#the shadows and nothing without her | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

spikedfearn · 2 months ago

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Mercy Made Flesh

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In the heat-choked hush of the Mississippi Delta, you answer a knock you swore would never come. Remmick—unaging, unholy, unforgettable—returns to collect what was promised. What follows is not romance, but ritual. A slow, sensual surrender to a hunger older than the Trinity itself.

wc: 13.1k

a/n: Listen. I didn’t mean to simp for Vampire Jack O’Connell—but here we are. I make no apologies for letting Remmick bite first and ask questions never. Thank you to my bestie Nat (@kayharrisons) for beta reading and hyping me up, without her this fic wouldn't exist, everyone say thank you Nat!

warnings: vampirism, southern gothic erotica, blood drinking as intimacy, canon-typical violence, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f!receiving), first time, bloodplay, biting, marking, monsterfucking (soft edition), religious imagery, devotion as obsession, gothic horror vibes, worship kink, consent affirmed, begging, dirty talk, gentle ruin, haunting eroticism, power imbalance, slow seduction, soul-binding, immortal x mortal, he wants to keep her forever, she lets him, fem!reader, second person pov, 1930s mississippi delta, house that breathes, you will be fed upon emotionally & literally

tags: @xhoneymoonx134

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated! please enjoy

Mississippi Delta, 1938

The heat hadn’t broken in days.

Not even after sunset, when the sky turned the color of old bruises and the crickets started singing like they were being paid to. It was the kind of heat that soaked into the floorboards, that crept beneath your thin cotton slip and clung to your back like sweat-slicked hands. The air was syrupy, heavy with magnolia and something murkier—soil, maybe. River water. Something that made you itch beneath your skin.

Your cottage sat just outside the edge of town, past the schoolhouse where you spent your days sorting through ledgers and lesson plans that no one but you ever really seemed to care about. It was modest—two rooms and a porch, set back behind a crumbling white-picket fence and swallowed by trees that whispered in the dark. A little sanctuary tucked into the Delta, surrounded by cornfields, creeks, and ghosts.

The kind of place a person could disappear if they wanted to. The kind of place someone could find you…if they were patient enough.

You stood in front of the sink, rinsing out a chipped enamel cup, your hands moving automatically. The oil lamp on the kitchen table flickered with each breath of wind slipping through the cracks in the warped window frame. A cicada screamed in the distance, then another, and then the whole world was humming in chorus.

And beneath it—beneath the cicadas, and the wind, and the nightbirds—you felt something shift.

A quiet. Too quiet.

You turned your head. Listened harder.

Nothing.

Not even the frogs.

Your hand paused in the dishwater. Fingers trembling just a little. It wasn’t like you to be spooked by the dark. You’d grown up in it. Learned to make friends with shadows. Learned not to flinch when things moved just out of sight.

But this?

This was different.

It was as if the night was holding its breath.

And then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not loud. Not frantic. But final.

Your body went stiff. The cup slipped beneath the water and bumped the side of the basin with a hollow clink.

No one ever came this far out after sundown. No one but—

You shook your head, almost hard enough to rattle something loose.

No.

He was gone. That part of your life was buried.

You made sure of it.

Still, your bare feet moved toward the door like they weren’t yours. Soft against the creaky wood. Slow. You reached for the small revolver you kept in the drawer beside the door frame, thumbed the hammer back.

Your hand rested on the knob.

Another knock. This time, softer.

Almost...polite.

The porch light had been dead for weeks, so you couldn’t see who was waiting on the other side. But the air—something in the air—told you.

It was him.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

You stood there with your palm flat against the rough wood, your forehead nearly touching it too—eyes shut, breath shallow. The air on the other side didn’t stir like it should’ve. No footfalls creaking the porch. No shuffle of boots on sun-bleached planks. Just stillness. Waiting.

And underneath your ribs, something began to ache. Something you hadn’t let yourself feel in years.

You didn’t know his name, not back then. You only knew his eyes—gold in the shadows. Red when caught in the light. Like a firelight in the dark. Like a blood red moon through stained-glass windows.

And his voice. Low. Dragging vowels like syrup. A Southern accent that didn’t come from any map you’d ever seen—older than towns, older than state lines. A voice that had told you, seven years ago, with impossible calm:

"You’ll know when it’s time."

You knew. Your hands trembled against your sides. But you didn’t back away. Some part of you knew how useless running would be.

The knob beneath your hand felt cold. Too cold for Mississippi in August.

You turned it.

The door opened slow, hinges whining like they were trying to warn you. You stepped back instinctively—just one step—and then he was there.

Remmick.

Still tall, still lean in that devastating way—like his body was carved from something hard and mean, but shaped to tempt. He wore a crisp white shirt rolled to the elbows, suspenders hanging loose from his hips, and trousers that looked far too clean for a man who walked through the dirt. His hair was messy in that intentional way, brown and swept back like he’d been running hands through it all night. Stubble lined his sharp jaw, catching the lamplight just so.

But it was his face that rooted you to the floor. That hollowed out your breath.

Still young. Still wrong.

Not a wrinkle, not a scar. Not a mark of time. He hadn’t aged a day.

And his eyes—oh, God, his eyes.

They caught the lamp behind you and lit up red, bright and glinting, like the embers of a dying fire. Not human. Not even pretending.

"Hello, dove."

His voice curled into your bones like cigarette smoke. You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

You hated how your body reacted.

Hated that you could still feel it—like something old and molten stirring between your thighs, a flicker of the same heat you’d felt that night in the alley, back when you were too desperate to care what kind of creature answered your prayer.

He looked you over once. Not with hunger. With certainty. Like he already knew how this would end. Like he already owned you.

"You remember, don’t you?" he asked.

"I came to collect."

And your voice—when it finally came—was little more than a whisper.

"You can’t be real."

That smile. That slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Wolfish. Slow.

"You promised."

You wanted to shut the door. Slam it. Deadbolt it. But your hand didn’t move.

Remmick didn’t step forward, not yet. He stood just outside the threshold, framed by night and cypress trees and the distant flicker of heat lightning beyond the fields. The air around him pulsed with something old—older than the land, older than you, older than anything you could name.

He tilted his head the way animals do, watching you, letting the silence thicken like molasses between you.

"Still living out here all on your own," he murmured, gaze drifting over your shoulders, into the small, tidy kitchen behind you. "Hung your laundry on the line this morning. Blue dress, lace hem. Favorite one, ain’t it?"

Your stomach clenched. That dress hadn’t seen a neighbor’s eye all week.

"You've been watching me," you said, your voice low, unsure if it was accusation or realization.

"I’ve been waiting," he said. "Not the same thing."

You swallowed hard. Your breath caught in your throat like a thorn. The wind shifted, and you caught the faintest trace of something—dried tobacco, smoke, rain-soaked dirt, and beneath it, the iron-sweet tinge of blood.

Not fresh. Not violent. Just…present. Like it lived in him.

"I paid my debt," you whispered.

"No, you survived it," he said, stepping up onto the first board of the porch. The wood didn’t creak beneath his weight. "And that’s only half the bargain."

He still hadn’t crossed the threshold.

The stories came back to you, the ones whispered by old women with trembling hands and ash crosses pressed to their doorways—vampires couldn’t enter unless invited. But you hadn’t invited him, not this time.

"You don’t have permission," you said.

He smiled, eyes flashing red again.

"You gave it, seven years ago."

Your breath hitched.

"I was a girl," you said.

"You were desperate," he corrected. "And honest. Desperation makes people honest in ways they can’t be twice. You knew what you were offering me, even if you didn’t understand it. Your promise had teeth."

The wind pushed against your back, as if urging you forward.

Remmick stepped closer, just enough for the shadows to kiss the line of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone. His voice dropped, intimate now—dragging across your skin like a fingertip behind the ear.

"You asked for a miracle. I gave it to you. And now I’m here for what’s mine."

Your heart thudded violently in your chest.

"I didn’t think you’d come."

"That’s the thing about monsters, dove." He leaned down, lips almost grazing the curve of your jaw. "We always do."

And then—

He stepped back.

The wind stopped.

The night fell quiet again, like the world had paused just to watch what you’d do next.

"I’ll wait out here till you’re ready," he said, turning toward the swing on your porch and settling into it like he had all the time in the world. "But don’t make me knock twice. Wouldn’t be polite."

The swing groaned beneath him as it rocked gently, back and forth.

You stood there frozen in the doorway, one bare foot still inside the house, the other brushing the edge of the porch.

You’d made a promise.

And he was here to keep it.

The door stayed open. Just enough for the night to reach inside.

You didn’t move.

Your body stood still but your mind wandered—back to that night in the alley, to the smell of blood and piss and riverwater, your knees soaked in your brother’s lifeblood as you screamed for help that never came. Except it did. It came in the shape of a man who didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, didn’t make promises the way mortals did.

It came in the shape of him.

You thought time would wash it away. That the years would smooth the edges of his voice in your memory, dull the sharpness of his presence. But now, with him just outside your door, it all returned like a fever dream—hot, all-consuming, too real to outrun.

You turned away from the threshold, slowly, carefully, as if the floor might cave in under you. Your hands trembled as you reached for the oil lamp on the table, adjusting the flame lower until it flickered like a dying heartbeat.

The silence behind you dragged, deep and waiting. He didn’t speak again. Didn’t call for you.

He didn’t have to.

You moved through the house in slow circles. Touching things. Straightening them. Folding a dishcloth. Setting a book back on the shelf, even though you’d already read it twice. You tried to pretend you weren’t thinking about the man on your porch. But the heat of him pressed against the back of your mind like a hand.

You could feel him out there. Not just physically—but in you, somehow. Like the air had shifted around his shape, and the longer he lingered, the more your body remembered what it had felt like to stand in front of something not quite human and still want.

You passed the mirror in the hallway and paused.

Your reflection looked undone. Not in the way your hair had fallen from its pin, or the flush across your cheeks, but deeper—like something inside you had been cracked open. You touched your own throat, right where you imagined his mouth might go.

No bite.

Not yet.

But you swore you could feel phantom teeth.

You went back to the door, holding your breath, and looked at him through the screen.

He hadn’t moved. He sat on the swing, one leg stretched out, the other bent lazily beneath him, arms slung across the backrest like he’d always belonged there. A cigarette burned between two fingers, the tip flaring orange as he dragged from it. The scent of it hit you—rich, earthy, and somehow foreign, like something imported from a place no longer on the map.

He didn’t look at you right away.

Then, slowly, he did.

Red eyes caught yours.

He smiled, small and slow, like he was reading a page of you he’d already memorized.

"Thought you’d shut the door by now," he said.

"I should have," you answered.

"But you didn’t."

His voice curled into the quiet.

You stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, the boards warm beneath your soles. He didn’t move to greet you. He didn’t rise. He just watched you walk toward him like he’d been watching in dreams you never remembered having.

The swing groaned as you sat down beside him, a careful space between you.

His shoulder brushed yours.

You stared straight ahead, out into the night. A mist was beginning to rise off the distant fields. The moon hung low and orange like a wound in the sky.

Somewhere in the bayou, a whippoorwill called, long and mournful.

"How long have you been watching me?" you asked.

"Since before you knew to look."

"Why now?"

He turned toward you. His voice was velvet-wrapped iron.

"Because now…you’re ripe for the pickin’.”

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

One moment you were on the porch beside him, listening to the slow groan of the swing and the way the crickets held their breath when he exhaled, the next you were waking in your bed, the sheets tangled around your legs like they were trying to hold you down.

The house was too quiet.

No birdsong. No creak of the windmill out back. No rustle of the sycamores that scraped against your bedroom window on stormy nights.

Just stillness.

And scent.

It clung to the cotton of your nightdress. Tobacco smoke, sweat, rain. Him.

You sat up slowly, pressing your hand to your chest. Your heart thudded like it was trying to remember who it belonged to. The lamp beside your bed had burned down to a stub. A trickle of wax curled like a vein down the side of the glass.

Your mouth tasted like smoke and guilt. Your thighs ached in that low, humming way—though you couldn’t say why. Nothing had happened. Not really.

But something had changed.

You felt it under your skin, in the place where blood meets breath.

The floor was cool under your feet as you moved. You didn’t dress. Just pulled a robe over your slip and stepped into the hallway. The house felt heavier than usual, thick with the ghost of his presence. Every corner held a whisper. Every shadow a shape.

You opened the front door.

The porch was empty.

The swing still rocked gently, as if someone had only just stood up from it.

A folded piece of paper lay on the top step, weighted down by a smooth river stone.

You picked it up with trembling hands.

Come.

That was all it said. One word. But it rang through your bones like gospel. Like a vow.

You looked out across the field. A narrow dirt road stretched beyond the tree line, overgrown but clear. You’d never dared follow it. That road didn’t belong to you.

It belonged to him.

And now…so did you.

You didn’t bring anything with you.

Not a suitcase. Not a shawl. Not a Bible tucked under your arm for comfort.

Just yourself.

And the road.

The hem of your slip was already damp by the time you reached the edge of the field. Dew clung to your ankles like cold fingers, and the earth was soft beneath your feet—fresh from last night’s storm, the kind that never really breaks the heat, only deepens it. The moon had gone down, but the sky was beginning to bruise with that blue-black ink that comes before sunrise. Everything smelled like wet grass, magnolia, and the faint rot of old wood.

The path curved, narrowing as it passed through trees that leaned in too close. Their branches kissed above you like they were whispering secrets into each other’s leaves. Spanish moss hung like veils from the oaks, dripping silver in the fading dark. It made the world feel smaller. Quieter. As if you were walking into something sacred—or something doomed.

A crow cawed once in the distance. Sharp. Hollow. You didn’t flinch.

There was no sound of wheels. No car waiting. Just the road and the fog and the promise you'd made.

And then you saw it.

The house.

Tucked deep in the grove, half-swallowed by vines and time, it rose like a memory from the earth. A decaying plantation, left to rot in the wet belly of the Delta. Its bones were still beautiful—white columns streaked with black mildew, a grand porch that sagged like a mouth missing teeth, shuttered windows with iron latches rusted shut. Ivy grew up the sides like it was trying to strangle the place. Or maybe protect it.

You stood there at the edge of the clearing, breath caught in your throat.

He’d brought you here.

Or maybe he’d always been here. Waiting. Dreaming of the moment you’d return to him without even knowing it.

A shape moved behind one of the upstairs curtains. Quick. Barely there.

You didn’t run.

Your bare foot found the first step.

It groaned like it recognized you.

The door was already open.

Not wide—just enough for you to know it had been waiting.

And you stepped inside.

The air inside was colder.

Not the kind of cold that came from breeze or shade—but from stillness, from the absence of sun and time. A hush so thick it felt like you were walking underwater. Like the house had held its breath for decades and only now began to exhale.

Dust spiraled in the faint light seeping through fractured windows, casting soft halos through the dark. The wooden floor beneath your feet was warped and groaning, but clean. Not in any natural sense—there was no broom that had touched these boards. No polish or soap.

But it had been kept.

The air didn’t smell like rot or mildew. It smelled like cedar. Like old leather. And deeper beneath that, like him.

He hadn’t lit any lamps.

Just the fireplace, burning low, glowing embers pulsing orange-red at the back of a cavernous hearth. The flame danced shadows across the faded wallpaper, peeling in long strips like dead skin. A high-backed chair faced the fire, velvet blackened from age, its silhouette looming like something alive.

You swallowed, lips dry, and stepped further in.

Your voice didn’t carry. It didn’t even try.

Remmick was nowhere in sight.

But he was here.

You could feel him in the walls, in the way the house seemed to lean closer with every step you took.

You passed through the parlor, past a dusty grand piano with one ivory key cracked down the middle. Past oil portraits too old to make out, their eyes blurred with time. Past a single vase of dried wildflowers, colorless now, but carefully arranged.

You paused in the doorway to the drawing room, your hand resting lightly on the frame.

A whisper of air moved behind you.

Then—

A hand.

Not grabbing. Not harsh. Just the light press of fingers against the small of your back, palm flat and warm through the thin cotton of your slip.

You froze.

He was behind you.

So close you could feel his breath at your neck. Not warm, not cold—just present. Like wind through a crack in the door. Like the memory of a touch before it lands.

His voice was low, close to your ear.

"You came."

You didn’t answer.

"You always would have."

You wanted to say no. Wanted to deny it. But you stood there trembling under his hand, your heartbeat so loud you were sure he could hear it.

Maybe that was why he smiled.

He stepped around you slowly, letting his fingers graze the side of your waist as he moved. His eyes glinted red in the firelight, catching on you like a flame drawn to dry kindling.

He looked at you like he was already undressing you.

Not your clothes—your will.

And it was already unraveling.

You’d suspected he wasn’t born of this soil.

Not just because of the way he moved—like he didn’t quite belong to gravity—but because of the way he spoke. Like time hadn’t worn the edges off his words the way it had with everyone else. His voice curled around vowels like smoke curling through keyholes. Rich and low, but laced with something older. Something foreign. Something that made the hair at the nape of your neck rise when he spoke too softly, too close.

He didn’t speak like a man from the Delta.

He spoke like something older than it.

Older than the country. Maybe older than God.

Remmick stopped in front of you, lit only by firelight.

His eyes had dulled from red to something deeper—like old garnet held to a candle. His shirt was open at the collar now, suspenders hanging slack, the buttons on his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms were dusted with faint scars that looked like they had stories. His skin was pale in the glow, but not lifeless. He looked like marble warmed by touch.

He studied you for a long time.

You weren’t sure if it was your face he was reading, or something beneath it. Something you couldn’t hide.

"You look just like your mother," he said finally.

Your breath caught.

"You knew her?"

A soft smirk curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I’ve known a lot of people, dove. I just never forget the ones with your blood."

You didn’t ask what he meant. Not yet.

There was something heavy in his tone—something laced with memory that stretched back far further than it should. You had guessed, years ago, in the sleepless weeks after that alleyway miracle, that he was not new to this world. That his youth was a trick of the skin. A lie worn like a mask.

You’d read every folklore book you could get your hands on. Every whisper of vampire lore scratched into the margins of ledgers, stuffed between church hymnals, scribbled on the backs of newspapers.

Some said they aged. Slowly. Elegantly.

Others said they didn’t age at all. That they existed outside time. Beyond it.

You didn’t know how old Remmick was.

But something in your bones told you the truth.

Five hundred. Six hundred, maybe more.

A man who remembered empires. A man who had watched cities rise and burn. Who had danced in plague-slick ballrooms and kissed queens before they were beheaded. A man who had lived so long that names no longer mattered. Only debts. And blood.

And you’d given him both.

He stepped closer now, slow and deliberate.

"Yer heart’s gallopin’ like it thinks I’m here to take it."

You flinched. Not because he was wrong. But because he was right.

"You said you didn’t want my blood," you whispered.

"I don’t." He tilted his head. "Not yet."

"Then what do you want?"

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You."

He said it like it was a simple thing. Like the rain wanting the river. Like the grave wanting the body.

You swallowed hard.

"Why me?"

His gaze dragged down your frame, unhurried, like a man admiring a painting he’d stolen once and hidden from the world.

"Because you belong to me. You gave yourself freely. No bargain’s ever tasted so sweet."

Your throat tightened.

"I didn’t know what I was agreeing to."

"You did," he said, softly now, stepping close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours. "You knew. Your soul knew. Even if your head didn’t catch up."

You opened your mouth to protest, to say something, anything that would push back this slow suffocation of certainty—

But his hand came up to your jaw. Fingers feather-light. Not forcing. Just holding. Just there.

"And you’ve been thinkin’ about me ever since," he said.

Not a question. A statement.

You didn’t answer.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, his voice a rasp against your ear.

"You dream of me, don’t you?"

Your hands trembled at your sides.

"I don’t—"

"You wake wet. Ache in your belly. You don’t know why. But I do."

You let your eyes fall shut, shame burning behind them like fire.

"Fuckin’ knew it," he murmured, almost reverent. "You smell like want, dove. You always have.”

His hand didn’t move. It just stayed there at your jaw, thumb ghosting slow along the hollow beneath your cheekbone. A touch so gentle it made your knees ache. Because it wasn’t the roughness that undid you—it was the restraint.

He could’ve taken.

He didn’t.

Not yet.

His gaze held yours, slow and unblinking, red still smoldering in the center of his irises like the dying core of a flame that refused to go out.

"Say it," he murmured.

Your lips parted, but nothing came.

"I can smell it," he said, voice low, rich as molasses. "Your shame. Your want. You’ve been livin’ like a nun with a beast inside her, and no one knows but me."

You hated how your breath stuttered. Hated more that your thighs pressed together when he said it.

"Why do you talk like that," you whispered, barely able to get the words out, "like you already know what I’m feeling?"

His fingers slid down, grazing the side of your neck, stopping just before the pulse thudding there.

"Because I do."

"That’s not fair."

He smiled, slow and crooked, nothing kind in it.

"No, dove. It ain’t."

You hated him.

You hated how beautiful he was in this light, sleeves rolled, veins prominent in his arms, shirt hanging open just enough to show the faint line of a scar that trailed beneath his collarbone. A body shaped by time, not by vanity. Not perfect. Just true. Like someone carved him for a purpose and let the flaws stay because they made him real.

He looked like sin and the sermon that came after.

Remmick moved closer. You didn’t retreat.

His hand flattened over your sternum now, right above your heartbeat, the warmth of him pressing through the cotton of your slip like it meant to seep in. He leaned down, mouth near yours, not kissing, just breathing.

"You gave yourself to me once," he said. "I’m only here to collect the rest."

"You saved my brother."

"I saved you. You just didn’t know it yet."

A shiver rippled down your spine.

His hand moved lower, skimming the curve of your ribs, hovering just at the soft flare of your waist. You could feel the heat rolling off him like smoke from a coalbed. His body didn’t radiate warmth the way a man’s should—but something older. Wilder. Like the earth’s own breath in summer. Like the hush of a storm right before it split the sky.

"And if I tell you no?" you asked, barely more than a breath.

His eyes flicked to yours, unreadable.

"I’ll wait."

You weren’t expecting that.

He smiled again, this time softer, almost cruel in its patience.

"I’ve waited centuries for sweeter things than you. But that don’t mean I won’t keep my hands on you ‘til you change your mind."

"You think I will?"

"You already have."

Your chest rose sharply, breath stung with heat.

"You think this is love?"

He laughed, low and dangerous, the sound curling around your ribs.

"No," he said. "This is hunger. Love comes later."

Then his mouth brushed your jaw—not a kiss, just the graze of lips against skin—and every nerve in your body arched to meet it.

Your knees buckled, barely.

He caught your waist in one hand, steadying you with maddening ease.

"I’m gonna ruin you," he whispered against your throat, his nose dragging lightly along your skin. "But I’ll be so gentle the first time you’ll beg me to do it again."

And God help you—

You wanted him to.

The house didn’t sleep.

Not the way houses were meant to.

It breathed.

The walls exhaled heat and memory, the floors creaked even when no one stepped, and somewhere in the rafters above your room, something paced slowly back and forth, back and forth, like a beast too restless to settle. The kind of place built with its own pulse.

You’d spent the rest of the night—if you could call it that—in a room that wasn’t yours, wearing nothing but a cotton shift and your silence. You hadn’t asked for anything. He hadn’t offered.

The room was spare but not cruel. A basin with a water pitcher. A four-poster bed draped in a netting veil to keep out the bugs—or the ghosts. The mattress was soft. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, firewood, and something else you didn’t recognize.

Him.

You didn’t undress. You lay on top of the blanket, fingers threaded together over your belly, the thrum of your heartbeat like a second mouth behind your ribs.

Your door had no lock. Just a handle that squeaked if turned. And you hated how many times your eyes flicked toward it. Waiting. Wanting.

But he never came.

And somehow, that was worse.

Morning broke soft and gray through the slatted shutters. The sun didn’t quite reach the corners of the room, and the light that filtered in was the color of dust and river fog.

When you finally stepped out barefoot into the hall, the house was already awake.

There was a scent in the air—coffee. Burned sugar. The faintest curl of cinnamon. Something sizzling in a skillet somewhere.

You followed it.

The kitchen was enormous, all brick hearth and cast iron and a long scarred table in the center with mismatched chairs pushed in unevenly. A window hung open, letting in a breath of swamp air that rustled the lace curtain and kissed your ankles.

Remmick stood at the stove with his back to you, sleeves still rolled to the elbow, suspenders crossed low over his back. His shirt was half-unbuttoned and clung to his sides with the cling of heat and skin. He moved like he didn’t hear you enter.

You knew he had.

He reached for the pan with a towel over his palm and flipped something in the cast iron with a deft flick of the wrist.

"Hope you like sweet," he said, voice thick with morning. "Ain’t got much else."

You didn’t speak. Just stood there in the doorway like a ghost he’d conjured and forgotten about.

He turned.

God help you.

Even like this, barefoot, collar open, hair mussed from sleep or maybe just time—he looked unreal. Like a sin someone had tried to scrub out of scripture but couldn’t quite forget.

"Sleep alright?" he asked.

You gave a small nod.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then—

"Sit down, dove."

You moved toward the table.

His voice followed you, lazy but pointed.

"That’s the wrong chair."

You paused.

He nodded to one at the head of the table—old, high-backed, carved with curling vines and symbols you didn’t recognize.

"That one’s yours now."

You hesitated, then lowered yourself into it slowly. The wood groaned under your weight. The air in the kitchen felt thicker now, tighter.

He brought the plate to you himself.

Two slices of skillet cornbread, golden and glistening with syrup. A few wild strawberries sliced and sugared. A smear of butter melting slow at the center like a pulse.

He set the plate in front of you with a quiet care that felt almost obscene.

"You ain’t gotta eat," he said, leaning against the table beside your chair. "But I like watchin’ you do it."

You picked up the fork.

His eyes stayed on your mouth.

The cornbread was still warm.

Steam curled from it like breath from parted lips. The syrup pooled thick at the edges, dripping off the edge of your fork in slow, amber ribbons. It stuck to your fingers when you touched it. Sweet. Sticky. Sensual.

You brought the first bite to your mouth, slow.

Remmick didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His eyes tracked the motion like a starving man watching someone else’s feast.

The bite landed soft on your tongue—golden crisp on the outside, warm and tender in the middle, butter melting into every pore. It was perfect. Unreasonably so. And somehow you hated that even more. Because nothing about this should’ve tasted good. Not with him watching you like that. Not with your body still humming from the memory of his voice against your skin.

But you swallowed.

And he smiled.

"Good girl," he murmured.

You froze. The fork paused just above the plate.

"You don’t get to say things like that," you whispered.

"Why not?"

Your fingers tightened around the handle.

"Because it sounds like you earned it."

He chuckled, low and easy. A slow roll of thunder in his chest.

"Think I did. Think I earned every fuckin’ word after draggin’ you out that night and lettin’ you walk away without layin’ a hand on you."

You looked up sharply, heat crawling up your neck.

"You shouldn’t have touched me."

"I didn’t," he said. "But I wanted to. Still do."

Your breath caught.

His knuckles brushed the edge of your plate, slow, casual, like he had all the time in the world to make you squirm.

"And I know you want me to," he added, voice low enough that it coiled under your ribs and settled somewhere molten in your belly.

You pushed the plate away.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached forward and dragged it back in front of you like you hadn’t moved it at all.

"You eat," he said, gentler now. "You need it. House takes more from you than it gives."

You glanced around the kitchen, suddenly uneasy.

"You talk about it like it’s alive."

He gave a slow nod.

"It is. In a way."

"How?"

He looked down at your plate, then back at you.

"You’ll see."

You pushed another bite past your lips, slower this time, aware of the weight of his gaze with every chew, every swallow. You didn’t know why you obeyed. Maybe it was easier than defying him. Maybe it was because some part of you wanted him to keep watching.

When the plate was clean, he reached out and caught your wrist before you could stand.

Not hard. Not even firm. Just…inevitable.

"You full?" he asked, his voice all smoke and sin.

You nodded.

His eyes darkened.

"Then I’ll have my taste next."

Your breath lodged sharp in your throat.

He said it like it meant nothing. Like asking for your pulse was no more intimate than asking for your hand. But there was a glint in his eye—red barely flickering now, but still there—and it told you everything.

He was done pretending.

You didn’t move. Not right away.

His fingers were still wrapped around your wrist, light but unyielding, the pad of his thumb grazing the fragile skin where your pulse drummed loud and frantic. Like it wanted to leap out of your veins and spill into his mouth.

You swallowed hard.

"You said you didn’t want blood."

"I don’t."

"Then what do you want?"

"You."

You watched him now, trying to make sense of what you wanted.

And what terrified you was this—

You didn’t want to run.

You wanted to know how it would feel.

To give something he couldn’t take without permission.

To see if your body could handle the worship of a mouth like his.

Remmick’s other hand came up slow, brushing hair from your cheek, his knuckles rough and reverent.

"You said I smelled like want," you whispered.

"You do."

"What do you smell like?"

He leaned in, mouth near your throat again, his nose dragging along your skin, slow, as if he were drawing in the scent of your soul.

"Rot. Hunger. Regret," he said. "Old things that don’t die right."

You shivered.

"And still I want you," you breathed.

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

"That’s the worst part, ain’t it?"

You didn’t answer.

Because he was right.

His hand slid down to your elbow, then lower, tracing the curve of your waist through the thin fabric. His touch was warm now, or maybe your body had just given up trying to tell the difference between threat and thrill.

He guided you up from the chair.

Didn’t yank. Didn’t drag.

Just stood and took your hand like a dance was beginning.

"Come with me," he said.

"Where?"

"Somewhere I can kneel."

Your heart stuttered.

He led you through the house, down the long hallway past doorways that watched like eyes. The floor groaned underfoot, the air thickening around your shoulders as he brought you deeper into the home’s belly. You passed portraits whose paint had faded to shadows, velvet drapes drawn tight, mirrors that refused to hold your reflection quite right.

The door at the end of the hall was already open.

Inside, the room was dark.

Just one candle lit, flickering low in a glass jar, its light catching the edges of something silver beside the bed. An old bowl. A cloth. A pair of gloves, yellowed from time.

A ritual.

Not violent.

Intimate.

Remmick turned toward you, his face bare in the soft light. He looked younger. More human. And somehow more dangerous for it.

"Sit," he said.

You sat.

He knelt.

And then his hands found your knees.

His hands rested on your knees like they belonged there. Not demanding. Not prying. Just there. Anchored. Reverent.

The candlelight licked up his jaw, catching in the hollows of his cheeks, the deep shadow beneath his throat. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a story told by firelight—half-worshipped, half-feared. A sinner in the shape of a saint. Or maybe the other way around.

His thumbs made a slow pass over the inside of your thighs, just above the knee. Barely pressure. Barely touch. The kind of contact that made your breath feel too loud in your chest.

"Yer too quiet," he murmured.

"I don’t know what to say," you whispered back.

His gaze lifted, locking with yours, and in that moment the whole room seemed to still.

"Ya ain’t gotta say a damn thing," he said. "You just need to stay right there and let me show ya what I mean when I say I don’t want yer blood."

Your lips parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in, slow as honey in the heat, until his mouth hovered just above your knee. Then lower. His breath ghosted over your skin, warm and maddening.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he pressed a single kiss just above the bone.

Your lungs stuttered.

His lips trailed higher.

Another kiss.

Then another.

Each one higher than the last, until your legs opened on instinct, until you felt the hem of your slip being eased upward by hands that moved with worshipful patience. Like he wasn’t just undressing you—he was peeling back a veil. Unwrapping something sacred.

"You ever had someone kneel for ya?" he asked, voice rough now. Thicker.

You shook your head.

He smiled like he already knew the answer.

"Good. Let me be the first."

He kissed the inside of your thigh like it meant something. Like you meant something. Like your skin wasn’t just skin, but a prayer he intended to answer with his mouth.

The air was too hot. Your thoughts slid loose from the edges of your mind. All you could do was breathe and feel.

He looked up at you once more, red eyes burning low, and said—

"You gave yerself to me. Let me taste what I already own."

And then he bowed his head, mouth meeting the softest part of you, and the rest of the world disappeared.

His mouth touched you like he’d been dreaming of it for years. Like he’d earned it.

No rush. No hunger. Just that first velvet press of his lips against the tender center of you, reverent and slow, like a kiss to a wound or a confession. He moaned, low and guttural, into your skin—and the sound of it vibrated up through your spine.

He parted you with his thumbs, just enough to taste you deeper. His tongue slipped between folds already slick and aching, and he groaned again, this time with something like gratitude.

"Sweet as I fuckin’ knew you’d be," he rasped, voice hot against your core.

Your hands gripped the edge of the chair. Wood bit into your palms. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut as your thighs trembled around his shoulders.

He didn’t stop.

He licked you with patience, with purpose, like he was reading scripture written between your legs—each flick of his tongue slow and deliberate, every pass perfectly placed, building pressure inside you with maddening precision.

And all the while, he watched you.

When your head dropped forward, you found him staring up at you. Red eyes glowing low, heavy-lidded, mouth glistening, jaw tense with restraint. He looked ruined by the taste of you.

"Look at me," he said. "Wanna see you fall apart on my tongue."

Your breath hitched, hips rocking forward on instinct, chasing his mouth. He growled low and deep in his chest, gripping your thighs tighter.

"That’s it, dove," he murmured. "Don’t run from it. Give it to me."

He flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, then circled the swollen peak of your clit with the tip, teasing you to the edge and pulling back just before it broke.

You whined. Desperate.

He smirked against your cunt.

"You want it?" he asked, voice thick. "Say it."

Your lips barely formed the word—"Please."

He hummed in approval.

Then he devoured you.

No more teasing. No more pacing. Just his mouth fully locked on you, tongue relentless now, lips sealing around your clit while two fingers slid into you with that obscene, perfect pressure that made your body jolt.

You cried out, gasping, your thighs tightening around his head as the world tipped sideways.

"That’s it," he groaned, curling his fingers just right. "Cum f’r me, girl. Let me taste what’s mine."

And when it hit—

It hit like a fever. Like lightning. Like your soul cracked in half and bled straight into his mouth.

You broke with a cry, hips bucking, your fingers tangled in his hair as wave after wave crashed through you.

He didn’t stop. Not until your thighs twitched and your breath came in ragged little sobs, not until your body went limp in his hands.

Then, finally—finally—he pulled back.

His lips were wet. His eyes were feral. And he looked at you like a man who’d just fed.

"You’re fuckin’ divine," he whispered. "And I ain’t even started ruinin’ you yet."

The room pulsed with quiet. The candle flickered low, flame swaying as if it too had held its breath through your unraveling.

Your body felt boneless. Glazed in sweat. Your pulse echoed everywhere—in your wrists, your throat, between your legs where he’d buried his mouth like a man sent to worship. You weren’t sure how long it had been since you’d spoken. Since you’d breathed without shaking.

Remmick still knelt.

His hands were on your thighs, thumbs drawing idle circles into your skin like he couldn’t bear to stop touching you. His head was bowed slightly, but his eyes were on you—watchful, reverent, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with the softness between your legs and everything to do with something older. Something darker.

He looked drunk on you.

You opened your mouth to speak, but your voice caught on the edge of a sigh.

He beat you to it.

"Reckon you know what’s comin’ next," he murmured.

You didn’t answer.

He rose from his knees in one slow, unhurried motion. There was a heaviness to him now, a tension rolling just beneath his skin, like a dam about to split. He reached up with one hand and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of it—then licked the taste from his thumb like it was honey off the comb.

You watched, breath held tight in your chest.

He stepped closer. You stayed seated, knees still parted, your slip pushed up indecently high, but you didn’t fix it. Didn’t move at all. The heat between your legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it curled deeper now, thicker, laced with something close to fear but not quite.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head slightly.

"How’s yer heart?"

You blinked.

"It’s…fast," you whispered.

He smiled slow. Not mocking. Not soft either.

"Good. I want it fast."

Your throat tightened.

"Why?"

He leaned in, hands bracing on either side of your chair, body boxing you in without touching.

"‘Cause I want yer blood screamin’ for me when I take it."

Your breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

He didn’t touch you yet—didn’t need to. The weight of his body, caging you in without a single finger laid, made your skin flush from your chest to your knees. Every inch of you throbbed with awareness. Of him. Of your own pulse. Of the air cooling the places he’d worshiped with his mouth not moments before.

You swallowed.

"You said you’d wait," you whispered.

He nodded once, slowly, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I did. And I have. But yer body’s already beggin’ for me. Ain’t it?"

You hated that he was right. That he could feel it somehow. Not just see the tremble in your thighs or the way your lips parted when he leaned closer—but that he could feel it in the air, like scent, like vibration.

You lifted your chin, barely.

"I’m not scared."

He chuckled low, and it rumbled through your bones.

"Good. But I don’t need ya scared, dove. I need ya open."

He raised one hand then, slow as scripture, and brushed his knuckles along the column of your throat. Just a whisper of contact, a ghost’s touch. Your head tilted for him without thinking, baring your neck.

"Right here," he murmured. "Right where it beats loudest. That’s where I wanna taste ya."

You shivered.

He bent down, mouth near your pulse. His breath was warm, slow, drawn in like he was savoring you already.

"I ain’t gonna hurt ya," he said. "Not unless you want it."

Your fingers twisted in your lap.

"Will it—" you started, but the question got tangled.

He smiled against your skin.

"Will it feel good?"

You said nothing.

"You already know."

You did.

Because everything with him did. Every word. Every look. Every touch. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t holy. But it was real. It lived under your skin like rot and root and ruin.

You nodded once.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

And then his lips pressed to your throat. Not with hunger. With reverence. Like a blessing.

"That’s my girl," he breathed.

And then he bit.

It wasn’t pain.

It was pressure, first.

A deep, aching pull that bloomed just beneath the skin, right where his mouth latched onto you. His lips sealed tight around your throat, and then—sharpness. Two points sinking in like teeth through silk. Like sin through flesh.

You gasped.

Not from fear. Not even from the sting. But from the rush.

Heat burst behind your eyes, white and sudden and dizzying. Your hands flew to his shoulders, clinging, grounding, anchoring you to something real while your mind drifted into something else—something otherworldly.

The pull came next.

A steady rhythm, slow and patient, like he was sipping you instead of drinking. Like he had all the time in the world. You could feel it, the way your blood left you in waves, not violent, not greedy—just…intimate. Like giving. Like surrender.

He groaned low against your neck, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Fuck, you taste like sunlight," he rasped against your skin, voice thick with hunger and awe. "Like everythin’ warm I thought I’d forgotten."

Your head tipped further, offering him more.

You didn’t know when your legs opened wider, or when your hips rocked forward just to feel more of him. But his body shifted instinctively, meeting yours with a growl, his hand gripping your thigh now, possessive and unrelenting.

Your pulse faltered. Not from weakness, but from pleasure. From the unbearable knowing that he was inside you now, in the most ancient way. That your body had opened to him, and your blood had welcomed him.

Your moan was breathless.

"Remmick—"

He shushed you, mouth never leaving your throat.

"Don’t speak, dove. Just feel."

And you did.

You felt every lick. Every pull. Every sacred claim. You felt his tongue soothe where his fangs pierced, his hand slide higher along your thigh, his knee pushing between your legs until your breath stuttered out of you in something like a sob.

It was too much. It was not enough.

And when he finally pulled back, slow and reluctant, your blood on his lips like a mark, like a vow, he stared at you like you were holy.

Like he hadn’t fed on you.

Like he’d prayed.

The room was quiet, but your body wasn’t.

You felt every beat of your heart echo in the hollow where his mouth had been. A slow, reverent throb that pulsed through your neck, your chest, your thighs. It was like something had been lit beneath your skin, and now it smoldered there—glowing, aching, changed.

Remmick’s breath was uneven. His lips were stained red, parted just slightly, his jaw slack with something like awe. The burn of your blood still shimmered in his eyes, brighter now. Alive.

He looked undone.

And yet his hands were steady as he reached up, cupped your jaw in both palms, and tilted your face toward him. His thumb swept across your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t touch you just right.

"You alright?" he asked, voice quieter now, roughened at the edges like a match just struck.

You nodded, though your limbs still trembled.

"I feel…" you swallowed, the word too small for what bloomed in your chest, "…warm."

He laughed, soft and almost bitter, and leaned his forehead against yours.

"You should. You’re inside me now. Every drop of you."

The words rooted somewhere deep. You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. You could still feel the heat of his mouth, the bite, the pleasure that followed. It wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just surrender. It was something older. Something binding.

"Does it hurt?" you asked, your fingers brushing the side of his neck, the line of his collarbone slick with sweat.

He looked at you like you’d asked the wrong question.

"Hurt?" he echoed. "Dove, it’s ecstasy."

You stared at him.

"You mean for you?"

He shook his head once.

"For us."

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you—really look. His gaze swept your features like he was committing them to memory. As if this moment, this very breath, was something sacred. His fingers moved to your throat again, this time to the place just above the bite, and he pressed lightly.

"You’ll bruise here," he said. "Won’t fade for a while."

"Will it heal?"

"Eventually."

"Do you want it to?"

His mouth curved, slow and wicked.

"No," he said. "I want the world to see what’s mine."

And before you could reply—before the heat in your belly could cool or your mind could gather itself—he kissed you.

Not soft.

Not careful.

His mouth claimed you like he’d already been inside you a thousand times and wanted to do it a thousand more. He kissed you like a man starving. Like a creature who’d gone too long without flesh, and now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go.

You tasted your own blood on his tongue.

And it tasted like forever.

The house knew.

It breathed deeper now. Its wood swelled, its walls sighed, its floorboards creaked in time with your heartbeat—as though it had taken you in too, accepted your offering, and now it wanted to keep you just like he did. Not as a guest. Not as a lover.

As a belonging.

Remmick hadn’t let you go.

Not when the kiss ended. Not when your blood slowed in his mouth. Not when your knees gave and your body folded forward into him. His arms had caught you like he knew the shape of your collapse. Like he’d been waiting for it. Like he’d never let you fall anywhere but into him.

He carried you now, one arm beneath your legs, the other braced around your back, his chest solid against yours.

"Don’t reckon you’re walkin’ after all that," he muttered, gaze fixed ahead, voice gone syrup-slow and thick with something possessive.

You didn’t argue. You couldn’t.

Your head rested against the place where his heart should’ve beat. But it was quiet there. Not lifeless—just other.

He carried you past rooms you hadn’t seen. A library, long abandoned, lined with crooked books and a grandfather clock that had no hands. A parlor soaked in velvet and silence. A door nailed shut from the outside, something heavy breathing behind it.

You didn’t ask.

He didn’t explain.

The room he took you to was nothing like the others.

It wasn’t grand.

It was personal.

The windows here were narrow and high, soft light slanting through the dusty glass in thin gold ribbons. The bed was simple but large, the sheets dark, the frame iron-wrought and worn smooth by time. A single cross hung above the headboard—but it had been turned upside down.

He set you down like you were breakable. Sat you on the edge of the bed, knelt once more to remove the slip still clinging to your body, inch by inch, as if undressing you were a sacrament.

"Y’ever wonder why I picked you?" he asked, voice low as the hush between thunderclaps.

Your breath stilled.

"I thought it was the blood."

He shook his head, his hands pausing at your hips.

"Nah, dove. Blood’s blood. Yours sings, sure. But it ain’t why I chose."

He looked up then, red eyes gleaming in the half-light.

"You remind me of the last thing I ever loved before I died."

The words landed like a stone in still water.

They rippled outward. Slow. Wide. Deep.

You stared at him, breath shallow, your skin bare under his hands, your throat still warm from where he’d fed. The room held its silence like breath behind gritted teeth. Outside, somewhere beyond the high windows, something moved through the trees—branches bending, wind pushing low and humid across the land—but in here, it was only the two of you.

Only his voice.

Only your blood between his teeth.

"What…what was she like?" you asked.

His thumbs drew circles at your hips, but his eyes drifted, not unfocused—just distant. Remembering.

"She had a mouth like yours. Sharp. Didn’t know when to shut it. Always speakin’ when she should’ve stayed quiet." A smile ghosted across his lips. "God, I loved that. I loved that she ain’t feared me even when she should’ve."

He exhaled through his nose, slow.

"But she didn’t get to finish bein’ mine."

Your brows pulled.

"What happened to her?"

He looked back at you then, and the heat in his gaze returned—not hunger, not even desire, but something deeper. Possessive. Terrifying in its tenderness.

"They tore her from me. Burned her in a chapel. Said she was a witch on account’a what I’d given her."

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

"Remmick—"

"She didn’t scream," he said, voice rough. "Didn’t cry. Just looked at me like she knew I’d find her again. And I have."

You froze.

His hands slid higher, up your ribs, his palms reverent.

"I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But you—" he leaned in, lips brushing your jaw, voice low like a spell, "you make me wanna believe in things I ain’t allowed to have."

You whispered against the curl of his mouth.

"And what do you think I am?"

He kissed the hinge of your jaw.

"My penance," he said. "And my reward."

You shivered.

"You said you saved me."

He nodded.

"I did."

"Why?"

He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, and his voice dropped to a near whisper.

"‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ another thing I love burn."

You didn’t realize you were crying until he touched your face.

Not with hunger, not with heat, but with the kind of softness that had no business living in a man like him. His thumb caught a tear on your cheek like he’d been waiting for it, like it meant something sacred.

"You ain’t her," he murmured. "But you feel like the same song in a different key."

His voice cracked a little at the edges, not enough to ruin the shape of it, just enough to prove that something in him still bled.

You reached up, fingers trembling, and cupped the side of his neck. The skin there was warmer now. Still inhuman, still not quite alive, but it held your heat like it didn’t want to give it back. You felt the ridges of old scars beneath your palm. The echo of stories not told.

"I don’t know what I’m becoming," you said.

He leaned into your hand, eyes half-lidded.

"You’re becomin’ mine."

Then he kissed you again—not like before. Not full of fire. But slow, like he had all the time in the world to learn the shape of your mouth. His lips moved over yours with a kind of tenderness that made your bones ache. A kind of reverence that said this is where I end and begin again.

When he pulled back, your breath followed him.

The room shifted.

You felt it. Like the house had exhaled too.

"Lie down," he said, voice softer than it had ever been. "Let me hold what I almost lost."

You obeyed.

You lay back against the sheets that smelled like him, like dust and dark and something unnameable. The iron bed creaked softly beneath you, and the candlelight trembled with the movement. He undressed with quiet purpose, shirt sliding from his shoulders, buttons undone by slow fingers, trousers falling away to bare the sharp planes of his body.

And when he climbed over you, it wasn’t to take.

It was to be taken.

Remmick hovered above you, breath warm at your lips, hands braced on either side of your head. He looked down at you like he was staring through time. Like you were something he'd pulled from the fire and decided to keep even if it burned him too.

You’re mine, he whispered, but didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t have to.

His body said it.

His mouth said it.

And when he finally eased inside you, slow and steady, filling you inch by trembling inch—your soul said it too.

His body hovered just above yours, every inch of him trembling with a control you didn’t quite understand—until you looked into his eyes.

That red glow was dimmer now. No less powerful, but softened by something raw. Something reverent.

Not hunger.

Not lust.

Not even possession.

Devotion.

The kind that didn’t speak. The kind that buried itself in the bones and never left.

His hand slid down the side of your face, tracing the curve of your cheek, then the line of your jaw, calloused fingers lingering in the hollow of your throat where your heartbeat thudded wild and uneven.

"Still fast," he murmured, half to himself.

"You’re heavy," you whispered, not in protest, but in awe. Every breath you took was filled with him.

He smirked, the corner of his mouth twitching in that crooked, wicked way of his.

"Ain’t even layin’ on you yet."

You didn’t laugh. Couldn’t. Your body was stretched too tight, strung out with anticipation and need. Every inch of you burned.

He leaned down then, not to kiss you, but to breathe you in. His nose skimmed your cheek, the edge of your ear, the curve of your throat already marked by his bite. His hands traced your ribs, the sides of your waist, slow and steady, like he was trying to learn you by touch alone.

"You’re shakin'," he whispered, voice low, thick with something close to worship.

"So are you."

A pause.

Then softer—truthfully,

"Yeah."

He kissed the inside of your wrist, then the space between your breasts, then lower still—his lips reverent as they moved over your belly, your hipbone, the softest parts of you.

"You ever had someone take their time with you?" he asked, mouth against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

"Didn’t think so," he muttered. "Shame."

His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you again—not rushed, not greedy, just gentle. Like he knew he’d already had the taste of you and now he wanted the feel.

"Tell me if it’s too much," he said.

"It already is."

He looked up at you then, his face half-shadowed, half-lit, and something flickered in his eyes.

"Good."

His cock brushed against your entrance, hot and heavy, and you nearly arched off the bed at the first contact. Not even inside. Just there. Teasing. Pressed to the slick mess he'd made of you earlier with his mouth.

He groaned deep.

"Fuck, you feel like sin."

You reached for him, pulled him down by the back of his neck until your mouths were inches apart.

"Then sin with me."

He didn’t hesitate.

He began to press in—slow. Devastatingly slow. The head of his cock stretching you open with a care that felt like madness. His hands gripped your hips as if holding himself back took more strength than killing ever had.

He moved in inch by inch, his breath hitched, jaw tight, sweat beginning to bead at his temple.

"Shit—ya takin’ me so good, dove. Just like that."

You moaned. Your fingers dug into his back. You were full of him and not even halfway there.

"Remmick—"

"I gotcha," he whispered. "Ain’t gonna let you break."

But he was already breaking you. Gently. Thoroughly. Beautifully.

He filled you like he’d been made for the task.

No sharp thrusts. No hurried rhythm. Just the unbearable slowness of it. The stretch. The burn. The drag of his cock as he sank deeper, deeper, deeper into you until there was nothing left untouched. Until your body stopped bracing and started opening.

You clung to him—hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt that still clung to his back, damp with sweat. He hadn’t even undressed all the way. There was something obscene about it, something holy, too—the way he kept his shirt on like this wasn’t about bareness, it was about belonging.

"That’s it," he rasped against your throat. "There she is."

Your moan was caught between breath and prayer.

He buried himself to the hilt.

And still—he didn’t move.

His hips pressed flush to yours, his breath shaky against your skin as he held himself there, nestled so deep inside you it felt like you’d never known emptiness before now. Like everything that came before this moment had just been the ache of waiting to be filled.

"You feel that?" he whispered, voice thick, almost reverent. "Where I am inside ya?"

You nodded. Couldn’t find your voice.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear.

"Ain’t no leavin’ now. I’ll always be in ya. Even when I ain’t."

You whimpered.

Not from pain. From how true it felt.

He moved then—barely. Just a slow roll of his hips, a gentle retreat and return. It was enough to make your breath hitch, your body arch, your legs wrap tighter around him without thinking.

"That’s right, dove. Let me in. Let me have it."

You didn’t even know what it was anymore.

Your body?

Your blood?

Your soul?

You’d already given them all.

And still, he took more.

But not cruelly.

Like a man kissing the mouth of a well after years of thirst. Like a thief who knew how to make you feel grateful for the stealing.

He found a rhythm that made the air vanish from your lungs.

Slow. Deep. Measured. His hips grinding just right, dragging his cock against every place inside you that had never known such touch. Every stroke sang with heat. Every breath he took turned your name into something more than a sound.

"Fuck, I could stay in you forever," he groaned. "Like this. Warm. Tight. Mine."

You dug your nails into his shoulders, legs trembling.

"Please," you whispered, though you didn’t know what you were asking for.

He did.

"Beg me," he said, dragging his mouth down your neck, over the bite he’d left. "Beg me to make you come with my cock in you."

"Remmick—"

"Say it."

You were already gone. Already shaking. Already his.

"Make me come," you breathed. "Please—God, please—"

His smile was sinful.

And then he fucked you.

His rhythm shifted—no longer slow, no longer sacred.

It was worship in the way fire worships a forest. The kind that devours. The kind that remakes.

Remmick braced a hand behind your thigh, hitching your leg higher as he thrust harder, deeper, dragging guttural sounds from his chest that you felt before you heard. The bed groaned beneath you, iron frame clanging soft against the wall in time with his hips. But it was your body that made the noise that filled the room—the gasps, the breaking sighs, the high whimper of his name torn raw from your throat.

He kissed your jaw, your collarbone, your shoulder, not like he was trying to be sweet but like he needed to taste every inch he claimed.

"You feel me in your belly yet?" he growled, words hot against your skin.

You nodded frantically, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from the sheer force of sensation.

"Say it," he panted, each thrust brutal and beautiful.

"Yes—yes, I feel you, Remmick, I—"

"You gonna come f’r me like a good girl?"

"Yes."

"Say my fuckin’ name when you do."

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your clit like he’d owned it in another life, and the moment his fingers circled that aching bundle of nerves, your vision went white.

Your body seized around him.

The sound you made was raw, wrecked, something no one but him should ever hear.

He kept fucking you through it, hissing curses through his teeth, chasing his own high with the rhythm of a man who’d waited centuries for the perfect fit.

And then he broke.

With your name groaned low and reverent in your ear, he came deep inside you, hips stuttering, breath ragged, body shuddering with the force of it. You felt every throb of his cock inside you, every spill of heat, every ounce of him taking root.

For a long, suspended moment, he didn’t move.

Only the sound of your breaths tangled together.

Your sweat mixing.

Your bodies still joined.

"That’s it," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his forehead to yours. "That’s how I know you’re mine."

The house exhaled around you.

The candle sputtered in its jar, flame dancing low and crooked, like even it had been made breathless by what it had witnessed. Somewhere in the walls, the wood groaned—settling. Sighing. Accepting.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Your body was a temple razed and rebuilt in a single night, still pulsing with the memory of his mouth, his weight, the stretch of him inside you like a secret only your bones would remember. Every nerve hummed low and soft beneath your skin, like your blood hadn’t figured out how to move without his rhythm guiding it.

Remmick stayed inside you.

His body was heavy atop yours, but not crushing. His head tucked into the curve of your neck, the same place he’d bitten, the same place he’d worshipped like it held some holy truth. His breath came slow and ragged, the rise and fall of his chest matching yours as if your lungs had struck the same pace without meaning to.

"Don’t move yet," he muttered, voice wrecked and hoarse. "Wanna stay here just a minute longer."

You let your hand drift through his hair, damp with sweat, curls sticking to his forehead. You carded through them lazily, mind blank, heart full.

He pressed a kiss to your throat. Then another, just above your collarbone.

"You still with me?" he asked, quieter now.

You nodded.

"Good," he murmured. "Didn’t mean to fuck the soul outta ya. Just…couldn’t help it."

You let out the softest laugh, and he smiled into your skin.

His hand slid down your side, tracing the curve of your waist, your hip, the spot where your thigh met his. His fingers moved slowly, not with lust, but with a kind of quiet awe.

"Y’know what you feel like?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Home."

The word struck something inside you. Something tender. Something deep.

He lifted his head then, just enough to look down at you. His eyes had faded from red to something darker, something richer—garnet in low light. The kind of color only seen in blood and wine and promises too old to be remembered by name.

"You still think this is just hunger?" he asked.

You blinked at him, dazed.

"It was never just hunger," he said. "Not with you."

The silence between you was warm now.

Not empty. Not tense. Just quiet, the kind that comes after thunder, when the storm’s rolled through and the trees are still deciding whether to stand or kneel.

You felt it in your limbs—heavy, humming, holy. The afterglow of something you didn’t have language for.

Remmick hadn’t moved far.

He still blanketed your body like a second skin, one arm braced beneath your shoulders, the other tracing idle shapes across your hip as if he were still mapping the terrain of you. His cock, softening but still nestled inside, pulsed faintly with the last of what he’d given you.

And he had given you something. Not just release. Not just blood. Something older. Something that whispered now in the place between your ribs.

You turned your head to look at him.

His gaze was already on you.

"What happens now?" you asked, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he ran the back of his fingers along your cheekbone, down the side of your neck, pausing over the place where his mark had already begun to bruise.

"You askin’ what happens tonight," he murmured, "or what happens after?"

You blinked slowly. "Both."

He let out a breath through his nose, the sound tired but not cold.

"Tonight, I’ll hold you. Long as you’ll let me. Won’t leave this bed unless you beg me to. Might even make ya cry again, if you keep lookin’ at me like that."

You flushed, and he smiled.

"As for after…"

He looked past you then, toward the ceiling, like the truth was written in the beams.

"Ain’t never planned that far. Not with anyone. Just fed. Fucked. Moved on."

"But not with me."

His eyes snapped back to yours. Serious now.

"No, dove. Not with you."

You swallowed the knot rising in your throat.

"Why?"

His jaw flexed, tongue darting briefly across his lower lip before he answered.

"‘Cause I been alone too long. Lived too long. Thought I was too far gone to want anythin’ that didn’t bleed beneath me."

He leaned closer, forehead resting against yours, his next words no louder than a ghost’s sigh.

"But you—you made me want somethin’ tender. Somethin’ breakable."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Don’t gotta. Nothin’ about you ever has. And yet here you are."

You let your eyes drift shut, just for a moment, and whispered into the stillness between your mouths.

"So I stay?"

He didn’t hesitate.

"You stay."

The candle had burned low.

Its glow flickered long shadows across the walls—your bodies painted in gold and blood-tinged bronze, limbs tangled in sheets that still clung with sweat and want. The house had quieted again, the way an animal settles when it knows its master is content. Outside, the wind threaded through the trees in soft moans, like the Delta herself was eavesdropping.

Neither of you spoke for a while. You didn’t need to.

Your fingers traced lazy patterns across Remmick’s chest—over his scars, the slope of muscle, the faint rise and fall beneath your palm. You still half-expected no heartbeat, but it was there, slow and stubborn, like he’d stolen it back just for you.

He watched you. One arm draped across your waist, his thumb stroking your bare back like you might fade if he stopped.

"You still ain’t askin’ the question you really wanna ask," he said, voice rough from silence and sleep.

You paused.

"What question is that?"

He tipped his head toward you, resting his chin on his knuckles.

"You wanna know if I turned you."

Your heart gave a traitorous flutter.

"And did you?"

He shook his head.

"Nah. Not yet."

"Why not?"

His fingers stilled. Then resumed.

"’Cause you ain’t asked me to."

You looked up at him sharply.

"Would you?"

A long beat passed. Then he nodded once.

"If it was you askin’. If it was real."

Your breath caught.

"And if I don’t?"

His gaze didn’t waver.

"Then I’ll stay with you. ‘Til you’re old. ‘Til your hands shake and your bones ache and your eyes stop lookin’ at me like I’m the only thing that ever made you feel alive."

Your throat tightened.

"That sounds awful."

He smiled, slow and aching.

"It sounds human."

You looked at him for a long time. At the man who had killed, who had bled you, who had tasted every part of you—body and soul—and still asked nothing unless you gave it.

"Would it hurt?"

His hand slid up, fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face to his.

"It’d hurt," he said. "But not more than bein’ without you would."

The quiet stretched long and low.

His words hung in the space between your mouths like smoke—something sweet and terrible, something tasted before it was fully breathed in.

Your chest rose and fell against his slowly, and for a long time, you said nothing. You just listened. To the house settling around you. To the wind curling past the windows. To the steady thrum of blood still echoing faintly in your ears.

And beneath it all—

You heard memory.

It came soft at first. A shape, not a sound. The slick thud of your knees hitting the alley pavement. The scream you didn’t recognize as your own. Your brother’s blood, warm and fast, pumping between your fingers like water from a broken pipe. His mouth slack. His eyes wide.

You remembered screaming to the sky. Not to God.

Just up.

Because you knew He’d stopped listening.

And then—

He came.

Out of nothing. Out of dark.

You remembered the slow scrape of his boots on the gravel. The silhouette of him under the weak yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. You remembered the quiet way he spoke.

"You want him to live?"

You didn’t answer with words. You just nodded, crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And he’d knelt—right there in the blood—and laid his hand flat against your brother’s chest.

You never saw what he did. Only saw your brother’s eyes flutter. Only heard his breath return, sudden and wet.

And then he looked at you.

Not your brother.

Remmick.

He looked at you like he’d already taken something.

And he had.

Now, years later, lying in the hush of his house, your body still joined to his, you could still feel that moment thrumming beneath your skin. The moment when everything shifted. When your life became borrowed.

You looked up at him now, breathing steady, lips parted like a prayer just barely forming.

"I’ve already given you everything."

He shook his head.

"Not this."

He pressed two fingers to your chest, right over your heart.

"This is still yours."

"And you want it?"

He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away.

"I want it to keep beatin’. Forever. With mine."

You stared at him.

You thought about that alley. About your brother’s eyes opening again.

About how no one else came.

And you made your choice.

"Then take it."

Remmick stilled.

"Don’t say it unless you mean it, dove."

"I do."

His voice was barely more than a breath.

"You sure?"

You reached up, touched his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw.

"I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life."

His eyes shimmered—deep red now, alive with something wild and tender.

"Then I’ll make you eternal," he whispered. "And I’ll never let the world take you from me."

He didn’t rush.

Not now. Not with this.

Remmick looked at you like you were something rare—something holy—like he couldn’t believe you’d said it, even as your voice still echoed between the walls.

Then he moved.

Not with hunger. Not with heat.

With purpose.

He sat up, kneeling beside you on the bed, and pulled the sheet slowly down your body. His eyes drank you in again, but this time there was no heat in them. Just reverence. As if you were the altar, and he the sinner who’d finally been granted absolution.

"You sure you want this?" he asked one last time, voice soft, like the hush of water in a cathedral.

You nodded, throat tight.

"I want forever."

His jaw clenched. A tremble passed through him like he’d heard those words in another life and lost them before they were ever his.

He leaned down.

His hand cupped the back of your head, the other settled flat on your chest, palm over your heart.

"Close your eyes, dove."

You did.

And then—

You felt him.

His breath. His lips. The soft, cool press of his mouth against your neck. But he didn’t bite.

Not yet.

He kissed the mark he’d already left. Then higher. Then lower. Slow. Measured. Your body melted beneath him, your hands curling into the sheets.

And then—

A whisper against your skin.

"I’ll be gentle. But you’ll remember this forever."

And he sank his fangs in.

It wasn’t like the first time.

It wasn’t lust.

It wasn’t climax.

It was rebirth.

Pain bloomed sharp and bright—but only for a heartbeat. Then the warmth flooded in. Then the cold. Then the ache. Your pulse stuttered once, then surged. It was like drowning and being pulled to the surface at once. Like everything you’d ever been burned away and something older moved in to take its place.

He held you as it happened.

Cradled you like something delicate.

His mouth sealed over the wound, drinking slow, but not to feed. To anchor you. To tether you to him.

You felt yourself go limp. The world turned strange. Light and dark bled into each other. Your breath faded. Your heartbeat fluttered like wings against glass.

And then—

It stopped.

Silence.

Stillness.

And in the space where your heart had once beat…

You heard his.

Then—

Your eyes opened.

The world looked different.

Sharper.

Brighter.

Every shadow deeper. Every color richer. The candlelight burned gold-red and alive. The scent of the night air was so thick it choked you—smoke, soil, blood, him.

Remmick hovered above you, lips stained crimson, breathing hard like he’d just returned from war.

And when he looked at you—

You saw yourself reflected in his eyes.

He smiled.

"Welcome home, darlin’."

#turns out vampire jack o’connell is my roman empire #the only plot here is what if a monster loved you too gently and then ruined you anyway“#yes he eats you out like it’s the last supper. no i will not be taking criticism at this time #sinners 2025 #sinners au #sinners fic #remmick #remmick x reader #sinners remmick #jack o'connell

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wolfeyedwitch · 18 days ago

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Me: and then this will happen, and my character will do this altruistic action—

My writing brain: she would not fuckin do that.

Me: well damn, you're right, she definitely would not do that. Well, I guess she gets to panic and hide and have a crisis about how she's not a good person!

Writing original fiction is a lot like writing fan fiction, except instead of reading someone else's work and thinking "that character would not fuckin do that" you're reading and judging your own work, and thinking "this character would not fuckin do that", because they're your characters, who have gone off and started misbehaving.

#writing problems #writing stuff #writer things #writing things #writing woes #i cant make my taciturn shadow mage with lab whump trauma just walk into a hospital and heal someone #because she already knows that that's not normal for this setting #and she definitely does not want any scrutiny on her #so now shes panicking in a bathroom and trying to figure out how she can accomplish the same outcome #without putting herself in (perceived) danger #just because i (and my co-writer) know that nothing bad would happen to her if she did this? doesnt mean she knows that #honestly even if she did she would probably still be panicking #bc feelings are not rational

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sugurouge · 23 days ago

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── in your hand. from my heart. hades! sylus x persephone! female! feader

. ˳༚༅༚ explicit content, dark contentish, mdni: stalking, kidnapping, aphrodisiacs, dark magic, rituals, marking, loss of virginity, slight corruption, obsession, manhandling, multiple orgasms, pet names, size difference, praise, body worship

♱ word count: 16k

♱ synopsis: You never asked for the shadows to love you but the god who rules them has deemed you his obsession. Sylus watches, yearns, and finally steals what Olympus never deserved to keep. You should hate him. You do. Yet the underworld feels less like a prison, and more like a sanctuary awaiting your claim.

author’s note: I’ve adapted the original Hades and Persephone myth to better suit Sylus’s story and personality. While I’ve strayed from the soulmate bond (since gods don’t have souls) I’ve imagined a sort of darker, ancient thread of fate to connect Sylus and reader

I recommend listening to Even In Arcadia :)

You are the kindest thing that ever happened to me, even if that is not how our tale is told. When everyone else told me i was destined to be a forgotten nymph that nurtured flowers and turn meadows gold, you saw that the ichor that resides in me demanded its own throne. You showed me how a love like ours can turn even the darkest, coldest realm into the happiest of homes.” ― Nikita Gill

Many wars begin with a whisper. The God of the Underworld may have never expected to wage war against himself. They are quiet at first, nothing but sultry temptations dancing at the edge of Sylus's mind, enticing him with promises of you, of fate, of the inevitable. Urging, no, commanding him to take what is his.

Sylus resists. For now.

However, the whispers never cease. They dig their claws deep within his being, weaving their way through his thoughts to haunt him relentlessly until they become a part of him. All sparks kindle new flames, and this obsession sears, cuts, and bleeds into every waking moment, every fevered dream. Always, her . Always, you . The girl embraced by sunlight. The daughter of sky and soil, too radiant to be held by either. She who treads through fields that bow to her, who crafts blossoms with her loving care, who beckons earth to summon spring and chase away the biting cold and darkness of winter.

A pulse of new life, a being of warmth. Your presence bends the very fabric of existence: your laugh causes the trees of Olympus to shudder in delight, and the tunes you hum bring the rivers to still to listen to your beautiful voice. Treasured, you remain untainted by darkness and desire, by everything that clings to Sylus like a second skin.

Though he has cherished you equally from the depths of his realm, the King of the Dead, meant for an existence without everything you embody, has watched your every moment. He knows you do not belong to the Underworld—you do not belong to him—and yet, he wants your divinity to grace his lonesome heart.

Neither reason nor logic may be found behind his obsession. How could something so untouched by shadow, so wholly good, possibly stir the hunger inside him unbearably?

────────── ♱

To your ears, the whispers have always been there. They called for you in the rustling of the olive trees, in the wind slipping through wheat fields. But it is at the end of a long day, in the stillness settling just before dusk, when the whispers' embrace finds you again.

As a child, you mistook them for a fantasy of your lonesome moments, an imaginary friend your mother brushed off. But time removed the layers that painted them an illusion. These are not the voices of imagination. They stir from something older, something waiting to welcome you home. They linger in the shadows, out of reach but ever near, watching you blossom. They are a presence unseen yet felt, accompanied by ruby eyes piercing through the dark.

Two dots, burning like embers, keep you company as you dance through the realms of dreams. Guarding you, cherishing you.

They first caught your attention while hiding in the branches of a forest. You told yourself that the moment had been fleeting, a trick of the light. Yet the sensation of being watched continued to press against your skin and sink into your very bones.

You never mention them, not to your mother, not to the nymphs, never to your father. Not after the debacle upon the confession of the whispers clouding your mind.

Agreed, it was foolish to believe something could possibly lurk in the corners of your world, to imagine that the unseen figure belonged to something more than a waking dream. But the truth had never been so simple: Mephisto has been watching you for years.

A shadow among fruit trees, a winged guardian keeping its master's gaze locked upon you. The crow found a home on your windowsill, in the canopy of trees—wherever you went, he was sure to follow. Each sighting, each fragment of your life gathered in the folds of darkness, only deepened Sylus's craving.

Though he remained in his realm.

After all, the God of the Underworld was not a creature of impulse, no, he was patient, methodical, and ruthless in his desires.

From his throne cradled by obsidian halls, Sylus watched you grow from an innocent flower into something untamed, something the gods of Olympus could never truly fulfil. It was not merely your beauty—yet he would never deny the allure of your glistening skin under the sun, your hair flowing in the air, or the delicate curve of your lips whenever you smiled. But it was the spirit beneath the surface. You were no ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. Not with the fire you carry within.

A fire Sylus longed to set ablaze, longed to hold in his cold, empty hands.

It took Sylus longer than he first anticipated to weave the strands of fate in his favour. His influence may stretch long and deep, seeping into the world above like rotten roots blighting the earth. However, abducting a goddess required planning. But he yearned to see you through his own eyes, to touch you with his own hands, to hear your voice rise in ecstasy and anger.

The golden light of the late afternoon leaves its loving kiss on your skin to craft a creature of warmth as you move through fields of endless gold. You stray far from the others, lost in the simple pleasure of the breeze, of the flowers, and of the rivers greeting you.

The moment is peaceful until it isn't.

Suddenly, the world itself seems to shift as even the wind stills.

A shadow darker than any you have ever witnessed spreads like thunderclouds over the once sun-kissed lands. They chase away the light and its warm hold, replacing it with something cold that wraps around your senses like a viper ready to strike.

A chill chases down your spine while your widened eyes search for the true reason for your distress. It is only upon another turn that you finally see him.

Standing at the edge of the fields, as if undaring to breach the final boundary between your bodies, he watches you. A figure of impressive, near looming height, dressed in flowing black garments with shadows dancing at the edges of the seams. Long hair cascades down his back and frames his shoulders, its silver-tone a stark contrast against the twisted horns curved atop his head to frame a face too sharp, too cruel, too impossibly beautiful. His intense eyes smoulder like burning coals, causing your gaze to drop to the blood-red ruby in his chest.

Neither a fight nor a flight response kicks in as you realise his familiarity. Those eyes—you know them from the darkness of night—remember them staring at you as you caught them from the corners of your eyes.

"You," nothing but a breathless whisper, but oh does it tug on Sylus's heart to finally hear your unfiltered voice—in recognition at that. He ignores the tentative step you take backwards. A part of him perhaps pities you for the freedom you are about to lose.

"You've been watching me," you dare to accuse. While your voice may not shake, the tremble in your hands is as evident as the longing in Sylus's eyes.

But he can't lose his composure just yet. He can't scare away his prey through his own foolish greed. A slow, knowing smirk on his lips is his attempt to act nonchalant.

"Of course."

Revulsion battles with another deeper, more twisted emotion buried in your bones. And finally, finally , your instincts scream at you to run, to flee, but upon the first turn of your ankle, a snap of fingertips follows, and darkness shoots out like tendrils all around you. Not to split the earth beneath but to finally bring his world into awaiting arms.

The mist pulls you forward, closer to the being at the edge of the field. Panic claws up your throat, causing your voice to become a broken, raspy screech as you struggle against the pulsing shackles around your figure. "Let me go!" You try to warn him, fighting and clawing at nothing but shadows. But your struggle doesn't hinder Sylus. If anything, your fighting spirit amuses him.

Yes, he seems magnified by the racing rise and fall of your chest, by the widened pupils and blazing anger flashing across your features. "You fight like a young wildcat," he muses in a sultry voice, tilting his head as if admiring you in deep thought. "Claws bared, teeth flashing."

A scoff follows from your lips while you twist and turn with all the strength you can muster up. And still, his expression remains one of idle fascination. As if this, too, was exactly as Sylus had imagined.

"Mhm, you shine brightly, my dear," Sylus teases before one finger curls toward him. It is a simple gesture that sends another wave of black and red force to come crashing around you, steal the breath from your lungs, and cause your fighting spirit to falter in exhaustion.

The world may turn blurry; your knees may give way, but you do not crumple into the ground. Not when strong arms can finally cradle you. Sylus moves fast, almost too eager yet incredibly fluid to catch you. One arm wrapped around your waist is enough to cradle you against him. A gentle, near-ticklish touch glides along the back of your thighs before lifting your feet off the ground.

He carries you like an offering he already claimed. "Hush now," a mumble in a way that could render you willing, that should convince you to find comfort in his arms.

At least to his calculations.

But you do not.

How your body twists in his grasp, how your fists hammer against his chest—it is almost enough to infuriate him. Of course, it does not hurt, not physically, but your vehement rejections land piercing blows to his ego. Part of him believed you would willingly run into his arms and would recognise this connection you share.

Oh, was he wrong.

"Put me down!" Sylus assumes that the command is the first of many to follow in the future.

But he is quick to understand the need to act it off. He has to pretend to be unbothered by your distaste for him. So, after steeling his resolve, crimson eyes glance down to face your glare head-on. Newfound amusement dances across Sylus's features, accompanied by a burning passion whirling through glistening flecks of gold in his gaze. "I would, but I fear you might run."

"I will!" you bite back while struggling harder against the confident hold of your captor. "I will run, and I will never stop!"

Something akin to a purr rumbles inside Sylus's chest. His smile widened, slow and indulgent, at the prospect of a game. "Don't tempt me so…" he mumbles in adoration while leaning in to nudge the tip of his nose against yours.

Fury seems to burn brighter than your fear by now, though it did not change the scene that unfolded.

The fields, the light, the warmth of the sun— everything vanishes into the abyss. Only him, only the darkness, the scent of smoke and myrrh remains as the blackened energy whips around your entangled bodies and pulls you down.

Sylus hides his face in the crook of your neck, and as much as you drown in darkness and despair, does Sylus finally drown in warmth and sweetened notes of fruits and florals.

No matter how much you struggle in his loving hold, ultimately, there is no escaping the force that drags you downward. The sun becomes a distant memory before it is gone entirely. The home you knew and cherished is no longer a place to return to.

────────── ♱

Now everything is new. No, it is not new; it is different. Other . This silence seems suffocating, so unlike the gentle hum of life or the breeze in the leaves, it feels like finality. It presses against your skin like the desperate hands of drowning souls trying to grasp their chance for life anew.

Vast and endless, a silence that does not belong to the living.

"You're awake."

Your breath falters at the commanding voice reverberating inside these grand, dark halls. The only source of light falls from the flickering glow of lanterns filled with ethereal blue fire. The shadows in this realm appear to stretch longer across the polished floors, and at the heart of it all, he sits on a throne made to be feared and cowered before.

The figure that has stolen you from the world above. The God of the Underworld. Known to the mortals as Hades, known among gods as Sylus .

He waits for you with bated breath. Hoping for you to speak, to move, to give him anything he could work with. Perhaps you sense his hidden distress, at least that is what Sylus tells himself, since you finally part your lips.

"Why am I here?" Your voice is hoarse, raw from the screams of your fight.

A slow, deliberate smile tugs at the corner of Sylus's lips while he watches your impatience sprout like weeds. So unlike the gentle goddess, you present yourself to be.

"I concluded it was time for you to come home."

The words slam into you, twisting and turning until anger surges to victory and leads you to stagger to your feet. "This—" You pause right after the first word to allow yourself another glimpse at these forsaken halls. " This is not my home!" There's so much bark for such little bite, you look entirely endearing to Sylus.

So, unsurprisingly, he does not fall for your temper. Instead, he remains unmoving. His lips are sealed, and no arguments follow. He only watches patiently, as if waiting for you to tire yourself out of this tantrum.

It's almost like he already knew the end of your tale.

"Take me back." The demand leaves your lips with a confidence Sylus has not yet seen. Oh , and this look, the determination in your eyes, awakens the desire he tries to keep at bay.

Why not coax the spark into a blaze?

A flicker of amusement crosses his face, followed by a gentle sigh of satisfaction. There is only one word, two syllables, and its meaning is distinctive: "No."

The thundering echo of father's famous rage appears to ring true inside your frame as your fingers curl into fists and the ground of the Underworld starts to shake. Perhaps it already recognises its queen. "You have no right!" Is your angered accusation towards the god who remains unbothered by your distress.

Sylus is indeed unbothered, but for differing reasons than one might suspect. His mind is distracted by how willingly his home, his realm, welcomes you in, bends to you, and kneels at your will.

Shadows darkened his face upon the tilt of his head, and the amusement that once danced across his features vanished in the blink of an eye. When he speaks again, his voice is soft but cuts through the air all the same. "I have every right."

The weight of his words presses down on you, heavy as the walls of this palace. You try to find reason and desperately make sense of the situation you find yourself in. But there is none. Only panic, worry, and fear are your newfound companions through the dark reaches of the Underworld.

Your mother will search for you; the gods above will not stand for this, and there will be consequences.

Yet any possible consequence means little to Sylus.

Eventually, he rises from his throne in a slow and graceful motion, serving as a reminder of his prominence. He is tall, impossibly so, and his form casts a long shadow over you, staging as claws of a predator while they reach for his prey.

You flinch away from the outstretched hand, but something so feeble could never stop a god possessed. Sylus's fingers brush against your cheek—light, worshipping—before he pulls back too soon. Though his eyes, warm and filled with unspoken wishes, remain on you, to study you like the most precious treasure.

His treasure.

"You were always meant to be here," Sylus eventually murmurs, breaking this seemingly still moment between you two. Even if you don't see it yet," he adds, before halting not just his words but also the fingertips that almost brushed against your shoulder. "You are made for me."

With these words, Sylus turns to leave and vanishes into the endless corridors beyond. Though your words of hatred become his companion, they echo off the palace halls.

"I will never belong to you!" A vow, a promise, a warning spoken with conviction.

How much truth rings true may only be deciphered in the future, but Sylus seems already sure of the outcome, judging by the small, knowing smile spreading on his lips after he mumbles, "We shall see," like a secret between himself and the darkness around him.

You stand motionless, every muscle in your body tense, perhaps even trembling, as you remain stubbornly unwilling to accept the cold finality of your circumstances. The grandeur of the palace is impressive, though to you, it feels like a cage. The polished black stone reflects your form in taunting echoes as you wander through forgotten halls and corridors.

Your anger seems to boil like a volcano about to erupt, a force even nature yields beneath. You are a goddess, not a helpless mortal ready to be toyed with. And yet, you were taken, stolen in the bright afternoon sun.

────────── ♱

Time moves strangely here. Day and night have no meaning when neither the sun nor moon chase another across the sky. Instead, you are suspended in the void, accompanied by an ever-burning firelight. You have lost track of how long it has been since he stole you away, but the hunger inside you sharpens with each passing hour.

In silence, you defy Sylus. Sealed lips, empty stomach and eyes filled with hatred render the God of the Underworld near helpless. The plates of ripened fruit and honeyed delicacies tempt yet do not manage to break your will. The air, filled with sweet scents of pomegranates, figs, and golden-crusted bread, is in equal amounts ignored as the goblets of wine.

Hunger gnaws at you; it scratches against the hollow of your stomach, but your resolve is stronger.

Through it all, Sylus watches. He does not force you, does not plead or beg for you to see reason. But he also does not take pity. No, he simply leans against the framed passage to your chamber, muscles bulging from the fold of his arms across his chest.

He only watches.

It is infuriating.

"Refuse me all you want." Sylus's words snap you out of your trance-like state. You haven't even realised his movements, but he sits across from you by now. The ruby on his chest pulses in the dim light as though it has a heartbeat of its own.

He might as well pass a statue, a thing of immortal beauty and cruel stillness, were it not for his eyes—those endless red depths, watching you with emotions akin to something patient and knowing.

"Starving yourself won't help," he continues in an attempt to break your silence. Perhaps you only need a nudge in the right direction? The domineering aura relaxes once Sylus leans back against the cushioned chair, literally opening himself up to you and your scrutinising gaze.

There it is. That familiar glare he has come to appreciate.

His fingertips drum against the chair's armrest, seemingly anticipating whatever you finally offer him.

"I want to go home."

The words surprise him, though do not infuriate. Instead, he appears concerned at your undying defiance. A slow blink follows a momentary freeze of his figure before a lick across his lips wet them. "You are home," Sylus reassures you with a quiet, seemingly compassionate voice.

It further fuels your anger. "This is not my home!" The words bounce off the palace once more, as they have for the past days since Sylus brought you here.

He exhales a puff of air while pinching the bridge of his nose. Silver strands of hair slip forward upon the tilt of his head, accidentally catching the firelight to illuminate the piercing rubies beneath his bangs. "And yet, you were meant to be here. Can't you feel it?"

You can, which is the most terrifying part of all. Something disturbs your peace within whenever Sylus is near you. It should not be there, this pull, this inexplicable gravity that makes it hard to look away. But it is always there, and it only grows stronger with each passing day.

You try to push it off as nothing but the old magic of this place, the way the very walls seem to recognise your presence. But it is not just the Underworld that calls to you.

It is him. And you hate him for it. Even more so hate the realisation of your influence over him: Sylus hesitates on the rare occasions you say his name out loud, as though it carries a power even he does not understand. His gaze always lingers too long; his fingers twitch as if resisting the urge to reach for you. He is the God of the dead, ruler of this forsaken realm, feared by all—and yet, you begin to wonder if you are the one meant to rule over him.

While these thoughts may not change your anger, grief, or longing for the world above, they shift something within you.

Until one night, your hunger eventually wins.

Perhaps the servants left the plates out on purpose. The truth may never be revealed, nor is it important in the grander scheme of things. The only thing that mattered now was the intoxicatingly sweet scent of fruits that lingered on throughout your sleepless night. The warning voice inside your mind rings hollow; it pales in comparison to the glistening cuts of fresh harvest tempting your restless figure teetering at the edge of your bed.

You should not.

But your stomach twists, your body weakens, and the scent lures you in to take step after step until you stand in front of the silver platters. Without thinking or comprehending your mistake's finality, your fingers close around a small pomegranate seed, glistening like a drop of blood.

The moment it slides down your throat, the air in the room changes. It is a subtle shift at first, a whisper, then a gust of wind, usually unbeknown to this isolated place.

One pulse is all it takes for Sylus to stand in the archway of your chamber once more, like he has done many times before—watching, waiting. Your breath is unsteady, the weight of your actions sinking into your stomach like lead. And unlike the despair coursing through your body, victory curls Sylus's lips into a small, satisfied smile.

"You understand now, don't you?" His voice is low, almost gentle, perhaps influenced by the horror visible in your helpless gaze. You swallow hard as you try to find your voice, your reason, yourself . But the only possible solution is to blame it all on Sylus.

"What have you done?"

Now you irritate him. His brows crease upon your accusation, though his calm demeanour does not crumble. "What have you done?" he much rather returns the question right back to its sender to watch your defiance finally break.

Trembling hands appear tainted to your blurry gaze as you look down in disbelief. They are clean, but to you, each tip seems stained with the juicy remnants of your sin.

The truth is an unbearable thing.

You cannot leave.

Not now.

Not ever.

Never again.

The realisation crackles like the fireplace, though you have never felt this cold. With slow steps, the distance you so fiercely fought for diminishes until Sylus stands right before you.

This time, you refuse to flinch when his hand reaches for you; his fingers trace the air in between before closing around your wrist. Skin to skin, you realise the chill that clings to his touch, though an unfamiliar fire courses through your veins, a traitorous response you loathe yourself for.

Sylus turns your hand over and lifts it to his lips. The first gentle brush of lips against your palm is enough to send shivers down your spine. It is a kiss as soft as the brush of a feather; however, the warmth of his breath lingers, seeping into your flesh and marking you in ways deeper than any chain could.

"You belong to this realm," he murmurs into your palm, his lips grazing each word into your skin. "And you belong to me."

Irritation in its purest form hardens Sylus's features as you yank your hand from his hold. You should really stop fighting; you should stop despising him. "The damage is already done," he whispers beside your ear, though he does not touch you this time.

You can feel it—this invisible thread that ties you to him, to this place, to the very darkness that seems to sprout within you. "I hate you," you whisper in return.

Momentarily, a flicker of hurt passes through those crimson depths before Sylus takes a step back, and you might even start to regret your declaration until a slight smirk lifts the corners of his mouth.

"You say that now," he says softly, "but you have already begun to change."

────────── ♱

His words ring true.

The air in the Underworld is different now. It hums with an energy that wasn't there before, a certain pulse in the walls, the ground, and the air you breathe. You feel it around you; it seeps into your bones and reshapes something deep inside you. It is a dark and restless presence that lingers like the weight of your mistake, like the warmth of his lips against your palm.

There is no time to mourn your fate in silence and isolation, not with Sylus. He comes to you more often now, no longer content to watch from the shadows. His presence is as constant and inevitable as the burning torches that line the palace halls.

Sylus never forces, but he does not relent either. He pushes, always pushing the boundaries you fight so hard to uphold. But his endurance might be one of his most impressive qualities.

The pursuit is a slow, insidious thing that sneaks into your veins like the pomegranate's curse. He touches you more deliberately—a palm at the small of your back as he guides you through the corridors, fingers graze your wrist when you pass him in the grand halls, a featherlight brush of his knuckles along your jaw when you glare at him too fiercely.

It is maddening.

And yet, your pulse races when his lips hover near your ear when his voice spills honeyed words against your skin.

He seeks you out, always, even in your chambers, especially in your chambers, where the air is heavy with your sweetness.

"You are avoiding me," his musing tone catches you off guard. If it weren't for his proximity, for the body looming behind your back, you would whirl around to glare at the uninvited guest. "And you fight so hard," Sylus's breath is warm against the sensitive skin beneath your ear.

How his lips yearn to taste you.

It's as though he enjoys your rejections more than an open welcome. You're too adorable this way as if you truly were to believe your acts of defiance could help against fate itself.

"I have no desire to entertain you" is a grumble as you turn further away from Sylus. But for each step you take away from him, Sylus takes two in return.

"That is a lie." His presence presses against your senses, unrelenting in his pursuit. Sylus happily witnesses the goosebumps his touch leaves in its wake with the gentle ghost of his fingertips along your arm. "Your body betrays you so very clearly, my beauty."

Your heart thrums within your chest, so loud it nearly succeeds in drowning out the teasing lilt in his voice—almost, but not quite. Because you're too attuned to him now, too ensnared by the pull of his presence to resist for much longer. Whether caused by fury or the desire to look into crimson eyes, you turn and face Sylus, drawn as if by fate itself to those infernal, beautiful features. "You tore me from everything—my life, my mother. How could I ever—"

Oh, you are ravishing like this, even more so with that sinful glare upon the knowing, near-cheeky smile on Sylus's lips. "Because you are mine." A light touch weaves its way through your fingers, tickling your palm and wrist to brand your skin with his longing.

A nudge from Sylus's free finger tilts your chin up, effortlessly forcing your glare to focus back on his eyes. That little gasp from your lips beckons him to close the scant distance between your mouths. "Hate me, curse me, reject me," Sylus murmurs with a voice as dark as the abyss itself, "it will only deepen my love for you."

The heat in his stare makes your stomach twist in ways you fail to comprehend, in ways you refuse to acknowledge fully. You do not answer, cannot answer, because some terrible, secret part of you shudders in delight at how right his claim feels even as your mind rebels against him.

He is too close to the point that his scent clouds your better judgment while silver hair falls past his shoulders to tickle your skin. Momentarily, you consider running your fingers through the long strands.

Instead, reason calls upon you to press your hands against Sylus's chest to push him away—but he feels so good beneath your touch that you fail to pursue your goal.

And he notices, of course, he does. His muscles give way beneath your palms as Sylus leans in a fragment closer. "You are fighting something inevitable, my love," he whispers against your temple. "Do you not feel it? The pull?"

You do, and you loathe yourself for it.

Long, greedy fingers trail along your collarbone; it's nothing but a ghost of a touch meant to unravel. "I could make this easier for you, little goddess," a gentle murmur of affection, though his voice remains laced with amusement, with something far more wicked. "Or you could keep resisting. Either way, you have me wrapped around your finger."

Despite the raging pulse that betrays your resistance, you snap at the God of the Underworld. Once more, forever more, Sylus's own heart skips a beat at the rejection of his feisty goddess. "I would sooner wither."

The words could have caused him to fall apart in this instance if he had lower self-control.

Perhaps it is this very realisation that causes Sylus to chuckle. Low and deep and true, the sound vibrates against your skin. "Would you?" His lips nearly kiss the shell of your ear. "Tell me, do you truly despise this?"

Worshipping hands slide down your arm; they trace the curve of your wrists and ultimately entwine with your fingers. A moment passes before your hands are lifted to his mouth for Sylus to press kisses across your knuckles.

Only now do you realise the beautiful and heavy set of his lashes and the gentle crease of his brows as if this act alone could convey the undying embers of his love, which burn hotter than his breath against your skin.

The sensation sends a sudden jolt through you, something unfathomable if you remain insistent on denying your own affections. This tender moment ends with a sudden yank to free your hands from his reverent hold, though it does not darken Sylus's mood.

"You are insufferable," you grumble all over again, to which Sylus chuckles. The sound is neither cruel nor mocking. No, it is like the weightless reassurance of a man who knows you will come to him in the end.

────────── ♱

The Underworld is not the lifeless void you once assumed it to be. Its unexpecting offer is more impressive than what you first granted: Through the dark pits of Tartarus, the paradise of Elysium and the barely noticeable meadows of Asphodel flow rivers like silver snakes, their surfaces rippling with unseen currents, only disturbed by Charon transporting souls across the Styx. Shadows curl and move, whispering in the voices of the hopeless and lost. And the sky here? It's not black but a deep, endless twilight speckled with stars that do not belong to the world above.

And rather than simply accepting your fate, you embrace it now.

Your reflection reveals it first. In the land of the dead, you flourish. Your skin shines with renewed energy while a new-found hunger lingers in your eyes, craving more than sustenance. Your gowns are also different now: darker, tighter, more opulent, and made for the station Sylus insists is yours. Jewels glint at your throat, wrists, hair, gifts, all of them, from him .

You tell yourself you wear them only because you have no choice, but deep down, you know better.

The realm accepts you now. It bows to you in small ways—doors open before you touch them, whispers grow soft when you pass. The Underworld does not take just anyone. It takes queens. One queen. His.

Sylus does not bother to hide anymore. He is not just waiting for you to succumb—he is guiding you toward it, coaxing you, moulding you. His every interaction carries intent: every touch is a test, every word a step closer to something inevitable.

One evening, he corners you in the dim glow of the throne room to tease and tempt you until you want to flee. Your steps back ultimately cause you to stagger into his chest through the calculated tug on your wrist. Grasped between his thumb and pointer finger, your face is directed towards his own; your head tipped back for your lips to part invitingly.

"You wear my gifts well," Sylus murmurs the compliment while rendering you defenceless thanks to the simple brush of his thumb against the swell of your lower lip, "they were made for you, and you were made for me," a hushed promise spoken against the shell of his ear.

Shamelessly, his head dips lower, and you feel his nose against your jawline, feel him inhale your floral scent deeply as though attempting to fill his entire being with you before pressing a singular kiss filled with longing against the racing pulse dancing beneath the thin skin of your neck.

"What?" He continues this solitary conversation. "Are you not going to hiss at me?" The quirk of his brow is infuriating—infuriatingly attractive.

"I was not made for you," you force the reply, a sweet attempt to seem as repulsed as before, but the words come weaker than you intend.

At that, Sylus can't help but laugh. The sound is low and rich, and it's exclusively for you.

The grand finale of tonight's pursuit follows in the shape of Sylus's lips brushing the corner of your mouth—not quite a kiss, but rich enough in intensity to make you wonder what it would feel like if he truly claimed you.

────────── ♱

The arrival of Hermes shatters the fragile dynamic that has begun to blossom from your connection with Sylus.

He appears without warning, a figure of golden light and refined grace, with flaxen hair and eyes of near-luminescent blue. Xavier. His movements are effortless, fluid, a beacon of hope in the heavy stillness of the Underworld. With him, he carries the expectations of Olympus, and for the first time in weeks, you remember what it felt like to breathe in fresh air, to feel the sun's kiss upon your skin.

Yet there is something sharper about him here in this place of no belonging—his smile is edged with mischief, his ivory tunic ripples with divine energy. A calculative gaze flicks to you, then to Sylus, who remains seated on his throne, utterly unbothered by the unwelcome interruption.

The messenger neither bows nor cowers. "Well," Xavier says, his arms moving to cross as he leans against a pillar. "The king of gods has spoken."

Sylus tilts his head at the mention of your father, clearly unimpressed. He eyes the messenger amid his grand hall, mustering the God of trade and luck. "Has he now?" Despite the calm tones in Sylus's voice, there is a dangerous edge lurking beneath its surface. By now, you can tell as much.

Xavier's gaze momentarily returns to you. Emboldened by the solemn vow to bring the harvest goddess's beloved daughter back to the realm of living, he speaks. "Your mother grieves. The earth withers in her sorrow. You are to be returned to Olympus immediately."

Freedom? A return… home?

For a fleeting, breathless moment, the words cause a flutter to take wing inside your chest—like a bird stirring from its slumber after a long night. Hopeful, fragile, aching to believe. But then you notice how Xavier speaks of you. Not to you, no over you.

To be returned, not to return.

You move slowly and find Sylus already watching you. His attention pushes down on you with unspoken words and painful longing while restless fingers drum against the jet-black glass of his throne. Then, without looking away, he plays his final card.

"She has long eaten the fruit of my realm."

Xavier sighs dramatically at the desperate antics from the God of the Underworld. "Yes, yes , and you've tied her to you now. Very clever." He glances at you once more before meeting crimson head-on with cerulean. "But the world above cannot survive without her. You know this."

Sylus lifts a hand, demanding immediate silence from the messenger without another glance in his direction. Rising from his throne, he crosses the chasm between your bodies with purposeful steps until the distance wanes and bends like fate itself. He does not stop until his presence surrounds you and his hot breath ghosts over your lips.

Gentle fingertips find your jaw for a touch equally sinful as tender. Possessive. Worshipful. The pad of Sylus's thumb lingers beneath your chin, tilting your face for him to adore your every angle. "You are mine," he murmurs, low and intoxicating. "Even if I let you go, you will return."

The certainty of his claim causes your heart to falter, and you feel yourself falling apart, unravelling beneath his acts of devotion. You hate him for it. You hate that a part of you knows he is right.

Xavier watches the exchange with an arched brow. "Charming as always" is a mockery of God, who never showed romance to any being prior to you.

Though the words fly past the bubble created by Sylus's longing for you, you're enthralled by the hypnotising allure of tender lips that, once more, press slow kisses onto your hand. "My queen," he speaks the title into your skin as though searing your being with your future power and might.

Eager to escape this scene of lust and devotion, Xavier attempts to break this tension by clearing his throat before speaking: "Then I assume we have reached a compromise."

"A compromise?" Sylus echoes in wonder, though neither of you flees from the ensnaring heat crafted through your eyes as if the very act of looking at another was a ritual in itself.

"You will release her," Xavier declares, the decision carried by the weight of Olympus. Sylus already parts his lips to retort, though the messenger beats him to it. "And she will return to her mother, as the divine law demands. However…” Xavier's gaze moves to you, seemingly softer, mournful almost. "Since she has tasted your realm, she is now tied to it. Therefore, she shall walk between both worlds. She will return to you for half of the year until duty calls for her to step into the light of Olympus for the remaining months."

Sylus's grip tightens on your hand; a faint tremble to his fingers betrays his opulent presence. The smugness he wears like armour fades into a scowl. Turning to Xavier, Sylus pulls you to stand behind him with a possessiveness akin to a dragon threatened to lose his treasure.

His body turns into a shield between you and the final sentence of Olympus.

"She will depart with me today," Xavier continues unconcerned, "And until her eventual, unfortunate return to the Underworld, you shall be tested. Your patience, your virtue, the purity of your devotion to the Goddess of Spring,"

Xavier's conclusion leaves no room for arguments. A flicker close to triumph dances through the messenger's eyes as the God of death and shadows has been brought to his knees, even if only for a season.

"So be it," Sylus murmurs before, all too soon, returning to gaze upon you. As though you are the only vision that matters, the only beauty worth witnessing.

His free hand rises for his fingers to trail along the column of your throat before curling around the back of your neck. However, he would never use force on you. No, instead, Sylus draws close to you, so close his words become a secret between you two. "Enjoy your time above, little one, while I wait for your return to me."

It's a promise, a threat, and a certainty all at once. And truthfully, a part of you already misses him.

────────── ♱

Sylus had never realised how deafening the silence of the Underworld could be. It stretches through the empty halls of his palace and seeps into the very marrow of his existence. Once filled with your anger and fire, the throne room is once more cold. The grand halls echo only with his own footsteps. And even the torches seem to burn a little dimmer.

You are gone, and he hates it. He should not feel like this. He has ruled the Underworld for aeons and has never known loneliness, not in a way that mattered. But now, now he feels it.

You are in the world above, in your mother's arms, beneath the golden touch of the sun. You are in a place where he cannot reach you, and the realisation gnaws at him like a slow, festering wound.

His patience wears thinner than ever thanks to sleepless nights or haunting dreams of nothing and no one but you. Always you. Of your lips parted in anger, in surrender. Of your fingers curling into his hair, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away. He imagines your return and how you will look when you finally stand before him again. Will you be softer? Will your time above have reminded you of all the things you once thought you wanted? Or will you have come to understand the truth? That you belong to him.

He waits and watches once more. Never would Sylus have ever suspected to be forced to witness you again through the crow's eyes, but here he was—dependent on his messenger. Mephisto is his eyes in the upper world, a shadow against the bright skies. The crow perches in high branches, on windowsills, in the eaves of the great temple where Demeter holds you close, whispering reassurances that all will be as it once was.

But it will never be as it once was because you have changed, too.

While at first you revel in your freedom, the world above seems a little too bright, vibrant, and bursting with life in a way the Underworld never could. The fields bloom beneath your mother's touch, and the air is warm, filled with the scent of ripening fruit and fresh earth. You are surrounded by love, by the warmth of familiar arms, and by the laughter of those who missed you.

And yet, on the first night already, you awake to search for something which isn't there. On the second night, you dream of silver hair, hands trailing along your skin, and a voice murmuring your name in the dark. On the third night, you catch sight of a shadow moving along the tree line, and your heart stutters in your chest—not with fear, but recognition at the familiar gleam of red eyes.

Mephisto does not leave, and you do not want him to.

Days pass, then weeks, then months. You fill them with laughter, with long walks through sunlit meadows, with the comfort of your mother's presence. But there is a hollowness inside you now, a quiet, insidious ache that only grows with each passing day. It is not enough, you realise.

None of it is enough. Nothing measures up to the feelings Sylus brought to life within your shell. You are not the same as you were before. Confidence, stubbornness, and greed are qualities you happily embrace by now.

Your mother notices the change. One evening, she catches you staring out at the horizon with distant eyes while watching the setting sun. She sees how your hands trace absent patterns against your skin, as if recalling a touch is no longer there. She does not speak of it, but you can feel her watching, worrying.

When the leaves turn red and yellow, you wake with the remnant taste of pomegranate on your tongue, with an anticipation that brings your heart to pick up its pace at the prospect of returning to him .

────────── ♱

The descent is not the same this time. You are not stolen, not wrenched from the world above in a flurry of fear and resistance. No, this time, you go willingly. Your heart pounds with anticipation as the air around you grows heavier, the sun's warmth fading into the cold embrace of the Underworld's shadows.

And then you see him. He is there already, long awaiting.

His silhouette emerges from the fog like a memory-made flesh, tall, terrible, and heartbreakingly familiar. His eyes devour you. They do not blaze with conquest, though they burn with aching relief, with desire tempered only by the agony of restraint. A god undone by the absence of the one thing he could not command: your return.

"You came back," he says, and it is not a statement of triumph. His voice sounds fragile, relieved. The evidence of a desire stretched too thin over too many empty nights.

All you manage to respond is a quiet "I did," since the weight of this moment, of your joy, presses into your lungs and bones.

Sylus says nothing in return; the longing in his eyes is louder than any verbal confession. He rather steps closer, slowly, carefully, to chase away the forced distance of the past months. He has not changed, not truly. But the sharp edges of his obsession have softened.

He looks at you like you are someone he is afraid to lose, which makes your next step easier as you extend your hand toward him. Without hesitation, he encases your offer in his palm and lifts your hand to his lips, though a deep exhale of relief escapes his lungs long before pressing a lingering kiss against your knuckles.

This time, you do not pull away. This time, you let him. This time, you welcome him.

The gates close behind you with a soft sigh, like a breath exhaled after being held for too long. The Underworld waits. Not as a cage this time, not as a prison of shadow and stolen freedom. No—it waits as something altogether different. Your kingdom to rule.

────────── ♱

For the first time, Sylus leads, and you follow. You allow him to bring you to a garden that does not need sunlight to blossom; it's hidden beneath a silken canopy draped in silver threads. It glows from within, lit by fireflies not belonging to the world above. The flower petals here are as dark as night, and their stems shimmer faintly with iridescent dew. They are beautiful in a way that defies logic.

You sit on cushions of satin and velvet, a low table between you, and a feast of things not found in the upper world. Black figs bleeding golden juice. Pomegranate seeds are like rubies scattered on porcelain. Honey-soaked cakes with petals pressed into their tops—slices of moon fruit, with shimmering flesh like opal.

"Does it please you?" Sylus asks, with a voice as gentle as a lover's caress. You glance at the spread and then at the man sitting across from you, his broad frame draped in a tunic of deepest black threaded with the night sky that barely conceals his impressive build, exposing well-defined muscles inked with faint, ancient markings.

Sylus's lips curl into a smile upon the motion of your head, the simple nod rewarding him with a sense of relief. "It's strange. But yes," you admit with a gentle tone.

"One could consider yourself strange in this surrounding, too. And yet—you please me." Sylus's honesty strikes somewhere low in your belly. You should be used to his intensity by now, but thread by thread, it continues to unravel you. He is open with his intent, never hiding it, not the want, worship, or way his eyes trace the line of your throat or the corners of your mouth when you speak.

For a while, you sit in silence. A peaceful quiet, as though both of you are learning how to be something other than what you were. Not captor and captive. Not hunter and prey. Equals, lovers . The final thought may lead your fingers to finally reach for a slice of fig and hold it out to him.

Sylus's gaze flicks to yours, something akin to amusement pooling in those crimson shades as he momentarily hesitates. "You're feeding me now?" Though he regrets the words quicker than he has spoken them once, the sweet reward is being snatched away from Sylus's lips with a huff of mild exasperation over his daring, teasing response.

Mind you, the God of the Underworld is not one to have his treats taken from him. A firm touch around your wrist, a breathed chuckle and a brush of soft lips follow all too soon before Sylus welcomes the fruit from your offering hand.

His actions are deliberate and intimate, causing your breath to catch and your cheeks to grow warm beneath his intense gaze. Through thick lashes, his crimson eyes bask in your reaction, though his mouth remains occupied until a murmur of "Why, aren't you sweet tonight?" falls from glistening lips that seem to beckon you to lean in.

It is only at the last moment that you notice your desire. You catch yourself and pluck one grape off its vine instead of reaching for the God of the Underworld.

However, Sylus takes it from your fingers and presses it to your lips instead. "Your turn," a gentle command and challenge dusted in this low, sultry tone.

Parted lips allow the grape to burst on your tongue—sweet and tart, while Sylus's attention remains on your mouth. He doesn't budge, not when he knows you have grown aware of his stare, not when you chew, not even when you swallow.

"I missed you," he says in a whisper that carries a longing stretched too thin. His expression is nearly vulnerable, tender, and a little insecure, perhaps.

This newfound softness suits him. Leading you to allow your eyes to roam over his sharp features to find further gentle details. From his cupid's bow to the golden flecks in his eyes and the lines on his face when he smiles at you, for you.

"Did you?"

"Every night," Sylus murmurs, possibly a little rueful. "I dreamed of you walking back into my realm, of your voice echoing through my– our halls. I imagined…"

He stops himself at the last moment. A hint of a blush dusts his features, bringing a charm to his looks you would have never granted him before.

"Imagined what?"

The heavy set of his jaw causes his held-back confession to stir worry in your mind; Sylus can tell as much as he takes in the slight crease of your brows. It may be time to jump over his shadow.

His smile returns, though it appears rather self-deprecating this time around while avoiding your gaze.

"You. Smiling at me like you meant it. Touching me because you wanted to," Sylus admits with a purse of his lips, evidently cringing at his confession. This was ill-befitting to the ruler of the Underworld.

Yet, your fingers befit him very well. How they begin to trace the lines of his hand, from the back of his hand to the calloused pads of his fingers? Sylus stills beneath your touch as if afraid a single move might cause you to vanish again.

"And I missed—" he continues but swallows the rest.

You are the one to smile now. You didn't expect to coax so many confessions out of him tonight, though he appears to be in a rambling mood, which makes it impossible not to tease, not to probe and test your luck further.

With a tilt of your head, you let your eyes flick up to his own, a glint of amusement dancing in your gaze. "Tell me."

His eyes dart away almost immediately, lashes fluttering against flushed skin, while Sylus seems to contemplate whether or not he shall make a grander fool of himself. But you seem receptive, accepting of him...

"I missed the sound of your voice even when you cursed me. Especially then."

You smile at that, a real one. "You deserved every word."

"I still do," Sylus replies, unbothered at that and well aware of his own 'shortcomings'.

The conversation finds a tranquil close through shared chuckles and lingering eye contact before the fruits call for attention.

You eat in slow, quiet indulgence. Feeding another slice of moon fruit and seeds of pomegranate accompanied by a brush of his thumb across your lower lip or the hitch in Sylus's breath as your fingers graze his mouth.

The air seems to thicken with something you do not dare to address, a sweetness far beyond the decadence of the fruits.

When juice glistens at the corner of Sylus's mouth, you reach without thinking to wipe it away. The gentle moment deepens once long fingers catch your wrist to press your palm against Sylus's cheek.

He leans into the touch like a man starved of warmth and love, turning his head for his lips to brush against the warm skin of your hand. "I've waited," Sylus murmurs, "I've tried to be good. I did not drag you back, though every shadow begged me to," his words are paused to nip into your palm while amusement dances in his gaze upon your soft sound of surprise. "I wanted to see if you would choose me. Not as your captor—but as your other half."

Your heart stumbles at the confession, and you allow yourself a moment to look at Sylus, really look at him. He is still dangerous, still secure in his power and confidence—but beneath it all, he is trembling.

"For nights, have I imagined this," Sylus continues upon your flustered silence. "This canopy. This moment. You, beside me. Willingly ."

At that, you finally reach out to brush a strand of silver hair from his cheek. Your fingers trail along Sylus's defined jawline, down his throat to witness him swallow before being drawn to the ruby in his chest, where you allow your fingers to rest.

Though the touch lasts briefly before you rise to claim your throne, Sylus watches you unmoving as you settle into his lap. His arms come around you as if instinctually, one hand splayed across your lower back, the other cradling your nape.

Surrender. You see it in Sylus's eyes, in his body language. So, you conquer. A touch along his cheek before your fingertips drag from his jawline forward to his chin to pull him in, to make him chase until your lips meet.

Soft. Tentative. A whisper of longing finally answered.

Sylus groans—it's a low, broken sound—and deepens the kiss, pulling you closer until there is no space left between your bodies. The heat of him surrounds your body; his hunger devours your lips while his hands glide along your waist, over your shoulders and back.

Every touch is a question Sylus does not dare ask aloud.

You answer with your body, tilting your head and opening your mouth, letting him taste the sweetness you've withheld for so long. This ignites the deep pull of your bond, the magnetic ache that has hummed between you from the start. But now, it sings.

It is only once you're breathless that your lips part, though Sylus chases you once more—one more time to kiss you deeply until his confession clings to your skin as his mouth moves down your neck.

"I'm shameless with you," nothing but a hot breath, a roughened rasp. "You've made me something undone."

At first, only silence follows. A silence that seems to weigh down on Sylus's shoulders as he slumps into you, his embrace on you tightening as though he may fear you were to disappear into fine dust.

But then he feels you lean in again and grants you complete control. So you guide his head to tip back while your lips brush along the curve of his throat, the edge of his jaw before your words find their way into his ear. "And I like it."

You kiss him, not on the mouth this time, but under his ear, along the line of his jumping pulse. You mould him with every breath and shift of your body in his lap.

"Is that so?" Sylus asks in quiet, curious amusement while shooting you that confident smirk alongside a quirk to his brow.

He is powerful, yes—but tonight, you are the one who holds him in your palms.

And you know it, you abuse it. Leaning closer, you brush your lips against his again, gentle, faint, teasing as you whisper, "It makes me feel powerful."

Sylus is patient. He waits years to welcome the lost to his realm, watches calmly over the mishaps in the upper world and waits for the cards to play in his favour.

But your teasing? Oh, it all causes Sylus to grow impatient.

He craves the promise of relief from your lips, wanting to taste the sweet haven. The denial is almost too much to bear when you lean back, the disdain manifested with a groan vibrating through Sylus's chest and the flex of his arms around your figure. "You are," he assures you so willingly, "you could command me with a single word."

"Then behave," you whisper before pulling away enough to let Sylus see your smirk and that awful challenge in your eyes.

You didn't expect Sylus to laugh at your little display of power. A sound low and dark, self-indulgent even when he leans in to nuzzle your cheek. "I've been fighting my hardest. You have no idea how much. But you're not making it easy, my little goddess."

To make matters worse, you indulge Sylus by threading your fingers through his long silver strands, scratching past the base of his curled horns to steal a soft grunt as you whisper in his ear: "I'm not trying to."

He hums in delight as though your torture was the purest love of all.

"Good."

The tension snaps at that, causing your lips to seek out another kiss and another until pecks turn to a passionate exchange of breathless sighs and saliva.

You guide Sylus's hands to your waist, your fingers curl into his hair, tugging gently as your kisses turn urgent.

Sylus groans—an unguarded sound, shameless and beautiful—and his grip tightens again, grounding himself through you, needing you to anchor him as much as you need to feel him unravel.

You feel the restraint in him teeter on the edge of collapse, but it does not break tonight.

Instead, you curled up against him, your fingers brushing the ruby in his chest as if it were a second heart. He buries his face in your neck, his breath hot and ragged, but his touch remains gentle, cradling you like something sacred.

You lie together beneath the silken canopy as torchlight flickers against your skin. He tells you of the garden he grew while you were gone. Of the starlight dome he had built to mimic the sky you miss dearly. Of every small hope, he fed his heart in your absence like embers waiting to be fanned.

You listen, and you stay until sleep finds you. Enveloped in Sylus' arms, where you belong.

Home.

────────── ♱

With that, the time has finally come.

Hades has passed his trial from the gods above and earned the right to wed his spring queen. He kneels before you, succumbing to his love and burning desire for the one true love.

A pulse moves through the obsidian caverns, across black rivers and beneath skeletal trees. The dark realm stills in anticipation. Even the air tastes of omen. Stones whisper in a tongue long forgotten by Olympus—born of death, longing, and devotion.

Tonight, the god of the dead weds his queen.

There is no mortal spectacle, no divine applause. The ceremony unfolds deep within Domos Haidou, an ancient grove untouched by time, where even the moon dares not look. Only ghostly embers and violet fireflies shimmer, illuminating the sanctum where the veil between sacred and sinful has worn thin.

Here, beneath a sky of nothing but velvet void, where only the faintest glow from ghostly fireflies and floating embers light the scene, the ritual takes shape.

You are dressed not in fabric but in falling petals—obsidian lilies and pale mourning blooms cascading from your shadow-cloaked figure. The scent is intoxicating. Crushed orchids and roses bleed sweet perfume into the air, mingled with the deep, honeyed pull of burning amber, cracked myrrh, and the lush, ripe promise of pomegranates split open beneath a blade.

Incense swirls in winding tendrils around your ankles, carried by a wind that seems to breathe only for you.

Sylus waits.

He stands at the altar made of stone and root, his tall frame outlined by flickering braziers lit with violet flame. His tunic clings to him, dark as pitch, draped loose over his strong shoulders, revealing the ridged definition of his chest. A crown of black laurel rests upon his silver hair, his curved horns framing the impassive mask of his face—until he sees you.

And then he breathes again.

The firelight deepens the red in his eyes, and his gaze—tender yet hungry—devours the sight of you. Not like prey. Never that. Like devotion, like something sacred, he has been waiting for eternity to touch.

Your steps, unhurried and deliberate, carry all the words your mouth does not say. You are no longer a frightened girl ripped from her world. You are a woman who has tasted the Underworld and claimed it alongside its ruler.

You place your hands in his, and the world shifts.

From a chalice forged from volcanic crystal, you share the ritual drink—a dark elixir of wine and crushed blossoms, thick with enchantment and laced with the bite of something older than lust. It slides down your throat like fire, and immediately, the air changes. It prickles against your skin, magic thickening like fog. Your limbs are warm, your head light, and your breath shallow.

The circle around you ignites. Flame spirals from the ground, blooming outward, as though the Underworld itself recognises this union. Vines coil around the altar, pulsing in rhythm with your breath. The ruby at his chest flares, and a low hum answers from beneath your skin. You are bound now. Not by force nor by fate. By choice.

That choice leads you to step closer while Sylus remains still as a statue. However, his tension is unmistakable. His knuckles are white from holding back, yet his hands do not move without your invitation.

You lift one to your lips, leaving a kiss on his palm. Sylus exhales your name like a prayer, like a curse, as you trail your fingers up his chest, letting your touch linger to tease the dip of his throat and the line of his jaw. You watch how Sylus shudders under the weight of your attention.

The power you feel is intoxicating. You realise now how far you've come.

Once, he ruled the stillness where nothing grows.

Now, you bring the bloom that breaks it.

Your lips brush the corner of Sylus' mouth—not quite a kiss, but the hint of one. In return, he tilts his head, drawn in immediately to chase more, but you retreat with a teasing smile. It wrecks him how helpless he has become, though Sylus can only laugh softly at his misery.

"You've changed," he murmurs, his voice is low and full of awe while his eyes and fingertips adore your beautiful features.

"I had to," your touch leads down his ribs. "To match the man who waited for me."

At that, Sylus sways into you, the heat of his body bleeding into yours. You guide him down onto the silk-lined altar floor, settling in his lap as the folds of your ceremonial robes slip open around your legs. When your lips meet his—tentative at first, a question, a test—he doesn't devour, only responds with slowness.

Then, the kiss deepens and shatters the last barriers of restraints.

His hands explore your waist, back, and hips as if memorising each curve. You feel his strength, not in dominance but in surrender. Sylus lets you set the rhythm and mould him into what you need.

And you do.

Your touches are not hesitant anymore—they command. You tilt his head where you want it, angle his mouth to yours, and drag your teeth along the seam of his lips until he groans, gasping your name like it's his salvation.

And still, he waits because there is no rush to this moment. He has forever with you. But the Underworld grows impatient in the way magic winds around your entwined limbs, tugging, twisting, binding. Your hips roll together in an instinctive rhythm, and the scent of burning flowers and fruit envelops you like a shroud.

You are both drunk—on love, on hunger, on power.

Sylus' mouth finds your throat, your shoulder, your ribs. He speaks your name between kisses like it is the only word he has ever learned. His restraint is thin, stretched taut with every passing breath, and when you push him beyond it when you finally press him down and whisper, "Take me," he falls apart.

The vines around your promised bodies seem to dance in a song older than the gods themselves. The flames bloom higher, flicking beautifully on the crimson depths of Sylus's eyes.

You're magnified by the molten longing pooling inside, entranced and enthralled. You watch the way he looks at you.

His mouth parts like he wants to speak but cannot. Because how does a god, a ruler, a creature of death and punishment, explain what it means to be undone so completely by love?

"My love," you whisper as your fingers guide his palm between your breasts, lower to your belly. The air around you grows heavier as he follows the trail of your skin.

His hand continues downward. Over the rise of your stomach, the dip of your navel, the curve of your hips, until finally, finally , his fingers move between your thighs, cupping your most intimate part with the size of his palm.

When you arch into his hand, and your head falls back, Sylus watches it all with greed and worship. An approving, low rumble tickles your skin upon his discovery. You're wet, throbbing, already so unbearably ready—your arousal a product not just of the intoxicating magic in the air but the weight of everything that has passed between you.

The ache, the longing. The vow that, tonight, you would be his.

He turns you then, gently but without hesitation, lowering your back into the dark grass beneath like a holy offering.

His figure looms over you—broad and protective—as if he wasn't the danger himself. Twisted horns cast long shadows that flicker in the torchlight, while silver hair cascades over broad shoulders like a waterfall spun from moonlight.

The width of Sylus' thighs parts your own effortlessly once he settles. Accompanied by a gentle touch that glides along the sensitive skin of your legs, with fingers digging into the flesh of your inner thighs, his gestures are worshipful as he stares down at you, naked and glistening with want. Beautiful.

Yet still—he waits.

He does not take.

You're the one to set the tone.

Your hands lead crimson eyes to follow the curves of your body, slow and shameless; you rake your nails down your chest, teasing your nipples until they pebble before dragging your touch lower over your stomach and down to the place that aches for him most. When your fingers dip between your folds, and you moan softly at the contact, you keep your eyes locked on his.

Sylus watches, transfixed and with monumental restraint, as your fingers work your slick folds. A traitorous flush spreads over his neck, across the sharp lines of his cheekbones, that almost makes him look innocent–if it weren't for the lust pooling in his eyes.

How willing you are for your husband.

And then, you reach for his hand. Smaller fingers lace around Sylus' wrist to guide him back to your body until his chest hovers just above yours. He is so close now; his breath mingles with yours, his lips barely grazing the corner of your mouth.

His eyes search yours, and what he finds leads Sylus to give in. Soft lips crash against yours in a deep, hungry kiss before his teeth nip at your bottom lip, demanding entrance and surrender.

A warmth spreads over your skin thanks to the heat of Sylus' palms sliding up your body, eager to replace every touch you have left on your figure with his own. He spoils your breasts with attention, kneading the soft mounds and tweaking your nipples until they are hard, aching peaks.

"So soft, so warm and needy…" he murmurs against your breasts before his tongue drags heavy over skin littered with goosebumps. Sylus rocks his hips forward, the hard, thick length of him pressing against your core before staining your skin with more whispers of desire.

"Tell me you want it," he mumbles while the delicious drag of his length would already be enough to make you say yes to all and any of his wishes. But he seems desperate for your consent, for your dependence on him. "Tell me how much you need me, my goddess."

Your thighs twitch from the delicious stimulation Sylus offers, the sounds following seem natural, like a sweet symphony of a tune you've never sung before. "Sylus," you sigh for him, so sweetly, so fragile, as your fingertips trace the ruby in his chest. "I want to be one with you," you reach for his hand, lacing your fingers together.

"My love," you search his eyes with an expression so soft and tender that Sylus didn't even dare to dream of before. "Can you help me? Can you guide me? To be all for you, only you forever and always..."

It's incredible how you effortlessly play with Sylus' heartstring—a heart most people deem nonexistent. Yet here you are, toying with the God of the Underworld as though he could never be a real match to you.

This is the power you hold over him, the control you have over the darkness that dwells within. You managed to tame the untamable, to make him kneel at your feet like a loyal hound.

Sylus brings your entwined hands to his lips and presses a lingering kiss, gentle yet filled with devotion, to your knuckles. Crimson eyes remain glued to your own, as though his gaze alone could convey all the feelings he holds dear inside.

"I will guide you, mould you, make your body fit mine like it was crafted for me alone," a whisper breathed along the veins running down your arm, sealed with kisses.

When he finally sheds his tunic, it is a teasing, slow gesture meant to draw your attention to nothing but him. The silver clasps snap open under Sylus's touch, revealing a defined figure made for your exploration. Every line seems to be carved by divine hands.

But it's his length that steals your breath—thick and heavy; it stands proud and pulsing, the flushed tip glistening with need. It intimidates. It arouses. It makes something flutter inside you.

Sylus's pupils dilate as he takes in the sight beneath him: His wife, his goddess, spread wide for him, your stomach stained by his fluids.

"Beautiful creature of sin…" The words escape him in nothing but a whisper while his tip nudges against your entrance, teasing you, creating sounds of desire as he lowers himself again, positioning the head of his cock at your entrance.

"Breathe for me," he says, soft and commanding all at once, his thumb brushing your cheek. "Take a deep breath, and let me in. Let me fill you. Stretch you. Make you mine."

And you try. You truly try to obey. But the moment his thick head presses past your entrance, your muscles tense. The shock caused by the unfamiliar stretch steals your breath, and you let out a cry—not of pain, not quite.

With a gentle thrust of his hips, Sylus pushes forward, deeper into your velvety sweetness. He groans deeply, affected by the stretch of your walls when they try to accommodate him. Ah, the feel of you, so hot, so tight, so perfect .

You're so wet; he can't refuse to push in deeper, to conquer places nobody has ever been.

Sylus groans—a sound torn from deep within his chest—as your walls flutter around him, your body drawing him deeper with each slow roll of his hips. Your heat envelops him like velvet soaked in flame, your core yielding and trembling around his cock. The stretch is near unbearable, your breath caught in your throat as your body struggles to adjust to his size.

He is thick, unrelenting, the burn making tears swell at the corners of your eyes, though you never look away from him. His hand braces your hip while the other cups your jaw with infinite care, his thumb sweeping away one of those traitorous tears.

"Wrap your legs around me," he breathes with his eyes locked on yours, hunger and adoration swirling in those crimson depths. "Pull me in deeper, let me feel you clenching around me. Let me fill you like I was made for this."

Your thighs move on instinct, curling around his waist, and he catches them with both hands, holding you steady. When your hips roll—desperate, seeking—you impale yourself further onto his cock, inch by aching inch, until you're gasping from the pressure, the fullness.

"S-Sylus," you sob, your voice trembling at the edge of a moan as he stretches you deeper, wider. Your head tips back into the ground, fingernails clawing at the obsidian cloth beneath you while the tremble of your thighs highlights the effort of holding back the pleasure threatening to consume you.

"Shh, my love," he murmurs in a gentle tone even as sweat beads on his brow from the effort it takes not to move too fast, not to thrust in and claim you all at once. "Breathe through it. You're doing so well. Taking me so deeply, so perfectly."

His lips brush your temple and jaw to soothe the tension wracking your trembling form. He presses his forehead to yours, allowing his breath to mingle with yours as he grounds you, anchors you, and helps you through the storm of sensation.

"How much more?" you gasp, though you do not dare look down—too afraid of the answer.

Sylus huffs a breathless laugh, his eyes glinting with restrained mischief and adoration. "A little," he murmurs, lies, while distracting you by pressing kisses on your cheek. "I'm halfway in."

A sob melts into a moan as his mouth claims yours, a kiss that leaves no space for thoughts. Hungry lips swallow your cries while a domineering tongue explores your mouth with depraved hunger. Large hands never stop moving—stroking your thighs, palming your breasts, coaxing your body to surrender.

"Breathe with me," he pleads against your lips alongside the gentle rocking of his hips in a slow, deep roll, easing in. You feel every stretch, every throb, every heated inch as he fills you further. "Feel how your body welcomes me."

You try—gods, you try—but your breath breaks as his cock finds something inside you that makes you seize, makes your nails dig into his arms, dragging across the tense muscles of his biceps. "N-Not there—Sylus, not there—"

But that's precisely where he presses again, with deliberate force, and the high, breathy sound that escapes you is half protest, half plea.

His mouth trails down your neck, over your collarbone, with his tongue licking away the taste of salt from your tears as he groans against your skin. "There, right there," Sylus retorts with a sudden sharpness, causing his words to cut through your weak protests.

The defiant words are punctuated with a selfish, more brutal thrust of Sylus's hips. The head of his cock kisses your velvet depths as he stills, gently rolling his hips against you to spoil the spot made for you to see stars even in the depths of hell. "That's it. That's your sweet spot, isn't it? The place only I get to touch."

He sets a steady rhythm then—thrusting deeper, grinding his hips in such a way that the head of his cock kisses that spongy spot again and again until your moans become desperate, until you writhe and pant beneath him, your body burning alive with pleasure too immense to hold.

"Let it take you," he urges, his voice low and thick, laced with command and affection. "Don't fight it, my love. Allow yourself to feel; take what you need."

Your fingers scrabble across his body in search of purchase—dragging down his forearms, gripping his shoulders, clutching at his back. You can feel how he stretches you, how you pulse around him, how your arousal coats his length in slick, shameless heat. And yet still, he moves, driving into you with the kind of worship only a god could offer.

"Too much," you whimper, though your hips chase him and reveal the lie all too soon. "So deep, Sylus… you're too deep."

He groans in response, driven to madness by the way you tighten around him, by the way, your body submits and fights all at once. He watches your face, mesmerised by every flicker of pleasure, every helpless twitch of your body.

"Too deep?" Sylus breathes against the shell of your ear, his voice thick and rough, saturated with love and possession. "I'm going to fill you so deeply that you'll forget everything but me."

With that promise, Sylus begins to move harder, faster. His hips snap forward, his cock plunging so deep it feels like he carves himself into you. And all around you, the Underworld responds—flames dancing higher, flowers smelling stronger, vines curling tighter around the altar in a frenzy of magic and bliss.

His moan makes you shiver, the vibration of his voice against your throat paired with the brutal honesty of his rhythm as Sylus continues to thrust into you with devastating precision. The words, the sounds, the act—all of it ensnares you, makes you pulse around his cock in pleasure, your body clinging to him like it's forgotten how to exist without him inside.

He hits that spot again—again—and each time, your body tightens, jerks, your thighs trembling, your lips parting in a choked moan that only serves to spur him on. You scramble across your own body for support, your hands fluttering desperately over your breasts, your stomach, down the slope of your hips and thighs, fingers searching for anything to anchor you as Sylus's hips snap forward relentlessly in their devotion.

Your moans, your cries—praise wrapped in trembling complaint—are music to his ears. And every word, every broken syllable, only serves to make you wetter, to make his cock slide in with less resistance and more heat, slick and obscene.

Sylus can feel everything—your desperation, your pleasure, your helpless submission to the sensations he's pulling from you—and he welcomes it all. He welcomes the pain you mark into his flesh with your nails, the way your pussy clenches as though trying to milk him, your walls fluttering as your orgasm builds. He knows your body is teetering on the brink, stretched and overwhelmed, yet still greedy for more.

"Shh," he murmurs into the shell of your ear, his voice a low, soothing rumble barely disguising his unravelling. "Let it happen, my love. Let it take you. I'll hold you through it—I'll catch you when you fall."

He leans down to let his teeth graze your throat before finding the tender juncture where neck meets shoulder, and he bites—not cruelly, not gently, but with the kind of claiming pressure that leaves no doubt: you are his. The pain sings through you, a sharp counterpoint to the constant, throbbing pleasure.

Your body arches beneath him, shuddering violently as your nerves threaten to fray. At this moment, the only salvation seems to be proximity as your arms wind tight around Sylus's neck to tug him down, clutching him close, your face buried in his skin, your breath hot and gasping against his jaw.

The drag of his cock over your sweet spot makes you cry out, helpless against the sensations that storm through your body. You cling tighter, whimpering, shaking, your sounds muffled against the column of Sylus's throat. You don't even try to speak anymore; you only feel everything he gives you: every thrust, every grind, and every pass of his length as it fills you.

And then, your head falls back into the grass, exposing your throat to him once more, surrendering everything.

He watches you through half-lidded eyes, drunk on the sight. The moment you hiccup out one word: "Faster," in a voice small and desperate, Sylus's control unravels.

He grins—a dark, wicked thing.

"Your wish is my command."

Sylus's hands tighten on your hips, and he fucks you harder. Faster. The rhythm turns punishing, perfect . Each thrust slams into you with wet, smacking force, your breasts bouncing wildly from the force of it, your moans turning ragged and sharp. You think you might scream, might beg, but all you do is fall deeper into the heat, the rhythm, the filthy sounds of your bodies colliding.

Sylus's mouth finds your throat again, his tongue dragging up your skin, tasting sweat, tasting tears. His groans echo in your ears, low and hungry.

You feel like you're being devoured—worshipped—and still, you crave more. With your body rising to meet his every thrust now, your walls fluttering around his cock in a rhythm that betrayed your surrender to him, to this act, to the darkness curling around your bodies.

The ritual may have begun with devotion, but now it breathes life due to the pleasure of possession and want.

Sylus watches the hypnotic bounce of your breasts with every impact of his hips, watches the way your body arches and quakes beneath him like it was offering itself to be consumed. Sylus lowers his head, his breath hot and panting as he buries his face in the valley between your breasts, his lips and tongue worshipping your skin.

"You look divine like this," he whispers. The praise is nearly lost beneath the wet sound of skin on skin and your rising cries. "Undone. Broken open by me."

You gasp when his mouth latches onto a hardened nipple. A sharp graze of teeth follows, and his tongue soothes right after. You can feel it building again—not just the orgasm, but something darker. A bloom of divine intoxication takes root in your belly. Sylus finds that spot inside you once more, and the groan he lets out against your skin sends shivers down your spine.

You're slick, swollen, trembling, stretched to the brink and somehow still aching for more. You don't need to beg; Sylus would give you everything. And he was far from finished.

"My goddess," Sylus murmurs with lips wet from your sweat and the salt of your skin. "What a perfect vessel you've become."

As his hips grind into your sweet spot again and again, the coil within you finally snaps with a sound of pleasure torn itself free of your throat. You clench down, pulsing in frantic waves as you come apart—loud, messy, utterly divine.

Sylus exhales a moan as you spasm around him, slick coating his cock whilst your cries melt into broken moans. The magic thickens in the air, the vines twist tighter around the altar, and flowers burst open in wild, fevered bloom. His hold on you becomes unrelenting, grounding you through your climax while Sylus continues to move, each motion pulling you deeper into bliss. You cling to him like your sanity depends on the rhythm of his hips.

And still, he moves inside you.

Hot, open-mouthed kisses hold a kind of hunger that strips the air from your lungs, his tongue sweeping into your mouth as though he owns the space, tasting every sound you try to make and swallowing them down like they are the only offering he has ever desired.

"Again," he murmurs at your throat, dragging his mouth along the damp curve of your neck. "I want to feel you fall apart once more until your body forgets everything but me."

Sylus is everything now: your altar, your sin, the ruin you've come to love—and you, soft and pliant beneath him, offer yourself with nothing left to hide.

He pulls back just enough to look at you. To admire the glow of your skin, the way your chest rises in shaky gasps, the tremble in your hands as you drag them over your own body like you can't quite believe how wrecked you have become, how much Sylus has wrecked you.

"There is nothing more beautiful than this," Sylus says, voice thick with something heavier than pride as his eyes drink you in. "Nothing is more beautiful than you."

Your lashes flutter as your body can no longer keep up with your mind, and though your limbs tremble, you manage to hold his gaze, even as his cock throbs inside you with growing need. The tension in Sylus builds steadily; his body is tense, his jaw locked, his control fraying beneath the weight of how badly he wants to finish inside you—but still, he holds back. Still, he is waiting because he needs more from you first.

"Tell me," he whispers, his lips brushing your cheek, your ear, the line of your throat where your pulse stammers beneath the skin. "Tell me what you want. Speak it, and it's yours. I only exist to please you."

Your vision blurs, your thoughts scattered by the intensity of him, but your hands still find his hair, threading through it as your legs curl around his hips, pulling him closer, offering yourself without shame.

"Show me," you breathe, your voice hoarse, and your mouth barely forms the words. "Teach me what you like."

Sylus stills for a heartbeat, something shifting in his expression into a flash of pure and empty-headed desire.

And then he moves. The shift is fluid, your world tilting as Sylus turns you onto your stomach, one hand guiding your hips back into position as if you were meant to be there, presented like an offering no god would dare refuse.

He watches for only a moment, taking in the arch of your back, the tremble in your thighs, the way you present yourself, and then he slides back inside you with one long thrust that punches the air from your lungs, steals the cry from your lips, and buries him in the heat of your body once again.

Sylus breathes your name into the crook of your shoulder as his pace deepens, your cunt clenching around him so tightly his hands have to grip your waist with bruising pressure.

"Yes… just like that," Sylus exhales, his voice rasping against your ear as your walls tighten around him. He leans over you to press himself closer, to reach around your front and embrace your breasts whole. His fingers knead your soft mounds, his thumbs rolling over your nipples until you whimper without meaning to.

Each cry feeds his hunger for more of you, for everything and everything. Your effect on him roughens Sylus's voice. "You're so soft... you take me so well..." he murmurs into your hair while he seems to drown in the sensation of your body welcoming him again and again.

You can't reply. You can only gasp and sob as each thrust pushes you deeper into the grass, into the magic wrapping around your body, into the unbearable fullness that makes your thoughts scatter.

"Sylus—, Sylus—" your voice cracks as his name escapes you like it's the only word you remember how to say. And each time you try to repeat it, Sylus pushes in harder, dragging another broken sound from your lips until you fall apart in stuttering cries.

His voice dips, hushed and dangerous by your ear. "That's it… Come again. Let me feel you break for me. Let your body beg—so I can spill inside you like I was meant to."

You shake your head, though it's barely defiance. The pleasure is too close, too sharp, and your sobs spill between whispers of longing and disbelief. "It's too good… I don't want it to stop… I c-can't—"

"All night," Sylus breathes and sinks his teeth into the curve of your neck.

Your entire body seizes as your release washes over you while Sylus's teeth stay anchored, not cruel but claiming, holding you in place as he continues to thrust, to coax every pulse of your climax from you. The dark magic around you grows in its potency and ties you together in blood, lust and devotion.

"Forever," he whispers into your flesh.

While your shoulders slump into the grass, boneless with pleasure, your hips stay high, your walls still fluttering helplessly around him. Sylus towers above you, a monument of muscle and shadow, watching your arousal drip down your thighs, the scent of your union wafts thickly in the air.

"A glutton," he murmurs, almost fondly. "Just like me."

Then, ever so effortlessly, Sylus lifts you. One hand slides between your breasts to press you flush against his chest. Your head tilts back against a firm shoulder with a gasp as his cock pushes deeper from the new angle, the stretch all-consuming.

His lips stretch into a grin against your temple, one hand slipping down to cup your breasts again, to tease your sensitive nipple until you moan, each twitch feeding his delight. "Truly insatiable," he hums in approval.

You clench around him without meaning to. He feels it—the tremble of surrender. The way your body opens for him all over again.

"Tainted skin," Sylus whispers as his lips graze your ear. "Tainted body… all mine."

And then, he slips out, slowly, unbearably so, to leave you gasping as you grow aware of the emptiness inside you. Your body aches from the absence even while Sylus eases you down among the grass as though handling something sacred only he is allowed to touch.

There are no words left in you—only a breathless nod, parted lips, trembling limbs caught beneath the weight of everything he has given and everything he now promises to take. It is not just want. It is far more consuming—need, surrender, devotion in its most unholy, exquisite form.

"Please," you whisper, a word that sounds more like a prayer than a plea.

A goddess's offering to her God, and of course, he answers.

Sylus's hand wraps around the base of his cock as he strokes himself above you, the flushed tip leaking and twitching, swollen with pressure as crimson basks in the view of your awaiting body. Your skin is kissed with sweat, the grass clinging to your curves, the darkness wrapping around you like a blanket.

And then Sylus breaks the heavy silence. The sound brushes against your ear. "Now... I will give you everything."

Fingers trail slowly down the trembling expanse of your thighs, the tips of them sink into their softness as though he means to memorise you by touch alone.

The contrast is stark—your yielding body beneath his strength, held back only by the need that you alone summon from him with every breathless sound you make.

"You offer yourself," Sylus murmurs, his voice hoarse and cracked at the edges, the kind of tone that drips not from worship but hunger. "Like a promise whispered where no god dares to listen."

He watches the way your hands lift to your chest, fingers trembling as they trace over the peaks of your breasts, your body bared to him not in submission but in power, in invitation, and he is helpless before it.

His cock twitches in his grasp, flushed and throbbing, veins thick with desire as though every inch of him aches to return to the place he knows belongs to him. Sylus's breath stutters, his eyes hooded, his body tight and straining, forged by a need that only you have ever been capable of drawing forth without lifting a finger.

"Only you," he chokes out, the words scraped raw from somewhere deep and private, "Only you could bring me here. Pull me down. Make me beg. Make me break."

Sylus sinks into you again, his mouth seeking out the marks he left behind along the curve of your shoulder, the vulnerable dip of your throat. His teeth press into the skin not to wound but to keep, to seal, to remind you that you are his. His tongue follows and drags slowly over your heated skin until your fingers thread into his hair, pulling him closer and dragging him back deeper.

"My beloved," you whisper, your voice thick with amusement and awe as you glance back at him, your eyes catching his like a spark in the dark. Come for me."

The words break him.

"You're a vision," Sylus breathes against your neck. Sylus drives forward with sharp, selfish thrusts, then another, and another still, burying himself to the base with a force that knocks the air from your lungs.

The pleasure ripples through him. It scorches everything he is, everything he was and thought he will ever be as if your body is the vessel he was crafted to spill himself into. His release comes in waves, each thicker and hotter than the last—a vow carved into the softest parts of you.

He cannot be gentle. Not now. Not when your walls clamp around him like they never intend to let him go. His hands are firm on your hips, his teeth press into your shoulder again, and every motion of his body tells you the same thing—you are his. His end, his beginning, his undoing.

Your name slips from his lips, whispered in need for more.

And the Underworld responds.

The altar lights with fire too bright to be natural, and the vines wind around your entangled limbs as if even the ground beneath you seeks to hold you in place.

Voices long dead hum secrets beneath the surface, recognising what has happened for what it is: a binding not made with rings or sweetly spoken promises but with desire and darkness.

Still, Sylus moves. He shifts only slightly; his hips are rocking with slow, shallow thrusts as he rides out the last pulses of his orgasm. You feel the heat of his breath, the tremor in his muscles as firm arms curl you into his chest.

Forehead pressed against forehead, you remain as one. He is still inside, thick and full and twitching as if your body is the only place that can hold him now. You feel him leaking from you, slick and warm as it drips down your thighs.

"I am ruined," he whispers into your skin, the words frayed and aching with a breathless chuckle of disbelief. "And I never want to be whole again. Not if it means letting go of this. Of you."

He presses his mouth along your shoulder, jaw, and the corner of your lips as you finally turn into him, and the look on his face is no longer that of a god. There is no king here—only Sylus— yours.

He lowers himself beside you on the shadow-kissed grass, the dark flowers blooming around your tangled limbs as he pulls you into his arms. You remain joined, still one, and then he kisses you softly.

"I won't stop," he breathes against your lips, his voice uneven, deep with something he never says aloud. "Even if doomsday arrives outside this sanctuary. Even if the skies burn and the world forgets our names. I will still be yours."

Magic winds around you both like a second skin, soft and warm. It is a promise that will never fade: you are his queen, and he is your King.

And the Underworld will remember the night it bore witness to gods falling not into ruin but into something far more ethereal.

You are lost in the petals that never stop falling, the heat between you, and the spell crafted from skin and union.

And Sylus holds you like the world has narrowed down to this—just you, just now.

You are no longer something stolen, no longer taken from the world above, but something claimed—willingly, completely—and he is yours, now and always, bound to you in a way that even eternity cannot sever.

feedback & reblogs would be deeply appreciated | dividers by @/cafekitsune

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inseobts · 2 months ago

Text

Busted! (Secret Relationship)

what if the two of you are in a secret relantionship and suddenly everyone start to realize something is going on?

characters: zoro, sanji, law, koby, ace

(luffy, sabo, kid, shanks, bartolomeo)

words count: around 0.8k - 1.3k each

masterlist || ao3 || ko-fi

── .✦ Zoro:

The Thousand Sunny is quiet most days, but today feels especially peaceful. The crew’s scattered across the deck sunbathing, napping, playing cards, and you? You’re on a mission.

Zoro’s disappeared again.

“Where did he go this time?” you mutter, padding softly down the hallway. You’ve checked the deck, the crow’s nest, even behind the kitchen. Nothing. Then you think... of course! The training room.

Sure enough, you step inside and spot him, dead asleep on the floor, his swords lying beside him like loyal dogs. He looks peaceful, his breathing deep and even. You smile. He really can sleep anywhere.

You don’t mean to sit down next to him, but somehow, you do.

Just for a minute.

Just long enough to rest your head against his shoulder.

Next thing you know, it’s dark. The room’s dipped in shadow, the ship creaking gently. You jolt upright, a little dazed.

“Zoro—sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

But he just grunts, shifting a little. His shoulder doesn’t move from under your cheek.

It becomes a pattern after that.

You find him again a few days later, this time slumped in a corner of the dining room. You lie down nearby. Sleep drags you under before you can think twice. When you wake, your head is in his lap.

“You’re fine” he murmurs, when you apologize again. Like it’s no big deal. Like he’s used to you being there.

And you start to think… maybe he is.

The naps become frequent. Easy. Comfortable. You stop trying to come up with excuses. You sit beside him on the deck while the others chatter. You lean against him while he sharpens his swords. He never pulls away.

One night, you find him leaning against the wall of the storage room, eyes half-lidded, arms crossed. The moment you walk in, he straightens, just barely, but enough for you to know he was waiting.

He pulls you in without a word. A kiss. Slow, familiar. His hands are warm on your back.

“I missed you” you whisper against his collarbone.

Zoro exhales through his nose “You saw me four hours ago.”

“Still.”

He doesn’t argue. Just leans his forehead against yours.

It’s sweet. Undisturbed. Until you hear footsteps and both of you freeze.

“Shhhit” you whisper, slipping away as quiet as you can.

Neither of you sees Chopper peeking from behind a barrel.

The next day, the crew is watching. Not subtly.

You notice Nami watching you with a knowing smirk. Robin sips her tea, but there’s amusement in her gaze. Sanji is glaring daggers at Zoro (okay, that’s normal), but Usopp is squinting at you both like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.

You clear your throat “What?”

Usopp narrows his eyes further “You and Zoro have been acting weird.”

Your heart nearly stops.

You glance at Zoro, who doesn’t even flinch as he takes another bite of his rice “What the hell are you talking about?”

“That you two are obviously acting weird lately...” Nami finally says.

Zoro doesn’t even blink “You’re imagining things.”

“You’re eating your vegetables...” she points out.

Zoro shrugs “Coincidence.”

“You showed up early to dinner” Usopp adds, suspicious.

“Must’ve been a fluke.”

Brook, not missing a beat, says, “I saw you napping with her head on your lap again. Yohohoho~”

You wish you could melt into your chair. But Zoro? Calm as ever.

“She was tired,” he says flatly “What’s the problem?”

Luffy gasps dramatically “You’re dating!!”

Zoro sighs “We were resting.”

You stare at your plate, but a warm touch to your hand under the table grounds you.

Zoro, looking at you like the whole world could wait.

Days pass. You try to be extra careful. Less glances. Less sneaky meetings. Less…everything.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because one night, the crew catches you.

It happens so fast. One moment, you’re on watch duty, and the next, Zoro is there, dragging you into a kiss. It’s heated, his hands gripping your waist, your fingers tangled in his hair, completely lost in each other.

Then “AH-HA!!”

You jolt apart.

Usopp is pointing at you both, eyes wide with betrayal “I knew it!!”

The entire crew is gathered behind him, staring.

Luffy tilts his head “Wait, were we not supposed to know?”

Sanji is fuming “Why him?! You could do so much better, Y/N-chan!”

Robin chuckles “It was quite obvious, honestly.”

Chopper bounces excitedly “I saw them sneaking around weeks ago!”

You cover your face in embarrassment “Oh my god, it was you!”

Zoro groans, rubbing the back of his neck “Tch. Should’ve known you idiots would figure it out. You never mind your own business.”

Luffy grins “Well, at least you don’t have to sneak around anymore!”

Zoro pauses, then shrugs “Guess that’s true.” He turns to you, smirking “Means I can kiss you whenever I want now.”

Your face burns “Zoro!!”

The crew erupts in laughter (except for Sanji, he cries louder).

Secret’s out.

Now you nap by his side without hiding. You lean against him on long afternoons. You sit close at meals. Luffy teases you both constantly. Sanji mutters curses under his breath. But it’s fine.

It’s more than fine. It’s peaceful.

That night, after dinner, you find yourself heading below deck. The ship rocks gently with the sea, moonlight shining through the portholes.

You already know where you’ll find him.

He’s sitting in the training room, back against the wall, swords neatly stacked beside him. When you walk in, he glances up, but he doesn’t say anything.

You sit beside him, stretching your legs out in front of you.

“I thought I might find you here” you say.

Zoro grunts, not disagreeing.

Silence settles in. Comfortable. You shift slightly, laying your head in his lap. He doesn’t move, just lets his fingers find their way into your hair, slow and soothing.

It’s a simple thing. The kind of closeness that doesn’t ask for anything in return.

His hand runs gently over your scalp. You feel your eyes drifting shut again.

“I like this” Zoro says, voice low, almost a rumble.

You blink sleepily, your cheek still pressed to his thigh “Hm?”

“You. Sleeping like this.” He pauses “On my lap.”

Your heart flutters at the quiet honesty. You glance up at him, but he’s not looking down, he’s staring straight ahead, the barest hint of pink on his cheeks.

“I like it too” you murmur.

Zoro’s thumb brushes just behind your ear, then down the back of your neck, repeating the motion. A steady rhythm. Grounding. Careful.

His fingers slip into your hair again, and he continues tracing lazy circles on your scalp. His other hand rests lightly on your arm, as if to say, I’ve got you.

You drift off to the sound of his breathing, calm and slow.

The next morning, sunlight filters through the windows.

You wake slowly, still curled up in Zoro’s lap. His fingers are tangled gently in your hair, and his thumb brushes your temple in slow, steady passes.

You tilt your head, eyes meeting his.

“How long have you been awake?” you whisper.

Zoro smirks, eyes warm “Long enough.”

You stretch, reluctant to move.

“I’m comfortable” you mumble.

He doesn’t stop touching your hair “Good.”

“Zoro?”

“Hm?”

“I think I’m getting used to this.”

He finally looks down at you, something quiet in his expression, softness, maybe. Peace.

“Yeah,” he says “Me too.”

And you smile, because in this floating world full of chaos, monsters, and adventure… it’s the quietest moments like this that feel the most real.

── .✦ Sanji:

Sanji is always everywhere. In the kitchen. On the deck. Serving drinks. Flirting with Nami and Robin. Spinning around like the lovestruck idiot he is.

Which is exactly why no one suspects a damn thing.

No one notices how his hand brushes against yours just a little longer when he passes you a plate. No one questions why he always makes extra of your favorite dish. And no one, not even Usopp, the self-proclaimed detective, realizes that when Sanji disappears from the kitchen at night, it’s to be with you.

Like right now.

It’s past midnight, and the kitchen is dimly lit. The scent of fresh tea and something sweet lingers in the air as you lean against the counter, watching Sanji work. His sleeves are rolled up, his vest discarded, and the soft glow of the lantern makes his golden hair look even more unruly.

“You’re spoiling me” you murmur as he places a small plate in front of you a delicate pastry, still warm.

Sanji grins, wiping his hands on a towel “Of course, mon amour. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t?”

You take a bite, humming in satisfaction “Mmm. Amazing.”

His eyes soften as he leans in, resting his palms on the counter on either side of you “I can think of something even sweeter.”

Before you can respond, he captures your lips in a slow, lingering kiss. You melt into him, gripping the fabric of his shirt as his fingers gently tilt your chin up. His lips taste like mint and a hint of the dessert he just made, and you lose yourself in the warmth of him.

Then a loud BANG from outside the door.

Both of you freeze.

Sanji pulls back, glancing at the entrance “Shit—”

You practically shove him away, wiping your lips as the door swings open.

“Oi, I swear, I'm not here to see your ugly face, I need—”

Zoro stops mid-sentence, looking between the two of you. His eyes narrow.

Your heart stops.

Sanji, ever the smooth talker, immediately turns to glare at him “Moss-head, do you have no manners? Barging into my kitchen?”

Zoro scowls “Tch. Like I wanna be here. Luffy’s whining about meat, and I—” His gaze shifts back to you. Suspicious.

You force a casual smile “Uh… late-night snack?”

Zoro doesn’t look convinced. His eyes flick between the two of you once more before he grunts “Whatever. Just bring food before Luffy eats Chopper.”

He turns and leaves.

You don’t breathe until the door clicks shut. Then you glare at Sanji “We almost got caught.”

Sanji just smirks, brushing his fingers over your wrist “But we didn’t.”

You always try to act normal. You really do. But Sanji makes it so damn difficult.

He’s always sneaking glances at you across the table. Always brushing against you when he walks by. Always bringing you your favorite snacks, acting like it’s nothing.

And apparently, the crew is starting to catch on.

“You guys ever notice that Sanji doesn’t flirt with Y/N as much as he does with Nami and Robin?” Usopp suddenly asks one day.

Your spoon nearly slips from your hand.

Franky strokes his chin “Huh. Now that you mention it…”

Brook chuckles “Ohhh, that is unusual.”

Luffy, mouth full, tilts his head “But Sanji flirts with everyone.”

Zoro scoffs “Yeah. Except Y/N.”

Your stomach drops.

Sanji, who had been stirring a pot at the stove, doesn’t even flinch “I’m just being a gentleman.”

Nami raises an eyebrow “Are you, though?”

Sanji turns, flashing his usual charming smile “Of course, my dear! Why would I treat Y/N-chan any different?”

You force a nervous laugh “Right! That would be weird, huh?”

They don’t look convinced.

Robin simply sips her tea, giving you both a knowing look.

In the end, it’s Luffy who ruins everything.

One day you and Sanji are in the storage room, tucked away between crates of supplies, wrapped up in each other. His hands are in your hair, his lips teasing against yours, and the rest of the world doesn’t exist... at least until the door slams open.

“SANJI, ARE YOU IN HE—oh.”

Luffy stops. Blinks. Tilts his head.

You and Sanji are frozen in place, practically tangled together.

Luffy’s face slowly lights up “OOOOHHHH!!!”

You scramble back “L-Luffy, it’s not what it looks like—”

“YOU GUYS WERE KISSING!!”

Sanji sighs, rubbing his temples “Goddammit.”

Before you can even try to shut him up, Luffy sprints out of the room.

You stare at the door in horror “Oh no.”

“OH YES” Sanji groans, already dreading what’s about to happen.

“GUYS!!” Luffy yells at the top of his lungs “SANJI AND Y/N ARE KISSING!!”

A beat of silence. Then an explosion of multiple “WHAT?!”

Usopp “I knew something was up!!”

Franky “That’s SUPER unexpected!”

Brook “OHOHO, young love~!”

Chopper “How long has this been going on?!”

Nami “You guys really thought you were being secretive?”

Robin chuckles knowingly “Adorable.”

Zoro grinning smugly “Called it.”

Sanji groans, burying his face in his hands “Kill me now.”

You sigh, crossing your arms “Well. Secret’s out.”

Sanji straightens, huffing dramatically before flashing you a smirk “At least now I don’t have to hold back anymore, mon amour~”

He dips you backward, kissing you full on the mouth right in front of the crew.

Cue, another round of screaming.

── .✦ Law:

Dinner on the Polar Tang is always loud. Jokes, clinks of silverware, and Bepo’s laugh echo off the metal walls.

You sit between Shachi and Penguin, pretending to listen to their story about a giant sea bass they swear was “this big”, but your eyes keep drifting across the table to Law.

Your secret boyfriend. Your captain. The man who never smiles in public, but melts when you’re alone.

No one knows. Not even Bepo. You’ve kept it quiet for months. Private looks, quick touches in dark halls, and soft kisses in his room late at night.

Today, before dinner, you stopped by his quarters. Things got… heated.

“Hold still” you say, laughing as you straddle his lap, pressing kiss after kiss on his jaw, his cheek, his neck.

“You’re gonna leave marks” Law murmurs, but his hands stay firm on your hips.

“Good,” you whisper against his throat, lips painted with your favourite lipstick “Let everyone wonder who’s bold enough to kiss the Surgeon of Death.”

He smirks, but you clean him up after. Or so you think.

Now, mid-dinner, you notice it.

Right on the collar of his white shirt, just above the neck, there's a soft red smudge. Lipstick. Your lipstick.

Your eyes widen.

Shachi nudges you “Hey, is that… is there something on Captain’s shirt?”

Penguin leans forward “Yo, Captain. You spill something?”

Law blinks. Looks down “What?”

Bepo tilts his head “No, that looks like lipstick.”

Silence falls over the table. Everyone stares.

You try to act innocent, chewing your food and glancing around like you’re just as confused.

“Lipstick?” you say, blinking “Who around here even wears lipstick?”

They all look at Ikkaku.

She doesn’t even look up from her bowl “Not me,” she mutters “That's not even my color.”

Penguin raises an eyebrow “So… that means…” He turns his head slowly toward you “You’re the only one who does.”

Shachi points between you and Law “Wait… Are you two…?”

Law doesn’t say a word. He just sips his tea like nothing’s happened.

You smile, wide and unapologetic “Guess I missed a spot.”

Silence.

Then chaos.

“WHAT?!” Shachi practically jumps over the table “YOU AND THE CAPTAIN?!”

“How long?!” Penguin shouts, eyes wide “Since when?! HOW DID WE NOT NOTICE?!”

Bepo stands up so fast he knocks over his stool “You’re dating the captain?!”

You raise an eyebrow “You guys okay? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“Don’t play innocent!” Penguin waves his spoon “You’ve been sneaking around with him! That’s our captain!”

Shachi gasps dramatically “All those times you disappeared after dinner… And that one time you came back with messy hair! I thought it was just wind!”

“Eheh, I am the wind” you say with a smirk.

Law sighs “You’re all loud.”

Bepo stares “So it’s true? You and Y/N?”

Law glances at you, then shrugs “Yeah.”

Another wave of panic.

“THE WAY HE SAID THAT!” Penguin screams.

“SO CALM—SO COOL—WHAT THE HELL!” Shachi is holding his head like it might explode.

Ikkaku finally looks up, deadpan “You’re all idiots.”

You lean into Law’s side, resting your head on his shoulder.

“Told you they’d freak.”

“Mm,” Law mutters “Still worth it.”

Bepo sniffles “I feel so betrayed… I thought we were a family.”

“We are,” you say “Just… a family with a very attractive captain who’s taken.”

“STOP,” Shachi yells “I CAN’T UNSEE IT.”

Law smirks just a little. And you can’t help it, you kiss his cheek in front of everyone, just to drive them a little more insane.

It’s been two days since The Lipstick Incident.

Two days of nonstop teasing.

“Morning, Y/N.”

“Or should we say Mrs. Surgeon of Death?”

You roll your eyes as Shachi and Penguin trail behind you like annoying seagulls.

“Captain! Can Y/N still go on missions or is she on girlfriend duty today?”

“Should we start knocking before entering the medbay now?”

Law mostly ignores them. Mostly. Except that time he dead-eyed Penguin and said, “Keep talking and I’ll switch your arms.”

The jokes died down for a few hours after that. But Bepo has become the most dramatic.

“I still can’t believe I found out at dinner like that,” he says, curled in a blanket like he’s mourning “I needed time to process.”

You plop down next to him on the couch “We didn’t mean to keep it from you. It was just… easier that way.”

He looks at you “Are you happy with him?”

You pause, then smile “Yeah. He makes me feel safe. And seen. Even if he doesn’t say much.”

Behind you, Law’s voice chimes in “I say plenty.”

You turn, surprised “You were eavesdropping?”

“It’s my ship.”

He walks over, drops a kiss on your forehead right in front of everyone. You expect chaos again, but the room is quiet.

Then Bepo grins “Okay. I approve.”

Shachi sighs “Fine. But if we ever hear weird noises from the engine room again—”

“—I will personally sedate you” Law cuts in.

The crew bursts into laughter.

Penguin raises his cup “To our captain and his secret weapon—Y/N!”

Everyone cheers. Even Ikkaku raises an eyebrow and gives you a subtle nod.

You look up at Law. He doesn’t smile much. But you see softness around the eyes, just for you.

Secret’s out. And honestly? It feels kind of nice.

── .✦ Koby:

The marine base is quiet at night, almost peaceful. You walk along the edge of the courtyard, your boots barely making a sound on the stone floor. The moon is high, casting soft light over the base. You pause near the training field and look around. No one’s there.

Good.

“Koby?” you whisper, stepping behind a storage shed.

A soft rustle comes from the shadows. Then he steps out. His hair is a little messy, his uniform jacket open.

“You’re late” he says, but he smiles.

You roll your eyes “Only by five minutes.”

Koby glances around. He takes your hand and pulls you closer into the shadow of the wall. His hand is warm. You lean into him, your heartbeat fast.

“If anyone sees us…” he says, his voice low.

“No one will,” you say quickly “They never do.”

He chuckles “We’re getting good at this.”

“You mean I’m getting good at it,” you tease “You still get nervous when someone says my name.”

“That’s because Garp keeps watching me like he knows something” Koby says, eyes wide.

You laugh “Maybe he does.”

Koby groans “Don’t say that.”

You lean up and kiss his cheek “Relax. We’re always careful.”

He smiles at you, that soft look he only gives when it’s just the two of you “I missed you.”

“I saw you this morning.”

“That doesn’t count. You were in uniform. You called me Sir.”

You smirk “Would you prefer Captain Sweetheart?”

Koby covers his face, laughing quietly “Please don’t.”

The sound of footsteps suddenly cuts the moment short.

You both freeze.

“Did you hear that?” you whisper.

Koby nods, already pulling away. You both hide behind the shed just as two lower-ranked marines walk by, talking about some drill tomorrow. They don’t see you.

Your heart pounds. When the footsteps fade, you let out a breath.

Koby looks at you, serious now “We can’t keep doing this forever.”

You know what he means. But you don’t want to think about it. Not tonight.

“Let’s just have this,” you say “Right now.”

He nods slowly, fingers brushing against yours again “Right now.”

Neither of you say the words out loud, but they’re there, floating in the silence.

This is dangerous but it’s totally worth it.

The sky looks angry today.

Wind whips through the courtyard, and the clouds hang low like they’re ready to fight someone. Fitting, considering your brain’s in a brawl with itself after what Helmeppo said the day before.

"Koby, huh?"

You can’t stop hearing it. His smirk. That I-know-something-you-don’t-want-me-to-know tone.

You march past the barracks, straight toward the supply shed, your usual spot. You pace in tight circles. The door creaks. Koby walks in, drenched from the rain already starting.

“I heard Helmeppo” he says.

You nod “I didn’t tell him anything.”

“I know. But he knows. He’s probably telling his pillow right now.”

You snort, even though your chest feels tight.

“What do we do?” you ask.

Koby looks out the cracked window “I don't think anyone would even care about what Helmeppo says, but I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

You wait.

“…What if we stop hiding?”

You blink “Just like that?”

He shrugs “We tell the truth. If we get in trouble, we get in trouble. At least it’s not lying anymore.”

You walk up to him, water dripping from the edge of the window onto your boots “You’re serious?”

He nods “You’re worth the risk.”

Before you can answer—BOOM! The door BURSTS open like it owes someone money.

There stands Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp, holding a giant sack of snacks.

“I KNEW IT!” he bellows, pointing a meat bun at both of you like it’s a pistol “I KNEW YOU TWO WERE SWAPPING LOVE NOTES INSTEAD OF LOGBOOKS!”

Your soul nearly leaves your body. Koby jumps like he just got hit by lightning.

Garp stomps inside, water puddling under his boots “You think I’m old and blind?! I see everything! The glances! The disappearing acts! The suspiciously timed bathroom breaks!”

You and Koby look at each other, stunned.

“I—uh—we weren’t—” you stammer.

Garp holds up a finger “Don’t lie! I’ve seen more romance in your sneaky hallway nods than in a whole damn soap opera!”

Koby finally finds his voice “Vice Admiral Garp, we—”

Garp grabs two rice balls from his bag and tosses them at your heads.

“About time! I was betting with Sengoku you two would crack by this month!” He slaps Koby on the back so hard he almost falls over “Make it work, kiddo. Or I’ll make you regret everything.”

He stomps back into the storm, yelling at the sky.

“I WANT A WEDDING INVITE WHEN THIS BLOOMS INTO MARINE-SANCTIONED LOVE!”

Then he’s gone.

The silence is unreal.

“…Did he just bless our relationship and threaten us at the same time?” you ask.

Koby looks dazed “I think he also gave us lunch.”

You both stare at the rice balls on the ground.

You reach for one “So… no more hiding?”

Koby grins “No more hiding.”

You nod “Good. But that wasn’t romantic. That was a jump scare.”

By the next morning, everyone knows.

You’re not sure how.

Maybe it was Garp yelling across the courtyard. Maybe it was the rice ball slap. Maybe it was the way Koby smiled at you in front of a full squad meeting like it was no big deal. But now, it’s official.

You’re walking through the halls and two marines actually wink at you.

One gives you a thumbs-up. Another whispers, “Cute couple” like this is high school.

And then there’s Helmeppo, waiting by the stairs like he’s been practicing his lines all night.

“Well, well, well,” he drawls “Look who finally stopped sneaking off like a pair of guilty raccoons.”

You roll your eyes “Don’t you have training or something?”

“Oh, I do. But this is more fun,” he says, grinning “You two really had me fooled. All those ‘Yes, sir’s and ‘Permission to speak freely’s. Cute. Very professional. Very fake.”

“I will tape your mouth shut” you say calmly.

“Spicy,” Helmeppo whistles “No wonder Koby’s in love.”

You expect Koby to stammer. To panic. To turn bright red and pretend none of this is happening.

Instead, he wraps his arm around your waist and says “Yeah. I am.”

What.

You turn to him “Who are you and what did you do with the shy marine I was dating in secret?”

He grins, a little pink in the cheeks, but steady “I’m done hiding. I like holding your hand. I like saying it.”

Helmeppo looks personally attacked “You’re gonna make me throw up.”

Koby shrugs “Go drink some water.”

You’re still trying to recover from the whiplash when Koby turns to you again, softer this time. No audience, no drama, just him.

“I missed being close to you,” he says “Even just walking next to you without pretending it means nothing. I hated pretending.”

Your heart tugs.

“I know,” you say “I did too.”

He leans in, forehead resting lightly against yours “Now I can do this.”

He kisses you. Just a short, sweet kiss. Right there in the hallway.

Someone behind you gasps. Someone else claps. It’s probably Garp. Or Helmeppo. Or both.

You laugh into Koby’s shoulder “We’re never gonna hear the end of this.”

“Good,” he says “Let them talk.”

── .✦ Ace:

It starts small.

Ace, lover of chaos and borderline inedible food, begins pushing onions off his plate.

At first, nobody says anything. Maybe he just wasn't in the mood. Maybe he’s just not feeling it today.

Then it happens again.

And again.

.........And again.

By the fourth time, Thatch is watching him like he’s trying to solve a murder.

“You good, man?”

Ace blinks, mid-push “Huh?”

“You keep banishing onions like they stole your ship or something.”

Ace shrugs “They just taste weird lately.”

Thatch narrows his eyes “You used to eat them raw.”

“Tastes change.”

“You once drank onion juice.”

“I was bored.”

“You said it ‘cleared the sinuses.’”

Ace looks up at him with a done expression “…And it did.”

Thatch is unconvinced. He stares at the sad pile of abandoned onions like they hold answers.

A few days later, Marco walks across the deck and almost trips over you.

You’re napping.

Not unusual. But you’re napping exactly like Ace. Flat on your back. Arm flopped over your face. One boot still on, one off. Dead to the world.

Marco leans down “You good?”

You snore lightly and mumble something about “I hate onions... mh”.

Marco’s eye twitches.

He walks off slowly and finds Thatch.

“We have a situation.”

Izou, Marco, Thatch, and Jozu sit in a huddle like they’re planning a heist.

Thatch slaps down a napkin with dramatic flair.

“Exhibit A: Ace has stopped eating onions.”

“Exhibit B,” Marco adds, “she naps like a dead log in the middle of the deck. Just like him.”

“Exhibit C,” Izou says, adjusting his coat, “he brushed his teeth twice in one day.”

Silence.

Jozu blinks “…What does that mean?”

Izou sighs “He’s trying not to taste bad, obviously.”

Marco nods slowly “Only one reason for all this.”

Everyone says it at once “He’s kissing someone.”

They all lean back like they’ve cracked the code.

Thatch grins wide “And we all know someone who always hated onions.”

Back on deck, you yawn and stretch, bumping into Ace as he leans on the rail.

“Morning” he says, smiling softly.

“You smell like mint” you mutter, surprised.

He leans in slightly “That a bad thing?”

You shake your head, trying not to grin “Nah. Kinda hot, actually.”

What you don’t notice is the small army of Whitebeard pirates across the deck, hiding behind barrels, crates, and a suspiciously placed sail, watching you both with the intensity of trained spies.

Thatch whispers, “Look at him. He’s glowing.”

Marco squints “Is that a love glow?”

Jozu nods “He’s never glowed before.”

Izou fans himself “My heart can’t take this.”

Thatch whispers like he’s narrating a nature documentary “Observe: the rare, emotionally available Ace, brushing his teeth and avoiding onions for the sake of romance.”

Marco chuckles “Should we say something?”

Thatch shakes his head, evil smile creeping in “Not yet. Let’s have a little fun first.”

The crew knows. You just don’t know that they know. Which is why things get weird really fast.

First, Thatch starts offering you food. All the time. Which wouldn’t be strange except “Here, Y/N, extra meat, no onions. Just how you like it” he says sweetly, placing it in front of you with a wink.

You blink “Thanks…?”

He beams “Y’know. For important stuff. Like kissing for example.”

You choke “What?”

“Kissing your enemies goodbye in battle, of course. Wouldn't be cool if you smell like onions.” he says innocently “What else would I mean?”

You narrow your eyes. He walks off humming the wedding march.

Weird.

Later that day, Marco corners Ace.

“You ever think about switching toothpaste brands?”

Ace looks up from his nap spot, squinting “What?”

“I heard mint’s nice” Marco says, deadly casual.

Ace raises a brow “I already switched. Why?”

“No reason,” Marco shrugs “Just figured you’d want to impress… someone.”

“…Like who?”

Marco just walks off.

Ace stares after him, confused.

Then there’s Izou.

He appears next to you while you’re doing your hair, watching like a hawk.

“Hmm” he says thoughtfully.

“What?”

“You’ve got a new little strand tucked behind your ear. That’s new.”

You frown “So? My hair just got a bit too long.”

“Just reminds me of how Ace tucks his hair sometimes. Cute. Subtle. Copying your crush is a classic move.”

You freeze “Wh-What crush?”

He smiles slowly “Oh, I didn’t say you had one.”

You almost trip over the comb.

And don’t even get started on Jozu. He starts playing “matchmaker” out of nowhere.

“Hey Y/N, what do you think of guys with freckles?”

You pause “I mean, freckles are nice... why?”

“No reason.” He grins “You like fire powers too?”

“…You’re literally describing Ace.”

“Am I?” he says, like he’s shocked at himself.

You walk away suspicious. The crew snickers behind your back.

By the end of the week, you’re starting to get twitchy. Ace too.

“Are they acting weird?” you whisper one night as you sit beside him on deck.

“Definitely,” he says, arms behind his head “Thatch winked at me when I refused onions at dinner.”

“Marco suggested I take a nap ‘in a more open, sunny place.’” You glance at him “Sound familiar?”

Ace groans “They’re onto something.”

You whisper, “Do you think they know?”

He shrugs “They’re dumb. I think we’re safe.”

The crew, literally hiding, listening in with cups pressed to the wood.

Thatch whispers, “They think we’re dumb.”

Marco snorts “They’re in love and hiding it like toddlers under a table.”

Izou fans himself “Give it another day. Then we strike.”

It starts over breakfast.

Again, totally normal day. Birds chirping. Sun’s out. Pirates being loud. You stroll in beside Ace, acting casual. Like you didn’t kiss him good morning five minutes ago behind the barrels.

You sit down.

He sits next to you.

Everything is fine. Until Thatch slams his fork on the table and stands up dramatically.

“Okay, this has gone on long enough.”

You and Ace both freeze.

Marco leans in lazily, sipping his coffee “So. You two are dating, right?”

Your eyes go wide.

Ace doesn’t even blink.

And at the exact same time:

You: “No! Who would even date him?”

Ace: “Yeah, we’re obviously dating.”

Silence.

A beat.

Then Jozu chokes on his juice. Thatch drops his spoon. Izou wheezes like he’s been punched.

Marco just blinks “Well. That answers that.”

You turn to Ace in slow motion “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY??”

He frowns slightly “That we’re dating? What—why did you say that so disgusted?”

You hiss “Because you weren’t supposed to just admit it!”

“Why not? We’ve been caught.”

“I was trying to lie!”

Thatch is howling “Oh my god—‘Who would even date him??’ Babe, the man LITERALLY has your name carved into his pillow.”

You whip around “He WHAT?!”

Ace shrugs “Just the initials. It’s cute.”

Izou fans himself “I’m going to die. This is the best breakfast of my life.”

Marco grins “This is better than I expected”

Jozu “It’s like watching a romance novel crash into a comedy sketch.”

You bury your face in your hands “I hate this. I hate ALL of you.”

Ace pats your back gently “I think it’s going great.”

You glare at him “You’re enjoying this.”

“Of course. I don’t have to sneak around anymore. I get to call you mine out loud now.”

That… makes your face heat up. You try not to smile. You fail.

Thatch yells, “THEY’RE BLUSHING. IT’S REAL.”

Ace slings his arm around your shoulders, smug and unbothered “Don’t worry, babe. We’ll survive the embarrassment.”

Izou smirks “Barely.”

Marco raises his cup “To the worst cover-up attempt in Whitebeard history.”

Everyone cheers.

You groan and slump against Ace, who kisses your temple like the traitor he is.

Soft. Smiling. Loud and proud.

And now you’re never living this down.

4K notes · View notes

cosmictheo · 5 months ago

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 | kang dae-ho

—summary: a sudden closeness of you and player 333 makes dae-ho's usually sweet mood swing in the opposite way, triggered by pure jealousy. why would you ever need anyone else when you've got him right there? —pairing: kang dae-ho/player 388 x female!reader —word count: 4.5k —contains: +18, smut !!! (minors dni), p in v sex, unprotected sex, creampie, descriptions of the reader having female genitalia, some porn with some plot, really passionate sex, voyeurism, public sex, sub dae-ho!!! (canon), slight praise kink if you squint, he talks to you through it, jealous and possessive behavior, fluff, dae-ho being so in love with the reader.

writer’s note: english is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me if there is a grammatical error. hope you like it!

Kang Dae-ho had been protecting you ever since he had helped you survive Green Light, Red Light, the first game of all this hell in disguise as a promising new opportunity.

Not knowing you from absolutely nothing, he stepped right in front of you, stretching a hand out to the back to hold yours and guide you across the arena, playing human shield until together, you had crossed the finish line.

And that basically summed up the kind of person Dae-ho is; kind-hearted, courageous, selfless, caring. He was one of the best people you had ever met and he was making this whole calvary into something much better, something brighter, something to keep fighting for until you made it out of there.

Since that, he had stuck by your side, practically standing as your own shadow, constantly putting you first, looking out for your well-being and safety. Without him, you would probably be dead by now, devoid of purpose.

The other players had already gotten used to seeing the two of you together, always watching each other's backs and fooling around and strategizing. Through thick and thin, you were together.

It was only a matter of time —hours—; before something else began to spark between the two of you, growing every time your hands brushed, or when he wrapped an arm around your shoulders or when your bodies cocooned in each other's warmth at night when you slept. A tension was just starting to build, an emotion that for some reason, would always make Dae-ho nervous and flustered, whenever you'd smile at him or clasp his bicep to be by his side every time Gi-hun related a story from his past experience at the games, or when you'd lean your head on his shoulder or when you'd hug each other every time a game ended.

Whatever it was, out of the same feeling, Dae-ho sensed a heaviness in the pit of his stomach, feeling as if his guts were constricting like a viper, every time you chatted with the 333 player.

He looks at you from the distance, frowning slightly as you laugh at something the guy says, he doesn't even know why he dislikes him so much... he just does.

“Why are you all puckered up?” Jung-bae questions him, pausing his own story to express concern for his teammate's face, following his gaze until he finds you, naturally.

Dae-ho clicks his tongue, shaking his head gently, his tone of voice fluctuating between disbelief and annoyance, "Why is she even over there? It's dangerous"

“Dangerous? Buddy, she's just talking to him. He saved her in the last game, remember?” Jung-bae answers him, confused by the uncharacteristic grumpy attitude of the younger man, used to the sight of him being so cheerful and jovial and optimistic.

“If it weren't for him, she wouldn't be here,” Young-il adds, also glancing at how you whisper with player 333, “She's just being polite.”

But Dae-ho huffs humorlessly, forcing his eyes to drag from you to Jung-bae standing in front of him, his fingers still grasping his fork tightly, not really feeling like eating lunch today, “Bullshit, I would've saved her anyway. She didn't need him.”

Gi-hun rolls his eyes, sitting by his side as he quietly observes the whole scene, chewing a mouthful of rice, “You're just jealous, man, admit it,” he pronounces with his mouth half full, eyes attentively scanning Dae-ho's reaction.

The whole group of men laugh upon seeing Dae-ho's face morph to one of embarrassment and some offense, cheeks blushing furiously at Gi-hun's fake allegation.

“I'm n-not jealous” he tries to defend himself with a stuttering voice, looking frantically around the amused faces of the men around him, his fingers letting his fork drop by his twitching and nervous state, attracting the attention of a few players who were nearby, including yours, which only makes Dae-ho to blush even redder.

Jung-bae smiles playfully, picking up the fork that had fallen to the ground, “And you're being overdramatic.”

“I am not!” Dae-ho squeals, his brow furrowing as he stands up and yanks the fork out of Jung-bae's hand. As the whole group laughs at him, his eyes again search for you in the crowd, finding you in record time, and his whole face darkens again as he notices the way your hand is resting down the player 333's forearm, like you would usually do with him.

He sighs heavily and for the first time, he seriously considers the words of the older men.

Time passes unnoticed within that place, hours perhaps, days? No one really knows.

But the warning that the lights go out in thirty minutes usually means that you should lie down and rest for the next event that the monsters who created this have planned for you all.

The first thing you notice when you arrive at the bed you share with Dae-ho, is that he is lying on his side with his back to you, which concerns you a little, since he never had his back to you when he would sleep.

Something is off.

“Dae-ho?” you call out his name in a gentle whisper, sitting down on the bunk and looking across the broadness of his back with worried eyes, “Are you okay?”

No response.

“Hey,” you try again gently, thinking that maybe he's not exactly having a good day, considering the current situation you're stuck in.

Dae-ho is feeling his chest heaving as he senses your hand laying on his shoulder, fingers delicately squeezing his flesh beneath the tracksuit jacket.

And suddenly, he's cracking up.

“I'm trying to sleep” and yet, he replies to you curtly, without showing even the slightest sign of rolling over and wanting to actually look at you.

You admire his back with unconvinced eyes for a moment, lying down on the bed and resting your head on the pillow, your hand moving from his shoulder, down his back, across his shoulder blades, before dropping to the surface of the bed.

“You sound off.”

Dae-ho considers his options; whether to just keep talking to you in that oh-so-ungentlemanly way —which made him physically cringe—; whether to express everything he was feeling or just stay quiet and pretend to sleep.

In any case, he acts on impulse, rolling over so he can finally look at you, his eyes softening the instant they meet yours, his heart beating hard and fast, pounding in his ears.

“It's not good for you to associate with players outside our group,” he suddenly blurts out and sees how you just stare at him with further confusion washing over your pretty face, “It could be dangerous.”

“What do you mean?” you inquire, silently urging him to elaborate on his point. You are quick to notice how deadly serious his face is, his lips lightly pursed and his eyes solemn, a look that is unusual on him. You don't like to see him like that, like everyone there usually acted.

“Player 333,” he replies, jaw clenched, his eyes following you as you sat up again on the bed, looking down at him in sheer confusion, as if somehow, you aren't recognizing him, “I saw the way he was looking at you.”

He sounds... hurt? Disappointed?

“Lee Myung-gi” your face turns enlightened, finally understanding what he's referring to now.

Dae-ho deflects his gaze away from yours, slightly rolling his eyes. Whatever that idiot's name was...

“I was just talking to him. He saved me in the last game, Dae-ho,” you explain in an overly naive tone, a little smile curving the corner of your lips, “I went to thank him”

“But I am the one doing that, that's why I'm here. You didn't need him, you have me,” he retorts back to you instantly, your name being pronounced by his lips like a plea for mercy, gesturing to himself with his hand for emphasis on his words. Your brow furrows at the same time as his, your lips turning into a small pout, feeling like a scolded child, “I was going to save you anyway! You only need me, no one else...”

His voice fades the more he speaks, shaky hand brushing through his loose hair. And now you notice it, the betrayed and hurt expression on his face, his eyes hiding something more than friendliness, something much deeper and bigger.

He is jealous.

“Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?” you are questioning him, getting more comfortable on the mattress, your voice keeping low so as not to wake the others, but also firm on your side of the little argument. You had done nothing wrong, “He was just being a good companion—”

“He didn't seem to be performing the good companion role,” Dae-ho interrupts you, spitting out the words as if they were venomous, rising himself up to also sit on the bed and face you, gesticulating with his hands, his tone of voice is fueled by sarcasm and subtle irony now, “I didn't like the way he was looking at you... neither how you were touching him with your hand.”

He crosses his arms and resembles a sulky kid who's had his favorite toy taken away, but you're too pissed off to pause and laugh at him.

Instead, you roll your eyes, starting to unbutton your jacket, feeling too hot all of a sudden, Dae-ho's eyes follow your fingers as they pull down the zipper, “You're being overdramatic.”

"I'm not!" he gasps-whispers, expression offended, he genuinely does seem to be feeling betrayed by what you had done. He leans close to you, so close that you feel the natural warmth of his body, but you stand your ground, looking at him with baffled eyes, his gaze remains soft yet aching, “I'm just looking out for you.”

“You'd rather I touch your arm then?” you raise an eyebrow on your forehead, dropping the jacket by the bottom of the bed, holding his gaze, “Is that what this is all about?”

The effect of your words in instantaneous on Dae-ho, blushing and causing him to pull away from you rather abruptly, brushing his hand through his hair again like a maniac.

“Yes,” he replies with certainty, the word barging into his throat before he could even think of a reasonable response, so he shakes his head slightly, “I mean no— I mean yes—” he cuts himself off, flustered by your attentive gaze, “—that's not the point! The point is that you don't need to go to anyone else when you have me right here.”

He gulps hard, eagerly waiting for your reaction through desperate, sheepish eyes.

“I know,” you whisper, letting out a soft sigh from your mouth, switching to a more empathetic postur. Then you nod your head and stretch out a hand towards him, who wastes no second in reaching out to take it and pull it close to his chest, nuzzling your knuckles with his thumb, “But he just dragged me with him, I couldn't do much,” you offer him a small apologetic smile, “I know you would have saved me anyway, Dae-ho.”

“Of course,” he murmurs your name, bringing your hand to his mouth to press his lips onto your knucles, kissing your smooth skin, “You're not alone, you're with me. You are everything...”

Without saying anything, you move closer to him and hug him. Dae-ho is more than happy to reciprocate your embrace, wrapping his beefy arms around your waist and hiding his face in your neck, breathing in your sweet and comforting scent, the scent he so adores. You feel his warm breath against the sensitive skin of your neck and a shiver runs through you from head to toe.

One of your hands goes up to his head, caressing his hair, fingers sinking into his dark long locks, the soothing and so intimate touch making him sigh.

“You're jealous,” you murmur after a moment of comfortable, heart-warming silence, and he stiffens, his body freezing, you can feel the way his muscles tense against yours.

Dae-ho pulls away from you just a little, far enough to be able to look at you, offering you a sheepish little smile, his cheeks blushing from all the attention and touch and closeness, the way you're talking and looking at him has him breathless.

“Maybe a little,” his expression shifts to one of shame as he dares to confess, valiantly enough to hold your gaze, letting himself fall into the gentleness of your eyes, always so lively and playful, but as beautiful and sparkling as a pair of gemstones, with your long lashes brushing your cheekbones every time you blink.

His hands gently squeeze your waist, contouring your curves and fitting into them perfectly, as if crafted for him to touch and hold.

“You don't have to be jealous, sweets,” you assure him, like a promise, a complicity, leaning into him again.

Dae-ho swallows loudly, squeezing his eyes shut as he feels your beautiful soft lips press down onto his throat, kissing his bouncing Adam's apple. He can feel himself in heaven, letting himself be swept up by the way you are treating him, the way your hands run down his body, passing down his chest until they stop at his midsection, just at the moment your tongue traces across his skin, making him hiss, feeling all the air being knocked out of his lungs.

“Fuck— ngh,” he whimpers, his whole body aching with heat, his heart pumping hot blood into his crotch, heartbeats matching up with each of your wet kisses on his neck.

His big hands wander over your waist, lightly caressing your lower back, fingers barely grazing the curve of your ass above the fabric of your tracksuit pants, clasping the flesh, pressing you helplessly against his body. His touch is needy, but nonetheless respectful, as gentlemanly as ever.

“Is this okay?” comically enough he's the one to ask as your mouth reaches his chin by a wet trail of soft kisses through his skin and he almost feels himself cumming into his boxers by the way you open your eyes to look up at him, pupils dilated in pleasure.

You sigh out a soft chuckle and your breath crashes against his half-open lips, needily breathing in your air, breathing you in. Your fingers fiddle with the edge of his jacket.

“You want this?”

It's stupid that you even had the mere thought of that question.

“Yes, please, baby— please,” Dae-ho rushes to answer, hands squeezing everything they could grab from you, desperately, “Can I kiss yo—”

Before he managed to formulate the question your lips are on his and from one second to the next he pulls you close to sit on his lap, making you feel his erection press against the underside of your thigh.

Frantically, between kisses, tongues recognizing each other and hands grasping what they can of the other, he helps you to remove his shirt, breaking away for just a moment to pull it over his head, looking at you with eyes darkened with desire.

He groans against your mouth as you kiss again, your teeth nibbling gently on his bottom lip.

“Shh...” you coo against his lips, pushing him down to make his back lay against the bed, “You don't want the others to hear, do you?”

A playful smile stretches at the corner of his lips, squeezing your butt once you leaned over him to begin kissing his chest, his eyes rolling back in pleasure, feeling the way your back arches.

“I wouldn't mind if 333 listens—”

“Dae-ho,” you name him disapprovingly, but your eyes are heavy with playfulness and longing.

He gazes adoringly up as you take off your shirt, eyes roaming down your neck, across your chest, down your stomach.

“You're so pretty, fuck— come here,” he tugs you closer to him to kiss you one more time, his hands detaching from your hips to lift his own, pulling down his pants and his now, wrecked boxers, clumsily sliding the waistband of the cloth down his thighs.

His dick springs free and it has you open-mouthed, staring down at it with eyes of raw longing and adoration. His mushroom-shaped, leaking, needy head bumps barely against his lower abdomen, lining up with his happy trail.

Dae-ho blushes under your gaze, one of his hands caresses your hip to attract your attention back to his face.

“Can you handle it, baby?” his tone of voice lowers sheepishly.

Your cunt pulsates around nothing from his words only and in less than ten seconds, you're stripping off your pants too, pulling your soaking wet panties aside. He can actually feel how wet you are when your pussy barely brushes against his bare crotch, he has to resist to keep from cumming right there.

“I can— fuck, yeah— I can handle it,” you babble tremblingly through gentle gasps as he reaches his cock, stroking it three times before he aligns it with your inviting hole, rubbing it slowly up and down your slit to scoop up all of your wetness, and use it as a natural lube.

Dae-ho bites down on his lower lip to muffle a moan that ascends his throat, feeling the head of his cock push up into the tight entrance of your pussy, plunging between your slick folds.

He leans his forehead flat against your chest, nestling right between your breasts, his whole body trembling from a riot of pleasure, muffling his moans and noises against your skin.

“Shit, y-you're— h-hah— you're so wet,” he raspes out into your bare skin, his lips slurring insults and name-calling you like a prayer, a poem through your sweaty skin, his tongue rolls out from between his parted lips, coating your skin with his drool.

His hands are roaming over your hips, each digit digging into the fat of your ass, never applying weight, giving you all the time you needed to settle onto his size, yet his voice was desperate and eager with anticipation, “So tight— so pretty.”

Your lips are pressed against the crown of his head, breathing shakily as you begin to lower yourself into him achingly slow, drawing a gasp from both of you. Your palms squeeze his broad shoulders, suppressing the urge to cry out with every inch he is pushing his way inside you, your pussy fluttering and squishing him deeper.

“Yeah, just like that, that's it,” Dae-ho is praising you, pressing sloppy kisses all over your tits, fingers caressing your lower back while his other hand pats your ass appraisingly, “just a little more, baby, a little m-more and I'm all yours— I'm yours.”

His words really touch your very core, hand sliding up his neck to sink into his hair and pull it, making him hiss as he licks your nipple. Your pussy swallows another inch of him and you feel him in your fucking guts by now. He feels your squishy walls clench around him like a vice and he refuses to even think about the possibility of a life without feeling like this again.

“Dae-ho,” you whimper his name as the bulging tip of his cock reaches a particular spongy spot and instantly your whole body reacts as well.

“Mh-hm,” his lips lick and kiss your collarbone all the way up your neck and then he kisses your lips, “I'm here. I got you, I always got you,” his eyes finally lock with yours again and you nearly feel every single muscle and organ in your abdomen twitch when you notice tears being held back in them, all from the flood of pleasure and bliss your body is giving him.

He can feel himself in heaven, beneath you, his hips grinding up into yours as his cock is plunged so deep inside you.

Dae-ho kisses you again, intoxicated, a thread of spit remains connecting your mouths once you part.

A few more long seconds and you're all the way down sitting on him, his heavy, throbbing balls pressed flush against your ass. Your pussy envelops him thoroughly, molding into his shape as you breathe a deep sigh and Dae-ho breathes out as well when your nails dig into his shoulder blades.

“There you are, my baby, you're doing s-so good,” he croaks, fondling your backside affectionately, feeling your dampness dripping down his thighs, “Holy shit you feel good... I'm so deep—”

And when you start to move on top of him, he has to close his eyes, his sweaty palms pawing your ass, hopeless for your mercy.

But you have no mercy, your pussy, your thighs, your fucking hips, the way you look down at him and ride him, giving him whiplash with every bounce. And he can swear he knows you from another life, from the way his cock forms a shape inside you, reaching parts within you that no one else has been capable of reaching before, as if your body was made for him— no, as if he was made to fit your body.

“My God—” he hiccups and you press your forehead against his, seeking his lips with yours to silence you both, pushing him down until he's lying flat on the mattress.

The bunk just barely creaks beneath the relentless sway of your hips slamming into his, ass bumping hard down on his thighs, taking him all the way down and up again, so deep that every time you bottom out you feel him in your fucking throat.

“You feel so good, baby,” you whine, looking down at him and all of his body is reacting to the petname.

You take in the gorgeous sight that is his face flushed with utter pleasure, eyes squinting, sweaty arms wrapping all around you and holding you impossibly close, his lower belly tensed and cramped.

He looks so pussy drunk, drinking and drinking in your body and essence, everything you provide. The tought makes you feel your insides flip, squeezing into a knot. And Dae-ho feels it too.

You bend down, lips falling onto his shoulder, trailing down to the tattoo on his side and when your tongue traces the black ink, exactly when his engorged tip brushes against your fucking cervix and your ass does a particularly powerful bounce on his thick thighs, he starts to feel his body twitching, reaching that exquisite release. He begins to cum, wracked by a rush of erotic bliss that has him seeing stars in the pitch-black.

His hips begin to meet yours in mid-between your wild bouncing and your pussy squelches around his cock, ready to take in all he has to give.

“I'm cumming— hah— b-baby, where—” he babbles through breathy hiccups and whimpers, his body is flushing, seeking your gaze with half-closed eyes, his chest gasping fast.

You kiss his tattoo one more time before answering him, having the nerve to smirk, as if you aren't jumping his bones, “Inside— mhm— fill me up, Dae-ho,” your eyes finally meet his and you squish his biceps, “please,” you beg him, with tears on your eyes.

“Holy shit— you don't have to convince me, love” he growls out hoarsely, and you have never hear him insult so much in such a short span of time. He kiss the corner of your lips messily, “I'm so fucking deep, you take it so well, baby— fuck.”

He chokes on his own voice and squeezes your hips until his palms are molded into your flesh. His tip touches that special squishy spot inside you again and you're cumming with him, both of you riding your own high, sinking into each other's bodies, souls becoming one. Straight into the core of the storm of pleasure.

His trembling fingers eventually loosen his grip on your ass, but his imprint stays right there, flushed. His cock softens deep inside you and you can feel it still spurting hot ropes up into your womb. Dae-ho whimpers flush against your mouth, gasping for breath. And you know you might as well die right there, tangled with his body.

Your head is empty, blurry with him and only him, your hips keep rolling on their own motion, slower. Your pussy squelches, full of him, the friction only makes him chant your name over and over in raspy whispers, like a hymn. Your orgasm is rough and strong, rocking your body like an earthquake. It makes you moan his name and he cuts you off, kissing you senselessly.

“Thank you, thank you...” he mumbles repeatedly against your mouth, hissing once you stop all movement on top of him. And he kisses you again, appreciatively, lovingly.

Dae-ho throws his head back on the bunk, trying to catch his breath, his hands drop to your thighs, always with a possessive hold, groping around for your ass, pressed down on his trembling thighs.

And it's ridiculous how absolutely majestic he looks there under you, in an afterglow that has him breathless, eyes narrowed and lost stare, gazing upwards as if he's suspended in paradise. His entire abdomen is sweaty and you hold back the urge to run your tongue across his cute little tummy, since your body is slowly beginning to give in to exhaustion, your legs wobbling.

You are satisfied with tracing your fingers along his sweaty skin, touching what were strong muscles, now softened under your thumbprints. Your hand makes an appreciative path up his pecs and he comes back to reality with the touch, looking up at you and patting your ass lightly, his gaze softening as he met your eyes amidst the darkness. The look of love.

“Don't do that, I'm about to get hard again,” he murmurs in a playful voice, a little sheepish smile growing on his lips. He is blushing, like he's not balls deep inside you, his cum leaking out of your cunt and trickling down your thighs.

You let out a sleepy chuckle, leaning down and snuggling close into his chest, his arms wrap around your shoulders and he tugs a blanket over the two of you.

“I had to take you on a date first,” Dae-ho blurts out suddenly, sounding more like he's talking to himself than to you, but you do manage to hear him, yet not really understanding what he's trying to say.

“What?” you ask curiously, still a little dizzy, fingers tracing light caresses on his chest, right where his heart is.

He clears his voice, bowing his chin so he can look down at you, gaze full pure love and adoration, his fingertips soothingly caressing your spine as he answers you in a hushed whisper, “I was supposed to take you on a date before.... all of this.”

You smile bashfully against his chest, looking up at him with big, soft eyes, “Well, we're not exactly in a position where having a date is doable, Dae-ho.”

But he is confident on the subject, fingers drawing little circles on the small of your back, “After we get out of this, I'll pick you up at your house and take you to the fanciest restaurant.”

You kiss him tenderly.

And he smiles like he's actually in love.

“I'll be waiting for you in my best dress, then.”

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valleydolli · 11 days ago

Text

౨ৎ Golden Brown ౨ৎ

Knight!Sukuna x Princess!Reader

Summary: You’re betrothed to a Duke from the neighbouring kingdom, but your heart wishes to be with your loyal knight.

“Princess.”

This is the third time Sukuna has caught you trying to escape your retched palace. You’re trapped. No way out. Even when married, you’ll be here.

Forever bound to the kingdom.

“Yes, Sukuna. What may I do for you? As you can see, I am quite… busy,” you say as you're hanging off the tall wall of your palace.

“Well, Princess, what you could do for me is get down from that wall. It's a long fall.” Sukuna tells you as he steps towards you.

You turn your head, looking on the other side of the wall, and your knight is right. Yes, you’ll escape the palace, but you’ll only escape to your death.

That was not the plan.

“Fine. Help me then.” Your knight walks over laughing, unbothered by your attempt to escape (this was the 100th time you tried leaving). As your heels touch the ground, you dust yourself off loudly sighing.

“Sukuna, when will you let me leave? I will make sure my parents do not have your head,” you say with a cheeky smile.

Sukuna leans towards your ear and says, “Princess, I will let you leave, I promise you. But only when I am dead.” He pulls away from you, laughing at your angry pout.

“I will have to make sure that happens soon, then,” you whisper loud enough for him to hear, as you sashay away from today's escape attempt.

Sukuna continues to chuckle obnoxiously. “Keep dreaming, my princess.”

–

As the day turns to night, you sit at the dinner table, playing with your food, as your father and mother discuss the reason for all your escape attempts… your wedding.

You are to be wed to a man you would never love. He's a beautiful man. Hair as dark as the night, with earthy green eyes. There is no denying his beauty, but you feel nothing for him; he’s twice your age. You can't laugh with him or smile with him. You feel no joy around Toji, but here you are forced to spend your lives together.

“Darling, are you not hungry? You should eat, you need energy for your ball tomorrow,” your mother says, laced with excitement. It’s like she’s living through you. Everything at this ball is all catered to her, not you. Not a single thing at this ball will be to your desire, only your mother's.

“I would prefer to sleep, Mother, if that's okay with you.” You don't wait for an answer, pushing your chair back, quickly walking to your chamber with your loyal knight following behind you. It’s as if he’s your shadow. Wherever you go, he follows. Without a doubt. He’s always been with you. He was practically assigned to you at birth, while he was a mere 4-year-old. He was trained to protect you. To be by you always and forever.

“I just don't understand. Why won't they listen to me? I am not ready to be wedded or bear heirs for the throne!”

“There are so many things I want to do that I cannot do when tied down to a man. Gosh, I do not even know why I am saying this to you, you wouldn't understand.” Sukuna agrees with you; he wouldn't understand. He’s at the bottom of the hierarchy in this world. His life means nothing. Peasant blood.

But you? You’re royal blood.

Your existence is everything to the land.

But not only the land.

To him.

“I just wish this wasn't my life, Sukuna. I'd rather be a farm girl than endure this. Honestly.”

Sukuna begins to laugh at you.

“What is so funny? You are always laughing at me.” You pout.

“You are a funny girl, princess, really. Beautiful and funny, what an amazing combination, do you not think?” Your eyes widen, and your face begins to warm. “Did I embarrass you, my princess?” Sukuna smirks.

“No! I-it is hot within these halls. Look around you, no windows, do not be a fool. Let's just… go to my room,” you begin to walk speedily toward your chambers. Sukuna appears in front of you to open the doors of your room.

You walk in, kicking off your heels, and begin to undress with Sukuna watching from behind. You’ve never felt uncomfortable being unclothed around him. He probably seen you naked more than your ladies in waiting.

As you get to your corset, you ask for your knight's help. He carefully steps towards you, slowly unraveling the ribbons of your tight corset. It's quiet in the room, still, you could hear a pin drop, nothing is heard but yours and Sukuna's breathing.

Suddenly, his head falls onto your shoulder.

Your name leaves his mouth.

He never says your name.

Ever.

“I… I cannot watch you get married.” Sukuna breathes.

“What? You cannot watch me get married? Whatever is that supposed to mean?” You turn around to look at him as his hands stay steady on the small of your waist. “Look at me. What are you saying right now?” He won't look at you.

“Ryomen Sukuna. I command you to look at me. Right now.” He slowly lifts his head and looks into your eyes. You sound mad at him, but your eyes say otherwise. You have the most beautiful, expressive eyes. They speak to him. One look, just one, is all he needs to know what his princess is thinking.

“I would rather die than watch you marry that man.”

“What man, my knight, say his name.”

“I would rather be drawn and quartered.”

The corners of your lips twitch slightly, threatening to smile.

“I need you by my side. This is my life. You are my life, Princess. Why do you think I so desperately try and keep you here in this palace, by my side? Call me selfish, I do not care. When it comes to you, I will be the selfishest person. You joke about your parents killing me. Princess, your parents will do nothing to me if you escape. I’m the one who keeps you locked in these walls. I keep you here because I need you in my life. You have made my life thrilling and captivating. If I could marry you, I would do so in a heartbeat, but…” he stops, wipes his hands across his sweaty face. You can hear his heart beating profusely, and his breathing irregular.

“But what, Sukuna?”

He doesn't dare to speak. He can’t. The words won’t leave his throat.

“How can you do this? How can you drop this all on me? When you know. You know Sukuna. I am to be bound to another. How selfish are you?” You push his hands off you and step back.

“Yes! You’re right, I am selfish. Especially when it comes to you, my princess.” He walks towards you, and you continue to step back, shaking your head in disbelief. “Every single time I hear your parents speak about your betrothed, I die inside. I’ve been with you your whole life, and almost all of mine too. Princess, I cannot lose you. Not now, not ever.”

“Sukuna…” You look up at him with watery eyes, never expecting such a confession coming from him, the burly 6’9 pink-haired knight.

Your burly 6’9 pink-haired knight confessing his undying love to you.

“Sukuna, you know we cannot be together… So, please… Please stop this, do not do this to me. I beg of you.” Tears begin to fall down your soft skin, and your loyal knight reaches out to wipe away your tears. He cups your face as he apologises, “I am sorry, my princess, truly… but I cannot do this any longer.” He leans down, kissing you deeply. As if you help him breathe, as if you give him life, which you do, you keep him alive, you keep him happy.

He pulls away, dropping to his knees. Placing his head against your stomach as he continues to profess his love to you.

You caress your white knight's face as he… cries, he's crying for you? His cries are silent, which pains you even more.

He’s hurting.

Sukuna kisses the palm of your hand and whispers, “I yearn for you, my princess. I have never yearned for anyone, no one but you. I have even kept my purity all for you.” You copy Sukuna's actions and drop to your knees. You smile at him and kiss him longingly. You place your forehead on top of his and stare into his deep red eyes, “What can we do, hmm? If the Church wanted us together, they would have allowed it. You would have been born of royal blood. Or I of peasent.”

“Maybe we shall go against them.” He states. “If we truly desire one another, my princess, it is what we must do.”

–

That night, Sukuna slept with you in your chambers. Holding you close against him. They would do this secretly when they were little kids. You would wander the halls in the night. Knocking on his door, asking him to scare away the monsters from under your bed. Of course, there were none under there, but he would always “get rid of them” for you. Like a true knight in shining armour. From the day you stopped asking made him… sad, if you will. There were no fake monsters for him to protect you from. Now, he had to protect you from real monsters threatening your precious life.

Your aged betrothed included.

As the night becomes day, you hear the servants of the palace prepare for your ball. You believe they’ve been at it since 4 am. You had to kick Sukuna out in case your ladies in waiting came in, or even your parents.

Your parents know the two of you have a special bond, but seeing you intertwined with him would alert them to your true feelings towards each other.

You lay in bed, waiting for your entourage of ladies to come help you get ready. You can’t help but think, do you go against the church? It is really the church you’ll be against, or would it be the King?

Your father.

“Good morning, my lady. Today is your engagement ball. How are you feeling?” She knows exactly how you’re feeling. You tell her everything. She knows you hate the fact that you are to be wed, especially to an old guy like Toji. But what she doesn’t know is that you’re in love with your knight.

“I feel great, Esme,” you smile. She sends an empathetic smile back to you. All ladies gather around you, readying you for the night.

You haven’t seen Sukuna yet, and it’s almost time for you to greet everyone, including… him. You need your knight by your side. You can’t do this without him.

“Esme, find Sukuna.”

“Yes, my lady,” she bows, running out the door, asking everyone in sight, “Have you seen the princess's knight?” Only to be sent in hundreds of directions. Almost an hour later, she finds him sitting in the forest behind the palace, cheeks rosy, with a bottle of alcohol in one hand, as he struggles to hold his head up.

He is extremely drunk.

“Sukuna?” She slaps his face a couple of times before his eyes focus on her. She rolls her eyes. “Get up now. The princess is asking for your presence.”

He sighs, shaking his head like an immature child. “Nuh uh, don’t wanna see her like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a bride…” His head falls back, leaning on the tree. “She shouldn’t marry him. Should be m-me,” he hiccups.

Oh.

Wow, she feels so stupid. It was right in her damn face. How could she not realise? She doesn’t know what to say. There is nothing to say. They can’t be together; the church won’t allow it. Not only is he of peasant blood, but he’s a bastard child. Marrying him would damn the princess to hell.

“Sukuna, you know that is quite preposterous of you to even think you could marry the princess. You know how this works, do you not?”

He grunts at her.

Of course, he knows, but he doesn’t care, and neither do you. You would rather be rejected by the church than lose him. Same goes for him.

“Let us go, Sukuna. You cannot disobey the future Queen. No matter how close the two of you seem to be…” She knows saying that will work on him. It’s a fact. You are the future Queen, whether he likes it or not. He can’t say no to you.

Sukuna lugs himself towards your chambers behind Esme. She turns to him, looking him up and down reluctantly opening the door because–

“Sukuna! You look disgusting!” You shriek.

He’s not even the slightest bit mad at your reaction; he looks and smells awful. And you? You look like you were perfectly sculpted by God himself.

“Everyone, get out.”

All your ladies scramble to leave except your head lady, Esme. She’s hesitant. She’s put two and two together. She knows. She’s shocked you were able to keep it a secret.

“Esme, you too.”

Sukuna turns to look at her with dead, expressionless eyes. “I thought you said we cannot disobey the future Queen, Esme?”

She nods her head before bowing and leaving the two of you alone.

You point towards to door to your bathroom, “get in the bath.” He doesn’t move. Of course, the most rational thing you can do is throw your shoe at him.

“Okay! Christ.”

You run your sponge across his body. Yes, you’ve seen each other naked, and no, you have not done promiscuous acts with one another.

“Why were you drowning yourself in beer? You know I hate the smell.”

“Sorry.” He muttered

You stare at his grumpy face remembering what you spoke about last night. He doesn’t want you to marry Toji, he wants to have you to himself. “Maybe you should objected at my wedding if it’s making you so upset, hmm? That would be funny.” You jokingly giggle.

His eyes squint.

You’re joking, but he actually would.

“Sukuna, I was kidding. You would not dare.”

–

The ball has begun, you’ve been sitting on your throne alongside your parents, waiting for Toji to approach you.

Which he soon does.

He stands tall and proud, striding towards you.

“My Princess,” your betrothed says, bowing down slightly.

Sukuna scoffs beside you. Loud enough for Toji to hear, but he chooses to ignore it.

“May I have this dance?”

“Yes, you may.” You place your hand into his as he leads you towards the middle of the ballroom. While your knight burns holes into the back of Toji’s head. You scowl back at him, mouthing, “stop.” His eyes twitches a little before he does. Storming off to grab a beer.

“I know you do not wish to marry me,” you hear Toji say. Your eyebrows furrow, “What makes you say that, Duke?”

“I could be your father. I am sure you do not want another father. Am I wrong in saying this?” You don't speak; you bite your bottom lip, waiting for him to say something because you will say nothing.

“It is good for our kingdoms, Princess. Our blood, our lineage, would be unstoppable.”

“You already have a son–.”

“And his mother was a peasant girl. He’s illegitimate; he cannot take the throne after I have passed on. The church would never allow it, and they would never allow you to be with him.”

The air escapes your lungs, you try to push Toji away, but his grip around you is too tight.

“You have no idea what you are saying right now, Duke. If you please, I think our dance is over. I am sure we will have many more to come.”

You rip yourself out of his grip, walking out towards one of the many balconies. Sukuna catches a glimpse of you leaving, turning to make sure Toji doesn’t follow behind you.

He doesn’t.

He’s looking at Sukuna. And Sukuna is looking at him.

Sukuna makes his way towards him, breathing in and out, calming himself down so he doesn’t punch this ass in the face.

“What did you say to her?” His chest is heaving, Toji places his hand upon his chest.

Who the fuck—

“Calm down, boy. You know what would happen if you laid hands on me.”

He’s right, he’d have his head in a second.

Sukuna carefully pulls Toji’s hand off of him, before asking what he said to you, but you quickly make your way back, noticing them together.

“Princess.” They both bow.

*Play Golden Brown Teehee*

“Sukuna, I love this song, remember? From when we were children?”

“I remember.” He softly mutters

“Dance with me.”

“I do not wish to dan–.”

“I command it.”

You bring Sukuna to the middle of the room, bowing at one another, before placing your fingers against one another, covering your sight. You slowly bring your hands down to your lips. Both of you wish your hands were out of the way so your lips could lock, just like last night.

You dance together, only staring into each other's eyes. The ballroom is filled with guests, but you don’t notice them. You only notice Sukuna, and he only notices you.

But everyone in the room notices the pair of you. The Princess and her knight, dancing like lovers. In front of her future husband.

It feels like you’re little kids again, dancing through the gardens and twirling like a ballerina. You don’t want it to end; you want to be with him forever.

“Do not cry.” He whispers to you. “I will always be by your side. I was born to be by your side. Even though we are not to be wedded. I will never leave you. Till death do us part.”

“Till death do us part.”

—

The ringing of wedding bells are heard all over the kingdom. Today is the day.

Five months.

For five months, you’ve been dreading this day.

For five months, you’ve been begging your parents to let you not wed.

For five months, you tried to escape the palace.

All for what?

For you to be in the same position you were trying to escape.

“Are you ready, sweetheart?” Your father asks you.

You’re standing outside the church, arm in arm with your father. The kingdom all gathered, ready to witness the wedding of the King's only child. His precious daughter.

The music coming from the organ was beautiful, heavenly if you will. The room is filled with royals from around the world, but your eyes are fixed on him.

Just… him.

Standing tall in his uniform. But his eyes… they’re shut. He refuses to look at you. If his eyes meet yours, tears will stream down his face.

He will not cry.

No.

You’re meant to be with a man of royal blood, and that’s what will happen.

This is how it should be.

“In the presence of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we have come together to witness the marriage of Toji Zenin and Y/N L/N, to pray for God's blessing on them, to share their joy and to celebrate their love.” The Archbishop starts, but you hardly listen. You want Sukuna to look at you, but he truly has not opened his eyes since you walked in.

But when the Archbishop says, “First, I am required to ask anyone present who knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare it now.”

His eyes open.

“Maybe you should object at our wedding, hmm? That would be funny.”

He waits.

And waits.

…

...

“I object.”

Authors Note: Okay, I'm sorry about the summary, but like that is literally the hardest part, I don't care. But I hope you enjoyed, I spent all day trying to make this better than how it was to beginning with and I can definitely saying like 2/3 months I've gotten better in my eyes! but i definitely could have made this longer but I need to focus on only you arghhh. *strangles self* okay, okay, i’m done, i swear. :3 oh wait i really like the little banner thingy i did! i mean i didn’t do the drawing but like you know what i mean 🙄 okay BYE

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