoulders still visible in the windshield despite the height of the truck. It makes your heart leap, stuttering in your chest as the absurdity of his size is brought back into focus. Too big, you think. Grossly so. 

There's a moment when you think about running. Toying with the idea of sliding your hand over the lock, pulling the door open when he's too busy on his side to notice. It'll give you an advantage—a head start. Enough time to slink through the dense forest of concrete buildings lining the industrial zone, and into somewhere safe. Help, a behemoth is chasing me—

But the door clicks. Swings open with a squeal of rusted metal just as your fingers twitch toward the handle. Hope evaporates with each lurch of the cab as he climbs inside, metal creaking under his weight when he settles in the seat. 

From the corner of your eye, you can see his head tip. Chin angling toward you. Staring. Assessing. 

When he speaks, you feel the words like cold fingers dancing maliciously down your spine. 

“‘pected you t’run.” 

It's said idly enough. Nonchalant. Tone even, if a little cruel, and you wonder if this is some test. One that you passed—and failed—in equal measure. 

He doesn't look away. It takes less effort than you wish it did to peel your lips apart, to breathe in the stale, mulch scent of the cab—something overgrown, rotting, and damp—and mumble:

Where would I go?

It seems to amuse him. He hums around a mouthful of mockery before turning away, pawing at the ignition. Gloved hand curling over the wheel. 

“Smart girl.”

You don't feel very smart. In fact, you feel very small. Stupid. Maybe you should have taken a stab at it—running. Tried, at least, to save your own life before the jaws of the beast closed over you like an iron bear trap around your ankle. Fought like hell. Clawed and kicked and screamed. 

When most kids read the back of a cereal box, you learned about secondary locations. You know better than this. 

But the truck sputters to life in a belly-deep rumble, hacking up soot into the air as he pulls the lever into DRIVE. The fight inside of you—however ephemeral it might have been—dies inside the smoke spilling out of his exhaust. Gone so quickly that you begin to wonder if it was even there at all—

Must be, you think, eyes listing outward. Keen. Mapping the twists and turns—a futile effort in the end: he doesn't bother hiding where he's taking you, and you've been down these old, grim streets more times than you can count. 

It doesn't surprise you much when he turns down the street leading to the butcher shop. An old relic that still carries the marks of a booming farming town before it fell victim to industrialisation. Concrete skyscrapers in place of lush cornfields. Warehouses over old barns, ranches. Cattle, meat, produce—it all used to be a mainstay here but now hides under layers of steel. 

The dark windows of the small shop gleam with hazy smears of neon blue, red, when you pull up, catching on the array of rowdy bars across the street. All clubs that belong to the 141. A playground of drugs, sex. More money than you'd ever see in your lifetime. 

It's an uncanny juxtaposition to the quiet, assuming street right across from it. Barber, butcher, accountant firm, antique store. All dark inside and bathed in the smeared stream of glimmering neon as lights flash in the fading glow of twilight. 

He pulls up to the curb in front of the shop. A bold move if the streets weren't so empty. Lifeless. The clubs won't be open for four more hours. Everything else follows the same nine to five as the rest of the world. The shops closed an hour ago, and everyone in town seems to know not to linger here after dark. 

The air seems to stagnate in your lungs when he cuts the ignition. Slips the key into his pocket. 

“Don't get any funny ideas in tha' pretty little ‘ead o’yours.” 

“Funny ideas,” you echo, toneless. Flat. It rolls out with your exhale. Words that might have been smarter to swallow down. “Like following a stranger to a butcher shop?” 

“Lippy little thing, ain't you?” He scoffs. The truck creaks when he shifts. “Ain't go’ no one t’blame but yourself. Told you what would ‘appen if you kept sellin’ in our territory. You should ‘ave known better.”

“That was my brother.” The words slip out before you can stop them. “Not me—”

“‘ow am I suppose t’know that? You were sellin’ where I told ‘im not to—” he has the gall to shrug. Spit these careless words at you like it wasn't life or death. “That's all there is to it, birdie.”

“That's not fair—”

The truck groans under his weight, shaking from side to side as he leans over to push his door open before turning back to you, rolling his eyes. 

“Life ain't very fair, is it?” 

The acerbic words are flicked out from between his teeth; an apathetic, droning curl clinging to each syllable. He doesn't care. Won't. What happens to you next is your choice, and yours alone. 

And he's just doing his job—

“When I get out of ‘ere, you ain't gonna do anythin’ funny—”  

His hand lashes out. Gloved fingers close over the thick of your throat in a blink. Fear lags by a beat, giving him enough time to sink his fingers over your neck, and when it catches up—heart rabbiting in your chest, thudding in your ears; roaring as your pulse thunders beneath the press of his thumb—he’s already got you in his hold. The width forces your chin to lift, stretching up to accommodate the curl of his hand around you. 

Trapped like a rabbit. Cattle to the slaughter. 

He tilts his head down, keeping his eyes on yours as he forces your crown into the headrest, chin lifted up. It's uncomfortable. The curve of your neck cuts off your airways. Constricts your breathing to shallow gasps. An ache grows in your nape. 

The swell of panic, fear, in your eyes makes him hum. But there's nothing echoing back. An absence of light in the deep, placid pits. It looks like still water. A stagnant lake. 

It's unnerving how dispassionately expressive his eyes are. Wild, wild. Vats of ink. Pools of obsidian. Ringed in red-lined ivory. Long, ashen lashes dusting over the smears of charcoal under his eyes. Sleepless nights, maybe. Fatigue. The corners are tattooed with coal, leaving behind a thumbprint in the crease. 

But empty. Barren. No light.

Like black holes. Eating everything around it. Devouring all that gets too close, but giving nothing in return except a bottomless crater in the bruised-plum nebulous of space around it. 

You're not sure you like it. You can't look away. 

But in staring back so hard (getting pulled in deeper and deeper), you catch the twitch in his left eye. A shallow spasm. It throws off the symmetry when he blinks, one eye a sliver of a second behind. Desynchronized in a way that seems so—

Unlike him. 

Disjointed. 

You blink in response. Perfectly synchronous. 

His lid twitches again. Just once. Brief. Pale, pink eyelids drop, unveiling a nebula of indigo veins on the smooth, thin surface as they roll down to half-mast over his eyes, now narrowed slightly in contemplation. Thought. 

Whatever is happening in his head can't be good. It causes a ripple over the lake. Little rings rebound outwards. 

He looks away first. A quick slide of his eyes to the corners, glancing out of the passenger side window. Whatever catches his attention is unknown to you. The anchor on his hand around your throat keeps you still. Immovable.

(Every instinct in your body compels you not to look away from him because nothing outside could ever be scarier, more dangerous, than him.)

A second later, he breathes in through his nose. The fabric of his mask is pulled into his nostrils from the force, forming little black holes under the crooked arch. 

You hadn't really given much thought to his appearance outside of big, massive. But there's a strange asymmetry to the slopes and valleys beneath the balaclava. Trying to map his face, fill in the blanks with just black cloth and vague, lopsided outlines, is impossible. There are too many gaps. Too many missing pieces. You can only wonder, then, what he looks like under it. 

Monstrous, you hope. 

It's just a coincidence that he looks at you the moment the thought passes, but you flinch like a naughty child getting caught doing something you shouldn't when the heavy, dour weight of his impenetrable stare is levelled at you once more. Your heart stutters. It's loud in your ears. In the truck. 

You wonder if he can hear it just as loudly as you do—

Another blink, and his gaze flickers down, settling on the gap between your lips, watching the little tremble they make with each shallow hiccup of air you greedily suck in. His head tilts to the side, eyes never leaving your mouth even as he leans down, masked lips brushing over the beading sweat gathering on your hairline. 

It's a brief touch. A taste. You tremble when he pulls back, fingers tightening around your flesh. 

His eyes are lavascapes.  

“Are you, birdie?” 

You almost forget what he's asking. The conversation hidden between the scant beats it took for him to measure your worth with the blistering intensity of his stare, and the tumult of your feelings still looping around each other in your belly. Knotting up tight into a ball. There's fear, of course there is. 

But the rest—

You'd rather not think about. 

The grip on your throat eases just enough for you to shake your head no to whatever he is asking. Doing anything funny, you think, scrambling at the tangle of memories flipping past, trying to connect the pieces to a puzzle you've already forgotten. 

It must be the right response. Or maybe it's another question like before, a test where there’s no right answer. 

Run, stay. 

Smart and stupid. 

But it seems to appease him—marginally. His eyes crease. Tightening. His other hand folds over your throat, sliding until his palms kiss the sides of your neck in a near-perfect symmetry. 

Something frissons across the blank, placid lake of his expression. Another ripple. A shudder. He leans in for a moment, nose touching the apple of your cheek, and when he breathes in, it’s sharp, reedy. Cold air ghosts over your skin. Long, pale lashes flutter when you swallow. 

He hums quietly under his breath before peeling back. The flatness to his gaze is back; a cold, impenetrable distance widening like a chasm as he uncoils around you. You almost fall for this—this indifference. An icy nonchalance. But you've been eating the minuscule quirks of him just as ravenously as he's been devouring yours. 

There is something there. A fracture, maybe. A splinter. 

But what leaks through from the other side isn't anything close to warmth. It's—

Hunger. 

The shift in your throat draws his molten gaze to your neck, still wrapped tight in his firm grip. Your reflection blooms in the vat of black; eyes wide, all white. Pupils narrowed to a pinprick. Mouth slack, corners tugging downward from the pressure of his hand. The tilt of your head. His thumbs press under your chin, pushing you back further until it feels like your neck might break—

He stops. Shifts. You puff out a shallow breath. 

What looks back at you is unremarkable in the murk. A sliver of fear. A slip of unease.

Eye of the beholder, you think when his breath chuffs out shallowly through the mask. When that hunger is ground down to a raw, esoteric fissure hairlining the black of his eyes. The widening expanse of his pupil. 

You wonder if it's your fear that itches under his skin, dredging up something predatory in his hindbrain. The urge to chase. To bite. 

But the nearly indiscernible flicker of his gaze has you brushing that idea aside when it snags on the expanse of his hand coiled around your throat. Easily swallowing it whole with just his palms. 

You're not a small thing, but the indomitable size of him makes you feel insignificant. 

You think he feels it, too. 

His fingers flex over your nape, stretching. Pulling. It pushes the flat of his palm into your throat, ridges crushed against your trachea. But you can still breathe. It's shallow. Hoarse. A touch painful. Dizzying in a way that makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster. A teacup ride that just spins and spins and spins—

The gap closes. A sliver of air snakes down your throat. Muscles flexing, shifting. Struggling to swallow around the pinch of his hand. A harrowing task when you feel the gloved fingers link to the first, then the second knuckle, tying together in a too-tight, impossible, noose around your neck. Thumbs overlap. Fingers slide into place. It forms a chain of his hands with no gaps between them. Not a single sliver of skin shows from under the leather of his gloves. 

He makes a sound when they meet—a nasal groan in the back of his throat, mouth clenched shut so the air has no choice but to tear through his nose. It's raw. Fractured. The devastating moan of a tiger nuzzling at its meal. 

Your vision blurs. A black fog presses into the edges, seeping over the arch of your peripherals. Dripping down slowly over the hazy smear of the man. The way the ochre sun peeks over the angular roof of the accountant's office illuminates his back and casts swaths of shadows over his front. Drenching him in murk. 

Despite the flickering darkness shuttering over your sight, you don't blink. Even as the tears prickle at your eyes, they stay open. Fixed on him. Black holes, you think, watching as the fever marbling those obsidian pools recedes. Cools. 

He makes that noise again. Softer this time. A purr from deep in his chest. A breath. And then he peels back. His hands go slack. His shoulders slumping back into the lax, easy spread from before as you gasp hard, nearly choking on the flood of air that roars down your throat. 

Your cheeks feel hot for a moment, and then cold. Icy. You don't have to touch them to know that you're crying. That the deluge clinging to your lashline spilt over, dripping messily to the collar of your shirt. 

The placid lake is back. In the stillness, you heave. Mouth hanging open, chin quivering. His thumb lifts, slides over the curve of your chin. You don't feel it. Numbed, maybe, by the brief kiss of hypoxia. But you see it. Watch as he slides it up to the jut of your lower lip, the black, angular tip tickling over your skin. He follows the seam between skin and lip, tracing it to the corner of your mouth. It's slick. Drool pools in the crease, dribbles over the top of his finger. His eyes drop when he mops it up, catching it on the pad. 

He makes another noise. An arid rasp bubbling between the soft tissue behind the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue. It's ugly. The shiver you try to fight back slinks through. 

His hand peels away from your neck, movements lax. Slow. The unwinding gait of an idling tiger in no real rush, no hurry, because there's nothing in the frigid Arctic that can touch him. 

You watch him with flared eyes as he brings his thumb to his clothed mouth, and rubs your spit into the fabric of his mask. 

His eyes don't break away from yours once. 

Your spit doesn't stand out against the black of balaclava, but the idea of it burns through you. Throwing you headfirst into a dazed stupor. Dizzy. Confused. 

Satisfied with whatever it was supposed to mean, he clambers out of the truck before coming around to your side. Distantly, you're sure this is what he meant by funny ideas when he passes the headlight, head straight and eyes gliding around the empty street. An opening to run. You know where you are. It would be easy to flee. Hide in the construction zone just ahead, tucking yourself into the tightest corner you can find until help arrives. 

Help, though. 

Officer, please. I got caught selling meth in the mob's territory and now they're going to skin me alive. Please hurry—

Right. 

They'd rather help bury your body than get in the way of the mafia. Gangland violence isn't their concern unless it tumbles out into the street. Fat wallets keep even the most compassionate person quiet. Willing to turn a blind eye. 

You'd be thrown in a cell. Or dropped off at their doorstep. 

Either way—

You won't be coming back alive. 

There's nothing to steel, harden, when he pulls the door open, your nerves long since ground down to fine powder. Nothing to fight against, either. He hauls you out of the truck, hands firm on your skin. Bursting blood vessels easily between his fingers. Barely any effort at all to crack your bones. 

The moment in the car seems miles away when he pulls you in front of him, hand curling over your nape. Any flicker of humanity rendered out when he pinches you tight and shoves you forward. Dragging you back to the butcher shop by the scruff of your neck, leading you down a narrow set of stairs to the basement where pale white carcasses hang from hooks on the ceiling. He laughs when you tense. When your heels dig into the brown-stained linoleum. 

Ain't gonna hang you, he mocks, fingers dipping punishingly into the sides of your neck. “Not yet, anyway—”

It brings little comfort when he drags you to a room in the back, kicking open the door with the toe of his boot before pushing you inside with a nudge against your nape. 

It's dark. Walls covered in stains; mould, mildew. Something you hope is just rust. A single mattress is shoved into the corner; sheets stained with sweat and grime. Tinged a pale brown. Two pillows sit at the top, lopsided and matted with use. Threadbare. A twisted, black heap of fabric sits at the bottom. Wisps of cotton poke out from the cigarette burns. 

A pair of muddy, black boots sit against the wall at the end of the bed. A basket of clothes—jeans, black shirts, black sweaters—is piled on the wall across from the door. 

The room smells of stale sweat and old cigarettes. 

You don't want to be here. The thought is abrupt. Immediate. Unease prickles along your nape, warmed and damp under his gloved palm. Between the look of the room—the floors stained the same suspicious brown, the rumpled bed in a corner—and the smell, you know this is not a place you want to stay. To be trapped inside with a man cut from Everest; whose hands are more dangerous than the sharp end of a knife. 

He must feel the tension brimming beneath your skin; the spark of adrenaline surging through your veins. The clamp of his hand on your nape digs in tighter. Holding firm. 

A breath tumbles out, thickening with mockery. “Like I said,” he leans down, pressing the mountainous width of his chest into your spine. The accentuation in your size difference, how big he is in comparison to you, makes you feel like prey. Small. Brittle, thin. He eats you whole. Spares nothing for later. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” 

Another nudge and you're pushed further into the room. He leans away, foot shoving back on the door until it snaps shut with a noise that cuts through the gossamer that spun around you, bifurcating reality from dream. The haze is wafted away, and all that remains is a barren room with a lumpy mattress, the smeared stain of rotten blood coagulating on the floor, and his body boxing you in. No escape. 

The rumble of his chest shakes loose the cobwebs spooling across your thoughts. A brush of humid air ghosts along the line of your jaw, dampening the skin below your ear as he leans in close, too close, and purrs: 

“Go on now. Strip for me.” 

Each scrap of clothing you slowly roll off of your body is exchanged for a slip of information about him—who he is (Simon Riley, the name rumbled through the split between his teeth; a low, brassy purr as his eyes gleam in the dark, drilling into the expanse of skin unveiled to him)—and what he wants—

Nothing, he tells you, lifting one massive shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. Jus’ what's owed to me, pet. For stickin’ my neck out f’you. 

You don't think he did. Not really. But you're harshly reminded of the unsubtle threat. The gun balanced on his massive thigh. So wide, so big, it seems to make it look smaller in comparison. Tiny. A toy. 

Child's play. 

It's made worse, somehow, as he lounges. Sprawls out on the bed, legs spread, pulling taut on the jeans that stretch around the thickness of his upper thigh, bunching around his calves in a half-tuck inside his black boots. Arms flexing. Folded over his broad chest. He rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbow, showing off an impressive tapestry of harsh, faded black ink. Crisscrossing lines. All asymmetrical. Guns, barbed wire. A bullet with a wide, toothy grin—

All of it knits together; woven into a tangled mass of muscle. Of man, hidden under scar tissue. Rope burns on his wrists cut so deep that the skin is permanently dented in. More cigarette burns hidden inside the mess of ink. Jagged lines—from a knife, maybe; bullet wounds. 

His skin tells stories of a terrible life. Ink spills over the worst of them, but they're visible under the fading charcoal. A series of burns—acid, fire, chemical—and raw, torn skin. He looks like he's been mauled. Pressed into the cold metal of a wood chipper until chunks of flesh were taken out. But even with these deep gouges, craters of missing tissue, he's big. Bulky. Soft—like a tiger. Predatory muscle tucked away under a thick layer of fatty tissue. 

The pillowed pouch of his belly, the softness around his biceps—

It belies the danger underneath. The steel. 

But as scary as it is, it has nothing on his eyes. 

Glinting in the dim room. Dark pools of obsidian that follow each movement with an almost clinical keenness. Sharpened to a razor's edge. 

They might be pretty, you think, if they weren't so intense. So liquid. His eyes gleam like wet ink, languidly rolling along his lashline as you clumsily shed your jacket, your blouse. Shoes, socks. Pants. Until you're in nothing but your panties.

Swallowing around the influx of panic that flutters like little birds beating their wings against the soft walls of your throat, you slip your fingers into the hem, now or never, and—

And you hesitate. 

There's a difference between undressing willingly and doing so to save your life. It should spurn you on—survive, survive, survive—but you freeze at the apex. The summit is within reach. 

You know what happens when you climb it. Cross over the invisible threshold. 

What you've been trying to ignore this whole time, ever since he shoved you into the room with a huff, taking his perch on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, but in such a terrifying state of vulnerability, nearly nude, you can't any longer. Can't avert your gaze to the stained linoleum in a thinly veiled effort to keep from glancing at the thickening bulge lying prone against his thigh. 

His—

Well. 

You knew what he wanted when he grabbed your face in his hand, squeezing your cheeks until your lips pursed, puckered for him to run his finger along the inseam. Prying your teeth apart. Rubbing his finger over your tongue, eyes dark—full; black holes pulling, tugging you in, dragging you closer to the event horizon framed in a ring of arsenic—and locked on to the sight of his gloved knuckle disappearing into your mouth. Wanting. Hungry. 

You knew. And now—

Committing to it is legions above what you’re mentally prepared for. Nausea brims, churns your stomach. Unease curdling inside of you like rotten milk. 

You don’t want this. But you don’t have a choice, do you?

That notion, the idea, prickles along your nape, raising the fine, peach-fuzz there until it stands on end. 

You freeze. Movements still as every muscle in your body tenses. Coils. You can't do it. Can't—

A huff is dragged out of his chest as he sits up, knocking the gun carelessly to the mattress. His eyes daggering, sharpening into needlepoints, as he stares at you. 

“Gotta do everything f’myself, do I?” 

A grunt and he’s up. Pulling himself to his feet with nothing but the flex of his abdominal muscles. 

There's no reprieve. Not a moment graced to gather your bearings before he crosses the distance between you. Once a comfort, a chasm, now conquered in a single stride.  

The tips of his gloves are cold when they brush over your skin, sliding down the slope of your waist until they meet the hem of your panties. The last piece of modesty you have—

But he doesn't wait.

You're aware that this isn't a non-consensual thriller where the lead looms over the hapless love interest, eyes blazing with passion and need. That each interaction is drenched in a thick, palpable tension tethering the two together. Urges coalescing. Threads pulling taut, magnetic, dragging them closer and closer to the brink until they tumble over. 

This is reality. And he doesn't stare into your eyes with an all-consuming desire as he slowly removes that last scrap of fabric keeping him from devouring you. No. 

His skin-warmed fingers push under the elastic band with a rough shove, curling into the fabric until it tightens across your pelvis and thighs, and then he huffs, annoyed, and pulls. Pulls—

Until something gives. 

The lace yields to the tension in his flexing bicep, and scrapes over your skin as it rips apart in his hand, threads snapping. Popping. 

It hurts. Stings. You hiss, but the noise is ignored when he peels the ruined scrap of fabric from your legs, shoving it into his back pocket with a grunt of satisfaction. He looks back to you, eyes rippling like the dark, ink-black surface of a lake during nightfall, and coos, mocking and mean—

“Not s’hard, was it?”

He leans closer to you, a hand skimming up your spine before his fingers curl around your nape, keeping you still for just a breath before he pulls you into him with too much force. Your hands lift, palms slapping against his thick stomach when the movement nearly topples you over and threatens to break your nose on his chest.

“Makin’ me do all the work when y’supposed t’be payin’ me back? Ain't very nice o’you, is it?”

He touches you like he's taking stock of your worth. Grabbing a heavy, rough palmful of your beast in his hand, squeezing. Testing the weight, the softness, how supple you were between his fingers like he might with a piece of fruit. Meat. Prodding into the flesh, feeling the ripeness there. Gauging whether or not it was a piece he wanted to keep. 

It's demeaning. Humiliating. He treats you like cattle; presses into the elasticity of your muscle, examines every inch of your skin for blemishes. Scouring for imperfections. There's no softness in the way he grabs handfuls of your body—squeezing your breasts, pushing them together, rolling your nipples between his thumb and forefinger; pinching your belly, your sides, your waist; curling his fingers under your thigh, lifting it until it hitches over his waist, cunt exposed and pressed tight to the bulge trapped in his jeans. Your ass is handled rougher than the rest. Each cheek sitting in a hand, squeezed and punched and spread embarrassingly wide. 

He ruts into you as he does it. Pushes the thick, fat length of him into your belly, rolling his hips against you with a heavy, ragged puff of air. 

He feels big. 

Everywhere, of course—it’s not so much his height, but the absurd width of him that really digs into your hindbrain, crossing all those intricate wires until they're tangled up, knotted together. Seeing his thigh, the same scale as a tree truck, slotting between yours—a mere branch by comparison—makes your belly flop. Turn over itself.

The muddled wires spark. Heat pools between your hips.

He could crush your head between them like a bear pushing its paw down on a watermelon. 

It's fear and heat. 

The two work in tandem, forming a seamless cohesion, as they flit down your spine, brimming up the urge to sink to your knees, the need to roll over and show your belly. A paradoxical desire to both run and be chased. 

You're not sure if he's tendering your meat to eat later or if this is the usual type of foreplay he engages in, but once satisfied you're softened up enough for him, he shoves his fingers between your thighs with an abrasive hum that reverberates through his belly, tickling your palms. 

“Tired o’waitin’,” is what he says when your head jerks up, eyes widening in shock. Terror. Horror. “Don't look so surprised,” he huffs, dryly. Voice a rough scrap over your cheek. “What'd y’think was gonna ‘appen?”

“Wait—” but he doesn't. 

His fingers twist, pushing through your folds to graze your clit. It isn't gentle. It's sudden, quick. You gasp more from shock than pleasure; the rough slide of leather feels strange on your flesh, and your head is too muddled to separate fear from bliss.  

Despite that, your body heats. Reacts to his touch. Your lower lip wobbles. You bite back another sound that crawls up your throat when his knuckle catches on your clit again, the pressure just shy of too much. 

The burn, the fever, melts the unease. Shallow gasps spill out. Your cunt clenches, fluttering around nothing—throbbing, growing sticky, slick; achy and empty—when he starts to glide his digit between your folds. Little sawing motions drag each groove and stitch of his gloves over your pebbled clit, each thrust of his hand between your thighs making heat pool between your hips. It's done so clinically, so detached, like his hand rubbing over your leaking pussy was nothing to him. An action to get done, a task to complete. 

It's the shame of that, the embarrassment, that makes you want to weep. Your fingers dig into his chest, nails pulling uncomfortably on the pleated bumps of his jacket as you grip the fabric right between your fists, clinging to him like a newborn fawn—all wet-nosed, teary-eyed; knobbly knees threatening to buck. 

“S–stop—” you mewl when the monotonous rhythm melts into something harder, more intense. Heart thudding in your chest, heat burning you up as he turns his hand, palm up, between your sticky, shaking thighs. He rubs his hand back and forth, curling his middle finger up when he passes your hole, tip pushing against your leaking rim. 

The friction aches. The stretch stings. The leather feels strange, foreign when it pries your folds apart and dips inside of you. 

You don't like it. It's too much—

He makes a sound—a tut—when you pull away from him, standing on the tips of your toes until the blunt curve of his finger slides out of you. He sucks his teeth in a mockery of disappointment before digging his fingers, hard, into the sides of your neck. A warning. You whine. Whimper—

It goes unheeded. And when you press your thighs tight together, shivering at the slip-slide of your skin rubbing against each other, he growls. The noise is inhuman. Animalistic. 

Your act of deviance comes with a swift, bruising punishment. 

His fingers tighten on your neck once again. A warning squeeze as he reaches down with his other hand, grabbing your hip. It keeps you still, immobile, as he bullies his boot between your feet, kicking your legs apart. You're not expecting it. When you stumble, he huffs in amusement. Can't hold yourself up? Want me that bad, huh? Needy fuckin' thing, ain't you?

You don't get a chance to respond. His palm splays wide over your hip, leather creaking as he flexes, stretching his fingers out, tapping some soundless beat out against your skin. Touching you like he's owed the privilege. The right. And in many ways—

Go’ a problem, you an’ I

—he does. 

Brute strength, and an unmatched, almost laughable, dearth in your physicality ensures that he has the upper hand—even without the gun he left on the mattress; darker and flat, a full matte compared to what you were expecting. 

(They're always so shiny in movies, aren't they?)

The threat of it—dull as it might be—roots you to the spot as he slides his hand down, thumb brushing over your belly button, dipping in; pressing until your stomach starts to ache—

It peels away when the whine wells up, sloping down, down. Teases your mound with the tips of his fingers, gentle swipes along the sensitive seam of your belly and pelvis, the sensation is an odd tickle that pulls at your navel, pulses at the apex of your thighs. You mewl—a slow, soft thing that barely makes it out from between your teeth—and he lets his hand drop. Palm flat against the soft flesh of your mons, fingers reaching, spreading, until they curl over your folds. Index and ring finger tucked tight into the hollow bend of your pelvis and thigh. The tip of his middle rubs gentle strokes over the skin above your clit. It's a whisper of pleasure. The idea of a touch. 

Mindless, your hips flit, following his hand—

“Needy.” 

It cows you. Douses you in icy shame. There's barely any mockery in his even, observant tone, but you feel it unfurl over your shoulders all the same. 

He doesn't give you a moment to think, to let the ripples of humiliation take over, forcing you to pull away, hide. His fingers trail over your hood, the pebble of your clit. The sensation, the cool undertone in the leather of his glove, is unlike anything you'd felt before. The thick stitches in the fabric catch on your flesh, nerve endings flaring in pleasure. Heat blooms in your belly. 

It feels good. 

You gasp, head tipping back. His hand winds around your waist when your knees buckle, catching you with a rasping huff—

“Feelin’ good, ain't you?” He pulls you tight to his chest, finger rubbing circles around your throbbing clit. Your cunt clenches, empty, and you whine, needing something more. Something to fill the ache inside of you—

His finger slips. Slides easily between your folds, parting your lips around the thick of him until he reaches your drenched hole. The sounds it makes when he taps his finger against your fluttering core makes your toes curl. Has heat blistering over your cheeks, down the slope of your neck. 

It makes him groan. The low growl makes you throb, clenching in needy little pulls, pulses, as his finger dips into the slick dripping out of you. 

“Suckin’ me in,” he grunts, and pushes his finger inside, thrusting up to the last knuckle. Palm tapping against your folds as his index and ring finger close to give him more room to sink deeper into you. The messy, slick squelch is loud, rolling over the mewling gasps that tumble from your lips. 

Heat floods your belly at the belly-deep groans he lets out when you squeeze around him. 

“Stranglin’ my fuckin’ finger, birdie—” 

He leans down, knocking his forehead against the side of your face. It's more intimate than you were expecting. Jarring. The proximity plays a twisted game inside your head—the urge to run, to roll over coalescing into a paralyzing tailspin. Rooting you to the ground when the warm, damp knit of his mask grazes your cheek. 

The intimacy of his head on yours is eclipsed when you can feel the shape of his mouth through the fabric. 

It's softer than you expected. A plush, fleshy give when he presses his lips against your skin. And—

A gap.

On the side of his mouth, there's a gouge. A pockmark. You feel the gap, the absence, of his flesh when he rolls it over your cheekbone. You try to read the asymmetry of his face—mapping all of these misshapen parts; his mauled lips, the crooked nose that digs into your skin and leaves behind a tacky smear of condescension when he breathes out through his nostrils in a heavy puff of air—and convince yourself that you're doing it so you can bring these patchwork pieces to the police later. 

Survival, you think, your head tilting back as he noses down your neck, tickling along your skin. 

(And when your cunt flutters around the rough, thick drag of his finger petting along your walls, you add: a bodily reaction. That's all it is.)

He takes another lungful of your scent before he rocks back on his heels, pulling away from you. Straightening up. Looming above you once more. 

“Now—”

He pulls his finger out of you slowly and you try not to whimper at the empty feeling that brims up. The way your hips rock toward him, seeking and eager. Wanting.

Needy, just like he said. 

Just a bodily reaction—

He holds his hand up to the dim light flickering over his head, fingers spreading apart as he takes in the glossy shine of his middle finger. 

The gleam of it makes your ears feel hot. Shame pools in your belly as he makes another noise—a groan, deep and low, in the back of his throat. Eyes darkening as his pupils bloom, eclipsing his irises in an endless pool of black. They flicker toward you, listing half-mast in a way to leonine, so predatory, that it shudders through your bones. Run, run—

His hand flexes around your waist when you twitch. A warning. A threat. You tremble when he leans in, masked lips brushing over your cheek once more. Breath ghosting through the fabric, tickling the inside of your ear. 

He smells of war. Of fire and brimstone. Napalm and nitroglycerine. You want to close your eyes, look away, but you can't. His proximity alone roots you to the spot. Turns you into a prey animal, frozen on instinct alone as he prowls around, creeping closer. Maw stretching wide, drooling dripping off razor-sharp canines—

“Let's see if y’worth all the trouble.” 

—and he bites.

Knocks his palm into your sternum, roughly shoving you down on the mattress.

His hands fall to the button of his jeans. “Ready?” He asks, but doesn't seem to care about your answer. Opts, instead, to fall to his knee beside you. It pulls on his zipper, tugs it all the way down with a sharp, metallic sound that cuts through the stagnant air as each ring of teeth is pried apart. 

You can't help it. You look. Dragged there by something primal, magnetic—the morbid curiosity to see the monster for yourself as it tries to take a bite. 

And almost immediately, you wish you hadn't. 

The spread of pale skin, dark curls jutting out from the split of his jeans, makes everything feel more real, and moving fast. Whiplash quick. Happening in a blink:

The shift of fabric as he pulls the mask up over his lips, letting rest on the crooked bridge of his nose. A flash of his mouth, mangled. Mauled. Full of ugly, pale pink scars. A gap where tissue once knit his upper lip together. The bite of crooked teeth as he brings the sticky, wet tip of his glove to his mouth, sinking in. Pulling. Tugging. The roll of skin—a rose, a gun, a skull—all encased in barbed wire; thick rivers of blue-green veins. 

Another pull and it's free. Dangling between his teeth for a moment as he reaches up and shoves the jacket off his shoulders. Rolling and thick. Wide. A broad chest. Soft belly. There's an inch of flesh around the expanse of him—biceps, thighs, calves, chest, stomach, shoulders—but it's a buffer for the corded, streamlined muscle beneath. A layer of fatty tissue. 

Like a tiger, hiding its dizzying musculature beneath a thick, loose pelt. 

When he moves, it flexes. His shoulders roll; muscles bunching together, pulling taut under soft skin. The jacket slides off. Falls to the ground behind the mattress. Forgotten, discarded. The glove is next to go. Dropping from between his teeth, landing just beside your ankle with a muted thud. 

He follows after it. Ink spilling over his lashline as his eyes drop, staring at the roll of his skin tucked on the outside of your thigh. Trailing up to your knee. Your hip. The split of your cunt beneath your other leg; knee tucked to your chest. 

A flash of something, a flicker, is the only warning you get before the back of his hand is nudging the glove off of your skin, replacing it with the rough, calloused grip of his palm. 

You jerk at his touch, flinching back—

He's intimidating above you like this. Leaning back on his haunches but still as tall as you are standing up. The sheer absurdity of his height—his width—is dizzying. Gives you vertigo when you look up. 

His throat shifts when you move. A swallow. Coarse stubble grows down the column of his neck, dusting over his lower jaw, chin. The rest is swallowed by the balaclava bunched around his crooked nose. 

He's not—

He's not handsome. 

A smattering of crisscrossing scars, burns, skin pocked and gouged out in deep pockets along his flesh—the slide of a knife carving away at him, you think; digging down to his marrow—all take away from any sense of modern attractiveness you might feel for him with his broad, jagged nose and full lips. 

But there's something rugged about him. Untamed. Wild. Appealing in a dangerous way. 

You don't know if you would have let this happen under different circumstances. If this minacious beauty of his would have worked on you enough to want it outside of this awful, almost unfathomable trade. 

He's too big. Wouldn't even fit inside of your house—

The graze of his thumb on your angle knocks the thought loose, and you're dragged back to the heat of his hand. Rough and coarse; palms slightly damp from the glove. It tugs on your flesh as he draws it up, a rubbery sort of pain as it catches on the soft, dry skin of your ankle. Your shin. 

He follows behind a second later, pulling himself into the mattress with a huff, knees shuffling forward as he crawls over you. The jostling rocks your body. Makes your breasts shake as he lumbers on the bed, hand still sliding up, up, until his fingers curl over the bend of your knee. 

The bed dips under his weight. Your body sagging, rolling into the divot beneath his knees. Tucked under him. Loomed over. He stares down at you through the cutout of his mask, eyes liquid in the gloam. Pools of melting, dripping obsidian. Black holes. Event horizon—

You look away before it drags you in. Submissive. Softened under the harsh burn of his flat, wide stare. He chuffs when your nose brushes over the thin skin of his wrist, mouth sliding over the thick, pulsing vein stretching down from his inner arm and curling into the bend of his hand. Your lips purse, and he makes that noise again. 

Quietly amused, and—

He shuffles forward until the backs of your thighs are pulled over his, spread out on his lap. Bare. Open to him. 

And he looks. 

And looks. 

Hungry, you think. Quietly amused and hungry—

The notion is wrenched out of your head when he shifts his weight. Watches the folds of your pussy open for him as he pulls your knees wider apart, head dropping between his massive shoulders, gaze drilling into the split of your thighs. Gasping at the sting, the sudden stretch, does little to deter him from shoving your leg down until the outside of your knee touches the bed. Muscles straining. Pinching. It hurts; hipbones twinging in agony. 

But the embarrassment burning through you singes all the pain. 

You're spread open under him. Bare. Legs tangled around his waist, stretched wide around the width of him. Ankles knocking into the hard plains of his lower back each time he shifts. 

“Fuckin’ hell—” he grunts. Snarls. The word ripped up from the back of his throat, forced through the twisting channels of his nose. Nasal and ugly when it scrapes out between his teeth. “Gonna ruin this pretty pussy, birdie.”

It's a threat. A promise. You twist, mouthing your protests into the warm skin of his wrist. 

There's something about his voice—that airy, brassy tone—that strikes a chord deep inside you. Makes heat pool between your thighs, leaking out in a syrupy mess—

His hand peels away from your knee, sliding down your sticky, damp inner thigh until his knuckles graze the sensitive slip of skin sitting between your outer lip and hip. That ticklish, belly-fluttering sensation blooms in your groin as he rubs his scarred knuckles over the crease, catching the slick gathered there on his thick, meaty thumb. 

“Fuckin’ soaked,” he groans, shifting his fingers until they cover the whole of your cunt, cradling you in his hand. He holds you like that for a beat, eyes locked on the way you're swallowed up by the broad stretch of his palm. 

The rough drag of his skin over your folds feels good. An all-encompassing heat spreads over your tender flesh from the curve of your ass to the bump of your mons where his middle finger rests, almost touching the strip of skin between your loins and your belly. Held in his grasp. Cradled in his palm. 

Your thighs twitch. A shallow jerk as your knees try to bend over his hand, but you can't. With his thumb and pinkie tucking into each crease between your outer lip and leg, it keeps you from closing your legs. Hinged by the wide, flat cup of his palm. 

And it shouldn't bludgeon through you the way it does. All heat. All want. Need. A growing ache you can't think around. 

(bodily reaction, you think even as the image of his hand—big with thick fingers, scarred knuckles; streaks of faded, ashy ink etched into milky, veined skin—laying over your pussy, swallowing it whole, sears into your mind—)

“Can feel your little cunt,” he grunts, feeling the pulse, the little throbbing pulls of your muscles as they twitch at the sight. The feeling. Clenching down around nothing. “Greedy little thing, ain't you, birdie?”

Anger paints his words as he rasps them out. A teeth gnashing, jaw clenching frustration that needles into the scorn, the fury, forced out between the tight seam of his crooked teeth. 

You don't understand it. Can't, maybe. 

But it's tucked away as quickly as it appeared, shifting into an ugly, mocking derision. Dry. Acerbic. His teeth flash, lip pulling upward in a sneer—a snarl—before he hums, sliding his hand down. The drag of his damp, rough fingers over your swollen folds has your knees falling open wider around his thick thighs, baring yourself willingly to him. 

Want it bad, don't you? He mocks, and the sound of his voice alone has your pussy clenching tight, belly fluttering around the abrasive scrape of his tone. Brassy and full. Gritty. You whine, hips inching up—

His hand peels off of your slit. The rush of cold air drags another whimper out of you, hips pushing up to chase the heady, molten feeling of his skin on yours. And he's amused by it—a laugh echoes out, crackling in the hollow of his throat at your desperation—but you're too achy, too hot, to feel the simmer of humiliation nipping the apples of your cheeks. 

He's not even making a real effort to pleasure you, to make you feel good, and yet—

Your hips twitch toward him in needy, mewling cants; please sits on the tip of your tongue, cradled between your teeth. Slips out on a shaky, breathless gasp when he meets you on the next buck of your hips, palm slapping over your wet slit. 

The crack echoes through the room. Rough, dry skin on soaked flesh. 

And it shocks you more than it hurts. The sting is there, of course, but it's just an afterthought to astonishment. An eye-widening disbelief masking the way your cunt smarts, throbbing from the slap. Nerves muffled behind the burn in your eyes, the searing heat pooling in your sinuses. 

Wrenched open, unblinking as you stare up at him, your eyes begin to sting, to water. You blink, and feel something hot trickle down your cheek. A tear. His eyes snap to it. Pupils narrowing to a pinprick as he watches it slide down your face, little droplets clinging to your jaw. 

“Poor baby,” he mocks, tilting his head as he tracks the teardrop. “Better behave.” 

Behave. Like he's admonishing a child and not an adult. 

It morphs; rots. Becomes yet another thing you shouldn't feel feverish over. The slick, sticky feeling grows between your thighs as your cunt flutters at the humiliation of it all. 

And deeper—maybe—the bastardized sense of care—

(Punishment is affection in its own, special (awful) way and you've been aching for something just like it, haven't you—)

It's pushed down. Swallowed. And you know in the back of your head that if you keep eating these feelings, you're going to be sick. But you can't stop. Barely breathe around the idea of them sometimes—

“Tha’s’it,” he coos like he knows. Sees them bright and burning behind your irises. Little flickers of need, a smouldering want that you'll never grasp at yourself. 

So he gives it to you. 

The rough slide of his hand, all scarred and dry and calloused, scrapes over your slit once more. A full, flat stroke upward until your clit bumps into the ridge of his palm. Then down, down—

His fingers spread. Ring and index prying your folds apart as he pushes up once more, opening your seam to slip his middle finger through the slick, sticky mess that drips out of your burning cunt. 

“Gonna be good f’me?” 

The slide of his fingers drags the tip up to the bump of your clit. You stare down at it, fixed on the jut of his ink-black knuckles threading through your folds. The crease of his nail as he slips his fingers up higher, pad pushing over your pebbled clit. They're dirty. Grey-black under his nails. Congealed with dirt. Blood, maybe. 

Your stomach churns even as your hips lift. Eager, searching. Hating yourself each second of it. It's gross. Disgusting. 

You want his dirty, thick fingers inside of you—

“When I ask a question—” the tip circles over your clit. A shallow roll that pools heat between your thighs. “I expect an answer.” 

“Y–yes,” you stammer out, hips flexing against his hand. Seeking more of that white-hot bloom of pleasure he brings with each pass of his finger. 

“Good girl—” and you hate how it burns you up from the inside out. “Wasn't s’hard, was it?”

The retort is bitten back with the slow swipe of his finger drawing tight, small circles around your clit. His fingers are rough, scarred. Too dry. The abrasive drag over your soft sensitive flesh makes you whine—a drawn-out whimper nestled between clenched teeth. 

It's too much. 

Too harsh. Too sharp.

He rolls your clit under the pads of his fingers in jerking half-circles. Puts too much pressure on the bundle of nerves than you ever would—your touches are always soft, sickeningly sweet; gentling your flesh until you cum—and the sting, the burn, of it makes your toes curl. Body burn. 

It's good. 

And that's the problem. 

It shouldn't be. His touch shouldn't make you so wet, growing slick and sticky between your spread thighs, bare to his hungry, prying gaze. Shouldn't make you moan. Hips twitching with each stroke of his fingers—

And then he peels away from you, but the time to mourn the loss of his touch, the fear of losing this trembling ember pleasure, is snuffed out when he presses his wet, slick fingers against the inside of your knee. The touch is intentional. Insistent. He makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat before pushing it down to the mattress. The twinge of pain swallowed up as quickly as it forms when he drops to his elbows between your thighs, forearms curling under your legs, and tugs you sharply into him. 

Heat floods your belly when the backs of your thighs press tight to his broad, muscular shoulders, but it's nothing compared to the sight of him on his knees between your legs. It's so obscene you nearly weep—

And then he leans down and licks a long, broad swipe of his tongue over your cunt. 

You hadn't expected it, maybe. His mouth on your pussy, his broken, jagged lips sealing over your pebbled clit. Going down on you seemed too intimate for what he was after. His end goal. It does nothing for him at all—

You realise your mistake when he dips his tongue into your hole and his hips jerk forward. Unconscious. Eager. Seeking. The shifting drags his jeans down his hips, and his cock slips free. 

Most of the cocks you've seen—in porn, pictures, art—jut out from the person's groin. standing at attention, the nasty comments used to say. Jokes whispered on the playground. But his falls. Droops down between big, folded thighs. Skin marbled in shades of red, peach. Deep gouges dot his upper thighs, some sinking deep enough to reach bone. More scar tissue than flesh. 

—than man.

It looks raw. Fresh. Some injuries not too dissimilar to the Wagyu hanging in the front of the storeroom, on display and oh, so out of place in a town where the richest man must be just a hair above the poverty line. 

On paper, anyway. 

You swallow, avoiding his gaze as he pauses, dark eyes watching you with his mouth pressed against your seam. Unmoving. Still as a predator between your thighs, cock visible between the bow of his torso, jutting sickeningly from mangled legs as you gawk at this hideous thing that makes several, half-hearted attempts to spring up towards you, spitting clear, milky liquid all over with each jerk. Tugged down by its own weight. Too heavy to fight against gravity like the rest of the cocks you've seen have done—

Normal cocks, you amend. Textbook. 

His is anything but. 

Ugly, you think again, stomach churning. Roiling. Obscene. An odd thing considering what you're looking at but all too fitting with the way it droops, big, flared head drooling pre-cum all over the bed in long, dangling stands that prickle over your jaws—half nauseous, half hungry, too. Saliva pools in your mouth even though the sight of his cock scares you. Fills your belly with dread. Misery. 

It looks like a bruise. Skin smeared with purples, reds. Patches of pink. Long, thick veins run up from the fattened, full base to the divot of his frenulum. Thick. It hangs low. Drips. 

He raises slightly and shoves his hand down between his thighs, big hand curling over the fat base of his cock. His grip is tight around himself, and he strokes up, from base to tip. It squeezes more precum from the flushed, fat head, and dribbles between your spread thighs in a thick, pearlescent puddle. 

It makes your mouth dry. That twinge in your jaws coming back. Festering. You wonder if he'll make you take that thing in your mouth. Choke you on it. Taste his precum—

“Fuck,” he snarls into your cunt, hand jerking over his cock. “Keep lookin’ at my cock like tha’, birdie—”

You gasp at the rough grunt, the way it seems to tremble through your sensitive flesh. More, though, from the way he sounds. His voice brassy, rough. Unkind, but the words bloom a fresh heat behind your navel. 

His voice does things to you. Things you're not allowed to like. 

Those thoughts are knocked from your head when he bows down again, eyes still fixed on you, and seals his wicked mouth over your cunt. It's hard to compare it to anything else other than being devoured. Eaten in the truest sense of the word. 

His tongue splits down your seam, tip digging into your slick hole. A groan bubbles up at your taste—the soft, fluttering clench of your body trying to drag him in deeper. Needing him deeper. A huff of air ghosts over you, dipped in the same derision as earlier but the harsh slap of skin on skin, his hand working furiously over his cock, makes you acutely aware of how much this affects him. 

“Taste good, birdie,” he grunts, and then sucks your fold into his mouth, laving it with his tongue and teeth until the skin is tender, swollen. “S’fuckin’ good—”

Your breath catches when the crooked arch of his nose presses taut to your clit. Pleasure twisting in a dizzying pirouette inside your belly, winding tighter and tighter—

His nose jerks up on your clit. Lips moulded to your seam, you hear him rasp eyes on me, birdie. Don't fuckin’ look away—

The rough snarl trembles through your body, sinking its teeth into the coil until it snaps under its jaw. Your knees snap around his head as your release locks your joints tight. His name, Simon, a hoarse cry on your lips. You barely have time to bask in the ripples of pleasure throbbing through your body before he rips away from you with his teeth bared, and his chin wet. 

“Fuck—!” he snarls again, shoving your knees apart as he lifts his massive body up from between your thighs. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gotta be inside your tight cunt—”

He towers over you, grinding his cock into the apex of your thighs. The drag of his cock—a little damp from being stuck inside his jeans all day; balmy—against the dry skin of your belly makes you shudder. Shivering beneath him as he huffs through the mask. Head bowing. Dipping to look at the way his cock slaps down on you. Cockhead nudging above your belly button, dribbling a small puddle of pre-cum that gets smeared into your skin when he rocks back on his haunches. 

His hand wraps around the thick base of his cock once more, squeezing tight as he grips himself above you. It makes the head swell, engorged with blood. Thickening in his hand as globs of pre-spend leak out onto your belly. That feeling in your jaws comes back—nauseous and wanting. 

He leans back with a hum. “Like my cock, eh, birdie?” 

The crass words bring a fresh bloom of heat simmering in your veins, creeping up your collar. Like doesn't really cover what you feel when you stare at it—his inked hands running along the long, veined shaft—and the unsettled feeling in the pit of your belly rears when he nudges forward, the weeping head of his cock bumping your mound. 

It's humiliating how much want floods through you just looking at it. At him. Disgust, dread, desire. 

You don't answer. Not that you really need to—

Your silence is loud enough. 

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, the rasp thick in his throat. “M’gonna give it to you, pet—”

And he does just that. Slips the head of his cock down the slope of your mound, letting it graze your clit until you're panting, whining softly for more, and pulls it over your slit until his pre-cum is smeared over your drenched folds. You know exactly what this is even without glimpsing the ugly burn of his possessive desire smouldering in the back of his eyes—ownership. Greed. Hunger. It revels in the stain on your skin, from belly to slit; his, all his. Outside and soon—

In. 

It shocks a creeping sense of worry into you. “Wait, what about a condom—”

He snorts, ugly and caustic. “What about ‘em?” He taunts, and it's flat. Playful. 

“You should—”

He drags his gaze away from the pearlescent smear of his spend on your folds, your clit, and the even, placid look in that stagnant lake tells you everything you already knew. 

“I've never—” you start, wincing at the kernel of fear lacing your hoarse words. “Not without a condom—”

It's the wrong thing to say. Near cataclysmic. He drops his head back with a groan that rumbles out of the slope of his throat, sounding like the rip of a chainsaw. 

“Firsts for everything,” he purrs, and he nudges your entrance with the bare, weeping tip of his cock. 

“But—”

His hand lifts, catching your jaw in the too-wide span of his palm. The force makes your teeth clack together. 

“Need me to gag you, birdie?” 

You swallow. It's not much of a choice. Gagged and fucked raw, or—

Just fucked raw. 

No gag. No condom. You fight back a shiver and wish it was all just from fear. 

“No,” you murmur, like you have a choice. “No gag.”

“An’?” 

“Um. No–no condom, either—”

It's not enough. "What are you gonna let me do to this pussy, birdie?"

You know what he wants. What he's angling for. But there's a line, you think. A delineation between unwilling participant, coercion, and giving into the need that slinks down your spine, and rots inside your belly.

(Being forced to ask for it isn't permission, but what happens when you want it more than your next breath?)

The shame can come later, you think, and feel yourself give in. 

"Cum—cum inside me—"

“Good girl, birdie.” 

You hate what that does to you. How eagerly your body reacts to the dark possessive curl in his eyes when you do something he likes. 

He nudges your entrance again, this time with purpose. Intent. A heavy pressure pushing on your rim. Too tight, you think, and the sting of the first inch he feeds—forces—into you burns, pulsing behind your navel. His tip isn't even in yet, and it's already too much. 

You think about telling him so, offering up your mouth instead, but he leans down on his forearms, and catches your lips in a bruising, biting pantomime of a kiss. A blood-soaked parody with more teeth and tongue—sinking into your lips, nipping hard until the skin splits; catching all that spills with his tongue. 

With his weight pressed against you like this, there's nowhere to run when he cups your throat in his hand, winding the other up above your head, forearm tight on your crown to cage you in. And then he shifts. Bears his hips down on yours until the fat head of his cock pops inside of you. 

Your squeal is chewed up between his teeth, swallowed down with a rumbling groan. 

Caught beneath him, trapped, he works himself into you demanding, heavy thrusts. Each inch burns more than the last. A stinging stretch that brings tears to your eyes. It's already too much and it's not even half. Barely even the tip.

“Can't—” you slur into his wet, demanding mouth. “No more. I–I can't—”

The breath rushes out between his teeth. Your watery eyes drop to the divot above his canine. A permanent snarl. A condescending sneer. 

“You can,” he says decisively, words ground out from between crooked teeth. He presses them to your cheek, nipping at the skin under your eye. Possessive and wanting—

(Hungry for something you can't name—)

“And you will.” 

—Or maybe you just don't want to. Can't look at the thunderous need draped over his mangled, battered face without thinking of the rumble in your chest that echos back against his thundering call—)

Stupid, foolish thing—

The dark promise of his words isn't a threat until his hand tightens around your neck, nails grazing your skin, and he adds, all of me, birdie as he grinds his hips into yours shallowly. Broad chest expanding with each ragged inhale. Cementing his taunt with a steel edge as you try not to come undone beneath him. 

You'll take every fuckin’ inch—

He pulls back until only his glands stretch you open, and you know what's coming when his fingers grip the sides of your neck tight. Holding on. Anchoring you to the bed as he nudges his forearm tighter between your skull and the wall, a protective hold. 

Before you can tense up, bracing for it, or even cry out no, please, don't, you can't take it, he huffs, and then slams his hips forward, splitting you open on the fat stretch of his thick, too heavy cock. 

Maybe it's hysteria, delirium, but the blunt press of his length against your tender, sore walls balms the ache, the sting. The deeper he pushes, the less it hurts. A paradox that leaves you whimpering under his hand, heels digging into the broad stretch of his waist as you struggle to decide if you want to kick him away or pull him closer. 

A war you don't have the power to win when he surges forward, burying himself to the hilt with a growl that shakes the fragile tendons surrounding your heart. Fear, misery. Pleasure, pain. It admixes. Coalescing into a dizzying sense of fullness, unbearable pressure. Catastrophic in its heaviness as your mind reels, struggles to come to terms with the gut-wrenching, heart-aching uncertainty of how you're supposed to go on without having him seated as deep inside of you as he can get. You've never known emptiness before him. Before now. Mere seconds ago. 

And now, the thought of it leaves a palpable hollowness itching behind your ribs. Festering. Rotting tissue and bone. 

“Simon,” you choke, sobbing his name out under the firm press of his hand. “Simon—”

But he knows. 

His arm curls over your head like a crown, and you can easily forget the pinch of each thorn when he holds you tight. Protectively. Possessively. Securing you in his arms before he lifts up, palm sliding over the mattress, touch tender against your cheeks, and then settles it on the indent of your knee. Widening you for him as he spreads his thighs under yours until you're opened up for him. 

Those dark eyes are dragged down to the split of your legs where his cock disappears into your slick, swollen cunt. You follow it down, gazing at the impressive width of his stomach bowing over you until they land on the jut of skin pushing out from a messy smatter of damp curls around the base of his cock. 

The coarse hair of his groin unfurls as it sticks to your wet lips, and he rolls his head back over his shoulders he heaves through the too tight stretch of your walls over his length. You feel the pulse of him inside of you, thudding like a heartbeat. It blooms molten under the feverish weight of his lidded, dark gaze. 

“Fuck, birdie,” he rasps, and it's scorched. Charred. “Look at you—”

As the world is condensed, narrowed down to nothing but the near impossible stretch of his cock seated as deep inside of you as he can get, he leans down, scarred, mangled lips brushing cruelly over your ear, and whispers, see? Told you'd take me. 

Every fuckin’ inch. 

Your hand jerks to your belly, fingers dancing over your navel as if to feel him there, bulging from under your skin. Nearly hysterical as you try to come to terms with the pulsing, white-hot ache of him inside of you, slowly acclimating to his girth, his length. 

He grunts when he sees what you're doing, eyes flaring as your fingers skirt around your navel. 

“It's—” you shudder, gasping for air. “It's too much, Simon, I can't take it—”

He rolls his hips with a groan. “m’cock too big for you, birdie?” 

His usual cadence is flat, droll, but an unmistakable sense of masculine pride, a deep, egotistic sense of satisfaction, drapes itself over his brassy words. Glueing to the scorching rasp of his voice in a way that makes you unerringly certain that he likes it. Likes that his cock is too big for you. That it hurts. 

“Y’can take it,” he prompts, forcing more of himself into you until something snaps. Splits. Makes room. Carves out a space for him to fit. 

The brief flash of pain is soothed when he's seated deep. That same paradoxical balm making itself known as he flattens his hips into yours with a noise—half a grunt, or a growl; a lazy, pleasure-soaked snarl. You're not sure what it is, but the sound knocks the air from your lungs, igniting inside of you like a spark inside a tinderbox. 

It's only when his balls are flush against you that the same masculine pride brims up again. Primal. Animalistic. The urge to present your soft belly rears up suddenly, and it's only stifled when he grunts again, looking down at you with lidded, black eyes. 

“Now, be good and let me fuck your tight cunt.”

He's not looking for assent. Nothing you could say at this moment will sway his mind one way or the other. There's a nasty spool of determination welling up like blood on a pricked finger. Beading up to the surface in a clean, neat droplet as he rolls his broad shoulders, and shuffles into a comfortable position on his haunches between your spread thighs. The motion jostles his cock in a way that makes your breath hitch with each jerk. 

It's not painful. Not particularly. But you're overwhelmed by the sensation of utter fullness in a way you've never experienced before. Each grind of his cock against your overly stretched walls deeping that incipient feeling of anxiety brewing in your belly that one wrong move and you'll tear. He's just—

Too big. 

And despite his claims—or rather, in spite of them—you don't think you can do it. Don't think you can take him. It's too much. It feels like being turned inside out and then put back into place. An uneasy sense of discomfiture blooms with each too-tight, too-sharp tug of his cock pulling taut on your rim. 

Almost deliriously, you think you can feel the pulse of his cock inside your goddamn throat. 

“Simon—” you start on a tremulous breath but he cuts you off with a hum. 

“Relax.” 

You can't. Can't—

“Fuckin’ hell, bird,” he rasps, leaning down suddenly until his face was pushed tight into the curve of your neck, breath shallow on your thudding pulse. “Stop squirmin’ ‘round me like tha’ or I'll cum right fuckin’ now.”

Your heart stutters. Gallops painfully in your chest. His words make you dizzy because for as much as this feeling of him, his cock, inside of you dances on a delicate precipice of being more than you can feasibly handle and somehow the most incredible thing you'd ever experienced before, you hadn't considered how he'd feel. 

Inexplicably, it pleases you. 

There's something so strange—so extraordinary—about bringing a man like him, like this, to his knees. Pleasuring him by just heaving through the white-hot stretch of his cock inside of you. Making him bury his head in your neck, groaning about how he was gonna fuckin’ bust, pretty thing, fuck—

It was a powerful feeling. 

Unwarranted, maybe. But incredible, nevertheless. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, and you feel his throat work around a thick swallow. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gonna fuck this pretty cunt so fuckin' hard until you beg me stop—”

And he does just that. Rears back from your neck, and settles again between your thighs—quicker this time. With an urgency that makes you whimper when his cock grinds against your walls hard enough to bruise. 

When he finally pulls out until only the flared head of his cock remains, you knot a fist into the thin pillow, clinging on, and latch the other onto his hip as if that could somehow stop the vicious promise in his eyes about poundin’ you into the goddamn mattress. There's a flash, a brief flicker of his eyes, and then he thrusts back inside of you with a grunt that makes your belly clench, and your back arch. 

True to the promises he gave, it's brutal. Violent. 

Any pleasure you feel is leached through osmosis. A tether bound around his own. 

His arm is shoved under your back, angling your pelvis up. Thighs dangling over the thick spread of his own, ass seated in his lap. He drives into you, thrusts deep—grinds his hips until your moans break into hoarse screams, whimpers. Makes your eyes roll so far back, all you see is black even when you blink your eyes up at him. 

He carves a spot deep inside of you with each delirious piston of his cock, pounding into you with brutal thrusts, and then holding tight when his balls slap against your ass. Digging the head of his cock into the seal of your womb until it aches behind your navel. Each breath feels like glass in your lungs—

“Tha’s it,” he slurs in your ear, mouth damp against your skin. “Take my cock so good, pretty birdie. Little pussy was made for it, weren't you? Tight cunt all mine—”

His gruff words tug on that tether until you're wrapped around him like a bow. Following him down this endless spiral as he slams inside of you over and over again, cooing in your ear about the sounds you made for him, pretty cunt so fuckin’ wet f’me, birdie, hear tha’? all f’me—

“Cum f'me, birdie. Want this pussy cummin’ ‘round my cock—”

“Can't—” you gasp, arching into him, desperate and needy. It rides a line between pain and pleasure; a needlepoint you wobble on. “Need—”

You try to reach down, to touch your clit, but grinds his hips into yours with a snarl. “Cum ‘around my cock, birdie.”

“Touch me—”

“Fuckin’ hell—”

It edges on too much. Pain and pleasure teetering on a knife's edge, split apart by a line the width of a razer. Looping and tangling around each other until you can't differentiate between the two. But it makes sense, you suppose, staring up at him arched above you like a black cloud of smoke. All hunger and fire. Consuming, devouring, everything in its path. A wildfire. 

Butcher, you think again when his hand wraps around your throat. A mimicry of what he did in the truck, forcing your eyes on him. Your life tucked neatly against his palm.

These hands take lives. It's what they're made for. All scarred, and thick. Scar tissue and bone. Muscle and cartilage. Meant to render meat of cattle. Slaughterhouse in the shape of a man. Consumption personified. 

But where there should be fear, all you feel is an echoing sense of hunger. Leatherbound to each other, maybe—

The look that passes over his eyes as he stares down at you, cupped in his palm, seems to fit perfectly into the fractured gaps inside yourself you try so hard to ignore. And what doesn't—

Well. 

He'll make room to fit. 

You reach up, curling your fingers around his thick wrist. His eyes flash, but he doesn't slow his thrusts. Doesn't stop. Just watches as you peel his hand away from your neck, bringing it up to your mouth. 

On his palm, there's a piece of skin that's unblemished compared to the rest of his worn, burnt hands. A strip just big enough for you to sink your teeth into. 

And you do. 

“Fuck, Birdie—!” The snarl is ripped from his throat. His thrusts grow harder, sloppier. Each bit of strength in his muscled hips and thighs is used to pound into you until your vision blacks out. It hurts. Aches. Your heels slip down, catching on the broad expanse of his lower back. And you tighten them around his waist, pulling him closer. Deeper. “Fuck, Birdie, fuckin’ cunt was made f'me, wasn’t it? So cum on my cock. Now—”

Whining, you shake your head. “Can't. I can't. I need—”

You don't get to finish. With a huff of anger, he rips his hand off of the mattress, leaning back on his haunches, and shoves his hand between your thighs, scarred fingers stroking over your pebbled clit. It's rough. Sloppy. His anger hums through his body, skewering into you as he glared down, gaze swinging like a pendulum between the split of your thighs where his cock disappears into your swollen cunt, his fingers rubbing over your clit, and back up the hand around your neck, the tears staining your cheeks. 

There's an edge to his thrusts. A viciousness in the way he pistons his hips into you. Dark eyes catching every flicker—each wince, gasp, moan, whine all meticulously catalogued and exploited. He finds the spots that make your hips jerk, twitching both toward and away from him. Angling into the ones that have your eyes rolling back into your head, drool dribbling past your slack lips as you gasp his name out into the dank, humid air. 

It smells of sweat, sex, and him. Something brutal, bloody, and dark. Rotten leaves. Charred forests after a rain shower. Dangerous. Tinged with a slight acrid, chemical stench—benzene, oxidizing iron. It drips down your throat, and drenches your lungs. Staining you from the inside out. 

And he exploits that, too. Leans in, and breathes heavily against your upper lip, your cheek. Drowns you in his scent. His sweat beads along his jaw, droplets raining down over your brow. Soaked in his essence. Unable to see, smell, or touch anything that isn't him. 

With his hand over your mouth, teeth sunk into his palm, all you can taste is him, too. Leather. Gun oil. Blood. 

The ravenous look in his eye sharpens, turning into deadly points. 

“Such a pretty fuckin' bird.” He rasps, the words shattered, mangled in the back of his throat. They carry the scent of blood when you breathe them in, and you wonder if he forced them through glass. Pushed them out with his bloody fists. 

You bite down harder in response, keening through the white-hot pain of his cock spearing deeper than before, stretching you past your limits. The taste of blood on your tongue, the rasping snarl pulled from his chest, his fingers toying with your clit, push you over the edge once more. Again and again, and again, and—

His hand peels away from your oversensitive clit, dropping down to the mattress beside your face. He follows quickly after several impossibly deep thrusts that shove you higher up on the mattress, pressing in until his balls sit flush against your ass, cockhead battering against your cervix, and he groans—deep and liquid—when he comes, spilling inside of you. Rooted deep, cock twitching, Simon drops to his elbow beside your head, smothering you under his weight as the tension in his body bleeds out. 

Your teeth stick to the divots in his hand, and the sensation of ungluing them from the wounds you gave him makes you shiver. Slowly, you roll your tongue out, chasing the drops of blood, and breathe heavily through your nose as he burrows deeper inside of you, chest shuddering over yours. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he rasps, hips jerking into yours with a slap that echoes through the room. “Little tease, ain't you?” 

Even with his cock softening inside of you, it's still thick. Fat. Stretching you open as he yawns out above you, bloodied hand dropping down to cup your neck again, forearm resting heavily between your breasts. He raises slightly on his elbow, black eyes glinting in the shallow dark of the room. Piercing as they drill into your sweat-slicked face. 

It aches when he moves. When he presses his hips harder into yours, the muscles in your legs throb as his broad waist splits them apart. Your feet dangle, sliding uselessly down his back, over his ass, before coming to rest curled around his thighs. Melting into the mattress, tender and sore and all chewed up—

You feel like a massive contusion instead of a person. A pestle. His. 

The thought makes you shiver, and his eyes flash in triumph like he knows. 

The feeling of him pulling out of you draws a whimper from your lips. The drag on your sensitive, bruised walls is a strange mix of tender pleasure and pain. He chuckles at your mewl—dark and low; the sound of nightmares, you think. Crackling sap on charred wood. 

You try to pretend it doesn't make you shudder, but the way he hums in response dashes the feigned oblivion before it can form. All you can do is heave on the bed, and watch him through narrowed slits as he leans back on his haunches once again, head cocking to the side. His dark eyes fixed on the split of your legs. The ache in your cunt growing sharp under his molten stare. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, the shallow groan pulled out from between clenched teeth. You wonder if the mangled curse was unintentional. Ripped from his throat before he could clamp his jaws around it—a crack in the facade. A hairline splinter in the indomitable mask he wears. 

Your heart lurches. None of this makes sense, but your head is too muddled, too syrupy, to think much at all. A quandary for later when he throws you from his bed with a harsh slap on your ass and a and don't think about doing this ever again. 

But you don't think you can move. “Give me a minute,” you start on a trembling breath. “And I'll—”

His brows move but his eyes stay fixed on your sore cunt. You can feel him leak out of you, spilling on the mattress in thick globs. The sensation makes you shiver. 

“You'll what?” 

It looks like he has to forcibly tear his eyes away from you, reluctance forming a cold, angry crater between his brows. The brunt of his ire—white, burning—makes you want to supplicate yourself at his feet, roll over on your belly and show the beast you mean no harm. 

(Run, and run far—)

He huffs. “You'll what, birdie?”

It takes a minute to find your voice through all the panic clogging your throat. “I'll leave, um—”

He peels away from you with a loud, rough snort, and drops to his his elbow beside you. Hands curling possessively over your waist, fingers tight. Unyielding. 

“Not goin’ anywhere, birdie. Told you, didn't I? You're mine.” 

“I'm—”

“Go to sleep.” 

He pulls you roughly to his chest until your head is pillowed on his shoulder, and then rolls on his back, keeping you cushioned at his side. You try to move, but his arm wedges under your neck, curling over your shoulder. Trapping you to him. 

The panic wants to come now. To rage against the shackle of his embrace, to run home and scrub your skin until it bleeds. But the exhaustion collapses over it all until your eyes feel too heavy to hold open. Too painful.

As you drift, aimless and dreamless, his voice cuts through the fog. “Gotta learn ‘ow to cum with nothin’ but my cock inside of you sooner or later, birdie. Or you won't be coming at all—”

It sounds like a threat. A promise. You fall asleep with the words echoing in your head, his arm an anchor around your waist. 

He wakes up hungry. 

A gnawing in his belly pulls him from the thin doze he fell into after fucking you three more times—with your face pressed into the mattress, ass in the air for him to rut against like a beast; teetering over his hips, the spread of them too wide for your thighs to split over leaving you precariously unbalanced and shifting your weight above him as neither knee sat comfortably on the mattress; and on your belly with him crushing you to the floor under his bulk. The memory of which makes his spent cock stir, twisting limply against his damp, sticky thigh. Matted down with drying cum, sweat, the slick wetness of being buried inside your messy cunt. 

Filled now with his cum. 

He groans low in his throat as he thinks about it. The sloppy way you let him take you over and over again until you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore, passing out before he finished. Letting him fuck his cum inside of you as you whimpered in your sleep—

Perfect little thing, aren't you? So good to him.

Simon can't remember the last time he fucked someone, much less when it was this enjoyable (an understatement, of course; in the back of his head, wheels spin round and round as he tries to come up with a plan to keep his cock buried inside of you at all times while still doing his work—), and the overflow of unquenched lust churns in his belly. A hunger he can now slake on your willing body. In the silence, he purrs—

But the effort, the exertion, dredged up a different need inside him. 

Simple hunger. An appetite. 

He could eat—

his eyes slant toward the top of your crown in the dark, and he amends it, quickly, to: in more ways than one. 

He'll go home in a minute. Make himself a steak from the prime cut he butchered a few days ago, leftovers that no one had any qualms about when he took several pieces home with him. 

(and really, why would they argue with the butcher who keeps their wallets fat and their bills paid?)

It was left on the counter earlier before he got the call that your brother was making another move. Now a perfect room temperature as it waits for him to come back. Cook it the way he likes—

Rare. 

The perfect grill is a nice char on the outside, but bleeding red on the inside. Basted in duck fat and garlic. A sprig of rosemary in the pan, but not touching the meat. Just enough to give the juice that earthy, sweet flavour. Let it rest for ten minutes under foil with the rest of the fat poured over it from the pan. Served as is with maybe a dash of salt and pepper on the side. 

Simple. But incredibly difficult to perfect, he finds. 

Everyone tries to make it fancier than what it needs to be, but at the end of the day, meat is meat. And going from picking scraps from the garbage outside of the Italian butcher on the corner to ordering his own pretentious filet mignon still gives him a sense of unease. Whiplash, perhaps. Nothing to something—how about that, Tommy? 

Maybe that's why he prefers to raise and butcher his own cattle. A never-ending supply of meat for him to sink his teeth into even if this whole thing goes belly up and he's back to begging for morsels on the corner. Tommy hiding in the shadows with a baseball bat waiting to ambush the richer men who happen to feel altruistic that day. 

This practice bled over into his current occupation, too. The basement of that same Italian butcher shop he used to sneak expired sausage from out of the bins is now his home base of sorts. A money laundering front of the 141. Headquarters for them to congregate in secrecy upstairs. And here—

A torture chamber for those who tried to cross them. Strung up on meat hooks like the cattle they eat, the ones he feeds them, until he makes up his mind on what he wants to do to them. 

It's where you should have been, he supposes, thumb brushing a spot of dried blood on your shoulder, right below a nasty bite mark on your forearm. The ring nearly black from the clotted blood pooling in the indents. It matches several others on your thighs—top, insides, back—and neck, belly, collarbones, sternum. All chewed up. Marked by the butcher. 

In working for the old Italian man who ran the shop when he was eighteen, he learned that most of the butchers preferred to mark their carcasses when they came in. A little x on the fat to signify they'd be the ones carving up the prime meat. 

He didn't think you could handle his knife, so he gave you his teeth instead. But the implication is clear. 

His. 

It's overkill considering his reputation, and the claim he already had on you. Because even before this, back when he saw you through the window of his shop as he was moonlit as a legitimate butcher and businessman instead of the enforcer, the brute, everyone already knew he was, his interest was clear. You were off-limits. His to deal with. 

And while Price refers not to get involved in small-time street dealers, the warnings Soap and Gaz impressed onto your brother should have been the end of an irritating situation and not the beginning of a fuckin’ headache. But no. He had to push. And push.  

Until Price gave the order to take care of it. 

And that he did. 

(With the added benefit of killing one bird and keeping the other in a pretty cage.)

Price probably won't like his solution, but Simon racked up enough favours to keep a little pet of his own. Been a good boy for a long, long time now, and he supposes he's owed a bone. 

Or a sweet thing tucked tight to his side having passed out some two hours ago after he slaked his dizzying thirst on you over and over again even though it doesn't feel like it's been enough. 

It's rare that he has an appetite for people. Even rarer that he lets this meagre hunger consume him like this. But there's something about you that makes his teeth ache in the same way they often do whenever he's hungry for meat. 

He wants to devour you. Consume you. Eat you alive and save nothing for anyone else to taste. 

(So—

Price will just have to let him keep you, won't he?)

The mattress vibrates under him. His phone buzzing with an incoming text. He reaches over, pulling it close enough to read the notification on his screen. It's from Soap.

All her stuff is on your porch. 

He hums, but doesn't reply. Simply opts to drop his phone on his belly, and tug you closer to his broad chest. He'll wake you in an hour, and the stirring in his groin tells him it'll be for another round. Maybe he'll take you in the freezer. Make you cling to the hook hanging down from the ceiling as he fucks you like that. He has a pair of ties for ox, lamb legs, that he can loop around your wrists and heft you up on. 

It'll hurt, he's sure. The binds weren't designed with comfort in mind, but he can easily bear your weight as he pounds into you from below, your pretty legs wrapped tight around his waist. 

The image, the thought, alone has him thickening against his thigh. He reaches down, gripping the base tight in his hand as he pulls you even closer, burying his nose in your crown. 

At the very least, he wouldn't be lying when he told Price he strung you up. 

Three rounds—on your back, your hands and knees, perched above him like a pretty goddess he stole away from a temple—and he still isn't satisfied. Fuck. He breathes in your scent and doesn't think he ever will be. 

He'll get you out of here, take you home. Make you the steak he likes for a late dinner, rare and simple—the same one he gave your brother weeks ago when he dragged him into the shop, strung him up on a hook, and demanded payment for his disrespect. 

Who'd have thought that his payment would be you? 

(fitting, though, since he'd had his eye on you for a while now—)

He nudges you when his phone chimes again with another message doubtless from Soap telling him all your things have been tucked away. Matters dealt with. 

“C’mon,” he grunts, running his hand down your spine. “We’re leavin’.”

You blink at him slowly. “Leaving?”

He nods. “Get dressed.” 

You're quiet as he turns, reaching for his jeans left in a heap beside the mattress, but he hears the hitch in your throat. The click when you swallow. Unbothered by it, he turns, giving you his back as he wedges his feet inside the trousers, pulling them up his legs. 

The bed shifts behind him. “I—I can walk back to my brother's—”

The hope in your voice is a delicate thing. Fragile like fine china. A pretty, vulnerable tchotchke meant to be seen, admired, but not touched. Not handled roughly. 

Unfortunately for you, he's never had much of a gentle touch. 

When he throws a glance over his shoulder, he's not surprised to find your arm folded over your bare breasts as you kneel on the mattress, your palm resting flat between your parted thighs, wrist and forearm covering the slip of heaven between them from his greedy, prying gaze. 

It paints a startling picture, he finds. One with you looking thoroughly ravaged. Taken. But presenting it in a soft sort of sensuality meant to make a man feel both hot under the collar and like an unrepentant voyeur. 

Pretty bird, he thinks, and feels his cock stir. 

He rises swiftly, hiking up his jeans around his thighs as he goes, and then turns to you with a heady desire to crush that gossamer of hope between his greedy hand like a silken cobweb that will stick to his fingers. 

“Not goin’ to your brothers,” he says, pushing his tongue against his cheek to stem the ache burning in his muscles. 

You shiver, eyes growing wide, frenzied with fear as you stare up at him. The shift of your throat when you swallow makes pre-cum dribble out of his fattened cock. He's never really had much of a taste for it, but he's overcome with the urge to see you cry—

“Where are we going?”

Amid the ache in his loins, the flickering fantasies of your pretty, lachrymal face gazing up at him helpless, hopeless, and needy, he catches the edge of panic when you speak. The razor-sharp tremble of fear. 

But buried amongst it, hidden in the bruised look you give him as he towers over you with his cock bulging in his slacks and his eyes burning with want, he finds a keen sense of eagerness amongst the rubble. Agog, almost. 

And fuck. If that doesn't do something awful to him. 

“What?” He taunts, cocking his head to the side as your breath grows shallow and your eyes wide. “Did you think that was enough to pay your debt, birdie?”

“What? You can't—”

“Don't like it—” he lifts his shoulder up in a cool, indifferent shrug, enjoying the dismayed expression that falls over your brow more than he should. “—go to the police.”

“The ones on your payroll?” You spit, eyes flaring wide like an angry cat. “You—”

Several things might have continued in place of your choked, angry sob, but it's swallowed down as pragmatically as it was the first time he cornered you earlier today. And as beautiful as your ire is, he finds the cornered look on your face to be much more pleasing. Prettier. 

“C’mon, bird,” he mocks, holding his hand out toward you with a tick of his lips. “All your stuff is at home. Don't be stupid.” 

“Stupid?” You gasp in indignation, but there's a bruised look in your eyes. A wounded thing that makes his breath hitch in his lungs for reasons he can't really ascertain, but just knows that he likes it. Likes it a lot. “This is—insane.”

Again, he shrugs, but the indifference this time isn't the same manufactured callousness meant to inspire fear. The conversation is stale already. Grating on him. He's not used to having his orders ignored or questioned. What he says usually goes—either through association or reputation, or just the fact that no one has ever come close to filling the same measure of space as he does—and questioning him like this makes him feel too much like a boy, and not enough like the living ghost he pretends to be. 

“You can't do this. It's not right.”

An appeal to his humanity. Cute. He huffs, reaching down to fasten the button of his jeans. The sound the zipper makes cuts through the room. “You're mine, birdie. Better get used to it.” 

Catching your eye as he says it was only meant to reignite the kindling fear you have of him from extinguishing. A scared prey animal was a better pet than an angry one. But the look on your face catches him off-guard. 

It reminds him of a flightless little bird shivering in a child's shoebox. Tiny broken thing his mum warned him not to touch or its mother would abandon it to die on its own. 

“Until the debt is paid off.”

A statement, not a question. He shrugs, but doesn't respond. Tilts his head toward the door. “Let's go.” 

His lack of reassurance doesn't soften the flint in your gaze, but the prospect of recompense seems to spurn you on. Another wishbone of hope to cling to. And despite himself, he lets you keep it. Lets your little finger wrap around the delicate bone for comfort because as much as you might think there's a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bigger piece, he has no intentions of letting something like that get in the way of his appetite even if you do. 

(And his hunger has always been particularly voracious, hasn't it?)

“Come, birdie. Gotta get you home, and fed, don't I?” 

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC Shit Fae!Danny Has Said While Living With Waynes

Danny, making a 'got your nose' gesture: Hey Jason, look, I've got your name!

Red Hood, who suddenly can't remember his own name: What the fuck

Bruce, in a tired dad voice: Danny, please, we talked about this, return your brother's name back

Danny: Oh, come on, it's not like he even uses it

Jason, thankfully remembering his name: And I repeat, what the f u c k

Steph, at dinner: I was wondering, what do faeries even eat normally? Like, flowers and stuff?

Danny, his eyes two black voids inside his eyesockets: The souls of the innocent

Steph: So that's a 'no' on the flowers?

Danny, back to normal and shoving a bagel in his mouth: I mean, I can, but would you want to stay on the crumbs-only diet when you are in a 5-star Michelin restaurant?

Tim: It's actually 3-star. Michelin rating system only has three stars, not five.

Dick: Are you saying that people are basically food joints for Fae?

Damian, at Constantine: It would do you well to choose your wording better when speaking to fair folk-

Danny, very much a fair folk, appearing out of thin air in the Cave: Yolo, s'up bitches, guess who's back in town!

Damian: -even when they do not necessarily do so themselves.

Constantine, looking between them: Are you sure you're the human and he is the changeling?

Tim, 46 hours of no sleep: Hey, if you can take a name from someone, does it mean you can take, like, other things that have no real shape or form?

Danny: Names do have shape and form, they even have taste. Yours is like a ping-pong ball made out of really dense cotton candy with banana-caramel flavor.

Tim, losing his touch with reality: Dense banana cotton candy...

Danny: By the way, I know you wanted to ask me if I could take your need to sleep from you, and theoretically, the answer is yes.

Tim, his whisper full of hope: ...will you?..

Danny: No. Either go to sleep or keep suffering. I'm not here to make your life easier.

Danny, after a half-an-hour rant on the Fae customs and traditions: -and Fae never tell the truth, but also never lie. It's a work of art, you know, say what you want but never in a way that makes sense.

Jason: So Fae just like to fuck with people.

Danny, looking him in the eyes, smiling and winking: Sure, humans are very fuckable.

Bruce, trying very hard not to pay attention to this: Can you make an example?

Danny: Sure. I lied.

Bruce: Where?

Danny: :)

Bruce, feeling like he is about to lose his mind: W h e r e ?

Alfred, right after he heard Dick's muffled screaming in the hallway: Young Master Danny, would you mind returning Master Dick his ability to talk in coherent sentences?

Danny, obediently standing up and walking out of the library: ...okay.

Bruce: How come he always listens to you?

Alfred: He knows what I will do if he doesn't.

Danny, returning to the library: He will change all the silverware to iron-ware. As well as the doorknobs and hairbrushes and lightswitches and everything else.

Alfred: Did you fix Master Dick's shoes?

Danny: I did. But I still think that making all of his shoes left ones was funny.

Alfred: Indeed, it was.

| <-prev | next-> |

There's also a fic now.

[jaysgirlx]

"Need help sweetheart?" Bookstore Customer!Jason Todd helps you reach the books on the higher shelves. You were his favorite employee and he wanted to make your day easier. He'd been coming here for a while but you always forgot how tall he was and how good his body felt pressed against yours. You only knew how to mumble out a couple words because you didn't know what else to say to a man like that. "Uh sir, you don't need to-"

"Please call me anything but sir sweetheart, you know I'm not new here"

Bookstore Customer!Jason enjoyed teasing his favorite employee aka you of course. He teases you about working at the bookstore even though he's constantly there and he'll always be flirting with you even if you're working the counter that day. He knows he's holding up the line but he's a paying customer so he doesn't care.

"How's my favorite pretty girl doing?"

"M'tired today Jay, I can't handle your nonsense right now"

"Okay that was mean- wait, Jay? that's a first"

"Buy a book or get out Jason"

You could easily tell Jason liked classics and poetry but for some reason he was willing to read your favorites even if they were a smut-filled mess. One time, he backed you up into a corner, after reading one of those books you liked, "Hmm, you like this kind of shit baby? cause I can do all that to you and so much more"

Over time, you learned that Jason also likes to follow you to the store, whispering to you about all the things he could do to you if you'd let him. His hand is always on your hips, pressing his body fully into you. He knows you like it especially when you roll your hips into his when nobody's looking. He wishes you'd use your words and just say you were his but he knew he wasn't even close to getting that, at least not yet.

Jason tried to buy a new book every week, sometimes not even to read. He needed an excuse to be there since your boss has never been fond of him ever since he had caught him feeling you up near the back shelves once. He learned his lesso so now he purposefully buys the books you like, just so he can watch you ramble on and on about them without getting kicked out of the store.

Bookstore Customer!Jason thrived on the feeling he got from watching you go from being so nonchalant around him to the most talkative girl in the world. he wants you comfortable if he's going to fuck you. You find yourself shutting up one time because you thought you had bored him but he quickly gets rid of that thought for you, "Keep talking sweetheart, I'm just wondering how pretty your mouth would look with my cock stuffed down your throat"

"Jay I don't- I can't- I haven't-"

"Don't worry, you will and I'm sure you're a fast learner"

It wasn't that hard for you to notice that Jason got a little jealous when his brother Dick hits on you the first and last time he brings him to the bookstore. Dick easily chats you up and Jason watches the two become a bit too friendly for his liking but it wasn't his place to speak, "Now I see why my little brother brings home so many books"

"It's good he does, I like guys who read"

"I actually quite the fan of classic literature-"

"Oh shut up Dick"

Bookstore Customer!Jason had all your coworkers wondering if you'll ever let the poor guy hit. They weren't sure if Jason was interested in you or your body, regardless they couldn't ignore the smile you got whenever he walk in. Or the way you'd laugh at his dumb jokes. You had him on a leash and you didn't even know what to do with him. He's begging to take you out or just even spent a night with you. He didn't just want you, he needed you. "C'mon I promise to take care of you princess, I'll even take you to that little coffee shop in Bludhaven"

"Who told you about that?!"

"…Dick"

When he finally manages to convince you to let him kiss you, you're nervous as fuck. You thought this was just another one of his antics but no, this was real. He'd promised to stop hitting on you if you felt nothing and you should've know it was bad idea when you could hear your own heartbeat still your let his lips touch yours. It was such a bad idea because before you knew it, he's got you pushed up against the wall, leg parting your thighs with your hands gripping at his shirt. "Jay, more please" Suddenly after all this time, you're pleading for him. Oh how the tables have turned. You're begging for all he's got, and you know he has so much more to give.

"Just give me a moment baby, got be patient" Within a matter of minutes your pants are discarded on the floor, and your panties are still on but being pushed aside while two fingers are being pumped in and out of your pussy. He's got one hand on your hips holding you down while one of your legs is wrapped around his waist. "Didn't I tell you I could do some much for you baby?"

You nod quickly while he's sucking on your poor neck, that would definitely be red all tomorrow. you feel his teeth sink into your skin, not too hard but rough enough to leave a mark. "Now keep quiet, I don't want any of your coworkers hearing us back here" The next thing you know you're cumming on the boy's fingers and he wants you to do it again. and again. and possibly 50 more times if you're willing.

The next time Jason comes, he's holding what you think is flowers and you know he'll be your victim today.

"So I thought real flowers would be cheesy and you'd probably not want to take care of em, so my brothers taught me how to make these paper flowers and…here just take them"

"Wow, I'm getting hand-crafted flowers from THE Jason Todd? Someone must have a really big crush on me huh? Are those bandaids on your fingers? Want me to kiss your boo-boos? "

"Are you going to finally go out with me or do I have to make you cum-"

"Yes yes! Just do not finish that sentence out loud"

"You are soooooooooo in love me"

"Jay, get out"

[dduane]

I had a note from a librarian...

Along these lines:

I am a public school librarian and would like to put your young wizard series in the library this year as I have no joy in promoting HP anymore. What's the best method of getting the whole set hardback where the $ goes back to you the author?

So first of all, to the OP: thanks for being in touch. I'll drop you a note shortly.

That said, the question you raise might be one that's occurred to other people: so I thought I'd handle this part of it in public.

About Young Wizards hardcovers: (rueful look) This is kind of a challenge, as—due to changes of publishers and other weirdness—there has never been a whole-series, unified-format hardcover set of the Young Wizards books in the series's 40-year history.

...Let's take it from the top, and you'll see the problem.

The books' first home was at Delacorte Press, an imprint of Dell Publishing. So You Want To Be A Wizard was published in hardcover in 1983, the Deep Wizardry hc in 1985, and the High Wizardry hc in 1990, with these covers. (The art, respectively, by David Wiesner, Darrell Sweet, and Neal McPheeters.)

All of these editions are now difficult to find in good condition, especially SYWTBAW, which as a first book in a series by a new/untried author, perhaps understandably had a very small print run, and was mostly sold to libraries. (The run might have been as small as 1500 copies. It's hard to tell now, as this wasn't data that was shared with authors in those days.) As a result, most copies of this edition are either very beat up, or (if in good condition) pretty expensive. The Delacorte DW and HW hardcovers are a little easier to find, but not that much.

In the early 1990s there was a change in publishing direction at Dell shortly after HW came out. The publisher's interest had pivoted toward wanting more bestselling authors; so they jettisoned many then-new or midlist authors so as to be able to pay the best-selling authors more. (In this particular micro-bonfire of the vanities, Dell's stupidity in throwing Jane Yolen overboard, FFS, astounds me to this day.) So though the books continued to be published at other Dell imprints (Laurel-Leaf, Yearling) as paperbacks through the mud-1990s, that was the end of the Dell hardcovers.

The next hardcover publication was therefore in 1990, from GuildAmerica / SF Book Club. Support Your Local Wizard contains SYWTBAW, DW and HW, and was a Book Club bestseller: it sold a quarter million copies and set a record as their most popular new-member-requested book that lasted until they went out of business. As a result, there are a lot of these books around.

Also in plentiful supply is The Young Wizards, which SFBC Fantasy published in 2001. (NB that a lot of sources list this as being a 1984 book, which is incorrect: as it also contains, besides the first three, A Wizard Abroad and The Wizard's Dilemma, this makes it impossible to have been published any sooner than 2001.)

Anyway, after that, things get a bit simpler. In the mid 1990s the series was picked up by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Harcourt Trade Publishers' new YA imprint Magic Carpet Books, which began republishing earlier works. A Wizard Abroad had until then been published only in the UK (in a mass-marker mmpb from Transworld/Corgi); its first hardcover came out from the SF Book Club/GuildAmerica in 1993, Dell having passed on acquiring it. (The cover on this one was done by the fabulous David Cherry, artist and brother of my old colleague C. J. Cherryh.) Harcourt did an unusual small-format hardcover of AWAb in 1997—testing the waters, I think—and then, when that sold strongly, went straight to full-size hardcovers with The Wizard's Dilemma (with art from then until now by Cliff Nielsen) and have stayed with that format since.

Harcourt also did a lovely 25th anniversary hardcover edition of So You Want To Be A Wizard in 2003, which is easy to find inexpensively. I strongly suspect this republication trend would have continued with Deep Wizardry and High Wizardry when their respective anniversaries came around. But unfortunately the Magic Carpet program wound down soon afterwards, and the most recent volumes have been published simply as HMH.

...So you can see, you've got kind of a mixed bag to deal with. Availability has also been something of an issue, as the books are considered backlist by Harcourt's current owner (HarperCollins), and warehouse supplies of some books in the series have been iffy.

So if I was a librarian in this situation, I'd be tempted to do this: (a) Grab a few used copies of the 25th-anniversary edition of SYW, and a few copies of the The Young Wizards omnibus, to take care of books 1-5. Then (b) see about acquiring all the rest in the Harcourt hardcover editions of volumes 6-10, new or used, as opportunity allows. Royalties come to me off all the Harcourt books, so I'm okay on that count. (And thanks for being concerned about it!)

For all who might be interested: hope this helps!

[entitled-fangirl]

Indeed, my girl.

Cregan Stark x Velaryon!reader

Summary: The reader is dealing with the grief of losing Luke. Cregan helps in the ways he can.

Warnings: Talks of attempted sa, Threatening, Talks of death, cursing, mental health

Masterlist

................................................................

She hadn't been the same since the death of her younger brother. 

Cregan had noticed it. 

Fewer meals, fewer baths, fewer words, and fewer movements entirely. 

As if the grief was killing her from the inside. 

And he could only watch.

He was a man of action. He'd killed men with his bare heads for far less.

And he could only watch as grief was murdering his wife. 

...

"There's something on your mind," he stated from the doorway of their shared chambers.

She sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. 

When she made no motion to look at him, he walked to her, kneeling down with a hand on her back, "I wish I knew what you think so much about."

She shook her head as she stared at the flames. Her voice was hoarse, "No, you don't."

He tilted his head, "Try me."

She turned and looked at him from over her shoulder. 

Only then did he notice the hollowing of her cheeks. 

The dark circles under her eyes. 

She sniffled, "Does the pain go away?"

He felt his chest tighten. 

The death of his own younger brother. 

His brother had died years ago.

"No."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"You just learn to live with it." He said awkwardly. 

Starks were not made for emotions.

She turned to him completely now, abandoning warmth of the fire, "How?"

"I dunno. It just happens one day." He looked off in thought. "You forget about it for a while. But…" 

She felt herself leaning into every word.

"You still see him in every first snow of the winter. Every pine tree with missing branches." He lets out a strained laugh, "And every fucking rabbit."

She shifted herself closer, wiping at her cheeks. "I… I see him. When I close my eyes."

He nods, "You will. You always will."

"I haven't felt this since," she pauses, "Since… Ser Harwin died."

Ser Harwin Strong.

Her biological father.

"And did that ever go away?" He asked quietly.

She sniffled, "No. But it became easier with time. When…" Her eyes flooded with tears again, "When I forgot what he looked like."

He couldn't help the coo from his throat as he immediately pulled her into his lap.

"What if I forget what he looks like, Cregan?" She asked in horror.

He tucked her face into his neck, "It'll be alright."

"What if… if this was my fault?" She sobbed into him.

"How could it ever be your fault, my girl?" He asked calmly.

Her shoulder shook with hiccups, "Like… with… with Harwin… and I… it's… it's my fault…"

He pulled her away from him to look into her eyes, "What do you mean?"

"I had… and when…" 

"Shh," he immediately cooed. "Tell me when you're ready. " His hands brushed her cheeks gently, catching stray tears as she tried to steady her breathing. 

After a while, she managed it enough to speak, "I was the reason… Harwin was sent away."

His brows furrowed, "I'm not understanding you, sweet girl."

"He was sent away for… for defending us as bastards against Ser Criston. And… Harwin was already mad at Criston because of me."

Cregan hummed, "Alright?"

"I look like him but… I… I looked like my mother then. And… Criston at one point liked my mother very much. And… and in turn, he began to take a liking to me."

Cregan's jaw clenched at the sound of where the story was going. 

"One night, I… I was going to my chambers and… and he pinned me to the wall and… tried to… sully me."

His hands that were on her hips tightened and his eyes darkened, "What?"

"You took my maidenhead, Cregan. You know that."

Her words did little to comfort him. "But how far did he get? I'll fucking kill him myself."

"I'm fine. I got out. And… I told Harwin. He promised to deal with it the next day and… Criston questioned our parentage that day. That day it all happened and he was sent away. To die in that stupid fucking fire." She leaned back, "If I had just kept it to myself, he wouldn't have been so angry-"

"-No. No. Don't even begin to say that," Cregan said firmly as he took her face in his hands again. "You did it all right."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"I know it doesn't."

"Luke looked like him the most."

He pulled her to him again. 

Her voice grew low, "I'll kill them all."

Cregan stared at the flames of the fireplace. 

He was quiet for a while, until his voice came out strong and firm, "The North remembers."

She leaned away, rubbing at the few tears that still laid on her cheeks. "The Greens don't know what they've done."

"Aye. They don't."

Here, in Winterfell, the two lovers began to find solace in each other. 

"You're the only other person that I…"

Cregan hung on every word now. He spoke in a low murmur, "Say it. You can say it to me."

"-I've never told anyone else what happened with Cole. Besides Harwin. Just… you."

He felt a protective feeling surge through him. Nothing was getting through him to her, he'd make sure of that.

"You remind me of him, you know."

He paused, "Who, my girl?"

"Harwin."

His lips parted, "How…. How so?"

Her hands moved his face, caressing his cheeks until they grew firm, "You wouldn't let anything fucking touch me either."

He could've let that smirk grow more on his face, but he kept it suppressed, "I won't let anyone or anything touch you, my girl. I swear it."

She hummed, relaxing, "Much like him. Like home."

Cregan let a smile come across his face, "I'm honored I'm like home to you, sweet Princess."

"He…" She smiled, recalling a memory, "He had taught my brothers the sword. As a girl, I had no luxury. But… in secret, he gave me lessons with throwing knives."

His head tilted, impressed, "He taught you how to throw knives?"

"He was a talented man."

"Aye."

"That's how I did it."

"Did what, pretty?"

She paused, taking a deep breath, "How… I defended myself. Cole, he… he pinned me to the wall. When he was distracted, I pulled my knife on him and threatened him with something… too unladylike to say."

Cregan Stark felt a deep surge of pride flow through his body at her confession. "Tell me."

"Oh, no. It's… it's too crude."

His hands moved to her thighs, "Please, wife. I must know."

"I threatened to… 'take the thing that he thinks with' and... I did not mean his head."

Cregan let out a bark of a laugh, throwing his head back dramatically. 

When he came back to, his smile never left, "My little dragon of a wife. It seems you're just full of fire!"

She smiled, "Is that a bad thing?"

He pulled her closer to him, "Absolutely not." His lips brushed hers, "I'm quite fond of it."

"Good," she whispered. 

Their lips connected in a soft kiss.

"They'll pay. I promise." Cregan said as he pulled away. "Starks don't forget oaths."

"Winter is coming. Isn't it, Cregan?"

He smiled, "Indeed, my girl."

.........................................................................