#to tag or not to tag... that is the question

[ribbononline]

Follow up to Shauna, future design for Serena :] She runs a boutique along with Calem- though she's most well known for her battling skills

[fox-guardian]

hii i hope this is ok to ask but i love how fucking HUGE you make curly look, do you have any advice on how to draw muscular frames? :o

thankies!! i love drawing him Robust-Looking <3

as far as advice goes, when it comes to anatomy i always recommend the channel proko on youtube, they have all kinds of videos about how to draw anatomy with each area of the body broken down. basically, if you're trying for anatomical accuracy with muscles and stuff, their vids are a great way to grasp how muscles work!

as far as general shapes and vibes though, i have a couple quick tips of my own <3

the biggest part, if you can imagine, is proportions. typically tutorials will tell you the average shoulder width for a person is about 2-3 heads wide, so if you're making someone Bigger and Beefier, you'll wanna go past that a bit. (and making a character's head smaller is gonna make their body look bigger by comparison, so if you wanna go crazy, shrank that thang)

For example, Daisuke (who i draw as lean, but still with some muscle, especially in his arms) is 4 heads wide at his shoulders, while beefcake curly over here is 5 (sometimes more depending on the drawing lol). something as simple as broadening the shoulders already gives a character a beefier-looking silhouette.

[ID: Simple rough sketches of Daisuke and Curly from Mouthwashing with colored circles showing how many heads wide their shoulder width is. Daisuke is four, Curly is five. end ID]

~~~~

"but what if i don't know how to draw the muscles and am not going for realism/don't feel confident enough in that yet? how do i give a muscular vibe without as much detail?" FEAR NOT it's super easy. here we use the power of SHAPES!!

i draw jimmy and curly with the same "skeleton" or base frame, so i think they're a good example of this next bit. despite having the same bones, i broaden the fleshy parts on curly's limbs (focusing on his shoulders cuz he has big ass shoulders) and keep his upper arms wide before tapering down into his hands (muscles tend to be largest at the base of the limb and get smaller up to the hands/feet but there's plenty of design exceptions). i carry that shape language down into his legs (which i emphasize with his fitted calf-height boots). meanwhile jimmy stays fairly squared, especially when fully clothed

[ID: Simple sketches of Jimmy and Curly from Mouthwashing with notes describing their shapes. Jimmy has a rectangle over his body and is noted as being "relatively rectangular" and the shapes of his limbs are mostly straight. Curly has a trapezoid over his body and has a "top heavy shape" with limb shapes that taper down and in. end ID]

~~~~

and honestly, a good hack to make a character read as more muscular or robust is to give them a buddy that contrasts that. once again, jimmy will assist.

even in a simple drawing like this, giving jimmy the opposite tapering to his limbs just emphasizes curly's hugelargeness by comparison. it also shows that you don't need a lot of detail or realism to convey Beefiness

[ID: Another, more simplified doodle of Jimmy and Curly, pointing out that Jim's limbs taper outwards while Curly's taper in. end ID]

~~~~

another final quick tip i have is: the neck makes a difference!

people with more muscle tend to have thicker necks (it's because of the muscles there, if you can believe it) and it's kinda become one of my fav bits of drawing curly lol. idk why <3 necks fun to draw <3 for him, i draw his neck starting at the very edges of his face and widening out at the bottom to match the shape of his head and to flow a bit more into his trap muscles, but you could go Even Further Beyond if you so Choose. i've found this is a surprisingly good way to convey Beefy Person Beefy even if you don't have as much anatomical knowledge.

[ID: Four bust sketches of Daisuke and Curly comparing their necks. The first two show them both facing forwards. Daisuke's neck is slimmer and straight, while Curly's neck meets the edges of his jaw and has a wider base with higher trap muscles. The second two shows them in profile, with the back of Daisuke's cranium sticking out past his neck, while Curly's is even with his neck, showing how thick is is from the side. end ID]

~~~~

in review we got:

widen shoulders relative to the head to convey a Broad silhouette

taper limbs inwards from base to extremities to emphasize the shape/size of the muscles

give em a less muscular buddy for contrast

thick necks help a lot in conveying a muscular build

and of course, i know i only used men in these examples, but these tips will work just fine regardless of a character's gender. please draw more beefy women ily <3

i hope this made sense and helps you and whoever else might see this uwu

if anyone has any questions about it i will. Try. to answer them. making these posts is oddly difficult lol

[cheapshrimpysheep]

A Rainy Walk

SUMMARY: He invites you to go with him on one of his club's outings, but the weather is revealed, belatedly, tto be inappropriate and perhaps even dangerous for what should be a pleasant moment together.

CHARACTERS: Mountain Lover Club (Jade Leech) / Gargoyle Studies Club (Malleus Draconia)

TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Flirting; Kiss

WORD COUNT: An average of 2.370 words per character.

COMMENTS: In Jade's part, as a person who doesn't like hiking, I wanted to create a way for both those who like it and those who don't to be able to insert themselves. So I made the reader twist an ankle.

I hope you enjoy it. 🌧️⛈️

OTHER CLUBS:

But… We Lost… - Basketball Club (Ace / Floyd / Jamil)

Romantic Experiment - Science Club (Trey / Rook)

For a Quarter of a Second - Track and Field Club (Deuce / Jack)

Unlucky Overtime - Spelldrive Club (Leona / Ruggie / Epel)

P.S.: I don't know what's going on with me to make me start writing so much.

.

You had gone to the Mostro Lounge, as you do from time to time with Grim, Ace and Deuce for a snack. When Jade comes to your table to take your orders, he informs you that he has prepared a new dessert and would love for you all to try it and tell him what you think.

“Myaah yeah, I'll take any-” Grim starts to say excitedly, until he remembers who he's talking to. “Wait... what do you want?”

“Me? I would just like to know if this new dessert I made has a pleasant taste. And who better than some of our best customers to tell me?” He smiles and proceeds to describe something you would absolutely love to eat.

“Funny, that really sounds like (Y/N)'s favorite desserts. ” Deuce says.

“Truly? What a coincidence.”

“Which I'm sure it isn't.” Ace adds. “Come on Jade, tell us what you really want in return. We might even consider it.”

“Very well.” he smiled amusedly. “It would cost you 17 thaumark each.” Everyone is shocked by that price for a small dessert. “However, I have another proposal.” you see his sharp teeth through the smile for a second. “I believe you know that I am a member of the Mountain Lover Club. This weekend, I'm planning on waking up before dawn to head to the mountains so I can see a flower that only blooms in the early hours of the day.” He looks at you. “And they are such charming flowers that I would love to share this experience with... someone. Perhaps (Y/N)?” If you accept, I can give you all a discount and the dessert will only be 8 thaumark.”

“Did you really need to do all this ruse?” Grim asks annoyed. “Why don't you just ask (Y/N) out?”

“Because that wouldn't be as thrilling, would it? Fu fu.”

“My wallet doesn't need any thrilling, thank you very much.” Ace comments. “And 8 still seems a little pricey for this type of dessert.” he tries to haggle.

“Five each if you let (Y/N) come alone with me.”

They looked at each other as if they were between a rock and a hard place.

“Deal!” You say. After all, you also have a crush on Jade.

Jade laughs seeing your friends' worried faces.

“There's nothing to worry about, gentlemen. I will make sure (Y/N) gets home safe and on time. We can even bring you souvenirs if you’d like. I would be happy to share the wonders of the mountains with all of you as well.”

~

He could have promised to keep you safe and sound on the mountain, but unfortunately, he couldn't do anything, nor was he prepared for something to happen to you before the hike. In one of your Physical Education classes you ended up twisting your ankle and it wouldn't heal in time for the day of the hike. You were in the infirmary when Jade came to check on you.

“(Y/N), I heard about your accident in Professor Vargas' class.” Jade tells you with pity, or at least it seems like it. It's hard to know when it's genuine concern. “But may I confirm with you that it was indeed just an accident?”

You confirm that it was just your foot that slipped, a little confused by that question.

“Very well. Don't worry, I believe in you. But you know that if there is a classmate who is less... pleasant with you, you can tell me.” He says with a sweet smile before forming his toothy little grin. “I can have a reasonable little conversation with them.”

You assure him that it wasn't any other student's fault that made you end up like this. At worst, it was Grim's mischief to blame. Jade chuckles.

“But it was quite unfortunate that it happened right before our hike in the mountain. However, I thought of a way for you to be able to accompany me, if you still wish to do so.”

~

On the day of the hike, or rather, that night before dawn, Jade appeared at Ramshackle Dorm door and sent you a message asking if you were ready. He asked for permission to enter the dormitory and go to your room and when he arrived he had with him a flying broom with a special cushioned seat for you. Since it's still going to be a bit of a long walk, he thought that maybe the broom like you normally use in class might be a bit uncomfortable. You could accompany him on the hike sitting on the broom and that way you wouldn't have to walk and strain your feet.

“Would you like me to help you get on the broom?” He asks politely.

If you accept his help, he will gently hold you by the waist and place you in the seat.

“The weather forecasts have been a bit... surprising.” Jade says with an enigmatic smile. “The predictions have proven to be quite inaccurate recently. There is a chance of some rain so I advise you to take an umbrella. But you should also put on sunscreen and wear a hat. Hats are essential when sketching outdoors. I got horribly sunburned once when I grew too absorbed in my work.”

Jade was dressed for the occasion from head to toe. He even wore a long coat full of pockets and was carrying a camping backpack. But in your case, he didn't ask you to take much more than necessary.

As you were walking at night, Jade took a lantern with him and placed another one on the end of your broom. He was using his magic to lead the broom like someone leading a horse by the reins. He took you through the Dark Mirror to the Dwarfs' Mountain. It was a full moon night and it was beautiful. It shouldn't be long before the moon disappeared and gave way to dawn and at that height it was beautiful to see.

“They advise anyone who hike at night to do so on a full moon night, as this is the phase in which the moon provides the best natural lighting. However, if I'm correct it shouldn't be long until dawn. Maybe 30 to 45 minutes. The flower location is also not far from here, we will get there in time even if we take it slow and appreciate what surrounds us. Feel free to ask me anything if you see something that catches your interest.” He smiles and begins the hike.

If you do as he suggests and ask him about something you see or simply what his hikes are usually like, he'll be very happy to tell you anything you want to know. And if you ask him about some type of mushroom, he'll be even happier.

“I appreciate your willingness to listen to me talk about the mountains. I started to tell Floyd my thoughts about hiking in the mountains, and he nodded off not even a minute in.” Jade was telling you, “What a shame we cannot enjoy this hobby together.” when he felt something in his nose. “Hm?”

You also feel something on your nose, then on your forehead, on your cheek...

“Looks like this is your cue to open your umbrella.” He tells you. “So that is why it seemed like it was taking so long for dawn to come, the clouds are covering the sun. Fortunately... we arrived.”

You open your umbrella, it's not raining much yet. You see a small field between the trees and full of closed flowers. When you look at Jade, you see that something seems to be bothering him and you ask what he was thinking.

“Oh, you noticed.” he smiles, as if he had been caught. “I was thinking about these flowers. It says they bloom in the early hours of the day, but I don't remember if they would do so regardless of whether they received direct sunlight or not. It would be a shame not to be able to achieve our main objective.”

And then the sky gets darker and the rain starts to get heavier.

“Oh no, it doesn't look like it's going to be a light rain. You should take shelter. The mine is nearby, let's go there.”

“I should take shelter? What about you?”

“Well, it's not like water bothers me, remember? Fu fu~” He laughs amusedly.

Jade takes you by the broom to the inside of the mine, not far from the entrance, just enough to take shelter and still see the outside. As soon as you sat down on the ground the rain seemed to turn into a storm.

“Oh dear! I've never seen the weather forecast fail so badly.” he says with that toothy smile, probably enjoying the surprise a little too much. But then he looks at you. “I'm so sorry I brought you out into the middle of a storm this early in the morning. I really wanted to see those flowers with you. It seems I was reckless and let myself be carried away by impulse.”

He sees you shaking a little.

“Oh! I hadn't even realized how much the temperature had dropped. Here.” He takes off his long coat and offers it to you to put on. “I appreciate your concern, but there's no need to worry about me. I have excellent resistance to cold, remember? Speaking of your well-being, how is your ankle?”

You weren't wearing the shoe on your injured foot, but a thick sock over the bandages. That cold was good for your ankle, but terrible for the rest of your foot, especially your toes.

“Yes, as I imagined. Let me take care of you until we are able to go back to school. It's the least I can do after putting you through all this while you're still recovering.”

He looked at you with concern, but you've seen that "concerned" expression a few times before.

“You're looking at me so suspiciously. That is quite hurtful. You should know how careful I am, especially in a situation like this.”

But he still had that smile that, whoever knows him, knows there is something behind it. And so you ask him if you're going to be indebted to him after that. If there's one thing you learned from Octavinelle, it's not to accept any favor from them without knowing the terms and conditions of it.

“Fu fu fu...” his charismatic smile becomes his true smile, the one with his teeth showing. “I'm glad to see that you learned such a valuable lesson from us, (Y/N). But there is another one that we may need to teach you better. And that is the ability to realize when you have the advantage. Remember how you agreed to accompany me in exchange for a discount on the desserts? We were even then. In the case of the broom I provided, in exchange, you would offer me your company even though you were injured. In that case, I might be at a disadvantage. Since I was risking your injury getting worse by bringing you away from the protection of your home. And now, that risk has become real. Which means I'm the one who owes you this time. Which means I am the one who is in debt to you at the moment. Due to my poor decision of a date with a suitable weather for the hike. Any treatment I provide you will only and slimply make me pay my debt. Do you feel safer accepting my offer under these conditions?”

Everything he said made sense. And while the Octavinelle trio have a tendency to create shady agreements and contracts, they don't necessarily lie. They can do it by omission, but this is not the case, so you accept.

You are sitting on the mine floor with the same pillow that supported you on the broom. Jade sits in front of you and asks you to stretch your legs so he can put them over his. He takes off the sock that covered your foot and uses magic to warm your foot with the exception of the ankle that needs the cold. And while this heating magic is taking effect he massages your ankle and feet, in a way that is appropriate and specific for a sprained ankle. He was really good at it.

“There's another thing we've been even from the beginning.” he says with a smirk and without looking at you yet. “Grim was right, I wanted to go out with you. But...” He looks at you out of the corner of his eye, barely moving his head. “You wanted to go out with me as well... didn't you, (Y/N)?”

He sees you smiling, perhaps shyly, and takes it as a green light. He takes your feet from his lap and places them gently on the ground, then stretches out towards you, supporting himself on his hands, like a cat slowly approaching.

“I really feel horrible for putting you in this situation.” But he doesn't say this with regret, but rather in a purposefully seductive way. “I wonder what I can do to redeem myself? Especially if it lasts as long as it looks like it will. Making you wait here uncomfortably for so long will create a huge debt for me towards you.” He brings his face even closer to yours, with a smile as inviting as his heterochromatic eyes. “Tell me... what can I do to ease this situation?”

He won't kiss you. He'll wait patiently for you to do it first. Or better yet... for you to order him to kiss you.

“As you wish~” He says and kisses you passionately.

Rainy weather tends to get a person down, and that's what was happening to you too. Even though you may enjoy listening to the rain outside, it's never good when you have to go back to your dorm. Especially with Grim complaining.

Grim managed to get to Ramshackle Dorm dry because he made you to carry him. You, on the other hand, had your legs and feet stuck in water. It was when you were going up the stairs to change your clothes in your room that you saw some little and familiar green lights around you.

You turn around and go to the door. When you open it you see Malleus with a large umbrella and dressed in black waterproof clothes and a raincoat.

“Good afternoon, Child of Man.” Malleus greets you with a polite smile. “I couldn't help but notice you less cheerful and smiling than usual these past few days. I think it even coincided with the arrival of the rainy weather. Would the two be connected?”

You tell him yes. Maybe you don't like rain at all, or maybe you only like rain when you can sit inside and enjoy the sound. Either way, you don't like being out in the rain and risking catching a cold.

“Oh yes, that is true... a simple rain can make a human sick. But I believe that having wet clothes such as yours can also contribute to a possible sickness, am I correct?” he asks and you confirm. “Allow me to help you dry faster.”

“You're not going to use fire magic on me, are you?” you ask slightly worried.

“Yes, I was about to. Why so worried about it?”

“Because you can burn me with it.”

“Burn? Oh, no, I wasn't going to use direct fire. I know that fire hurts other living beings. I was going to use a variation of fire magic that just changes the temperature around certain objects. I have used it several times to dry my own clothes. You seem more relieved. Will you allow me to use it then?”

You accept and he uses his magic to dry your pants, shoes and socks in a second.

“You know, I personally quite appreciate this weather. It's perfect for the Gargoyle Studies Club because we can watch them perform their main function. Or at least I can see them. I would love to share this sight with you. Perhaps it could help you feel a little better on days like these. What do you say? Do you accept my invitation?” He smiles excitedly, which is also cute.

You say you'd love to, but you don't have rain gear like his.

“There is no need for this to be a deterrent. I'll be more than happy to provide you with suitable clothing.” He uses his magic again and changes your uniform into the same set of rain gear he was wearing. Seeing you in those clothes makes him smile even more. “They seem to suit you well.”

“But how do I go with you?” You ask. “Don't you usually fly up to the gargoyles?”

“I do. I was thinking, if you're comfortable with it, that I could carry you in my arms. Like I saw you doing with Grim just now when you were coming back home. This umbrella is big enough for two people. But if you prefer, I can also give you another umbrella and we can ask Coach Vargas for one of the flying brooms.”

You admit that you don't mind about the first option and maybe even use the excuse that you don't have magic and Grim clearly doesn't want to go with you, so you wouldn't be able to use the broom by yourself.

“In that case, if you're ready, we can go back to the main building to admire the gargoyles.” He smiles and bends his arm, inviting you to intertwine yours with his.

You do so, he places the umbrella between the two of you and you walk back to the school building. He was talking about his club and gargoyles in general until you got close to a wall with no doors or windows nearby.

“One of my favorite gargoyles sits right above us.” Malleus tells you. “Do you see that trickle of water? It's coming from that same gargoyle. Are you ready for me to take you up there and show you?” He extends a hand to you.

You place your hand over his and he gently pulls you towards him. He then lets go of your hand to bend down slightly, put his arm around you and picks you up. Your reflex is to put your arms around his neck to hold on, which brings your faces closer together. He looks directly at you and chuckles seeing your embarrassed/shy face.

“Hold on tight. And do not worry about hurting me, you wouldn't be able to even if you tried. Fu fu.”

As soon as he rises into the air you grab him tightly, which makes him chuckle because he was barely half a meter off the ground yet. Then he rises even higher, but slower than he would on his own. He doesn't want to scare you.

When you get close to the gargoyle, he sits the two of you next to it, you between him and the gargoyle so you can see it better. And he will never let go of your waist to hold you. If you are afraid of heights, or if you just feel a little scared at that moment and hold on to him, he will chuckle and hold you even tighter, but never too tight so as not to hurt you.

“Worry not, (Y/N). I won't let go of you. You can enjoy the gargoyle as much as you wish. I'll be holding you the entire time.”

As you admire the gargoyle doing its work and see the rainwater coming out of its mouth, Malleus admires you.

“Do you wish to know why this is one of my favorite gargoyles on the school building?” He asks and of course you say yes. “In terms of appearance, there's nothing very different about this one from all the others. In fact, there is nothing worth calling special about this gargoyle carving technique. What delights me the most about this gargoyle is not what any of us can see, but what it can see every day.”

You look ahead, trying to figure out where the gargoyle was looking, but the school grounds were so big and the sea so vast that you couldn't be sure. Malleus chuckles, as if you weren't seeing something obvious.

“You are looking too far away. See which building is closest.”

You look closer, at the least impressive building on campus.

“Ramshackle Dorm?” You ask.

“Correct. This gargoyle must have seen the whole story of your dormitory. When it was built, who might have been there before you, how it became an abandoned building and the answers to any question we might wish to know about its mysterious past.”

You look at that gargoyle again with new eyes. All your questions could be answered. If it could talk, it would certainly be a very interesting conversation.

“This gargoyle also witnessed all my visits to the ruins.” Malleus continues. “I wonder what it thought of me, coming in just to admire the decay of that dormitory. But more than that, I wonder what it thought of you. Arriving with a mischievous little monster, a being without magic and completely unaware of the history of this world. And yet, able to breathe new life into rubble and call it home. It also witnessed our meeting. Could it have found it as amusing as I did? Fu fu~”

You look at your dorm, thinking now of everything that gargoyle could have seen.

“And now, it is watching over you.” He looks at you with a sweet smile. “I've told this gargoyle a lot about you, and now it's finally meeting you.”

If you look at the gargoyle again and even greet it, Malleus will laugh in amusement.

“I am certain it was as delighted to meet you as I was that night.”

You look at him and see him looking at you with great affection.

“Speaking of which, I'm curious.” Malleus continues. “Did you also enjoy meeting me that night? You were not frightened, at least.”

You tell him how you felt that night. Surprised, especially seeing such a tall guy with horns, but also intrigued to know who he was. You also found him extremely polite by the way he spoke.

“But I remember finding you very handsome right away.” You admit it.

Malleus is taken aback for a second, but then he laughs.

“Well, I am quite grateful for your honesty. Fu fu. Therefore, I should also admit that I found you... intrepidly charming.”

“Is that a good thing?” You ask.

“For some it may not be, but for me, and the inherently way you show it, it is something wonderful. I could even describe it as cute, especially when you are oblivious to social statutes.” He smiles honestly. And after a moment of reflection, his gaze becomes tender. “I am very fortunate to have you in my life, (Y/N).”

You show him your surprise, that sudden line was very unexpected.

“These moments with you always become some of my fondest memories. I hope to be as pleasant a companion to you as you are to me.”

You feel his arm around you instinctively pulling you closer to him. It's being a cute moment until there's a flash. You both look up and a few seconds later you hear the deafening rumble of thunder. It was so loud that it felt like it was very close to you and made you flinch as a reflex. Which also caused Malleus to let go of the umbrella and let it float above you to be able to hug you with both arms.

“I need to get you out of here. We're too high.”

He picks you up with both arms without hesitation while the umbrella floats above the two of you. And then another bolt of lightning! But this time it hit the tower right next to you, which scared you and made you cling to Malleus.

“A quick trip it shall be.” He holds your head, making you rest it on his shoulder, and in the blink of an eye, you no longer feel the rain and the scene changes abruptly.

You are now at the door of Ramshackle Dorm. He has teleported the two of you there. He leans in for you to put your feet back on the ground.

“I'm sorry our study trip has been so short.” He says with pity. “There were other gargoyles I would have liked to show you. But if you enjoyed our time today, I can show them to you on another outing sometime.” He smiles at you.

Right after you say you'd love it, you hear another clap of thunder. And so, you decide to invite Malleus to stay in Ramshackle with you for a while until the storm calms down.

“You are... Well, I would love to accept your invitation, but you do know that storms are not dangerous to me, correct?”

“I know.” you simply say, without withdrawing your invitation.

Malleus starts by laughing softly, until he lets out a good-natured laugh.

“You certainly are a very strange child of man.”

Malleus is too much of a gentleman to advance much further than with charming words. So, that will have to be your job.

“I am very fortunate to have you in my life too, Tsunotarou.” You tell him.

Malleus looks at you in surprise for a second until an adorable smile forms on his lips.

“You are one of the few who would say that.” He smirks. “And certainly the only human outside of Briar Valley who would say something like that at all.”

Come to think of it, with perhaps the exception of Lilia, the Diasomnia boys tend to be a bit oblivious to subtext. So you decide to take a risk and be direct.

“Tsunotarou... Malleus... do you like me?”

“Of course I like you. I thought I was expressing myself quite well in that regard.” He says a little confused.

“I mean... could you...” He probably doesn't know what the word ‘crush’ means, or he may take it literally. “...be in love with me? Or something like that?”

He is taken aback, and looks at you with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

“Me? The successor to the throne of Briar Valley and one of the most powerful mages in Twisted Wonderland? In love with... a powerless human from another world?” He seems to think about it for a moment until a smile forms again. “Fu fu... ha ha... HA HA HA HA HA!”

That laugh hurts your heart a little, until he continues speaking.

“I had never thought of that.” He says, looking to the side as he thinks. “But... if what I feel for you truly is what they call love... then now I understand why it is such a longed-for feeling. And if it is true then... ha ha HA HA... Oh, the obstacles we would have to face to be together. It does indeed sound exciting... Perhaps...” He looks you in the eyes. “Perhaps you are correct in interpreting my actions as such. However, I still cannot be sure it is love. But perhaps I can answer your question by admitting that, in fact, I nourish a much more intimate feeling towards you than friendship. This would explain why your company comforts and makes me happier than any other.”

He sees you smile as you listen to what he was saying.

“May I interpret that beautiful smile of yours as a possible mutual feeling on your part?”

You confirm and he leans in to take your hand and bring it to his lips to kiss the back of it. If you dare to take advantage of the fact that his face is at the same level as yours and you kiss his cheek, he will look at you in surprise before chuckling.

“Such audacity.” He says with a smug smile and still leaning over, his face close to yours. “Are you certain you wiah to find out how passionate I can be?”

He interprets your smile as confirmation and he kisses your lips delicately. Despite everything, he knows he can hurt you if he lets himself get too carried away. He's going to have to test some... limits.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[marvelwitchergilmore]

Dog Tags (2)

Summary: Bucky Barnes x fe!Reader -> You're still keeping his Dog Tags safe.

Disclaimer: This is Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. Mentions of injuries and blood, Bucky helps carry you to safety (kinda), little angst/hurt/comfort moments, some fluff moments plus friendship moments with Wanda and Kate. Not Proof Read.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kate asked you for the millionth time. “It’s just that those arrows…I know I make them but sometimes I can put a little too much after kick- Clint tells me I need to find a substitute but the black market-”

“Kate,” you smiled and held your hand on her arm. “I promise you, I’m okay.”

“But that blast was big. Like, big big.”

You nodded. “I know. But I’m okay, I promise.”

“Kate!”

She turned and looked down the jet. 

“Go, I’ll be fine.”

She looked back at you, “You swear?”

You nodded, “I swear.”

Once Kate finally left, you let the wall drop for a moment. You didn’t blame her. The kick had been big, but it had also saved your life. Maybe you got a few bruises to remember it by, but you knew you’d be okay. 

It would just hurt in the meantime. 

“Here.” A voice spoke somewhere above you.

You looked around you until you found where the voice was coming from. Bucky. 

What the hell did he want?

You looked down at the hand where he was holding an ice pack. “Take it. For your ribs.”

You swatted his hand away, “I’m fine.” 

Bucky just stood and rolled his eyes. Even watching you lift your arm to swat him away looked painful. He’d seen the blast with his own eyes, which also meant he knew that if it was him in your position, he wouldn’t have walked out completely unscathed. 

“You’re not fine.” Bucky broke the ice pack before shaking it as he crouched in front of you. 

For a moment, you recoiled back. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m gonna help you. Would you let me help you?” 

This time Bucky didn’t fully wait for an answer before he placed the ice pack against your ribs for you. And, for a moment, you recoiled from the cold until your body melted into it. 

Okay. Maybe you were hurt, a little. But that still didn’t mean you needed his help. 

“I can hold it myself.”

“You can barely lift your arms.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Bucky shrugged, “You’re getting it anyway.”

“Why?” The question left your lips before you could stop yourself. But it was a reasonable question. 

Save for a few questionable moments outside of the ten minute window you and Bucky could be alone, you weren’t two people that helped each other. Fought with was probably the more likely statement. 

“Because you need it.” 

It was the best explanation Bucky could come up with at that moment. But it still gained him something. 

You were looking him in the eyes. It was rare he ever got to be this close to you and actually see the colour of your eyes. He didn’t quite know how the feud between you and him had started out. But what he did know was that he would happily drown in your gaze. 

And it was thoughts like that, that sent him into a spin. 

So, regrettably, he looked away. But even that gained him something. 

You watched as a smile ghosted its way onto his lips and you followed his eye line to the metal chain around your neck. 

“You’re still wearing them.”

The Dog Tags. The one’s he thought he’d lost nearly three months ago, only to work out you’d had them all along. It had nearly been almost two months, alone, since that night in the training room. 

You raised a hand to touch your chest. You could feel the outline of the tags underneath your clothes. “You told me to keep them safe.”

You watched as a corner of Bucky’s mouth slanted up slightly and, just for a moment, you let your mind wonder what it would be like if you kissed him right in that spot. 

You shook your head and this time, you looked away. You dropped the hand from your chest just before a rattle came over the jet. 

“We’re coming into landing.”

You just nodded, not trusting yourself to use words at that moment. But you gained them again when you stood to get off the jet only for Bucky to put your arm over his shoulder. 

“What are you doing? I can walk on my own, Barnes.”

“You’d only collapse three feet from here. Thought I’d save myself the trouble of catching you.”

You scowled, “Like I told Kate-”

“So help me, God, if you tell me you’re ‘fine’ I’m gonna call Sam. You’ve got a sprained ankle, a few fractured ribs, if not, broken, and a lifetime of bruises to remember today by. And that’s just what I can see.”

You just looked at Bucky, your arm still over his shoulder, his hand still clasping yours. You didn’t know how or why, but you let him help you off the jet. 

But when Wanda asked you about it later on, you just told her it was because you were too tired. 

“It was a moment of weakness.”

Wanda hummed as she sat on the edge of your bed. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? What do you mean, ‘maybe’? There’s no ‘maybe’ about it.”

Wanda chuckled, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

You rolled your eyes. “Thank you, Shakespeare.”

Wanda hit your leg before climbing up the bed to sit beside you. She grabbed a pillow and crossed her arms over it. 

“Oh, come on. You and I both know you have feelings for him.”

You shook your head. “Yeah, he’s a massive pain in the ass.”

“Those aren’t the feelings I’m talking about.”

You stayed quiet for a few moments. “Stop reading my mind.”

Wanda was calm as she shook her head. “I don’t have to read your mind for this one.”

Your shoulders sagged for a moment and you looked at your hands, picking at your fingers. “It’s not like I meant to let it happen.”

“Nobody ever lets feelings happen. They just happen. It’s what makes you human.”

You just shrugged your shoulders. “He is still a pain in my ass.”

Wanda chuckled. “Have you ever thought to talk to him-”

“No! No. No, absolutely not. No. Never.”

Wanda hummed again. “Maybe it might help. Who knows? Maybe this isn’t a one sided love affair?”

You recoiled a little, again. “Love? Who ever said anything about love? I’m sure it’s just a stupid…work crush.”

Wanda looked at you. She didn’t have to read your mind to know that even you didn’t believe what you’d just said. 

“Hey,” Wanda tapped your leg. “Can I get you anything? You know, since Sam has banished you here for the next week.”

You chuckled. “I’m still allowed to leave…when he’s not here.”

When Bucky had taken you to the medical bay, you’d been given a full diagnostic. A sprained ankle, two fractured ribs, a little bruising around your internal organs that would heal itself, plenty of pulled muscles and, like Bucky had put it, enough bruises to make sure you remembered the day for a lifetime. 

Once Sam had found out, he’d doubled down on the Doctor’s orders to maintain bedrest. 

A few hours after Wanda had left, you were lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. And for a while, you just started thinking whilst absentmindedly fiddling with the dog tags still around your neck. 

You thought about the ending of the movie you’d just watched with Wanda. You thought about the pain in your side. You thought about the feeling of Bucky’s fingertips gently pressing at your side as he held the ice pack in place. 

He’d been checking to make sure nothing was broken. That was how he knew. 

Then you looked at the dog tags. Like every night, your thumb traced over the letters. 

Little did you know, the next time someone else traced their thumb over the letters, it was because your blood had been splattered across them. 

[13-opossums-in-a-trenchcoat]

okay, so prev asked something in the tags, i'm answering this

in stars and time, the game loop is from, is almost entirely monochromatic, tht's why it's in black and white (darkless and lightless in-game, colors literally don't exist anymore)

as for the formal pose (it's their intro), i guess it's because they want to look serious and stunning before they literally go and :

you can see their intro in this video, if you're interested ;) (the timestamp is 1:16:29)

[lalo0]

INSIDE AESPA EP. 4┃ Not Until You Beg

Male reader x Ningning x Giselle

Word count: 12k Tags: threesome, BDSM, squirting, rough sex, dirty talk, teasing PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

I didn’t text her first.

I could’ve. Probably should’ve. But by the time I made it halfway back through the city, I’d already been home. Showered. Changed. Sat on the edge of my bed for half an hour doing nothing but thinking.

Then I walked. Nowhere in particular. Around the block. Then down another. Then through a few more I didn’t recognize. Like I was waiting for my body to make a decision my brain hadn’t caught up to.

It was already dark when I stopped walking.

And found myself standing in front of her building, staring at the buzzer like it was gonna tell me if this was a good idea.

I pressed it.

Two rings. Then silence.

Then: the soft buzz of the door unlocking.

I didn’t need to ask if she knew who it was.

The elevator ride was fast. Too fast. I could feel my pulse behind my teeth. There wasn’t a plan. I just needed to see her. Not even to explain.

Just to exist in the same room again.

The hallway looked the same. Polished floors. Dim lighting. Cold and expensive. I reached the door and lifted my hand to knock.

It opened before I could.

But it wasn’t Giselle.

Winter stood in the doorway.

She was barefoot, wearing loose sweats and a cropped hoodie, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug. Her eyes landed on me, unblinking, calm.

Neither of us said anything.

Then her gaze slid over my shoulder, like she was checking for cameras.

She stepped aside.

“Come in,” she said.

I hesitated.

Then stepped in.

The apartment was quiet.

Winter walked past me, taking a sip from her mug. She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t smirk or give me a look.

She just said, "She's in her room," then padded down the hall and disappeared without another word.

A few seconds later, Giselle appeared from around the corner, hoodie slipping off one shoulder, eyes tired but alert.

She stopped when she saw me.

We looked at each other for a second. No hello. No smile. Just silence.

Then she stepped forward.

And let me stay.

She didn’t ask me to sit. I didn’t take my shoes off. I just stood there while she walked to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and sipped.

“Long night?” she said finally.

I swallowed. “You could say that.”

She nodded once. Then turned, walked to the bed, and sat. She pulled one leg under the other, resting her arm along the back of the mattress like she hadn’t just asked something that stuck in the air like smoke.

“You gonna sit, or?”

I moved.

Dropped onto the mattress beside her, close but not touching. She didn’t lean away.

She watched me like she always did — eyes steady, curious, a little tired, a little distant.

“You wanna talk?” I asked.

She exhaled. Not quite a laugh. More of a breath with shape.

“I don’t know what I want,” she said.

“Then why did you let me in?”

Her fingers curled against the mattress.

"I'm not sure yet," she said.

Then she looked away, like she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Silence again. Not comfortable. Not cruel. Just full of things neither of us were ready to admit.

I leaned back, palms pressed to the edge of the mattress. “It’s not nothing, you know.”

Giselle didn’t look at me. “What’s not?”

“Whatever this is.”

She snorted. “So now we’re calling it this?”

“I don’t have a better word.”

“I don’t either.”

Her voice dropped on the last line like it surprised her—like admitting she didn’t have control over the narrative hurt more than anything I could’ve said.

She pulled her leg tighter under herself and rubbed a thumb across the seam of her sleeve.

“I thought I’d feel different by now,” she said.

“About what?”

“You.”

My throat stopped. I waited for the punchline. A laugh. A cold edge. Something.

But she didn’t deliver it.

“I thought maybe if we had sex, it would be out of my system,” she said. “I’d be able to move on. Blame the tension. Call it a moment.”

“And now?”

Her eyes finally met mine. “Now it’s worse.”

I exhaled. Something in me wanted to flinch. But not out of guilt. Just the weight of it.

She sighed and looked down, tracing the hem of her hoodie.

“I’m not trying to make this a thing,” she said quickly, like she regretted every word she’d said in the last five minutes. “I don’t do things. Not like this.”

“I don’t either.”

She gave me a side glance. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just…” She paused, biting the inside of her cheek. “You came back. That already makes you different.”

I didn’t answer right away.

“You think I’m some romantic?” I said finally.

“I don’t know what you are,” she said. “But I keep trying to figure it out.”

“Why?”

Her jaw tightened. “Because I don’t want to be wrong about you.”

That one landed.

I looked down at my hands, flexed them slowly. They still felt like mine. But something about the way she was watching me made me feel like they were on display.

Giselle’s voice softened. “You don’t let people in easily, do you?”

“No.”

“So why me?”

That question came quiet, but it was the hardest one yet.

And I didn’t have an answer. Not one I could say out loud.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re not here because you got bored.”

“No.”

“You’re not here because you miss the sex.”

“I’m here,” I said, turning to her. “Because I'm confused about us.”

That cracked her, just a little.

She didn’t smile. Didn’t move. But her breath changed. Her hand curled tighter in the fabric of her hoodie. And for a second, she just sat there with that pain in her chest like she didn’t know where to put it.

“Did you think about me?” she asked, even quieter now.

I hesitated.

“After,” I said. “Not during.”

She nodded. Once. Twice. Like she’d expected it but still didn’t like how it felt.

“I didn’t think I’d care,” she said. “I told myself it was just fun. Something I could control.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I do.” she snapped

I watched her for a long time. No comeback. No comfort. Just presence.

She looked at me again.

“I hate this,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Not knowing where I stand. Not knowing where you do.”

I shifted a little closer. Not touching her yet. Just near enough to feel her breath hitch.

“You want to know the truth?” I asked.

“No,” she said. Then: “Yeah.”

I nodded.

“I didn’t come here because I knew what to say. Or because I had a plan. I came here because I couldn’t stay away.”

Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

Not yet.

She sat with that for a moment — what I’d just said. That I couldn’t stay away.

Then she blinked, like waking from her own thoughts, and looked at me again.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

“Okay?”

She nodded, slowly. “I don’t know what this is. Or what it’s supposed to be.”

“I don’t either.”

She swallowed. Her voice was soft, but steady now. “And I don’t want to screw it up by trying to define it too early.”

I nodded once. Let her talk.

“I’m confused,” she admitted. “That’s the truth. I like having you around. I like the way you look at me. I like the way you fuck me.”

That made my breath catch, but I didn’t interrupt.

She kept going.

“But I also like not being tied down to a label. Not yet. Not when I’m still figuring myself out.”

There was no apology in her tone. Just honesty. Like she was laying out a map neither of us had drawn yet.

“So we’re not together,” she said, more to herself than me. “But we’re something.”

“I can live with that,” I said.

She looked at me again — this time longer.

“And if something happens with someone else?” she asked.

My heart didn’t jump. I’d already braced for this.

“I won’t lie to you,” I said. “But I also won’t pretend it wouldn’t mean something if you asked me not to.”

She nodded again.

“I’m not ready to ask,” she said. “Not yet.”

That cracked something deeper. But it wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t cold.

It was permission.

“I don’t want to own you,” she added, quieter now. “I just don’t want to pretend I don’t care, either.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Good.” Her eyes met mine. “Then let’s just go with it. Whatever this is. However long it lasts.”

There wasn’t a perfect response. So I didn’t give one. I just looked at her, took her in — the skin under the hoodie, the mess of her hair, the way her fingers picked at the mattress even when she tried to sound calm.

I leaned forward.

And kissed her.

Not rushed. Not demanding.

Just lips on lips. Warm. Slow. Honest.

She kissed back like she meant it. Like this wasn’t closure, but the kind of beginning that doesn’t come with a name.

When we pulled apart, she was smiling. Barely.

And I could feel the pulse of something just under the surface. Something we weren’t ready to name — but weren’t going to ignore.

The kiss lingered in the space between us even after we pulled apart. There was no music, no line to close the scene. Just the silence, warm and fragile, like a blanket we hadn’t decided to share yet.

Giselle exhaled through her nose. Almost a laugh. She didn’t smile, not really. But her hand drifted toward mine and paused there, not quite touching.

Then—

“Mylooo.”

The name came floating through the hallway, singsong and light.

Giselle stiffened instantly.

I turned my head toward the sound, pulse tightening before I even saw her.

The door creaked open with no knock, no announcement.

Ningning leaned against the frame like it was hers. She was barefoot, wearing nothing but a long white tee that fell halfway down her thighs. Hair down, damp at the ends. No makeup. Just flushed cheeks and that slow, feline smirk.

“Well, well,” she said, tilting her head. “Look who came back.”

Giselle’s voice came sharp. “He was invited.”

Ningning didn’t flinch. She stepped inside, walked like she was gliding — not quite bouncing, but close. There was something too casual in the way she moved. Like she was here for fun. But not just that.

Her eyes went straight to me.

“I missed you,” she said, with a pout that didn’t touch her eyes.

“Didn’t realize I was missed,” I said, careful.

“Oh, you were,” she said, brushing a lock of hair over her shoulder. “You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“That was kind of the point,” Giselle muttered under her breath.

Ningning turned to her with an exaggerated look of surprise. “Still mad at me for stealing your toy?”

Giselle didn’t rise to it immediately. She just leaned back, arms crossed over her chest. “You didn’t steal anything. He makes his own choices.”

Ningning grinned. “Exactly. And he chose well.”

Mylo. Neutral. Stay neutral.

I cleared my throat. “You two always talk like this?”

Giselle said nothing.

Ningning walked closer to the bed and sat — not beside me, but close. Her bare leg grazed mine. Her skin was warm.

“Only when we’re sharing,” she said.

Giselle’s jaw twitched.

She looked at Ningning. “You’re not even pretending to be subtle.”

“Why should I?” she said, shrugging. “He already knows what I sound like when I scream.”

That hit harder than I expected.

Giselle’s stare didn’t break. But her expression dropped a degree colder.

“And you know what I sound like when I don’t,” she said calmly.

Ningning’s grin faltered. Just a flicker.

She blinked, then laughed. “Touché.”

The air was a heavy. Not angry. Not yet. But charged in a way that said: one wrong word and this turns into something else entirely.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, trying to breathe normally. Ningning smelled like coconut body wash and heat. Giselle still smelled like her sheets. Like me.

“Why are you here?” Giselle asked, her tone neutral, her posture not.

Ningning stretched her arms up in a dramatic yawn. “I was bored. Heard voices. Thought I’d say hi.”

“You never just say hi.”

“True,” she said, twirling a piece of hair. “But tonight I might surprise you.”

She turned to me again.

“You seem tense,” she said, voice softer now. “Need a distraction?”

I didn’t answer. My eyes flicked to Giselle, whose silence was loud enough to register as its own response.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Oh,” Ningning said, tilting her head. “That’s a shame.”

She leaned closer, almost whispering now. “You know, I was thinking about you last night.”

“Don’t,” Giselle warned.

Ningning grinned wider. “Just saying. He made an impression.”

“You think this is cute?”

“Not really. I think it’s fun.”

I looked between them. Giselle, clenched jaw and quiet fury. Ningning, all innocent malice wrapped in sugar.

And me, dead center.

“You want me to leave?” I asked Giselle, gently.

“No.” she said immediately.

Ningning raised her brows. “Wow. That was fast.”

Giselle turned to her. “You want to start a fight?”

“Nope.” Ningning leaned back on her hands, her shirt riding high on her thighs. “But I’d love to finish one.”

Neither of them spoke after that.

It wasn’t just quiet anymore.

It was the kind of still that only came before a storm.

Ningning didn’t move.

She was still perched on the edge of the bed like it was hers, one knee folded under her, the other dangling just enough to brush against my shin. Casual. Deliberate. That look in her eye like she was toying with something breakable just to see when it’d crack.

Giselle hadn’t changed position either. But everything about her posture said I see you. The line of her spine. The stillness in her jaw. The way her eyes kept dropping to Ningning’s leg like it had no business being that close.

“Funny thing about you,” Ningning said, turning to me again. “You don’t act like most guys.”

I kept my voice even. “Yeah?”

“Most guys wouldn’t survive one night here without getting all…” She twirled her finger vaguely in the air. “Messy.”

Giselle’s voice came flat. “He’s not here for your commentary.”

“I didn’t see a sign-up sheet yet.” Ningning replied sweetly.

“You came to say hi,” Giselle said. “You’ve said it.”

Ningning looked at her, unblinking. “I’m staying.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a statement. It was a challenge.

Giselle didn’t flinch. “It’s my room.”

“And he’s your guest?” Ningning tilted her head toward me. “Or are we still pretending this house runs on rules?”

Neither of them looked at me.

It was like I’d stopped being the point and started being the prize.

“Let her stay,” I said.

Giselle turned to me, slowly. Not mad. Just… measuring. Like she was trying to decide if that was weakness or strategy.

“You sure?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But I want to see what happens.”

Ningning smiled like she’d already won something.

She stood and walked over to Giselle’s dresser, started rifling through the top drawer like she lived there. Pulled out a piece of gum, popped it in her mouth, and chewed slowly.

“Your taste in underwear has improved,” she said over her shoulder.

Giselle raised an eyebrow. “Why? Hoping to borrow a pair?”

Ningning grinned and let the drawer slide shut. Then she turned and faced both of us again.

“I’m not here to steal,” she said. “I’m just bored.”

She sat down again—this time on the other side of me. So now I was flanked. One girl on each side. Neither touching. Both watching.

My mouth was dry.

“So,” Ningning said, stretching again, “are we just gonna sit here pretending this isn’t weird?”

“Yes,” Giselle answered.

“Shame.”

A long pause.

Then Ningning leaned in, her voice low in my ear. “Did she make you beg?”

Giselle sat up straighter.

“I mean, she looks like the type,” Ningning continued. “All soft at first, then suddenly you’re the one on your knees.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

Giselle’s face didn’t change.

But her hand reached behind her and tugged her pillow onto her lap like a shield.

Ningning didn’t miss it.

“She told me you were good.” she whispered.

That pulled my attention.

I turned to Giselle, slow. “You told her?”

Giselle didn’t blink. “She wouldn’t stop asking.”

“That’s not a no.” Ningning said brightly.

The air got heavier. Tighter. Like all it would take is one touch and the whole thing would ignite.

“I’m gonna make tea,” Giselle said suddenly, standing up. “Either of you want some?”

“No thanks,” I said.

“Sure,” Ningning chimed.

Giselle rolled her eyes but left the room.

The moment the door clicked shut, Ningning turned to me, voice lower now. No smile.

“She’s not okay.”

I blinked. “What?”

“She’s pretending she is. But she’s not.”

“She said—”

“I know what she said. I also know what she looks like when she’s hurt.”

My voice dropped. “And what’s this? Helping?”

“Maybe.” Ningning shrugged. “Or maybe I’m just curious what you’ll do when we finally stop pretending we don’t want the same thing.”

I stared at her.

And she smiled, slow and wicked.

Ningning stayed close.

Too close.

She didn’t touch me, but everything about her presence screamed intentional. Her thigh rested just shy of mine. Her shoulder turned toward me, open, relaxed. Like if I leaned even slightly, I’d fall into her orbit.

“She’s strong, you know,” she said, voice softer now. “Giselle.”

I nodded.

“But not invincible.”

Her gum clicked once. Then silence.

The door creaked a moment later, and Giselle returned with a single mug — hers.

She didn’t ask why Ningning hadn’t followed her.

Didn’t ask what was said.

She just walked back to the bed and stood in front of us, taking a long sip of whatever was steaming in the ceramic.

Then, quietly: “She’s still here?”

Ningning smiled. “You miss me already?”

Giselle didn’t answer. She set her mug down on the nightstand, then sat. Right next to me. Her hip brushed mine. It wasn’t subtle.

And suddenly, I was caught again. Giselle on my right. Ningning on my left. Both sitting too close. Both pretending they weren’t measuring me, but measuring each other.

“You ever feel like you’re in the middle of something?” I muttered.

“Usually means things are about to get interesting.” Giselle replied smoothly.

Ningning gave her a look. “You’re getting territorial.”

“Am I?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t have to. You’re still in my room.”

“Maybe your room is the most interesting place in the house.”

“Or maybe you just like an audience.”

That one landed.

But Ningning didn’t back down.

She looked at me, biting her lip like she was thinking about saying something worse.

Instead, she leaned in and whispered, “You’re real quiet for a guy caught between two girls.”

“I’m processing,” I said.

“Don’t take too long,” she said. “You might miss the fun part.”

I looked at her. Then at Giselle.

And I could feel it — the heat rising, slow and patient. Like the room itself had started listening.

Giselle leaned forward and grabbed the mug again, wrapping her fingers around the handle.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“I’m good here,” Ningning replied, stretching her legs out across the floor like she owned the space. “Unless Mylo wants me to go.”

Their eyes both found me.

And for a second, I wasn’t sure whose move it was.

But I could feel the pulse in my neck. The air around all three of us pulling tighter.

“I don’t want a fight,” I said.

“Then don’t start one,” Ningning said.

“I won't.” I said, turning to Giselle.

But Giselle’s expression had changed. It wasn’t angry, just… aware.

Her eyes met mine, and there was something new there. Not fear. Not jealousy. Just quiet understanding.

And under it — a question she hadn’t asked yet. You want this? You want her? I didn’t answer it out loud. But I think she saw it in my face. Her throat bobbed once, then she exhaled. And when she set the mug down again, her hand brushed mine.

Not a grab. Not a challenge. Just a reminder that she was here, that I wasn’t alone in this. And that maybe… neither was she.

The room felt warmer now.

Not just body heat. Something else. Tension crawling along the floorboards. Every breath between us a thread waiting to snap.

Giselle’s hand still rested near mine, fingers not quite touching, and on the other side, Ningning shifted closer—just enough to let her bare thigh press against mine.

They didn’t look at each other. But I could feel the weight of them on either side of me, gravity pulling in both directions.

Then Ningning smiled, slow and teasing.

“Okay,” she said softly, “I’ve been good. I haven’t touched.”

She leaned in, breath brushing my ear.

“But I’m done being good.”

Her lips grazed the shell of it. Not a kiss. Just the suggestion of one. Her hand slid to my knee and stayed there, warm and bold.

Giselle moved instantly.

Not rough, not loud—just decisive. Her fingers laced into mine, pulled my hand to her thigh, where her skin was already hot.

“He’s not yours,” she said coolly.

Ningning’s eyes flicked down. “Doesn’t seem like he’s yours either.”

“He came here for me.”

“And stayed for me.”

“Funny,” Giselle said, “I don’t remember him moaning your name last night.”

“Oh?” Ningning turned to me. “You moan for her?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

She was already climbing into my lap.

Her hands slid up my chest, smooth and slow. She straddled me without hesitation, grinding once—slow enough to tease, firm enough to be felt.

But Giselle didn’t back down.

She leaned in from the other side, her lips grazing my neck as her fingers dipped under the hem of my shirt.

“Let’s see if you’re still so cocky when you’re crying under my mouth,” she murmured against my skin, and I shivered.

Ningning laughed. “Babe, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Her tongue traced my collarbone. And then—Their mouths met right there.

Giselle leaned over me and kissed Ningning hard, open-mouthed, aggressive. Not for her. Not for passion.

For me.

A show of force.

Ningning moaned into it, not backing down. Her hand dropped to my belt, tugged it open without asking. Her hips rocked forward as she kissed Giselle harder, nails dragging down my stomach.

I could barely breathe.

Giselle pulled back, breath shaky, and turned to me.

“Lie back.”

I obeyed.

They followed.

Ningning yanked my shirt off while Giselle stripped her own. Their hands moved fast, not clumsy—confident, practiced. Clothes disappeared like they’d done this a dozen times.

Only this time, it was for me.

And then Giselle was on her knees beside me, straddling my thigh, her lips dragging a hot trail down my chest.

Ningning grinned and climbed over me, facing the other way, her thighs caging my head. Her mouth met my cock just as Giselle’s tongue found my nipple.

I groaned—deep, guttural—fingers gripping the sheets.

They were in sync, but not gentle.

Ningning’s mouth was greedy, messy, stroking and sucking with zero pretense. She made noise on purpose—slurping, moaning, letting spit drip and drag down my shaft like she wanted Giselle to hear it.

Giselle bit my chest, not hard, just enough to leave a mark.

“You’re loud,” she said flatly.

“Jealous?” Ningning gasped.

“Focused.”

Then she shifted down, her tongue following the trail of skin Ningning wasn’t touching.

I was losing it.

Ningning's hand cupped my balls, rolling them gently as she bobbed deeper. Giselle’s mouth dragged down my stomach, teeth grazing just enough to pull a hiss from my throat.

I looked down—Two heads, pink and dark hair brushing against each other, mouths working opposite ends of me, completely focused. No hesitation. No shame. And both of them watching each other out of the corners of their eyes like they were keeping score.

I was going to lose it fast.

“Fuck—slow down,” I gasped.

“Make us,” Ningning said, pulling back with a wet pop.

Giselle just smirked.

And then she wrapped her mouth around the base of my cock while Ningning took the tip again, their tongues briefly brushing—fighting—for control. It was like they were trying to devour me from opposite ends.

Ningning moaned first. A little loud, a little performative. She popped off me with a gasp, slapped my cock against her cheek twice, then turned her face just enough to let the shaft smear against her lips.

“God, he’s throbbing,” she said with a breathless laugh. “You gonna let me win this one?”

“I don’t let anyone win,” Giselle snapped, and in one motion she slid her mouth all the way down my cock—past halfway, deeper, wetter, slow and brutal.

My whole body jolted.

“Fucking—Giselle—”

Her name spilled out without meaning to.

Ningning raised an eyebrow. “Round two, huh?”

She leaned in, licked up the underside of my cock where Giselle wasn’t, and then pulled the other girl’s hair aside to kiss her cheek as she bobbed up.

“You missed a spot.”

She dove back down.

Giselle didn’t yield.

Instead, she grabbed the base of me in one hand, stroked what Ningning couldn’t reach, and bit her lip as she whispered, “You’re drooling all over him.”

“I am.”

Ningning went deep again, this time moaning on purpose around me, fingers kneading my thighs, her other hand creeping up to cup my balls as she sucked hard—sloppy, loud, relentless.

Giselle dragged her tongue over what was left of my shaft, licking around Ningning’s lips, not even flinching when their mouths collided again on me.

The sounds were obscene. Wet and raw and constant. I was sweating, trembling. My fists curled in the sheets.

“You wanna cum already?” Giselle asked me, voice deceptively soft as she looked up, her lips slick.

I shook my head. Couldn’t speak.

“I think he does,” Ningning teased, pumping me twice, her wrist twisting with precision. “Look at him. He’s about to beg.”

“I don’t beg,” I growled.

“Maybe not,” Giselle said, mouth brushing my base again. “But you break.”

And then she sucked hard—just the base—at the same time Ningning swallowed me down, deep.

“Fuuuck—”

My hips twitched and they both felt it.

“Almost,” Ningning purred. “Someone’s close.”

Giselle didn’t stop.

She just squeezed tighter at the base, held me there with one hand, and took over completely—mouth gliding, lips tight, tongue working in cruel little flicks under the head.

Ningning backed off, eyes locked on me, watching every stutter in my breath.

“Come on, baby,” she whispered. “Let’s see whose mouth wins.”

Giselle looked up, never breaking rhythm.

My hips buckled.

“I’m—fuck—”

“No,” Giselle said, pulling off instantly, gripping my cock tight.

My head dropped back.

Painful denial.

“You don’t cum yet,” she said, stroking slow, mean.

Ningning smirked. “Aww. He was so close.”

Giselle tilted her head. “Good. He’s staying hard for round two.”

Ningning straddled my chest like a cat in heat—smirking, smug, her thighs pinning me down while her fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt. The oversized tee she’d come in still clung to her hips, soaked through with sweat and tension, her nipples already hard under the thin cotton.

“I think I want to ride your face next,” she said playfully, leaning forward. “Think you can handle that, Mylo?”

She barely finished the sentence before Giselle yanked her back by the hair. Not rough. Not violent. Just… dominant.

Ningning gasped, not from pain—but shock.

Giselle’s grip was firm, the other hand sliding to her hip, spinning her off of me like she weighed nothing.

“Not yet,” Giselle said. “You’re forgetting who finishes first.”

“Excuse you?” Ningning snapped, but she was already on her back, legs tangled in the sheets.

Giselle didn’t answer.

She climbed on top of her.

One thigh between Ningning’s legs. One hand gripping her wrist and pinning it above her head. Her eyes, cool and focused, locked down like a predator who’d just lost patience.

“You want to be loud, Ning?” Giselle asked, lips hovering inches from her mouth. “Wanna act like you’re the one he wants?”

Ningning bared her teeth in a grin. “He came in my mouth last night.”

“And he fucked me raw the night before that.”

They were nose to nose now. Breath to breath, no laughter left, just electricity. And then—Giselle kissed her. Hard. Not sensual, not romantic. Claiming.

Ningning bucked against her, one hand trapped, the other scrambling to grab Giselle’s side—but she didn’t stop it. She moaned into the kiss like she’d been waiting for it, hips grinding up against Giselle’s thigh with something between frustration and heat.

When they finally broke apart, both of them panting, Giselle leaned in and whispered something I couldn’t hear.

Then she sat up, still straddling Ningning’s waist, and pulled her shirt over her head. No bra underneath. Her tits bounced free, sweat-slick and flushed, nipples hard as glass.

Ningning licked her lips.

“I hate you,” she muttered.

“No, you don’t,” Giselle said.

She reached over to the nightstand drawer.

I didn’t know what she was looking for.

Until I heard the jingle of metal.

Cuffs.

Real ones. Not fur-lined. Not decorative.

Stainless steel.

The sound made Ningning freeze—just for a second.

Then she smirked. “You’re seriously cuffing me?”

“You don’t get to make the rules tonight.”

“Giselle—”

“Hands. Up.”

She said it like a command, not a request.

And Ningning—bratty, cocky, untouchable Ningning—obeyed.

She lifted her arms over her head, wrists together.

Giselle snapped the cuffs on fast, locking them to the headboard with a flick of her wrist.

Then she looked down at Ningning, spread and restrained, shirt pushed up under her arms, her bare thighs squeezing together from anticipation.

She looked fucking ruined already.

And Giselle hadn’t even started.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “You’ll still get his cock.”

Then she turned to me.

“But not until you beg for it.”

Ningning snarled. “Fuck you.”

Giselle laughed. “Later, maybe.”

She slipped down her own panties, tossed them aside, and sank lower between Ningning’s thighs. The younger girl shuddered, ankles flexing as Giselle kissed her inner thigh—once, twice—then bit it just hard enough to leave a mark.

“Fuck—Giselle—”

“Shh,” she said.

Her tongue slid over Ningning’s folds in one long, hot stroke. Ningning moaned, loud. Giselle did it again. Then sucked. Then licked faster.

Ningning’s back arched, fists clenched in the cuffs, and she let out a string of breathless whimpers that barely formed words.

“Oh my god—fuck—fuck, right there—”

Giselle didn’t let up.

She gripped her thighs and spread her wider, tongue working in circles, then flicks, then deep strokes that made Ningning gasp and writhe.

“Fuck—Giselle—I’m—”

“No,” Giselle said, pulling back instantly. “Not yet.”

“Giselle—please—don’t—fuck—don’t stop—”

“You want to cum?” Giselle asked, eyes gleaming.

Ningning nodded furiously. “Yes—fuck—yes—please—”

“Beg better.”

“Giselle—please—I need it—need your tongue—please—fuck—just let me cum—”

Giselle went back in, tongue relentless, mouth tight around her clit.

Ningning came like a fountain—back arched, legs shaking, mouth open in a silent cry that broke into a sob.

Giselle didn’t stop.

Didn’t even slow down.

She held Ningning’s hips down and licked her through it, over and over, until she was jerking, twitching, gasping for air. And still cuffed. Still helpless.

When she finally stopped, Giselle sat up, mouth slick, and turned to me.

“She’s not done,” she said.

Then she reached for the rope.

Ningning let out a shaky breath. Her legs trembled. Her chest rose in ragged bursts. But her eyes—red, wet, wide—were still defiant.

Still burning.

“I said I’d make her beg,” Giselle murmured, as much to herself as to me.

She turned to the nightstand and unspooled the rope in slow, fluid movements—knots already half-formed, like she’d done this before. Like she had planned to do this again.

“Come here,” she said to me without looking.

I moved. Silently. Kneeling beside the bed as the heat off Ningning’s body reached me in waves. Her skin was glowing. Her arms still pinned above her, wrists cuffed to the headboard. Her pussy was soaked—spread, twitching, pink and sensitive as hell. And her voice was hoarse from the moaning.

“You’re gonna help,” Giselle said, passing me one end of the rope. “Lift her leg.”

I didn’t hesitate.

I hooked my hands under Ningning’s thigh and pulled it up, bent and open.

Giselle looped the rope around her ankle, quick and snug, tying it to the side of the frame with a flourish. Then she did the same to the other—until Ningning was bound open, her knees parted wide, arms still cuffed, body completely exposed between us.

She squirmed, pulling against the restraints.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “You guys are—fuck—”

“Quiet,” Giselle said.

She moved between her legs again. Her fingers ran down the inside of Ningning’s thighs, featherlight, teasing.

“You’re gonna cum for him this time,” Giselle said, glancing back at me. “You’re gonna let him watch every second of it.”

I swallowed. My cock throbbed. Just seeing her like this—splayed out, dripping, gasping—was enough to make my head spin.

“She’s yours for now,” Giselle added, crawling backward on her knees to make room. “But keep her begging.”

I leaned over her.

Ningning’s eyes met mine, wide and wet. Her bottom lip trembled.

“Mylo,” she whispered. “Please—touch me—I need it—I can’t—”

I slipped two fingers inside her without a word.

She screamed.

Her body arched so violently the headboard thudded against the wall. Her back bowed, her arms trembling in the cuffs.

“AHHH—FUCK—YES!”

She clenched hard around my fingers. Still so tight. Still fluttering from that last orgasm.

I stroked inside her—deep, firm, curving just enough to brush that spot that made her wail.

“YES—oh my god—don’t stop—don’t you fucking stop!”

I didn’t.

I pumped harder. My palm slapped her clit with every thrust, wet and loud and nasty. Her body fought the restraints like she was trying to throw herself into me.

Her legs trembled violently.

She gasped.

“I'm—I’m gonna—Mylo—fuck I’m gonna—”

I stopped.

Dead still.

Two fingers inside her. One second away from the edge.

She screamed.

“NO! Mylo—fuck—you asshole!”

Giselle smirked behind me.

“Aw. Poor thing.”

“She’s shaking,” I said, pulling out just enough to feel her clamp down, desperate.

“Give her a break?” Giselle teased. “Or make her work for it?”

I looked at Ningning.

Her head was thrown back, cheeks flushed, chest heaving.

And still—still—she looked cocky.

Just barely.

“Work,” I said.

Giselle laughed. “Good choice.”

She reached between Ningning’s legs and gave one slow drag of her fingers over that soaked, trembling clit.

Ningning twitched.

“Beg again,” Giselle said softly.

Ningning growled. “You bitch—”

Slap. Not hard. But firm, right across her pussy. Ningning howled.

“AHHH—fuck—okay—okay please—please—let me cum—I’ll do anything—I swear—please Mylo—please—!”

I slipped my fingers back in. Deep. Giselle leaned in and sucked her clit. And Ningning exploded, she screamed so loud it cracked.

Her thighs shook so violently the rope tensed. Her body locked—completely—like a live wire, shuddering and gasping as the orgasm ripped through her like lightning.

“FUCK—FUCK—FUCK—YES—AAHHHHH—MYLO—!”

I didn’t stop.

Neither did Giselle.

We made her feel it. Made her ride it. Dragged it out until she was sobbing, soaked, babbling through clenched teeth. And still tied up. Still ours.

Giselle pulled off her with a pop and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Then looked at me.

“She’s ready for round two.”

She was still panting.

Wrists trembling against the cuffs. Hair stuck to her face. Sweat pooling at the bend of her neck. But Ningning’s eyes were already sparking again. That same wicked, bratty fire back in full blaze.

“She’s ready for round two,” Giselle said, wiping her mouth, cool and smug.

“Damn right I am,” Ningning hissed.

I looked at her—then back to Giselle. Although Giselle was cute when she was in charge, I wanted to see her beg.

“She’s earned something.”

Giselle tilted her head. “You think so?”

“I think,” I said, stepping closer, “you’re overdue.”

And before Giselle could reply, I leaned down and undid the cuffs.

Ningning’s wrists dropped limp at first, tingling, red-ringed. Then she pushed herself up. Slowly. Deliberately. Stretching her back, rolling her shoulders, cracking her neck like she was preparing for a fight.

Giselle raised an eyebrow.

“What now, baby?”

Ningning lunged.

She shoved Giselle back onto the bed in one smooth motion, knees straddling her hips, hands pinning her arms. The sheer force of it left Giselle breathless for a second—and Ningning grinned.

“My turn.”

Giselle tried to smirk. “You think I’ll just lie here?”

“You’re not gonna lie,” Ningning whispered. “You’re gonna squirm.”

Her hands shot down and yanked Giselle’s wrists up over her head, fast and sure, and before Giselle could twist away, click. She had grabbed the cuffs. One locked. Then the other.

Giselle gasped. “Are you fucking serious—”

“Dead serious,” Ningning purred. “You said I was loud, right?”

She leaned in, tongue trailing over Giselle’s collarbone.

“Let’s see how quiet you can be.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Ningning dragged her nails down Giselle’s sides—slow, hard enough to leave lines.

Giselle bit her lip.

“You’re bluffing.”

“Oh, babe,” Ningning said, dipping her head. “I never bluff.”

Then she bit her nipple.

Giselle yelped.

“Fuck—!”

“Oh, did that hurt?” Ningning teased, licking the tip.

“Do it again,” Giselle growled.

Ningning did. Harder.

I watched Giselle squirm—hips shifting, legs twisting, eyes squeezed shut, breath shaky.

“You’re dripping,” I said.

Ningning glanced down. “Oh, I know.”

She climbed off her chest, dropped between her thighs, and spread her open with two fingers.

Giselle moaned without meaning to.

“Still think I’m bluffing?” Ningning asked.

“Do your worst.”

“I plan to.”

She ducked her head and went to town.

Her tongue was everywhere. Sloppy, aggressive, fast—completely different from how Giselle had taken her apart. She wasn’t building pressure. She was breaking it.

Giselle bucked hard.

Her wrists strained against the cuffs. Her legs tried to close—but Ningning held them wide.

I stepped in. Grabbed one thigh and pinned it.

“Good boy,” Ningning said without looking.

I stroked Giselle’s leg, fingers grazing her skin, as Ningning ate her like a meal. Her mouth was loud—wet, messy, cruel. Every lick made Giselle twitch. Every suck made her whimper.

And then—

“Fuck—fuck—I’m gonna—”

Ningning stopped.

Dead silent.

Giselle growled.

“Don’t—fucking—edge me.”

Ningning grinned. “Now you get it.”

She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the vibrator.

“Wait—wait—” Giselle’s voice cracked. “Not that—”

“Oh yeah.”

The toy buzzed to life.

“Remember this?” Ningning said sweetly

Giselle thrashed. “You little—fuck—don’t you—”

Ningning pressed it right against her clit. Giselle screamed. Not loud. Violent.

Her body locked instantly, thighs trembling so hard I thought she’d tear the rope off the frame. The toy never left her—just constant, brutal vibration while Ningning licked right beside it.

“I hate you!” Giselle cried out.

“I know.”

“You bitch—fuck—Mylo—!”

I knelt beside them.

Held her hips down.

Watched her fall apart.

“Let it happen,” I said.

She did. And came like a storm.

Giselle was gasping, twitching—still cuffed to the headboard, legs shaking from the vibrator pressed relentlessly to her clit. She’d just come hard enough to shake the bed.

And Ningning? She wasn’t done. Not even close.

She shut off the toy and tossed it aside, crawling up over Giselle like a panther licking blood from her teeth. Her eyes sparkled, cruel and gleeful. She straddled Giselle’s chest, leaned down so close their noses nearly touched.

“Aww,” she cooed. “Poor princess can’t handle a little tongue?”

Giselle glared through her sweat-soaked bangs. Her chest still heaved. “Fuck… you.”

“Oh, you wish,” Ningning said, tilting her head. “But you don’t get to make demands right now.”

She grabbed a pillow from the side, stuffed it behind Giselle’s head, then reached for the waistband of her own panties. Slowly—tauntingly—she peeled them down.

And dropped them across Giselle’s face.

“Since you like mouthing off so much,” she said, “maybe try mouthing this.”

Giselle froze.

Her breath hitched.

Then Ningning slapped her lightly across the cheek with the damp fabric. “Open up.”

Giselle didn’t move.

So Ningning did it for her.

Two fingers between her lips, prying them open just wide enough. Then she shoved the balled-up panties into her mouth and pressed her palm against Giselle’s chin to hold them in.

“God, look at you,” she said, grinning down at her. “Still cuffed, still dripping, now gagged with my panties. Tell me, Giselle—do you still feel like the one in charge?”

Giselle moaned behind the gag—frustrated, humiliated, and fucking soaked.

I watched, hard as a rock, my cock twitching from the sight of it. Giselle’s thighs still trembled. Her cheeks were red. Her tits rose and fell under Ningning’s knees.

She looked wrecked. And Ningning wasn’t done. She leaned forward again, closer to Giselle’s ear.

“You act so tough,” she whispered. “So perfect. The hot one. But the moment you get a little pressure, you come like a needy little cumslut.”

Giselle whimpered—low, guttural, almost a sob.

“Pathetic,” Ningning said, licking her lips.

Then she turned to me.

“Mylo,” she said sweetly, “do you know how many guys dream about her?”

I nodded, eyes locked on the mess between them.

“And now look at her,” Ningning said, grabbing a fistful of Giselle’s hair and yanking her head back slightly. “Stripped. Gagged. Cuffed. Thighs twitching like a toy.”

She leaned down and spat on her chest.

It hit just above her nipple, sliding down her breast.

Giselle moaned again, louder now, almost desperate.

“Oh,” Ningning laughed, “you like that, don’t you?”

She turned back to me.

“Tell me,” she said. “You still think she’s in charge?”

I didn’t answer.

I just moved beside them, hard and leaking, and stared down at Giselle’s red, ruined face.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Ningning whispered, dragging her thumb through the spit on Giselle’s chest. “You’ll get a taste of redemption soon.”

“But first,” she said, “I want to see you break for him.”

Giselle was gagged and cuffed, cheeks flushed, chest still wet with spit. Her thighs trembled. Her breath came in short, shaking huffs. And Ningning?

She was glowing.

Crouched over her like a devil in heat, eyes gleaming, voice velvet-edged with cruelty.

“She looks mad,” she said, pinching Giselle’s cheek. “You mad, baby?”

Giselle didn’t respond. Couldn’t—not with Ningning’s soaked panties stuffed in her mouth. But the way her eyes burned was enough. Her jaw tightened. Her chest hitched like she wanted to scream.

Ningning leaned closer. “Want me to take it out? Hm? Let you talk?”

She reached down.

Slid the gag out slowly—dragging it along Giselle’s tongue.

The panties dropped onto her chest with a wet slap.

“Say something.”

Giselle spat.

Not at her—just to clear her mouth. Then she whispered, hoarse and shaking: “You’re going to regret this.”

Ningning laughed. Then slapped her across the face. It wasn’t hard. But it echoed. Giselle flinched. Not from pain—from shock. Her mouth opened in protest, but the words didn’t come.

Ningning slapped her again. Opposite cheek. Same sting. Giselle gasped. Her arms pulled at the cuffs. Her back arched. But the moan she made? It didn’t sound angry. It sounded wet.

“She likes it,” I said, watching her nipples harden.

“She does,” Ningning said, grinning. “She just doesn’t want to admit it.”

She reached up and grabbed a fistful of Giselle’s hair, yanked her head to the side, exposing her throat.

“Tell him,” she hissed. “Tell Mylo how much you like being slapped.”

“Fuck you—” Giselle started.

Slap. She cried out. Then moaned again. Her hips rolled. I moved closer.

Watched her chest rise and fall in desperate waves.

“She’s close,” I said, staring at her pussy—still glistening, still dripping, even though she hadn’t been touched in minutes.

Ningning glanced at me.

“You wanna help?”

I didn’t answer. I just reached out and grabbed one of Giselle’s tits, rough and fast. She whimpered. Then I slapped it.

She gasped—sharp and loud—and her legs twitched.

“Holy shit,” Ningning said, biting her lip. “Do it again.”

I slapped her again. The sound was filthy. Her tit bounced hard, skin flushed. Giselle made a noise that wasn’t a moan or a cry. It was somewhere in between.

“I think she likes being our toy,” I said, leaning in.

Ningning crawled over to the other side and slapped her opposite breast—synchronized.

Giselle broke.

“F-fuck!” she cried. “Fucking stop—”

But her hips didn’t stop. They fucked the air. I grabbed her jaw. Made her look at me.

“You’re soaking the sheets,” I said. “You want more?”

She shook her head.

But her thighs said otherwise.

Her clit throbbed. Her chest heaved. Her voice cracked.

“You want to be used,” Ningning whispered, pinching her nipple until she whimpered. “Admit it.”

Giselle bit her lip.

“No.”

Ningning leaned down. “Then why are you still dripping?”

“Because—fuck—because—”

I reached between her legs.

One finger—barely inside her.

She clenched.

“Because you’re mine,” I said.

“No—fuck—stop—”

But I didn’t.

I fucked her slowly—just my fingers—and watched her squirm.

Her eyes rolled.

She didn’t want to come.

But her body begged.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Don’t stop—don’t—please—”

Ningning smirked. “Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say you love it.”

She shook her head.

Then Ningning slapped her again—light, fast, teasing.

Giselle screamed.

“I love it—fuck—I love it—please—just let me cum—please—”

Her eyes found mine.

Desperate. Wet.

And I saw it.

She was a mess.

Wrists still cuffed, arms stretched above her head, chest glowing red with slaps and spit. Her thighs trembled, hips rolling helplessly into my hand, soaking everything under her. Her eyes were glassy—half-defiant, half-broken—and her lips trembled every time she tried to form a sentence.

And Ningning?

Still straddling her chest, watching her squirm.

"You hear that, baby?" she purred, brushing a thumb over Giselle’s swollen lip. "You’re dripping all over for us."

“Mmnh—” Giselle whimpered.

Ningning leaned in and kissed her cheek, then nipped at her ear.

“You’re such a good little girl when you’re falling apart.”

I ran my fingers down her thigh. Slow, soft. The kind of touch that would’ve made her squirm if she still had strength left. I reached between her legs again, fingers sliding through slick heat.

She twitched.

"She’s so sensitive," I muttered, watching her melt.

“She can take it,” Ningning whispered. “Right, baby?”

Giselle nodded once. Barely.

“Say it,” I told her.

“I… I can…”

“Louder.”

“I can take it,” she gasped. “Please—please let me—please—”

“Aw,” I cooed. “Princess wants to cum?”

Giselle nodded again, desperate.

“Like a good girl?” I said.

She whimpered. “Y-yes—yes, like a good girl—”

We moved together.

Ningning slid down to kiss her again—deep and wet and claiming—while I lined up between her legs and pushed into her in one slow, thick stroke.

She screamed.

“AHHH—f-fuck—Mylo—!”

I started slow. Deep. Cruel. Every thrust designed to make her feel full, helpless, owned.

Ningning held her face, whispered things between kisses.

“You’re so pretty like this, baby… so perfect when you cry… keep taking it… show us how good you are…”

Giselle sobbed.

“Please—please—ohmygod—I’m gonna—”

“Not yet, princess,” I said.

Her walls fluttered around me. She writhed.

Ningning dragged her nails down her sides. “Hold it, baby. Just a little longer. Be good.”

I slammed into her harder. Faster. Giselle’s body lifted off the bed with every thrust. She begged with her whole body—arched, stretched, trembling.

“Please—I c-can’t—Mylo—please—Ning—I need—”

“Now,” Ningning said, voice low and firm. “Cum for us, princess.”

“Cum like a good girl,” I whispered.

And she did.

She screamed.

Long, high, broken.

Her whole body convulsed. Her thighs locked around my waist. Her cunt clamped down and milked my cock like she never wanted to let go.

She sobbed through it, moaning both our names, her voice cracking on every syllable.

Ningning kissed her again.

“Good girl… good girl…”

I didn’t stop.

I kept fucking her through it. Giselle was trembling, her moans dissolving into whimpers. Her eyes fluttered. Her whole body gone, melted, wrecked.

And I was close.

Too close.

Ningning watched me, smirking. “Give it to her.”

I slammed in deep and came—hard, full, spilling everything inside her. My groan was low, rough, desperate.

Giselle shuddered around me, riding every pulse of it. We stayed there like that—tangled, breathless, dripping. She blinked slowly, eyes dazed.

Ningning brushed hair from her face. “Still with us, baby?”

Giselle nodded weakly.

“Good girl,” I whispered again.

And she smiled.

Just barely..

Ningning leaned back on her knees, messy and smug, fingers trailing down Giselle’s cheek like she’d just won a war. Her grin said it all—she thought she was done. That we were finished.

But Giselle was already lifting her head.

Eyes glassy. Hair wild. Lips swollen from the gag and kisses. Still trembling—but smiling now. A slow, wicked smile.

I reached up and unlatched her cuffs from the headboard. She shook her wrists out once, then sat up.

And I saw it click. She wasn’t broken. She was waiting.

Ningning turned toward me, ready to bask in her chaos—and that’s when I moved.

I grabbed her by the hips and flipped her down onto her back, her body hitting the mattress with a gasp. Before she could scramble up, Giselle slid over and grabbed her wrists.

“What—wait—” Ningning started.

But she was too slow.

I snapped the cuffs around her wrists before she could squirm away, locking them to the same headboard Giselle had just been strung up on.

“Shit—what the fuck—” she thrashed once, then stilled, staring at both of us. “You guys are serious?”

Giselle leaned in close, chest still glowing from slaps and sweat. “You think you’re the only one who gets to have fun?”

Ningning’s eyes darted to me. Her mouth opened like she had something clever to say—but I kissed her before she could. Rough. Claiming.

She moaned into it.

And her hips rolled.

Giselle slid down, kissed her neck. Then lower. Her mouth traced the curve of Ningning’s tits, sucking until deep red marks bloomed under her tongue.

“Still think you’re in charge?” she asked.

Ningning didn’t answer.

So I slapped her breast.

Not hard.

She gasped—loud, shocked.

Her back arched and her thighs clenched.

“She likes it,” Giselle said, licking a slow path across her stomach. “Of course she does.”

I slid between her legs, palms on her thighs, holding her open.

“She made a mess of you,” I said. “Time to return the favor.”

Giselle smiled. “Together?”

“Together.”

Ningning tried to pull away—but the cuffs held. And her pussy?

It was dripping.

I ducked down and dragged my tongue through her folds, slow and thick. Her hips bucked. She tried to twist, to get away from it—but I didn’t let her.

I held her down and devoured her.

Giselle climbed up, straddling her chest again, dragging her fingers through Ningning’s hair, keeping her pinned.

“You gonna be our good girl now?” she purred.

“F-fuck you—” Ningning gasped, voice already cracking.

I slapped her thigh. Bit the inside of it. She screamed.

Then I dove back in.

Tongue on her clit. Two fingers inside her. My pace merciless. Wet. Filthy.

She was thrashing. Moaning. Her voice was breaking.

“Please—please stop—please—”

Giselle leaned down.

“You didn’t stop when I begged.”

She slapped her. Just once. Sharp across the face.

Ningning whimpered. And she came. Just like that.

Her whole body snapped, her legs clamped around my head, and she screamed—a loud, wild sound that cracked halfway through.

I didn’t stop.

I licked harder, deeper, fucked her until she was sobbing.

Giselle reached back and pinched her nipple, twisted it until she was writhing beneath both of us.

“Please—please—I can’t—I can’t—” Ningning begged, shaking.

I pulled back, just enough to speak.

“You can.”

Then shoved my tongue back in.

She screamed again. And broke.

Tears streamed down her face. Her body thrashed. Her thighs shook. She came so hard she soaked my mouth, the sheets, everything.

She looked ruined. Beautifully, perfectly ruined. And we weren’t done. She was still cuffed.

Still flushed from the last orgasm, thighs twitching, lips parted like she needed more but wouldn’t admit it. Her body said yes, but her eyes? Still holding that spark. That edge.

The brat hadn’t surrendered.

Yet.

I knelt beside her, dragging two fingers along her inner thigh. She shivered, but didn’t move. Her hands tugged at the cuffs. Not to escape—just to feel it.

“You look good like this,” I said.

She turned her head, eyes locking with mine. Her smirk was faint but there.

“Don’t think I’m saying thank you.”

I grinned. “Didn’t ask.”

I leaned in, stroked her cheek. She let me. But when I brushed my thumb across her lip—

“Don’t call me baby,” she said sharply.

I blinked. “What?”

“Or princess. I’m not your little anything.”

Giselle let out a slow laugh behind me. She was sprawled on her side, legs still damp and red from where Ningning had wrecked her earlier. She propped herself up on one elbow and raised an eyebrow.

“Well. That’s new.”

Ningning tugged at her cuffs again, chin tilted high.

“I can take whatever you throw at me,” she said. “But don’t think I’m one of your soft little toys. You don’t own me.”

Her voice cracked just slightly on the last word.

I reached out and grabbed her jaw, not hard—just firm enough to stop the noise.

“Not yet,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed.

And I saw it—the flash of heat beneath her defiance. She liked pushing. She just didn’t know how much she wanted to be pushed back.

I leaned closer. My cock pressed against her cheek, wet and heavy.

“You open your mouth when I tell you.”

She stared up at me. Didn’t move.

So I slapped her. Not hard. Just enough to sting. Enough to make her eyes widen.

“Open.”

She did. But her glare didn’t drop.

I slid in—slow at first, letting her feel the weight of it on her tongue. Her throat clenched reflexively. She gagged once. Then again. But she didn’t pull back.

Didn’t whimper. Didn’t break.

Not yet.

I grabbed her hair and started to move. Shallow thrusts at first, then deeper. Her spit coated everything. Her chest rose faster, her toes curled against the sheets. But her eyes never softened.

Giselle moved behind me and slid her fingers between Ningning’s legs.

“She’s soaked,” she said softly. “But still so fucking proud.”

“Not for long,” I muttered.

I shoved deeper. Ningning’s moan caught in her throat. She tried to twist her hips—away or toward, I couldn’t tell. Her body wanted it even if her pride didn’t.

“You gonna be good for us?” I asked, sliding out just enough for her to speak.

She coughed once. Spit clung to her chin.

“Fuck. You.”

I smirked.

“Princess, huh?” Giselle said, fingering her faster.

“I said—fuck—don’t—call me—”

Her voice broke. Her hips bucked.

“You feel that?” I growled. “That’s your body saying yes while your mouth still lies.”

She moaned. Loud. Uncontrolled.

And I knew. The brat act was unraveling. Bit by bit, she was starting to need this. Starting to fall. She was trying so fucking hard to hold it together.

Giselle had her fingers back inside her, slow and cruel. My cock rested heavy against Ningning’s cheek, glistening from where she’d gagged and moaned and nearly choked around it. And still—somehow—she had that look.

Like she was stronger than this. Like she could come out the other side and laugh in our faces.

Her wrists tugged uselessly against the cuffs.

Her legs shook.

And when Giselle curled her fingers just right, she flinched—but bit her lip instead of screaming.

“Still holding on, huh?” I said.

She didn’t look at me. Didn’t dare.

“Answer me, princess.”

Her jaw tightened. “I’m not your princess.”

Giselle laughed softly and pressed a kiss to her stomach. “She’s still got fight.”

“Not for long,” I muttered.

I slid two fingers into her mouth. Wet. Rough. She moaned around them—but she didn’t suck. Didn’t give me that satisfaction.

So I pulled them out.

And slapped her clit with the fingers.

She screamed. Her hips jerked off the mattress—and I knew that one was close. I could feel it in her body. That tension. That edge. But Giselle pulled her fingers out.

I slapped her pussy again—light, fast, just enough to drag her back down.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“I—fuck—please—”

“Please what?”

She bit her lip again. Hard. And that pissed me off.

So I leaned down and bit her nipple. Not gently.

She arched off the bed, crying out as I sucked hard, teeth grazing the soft skin until her breath came in sobbing gasps.

“Still not ours?” I growled against her chest.

She shook her head. “I—I—”

Another moan. Her hips twisted again, looking for anything—anything—to grind against.

Giselle smirked, brushing her lips across Ningning’s inner thigh.

“She’s close.”

“She doesn’t get to be.”

I reached down and rubbed her clit in hard, fast circles—just enough to make her hips stutter, her mouth drop open—

Then stopped. She let out a ragged cry, almost a sob. I did it again. Same rhythm. Same pressure.

Then stopped right at the edge.

“No!” she gasped, pulling at the cuffs. “No, please—I was—fuck—I was—”

“You were what?” Giselle asked sweetly, kissing her hipbone. “Cumming? About to cum for us?”

She whimpered. But still didn’t say it.

So we did it again.

And again.

And again.

Ten times.

Twenty.

Every time she got close—every time her body started to tremble, every time her moans pitched up, every time she gasped like she couldn’t breathe—

We stopped. And every time, she begged a little harder. Not for release. Not yet. But for mercy. For anything.

Her thighs were soaked. Her voice was shot. Her chest was flushed and rising in frantic waves.

She was breaking.

Finally.

“Please,” she panted. “Please—I need to—I can’t—”

“You can,” I said. “You will.”

“I’ll be good,” she whispered.

I tilted my head. “Say it louder.”

“I’ll be good.”

“Say what you are.”

She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Don’t make me—”

I grabbed her jaw. “Say. It.”

She choked on the words. Struggled. Fought.

Then, finally—

“I’m yours.”

I paused.

Giselle looked up at me.

I leaned down.

“You’re whose?”

She moaned.

“Yours, Mylo. Giselle’s. Yours. I—I belong to you—please—please let me—”

But we didn’t.

Not yet.

She hadn’t earned it.

And she knew it.

Tears slid down her cheeks. Her pussy clenched around nothing. Her body bucked, straining against the edge we held her on like it might kill her to stay there.

She didn’t say no anymore. She didn’t say anything. Just soft, broken whimpers of please, over and over, like a mantra. Like worship. Like surrender.

And when I slid my fingers into her mouth again, she sucked them eagerly—desperate, needy, completely wrecked.

Giselle leaned up and kissed her cheek, soft and slow.

“That’s our baby.”

And this time?

Ningning didn’t protest.

She was crying now.

Not sobbing. Not afraid. Just… shaking with the need. Her cheeks were wet, lips swollen, arms stretched taut against the cuffs above her head. Her body had given up. Her pride was gone. The brat? Buried under sweat, spit, and surrender.

I cupped her jaw and tilted her face toward mine.

“Say it again.”

Her voice was barely there. A rasp soaked in tears and desperation.

“I belong to you…”

“To who?”

She swallowed. “You. Mylo. Giselle. Yours—fuck, I’m yours—”

Giselle kissed the inside of her knee.

“Good girl.”

Her legs fell open wider without us even asking. Her eyes flicked from me to Giselle to the space between her thighs, like she didn’t know what she wanted first—just that she needed it.

“Let her have it,” Giselle said, crawling up beside me. “She earned it.”

“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing one knuckle against Ningning’s oversensitive clit. “Feels like we should make her say it one more time.”

She gasped.

“I’ll say anything,” she breathed. “Please—I’ll say anything—do anything—”

I slid two fingers inside her and watched her whole body seize up.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yes! Please—I—I need to—please—I can’t take—”

I added a third finger.

She screamed. Her hips lifted off the bed, her cuffs rattling hard enough to shake the headboard. Giselle sucked on her nipple, tongue flicking fast. “Come for us, baby.” she whispered.

And Ningning broke. Hard.

Her orgasm ripped through her like lightning—violent and loud and devastating. Her back arched. Her mouth dropped open. And the sound she made? It didn’t even sound human.

“AAHHH—fuhhh—MYYLO—fuckfuckfuck—I’M CUMMING—!”

Her pussy clamped down on my fingers like she never wanted them to leave. She was twitching, shaking, gasping—eyes wild, legs kicking.

And it didn’t stop. Because I didn’t stop. Neither did Giselle. We forced it to keep going. Over and over.

Every time her voice cracked, I curled my fingers deeper. Every time her thighs locked, Giselle dragged her tongue up the inside of one. Every time she cried out, we gave her more.

Until she was nothing but sound and wetness and broken moans.

Until she was limp in the cuffs, eyes glassy, mouth slack.

Until she whispered it on her own—no prompting, no order.

“I’m yours,” she breathed, again and again. “Yours… yours… yours…”

And we believed her.

Because now?

She knew.

The only sound in the room was Ningning’s breathing—broken, shallow, too light for someone who’d just screamed her voice raw.

She hadn’t moved.

Her body was slack, arms still stretched from the cuffs, wrists pink. The defiance that had burned in her just minutes ago had vanished, drained out through her skin along with everything else. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t look at either of us.

I didn’t wait.

I got up first. Found a fresh towel, ran warm water from the bathroom sink. I soaked it, wrung it out. The mirror caught my reflection for a second—hair wrecked, chest rising with the kind of high that comes only from the most intense experiences.

But I wasn’t thinking about myself.

I was already back at the bed, already kneeling beside her.

Ningning flinched slightly when the towel touched her inner thigh.

“Easy,” I said, my voice lower, slower now.

Her eyes opened—barely. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

She blinked, trying to focus. “I feel…”

“Overloaded,” I said. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”

Giselle watched from the other side, head propped in her hand, gaze soft but quiet now. She didn’t move to interfere.

I ran the towel between Ningning’s legs, gentle, careful, like I was wiping away more than just the mess. Her breath hitched. Not from pain. From… whatever was settling in her now. She turned her face toward the sheets and let me keep going.

“Let me see your wrists.”

She hesitated. Then raised them.

Pink. A little red. No welts, no breaks. Just pressure marks. I kissed each one without thinking, then rubbed my thumbs in slow circles over the skin.

“You okay?”

Her throat worked. “I think I left my body.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

She made a small noise—not quite a laugh. Then: “I wasn’t expecting… all that.”

“You didn’t have to be. We were watching you.”

“I liked it.”

“I know,” I said, brushing her hair back from her damp forehead. “That’s why we did it.”

Her lashes fluttered. She looked tired. Glowing. Messy and open and real in a way I hadn’t seen before.

“Do you want some water?” I asked.

She nodded.

I helped her sit up, cradling the back of her neck with one hand, slipping the bottle to her lips with the other. She drank slow, eyes on me the whole time.

When she finished, I wiped her mouth and kissed her cheek.

She closed her eyes again and leaned against me.

No words. No bratty lines. No biting.

Just trust.

That weight hit me all at once. She’d let us wreck her. And now she was letting me hold what was left.

Giselle finally moved, pulling a blanket up over Ningning’s legs. She didn’t speak—just rested a hand on her thigh and met my eyes.

You’re doing good, that look said.

I wrapped both arms around Ningning and let her settle into my chest.

“Stay here,” I said. “Just breathe. I’ve got you.”

And she did.

Ningning was warm against me. Warm and limp, her body curled into my side like she belonged there, her breath still a little shaky. She hadn’t said much since she came down. Just small hums, tiny nods. I kept stroking her hair.

PART 5

[asce-of-hearts]

Sukuna told you he would be getting a new tattoo. Nothing out of the ordinary, I mean, the man was already drenched in ink. Tribal lines and other stuff that made him look all the more masculine.

And then, when you arrive home after a not-so-great day at work. You see it, and your eyes widen, and you gasp in horror.

"You—! You did not!" Your hands come to cover your mouth, in pure shock. And he cocks a brow, still applying some soothing ointment over his skin.

"Did not what?" He asks, spreading his legs further on the couch, as if inviting you to come sit over his lap.

"That's— That's my fucking name, Sukuna!" You come closer, before you touch it you quickly run to the bathroom and wash your hands, then come back. How amusing, you remind him of a little mouse at times. All cute and skittish. Finally, you run your hands over the expanse of skin, where your name and his last name is written in bold italics. All over his left clavicle. "Why did you do this?" You ask in a whimper, lower lip trembling. And he only looks around in utter confussion.

"So everyone knows I'm yours?" He says, it sounds like a question but you know it's a statement, a fact.

"You're not a dog!"

"But I can be. For you."

"That's besides the point!" You say, already flustered. Finally, sitting over his lap, hiding your face in the crook of his neck, shaking.

"I don't get why you're so upset," He sighs, rubbing a hand all over your back. "It's not like I got... I don't know— Another name tattooed." He grumbles, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

"Because it's... I don't know," You sigh. "Now I feel obligated to get yours."

"Oho?" He smirks, cupping your face between his two enormous hands. "Trust me. It would be my pleasure to have you branded as mine."

TAG LIST

SUKUNA M.LIST

TAGGING: @sunnymmoon @lilithlunas @imvivian @purplechan9 @eroscastle @goldenglow149 @lurexin @stranger00001 @delicatelycraftedbambi @rania200527 @mizzhellsingsstuff @lakxcpsta @coolnekochan9961 @notreallyablogger @lilyalone @oliviathatgirl @eeelieschariot @hannas16 @surelynotaspider @mimihaitani @raxshall @ayn-yurbestie @jellystar-star @janeisnotonline @sukunaspillow @architectofsuffering @mrstraffy @mikeysonlywaifu @w1tchyaurea @poopooindamouf @samstrav @yutterfly @staarflowerr @nanamiswife

[spikedfearn]

Bloodbound

one-shot

Remmick x fem!reader

summary: In Godthrone, Mississippi, salvation comes at a cost: one girl, every ten years. Bound beneath a blood moon to Remmick, you become more than offering. You become his. He tastes your terror like honey, drinks your arousal like wine, and marks you in ways no god could forgive. Through soul-binding magic and whispered vows carved into skin, you learn that some monsters don’t take—they tether. And once you're his, there's no such thing as free will.

Only desire. Only devotion. Only him.

wc: 15.3k

a/n: I don’t even know where to begin—I’m still trying to process the fact that Brittany Broski posted Mercy Made Flesh to her insta story like it was just another Saturday and not the coolest thing that's ever fucking happened to me 😭 I’ve been writing these aus with my whole heart, but I never expected the absolute avalanche of love and support these past couple of weeks. The comments, the reblogs, the screaming in the tags. It’s meant more than I can say, you have all helped me find the joy in writing again, I promise I’m just getting started <333 and an extra big thank you to Liz @fuckoffbard for swooping in and not only beta reading but posting the fic from my account with her laptop bc Tumblr mobile kept crashing on me every time I tried to edit it. Not all heroes wear capes

warnings: possessive vampire, blood kink, bite kink, soulbonding, dubcon elements, obsession, marking, monsterfucking, ritual sacrifice, forced proximity, loss of agency, manipulation, primal sex, size kink, somnophilia (implied), power imbalance, breeding kink (suggestive), Southern Gothic horror, emotional coercion, sacred corruption, body worship, predator/prey dynamics, fear kink, aftercare, blood drinking, religious overtones, stockholm syndrome elements

tags: @sweetheart2210, @seashelleseashellsbytheseashore, @cosmicneptune (comment if you wanna be added to the tag list)

likes, comments, and reblogs always appreciated, please enjoy!!

They told you not to cry.

The priestess with the burnt fingertips and clinking bone necklace—she gripped your chin between cracked fingers this morning and said it soft, but firm: “He won’t choose the ones who cry. He likes a little fight.”

You didn’t ask who he was. Everyone knows. They say his name like the air around it might curdle. Remmick. No surname. No title. Just Remmick, the vampire king of the blighted woods, the monster who made your town a deal eighty years ago and never broke it.

Not once.

The sun rose slowly this morning, heavy with heat that made the back of your dress stick to your spine before you even got out the door. The August air tastes like rot and copper. You dressed in the church’s parlor room, with the other girls. Seventeen of you. All local. All barely women, but old enough for sacrifice. The law calls it The Binding, but everyone calls it what it is: Bloodbriding.

Your dress is cotton muslin, faded sky-blue with a high collar and puffed sleeves. You think it used to be a baptismal gown. It’s been worn before, passed from girl to girl, all of them marked and married off to the dead. It smells like dried lavender and fear. The buttons up your back had to be done by the priestess. You couldn’t stop trembling.

The town of Godthrone, Mississippi was dying even before the Great Depression turned fields to dust and fathers into ghosts. But they say things changed in 1853, when Remmick came up from the swamps with hunger in his eyes and a deal in his mouth. He would protect the town from sickness, starvation, and war. No one from Godthrone would suffer famine, plague, or enemy. In return, every ten years, a bride would be chosen.

One bride. One binding. One soul fed to the dark.

They tried sending soldiers once, back in 1891. Sixteen went into the woods. None came back whole. Some came back dead. Some came back wrong. One woman started speaking tongues until her mouth filled with spiders. After that, they stopped questioning the pact. Instead, they polished it, sanctified it. Made it a ceremony. A celebration.

Tonight, the Choosing will be held in the town square. You will be walked up barefoot, hair unbound, throat bare. They say the mark will bloom on the girl he wants. A burning, black sigil over the heart. Like a brand. Like a marriage license signed in blood.

Your fingers clutch the hem of your dress. Your name is somewhere on the roster. Somewhere between Eleanor Avery and Ruth Jameson, though it's hard to keep track when the names aren't arranged in alphabetical order.

You haven’t eaten since yesterday. You haven’t even had your first kiss and you’re ridiculously terrified. Because you’ve dreamt of serrated teeth in the dark for weeks now. Because your skin itches like something under it wants out. Because when you close your eyes, you swear you can feel someone watching. Someone already choosing.

And the sun is starting to go down.

They say only the pure get chosen. But that’s a lie. You’ve seen who’s been taken before.

Rebecca Sue, who slit her baby sister’s throat in a fever dream. Agnes Miller, who used to take men’s teeth as trophies.

None of them were pure. They were just...unlucky. Or pretty. Or strange enough that no one would miss them.

You’ve always known you were one of those girls. Born during a blood moon, baptized late because no one could find your daddy until spring thaw—when they fished him out of the river with his eyes missing and his hands gnawed to bone. Your mama didn’t cry. Just braided your hair tighter that morning and told you to never kiss a man with a gold chain or blue eyes. Said they never bring nothin’ but grief.

She died a year later. Something in her blood turned sour. The town doctor wouldn’t touch her. Said it was Remmick’s curse, passed down from when she laid with a man not her husband. Said that’s what happens when women sin.

You were seven when she died. You remember the flies buzzing in her throat. You remember how quiet the house got after. They moved you into the orphan house at the edge of the bog. You learned quickly not to cry at night. Crying brought the wrong kind of attention. So you got good at being quiet. Good at disappearing. Good at keeping secrets under your tongue until they turned bitter and black.

You never learned to curtsy right. You never kept your head bowed during sermons. But you were beautiful, and that was enough. Curious eyes, soft demeanor, a voice like river water. You didn’t want to be, but beauty in Godthrone is a death sentence wrapped in silk.

And now here you are.

Twenty-one and cursed with symmetry.

Chosen to stand under the sickle moon tonight, wearing a dead girl’s dress and nothing else beneath it. Your whole life leading to this—one slow march toward a monster’s mouth.

The town pretends this is holy. They hang garlands on the chapel door and sing hymns in minor chords. The mayor’s wife gave you perfume, lemon balm and sugar, and told you to “make the town proud.” Her eyes didn’t meet yours.

You think about running. You always think about running. But there’s nowhere to go. Not with that feeling in your chest. That strange pull. That sense of something waiting. Something with teeth.

And a name you never dared say out loud until last night. Whispered into your pillow like a prayer. Like a confession.

Remmick.

Your skin burns when you think about it now.

There are stories, of course. Every girl who grows up in Godthrone hears them. They start as whispers during thunderstorms—told under quilts with a candle burning low, shared like secrets between girls too young to know better and too scared not to listen.

“He walks on graves and doesn’t leave footprints.” “He drinks from animals and people, unless he’s claimed you.” “If he marks you, you’ll never want anyone else. Even if you try.”

But the worst ones are the quietest. The ones passed from dying lips to trembling ears. The ones that don’t sound like warnings—they sound like wishes.

“He touched me once. I haven’t known peace since.”

There was one girl—Celia Mott—who came back. Just once. Just long enough to be seen. The Binding year of 1911. She walked into the town square three years later, barefoot and smiling with red-stained teeth. Hair grown long and wild, white dress yellowed with age, eyes gone black. She didn’t speak. Not even once. Just walked right into the chapel and curled up on the altar like a dog. They found her there the next morning, hands folded on her chest, body cold as the river.

No one talks about Celia. But everyone remembers her. You remember her.

You were only thirteen, peeking through a knothole in the chapel wall. You watched as they wrapped her in burlap and buried her deep. You remember thinking she looked peaceful. You remember being jealous. That was the first time you ever said his name, whispered into the dirt above her grave. Not out of fear. Not even hate. Curiosity.

Because what kind of man makes a girl lie down and die smiling?

You used to wonder what he looked like. The other girls said he was monstrous, with claws for hands and eyes that burned like oil lamps in the dark. But that never sat right with you. You don’t think a creature that ancient would need to be grotesque to be feared. You think he’d be beautiful—awfully, unnaturally beautiful. The kind of beautiful that keeps you up at night, sick with craving.

And that’s the part that terrifies you most. Because somewhere in the dark part of you—the part that still dreams of blood-slick mouths and hands around your throat—you want it.

You want to know if he’ll kiss you first or just bite. You want to know what it feels like when the bond takes. You want to know if the mark will hurt as much as it’s supposed to. You want to know if you’ll scream.

You press your palm flat to your chest. Nothing yet. No mark. No burn. No claim. But you swear—you swear—you can feel something there. Like a match waiting to strike. Like teeth ghosting your skin. Like someone’s already touching you from the other side of the veil.

The sun is sinking lower. The bell will ring soon.

And then—the chapel doors open like a serpent unhinging its maw.

Wood creaks. Heat rushes in. And for a second, you don’t move. Then the priestess nods. Just once. That’s your cue.

You step forward on bare feet, feeling every splinter in the boards, every grain of dirt that clings to your soles as you pass the threshold and step into the sweltering dusk. The sky bleeds orange and purple, clouds dragging low like bruises. Somewhere, a cicada screams. And just like that—it begins.

The town square is only five blocks away, but the walk feels like miles. You don’t look at the people lined along the street—don’t dare. You can feel their eyes anyway. Heavy as wet cloth, pricking your skin like pins. Old women in rust-stained aprons. Young boys clutching their mothers' skirts. Men who won’t meet your gaze but still lean in for a better look.

It feels like being paraded through the gallows. Or the garden before slaughter.

The other girls walk ahead and behind you, a procession of blue and white and shaking, anxious limbs. No one speaks. Even the priestess has fallen silent. The only sound is the crunch of gravel underfoot, and the dry shush of cotton brushing thighs.

Your heart beats so loud it’s all you hear. It doesn’t sound like fear anymore. It sounds like an invocation.

The town square unfolds in front of the old courthouse, the brick stained dark from a fire no one talks about anymore. There’s a raised wooden platform at the center—built just for this, just for tonight. The gallows rope is still looped overhead, a relic from older rituals, back when Binding meant hanging the chosen until they gasped awake with his name on their lips.

Now it’s cleaner. More sacred.

They say he prefers it that way.

Gas lanterns flicker along the perimeter, casting warped shadows over the crowd. Wreaths of night jasmine hang from the eaves, their scent thick and cloying in the heat. Everything smells like smoke and sugar and sweat. It makes your stomach roll.

The girls are led to the platform and lined up—seventeen of you, barefoot on the warm planks, hands clasped at your waists like dolls posed for judgment. The crowd stares. Some murmur prayers. Some cry. And some just watch.

You keep your chin up. Not out of pride. But because you know he’s watching too. Somewhere. Behind the crowd. Behind the dusk. Behind the veil of what’s seen and what isn’t.

You can feel it. That tickle at the base of your spine. That breath against your collar. That heartbeat that doesn’t match your own.

The mayor steps forward. Fat and red-faced in a linen suit too tight for the heat. He clears his throat. The priestess lights the ceremonial flame in a basin of copper and bone. She whispers in a language that isn’t English, isn’t Latin, but makes your skin crawl all the same. The fire flares blue.

The bell tolls from the chapel behind you. One. Your pulse stutters. Every eye is on you. Two. You glance down. No mark. Just the flutter of your own chest, just the sickly thrill under your ribs. Three. You feel the wind change. Just slightly. Like something just arrived. Four. The bell keeps tolling, steady as a countdown. Or a death knell.

You don’t flinch, but your knees feel loose. Like they’re no longer yours. Like the wood beneath your feet is suddenly shifting grain, trying to swallow you whole.

The priestess raises both arms. Her voice, when it comes, isn’t loud, but it carries. Thin and sharp and dry as snakeskin. “By covenant sealed and blood remembered, we offer our daughters.”

The crowd murmurs the response: "May He spare the many, and take only the one."

Five. You keep your eyes straight ahead. The girl next to you, Ruth Jameson, is breathing so fast she sounds like a kettle about to boil. She’s a preacher’s daughter. Always wore gloves, even in the summer. Once slapped you for speaking during Sunday reading. You almost hope it’s her.

Let it be her. Or Eleanor Avery. Or Violet Price with the thick braid and expensive teeth. They’re prettier. Cleaner. More practiced in obedience. You’ve heard the whispers that the vampire favors grace, not sharp girls who talk too little and think too much.

Six.

You exhale slow through your nose. Try to imagine the town square without people in it. Try to remember how it looked in winter, dusted with sleet and full of silence. Try to picture yourself anywhere else. You can’t.

The priestess begins the litany. A string of old names, spoken in a dialect that feels like ash in your ears. “Ishari. Vael. Thorne. Kelrem. Narthyx…”

The words twist like vines around your ankles, tight and burning. They say the names are the True Ones. The old ones. The first vampires. Remmick’s forebears, or his victims, no one’s really sure. You doubt there’s a difference.

Seven.

The wind shifts again. This time, everyone feels it. A ripple goes through the crowd—silent, almost reverent. A little boy starts to cry and is shushed immediately. You don’t dare move. You feel it too. It’s like being brushed by something that isn’t there. A pressure. A pull. Like your body isn’t entirely your own anymore.

Still, no mark.

You wonder if you’ll even know when it comes. If it will be sudden. Sharp. Like lightning. Or if it’ll be slow. Like seduction. Like being kissed where no one else can see.

Eight.

The priestess’s eyes are closed now. The other girls tremble. Someone is crying. You’re not sure who. You dare a glance to your left. Eleanor’s lips are moving, silent prayer or quiet bargaining. She looks ready to faint. Her hands are shaking. You look to your right. Ruth’s eyes are squeezed shut, lashes wet. No one is looking at you.

Good. Let it be one of them. Let it not be you. Please.

Nine.

The priestess holds up a small obsidian dagger. Cuts the palm of her hand and lets the blood drip into the blue flame. It hisses, high-pitched and eager.

You smell it instantly.

Not like iron. Like something older. Like the scent of a crypt cracked open.

Ten.

The bell stops. The crowd holds its breath. The fire roars. The flame in the basin spits.

Blue arcs to white. The heat radiates across the platform, and the priestess steps back, blood dripping down her wrist like ink on a parchment soaked too long. Still no mark on your skin. Still no voice in your ear. Still no rush of fire behind your ribs.

You let your shoulders lower a fraction, just enough to feel the strain begin to ease. Just enough to believe—maybe—it’s not you.

Maybe you were only ever meant to stand here, to be one of the extras. The backdrop to someone else’s fate. One of the girls who’ll go home tonight, pale and trembling and untouched.

You could live with that. You could learn to breathe again.

You could get married someday to someone simple and safe. A man with kind eyes and a little farmland. You could forget this ever happened, could press it flat like a pressed flower between the pages of your life. You’re almost ready to believe it.

Until the silence begins to stretch. And stretch. And stretch. Too long. Too unnatural.

The crowd is still holding its breath. But now, they’re waiting. Expectant. The air isn’t quiet—it’s thick. Charged. Like a storm that hasn’t broken yet, a scream that hasn’t been released. You swear the ground hums.

Your skin itches.

Not with sweat. Not with fear. But with awareness.

The priestess’s head cocks slightly to the left. She doesn’t move otherwise. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak.

And then the lamps flicker. All at once.

Not a breeze. Not a draft. It’s something deeper. Something below.

A mother in the front row lets out a sob. Her child starts crying again. No one hushes him this time.

The flame gutters low.

You see your breath fog in front of you.

It’s August. The air should feel like soup. But all at once, it’s cold.

A cold that doesn’t touch your skin—it touches your soul. And that’s when you feel it.

Not a mark. Not yet. But the presence. The knowing. It’s here. And it’s looking at you.

You don’t see him at first. You feel him.

Like being plunged into deep water. That gut-punch plunge, that pressure in your ears, that moment of suspended breath where your body forgets how to float. The world narrows. The noise dulls. Every hair on your body rises like it’s been called to attention.

The flame sputters. The priestess lowers her head, and the entire crowd follows. All at once, the square is bowing. No one told you that would happen. The girls beside you drop their gazes. You remain upright.

Too stunned. Too still.

And then you hear it.

Bootsteps.

Slow. Measured.

Bootsteps on gravel, a sound far too ordinary for something this monstrous.

And still, you don’t look. You can’t.

Because your chest is burning.

It starts beneath your collarbone. A single point of heat, sharp as a blade, blossoming outward like ink in water. You gasp, clutch at your heart—but nothing’s there.

No wound. Just pain. Just…change. You look down and see it bloom.

A mark.

Black and bright and moving, like a tattoo drawn by something alive. Swirling patterns, sharp edges and curling lines that twist and wind down your chest. You hear someone cry out—a choked sound, like a girl breaking open—but you don’t realize it’s you until the priestess grips your arm to keep you from falling.

She’s smiling. “The chosen,” she whispers.

And that’s when he speaks.

Not loud. Not rushed.

But his voice cuts through the air like a blade through silk.

“Lift yer head.”

You don’t mean to obey. But your chin rises.

And there he is. At the base of the platform. Not monstrous. Not grotesque.

But broad and pale, dressed in black that doesn’t shine, hair slicked back like wet ink, and eyes the color of dried blood and dying embers. There’s no mistaking him. No imagining he might be a man. He is not a man.

He is the end of prayers. The promise of ruin. The reason the dark exists. Remmick. And he’s looking only at you.

Possession, raw and ravenous, carved into every angle of his face.

“C’mere, little bride,” he says, softly.

And when you step forward—shaking, burning, claimed—it’s not because they all told you to. It’s because you want to.

You step down from the platform one trembling foot at a time.

The crowd doesn’t make a sound. No cheers. No wails. Not even a rustle of skirts or a cough from the old men lining the back.

Just silence.

The kind that feels held—like a breath everyone’s too afraid to release.

Your bare feet meet the packed earth. It’s warm from the heat of the day but it may as well be ice. You can’t feel anything but the burn of the mark, pulsing like a second heart beneath your skin. Every beat of it syncs with something that doesn’t belong to you. Something older.

Remmick waits at the bottom step.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. He just watches you walk to him—like he knew you’d come, like the ceremony was nothing more than a formality. A ritual to dress up inevitability.

You stop just before him. Close enough to feel the wrongness that coils around him like smoke. It doesn’t repel you. It draws you. Makes your blood thrum, makes your mouth dry, makes your thighs clench in a way that shames you instantly. You pray he can’t tell.

Then he lifts a hand. And brushes his thumb lightly across the mark.

Your knees nearly give.

The touch is not cruel. It’s not even forceful. But it ignites something deep, something coiled and ancient inside you. The mark responds—flaring hotter, the lines shifting under his skin like they recognize him.

And then his eyes meet yours. That red glint beneath the dark, sharp and knowing.

“Felt ya long before this,” he murmurs. His voice isn’t deep. It’s smooth. Clear. Cold. “Y’cried my name in yer sleep last week.”

Your breath catches. You didn’t even remember dreaming. But he speaks it like truth. Like he was there.

“Almost took ya then,” he says, dragging his gaze down your body, slow and deliberate. “But this here's cleaner.”

He leans in. And you flinch.

He pauses—just a hair—and then his mouth is at your ear.

“Like when they tremble,” he whispers, voice full of something dark and warm and terrifyingly pleased. “But I like it more when they beg.”

Your breath hitches so violently it hurts. And then his nose drags along the line of your throat. He inhales. A shiver tears through you, sharp and helpless.

“Smell like mine.”

He says it like a promise. Like a curse. Like a man who doesn’t need to raise his voice to ruin you.

The mark burns.

And your body answers with something shameful and wet.

His hand slips to the back of your neck, cool fingers cradling the base of your skull. “I can feel ya now, little bride,” he says, voice softer. Hungrier. “Every shiver. Every ache. Every time yer thighs press together ‘cause yer thinkin’ of me.”

You want to say no. You want to say stop.

But your lips part— —and all that comes out is a broken, traitorous moan.

The crowd still doesn’t move. The priestess watches with her hands folded. And Remmick, smiling now, presses his lips to your jaw—not a kiss, not yet—and whispers:

“We begin tonight.”

They don't clap. No one dares.

The moment he speaks, the crowd begins to part like a body splitting open. Quietly. Obediently. As if on cue.

Remmick doesn't take your hand. He doesn’t have to. You follow him. You don't look back.

The crowd watches in total silence, as though afraid that one misstep, one murmur, might draw his attention. You feel their eyes on you—burning, curious, afraid. But none of them move to stop you. No one calls your name. No one tries to say goodbye.

And somehow that hurts worse than if they had.

The mark on your chest is still searing, like hot iron beneath your skin. But it’s not just pain anymore—it’s pull. With every step you take behind him, it feels stronger. Hungrier. You feel him through it now. A weight in your gut. A throb between your legs. An ache in the part of you that shouldn’t want this, but does.

You wonder if he feels it too. You don’t have to wait long to find out.

Halfway down the path, Remmick pauses, turns his head just slightly—not enough to see his whole face, just the ghost of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. “Stop squeezin’ yer thighs together like that,” he says without looking at you. “Ain’t polite.”

Your cheeks go hot. You hadn’t even noticed you were doing it. Instinct. Reflex. Shame flickers to life—but it doesn’t stay long. Not when he glances back, finally, and meets your eyes with something wicked and low in his voice.

“Though I do like it.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. You just keep walking.

Remmick’s estate lies on the edge of the woods, past the last row of homes where the gas lamps thin and the road turns to dirt. The air shifts the moment you cross the boundary—cooler, thicker. It feels like stepping into another world. A forgotten place. The trees here lean too close. The moss drips like old lace. You see stones sunk into the earth along the path, names long worn away. Grave markers, maybe. Or warnings.

The carriage is waiting for you.

Sleek, black, quiet. Not pulled by horses—those would never make it through these woods. Instead, it waits unnaturally still, shadows wrapping around its wheels, as if it simply appeared when called. Remmick holds the door open for you.

You pause.

Not because you’re afraid. But because everything in you wants to go in.

You hate how much you want it.

Inside, the cabin is too dark. Too cold. The seat cushions are velvet, the color of dried wine. There are no windows. Only candle sconces that haven’t been lit. You sit, carefully. Your thighs still sticky from earlier. You press your knees together and fold your hands in your lap like a good little bride.

Remmick follows. Closes the door behind him with a click.

You’re alone. Utterly, entirely alone.

And you feel the silence tighten around you like a glove.

Then he speaks. Low. Deliberate. “Take off the dress.”

You don’t move. You don’t breathe.

The words take off the dress still hang in the air—heavy, impossible to grasp, clinging to your skin in ways you can’t shake.

Your fingers twitch in your lap.

The candle sconces haven’t been lit, but you can see him anyway. The dark doesn’t seem to touch him, not really. His eyes are brighter in it. Redder. Watching you the way a wolf watches a trembling rabbit—not out of pity. Not out of malice, either. But with the certainty of hunger.

He leans back, legs spread, one arm resting along the velvet seat. Casual. Patient. Like he’s giving you a choice when you both know there isn’t one. “I won’t ask twice, sweetheart.”

The term of endearment doesn’t sound kind. It sounds dangerous.

Your breath comes shallow. You reach for the first button.

The collar is stiff, the thread old. You fumble. Your fingers feel clumsy, not from fear—but from how aware you are of his gaze. It traces every movement. Tracks the tremble in your hands. Watches your chest rise with every breath.

You get the first button undone. Then the second. The third.

The dress loosens across your shoulders. The mark, still searing hot and alive, seems to pulse brighter in the air between you. It aches when you drag the fabric down your arms, exposing more of it. The gown drops to your waist, then your hips. You shift to slide it lower.

Remmick still hasn’t moved.

But the air has. It feels denser now. Like you’ve stepped inside his lungs and forgotten how to breathe on your own.

When the dress slips past your thighs and pools at your feet, you’re left in nothing.

No underthings. No slip.

Just bare skin and that still-burning sigil over your heart.

Your hands twitch up to cover yourself—reflex, instinct, shame—but his voice stops you before they reach your chest.

“Don’t.” One word. Quiet. But it scalds.

You obey. Your arms drop.

He finally leans forward.

His palm drags over his jaw as he takes you in, slow and deliberate. You expect him to leer. To lick his lips or reach for you like you’re already his. But instead, he just looks.

Like he’s seeing something holy.

And then, softly—more to himself than to you—he says, “Fuckin’ beautiful.”

You bite your lip.

Something twists in your belly. Something hot and low and helpless.

He leans in, elbows resting on his knees, and murmurs: “Y’don’t even know what yer feelin’, do ya?”

You try to speak, but your throat’s too dry.

He tilts his head, watching the way your thighs inch together again. “That’s the bond, love. That ache? That throb in yer cunt? That heat sittin’ behind yer ribs like a sin waitin’ to be confessed?”

His voice drops even lower.

“That’s me.”

You shudder. The mark pulses.

And Remmick, grinning now—slow, sharp, possessive—reaches out, thumb brushing just under the curve of your breast, not quite touching the mark but close enough that it sparks again behind your ribs. “Y’feel me yet?” he asks.

You nod. Barely.

He laughs, soft and cruel and pleased. “Good. Then let’s make it permanent.”

Your breath stutters.

His thumb still lingers just below your breast, not quite touching the mark, but the heat from his skin radiates into yours like an ember pressed to parchment. You feel it coil low in your belly, tight and trembling.

And he sees it.

Of course he does.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, voice like smoke curling around your neck. “Already buzzin’ for me. And I haven’t even laid a proper hand on ya yet.”

He lets his fingers trail lightly down your sternum. Not rushed. Not greedy. It’s almost reverent—if reverence could be soaked in hunger. His fingertips drag over your ribs, then down to the soft dip between them, tracing lazy circles that never quite reach where you want.

The bond throbs between you like a living thing.

It doesn’t just burn. It pulls.

Each touch sends something electric singing across your nerves, as though your body’s not fully yours anymore—shared now, tied to something dark and breathing. Every sensation is heightened. The velvet seat beneath you feels too soft. The air feels too tight. And his touch?

His touch feels like command.

He leans closer. You feel his breath on your throat before you see his mouth. “Tell me where it hurts,” he whispers, and his tongue brushes the shell of your ear.

Your hips shift without permission. “Lower,” you manage, barely above a whisper.

Remmick hums. A dark, pleased sound. “Aye. Thought so.” He brings his hand to your thigh, palm broad and cool, fingers spreading to grip you firm. Not harsh. Not rough. But with purpose. Like he’s claiming the space. Like he already owns it. He pushes your legs apart slowly, and the bond sings when you don’t resist.

When you offer.

His gaze dips down.

And he groans—quiet, guttural. “Sweet fuckin’ Christ.”

You’re soaked.

Your body, treacherous and needy, has already given itself over. The mark glows faintly in the dark now, pulse-for-pulse with your heartbeat, lighting the curve of your breast and the sweat beading along your collar.

“You know what this is, don’t ya?” he says, dragging a finger up your inner thigh, stopping just shy of your center. “The bond’s settin’ in. Claimin’ ya. Makes every nerve scream for me. You’d let me do anything right now, wouldn’t ya?”

You want to say no. You really do. But your body says yes in a dozen ways. The way your breath shakes. The way your thighs tremble. The way your hips rock forward, desperate for any friction, even the ghost of it.

You meet his eyes. “Please,” you whisper. It slips out before you can stop it.

Remmick’s grin turns sharp. Triumphant. “Say it again.”

Your cheeks burn. But your body doesn’t hesitate. “Please.”

He moves then.

Not fast. Not rough. But with absolute, devastating intent.

He sinks to his knees in front of you. Not in worship. Not in submission. But in devouring anticipation.

His hands slide up your thighs, spreading them wider, and he presses a kiss just above your knee. Then another, higher. And another. Each one closer to the place that aches. The place he’s not touching.

Yet.

“You don’t even know what I’m about to do to ya,” he murmurs, mouth against your skin. “But yer body’s already beggin’.” He nips just above your hip, tongue soothing the sting. And finally, finally, his hand reaches the mark again—palm flat over your heart.

You jolt.

It feels like fire licking up your spine. Like something ancient waking up. Like something that says: Mine.

“Y’ready, little bride?” he asks, voice rough with hunger, reverent with power.

Because this is more than lust.

This is binding. This is belonging. And you’re about to be his—in every sense.

Your heart is a drum. A hammer. A hymn.

And Remmick holds it in his palm like he’s already broken it open and tasted what’s inside.

He watches you. Eyes dark, pupils wide, mouth parted—not in awe, not in shock, but in possession. Like a man handed his favorite weapon after years of war. Like he knows exactly how to use you. “Keep yer eyes on me,” he says softly.

You do. Because you can’t look away.

His thumb strokes over your mark, slow and possessive. The moment he presses down—just the lightest pressure—you gasp, full-body and shaking. It doesn’t hurt. It’s worse than that.

It undoes you.

Your back arches off the seat. A whimper slips past your lips, high and humiliating, and the fire under your skin blooms wider, deeper, lower.

“Good,” Remmick breathes, as if your body’s reaction is all the permission he needs. “Let it take ya.” He leans in again, lips brushing over the curve of your breast, just below the glowing sigil etched into your flesh. His mouth is soft. Cool. But where it touches, heat follows. Magic, maybe. Or something far filthier.

You shiver.

He trails his tongue in a slow, careful circle around the mark. Not kissing. Not biting. Just tasting.

You make a sound—something raw and helpless—and Remmick laughs, low in his throat. “Feel that?”

You nod, dazed.

He hums like he’s proud of you. Like he owns every breath you take now. “Bond’s startin’ to root,” he says against your skin. “It’s in the blood. In the muscle. Every heartbeat yer body makes now? It’s for me.”

His hand moves lower.

Fingers dragging down your belly, past your hip, settling between your thighs where you’re soaked and trembling and already spreading for him without thought. “You feel like sin,” he murmurs. “Gonna taste like salvation.” And then he finally, finally presses his mouth to the center of you.

You jerk. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

His tongue is slow at first, lazy, almost cruel in how lightly he licks. As if he’s savoring the fact that you’re shaking under him already. You try to move—try to rock against him—but his hands grip your thighs, holding you open, holding you still.

“This ain’t just fuckin’,” he rasps, voice muffled by your body. “This is the bind. This is me settin’ my claim.”

You moan. You whimper. And when his mouth closes over your clit and he sucks, your vision shatters.

It’s not just pleasure. It’s magic.

You feel it in your bones, in the roots of your teeth, in the back of your throat. You feel the bond snap into place like a tether. You feel him inside you—his hunger, his need, his desire—mirroring yours, amplifying it, turning you both into a single, burning thing.

You’re panting now. Desperate. Gone. “Remmick—” you gasp.

He groans like your voice alone could finish him.

You feel his tongue again—harder now, faster, coaxing your orgasm to the surface like a secret—and you give it to him. You give everything. You come with a cry, eyes wide, hips shaking, the mark on your chest glowing like fire in the dark. And Remmick?

He doesn’t stop.

Not until you’re slumped against the seat, legs still twitching, the bond humming under your skin like a satisfied beast. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Smirking.

“First part’s done,” he says, voice wrecked. “Now we finish it.”

He stands. Unbuckling his belt. Unbuttoning his trousers.

And between your thighs, your body begins to ache all over again.

You’re still trembling when he rises.

Remmick towers over you in the low flickering dark, the glow from your mark throwing soft gold light across the sharp bones of his face. He looks half-saint, half-devil—something carved out of hunger and patience, restraint and ruin.

He doesn’t touch you yet. Not again.

He just watches as you breathe, chest heaving, legs still slack and parted. And for a heartbeat, he says nothing. He simply drinks you in like a man parched. And then his voice cuts through the silence again—low, velvet-rough, intimate as a mouth pressed to your spine. “You’re takin’ it real pretty,” he murmurs, thumbing the buttons on his trousers loose one by one. “Didn’t think you’d fold that fast. But fuck, I felt it.”

Your body answers with a pulse.

You want to close your legs, to pull your dress back on, to shield yourself from how open he’s left you—but the bond won’t let you. It aches when you think about hiding. It pulls you back toward him, like a tide. Like gravity.

And he knows it.

He steps out of his slacks and lets his shirt hang open, chest pale and cut with the kind of lean strength you’ve only read about in books meant to be hidden under your mattress. His body is strong, scarred, real. A monument to the centuries he’s outlived.

Your eyes drop lower. And—god.

You freeze.

He’s hard already, thick and flushed, hanging heavy between his thighs, and for the first time since the mark bloomed, you feel a new kind of fear coil in your gut.

He’s going to ruin you.

And you want it so badly you could cry.

Remmick sees the way your gaze lingers. “‘S alright,” he says, stepping closer. “I’ll go slow. First time’s meant to sting a little.” His hand drags down your cheek, thumb brushing your lips. “But y’won’t be scared of the pain. Not when I’m the one givin’ it to ya.”

You make a sound in your throat—something small, breathless, wanting.

He strokes your jaw, then cups the back of your neck, guiding you gently down, down, until you’re laid out across the velvet bench seat. He doesn’t climb on top of you right away. He kneels beside the bench, one hand splayed wide across your ribs, the other pressing just above the mark on your chest.

The weight of it grounds you.

“Last chance, little bride,” he says softly, and there’s something raw beneath the teasing now. “After this, there ain’t no undoing it.”

You look up at him. And despite everything—despite the fear, the heat, the bond that feels like it’s branded your soul from the inside out—

You nod.

Remmick’s smile is slow. Tender. Like a secret finally answered.

“Atta girl.”

He leans down.And when his mouth presses over the mark—soft, sure, claiming—you swear your body catches fire all over again. His mouth seals over the mark, and it’s like being opened. Not physically—not yet—but inside. Beneath your ribs. Somewhere sacred.

You feel it the way thunder rolls over land—first a hush, then a tremble, then a crack that splits you straight down the middle. His lips part just enough for his tongue to drag across the sigil, and something ancient stirs to life.

The mark glows white-hot.

Your back bows off the seat. Your fingers clutch at velvet, at air, at him. A gasp tears from your throat, raw and keening.

Remmick moans against your chest. “There she is,” he rasps, mouth dragging lower, down the slope of your breast. “Fuck, yer soul’s singin’ for me now. Y’feel that? That little ache in the base of yer spine?”

You nod, frantic.

“It’s me,” he says, hand sliding back between your thighs. “That’s me growin’ roots in ya.” His fingers tease your slick folds, feather-light, not giving what you need, just promising.

You whimper.

Remmick watches you writhe, his cock hard and leaking, resting heavy against his thigh. “Spread ‘em wider, sweetheart. That’s it. Just like that. Let me in.”

You do as you’re told. You’d do anything he asks right now. Not because he’s taken your will. But because he’s claimed your want.

He climbs over you slowly, one knee pressing between your thighs, his body blanketing yours with terrible warmth. The feel of his skin against yours makes your mark pulse like it’s alive. He lines himself up, dragging the head of his cock against your soaked entrance, letting it slip through your folds, slicking himself in you.

You gasp.

“Remmick—”

He cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek, voice low and hoarse. “I’ve got ya. Gonna go slow.” He pushes in.

God.

It’s thick. It stretches. It burns in the best, most ruinous way. You clutch his shoulders, nails biting into his skin as he inches deeper—slow, agonizing, precise. Every breath is a plea. Every heartbeat is his. You feel the bond knot tighter, pulling you to him with every inch he sinks into your body. Halfway in, and you’re already fluttering around him, body shaking, eyes wet.

Remmick groans, low and wrecked. “Fuckin’ hell,” he grits out. “You’re tight as a fist. Grip me like you were made for it.” He rolls his hips forward, just a little deeper.

You cry out—more overwhelmed than hurt. Pleasure is coiling inside you like a scream wound too tight to release.

“‘S alright,” he murmurs. “Yer takin’ me so well. Gonna have all of me soon.”

He kisses your temple. Then your cheek. Then your jaw.

“Y’wanna say it?” he asks.

You blink up at him, dazed.

He smiles against your throat. “Say yer mine.”

The words curl on your tongue, fever-warm. “I’m yours.”

His hips snap forward, burying himself in you to the hilt.

You shatter.

You can’t breathe. Not properly.

Not with him buried that deep inside you—thick and unyielding, pressing against something that makes your vision go white around the edges. The stretch burns and soothes all at once, every nerve pulled taut, every inch of your body drawn to his like a tide to the moon.

Remmick doesn’t move right away. He just holds himself there. Letting you feel the full weight of what he’s done.

What he is doing. What you’ll never come back from.

You whimper, your hips twitching, the pressure too much and not enough and perfect. And all he does is lean in close, his voice curling against your ear like the heat of a candle’s flame.

“There it is,” he murmurs. “Feel me in ya? That ache in your belly? That’s me settin’ in, stretchin’ ya out, makin’ room.” His hand cups your jaw, gentle but firm, tilting your face toward his. He watches you—hungry and soft all at once, like a man who’s both starving and reverent. “Y’wanna know somethin’, sweetheart?” he asks, hips giving one slow, rolling thrust.

You gasp, back arching, lips parting in a helpless cry.

He groans, deep in his throat, and stills again. “You’ll never forget this feelin’,” he says. “No matter what happens after. No matter where you run. This right here?” He shifts inside you, not pulling out, just moving deep. “This bond’ll hunger until I feed it.”

You can’t speak. Your body is writhing under him, hips tilting instinctively, needing more, needing movement. The bond is humming now—hot, thick, vibrating under your skin like a wire ready to snap.

And then he starts to move.

Slow. So slow it feels lethal.

He pulls out an inch. Pushes back in. Again. And again.

Each thrust is a deliberate claiming—grinding against the deepest part of you, igniting something wild and ancient in your blood. You moan with every slide, and his name slips out of your mouth between gasps like a prayer, like a curse, like you don’t care who hears.

“R-Remmick—”

He shudders above you, burying his face against your throat.

“Fuck, say it again.”

You do. You can’t stop. “Remmick. Remmick—” Your fingers dig into his back, pulling him closer, urging him to move faster, harder, deeper.

But he won’t. Not yet.

He keeps the pace slow, grinding into you with the kind of restraint that hurts, like he wants to ruin you one slow breath at a time.

You’re sobbing now. From pleasure. From pressure. From the overwhelming rightness of being filled by him.

He kisses the corner of your mouth. Then your jaw. Then the spot where your pulse pounds like a war drum. “Let it take ya,” he whispers. “Let me in. All the way.”

You don't have to let it take you. It's already happening.

Every roll of his hips, every grinding thrust, buries him deeper—not just into your body, but into your very being. You feel him threading through your blood, knotting himself into the soft, wet, secret places no one else has ever touched. You feel him becoming part of you.

And it’s bliss. It’s agony. It’s everything you never dared want.

Remmick groans into your throat, the sound rough and ragged, and you realize—he’s shaking. His arms bracket your head, muscles tense, as if he’s holding himself back with the last threads of a fraying leash. "Fuckin’ hell," he rasps against your skin. "You don’t even know what yer doin’ to me, do ya?"

You moan when his hips shift again, a slow, brutal grind that rubs against something deep inside, sending another crack through your already crumbling self.

"You’re burnin’ me up from the inside," he breathes. "Claimin’ me right back without even tryin'." He thrusts again, a little harder this time.

Your nails rake down his back, and he hisses, the sound sharp and desperate.

"Y’hear that, little bride?" he pants. "The bond’s snappin' shut. Lockin’ us together. Ain’t no prayers that can undo it now."

You whimper under him, nodding frantically because words are gone. Lost. All you can do is feel. All you can do is take him. The magic between you stretches taut—white-hot and endless—pulling tighter with every slow, deep stroke.

Remmick lifts his head. Looks at you. Really looks at you.

And something raw, something wild flashes through his crimson eyes.

Not cruelty. Not hunger. But devotion. The kind of devotion that ruins. That razes. That rebuilds.

And his voice—Christ, his voice—comes soft and reverent, like a prayer said in a burning church. "Mine." He pulls almost all the way out.

Your body cries for him.

And when he slams back in, burying himself to the hilt, the bond explodes.

You barely have time to scream. It rips out of you as Remmick drives back into your body with a force that shatters something deep inside—not bone, not muscle, but something older. Something tied to the very breath in your lungs and the heat in your blood.

The bond snaps tight. It doesn’t just settle between you—it erupts.

A wave of heat crashes through you, stealing your sight, your breath, your thoughts. The air around you blurs and sharpens all at once, everything too bright, too loud, too much. You feel him in every corner of your being—his hunger, his lust, his need crashing against yours in a brutal, endless tide.

Remmick groans low in his throat, a broken sound, like he’s barely holding himself together. "That's it, love," he pants, thrusting deep and sure now, fucking you through the bond’s collapse. "Feel it. Feel me." Each thrust drives him deeper than flesh, branding his presence into you so thoroughly you don't know where you end and he begins.

Your fingers scrabble at his back, nails dragging across his spine. You clutch at him like drowning, like if you let go you’ll be ripped apart.

And maybe you would.

"Yer mine now," he growls against your neck, voice shaking with the force of it. "Every heartbeat. Every breath. Every fuckin’ drop of blood in that sweet body—mine."

You sob beneath him, helpless.

Because it’s true. It’s so true it hurts.

He fucks you harder, hips slamming into yours, the slick sound of your bodies joining filling the dark carriage. Every inch of you aches for him now, craves him. The pleasure is brutal, endless, washing over you in thick, consuming waves that blur the edges of the world. "Say it," he snarls. "Say who owns ya."

You can barely get the words out, your voice broken and gasping between thrusts. "You—Remmick—I'm yours, I'm yours—"

He groans, loud and wrecked, driving himself deeper. "Again."

"I'm yours!" you cry, clinging to him, legs wrapping around his waist without thought. "I'm yours!"

The bond screams its satisfaction, magic sealing tighter, brighter, a perfect, eternal tether. Remmick’s rhythm falters—just for a heartbeat—and then he lets go completely. He fucks you harder, faster, rougher now, as if trying to stamp himself into every molecule of your body. As if the bond isn’t enough, as if he needs your body to remember what your soul already knows.

You’re close again. Closer than before.

Tears leak from the corners of your eyes, not from pain—but from the overwhelming rightness of it. The way your body, your magic, your very soul sings under him.

"That's it," he grits out, teeth scraping against your jaw, your throat. "Gimme one more, sweetheart. One more, and I'll fill ya. Mark ya up proper."

You sob something desperate and broken against his shoulder.

And then you fall apart.

Your body breaks first. You cry out, a sharp, ragged sound, thighs locking around Remmick’s hips as your climax rips through you like a flood that’s been dammed too long. It’s blinding—so much more than pleasure. It's surrender. It's consummation.

The bond erupts under your skin, a wildfire racing from your chest outward—your limbs, your heart, your mind all filled with him, only him.

Remmick snarls low in his throat when he feels it—feels you milking his cock, spasming around him, clutching him so tightly you might tear him apart if he were anything less than what he is. "Fuckin’ hell, there’s my girl," he growls, voice thick, shaking, barely human. "God, yer perfect—perfect for me."

You barely hear him over the rush of blood in your ears, the way your heart stutters and kicks under the strain of the bond locking into place. You feel like you’re dying, being reborn, consumed.

And then—

His hand fists in your hair, yanking your head back to bare your throat.

You don’t resist. You can’t.

You offer it to him. Begging without words.

Needing it. Needing him.

Remmick’s breath sears against your pulse, a guttural sound of want breaking free from his chest. "Mine," he rasps, and then— He sinks his fangs into your throat.

You scream—not from pain. From release. From completion.

The moment his teeth pierce your skin, it’s over. The bond seals so violently you swear you feel the whole world lurch.

You feel his cock throb inside you as he spills himself deep, hips jerking hard against yours as he empties everything into you—claiming you, breeding you, binding you. His moan vibrates against your throat, a filthy, possessive sound, full of ancient, ruinous satisfaction.

You convulse around him, helpless, drowning in the force of it—your orgasm crashing into his, a tangled knot of pleasure and magic and hunger so overwhelming you stop knowing where you end and he begins.

Everything collapses into him. His taste. His scent.

His voice murmuring ragged, half-spoken promises against your bleeding throat.

"Never lettin’ ya go." "Made ya for me." "Gonna fuckin’ ruin anyone who tries to take ya." "My sweet girl. My bride."

The world fades to black around the edges.

Not death. Not fear. Just him. Only him.

You don't know how long you stay like that. Him buried deep inside you, teeth still sunk into your throat, body trembling with the aftershocks of the bond and the brutal, gorgeous wreckage he’s left behind.

When he finally pulls his fangs free, you whimper at the loss—but he shushes you gently, lapping at the puncture marks with slow, lazy strokes of his tongue. Sealing the wound. Marking you further.

His hand cups the side of your face, thumb stroking the corner of your mouth like he's calming a horse that’s been run too hard. "There she is," he murmurs, voice low and thick with satisfaction. "My little bride."

You blink up at him, dazed, boneless, ruined.

He smiles.

It’s not kind. It’s not soft. It’s something far worse. Worship.

"You feel it, don't ya?" he whispers. "That ache behind yer ribs? That’s me sittin’ in yer soul now."

You nod weakly. You can still feel him inside you—hot and sticky, filling you in every way a man can. The bond thrums between you like a heartbeat shared.

And he’s not done.

You see it in his eyes. That hunger. That certainty.

He presses a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your mouth—slow, claiming kisses, each one staking a piece of you deeper than the last. "You’ll never want anyone else again," he promises, voice almost tender. "Yer mine now. Body, blood, soul."

And somehow, impossibly—

You don't fear it. You crave it. You crave him. Forever.

The carriage rocks gently as it moves, but you barely notice. You’re sprawled across the velvet seat, bare and boneless, your limbs too heavy to lift, your skin humming with the aftershocks of what just happened.

Of what you are now. Of what he made you.

The mark on your chest still glows faintly, a soft pulse in the dark, echoing your heartbeat—and his. It thrums in your veins, in the tender ache between your thighs where he spilled himself so deep you can still feel the heat of it. You don’t know where your body ends and his begins anymore.

Maybe there’s no difference. Maybe there never was.

Remmick sits at the far end of the carriage now, leaned back lazily against the seat, trousers still open, hair a mussed halo around his head like he’s been through a war and came out smiling.

He watches you. God, he watches you.

Eyes dark and glittering, hungry and satisfied all at once, a predator marveling at the way his prey still twitches even after the final blow.

He’s in no rush. He’s got you now.

Forever.

And you feel it—the first thread of it tightening low in your belly.

A throb. A pulse.

Your body responds instantly to his gaze, hips shifting, thighs pressing together, nipples tightening in the cool air. You bite your lip, trying to smother the shameful rush of heat flooding you again, but it's impossible.

Because now—

Now he feels it too.

A low, wicked chuckle rumbles from his chest. "Aw, sweetheart," he drawls, the accent thick and syrupy, heavy with cruel affection. "Already missin’ me inside ya?"

Your face burns. You shake your head, a weak, pitiful denial—but the bond betrays you.

He tilts his head, the smile on his lips turning downright vicious. "Don’t lie to me," he says, voice dropping low and rough. "Not now. Not when I can feel every twitch of that sweet little cunt clenchin’ on nothin’."

You whimper, curling in on yourself without thinking.

But he doesn’t let you hide for long.

In a blink, he’s across the carriage, hands bracketing your hips, dragging you back flat against the seat. He crowds over you without even touching you fully, his presence alone suffocating, his body heat pouring into you like a second, darker sun.

"You’re open to me now," he murmurs, brushing your hair from your face with almost obscene tenderness. "Every want. Every ache. Every filthy little thought—" He presses the flat of his palm to the mark. You jerk under him, helpless "—I feel ‘em all."

His thumb strokes slow, lazy circles over the mark, and each touch sends new ripples of need spiraling outward—your body trembling, your thighs wet and slick all over again. "You’re gonna learn real quick, love," he says, grinning as you whimper, as you arch into his touch without meaning to. "Ain’t no hidin’ from me now."

He leans down, mouth brushing your ear. "Every time you ache, I’ll know."

"Every time you touch yerself, I’ll feel it." "Every time you think about me splittin’ you open again—"

He rocks his hips against you, not entering, just letting you feel the thick, hot weight of him. "—I’ll be right there, cock hard, ready to remind ya who you fuckin’ belong to."

You sob, overwhelmed.

And his voice goes velvet-soft, coaxing. "Beg me, little bride," he whispers, lips dragging down your throat, over your mark, down the trembling plane of your belly. "Beg me to fuck ya again. Right here. Right now. Fill ya ‘til there’s nothin’ left but me."

You’re already halfway there. The bond shudders and pulls tight, a perfect, beautiful noose.

And you know— You’ll never be free again.

You’ll never want to be.

You don’t even realize you’re begging at first. It’s not words—

It’s sounds.

Soft, desperate little whimpers that slip from your mouth without permission, without shame. Your hips rock up toward him, seeking friction, seeking him, even though there’s no chance of satisfaction without his mercy.

Remmick smiles down at you, all lazy, wicked patience. His thumb strokes your mark again, and your whole body jolts, back arching beautifully off the velvet, nipples peaked, thighs slick. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice low and rich. “Know you can do better’n that. Gimme what I want.” His other hand slides between your legs, fingers ghosting over the soaked, swollen mess he’s made of you.

Barely touching. Barely giving.

You sob out a broken little sound, your hips chasing his hand, your body betraying how desperately you need him to touch, to fill, to take.

Remmick chuckles, a dark, filthy sound that rumbles deep in his chest. “You’re already cryin’ for it, aren’t ya?” he says, tapping your clit lightly with two fingers just to hear the whimper it wrings out of you. “Poor thing. Poor messy little bride. All knotted up and nowhere to go.”

You bite your lip, trembling.

And finally, finally, you find your voice. “Please,” you gasp. “Please, Remmick—please, I need you—”

His breath hitches. He feels it through the bond.

Your honesty. Your surrender. Your helpless, soaking, wrecked want.

His hand fists in your hair, tugging your head back to make you look at him. “Say it proper,” he growls, eyes glowing deep red in the dark. “Say what you want.”

You sob again, blinking up at him, undone and aching. “Please fuck me,” you whisper. “Please—fill me up—make me yours—” You don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.

You just mean it. You mean every breathless, desperate word.

Remmick’s whole body shudders. “Fuckin’ hell, you’re perfect.” He doesn’t make you wait after that. He grabs your hips, hauling you down the seat, lining himself up again with ruthless, hungry precision.

You feel the head of his cock slide against your entrance, hot and heavy and inevitable. You whimper, trying to push down onto him, but he holds you still.

“Easy, love,” he murmurs, voice thick and rough. “Gonna give it to ya. Gonna fuck ya slow. Deep. Like you deserve.”

You cry out, nails digging into the velvet, the anticipation unbearable. And then—

He pushes inside. All the way.

Inch by inch, deliberate and slow, stretching you open, filling you so completely you can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t be anything but his. Your head tips back, mouth open in a soundless moan, tears slipping from the corners of your eyes.

Remmick groans like he’s dying. “Christ, yer fuckin’ perfect inside,” he pants, hips rolling slow, deep, dragging against every tender, swollen place he touched before. “Tight little thing. Made to take me.”

You whimper under him, arms thrown around his shoulders, legs locked around his waist, pulling him deeper, begging without words for more, more, more—

“Shhh, I got ya,” he soothes, kissing the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your throat where his bite still aches. “Gonna take care of ya, little bride. Gonna fuck ya full. Keep ya full. Never gonna let ya go.”

The bond hums louder. Hotter.

Closer.

You can feel yourself already climbing again, your body desperate to fall with him, for him, because of him.

And Remmick—

Remmick feels it too. Feels it through the bond, through your trembling body, through the desperate clench of your cunt around his cock. “That's it,” he groans, pace picking up, thrusts slow but brutal, deep enough you swear you feel him in your throat. “Milk me, love. Show me who ya belong to.” You don’t realize you’re crying again until his thumb brushes the tear slipping down your cheek.

Not hard. Not cruel.

Gentle. Tender.

Like he’s savoring it. Like he’s proud.

“Look at ya,” Remmick murmurs, still grinding deep inside you, the head of his cock dragging over that sensitive, aching place that makes your toes curl and your thighs shake. “Cryin’ so sweet for me.”

He kisses the tear away. Slow.

Lingering.

And then he pulls back just enough to watch your face as he thrusts deep again—slow and rough and devastating—the velvet seat creaking under you both.

You sob, hips rolling to meet him without even thinking, chasing the friction, the fullness, the ownership.

“That’s it,” he pants, voice ragged with pleasure. “Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl. Always knew you’d take me so pretty.”

You cling to him now—arms thrown around his neck, nails raking down his back, legs locked around his hips like your body’s trying to weld itself to his. The bond thrums, vibrating louder, hotter, tighter, until there’s nothing in the world but him—his cock splitting you open, his hands anchoring you down, his mouth whispering filthy worship against your throat.

“Yer built for me,” he growls, teeth scraping lightly against your skin. “Every inch of ya. Every little flutter of this sweet cunt—made to squeeze the life outta me.”

You keen high in your throat, mindless.

Gone.

And Remmick knows it. Knows he’s breaking you. Knows he’s ruining you.

And he loves it.

“You ain’t ever gonna want anyone else,” he murmurs, slowing his thrusts even more, dragging them out until each one feels like a lifetime. “Ain’t ever gonna even think about lettin’ another man touch ya. Not when I’ve already marked ya this deep.”

You whimper, nodding desperately, nails digging into his shoulders.

“Say it, love,” he urges, voice rough and sweet and brutal all at once. “Say yer mine.”

“I’m yours,” you sob, clenching around him so tight he curses under his breath. “I’m yours—I’m yours—only yours—”

He thrusts deeper, harder, driving you up the seat. “Good girl,” he growls, voice wrecked. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

Your climax builds again—fast and brutal—pleasure knotting behind your ribs, behind your spine, the bond squeezing tighter, ready to snap.

And he feels it. His hand slides between your bodies, finding your clit with ruthless precision, thumb circling it in time with his deep, devastating thrusts. “Gimme another one, sweetheart,” he pants, hips snapping harder now, cock hitting so deep you swear you feel him in your fucking soul. “Wanna feel you fall apart around me. Wanna drown in it.”

You moan—high and desperate—and the pleasure crashes over you without warning.

You shatter. You scream.

Your body locks up tight, clamping around him, pulsing, milking, owning him as much as he owns you.

Remmick roars against your throat, hips jerking wildly, and then he’s spilling inside you again—hot and endless, filling you so deep you swear you can feel it leaking out around where you’re still clenching him tight.

He bites your shoulder this time—not hard enough to break skin, just hard enough to mark—and the bond howls in satisfaction, sealing it even deeper.

He doesn’t pull out. He doesn’t move.

He just lays there, trembling over you, cock still twitching inside your soaked, fluttering cunt, breath ragged against your skin.

“Mine,” he whispers again.

A vow. A sentence. A promise.

And you—You cling to him like you’ll never let go.

Because you won’t. Because you can’t. Because you’re his. Forever.

You wake in his bed.

You don't remember how you got there.

One moment, you were in the carriage, trembling and wrecked in his arms. The next, you were here—on soft linen sheets, the scent of smoke and leather and Remmick sinking into your skin with every breath you take.

It’s still dark outside. Still heavy.

Still thick with the weight of what’s been done.

The mark over your heart burns dully now, a steady throb like a brand set into your flesh. Not painful. Not exactly.

But constant.

A reminder. A tether.

You reach for him instinctively, seeking the heat of his body against yours—but find only cool sheets where he should be. You sit up, heart stuttering, chest tightening so fast and sharp it’s like you’ve been punched.

Because he’s gone.

He’s not in the bed. Not in the room.

And the bond—The bond screams.

The ache blooms under your ribs, a sick, gnawing hunger that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with absence.

You feel wrong without him. Empty. Fractured.

You clutch the sheet to your chest, trembling. “Remmick?” you whisper into the dark.

No answer. Just the slow crackle of the fireplace across the room.

Your thighs are sticky with the remnants of him. Your body aches in places you didn’t know could ache. And still—it’s not enough.

Your body wants him back. Needs him back.

You bite your lip, rocking slightly where you sit, trying to soothe the gnawing ache, the gnashing hunger spiraling tighter inside you.

And then—

You feel him.

Not physically. Psychically.

A thread tugging between you.

You squeeze your thighs together, trying to suppress the fresh wave of heat pooling low in your belly—but it’s no use. The mark flares hot.

You whimper.

Somewhere—wherever he is—you know he feels it too.

Because a voice curls into your mind. Low. Rough. Amused. "Miss me already, little bride?"

You gasp, hands flying to your chest, clutching the mark like it might stop the flood building under your skin. “Remmick,” you whisper, voice breaking.

His laugh—low and dangerous—echoes in your mind. "Can feel ya squirm from here."

You shudder violently.

He's not even touching you—and still, he unravels you with nothing but the bond. With nothing but his voice.

"Bet yer soaked again already." "Bet yer clenchin’ that sweet cunt, achin’ for me." "Bet you’d beg real nice if I told ya to."

You whimper, rocking helplessly on the bed, the sheet sliding down your body, baring your breasts to the cold night air. You squeeze your thighs tighter—but it only makes it worse. The bond thrums between your legs like a second heartbeat, cruel and constant.

And Remmick—

Remmick drinks it in.

"Touch yerself," he murmurs in your mind, voice thick with heat and wickedness. "C’mon, sweetheart. Let me feel it."

You shake your head, trembling.

You don’t want to. You can’t. But your hand is already sliding down your belly, shaking, betraying you.

The bond rejoices.

Your fingers trail lower. Soft. Tentative. Shaking.

You’re not thinking anymore. You’re feeling.

Feeling the mark pulsing hot against your ribs, feeling the bond pulling you forward like a hook in your chest, feeling Remmick’s presence wrapped around your mind like smoke.

You part your thighs slowly, the sheet falling away completely. The cool air brushes your skin.

Your slick heat clings to your thighs. You’re already soaked for him.

And he knows it.

"Tha’s it," he drawls into your mind, voice rich with wicked satisfaction. "Good girl. Show me how much ya miss me."

Your fingers slip between your folds, gathering the mess he left inside you.

You whimper. Just from the first touch.

It’s almost too much—too raw, too sensitive—but you can’t stop. Your body won’t let you. Not when the bond is throbbing so hard it feels like a second heartbeat inside your cunt.

You circle your clit with slow, trembling motions. Your back arches. Your breath shudders. “Remmick,” you moan into the empty room, thighs trembling. You swear you can feel him groan from wherever he is—like the sound of your pleasure punches through the bond and wrecks him too.

"Sound so fuckin’ sweet when ya moan for me," he murmurs, rough and reverent. "Could listen to ya all night, little bride."

Your fingers move faster, hips lifting off the bed, chasing the friction, chasing the edge. But it’s not enough.

You whimper helplessly, frustrated tears welling in your eyes. You need him. You need more.

And he feels your desperation.

"Poor thing," he croons. "Can’t even make yerself come without me now, can ya?"

You sob out a broken little “no.”

Because it’s true. The bond won't let you. You’re too tightly strung, too deeply tethered to him. You’re trapped in a pleasure you can’t finish without his touch. Without his voice coaxing you over the edge.

And Remmick? He sounds delighted.

"Good," he growls. "You shouldn’t be able to. Yer mine now, body and soul. Only come when I say so. Only break when I make ya."

Your fingers tremble between your legs, still circling, still trying.

And then—

His voice drops into a low, filthy purr.

"Tell me what you need, sweetheart." "Tell me what you’re beggin’ for."

You choke on a sob, panting. “I—I need you,” you cry. “Please, Remmick—I need you—inside me—on me—anything—please—”

The bond tightens, wrapping around you like iron and silk all at once.

And then you feel him move.

Not just through the tether. Physically.

Heavy, sure footsteps across the wooden floorboards.

You twist on the bed, gasping, heart hammering—

And there he is. Leaning against the doorframe.

Shirtless.

Trousers unbuttoned and slung low on his hips.

Eyes glowing deep red.

Cock already hard, leaking, ready.

He licks his lips slowly, predatorily, as he watches you spread out on his bed, hand between your thighs, body trembling with the need he’s been feeding from a distance. “Aw, sweetheart," he says out loud now, voice thick with hunger, accent curling around every syllable. "Look atcha. Fallin’ apart without me."

You shudder violently, reaching out toward him, tears spilling over.

“Please.”

Remmick’s grin turns sharp. Dark.

Triumphant.

“Don’t worry, love," he purrs, crossing the room in three slow, deliberate steps. "I’m gonna take real good care of ya.” The mattress dips under his weight as Remmick climbs onto the bed.

You tremble, thighs still parted, hand still slick and shaking where he caught you mid-plea, mid-fall. But the second his body covers yours—solid, hot, real—you sob with relief.

The bond sings. Bright and brutal.

Tightening like a velvet noose around your heart, your spine, your slick aching cunt.

He hovers over you for a moment, just looking—eyes burning, mouth parted, chest rising and falling with wrecked, hungry breaths. “So fuckin’ pretty when ya beg," he murmurs, voice low and gravelly, all wicked affection. "Could watch ya cry for my cock all night."

You arch up without thinking, hands grabbing at his hips, desperate for him to move, to fill, to own you again—

But Remmick just chuckles. Slow. Dark. Cruel.

"Nuh-uh," he says, catching your wrists easily in one hand and pinning them above your head. "You wanted me, little bride. Now you’re gonna take it."

You gasp, blinking up at him, helpless under the steady weight of his body, the heat of his cock dragging against your dripping folds, heavy and leaking and so close.

He shifts his hips, just enough to tease you—rubbing the head of his cock along your slick entrance, sliding through the mess he already made of you, pressing against your clit with maddening, lazy circles.

You cry out, hips jerking.

But he doesn’t give you what you need. Not yet.

He leans down, nose brushing yours, lips ghosting over your mouth. "Patience," he murmurs, soft and deadly. "Gonna make ya feel it."

And then he moves. Slow. Devastating.

He presses inside an inch. Then stops.

You sob under him, back arching, cunt fluttering helplessly around the stretch.

Remmick groans low in his chest, forehead pressing to yours. "Christ, love," he pants. "Yer still so fuckin’ tight for me."

He pushes deeper. Another inch. Another.

Your legs wrap around his waist automatically, desperate to pull him closer, to drag him deeper, but he only smirks against your skin.

"Greedy little thing," he murmurs. "Can feel it. The way yer suckin’ me in."

You whimper, blinking up at him through a haze of need and tears. "Please," you whisper, broken.

He kisses your forehead. Then your nose. Then your trembling mouth.

"Beg prettier," he growls against your lips.

You cry out, the bond pulling tighter, demanding. "Please, Remmick," you sob. "I—I need you—need all of you—please, please, fill me up—"

And that’s what does it.

His patience breaks. With a low, snarling groan, he slams the rest of the way inside you—burying himself to the hilt in one brutal, perfect thrust.

You scream—high and raw and wrecked—as he stretches you open all over again, thick and deep and claiming.

The bond flares.

Brighter. Hotter. Tighter.

You feel him everywhere.

And he doesn’t move at first—just holds you there, trembling around him, stuffed so full you swear you can feel his heartbeat through the walls of your cunt. "That’s it," he pants against your throat. "Take it. Take all of it."

You sob, clenching around him, desperate for more, for anything, for everything.

And Remmick—Remmick fucking smiles.

"Good girl," he breathes. "My good little bride."

He holds still for just a moment longer.

Lets you feel it. The stretch. The fullness. The way your cunt pulses helplessly around him, like your body’s already trying to keep him, even before he’s started moving.

Remmick’s breath fans hot across your cheek. “You feel that, sweetheart?” he whispers, voice low, reverent. “That’s what it means to be bound.”

You moan beneath him, tears slipping down your temples into your hairline as your fingers tighten around his arms—his name clinging to your tongue like prayer, like poison, like you’d die without it.

He begins to move. Slow.

Deep.

Each thrust rolls through you like thunder, like ritual, like a man grinding his soul into yours one inch at a time. He pulls back until only the tip remains inside—then sinks in again, long and devastating, pressing into every tender spot he’s already mapped with hands, teeth, and magic.

You cry out.

The sound is wrecked. Raw.

Remmick groans into your neck. “Fuck, you sound like heaven,” he pants, thrusting again—deeper, harder, making the bed creak beneath you both. “Takin’ me so fuckin’ good. Like you were made for this.”

You nod—wild, desperate.

Because you were. Because that’s what it feels like.

You were made for him.

The bond throbs between you, singing at every point where your skin meets his—breast to chest, hips to hips, heart to heart. It doesn’t just tether. It entwines.

You feel him inside you in ways that have nothing to do with flesh—his hunger, his need, his worship burning through the tether like fire licking silk.

“Never lettin’ you go,” he murmurs, fucking you deeper now, his rhythm building. “Gonna keep you right here—under me, around me—'til you can’t remember what breathin’ feels like without my cock inside ya.”

You sob—moaning, wrecked, grateful.

He lifts your leg over his shoulder without asking, pressing deeper, grinding his hips down to fill every inch of you, dragging another scream from your throat. “That’s it,” he growls. “Squeeze me, love. Just like that. Milk me dry.”

His hand slides between your bodies, thumb circling your clit with perfect, devastating pressure, like he’s already memorized how to tear you apart.

Your back arches, vision blurring.

You’re close. So close.

Remmick feels it. Through the bond. In your body. In the way your cunt flutters, begging to break again. “Come for me,” he rasps. “Come with me inside you. Let the whole fuckin’ world know who you belong to.”

You can’t stop it. You don’t even try.

You break.

Harder than before—clenching around him, crying out his name, the bond lighting up like a wildfire behind your eyes.

Remmick groans loud and possessive above you, hips snapping hard, fast, until he’s burying himself one last time and spilling into you with a sound you’ll never forget. “Mine,” he chokes out. “Fuck—mine. Mine—”

You don’t know who’s shaking more.

Your hands. His voice. The world.

He stays inside you. Doesn’t pull out.

Just holds you. Breathes you.

Like he needs to.

The bond simmers between you, satisfied and sealed, humming like a beast at rest. You reach up, hands trembling, and cup his face.

He leans into your touch like it hurts not to. “Y’feel it now?” he whispers, barely audible. “That ache when I’m gone?”

You nod, eyes wet.

“Good,” he says. “Because I fuckin’ feel it too.”

You wake up sore.

Sweetly. Brutally. Deep in the muscles of your thighs, between your ribs, in the soft swell of your cunt—filled and used and claimed. You shift under the heavy quilt, blinking into the low golden light of the fire across the room.

There’s birdsong. Faint. And the low simmering hum of the bond still thrumming in your chest like a second heartbeat.

It’s quiet here. Peaceful, almost.

Except for the ache between your legs and the warm, terrifying weight of him behind you.

Remmick.

He’s still there.

One arm curled heavy over your waist, bare chest pressed to your spine. You feel the slow, lazy drag of his breath against your shoulder—calm and even, like a man who’s slept deeply. Like he’s sated.

He doesn’t stir when you shift slightly.

But the bond does. It tightens, warm and low, like a pulse at the base of your spine. Like a hand slipping between your thighs. Like a warning.

Don’t move. Don’t leave. You’re his.

You lie there, heart pounding quietly under his hand.

And then—

His voice. Low. Rough with sleep. Slipping against your skin like silk over a bruise. “Where d’you think yer goin’, little bride?”

You freeze.

His fingers flex over your belly, lazy but firm, tugging you back against his chest until you feel the unmistakable weight of his cock, already thick and half-hard between your thighs. He presses his face into the crook of your neck, breathing you in like he’s starving again.

“I wasn’t,” you whisper. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

A soft, dangerous hum in your ear. “Good.”

You stay still.

The silence stretches, warm and weighted, as his hand strokes lazy circles over your stomach. He’s not trying to arouse you—not yet. Just remind you. That he’s here. That he feels you. That he owns every flutter of your heartbeat before you even register it.

“You dream last night?” he murmurs.

You swallow hard. You had.

Dreamt of him. Of his hands. His mouth. The way your legs shook when he told you to beg. The way you liked it.

“I don’t remember,” you lie softly.

Remmick laughs against your throat, lips brushing the skin he bit just hours ago. “Liar.”

His hand slides lower. But slower now. Less demanding. More like he’s testing something. Watching how your body answers to his. How the bond hums in response to every breath between you.

“You’re thinkin’ too loud,” he says, nuzzling behind your ear. “I can feel it.”

You tense. Just slightly.

His hand stills over your hips. Then his voice, softer this time. “You scared of me, love?”

The question sinks into your ribs like a needle. You’re not sure how to answer.

Yes.

And no.

And not enough.

You don't answer right away. How could you?

Your throat is tight. Your body too sore, too raw. The ache between your legs still pulses in time with the bond, and Remmick’s presence behind you—his breath on your neck, his cock hardening slowly between your thighs—makes it worse.

Makes it better. Makes it everything.

And still, that question hangs in the air like smoke:

“You scared of me, love?”

He doesn’t say it cruelly. He doesn’t laugh after. He just waits.

His hand stills on your belly, fingers splayed wide over the skin he’s already touched with tongue and teeth and blood.

You swallow hard, voice soft, barely audible.

“Yes.”

Remmick doesn’t tense. He doesn’t growl. He doesn’t punish you.

He exhales slowly through his nose, like the answer had been expected. Maybe even hoped for. “Good,” he murmurs. “Y’should be.”

You blink—heart thudding once, hard, behind your glowing mark.

His thumb strokes your stomach, just above your navel. “You should be scared,” he says again, slower this time. “I’m not a man, sweetheart. I ain’t some boy who’ll kiss your hand and promise forever under a moon I don’t get to stand under.”

He kisses your shoulder instead. Soft. Lingering.

A contradiction to the words in his mouth.

“I’m what waits under the bed,” he breathes. “What knocks at the door when you pray it won’t. What takes instead of asks.”

You shiver. Not from cold.

From the way your body doesn’t recoil.

From the way your hips push back against him without thinking.

Remmick hums against your skin. “Scared of me,” he repeats, voice lowering to a hush, “but still so wet for me you’re stickin’ to my sheets.”

You whimper, cheeks burning.

And still—he doesn’t move.

Doesn’t rut into you. Doesn’t force.

He just holds you tighter. Because this is worse than violence. Worse than taking.

This is knowing.

He feels everything. Not just your body.

Your shame. Your desire. Your ache for him.

And he loves it.

“You think I don’t feel what that fear does to ya?” he murmurs. “How it curls low in your belly, how it sweetens the way you clench when I talk like this?”

His teeth graze your throat again. Gently this time. Carefully. “You’re scared,” he says, “and still, you’d let me put a baby in you if I told you to.”

Your breath catches.

Your body answers before your voice ever could—heat surging between your legs, thighs squeezing together around nothing, cunt fluttering at the idea of it.

He feels that too.

“Ohhh,” he groans, laughing low and pleased. “There she is.”

He doesn’t rush you. Doesn’t flip you over. Doesn’t tear you open.

Doesn’t bare his teeth and fuck you through the mattress, even though you can feel how badly he wants to.

Instead—Remmick slips down your body slowly.

The quilt is pulled aside with a lazy flick of his wrist, exposing your bare skin to the cold air and to him. You shiver, more from anticipation than chill.

He kneels at the edge of the bed, dragging your hips to the edge like you’re something soft and sacred he’s about to set on fire. The bond buzzes between you, a hot, pulsing wire strung from your cunt to his mouth, taut and trembling.

You bite your lip. And you don’t dare move.

Because the look in his eyes—

Low. Hungry. Worshipful.

It pins you to the sheets like a hand to the throat.

“Still scared?” he murmurs, kissing the inside of your knee.

You nod. Barely.

He smiles. Slow. Honest. “Good. Don’t stop bein’.”

He kisses higher. The curve of your thigh. Then the crease.

Then—

Close.

Not touching. Not yet.

But watching you twitch. Watching your hips roll up in a silent, shameful plea.

Remmick groans softly. “You think that fear makes me less gentle?” he asks, voice hushed, like confession. “Nah, sweetheart. Makes me tender. Makes me want to ruin you slow.”

You gasp as he finally presses a kiss to your cunt.

Soft. Closed-mouth.

More reverent than filthy.

It’s worse than teasing. It’s adoration.

He parts you with careful fingers, breath ghosting over you until your legs shake from the not-touching, the almost, the please.

And then his tongue finds your clit.

Just once. A soft drag.

Then again. Slower. Wetter. More precise.

Your back arches off the bed.

Your hands reach for something to hold—sheets, the edge of the headboard, the carved wood posts—but Remmick grabs your thighs and holds you down.

“Mmm-mm,” he hums, tongue circling slowly. “Don’t run.”

You moan—loud, needy—and he groans in response, mouthing at you deeper, filthier, gentler.

“You taste scared,” he mutters between licks. “And it’s makin’ me hard enough to fuckin’ kill for it.”

Your legs twitch.

You’re soaked. He’s drinking you in. Taking his time, tongue slow and firm, lips wrapping around your clit like he’s savoring your fear, your sweetness, your surrender.

And still—

No rush. No cruelty. Just… devotion.

Monster-shaped.

Blood-warm.

Endless.

“You’re mine,” he murmurs against your cunt, voice almost broken. “Even when you’re shakin’. Even when you flinch. Even when you don’t fuckin’ understand what I’ve turned you into yet.”

You sob.

Because he’s right. You’re his.

Even in the fear.

Especially in the fear.

And when he sucks your clit slow and deep, the pressure spiraling out from your spine in white-hot coils, you don’t try to hide the tears.

You don’t want to anymore.

You break the second time he moans. Not from the sound alone—though it’s low and thick and filthy, vibrating through your cunt like a prayer that never belonged to God—but from the way he presses his tongue flat, dragging it slow and steady through your slick folds like he’s starving and you’re the only thing that’s ever tasted like salvation.

Your thighs tremble around his head.

You try to close them. He doesn’t let you.

Strong hands pin your legs open, thumbs digging into the meat of your thighs as he devours you—hungry, tender, relentless.

You sob. Tears spill freely now. Not from pain. Not even from overstimulation.

But from the unbearable, overwhelming worship.

He licks you like you’re sacred. He sucks your clit like it’s a rosary bead caught between his lips.

“Please—” you gasp, voice catching. “Please, I—I can’t—”

But you can. He knows you can.

“Y���can,” he growls into your cunt, mouth soaked, voice wrecked. “Y’will.”

His tongue flicks faster now, swirling pressure tight and perfect, designed to drag you toward the edge.

“Gonna come for me, little bride,” he murmurs, biting your inner thigh. “Gonna give it to me. Right fuckin’ now.”

And you do. You shatter.

The orgasm tears through you like lightning—white-hot, blinding, burning you open from the inside out. You scream his name, thighs locking around his head, body writhing, breaking.

Remmick groans like your pleasure’s feeding him, like it’s going to his head, to his cock, to the thing in him that isn’t human and never pretended to be.

You’re still shaking when he moves.

Rising up over you. Dragging his cock along your twitching folds, hard and slick and soaked with the mess you just made.

“You’re still scared,” he says, watching you with eyes too dark and too red to be anything but wrong.

You nod.

Because it’s true. Because it always will be.

And he smiles.

Soft. Loving. Terrifying.

“But you want me anyway,” he whispers, lining himself up.

Your lip trembles. “Yes.”

He kisses you.

Then pushes inside.

Not hard. Not brutal.

Just deep.

He sheaths himself in your still-pulsing cunt like he belongs there. Like the bond’s waiting to welcome him back.

You cry out, arms wrapping around his shoulders, clinging to him like you might fall through the bed otherwise.

Remmick groans, low and aching, forehead pressed to yours. “That’s my girl,” he breathes. “Takin’ me even when you’re scared. Clenchin’ like you don’t ever wanna let go.”

He starts to move.

Slow. Rhythmic. Ruinous.

And you sob against his mouth—not because it hurts. But because you’ve never felt so full of something you’ll never understand.

“Say it,” he pants, each thrust dragging a cry from your throat. “Say the fear don’t matter. Not if it’s me.”

You nod, dizzy and wrecked, tears slipping down your cheeks.

“It doesn’t,” you whisper. “Not if it’s you.”

Remmick groans, fucking into you harder now, the bond singing through your bones. “That’s it,” he growls. “That’s mine. All of it. All of you.”

You nod again.

You don’t fight. You don’t flinch. You give in.

You don’t know how long he stays inside you.

Could be minutes. Could be hours. Could be forever.

Time doesn’t work the same anymore. Not when your body is bonded to his. Not when your soul is stitched to something ancient and starving.

He holds you through every aftershock. His hands stroke your skin as if memorizing the shape of you, the feel of you, the way your body softened under his until it didn’t know where it ended and he began. Eventually, he moves—slowly, gently, as if reluctant to leave the heat of you even for a moment.

You expect him to pull out and clean you, maybe carry you to a bath, maybe tuck you against his chest again and fall into that peaceful quiet you’d been drifting in before.

But instead—He kneels between your thighs.

Again.

Eyes glowing in the low firelight. Expression unreadable. Mouth blood-red and reverent.

“Remmick?” you whisper.

And then you see it.

His knife.

The blade is old. Dark. Iron and bone. Etched with something that moves if you look too long.

He doesn’t raise it. Not yet.

He looks at you with the kind of stillness that makes you forget how to breathe. “I need to finish it,” he says.

You blink. “I thought we already did.”

He tilts his head, eyes trailing down your sweat-slick body, pausing at the faint glow of the mark over your heart. “Nah, love,” he says quietly. “We did the binding. The claiming. The taking.”

He presses the knife to his palm.

“But not the keeping.”

He slices. Clean. No flinch. Blood wells thick and slow from the cut, dark and rich and wrong.

You sit up slightly, heart pounding.

He holds his hand out to you. “Drink,” he says.

You stare. Then whisper, “Why?”

His voice doesn’t shake. It never does.

“Because this world don’t care what I’ve claimed.” “Because someone’ll try to take you from me.” “Because I need them to know you’re mine before they even open their mouth.”

Your breath catches. “Remmick…”

“They’ll smell it on ya. Feel it in your blood. The burn of me, buried under your skin. It’ll make ‘em hesitate. Make ‘em hurt when they touch you.”

You swallow hard.

Your legs are still trembling from his last claiming. You can feel his seed still dripping from you. You can feel his breath in your lungs, the bond in your spine, his mark over your heart.

And still—he wants more.

You crawl toward him. Hands shaking. And press your lips to his palm.

The taste is sharp. Sweet. Thick with something that isn’t just blood.

Power.

Magic.

Hunger older than this country, older than the woods, older than God.

Remmick groans low in his throat, watching you lap at the wound like you’re starved for it.

Maybe you are. Maybe you always have been.

When you’ve had your fill, he pulls you up into his lap, cradling you there like a bride carried across a threshold made of ash and bone. His mouth finds your throat again. Kisses it. “I’ll kill for you,” he whispers. “I’ll burn for you.”

You press your forehead to his. “I know.”

“I’ll never let you go.”

“I don’t want you to.”

His arms tighten around you. One hand slides over your belly. The mark is glowing again. Dimmer, but pulsing steady. “You’ll carry my blood now,” he says, voice soft and ruined. “One day you’ll carry more.”

You don’t answer. You don’t need to.

The bond answers for you.

You are his.

Forever.

Not because he took. But because you gave.

Because when the dark came knocking—when it whispered promises of pleasure and fear and ruin—

You opened the door. You bared your throat.

You said yes.

And now, when they speak of the bloodbound bride of the most dangerous vampire in the Delta, they won’t whisper in pity.

They’ll whisper in awe.

Because you didn’t run. You didn’t cry. You stayed.

And when they ask you why—if you’re ever foolish enough to speak to mortals again—you’ll say the only truth that matters anymore.

“I was scared.”

And then, with a smile, with teeth, with Remmick’s fire burning behind your ribs—

“But I loved him more.”

[deanmarywinchester]

A RARE ENTIRELY NEW THOUGHT ON THIS POST thank you. and I don’t even think the badger is elected (are they?) I seem to remember it being hereditary slash if there’s no confirmed succession than any badger who’s Of Noble Character/swears to defend against evil can successfully petition for the seat.

hobbies include: close reading the Redwall series to answer my most burning questions. such as:

- can I replicate any of these delicious-sounding foodstuffs and would they in fact be delicious if I was able to

- corollary to the above: are we just supposed to read “oat cream” and “nut cheese” every time we see the words “cream” and “cheese”? I think so. bc if not, what tha hell are their livestock animals

- what is Society like? I don’t think we ever see a Mouse City or even Mouse Town though we do see castles and obviously an abbey. are we supposed to believe that most creatures are either in wandering bands or these societies based around a single structure (castle/abbey?)

- they appear to have an idea of what currency is (the bad guys always want treasure — maybe just to have, not to sell? but less ambiguous is some dialogue I just read, “acorn for your thoughts?” “you can have them for free”) but again, we never see anyone using money or making goods for the market. is this after the fall of Mouse Capitalism? are the bad guys (the idea of rat pirates gives me a headache, vis a vis the political/economic systems needed to power piracy) raiding preindustrial mouse societies for treasure/meat?

- corollary to the above: the abbey creatures have oats and wheat but we don’t see anybody farming or trading for farm goods on a large enough scale. is the abbey “orchard” really a like an indigenous forest farm of mixed foodstuffs? is that possible if you live in the same place the whole year or only if you travel each season? I have to do some googling

- both the lack of mixed-species families and the idea of mixed-species families give me a headache. has a squirrel never fallen for a handsome otter? what is the culture shock like if you marry into a subterranean mole family?

- this is the least “important” question but this read through I’ve been desperately trying to figure out What Size Everything Else Is. i’ve come to the conclusion that everything other than animals are at mouse scale, given that they can make seaworthy vessels their own size (a mouse sized vessel with real-world-sized waves seems impossible) and pick and eat apples and plums. but so far it seems like they’ve avoided mentioning how tall trees are — like a person compared to a tree or a mouse compared to a tree?

[askthehedgehogs]

Who is the most affectionate out of you and Sonic, Shadow?

Are you asking me specifically because you think I’ll give a more honest answer than Sonic? Hm. Well, I’d say it’s him. He’s clingy.

Only ‘cause I know it pisses you off so much~

[chahnniesroom]

the way home

pairing: none (platonic ot8 & female reader)

summary: a peaceful walk home takes a turn for the worst when you notice you're being followed.

word count: 0.8k

tags/warnings: 9th member au, sasaeng/creepy fan

a/n: i am currently working on a longer fic for this collection, but i wrote this super quickly over the weekend inspired by this clip that i randomly saw on ig.

where the heart is collection | read it on ao3 | masterlist

You notice the person about halfway between the company and home. You'd decided to walk back since the weather was nice, but now regret your decision.

In general, you try not to be too paranoid when you’re out in public, after all, Seoul is a big city and there are a lot of people going to a lot of places. It's a humbling experience to worry about being spotted by a fan and then realise they just happened to be heading to the same area as you.

You walk past the man first, then notice he's behind you a couple streets later when you happen to turn around. You make a few strategic turns, bringing you back into the direction of the company, alternating between more popular streets and quieter ones. Each time you look back, he's still training behind you and you know it's no coincidence.

His pace isn't particularly fast, he's stayed about half a block behind you this whole time, and his gait is casual. Large but even steps, you would think that he's just taking an evening stroll if he didn't match you every time that you deliberately sped up or slowed down.

You feel hunted.

You call the guys immediately, blindly hitting the call button for your group chat.

“I think I'm being followed,” you say, the second the call connects. You don't even know which of the members picked up.

“Where are you?” Chan replies back, his tone urgent.

“I was walking home, but now I'm heading back to the company. I'll send my location now.”

“Do you have any details?”

“I think he's a fan. He looks young, early 20s and it seemed like he recognised me. I didn't realise until later that he had turned around and was still behind me.”

“Try to stick to a busy street,” Chan urges you. “Y/n-ah, do you think he's dangerous?”

“He doesn't seem dangerous, per se,” you say slowly. Your voice barely comes out as a whisper. “But I’m scared, oppa. I don't feel safe.”

“We're on our way,” Minho replies. You have no idea when he joined the call or who else is listening in, but you already feel a bit better knowing that they're there. “We'll be there soon and security is sending a team too.”

“Can you stay on the call until then?” you ask with a tremulous voice. “I don't want to be alone.”

“Of course.” It's Chan again. “I promise, we won't hang up until you're in our arms.”

“I'm close to the cafe we went to last week,” you tell them. “The one with the green grape ade and the sweet potato cake that I liked. I think they're still open. I'm going to go in."

“Got it,” Han confirms. “I know the place, we'll send everyone that way.”

You don't want to run or do anything that might set off the person following you. It feels like forever until you finally reach the cafe's entrance and make it in. The jingle of the bell has never seemed so welcoming.

You nod to the worker at the counter and head to a table further into the cafe. You’ve visited enough times that they don't question you since you sometimes meet up with the boys and wait until they arrive before ordering.

“I'm inside,” you update the boys. “Sitting at a table. He’s out there just- he's just standing there. Why won't he leave me alone?!”

Even though you feel significantly safer now that you're inside with other people, your heart is still racing and adrenaline has filled your body. The hand that's not holding your phone is shaking.

“It's okay if you feel scared,” Seungmin soothes you. “We're almost there. He won't bother you again.”

“Okay,” you say shakily, trying to compose yourself.

“Security is close,” Chan says. “What does this person look like? What are they wearing?”

“He's average height, slim. Wearing a baseball cap, big black jacket, baggy jeans. He's right at the window beside the door.”

“Got it,” Chan replies.

You watch, moments later as a couple of men approach the guy. They talk to him for a second before they lead him away with a firm grip on each shoulder.

The second after he disappears from your view, the members burst into the cafe, frantically scanning the room.

You stand up and meet them in the middle.

“Thank you.” Is all you can say, before you burst into tears of relief. The boys waste no time surrounding you and wrapping you in their arms murmuring reassurances, uncaring of how it must look to the cafe patrons.

where the heart is collection | read it on ao3 | masterlist

[cutehoons02]

We don’t pray for love,we just pray for cars!

Fast Hearts: Hyung Line F1 series

*pairing: Park Sunghoon F1 Red Bull driver x sports Journalist

*trope: Enemies to lovers/Forbbiden love

*driver: Park Sunghoon=Max Verstappen

*synopsis: Sunghoon is the synthesis of the journalist hater. He respects their work but when a young girl without fears and a little cheeky enters the world of F1 and Sunghoon for him is a disaster. This journalist loves to tease him, sometimes ask inappropriate questions just to make fun of him and drive him crazy. Sunghoon every time he sees her would like to put it in his place because he hates her but at the same time is attracted by her but the problem is that he should not be distracted by anything because he is fighting for the world championship for his first time with Red Bull.

*tags: At first they can’t stand each other, Hoon is really asshole with her (at first) but she also teases him always, kisses, 2 sex scenes (doogy style-normal sex) unprotected sex (don’t horny ppl) fingerings, masturbation (f.m) sucking, the list of races is random (there are not all races of a season of F1) pet names (baby doll) (hoon,hoonie)

11.8k (💙) *English is not my native language

You were in your final year of sports journalism, and with your top grades and a way with words that had already made more than one professor uneasy, you were lucky enough to be selected for an exclusive internship with F1 TV. Not just any TV, but the official platform of Formula 1: young, viral, fast-paced. Interviews, exclusive content, and, most importantly, social media. It was the first race of the season in Bahrain, and you were already at the center of your first post-race conference.

Jin – the undisputed king of Mercedes – had just won. Again. The seventh time in a row, and no one even raised an eyebrow anymore. But your attention wasn’t on him.

To his right, in second place, Park Sunghoon seemed like a shadow just about to explode. His dark eyes fixed on the Red Bull can in his hands. A hard face, clenched jaw, raven-black hair slightly tousled. He was gritting his teeth with elegance.

From what you knew, he had been with Red Bull since he was 17. A prodigy, a winner, stubborn. He’d come close to winning the championship the previous year. This year... he wasn’t accepting any compromises. He had to win. And today, a single mistake at the start had cost him everything.

It was at that moment that you raised your hand with the microphone between your fingers. Everyone turned to look at you, including the content creator beside you who was filming for social media channels. Your voice, clear and calm, was the one that made him raise his eyes.

“Park Sunghoon, the car this year seems more balanced, more aggressive in the corners. So, if you don’t win the championship… can we say that maybe it was never the car’s fault, but yours?”

Silence.

A brief, icy silence.

Jin gave a small smile and lowered his face. Jay, third on the podium, made a soft “oh” with his lips.

But it was Sunghoon’s gaze that took your breath away for a second. He looked you up and down slowly, with surgical precision. Narrowed, dark eyes, full of contained disdain. You felt them slide from your hair down to your legs, where they lingered just a bit longer than necessary.

He slowly ran a hand through his silver hair, then responded.

“You’re new, aren’t you?”

His voice was low and sharp, like a thin blade.

“You see, in your line of work, asking smart questions is the first step to staying in it for the long haul. Next time, try harder.”

You bit your smile.

“Oh, so if you lose, we can say the car wasn’t the issue and you made a rookie mistake at the start? Or should I ‘ask better questions’ even to the telemetry data?”

The crowd let out a small “ooooh.” Jin coughed to hide a chuckle.

Sunghoon clenched his jaw. He gave you a long, penetrating look, then stood up with a swift movement of the chair, leaving Jin and Jay still seated.

Without saying anything else, he walked off.

You watched him go, your lips slightly curved in a smile.

Welcome to Formula 1.

The Red Bull plane had landed a couple of hours ago, and as was customary before every race weekend, Sunghoon had decided to cycle along the entire track. It was one of his rituals: silence, asphalt, and a visual analysis of the circuit before the data and telemetry took over. He was accompanied by Jake and Jay. The three of them were known in the paddock as the 02z: all born in 2002, growing up together on karting circuits, adolescent victories, fierce rivalries, and shared dreams. Now they were professionals, but their friendship – though rough and competitive – was still alive.

Jake, the McLaren driver, was the kind of guy who smiled too much, even when he lost. He loved afterparties, Twitter memes, making TikTok videos, and his dog Layla, who followed him everywhere. He always had a joke ready, but he was also a fierce driver when it came to racing.

Jay, on the other hand, was the "rockstar driver." He played guitar before races, had a philosophical air about him, and had a cover-worthy smile, but when in the car, he was as determined as few others. He was supposed to be Sunghoon's teammate at Red Bull, but he had chosen Mercedes, aiming for a long-term plan. He was balanced but stubborn. Once he made a decision, no one could change his mind.

And then there was Sunghoon. Cold, calculating, focused. He lived only for F1. The only one who skipped F2, catapulted directly into Formula 1 thanks to the Red Bull Academy. The previous year he had come second. This year… everything revolved around the championship. The rest was noise. The sun was setting behind the Jeddah skyscrapers, painting the track in orange and pink hues. They cycled in single file and then in parallel. No one spoke for a few minutes until Jay broke the silence.

-You know, I’m still recovering from that press conference.- Jay said, his tone amused, sharp, and cheeky. Jake chuckled and said, 'That stuff is already in the best moments of the year. I mean, it has meme potential for sure.' Sunghoon didn’t respond, but his jaw muscles tightened slightly. -The scene: you shutting up a newly hired intern… and her schooling you in front of Jin.- Jay said, and Jake chuckled, looking at Sunghoon, repeating the words you had said a week before: 'Can we say it was your fault, not the car’s?” Boom. Mic drop.' Jake mimicked the gesture with his hand, pretending to throw a microphone. “It was a stupid question,” Sunghoon said, annoyed. -It was the truth, said in a bold way. Maybe that’s why it hurt you so much.- Jay said, staring at Sunghoon, who gripped his bike handlebars tighter. 'And anyway… she’s cute. I looked her up afterward. There are clips everywhere, even in Layla’s profile reels.' He laughed at his joke, while Sunghoon slammed on the brakes and stared at him with the coldest look he could muster. “Don’t start with this too,” Sunghoon said with an icy stare. Jake raised his hands and laughed, 'I’m just saying the pictures turned out well, and she seems like a nice girl…' “I don’t want to hear that name in my presence again. Got it?” Sunghoon said, his voice firm, sharp as a blade. -Damn, you’re more sensitive than a diva at the Met Gala,- Jay said. 'Admit it, she made an impression on you.' Jake laughed. “No.” -Mhm. I’ve known you since you used to steal new tires at karting. If you say no with that voice, it’s a brutal yes disguised as an excuse.-Jay replied with an arched eyebrow. Sunghoon began cycling again, faster. But the two easily caught up with him. 'I can’t wait for you to interview me. I promise I’ll answer with 'Yes, miss,' but only if you say it.' Jake responded, glancing at Jay. 'Come on, Hoonie, maybe she’s exactly the type you need. You need someone to break your facade now and then. You know, someone human. With emotions.' Sunghoon didn’t speak, but his hands were gripping the handlebars as if he wanted to break them. His gaze was fixed on the asphalt in front of him, but the images of the press room were still in his mind: full lips, nerdy glasses that couldn’t hide the cheeky attitude, the voice that didn’t shake in front of him. The voice of someone who didn’t kneel. Not even in front of someone like him. Jay (whispering to Jake) -Do you think he’s already thought about it while taking a cold shower?- Jake (laughing) 'Yeah. But he says it’s hatred. Some lies he tells himself really well.' Sunghoon slammed the brakes abruptly. He turned to them with a fiery look. “Whoever talks about her again… will walk the track on foot. On an empty stomach.” He shouted, annoyed by the bickering behind him. -Shit. Sorry, boss.- Jay replied, laughing, but under the threat, Jay and Jake were laughing. They were laughing hard because their cold, cynical, icy friend… was finally distracted. And that could be far more dangerous than any rival on the grid.

Qualifying had been like dancing on the edge of a knife. In Jeddah, to set a good time, you had to brush against the wall. Literally. Not centimeters. Millimeters. And Sunghoon had done it. Not a scratch, not a smudge. But the clock had spoken clearly: P2. Jin, once again, was faster than him. That evening, in his motorhome, Hoon had consumed himself with the data, the telemetry, every line of the racing line. His engineer knew him well: when he was like this, it was best to leave him alone. No music, no chatter. Just Jin, Red Bull, and obsession. Sunday – Race Red light. Three. Four. Five. Go. Perfect start. Millisecond reaction time. Jin kept the lead, but Hoon was glued to him. Less than 0.3 seconds for twenty laps. At Turn 22, he got so close he could see the carbon fiber on the Mercedes quivering under the pressure. Then, at the end of the straight after the second DRS zone, he did it. He dove in. Fake left, entered right. Jin closed too late. Contact? Almost. But he made it. P1. The pit crew exploded. His heart was pounding in his chest like a tribal drum. But Jin wasn’t the type to back down. After six laps, he was back. Right behind him. 0.4. 0.2. 0.1, and then it happened. In the second sector, amidst the chaos of walls and blind corners, Sunghoon suddenly lifted his foot. He braked. For just a moment. That was enough. Jin launched at full speed, and couldn’t react.

BANG.

The Mercedes hit the diffuser of the Red Bull. A piece of carbon wing flew onto the track. Screams on the radio.

Jin (via radio): “Is he f*cking insane?!”

Sunghoon (via radio): “What the hell was he doing?! I was letting him through! He knew that!”

It was a dirty move. A trick. A provocation. Soon after, Jin passed him again. He still had enough pace, despite the damage, to close P1. Sunghoon, P2. Again. But this time, with the taste of blood between his teeth.

Post-race – Parc fermé He got out of the car as if he were stepping on broken glass. His helmet still on, his fists clenched. The crowd cheered, but he heard nothing. Just anger. Frustration. And shame. Jin approached him immediately. Taking off his gloves, visibly agitated. 'Are you crazy? What was that?' Jin said, disappointed. “If you wanted to pass, you could’ve. I left you space.” Sunghoon said coldly. 'You braked suddenly. In the middle of the track. This isn’t karting, Hoon. If you want to win a championship… do it like a man. Do it clean.' Jin said, staring at him with those severe, veteran eyes. He was in his eighth championship. You didn’t play games like this. Not like this. Cameras were everywhere. Microphones even more so. But no one dared to interrupt them. That’s when he saw you. Dressed in a long paddock outfit, beige sand, soft and light like the wind blowing from the Gulf. Big sunglasses, a little smile on your lips. The F1TV microphone in your hand, but no question. Just a fixed gaze on him, in silence. A mute challenge. A reminder. He hated you. And yet… he just wanted to rip that outfit off you. Sunghoon via radio, entering the pit box: “Tell the press office I’m not going.” PR (via radio): “Hoon, there’s the mandatory press conference.” Sunghoon (cutting): “I’m not going into that room. If needed, fine me. I won’t talk to anyone. Especially not her.” The Red Bull garage door slammed shut with a thud.

The press room was cold. But the adrenaline from the race still burned on the skin, like the Saudi sun. Jin was sitting composed, his gaze focused yet relaxed. Next to him was Heeseung, but the second-place seat was empty. Sunghoon hadn't shown up. No statements, no comments. Just silence and the usual arrogance. You, with the microphone in hand and your heart still racing from the race, asked the routine questions. Precise, professional. But inside, you were seething. That guy was getting under your skin. And beneath your surface.

With your team, you'd just closed a piece that you knew would explode like a bomb in the paddock. Headline:

“Park Sunghoon: pure talent or just ego in a helmet?”

Subtitle:

“Today’s move on Jin was a gamble on the edge of safety. When ego surpasses adrenaline, risk turns into a threat. And Sunghoon is playing with fire.”

The article ended with:

“Respect is earned by acknowledging your mistakes. But perhaps that kind of respect doesn’t interest Sunghoon. Not for now.”

The sky was turning pink, the Arabian sunset descending like velvet over the team tents. You were walking near the Red Bull motorhome, ready to wrap up the weekend… when you saw him. Sunghoon. Leaning against the back of his motorhome. His eyes are down on a tablet. Your article opened in front of him. He had his hair pulled back with a band, a Red Bull in hand, and his jumpsuit pants slung low on his hips. He had that lone wolf look. Or maybe, a hunted animal. You stopped. “Are you out of your mind?” you snapped. “That move… You both could’ve been out. What the hell were you thinking?” He slowly lifted his eyes. Started at you with that dark, sharp look. “I don’t need a babysitter. And certainly not a nosy journalist who gets excited writing about me.” He raised the tablet. “What’s this? Now you’re pretending to be a moral judge?” “You risked someone’s life.” “My life, and mine only.” He chuckled. Cold. Cynical. “That piece of yours is crap.” And that was when your vein popped. Without thinking, you shoved your hands into his chest and pushed him against the wall. He didn’t move an inch. He just blocked you with one hand on your side, hard. Too hard for just a defense. His fingers dug into the lightweight fabric of your dress.

“Christ. But this… this drives me crazy. The way she challenges me. The way she touches me. I want to shut her up, not with words. But with mine. And I shouldn’t. I’ve got a damn championship to win. And yet I’m thinking about what she looks like under that dress.” Hoon thought as he shot you a glance.

He looked at you with pupils slightly dilated. A flash crossed his gaze. “Watch out,” he hissed, inches away from you. “You’re not important enough yet to use those words.” But you didn’t back down. “No?” you whispered, your heart in your throat. “But enough to get a reaction from you. Mentally… and physically.” He slowly released your side, but he did so with deliberate slowness. He turned to leave, but muttered something through clenched teeth: “Next time… choose your words better. Or you might find yourself having to swallow them.” And disappeared into the motorhome, but you knew that wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning.

The Australian sun had just set, but Albert Park still shimmered with the glow of victory. Sunghoon Park had finally won. First win of the season. First time ahead of Jin. He had driven like a demon straight out of hell. Surgical precision, aggressive yet clean overtakes. The Red Bull was flawless—but he was more than that. You’d followed him all weekend, like always. But this time, the story had changed. And you knew it. So, with your heart pounding in your throat and your brain lit up like an engine pushed to its limits, you wrote an article. For him.

Title:

"Sunghoon Park: Fueled by Hate. And Finally, a Win That Burns."

He drove like he had fire under his wheels. Like every corner was an answer to every word written, every look given, every laugh behind his back. Did he finally show a human side? No. Thankfully, no. Sunghoon Park is as cruel to himself as he is to others. But tonight, Melbourne trembled for him. Because when he wins... it hits you. Like a wound that burns. And damn, it leaves a mark.

Well done, Park. Keep going. Maybe, in the end, someone will love you for this, too.

Click. Published.

And you knew he was reading it. You felt it, under your skin.

That evening, you wore a knee-length black dress with a modest neckline but sensual style. Your hair was down in soft waves, and you wore a floral perfume with warm undertones.

You weren’t looking for him. But you weren’t avoiding him either.

You rode up to the eleventh floor alone. But when the elevator stopped at the sixth, he stepped in.

Black shirt, collar open, eyes cast down but fully aware. You turned your head to speak.

"Just wanted to say... nice job today. You finally woke up."

He didn’t answer right away. Closed his eyes for a second, then slowly turned to you.

"Your piece. I read it. Poison in the shape of praise.

You’re good with words. Almost as good as you are at playing with me," he said, voice hoarse.

"And you’re good at reacting when I mess with you. We work."

He took a step closer. Too close. The elevator kept rising, but time stopped.

"You provoke me. Always. You wanna know the truth?" He brushed your cheek with the back of his fingers, speaking just inches from your lips.

"It turns me on like hell." And he said it with a smirk that promised nothing good—then he kissed you. It wasn’t sweet. It was violent. Fiery. An implosion.

His lips were hot, and hungry. His hands grabbed your waist and the back of your neck. Your body hit the elevator wall with a dull thud—but you didn’t complain.

You couldn’t. You were too far gone.

Sunghoon’s tongue pushed into your mouth with force, weeks of restraint pouring out in one breathless moment. His kisses were rough, and dirty. He bit your lower lip too hard, then moved to your ear.

"I can't take it anymore. Pretending. Ignoring you. You drive me crazy and I don't know if I want to kiss you... or shut you up with your hands tied behind your back."

he whispered, panting.

He bit your ear—first gently, then harder—while lifting you slightly against the wall, fingers digging into your sides like he wanted to leave a mark. You scratched his shoulder blade. He chuckled. A low, wicked laugh. Bastard. And god, so sexy.

"I thought you needed focus, Park," you said, moaning.

"Apparently, you are my focus," he murmured, trailing his hand along your thigh—and your whole body shivered.

DING. Floor 11.

He pulled away. His eyes were glazed, but clear.

"This isn’t over," he said darkly.

"It hasn’t even started," you whispered as you stepped past him, legs shaking—but the fire? That was just beginning.

Barcelona.

The circuit where it had all begun.

Where Park Sunghoon, just seventeen years old, had won his very first F1 race as a rookie—blowing away every prediction, every doubt, every insult hurled at him online.

That day, the world had dubbed him the Ice Prince. Unshakable. Precise. Ruthless.

But this time… this time, he hadn’t won.

He’d finished fourth. A wrong strategy, an unstable car after the second pit stop, and far too many thoughts clouding his head.

He’d been leading the championship for weeks. Max had dropped out of the top spots. Jin was only a few points behind and yet, something… something was slipping through his fingers.

Jake and Jay noticed it too.

On their days off in Monaco, when they went running along the coast in the morning or locked themselves in the gym, they saw how Hoon trained harder than necessary. How he sometimes drove one of his vintage cars for hours—just to outrun his thoughts. How he studied telemetry in silence, even on rest days.

Jake—with his loud laugh and Layla the puppy always in his arms—tried to make him smile.

Jay, more observant, said nothing. But he watched and now and then, during quiet moments, the two exchanged knowing glances and smiled.

Because they knew something Hoon would never admit:

There was a journalist—with too much light in her eyes—who was getting under his skin.

Barcelona. Post-race.

In the Red Bull garage, the air was tense.

Mechanics worked in silence. No one dared speak to him.

The team principal had simply nodded and said:

"Today wasn’t your race. But the season is long."

But Sunghoon wasn’t listening. He had taken off his race suit, changed clothes, and now sat outside the motorhome, hidden in the shade.

The sun was setting slowly, and the roar of the engines had faded into the distance and that’s where you found him.

In a corner of the paddock you knew by heart. Your heart saw him first—before your eyes did. He was sitting there, the Ice Prince. Only that night, the ice was starting to melt.

You walked over—this time with no microphone. Just your voice.

“You didn’t run away this time,” you said softly.

He looked up slowly. Tired eyes. Angry eyes.

“And you’re still not tired of chasing me,” he replied, voice low and laced with venom. You stopped just a few steps away. Silence. There was no challenge in your stance—only honesty.

You looked him in the eye. He didn’t look away.

“I saw you make mistakes today. For the first time… you looked human.”

His jaw tensed. He gave a small nod. A silent admission.

“It’s not easy, trying to be perfect… is it?” Silence again. Only the distant hum of generators and the pounding in your chest.

Then, he spoke.

“I don’t want to be perfect.…I want to win. I want to deserve the seat I’ve been given and every time I screw up, every time I lose, it feels like I’m spitting in the face of those who believed in me.”

He looked down.

For one fleeting moment, he seemed fragile.

“And me… in all of this… am I just a distraction?” You didn’t ask out of pity. Nor to provoke him. You asked because you wanted to know.

He inhaled deeply. Didn’t look at you. But his voice wavered—barely.

“There’s no room for you. There shouldn’t be room for anything. But you… you’re there. Always. Because you provoke me every damn weekend, and I think about you, I see you—when I drive, when I lose, when I lock myself in the gym, when I race along the Côte d’Azur, even then. And I wish I could rip you out of my head forever. But you’re there. In my thoughts. And you drive me insane.”

His fingers moved—slowly. He took your hand. A gesture that wasn’t like him. A crack. A surrender. A silent confession.

His skin was warm. His grip firm, but not rough. He looked down—like he hated himself for it.

“And that… is the problem.” You didn’t reply right away.

Then, slowly, you knelt beside him—still holding his hand.

“Maybe… you’re not the problem. Maybe the problem is that, for the first time… you’ve found something you can’t control.”

He looked at you. Eyes not full of tears—but of storm.

“If I let you in, I won’t be able to focus. And if I keep you out…I won’t be able to breathe.”

Silence.

“Then choose what scares you more: losing… or feeling something.”

He didn’t answer. He let go of your hand but he didn’t stand. Didn’t walk away he stayed. With you and in the silence of the Catalan night,

for the very first time, it wasn’t the sound of an engine keeping him company—but you.

The sky above Silverstone seemed to barely hold the weight of the tensions built up on track, it had been an explosive Grand Prix. Sunghoon started second, Jin third. Everyone’s eyes were on them. No one was talking about anything else. The battle between them had become the main storyline of the season. And when, on lap 37, Jin attempted the inside pass, Hoon didn’t back down. The two brushed against each other, their tires touched, and the Mercedes flew off into the gravel, ending the race. Sunghoon continued, but the damage to the floor of the Red Bull sent him sliding to fourth place. Zero points for Jin. Just twelve for him. A disaster for both and a perfect explosion for the media.

After the race, the air in the paddock was as tense as a rubber band about to snap. Sunghoon got out of the car with his suit unbuttoned to his chest, sweat on his skin, his face burning. He threw his gloves onto the wall and ignored anyone who tried to speak to him.

But you were waiting for him.

Microphone in hand, posture impeccable, eyes determined.

You had watched the replay several times: the move had been risky, borderline. And you wanted his version but you also wanted to provoke him. You wanted to break through his ice. You intercepted him just as he was about to enter the garage, with two PRs on his heels.

“Park, got a second?”

He turned, saw you, and stopped. His black eyes immediately narrowed.

“What is it now, you want to ask if I tried to kill Jin?”

“No. But if you want to talk about it, we can add it to the interview.”

Silence. The cameramen were already there. The microphone was on.

You took a deep breath, then pressed on.

“You’ve been complaining all season about how Jin is treated like a deity. But today, when you had control, you chose to push him off. Is this the champion mentality you’re trying to show the world?”

Sunghoon stared at you. His eyes turned to stone.

“You know what the problem with this generation of journalists is? You all think the track is a reality show. This isn’t Netflix. This isn’t ‘Drive to Survive.’ It’s Formula 1. And I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“Then why do you seem so obsessed with what we write? Why do you read every single line that concerns you?”

The shot hit its mark. You knew it a muscle twitched on his jaw.

Then, without saying another word, he turned and disappeared into the garage but the look he gave you… was a promise.

The call came less than thirty minutes later. From his PR.

“Mr. Park would like you to come to his office. Room 813. He says he ‘wants to discuss your journalistic skills.’”

You didn’t respond, you just went, you opened the door without knocking.

The room was bright, modern, with large windows looking out onto the now-empty track. Sunghoon was standing there, hands in his black pants pockets, a tight t-shirt that hugged his chest.

As soon as he saw you, he lifted his chin.

“Took you less time than expected. Ready to apologize?”

You closed the door slowly behind you. The blood was pounding in your temples.

“Apologize? For asking a question any journalist would ask? You called me here to hear applause or to confirm that you have thin skin when it comes to criticism?”

He stepped toward you, slowly, like a predator.

“I called you here because what you did was personal. It wasn’t a question—it was an attack. And you know what? You like it. You like to poke me. You like to make me lose control.”

You clenched your jaw.

“Because you’re arrogant. Because you think the world owes you something just because you drive faster than the rest. But you know what I saw today? Panic. Haste. A kid who feels threatened by someone who’s won more than him.”

He stopped just two steps away from you. Looked down at you.

“You’re just a brat. A nuisance. A background noise. And you’re playing with fire.”

You moved closer. Anger, excitement, tension—it was all mixed together.

“And you’re a walking ego with an inferiority complex. But hey, at least one of us has the balls to admit it.”

His gaze burned. He took a step forward. Then another. Now he was too close. You could feel his breath.

“Kneel.”

The word hit like a whip you didn’t back down. Your eyes locked onto his.

“Fuck you.”

He smiled. Cold. Obscene. Dangerous.

“I’m asking you to choose. Either you run like everyone else who can’t handle me…Or you show me that your mouth serves for something useful.”

Time stopped.

There was no noise—only the beating of your heart.

His hands had closed on either side of your hips, not touching you, but surrounding you with the tension of the gesture.

It was then, in that suspended moment between hate and desire, that you realized neither of you would give in first.

Sunghoon looks at you like you're a mistake. But the noticeable swelling in his pants screams the opposite. "What is it, champ?" you say bending your head to the side. "Are you afraid of a journalist who asks uncomfortable questions even with her mouth full?" He doesn't laugh. He never does. But his eyes shine with repressed desire, burning anger. "You talk too much." growl. "And you don't know when to shut up." You laugh, provocative. "Perhaps. But I bet I could teach you to moan my name before you can silence me." At that moment he snaps. He grabs you by the back of his head and pushes you against the wall, his forehead a breath away from his. "Don't tempt me, little viper. I'll break you."

"Promises, promises…" you whisper, biting your lip. Slowly, you kneel before him. Look at his belt, then go back to his eyes. "Can I open the gift?" Silence. Then a dry: "Do it. But no scenes." You unlock it with slow fingers, and you already feel the heat growing between you. When you unbutton his pants and lower them, his black by Supreme "Really Supreme?" raise your eyebrows. "Did you want to impress someone?" "Shut your mouth… or use it well." You laugh slowly, and then you light up. "Oh, don't worry. She'll be busy for a while." Lower the bigboxer, tense, throbbing. You bite your lips. Feel the water rise. "Christ, Hoon … below you are a champion even without a helmet." He looks at you as if he wants to pierce you, but the beating that pulsates on his toe betrays his self-control. You stroke it with slow fingers, going up and down. With your other hand, you stroke his side hard, feeling his muscles contract under your skin. "Let me guess…" whisper, as your tongue grazes its tip. "That's the weakness you didn't want me to find out." "Silent," he grunts. "Suck, now." You look at him, provocatively, and say: "I'm not as good as you think." His hand grabs your hair, squeezing it at the root, forcing you to open your mouth. "Then learn. I just want to hear my moans and the sound of your throat as you swallow me."

You take him between your lips slowly, while he sighs a " Fuck…” that sends a shiver down your spine. Feel his warm skin on the tongue, the tip smooth against the palate. You begin to move, lips tightened around him, tongue working in slow circles. He groans quietly but does not give up control. He guides you with his grip on his hair, and moves you as he wants. "Look how good you are when you stop talking…" he murmurs, his voice hoarse. "Maybe I should keep you like that more often." You cast a glance at him, while your mouth is full of him, and slightly tighten your grip around his left testicle, to challenge him. Sunghoon moans, a growl that becomes a crude groan. He pulls your hair with more force. "You're playing with fire, bitch." With one blow, he pushes it deeper into you. Your hands are clasped, one against his belly, the other pumping him with alternating rhythm to your mouth. You are moving as if you are enjoying a delicious dessert, sucking and licking with ravenous attention. You're destroying it, and you know it. He looks at you like he can't believe how well you're doing. Or how crazy you're driving him. "God, I can't stand you…" he moans. "But I swear you will never find another who fucks you like that." Lift your mouth for a moment, your lips shiny. "Who talked about fucking? I'm here to do a thorough investigation…" "Head down. Mouth open." And push, this time decisively. His hips move, and he penetrates you deeper, while his sighs turn into broken grunts. The salty taste of his skin, his smell, the tension in his voice that's all. He's coming, and you know it. "Take it all, bitch. You owe me." And with one last hoarse groan, you hear it explode in your mouth. His seed invades your palate, salty and bitter, while his hands hold you firm against him. You watch him calmly swallow it, never taking your eyes off his. When it ends, you're still there, satisfied, your mouth licking your lips slowly. "I would say that this …" you whisper, standing up," … deserves an adult-only article." He grabs you by the waist, holds you tightly against himself, and in a low, hungry voice says: "I hope you're not done. I certainly don't."

He lifts you off the ground with one hand behind the nape of your neck and the other on your hip. His body is hot, still tense from the pleasure you just gave him. "Anyone who stands against me… " growls against your neck, in a deep and dangerous voice, "…you have to accept the consequences!" You try to mask the excited trembling in your voice. "I just did my job as a journalist…" Sunghoon pushes you to the desk. Red Bull sheets are scattered everywhere. Strategies, telemetry. And also … your printed article. "This?" he says, grabbing the paper. "Your version of "work"?" You take it and read it aloud, with a cheeky chuckle:

“Has he finally shown the human side? Nope. And fortunately. Sunghoon Park is as cruel to himself as he is to others. But tonight, Melbourne shook for him.”

He looks at you with those sharp eyes and whispers, "You're not as important as you think. But fuck, how crazy you make me…" He folds you firmly on the desk. Paper rustles under your skin. Feel the cold wood on your bare thighs. Lift your skirt up, slowly. "Always in these good girl skirts…" he spits with sharp contempt. "You're a bitch, especially with me." He hits you with a slap on the butt. Strong. It makes you gasp and moan almost reflexively. The pain stings you but immediately mixes with a jolt of pleasure that leaves you breathless. "Oh, Christ…" you sigh. "You like it, huh?" murmur against your back. "Do you want another one?" You don't answer. He moves your panties to the side. And when he looks, he remains silent for a second that seems eternal. "You're already so wet." His voice is lowered, almost fierce. "And I didn't even touch you." With two fingers he opens you, and caresses your clitoris with the precision of those who want to punish and reward at the same time. A groan escapes you, raw, primitive. "Look how you tremble." He sticks a finger in you slowly, then a second. The obscene sound of your wet body makes him smile. "So soaked. For me. Just for me." Then he lowers his pants again. His cock, hard and shiny, leans against your entrance. "Tell me you want it." he orders you. "Fuck me, Park." whispered. With a strong push, he gets into you. It's chunky, hot, and fills you with an impact that leaves you gasping, fingernails sinking into the edge of the desk. "So tight…" he moans. "As if no one had ever taken you properly."

Every shot is deep, and brutal but rhythmic. The desk moves under you, sheets sliding to the ground. One is you. One is him. One is your sharp tongue, and the other is his fierce response. His hands grab your hips. Then they slide up, one to the neck, the other to the breast. He pulls you back against himself as he continues to push in. "Yell at me how much you hate me." "I hate you…" he whispers through his teeth, trembling. "…but fuck, continue." And he does. It takes you stronger, deeper, until your thoughts are no longer words, but moans, cries, broken requests. He fucks you like it's the only way to silence the war between you. When you feel that you are about to come, he whispers in your ear: "Let me feel how a journalist who can no longer use words trembles."

His cock pushes back into you with a force that takes your breath away. A scream escapes from your throat as you feel the pressure inside grows like a wave about to overwhelm you. "I want to come …" moans, the voice broken. "Please let me come…" Sunghoon does not slow down. But he bends over you, his mouth warm against your ear. "And why would I do that? For a bitch who writes articles just for the pleasure of teasing me?" You stutter, confused by pleasure, almost unable to think. "I… I … it was just … part of my job…" He grabs your chin from behind, forcing you to turn your head slightly towards him. His eyes are cold, and hungry, yet full of something darker. "Then pray." he orders you, pushing even harder inside you.

"Fuck you." you spit with a trembling voice, looking for a shred of control. But he looks at you with a sharp grin. "That's exactly what I'm doing, baby doll." Then it almost completely comes out of you, leaving you empty, about to go crazy. You feel the emptiness, you feel the absence, and your body moans in despair. "No … no, please…" he whispers, his voice broken. He smiles, satisfied. "Good girl." He caresses your clit with two fast, precise fingers, and a moment later you come with a choked cry, your moods dripping down her still pulsating shaft, which fills you all the way again with a deep thrust. Your moans mix with his. Every stroke sends you another spasm of pleasure. Feel the orgasm explode inside you like a slow and devastating bomb. "Where… where do you want to come?" he groans, his breath panting. "I'll take the pill…" you gasps. "I'm clean… and you?" "Me too. Regular tests. No girl in months." "Then fill-fill me. In. I want to hear you come inside me." With two final thrusts, you hear it explode. His hot seed invades you, you feel it squirt deep, and then overflow. The threads of his pleasure begin to trickle out of you along your thighs, while he stays there, inside you, panting, his forehead resting on your sweaty back. You both tremble. You both groan. Both of you, for an instant, are alive only in that wild, dirty, sincere bond. He stays inside you a little longer, his hand holding you steady against him. His breath caresses your nape. Then he slowly walks away, and you feel the heat dripping from you as he gently turns you around this time. Rest your head against his bare chest, sweaty, still shaken with pleasure. And he, unexpectedly, slips a thumb on your cheek, calmly stroking.

"You are a damned temptation." he murmurs in a hoarse voice. You look up and, with a weary but cheeky smile, whisper: "You'll see what I write this time. The title will be:

"Pilot under pressure: unexpected explosion".

He snorts, but he has a half-smile. "Don't think too much about me during the summer break." he tells you, the voice returned harder. "And if you even try to date some poor idiot, remember that only I … can take you like that. Only I can make you feel alive." He bends down to pick up his pants and looks at you once again. Then with a silent gesture of the chin, he points you to the door. "Now go. Before I change my mind and fuck you against the window again."

The summer holidays in Formula 1 were the only time of year when you could finally escape. No circuits, no hospitality, no press conferences with arrogant drivers and eyes like ice.

Just your home, the salt on your skin, and your feet in the warm sand of the Mediterranean.

You spent the days with your hands buried in bowls of cold pasta and grilled fish, the evenings filled with ice cream, slow conversations, and light dresses. Yet every time you closed your eyes… there were no seashells or waves to lull you to sleep.

There were his hands.

His pushes.

His killer gaze that seemed to say, “Never try to forget me.” And it worked. Because you couldn’t.

Some guys had asked you out. One with the gentle smile of your father’s pharmacist, another was a Danish surfer you met at a beach party. All nice, available, perfect for a summer fling.

But your body didn’t react. Your mind went blank the moment you thought about kissing anyone else. Sunghoon had branded you.

Not with sweetness, but with that cold fire only someone who never gives anything can make burn and you hated him for that.

Because he didn’t even give you a reason to stop thinking about him.

No paparazzi shots.

No compromising photos.

No mysterious girl appearing in his stories.

He had spent a week in Korea, you had found out by accident from a fanpage post that had spotted a picture of him at Incheon airport. But then he had returned to his kingdom: Montecarlo.

Jake, Heeseung, and Jay were posting stories on luxury boats, laughing with glasses of white wine between their fingers, and evenings by the Côte d’Azur. But not him.

He was like a shadow behind them. He showed up occasionally, with an expression too serious for a man on vacation.

Training.

Silence.

Balanced meals.

Zero clubs. Zero Oisha. Zero Twiga. A championship driver a war monk.

Sunghoon Park seemed to live in selective chastity, as if sex—even the wild kind with you—was a distraction only allowed in the heat of an impulse. Then? Nothing.

Yet you still felt his skin on yours, like a scent that wouldn’t go away.

The way he had taken you, teased you, humiliated you, and made you come at the same time.

The way he had looked at you in the end, while saying in that raspy voice:

“Only I can make you feel alive.”

He had kept his promise.

But now? He had left you to manage that emptiness. And you hated getting lost in emptiness. Maybe that was what hurt you the most: no longer even having the chance to truly hate him.

Sunghoon Park never smiled at Monza. He didn’t answer questions with enthusiasm, he didn’t sign caps, and he didn’t shake hands more than necessary. He had returned from vacation with the same sharp discipline he had left with: trained, focused, unreachable. No gossip, no distractions, no women. The only thing that mattered to him was winning and Monza was his. He could feel it. Every turn, every meter, every gear change seemed to align with his blood. But there was one problem. You. You, with your fluttering skirt and the media badge, wore like a summer bracelet. You, laughing too loudly in the press room, asked questions that drove him mad with frustration and desire. You, who never bent to him and perhaps, for this reason, you had become impossible to ignore.

The sun was beating down on the Monza paddock.

You were talking to two colleagues when one—a British journalist in a too-tight tie and oversized ego—got a little too close.

He laughed at his own jokes, brushed your elbow too often, and then, with a winning smirk, he said:

'Are you sure you’d rather interview those Korean robots than go out with a real man?'

His hand brushed your back, lower than was professional. Before you had time to respond with your usual sharp sarcasm, a cold voice interrupted the scene.

“Get your hands off her.” The tone was so low and sharp that the air seemed to freeze.

You turned.

Sunghoon was there. His suit was half-open, dark hair slightly tousled, sweat on his skin, eyes darker than usual.

The journalist looked at him, trying to laugh it off. 'Relax, champ. We were just talking.'

“I don’t care. You’re two seconds away from ruining your career.” Hoon’s voice was flat. Serious. Lethal.

The colleague made a ridiculous apologetic gesture and disappeared into the crowd. You raised an eyebrow. “Wow. What a knight.”

Sunghoon didn’t laugh. But he didn’t walk away either.

He was staring at you. Eyes locked with yours. As if he were looking for something. As if he wanted to make sure you were okay.

“I don’t need a bodyguard, you know? I can handle myself.” Your tone was provocative but sweet. He tilted his head slightly.

“It’s not for you. It’s to avoid breaking his nose and ending up in the headlines.”

You burst out laughing and that was when you saw it. The corner of his mouth curled. A half-smile and then, for just a second, his gaze drifted down to your bare legs, to your throat as you laughed, to the fingers holding your notebook.

Then it returned to your eyes.

He had been looking when he shouldn’t have.

The moment was interrupted by the roar of engines. The race was about to start.

After the race – Podium

He had won. Sunghoon Park had won Monza in front of the sea of red, the screaming fans, the delirious engineers but when he raised the trophy, his eyes only searched for one thing.

You and there you were. Radiant smile, hair tousled by the wind, eyes sparkling from the sun… or perhaps from something more.

You approached later, at the back of the paddock.

“Congrats, champ.” You said it with a strange tone. Affectionate. Almost tender. Sunghoon slowly turned around. He looked at you and for the first time, he didn’t respond with sarcasm.

He didn’t call you “annoying.” He didn’t roll his eyes.

“Thank you.” Just that. One sincere word. Calm. Real and then, quieter still:

“I missed you.”

You stayed there, suspended between the smell of gasoline and the setting sun and the mask he had always worn… seemed to have cracked just a little.

The humidity in Singapore clung to your skin like a wet dress. Even at midnight.

You’d spent the whole weekend feeling hot, restless, and confused: – restless from the heat, – restless because of the race, – restless because, ever since Monza… things between you two were no longer clear.

Sunghoon had changed. But he wouldn’t admit it. He was still quiet, but now he searched for you with his eyes. He was still cold, but his gaze softened when he spoke to you.

And today, when Jay won with his new team and Hoon came in second… he smiled. A real smile.

You’d asked him, microphone in hand: “First time I’ve seen you happy about not winning.”

He’d run a hand through his sweaty hair, shrugging. “My two best friends were on the podium with me. Doesn’t happen often.”

Then, a quick glance sideways. “And Jay earned it. He pulled off the lap of his life. I respect that.”

It was the longest sentence he’d ever said to you. And maybe the most honest.

That night, the Fullerton hotel was dressed in gold. From the top floor, the track looked like a constellation of artificial stars.

You’d had two rum-and-pineapple cocktails, with something else in them that made you feel both weightless and burning hot.

Wearing a short black silk dress, hair loosely curled, you smiled like a girl who knew she was playing with fire.

Then you saw him. Sunghoon. Suit unzipped, a half-buttoned shirt, collar open, hair slicked back with his fingers. Beautiful. Untouchable.

But your body remembered him too well and your mind hated him for it. You walked up with a little smirk and said: “You know, I thought you were going to kiss Jay on the podium today. You looked so… happy.”

He stared at you for a second. “Are you drunk?”

You pouted. “Just a little… just enough to find you even sexier than usual.” Sunghoon clenched his jaw. A moment later, he grabbed your wrist.

“Come with me.”

“Hey!” you protested, laughing. “I just want to have fun. Can’t you play along?”

He turned to you, eyes low, voice rough. “You will have fun. Just not the kind you’re thinking of.”

With a bold spark, you whispered against his ear: “Are you… my fun, Hoon?”

He placed a hand over your mouth. Not hard—just enough to shut you up. You looked up at him, your tongue lightly grazing his palm.

He pulled it back instantly. “You’re impossible.”

The hotel room was cool with air conditioning, but your body... was burning. The night’s humidity had seeped into your skin. And the tequila into your blood. You were still laughing as you leaned back against the closed door, your bare shoulders brushing the wood.

he black silk dress clung to you like a second skin, slipping lower with each heavier breath.

“Didn’t think you were the type to rescue drunk damsels at the post-race party.”

Your voice was light, tipsy, teasing. But your eyes... wanted him, Sunghoon shrugged off his blazer and left it on the chair.

White shirt unbuttoned to the chest, elegant black trousers eyes down, jaw clenched.

“I didn’t rescue you.”

“No? Then why bring me here?”

He stepped closer. Slow. Controlled. He smelled of aftershave and warm skin. “Because you were one step away from real trouble.”

“Maybe that was the idea…” A smirk played on your lips. You knew you were provoking him. And you loved it. He didn’t answer. He leaned in, took your chin between two fingers.

“You like playing games, don’t you?”

“With you? Always.”

And then he kissed you. Hard. Certain. Without mercy. His tongue claimed your mouth, and you moaned against his lips, grabbing at his shirt.

His hands moved to your hips, then lower, gripping you with force.

“You’re drunk. And too turned on.”

“That’s on you.”

You rested your forehead against his chest.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since Silverstone. And I hate that.”

Sunghoon lifted your face with both hands.

“Then hate me better.”

The kiss that followed was slower. Deeper. Then he guided you gently to the bed and knelt in front of you.

“Spread your legs.”

You looked at him with glassy eyes.

“Yes, champ.”

“Don’t say it like that. You know what it does to me.”

His voice was low, nearly a growl as your thighs parted, he slowly lifted the silk, revealing the delicate black underwear already damp.

He looked up at you.

“Always this ready for me, huh?”

“Only for you. But don’t get used to it.”

He gave a dry, sarcastic laugh.

“I don’t want to get used to it. I want to ruin it.”

His fingers brushed against the fabric you gasped right away. Then he moved under it. Slow. Precise. He was learning your body like he studied a track—curve by curve.

“God, you’re soaked already.”

“Stop talking to me like that...”

“Why? Sounds like even my voice gets you off.”

His fingers started moving in earnest. First slow. Then faster. One, then two. Then his thumb joined in, finding your most sensitive spot.

You were about to lose control. Legs shaking. Sweat trailing down your temples.

“Hoon... I’m gonna...”

“No. Not yet.”

He stood, eased you back onto the bed, and came over you. Your clothes still on, but desire naked. Blazing. His kisses trailed down your neck. Your shoulders. Between your breasts.

“You’re a constant temptation,” he murmured, lips hot against your skin.

“And a problem. One I’m not sure I want to fix... or destroy.”

You grabbed the back of his neck.

“Then destroy me.”

He pressed against you—hard, hot, exactly where you needed him. You moaned so real, it made him shut his eyes like it hurt. Then he looked at you—lips wet, eyes dark.

“This is the last time.”

“Are we sure about that?”

You bit his lip. He sighed—but didn’t pull away. In fact, his hand returned to you, deeper, faster. You came for him—shaking, breathless, undone. He held you close, gently kissing your forehead. Then he pulled back and looked at you and you, curled into his chest, whispered:

“You’re not as cold as you pretend to be.”

He turned, gave the faintest smile.

“And you’re not as a good girl as you pretend to be.”

Sunghoon felt at home. It wasn’t Seoul—no—but Suzuka reminded him why he’d started all this. The Japanese asphalt under his tires had a different sound. Almost intimate and this… this was the turning point.

The title was just within reach.

Jin, his most relentless rival, was only a few points ahead. One mistake… or a bit more courage. That’s all it would take.

You, on the other hand, arrived in Suzuka feeling strange.

Too quiet. Too alert. Something gnawed at your stomach—a mix between a warning and fear. It wasn’t jet lag. It wasn’t the heat. It was him.

You saw him from a distance, in the garage.

That blue-and-black race suit clung to his body like a gladiator’s armor. Head down, focused—but you could read beyond the surface.

You approached under the guise of work, your press badge clenched in your fingers.

“Here to confess you already miss me?”

His voice, sharp as always—but his eyes… searched for yours.

“No.” You bit your lip and handed him a canned coffee.

“I came to tell you to be careful at the start.”

“I’ve been racing since I was four.” He laughed quietly.

“I know what I’m doing.”

“I know. But I…”

You hesitated. Then stood on your toes and kissed him—briefly—just below the mole by his eye.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just looked at you. But inside—inside, something cracked.

“Why did she do that? Why now? Why like this? It was a useless kiss, short…but it left me more exposed than a thousand words.”

You turned quickly and walked away. He stayed there, too still for too long.

The race start was clean then came lap three. The fight was on—Sunghoon and Jin, wheel to wheel through the fast section before Turn 9.

Your voice in the mic had just begun to rise when—CRASH.

Jin tried the inside, Sunghoon closed too late. The contact was sharp.

Hoon’s car slammed into the barriers—hard, direct a front wheel flew off. Carbon brakes burst into smoke. Global broadcast switched to instant replays, you didn’t scream, you didn’t speak, you let the mic fall.

-Where are you going?!- yelled the cameraman behind you.

But you didn’t stop. You tore through the media area, ran through the Red Bull hospitality corridors.

Two hours. Two endless hours then a doctor emerged from the medical room.

“Who are you?”

“His girlfriend.” The words came out without thinking a lie? Maybe but it felt like the only thing true.When you opened the door—he was there.

Laid out. Neck brace. Bandage on his brow.

Alive. You didn’t say a word.

You leapt into his arms—gently—and he pulled you in with one free hand.

Then he kissed you. In front of everyone. Without a second thought and something shifted. It wasn’t just tension anymore. It wasn’t just a game. It was truth.

You pulled back slightly, hands cupping his cheeks.

“You scared me to death.”

“I thought you only fell for the thrill.”

“No.”

You looked him straight in the eye.“You’re not just a problem anymore.”

He smiled. Slowly. Then closed his eyes and whispered against your forehead: “You’re my only distraction.”

The lights of Abu Dhabi didn’t just shine on the track. They lit up an entire season—racing hearts, stolen glances in the paddock, fingers intertwined in the shadows, and words never spoken out loud. The world was watching. And you… you couldn’t stop watching him.

The weekend had started with a tension that felt electric. Sunghoon started P2. Jin was on pole. Everyone knew it: everything would be decided here. The world title was balanced between two frozen flames. But you—deep down—you always felt it. That Red Bull helmet, number 02, would be the first to cross the finish line.

In the final laps, the air was so thick it could’ve been cut with a heartbeat. Lap 53. A crash. Safety car. Sunghoon’s radio crackled.

— “Box, now.” — “Are you sure?” — “Trust us. This is your moment.”

Fresh tires changed everything. Jin stayed out. And you held your breath. The last two laps became the cleanest, fiercest battle of the season.

And when he—at the penultimate corner—found that tiny window, that perfect braking point, when he slipped through like a scalpel and overtook Jin at Turn 9… The world flipped upside down.

Then, over the radio: “Let me hear her voice.”

It was the engineer—he turned to you, handed you the mic.

— “Copy, Park Sunghoon. Go claim your destiny.”

He laughed. He groaned something into the radio. And then he pushed. Pushed like the entire year was packed into those last two kilometers.

Checkered flag. P1. World Champion.

“You’re world champion!” you screamed, voice breaking, tears rolling down your cheeks. You heard him sob. Sunghoon Park. The ice prince. The robot. The boy without a heart. He was crying.

He parked the car like it was a ritual. Jumped out, and before removing his helmet, kissed the car. Then the tires—like he was thanking a partner. Then, the crowd. He threw himself into them, as if needing proof that it was all real.

On the podium, he was unrecognizable. Laughing, crying, shouting in Korean. He sang the anthem with a broken voice and champagne in his eyes. Jake and Jin sprayed him like kids, and for once, he just looked… alive.

And then he saw you.

You were there for work, still wearing your badge, mic in hand. But he didn’t care. He grabbed your wrist, ignoring cameramen, PR, the whole world.

“Sunghoon! I have an interview to—”

“Not now. You’re mine.”

He pulled you through the motorhome, down the still-warm hallways of the garage. Opened the door to his room. Closed it behind him.

Then he looked at you. And the silence hit.

“I can’t play this game with you anymore.” “Me neither,” you whispered. “I thought you’d just be an annoyance. A distraction. But instead…”

He stepped closer. His breath still ragged from the race. The smell of asphalt and sweat, of victory and desire, wrapped around you like heat.

Sunghoon's lips smelled of champagne and victory. And you … you were hungry. Of him, of his body, of his ego that smelled of warm skin and sweet sweat. He held you to himself with almost desperate force, as if he feared that you might vanish, escape, dissolve in the air of the suite. The noise of the party downstairs was just a distant echo. He moaned softly when you sank your fingers into his damp hair. “I can't take it anymore… " he whispered, his voice hoarse, tense. You smiled at him, cheeky. "Poor champion … so impatient.” Slowly, almost to punish him, you let him down the Red Bull suit, then the thermal jersey, revealing that body polished by fatigue and glory. The strained, sculpted muscles smelled of adrenaline. You stooped, sinking your lips to his candid, salty skin, sowing bites and hickeys like a signature. "They'll all see them," you whispered between bites. "Everyone will know that you are mine.” He grabbed your butt hard, barely growling. "Stop it," he admonished you, but the voice was shaken. You answered only with another slow lick on the line of hairs below the navel. You pulled his suit down altogether,and he stayed in bo bo His gaze burned. You rubbed against him, shamelessly, like a cat in heat. He snapped, grabbing you by the hips. “Christ. Look…” His hands, big, calloused, slipped under your sand-colored dress, mercilessly lifting it. "Raise your arms.” You did it, slowly, looking him straight in the eye. "Who the fuck are you dressed up for?” he growled, his gaze lost between your sand thong and the transparent bra. “For you, " you replied, almost chanting. "Just for you.” You rubbed against his erection, and he snorted a sharp laugh. "Keep it up and get on your knees before I get to touch you as you deserve.” He pushed you to the bed, decided, and when his teeth sank into one of your bare buds, your breath broke.

"Oh … Hoon …" you stammered, your voice broken with pleasure, as you tried to get your legs between his. "Do you see it? You're all mine already” he hissed at your skin. He sucked you, tasted you, explored you as if entitled to every inch. Then he stopped suddenly, and in a hoarse, rough voice whispered in your ear: “I wanted to fuck your breasts until you forget your name. But now … now I just want to sink into you.”

He slipped your panties with an almost sadistic slowness, the light fabric surrendering between his strong and impatient fingers. His dark eyes, shiny with desire, rested on your damp center, and the smile that folded his lips was typical of a man who knew he had won. "Look how reduced you are," he whispered, biting his lower lip softly. “All wet just because I'm looking at you. You've always been an arrogant little bitch, but underneath it all… two fingers of mine are enough to make you tremble.” His words made you groan. But it was the tone that broke you: low, rough, loaded with malice. "And now shut up," he added, as his lips glided slowly over your thighs. He began to suck your skin, to brand you with moist kisses and light bites, climbing up, approaching, barely touching you where you wanted to feel it most. You writhed under him, and the words came out to you in sobs, cheeky. "Come on, Hoonie…don't drive me crazy like that … ” "Shut up, baby doll," he hissed. "Dolls don't talk, they get used.” Then he looked you straight in the eye and let his tongue slide against you, with a decisive, expert gesture. The scream exploded in your throat, but he plugged your mouth with one hand, eyes fixed on yours. "You want them to hear you scream my name, bitch?” You nod, moaning under his grasp, and he growls a: “So you ruin me… and I like you crazy.”

His tongue moved in slow and deep circles, then quick and cheeky, while his breathing mingled with yours. When he stuck two fingers inside you, your body rose from the bed, arched like a stretched bow. "Say my name," he ordered. "Hoon… Hoonie, yeah…oh my God … ” "Stop coming without permission," he admonished you, clasping your hips tightly. ”I can't… please…I can't…" He added another, slow, torturing you, making you moan his name like a broken prayer. “You're taking everything so well, " he hissed. “I can't wait to replace these fingers with my cock, baby doll.” Those words sent you further. A warm, overwhelming wave shook you, and you came against his fingers and mouth. He drank it all, slowly, with a hungry and satisfied expression. "He knows about you and victory. Better than champagne.” Then he pulled up, his voice hoarse and his chest rising. "I hate you, bitch. But you're my drug.” And you, panting, with your legs still trembling, smiled at him with a cheeky air. “I know. And that's what fucks you.”

He kept you under him as if you were his all along, and maybe, in a way, you were. His hands clasped your hips with a force that left its mark, while his warm breath crashed against your neck. He was on top of you, hard, tense, ravenous. But he wasn't moving yet. Only the tip of him grazed the entrance to your pleasure, torturing you. "Hoonie…" you groaned, scratching his arms. "Not yet," he admonished you with a hoarse whisper, a threat stifled by desire. “You really are the greatest asshole I've ever known, " he snorted, his lips swollen with desire and his heart pounding. "And you the most unbearable little bitch in the whole paddock," he retorted, the fierce smile opening between his teeth. “But look how you shrink as soon as I touch you.” He bent down and brushed your lobe with his teeth. “Who would have said… the brilliant journalist, always with the answer ready… all wet for me.” “I'm just studying for an in-depth piece, " you muttered, your eyes ajar. "Behind the wheel: the ego of champions.” He laughed quietly, without humor. “You're about to find out how long the ego is.” Then he rotated the pelvis, causing you to tremble under him. You clenched his biceps with force, teeth sunk into the lower lip. "Fuck me, Hoon. Move. Now.” His gaze became more gloomy, hungry. “You're not the one giving orders, baby doll.” And with a sharp, deep blow, he pushed himself into you. A single, devastating lunge that made you scream. "Oh my God … yes … Hoonie, so…” He paused for a moment, just to look at you as you trembled beneath him.

He kept you under him as if you were his all along, and maybe, in a way, you were. His hands clasped your hips with a force that left its mark, while his warm breath crashed against your neck. He was on top of you, hard, tense, ravenous. But he wasn't moving yet. Only the tip of him grazed the entrance to your pleasure, torturing you. "Hoonie…" you groaned, scratching his arms. "Not yet," he admonished you with a hoarse whisper, a threat stifled by desire. “You really are the greatest asshole I've ever known, " he snorted, his lips swollen with desire and his heart pounding. "And you the most unbearable little bitch in the whole paddock," he retorted, the fierce smile opening between his teeth. “But look how you shrink as soon as I touch you.” He bent down and brushed your lobe with his teeth. “Who would have said… the brilliant journalist, always with the answer ready… all wet for me.” “I'm just studying for an in-depth piece, " you muttered, your eyes ajar. "Behind the wheel: the ego of champions.” He laughed quietly, without humor. “You're about to find out how long the ego is.” Then he rotated the pelvis, causing you to tremble under him. You clenched his biceps with force, teeth sunk into the lower lip. "Fuck me, Hoon. Move. Now.” His gaze became more gloomy, hungry. “You're not the one giving orders, baby doll.” And with a sharp, deep blow, he pushed himself into you. A single, devastating lunge that made you scream. "Oh my God … yes … Hoonie, so…” He paused for a moment, just to look at you as you trembled beneath him.

When you felt his body stretch over yours, his breath breaking into a low growl, you knew he was getting there. Her hands clasped your hips tightly, and with a deeper push, you felt full, warm, completely overwhelmed. "Oh f-Hoon…" you moaned, hands scratching his sweaty back. He did not stop, he pushed again, marking you, as his hot seed poured into you in waves, making you gasp for the fullness that made you tremble. "Good little doll…" he muttered in a low, deep tone. “You took it all, like a real girl of mine.” That phrase got under your skin more than his last push, the one in which he sank you again with a muffled groan as if he needed to brand you for real. When he came out, slowly, a warm trail dripped down your inner thigh. He looked at you with satisfaction, then bent down and kissed your forehead with a sweetness you did not expect. You sank your head against his rib cage, still shaken, still sweaty. You hugged him, tight, and for a moment it was all silence. Then your fingers began to play through her damp hair. He relaxed immediately under that touch. You knew him enough to know he was giving up. To you. “That thing from before… " you muttered, your voice tumbled. “That stuff that I'm your girlfriend… was it a stupid joke or are you serious, Hoonie?” He lifted his face, resting on your chest. His eyes looked for you, and when you fixed that wayward tuft on his forehead, he threw you one of those crooked, arrogant smirks that you knew all too well by now. “When I speak, I never do it in vain, little doll, " he said in a hoarse voice. “Even though I hated you, over time you got into me. In the head, in the skin. Every time I saw you walking around the paddock in those provocative clothes and that naughty mouth, I just wanted to take you away. And yes … I like you. And yes … you're my girlfriend.” You giggled a subtle, cheeky sound. “But you didn't even ask me, champ. A little obvious, right?” He rolled his eyes, theatrical, then poked his face against your neck and whispered softly, his voice scratched with desire and tenderness. "You want to be my girlfriend, little dool?” You barely budged, with a defiant smirk. “Depend. Are you going to act like a model boyfriend or do you just want to fuck me until you take my breath away?” He laughed slowly, his chest vibrated against yours. “Both, if you let me.” "All right," you whispered. “I want to be your girlfriend.” And you kissed him. Long. Deep. Slowly, as if it was the first time really. "Ok, but now shower," you muttered, brushing her sticky, hot skin. He sighed. “You're right, but… I don't want to let you go.” You clasped to him once again, fingers tracing circles on his back. "Come on, champ. You won this race too. But it's my turn to drive now.”

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[nereidprinc3ss]

spring into summer

the highest highs and the lowest lows of your on-again off-again relationship with spencer reid, tracked through the seasons of a year.

18+ (smut, angst, fluff) warnings/tags: (spoiler tags at the bottom of post) reader gets drunk a few times, questionable consent (not between Spencer and reader), much codependence, softdom Spencer/sub reader, oral m receiving, finger sucking lol, deep pen piv/intense sex, mention of marks being left, praise tho dw he is soso nice and loves her, fighting/yelling/sex as reconciliation, general toxicity and lots of it DDDNE!! avoidant!reader, panic attacks, joke abt r being high off cough syrup when she’s sick and Spencer is taking care of her, implied trauma, IM MAKING IT SOUND CRAZY BUT THERE IS A LOT OF STRAIGHT UP FLUFF IN HERE GUYS PLS THEY ARE SO CUTE A BUNCH OF TIMES. wc 23k (!) longest nereid fic ever!also had to squish 167 lines together so the first half is a bit compact I apologize!! a/n: yeaaaah…. Thanks for being patient w me guys :”)) I miss posting sosososo much and I out genuinely probably days into this fic like once I was writing for 15 hrs straight. So. Yeah. I so so hope u enjoy and I love u miss u MWAH

February 17th

You don’t know when you last blinked. 

Flickering blue and white light washes deep into the backs of your eyes as you stare at some old film without watching it. A knight atop his steed warps and stretches gruesomely under your apathetic observation, and whatever noble speech he’s giving turns to monotone slurry before it hits your ears—old-fashioned English smeared in 1960’s transatlantia. A buzzy drone in iambic pentameter. The sluggish pound and gush, pound and gush, of a failing heart. 

Spencer said you’d love this movie.

“You okay?”

The question draws you from your fugue state, and you turn, eyes so dry they sting when you finally blink. He’s comfortable. You’ve been here for hours—enough time for his hair to tousle, enough time he decided to trade his contacts for glasses. When you look at him, there is only static. 

You must be having one of those nights again. Something in your body refuses to succumb to the comfort his presence should offer, regardless of how many hours you’ve spent together. Or days, or months. 

It’s awful because you fought to be here, sitting on his couch, sharing a blanket. You fought every instinct in your body for so long just to get to this point because you wanted it so badly, and now that you have it—now that you’ve had it, this weekend, and last weekend, and every weekend you haven’t been out of town on a case for months—you struggle to let it feel good. 

Spencer is looking at you like he loves you. He doesn’t know how to look at you any other way. 

Sometimes you don’t feel like this. Sometimes it’s easy.

That doesn’t make the guilt in the pit of your stomach any smaller when it’s not. 

The only thing you know is that you’ll want it again. This is what you’ll want tomorrow morning, or in an hour, or the second he’s gone. You’ll want it so badly you’d humiliate yourself for it. And humiliation in front of him is a fate worse than death. So you find ways to want him in the present. 

This is the right thing. 

“I’m fine,” you promise. His brow flickers. The knight’s shining armor makes a glare off the lenses of Spencer’s glasses. 

Before he can say anything, you lean into his side, dropping your head to his shoulder and settling your weight against him. Immediately he’s wrapping an arm around you like you knew he would, because he doesn’t have a choice. Not when it comes to you. You don’t give yourself time to feel bad about that. Instead, you press your lips to the bit of collarbone visible over the neckline of his shirt. A series of kisses litter the warmth of his throat. You take and take like an invasive species. A hand pushes into his hair. 

There’s hesitance in the way he kisses you back as you sling a leg over his lap. So you take more. You kiss him harder. You need his hands on you, you need him to hold you by your thighs or your hips or your waist like he’s not afraid. At least one of you mustn’t be so scared. 

Spencer only requires a few more moments before his will melts, and he grabs you how you knew he would. Like he’s going to make something of you. He’s going to make you his. He’s going to break you and put you back together stronger, and he’s going to tell you what you are. That’s all you need—you just need him to keep trying. This is a promise you need him to keep making. 

“Pause the movie,” you breathe into his waiting mouth. 

He’s warm. He keeps you safe. 

March 9th

The heat in your apartment kicks on with a rumble that seems to shake the whole place. It’s the first noise in minutes. 

Spencer is at your little wooden dining table, hair mussed, pajama pants rumpled, staring into a chipped mug half-full of black coffee. You stand in the kitchen, countertop digging into your hip as you watch him. Outside, the sky is still spilled winter ink. The only light comes from a lamp you’d bought with him months ago at an antique shop. The stove clock flicks from 1:31 to 1:32. 

The ringing silence is killing you. 

“Spencer—”

“I—” he stops and you watch his throat bob. “I don’t understand—”

“I explained it to you—”

“You explained what? That you—you don’t care about me as much as I care about you, and you want to be together, but you don’t want me to think of it as a real relationship, and you’re letting me know out of courtesy? What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Don’t twist my words. I do care about you. A lot. I just—when we started this a few months ago you knew where I was at with commitment, and we agreed we’d be honest and communicate about what we were feeling—and what I’m feeling is that I’m not ready for this to be more than what it is! You knew that was a possibility, I knew that was a possibility. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It just means I’m not ready for… for labels, or telling the team, or—or putting pressure on ourselves to try and be something we don’t have the time to be right now.”

Spencer looks at you with something close to disdain. It’s sort of like a bullet to a flack-jacket—it won’t kill you, because you’ve made sure to protect yourself. But it hurts. 

“I make the time. That’s what you do when you care about someone. I mean—where am I, when we’re not on a case? I’m here. I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be. Do you think I do that because it’s convenient for me? We have the same 24 hours. We have the same job. It’s not about time. Don’t insult me by saying that’s what this is.”

“I’m not trying to insult you.” The words come out an unsure waver—but it’s not because you don’t believe what you’re saying. 

I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be. 

Why? Why would he do that?

Spencer is not gracious in the face of your silence. Maybe he interprets your inability to put words together—the way you froze as soon as he casually admitted something that feels so oppressive and suffocating—I coordinate my entire life so that I can be here when you want me to be—as your silent way of admitting he’s right, and you don’t care about him. 

But he’s not right. You just can’t breathe. Why does he care about you so much?

Someone would have to be looking very closely at you in order to care that much. To think you’re worth the trouble. But you’ve taken steps, your whole life, to ensure that nobody will ever be able to see you close enough. If they did, they’d notice all the structural flaws. The deep cracks and the sagging floorboards and the mold you’ve been covering in paint. 

You feel your throat closing as he stands. 

Yes. Leave. Get out. Don’t look at me. 

March 13th

“Spencer.”

The name drips from your lips like melted sugar. Like a term of endearment. Just saying it makes you warmer. It’s maple syrup in your veins. You try to tug your dress down your thighs and stumble in place. The bartender holding your phone twists his wrist to speak into the microphone. 

“Hey, man. Your girlfriend is wasted. Cabs aren’t running and you need to come pick her up before she throws up all over my bar or wanders into traffic or some shit.”

“I’m not—I’m not wasted,” you mutter, pushing hair out of your face. Neither of them are listening as the bartender relays your location and assures Spencer that an eye will be kept on you until his arrival. As soon as they’re done, you’re leaning forward over the bar. “Gimme him,” you whisper-shout, making a grabby-hand. 

The bartender passes you your phone with raised eyebrows. “He’ll be here soon.”

“But he’s—he’s not on the phone?” You realize, closing your eyes and frowning as the heartbreak processes. 

“Nah. Drink this and sit tight. And don’t fuckin’ throw up. Please.”

You sigh and sip on a lemon water, smearing lipgloss all over the rim of the glass and wiping a dribble off your chin after you swallow. “Spencer’s my boyfriend,” you tell the man, dreamily. 

“So you’ve told me.” 

“He’s so handsome… and smart… and we’re in the—the FBI. Can you believe that?” You cackle and slap the bar top. Mr. Bartender only hums an uh-huh as he focuses on making someone else a drink. 

When Spencer does finally arrive, you’re elated. Glitter courses through your veins. More than that, you’re relieved—you catch his eye and light up, and when he makes his way through the throng to you, you’re ready to melt all over him. You haven’t spoken to him in days. 

“You’re here!” You sing, hooking an arm around his back and resting your head on his bicep, looking up at him with big, bleary eyes. Spencer supports you with an arm and doesn’t let go even as he’s fishing out his wallet to settle the bill you racked up. “Wait, Spence—we should have one more drink.”

He’s not looking at you as he speaks. “Absolutely not.” And then, to the bartender, “Thanks, man.”

“Spencer,” you begin again, savoring his name on your tongue and admiring his profile as he walks you out of the bar. “I told everyone I met tonight that you’re my boyfriend.”

“I heard,” he says simply, scanning the street before you cross. Presumably the wind is whipping at your bare legs, but you don’t feel it. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because…” you hum thoughtfully. “Because I like you so much. And I liked thinking about you being my boyfriend.”

He doesn’t respond. Even now, even drunk as you are—a very small part of you knows this is cruel. Just last weekend you’d let him walk out of your apartment precisely because you weren’t willing to label things. 

In the morning, that will still be true. But this is just play-pretend. 

“Also, because—isn’t it—isn’t it crazy, that you’re the nicest, prettiest, smartest, best guy ever, and they believed me? I showed them pictures and told them about your degrees and everything and they still believed me. They believed—they believed when I said you’re my boyfriend. They didn’t even question it at all. Like, what? They thought I was good enough to deserve you.”

The sidelong glance he casts you then is like a grappling hook, and you stumble into his side. His brows are knit over eyes that have gone glassy black in the dark, illuminated only by the shifting reflection of each haloed street lamp you pass. It’s hypnotizing. “You think you’re not good enough for me?” He asks. 

You hiccup and clap a hand to your mouth, stickying your palm with remnant gloss. “Oops. No. I mean, yes.”

He’s on the verge of replying when the smell of something fried and sweet has you perking up like a bloodhound. A blinking neon sign behind him catches your eye. “Oh my god,” you interrupt. “They’re—holy fuck, Spencer. That donut shop across the street—oh my god. We have to go. Please? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?”

One thing about Spencer you know to be true—and, perhaps the characteristic of his that defines your entire relationship: he has a profoundly difficult time telling you no. 

Which is how you end up eating donuts in his bed. The ones you couldn’t finish end up in a paper bag on his bedside table—tomorrow’s hangover remedy—and you end up safely tucked under his comforter, in his shirt, smelling of his bodywash. His touch still burns everywhere, like the paths of his fingertips had etched glowing tributaries into your skin. 

All of this to say, you couldn’t possibly be happier with the way the night unfolded.  

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the complete black of the room after he flips the bathroom light off on his way out, but you manage to track him nonetheless. You relish in the familiar dip of the mattress under his weight, the careful tug of the blanket as he gets in bed with you. As he pulls you into him, without hesitation, it’s like ecstasy. Everything is okay again.

It doesn’t take long for you to get close to sleep—it’s been days since you’ve been able to. Just before you go under, Spencer secures you to him. He presses his lips to your temple. 

“I love you,” you mumble. You want to say it before you can’t. 

He strokes your hip. And then you’re gone. 

March 26th

“Did you mean it?”

You look up from the transcripts you’d been studying—the latest victims both had behavioral issues at school. Spencer is across from you, on the other end of the big glass conference table at the Memphis field office. Binders and notebooks and thick Manila folders form a sort of abstract frame around him as he leans back in his chair, gripping the plastic arms. His eyes are laser-focused on you. How long has he been staring at you, thinking about this?

“Did I mean what?”

“When you said you loved me.”

The door is closed and the blinds are shut. You almost wish this were more public so you could reasonably (and urgently) change the subject. Instead, you laugh awkwardly and cast your gaze sideways as if something in your peripheral vision could save you. “When did I say that?” 

It is very clearly the wrong question to have asked. Spencer blinks and looks down through the table at nothing, brows knitting slightly like he’s accounting for new information and adjusting his frameworks accordingly. You swallow. The trouble is, you remember saying it with perfect clarity. You’d just been hoping he would let you off the hook for it. 

“Okay,” he says, after a few eternal moments with only someone’s ringing landline in the office beyond to bridge the gap of silence. 

“… Okay what?”

He picks up his pencil without making eye contact. Twirls it between nimble fingers. Pulls his chair close to the table like he’s going to settle back into his work. There are times where he is capable of immersing himself in whatever he’s reading completely and immediately, but you know this is not one of those times. The petulant flash of his eyebrows, the chin balanced on his fist to hide his mouth. And that perpetually tapping pencil. For all his genius and every one of his quirks, you know he can’t focus on reading and fiddle at the same time. You’re not a profiler for nothing. 

“Spencer.”

“What?”

The immediacy of it is almost enough to have you wincing. 

“I… I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I asked you a question and you didn’t know what I was talking about, so it’s fine.”

“But you’re obviously upset.”

“I’m not obviously anything. You’re reading into it.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Oh my god. Says you.”

The pencil hits the table—as does the other hand. Spencer sits up straight and looks you right in the eye. Uh oh. 

“You responded to my question with another question to avoid giving me a real answer because you think I won’t like what you have to say. Am I wrong?”

Your face goes hot as your mouth opens and closes uselessly a few times. A moment passes and you hate watching that vindication, that hurt, freezing him over, more solid with each second you don’t speak. Mostly you hate that feeling in your throat—it’s either bile or the truth. You’re not sure which one will come out when you open your mouth. But you have to try. He’s backed you into a corner. You swallow. 

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, you are.”

Spencer blinks. “Oh.”

“Oh,” you huff mockingly, averting your eyes to the paper in front of you and strangling your pen as your cheeks positively burn. 

More buzzing silence. 

“Sorry,” Spencer tries, having softened considerably and now obviously remorseful. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. You don’t have to… say anything before you’re ready. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Still avoiding his gaze, you hum. It’s a manic, anxious sort of sound. The nail of your thumb wears away between your teeth before you switch to picking at the dead skin on your lip. Your foot bounces as you read the name of the victim over and over again, just to have something to do. Kelly Shelton. Kelly Shelton. 

You don’t realize he’s rolled his chair over to you until there’s a gentle hand around your wrist. 

“Stop,” he murmurs, not letting go even when you look at him indignantly. He produces chapstick from his pocket, because of course he does, and presses it into your palm. His eyes are so big and so brown and so warm, almost calf-like, that it’s very difficult to stay mad. “I’m sorry. That was unfair of me.”

“Yeah. It was.” You drop your eyes to where you’re fiddling with the lip balm. His hand still rests over your wrist. If he won’t let you pick at your lips, you’re at least going to chew on them—especially with the concession you’re about to make. “But… I mean… you held out for a while. I guess I’d probably be curious too.”

“So you do remember saying it.”

You look up at him with eyes that you hope effectively say don’t push your luck. At this, he has the audacity to smile—something smitten and stupid and cute. God, he really is easy on the eyes.

“If you tell anyone, you’re dead,” you warn, but it comes out all wrong when you’re fighting back a twisty grin of your own. “And they’ll never know it was me.”

“Noted.”

“Because I could really get away with it. Like, really. I know exactly how to throw off an investigation.”

“Easy, tiger. Put that on. I’m going to get you some water so maybe you’ll stop dessicating your lips.”

“Why are you so worried about my lips?” You ask his retreating back. 

Spencer barely looks over his shoulder as he clicks his tongue, like you should already know. “Vested interest.”

You slink low into your seat and try not to be flustered. 

April 15th

“That tastes like lawn clippings.”

You laugh at the face Spencer is pulling as he lets your gelato melt on his tongue. “No it does not! It’s so good! You seriously don’t like matcha?”

“Matcha is fine.” He points at your cup with his dinky wooden spoon. “That is grass.”

It’s the first warm night of spring, and you and Spencer weren’t the only ones who had an itch to get out of the house. Bars and restaurants have set up their sidewalk seating. Food trucks seem to dot every corner, and on this street alone there have got to be nearing a hundred people, milling about or seated, all talking and laughing. The two of you are ambling back toward his apartment. Efficiency has not been a priority of the journey. 

“The lady said it’s one of their most popular ice cream flavors. It wouldn’t sell if it actually tasted like grass. You’re just delusional.”

“Not ice cream.”

You frown and suck on the wooden end of your spoon, looking up at him through narrow eyes. His hair is getting long. “What?”

“It’s not ice cream. Gelato and ice cream are fundamentally different.”

“How?” 

“Gelato uses more milk, less cream, and usually doesn’t contain eggs. It’s also meant to be served at a warmer temperature. And they have entirely different regional origins. Thus, not ice cream. If your opinion is going to be wrong, you should at least try to get the facts right.”

Spencer is smiling at his cup when you shove against him. “If mine is so bad, let me try yours.”

“No,” he laughs, eating another pitifully small spoonful. “Because I know if you try mine, you’re going to realize it’s better, and then we’ll have to go back.”

“That is not going to happen. Just let me try! Please? I let you try mine!”

“Forced me to,” he mutters, smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth as he slows to a stop in front of a mostly-budded spindly tree. You stand toe to toe on the sidewalk as he scoops a bite for you and holds out the spoon. As soon as you lean forward to taste it, you realize he was completely right. His is infinitely better than yours. Spencer’s lips twist and his eyes sparkle at this recognition, and you’re pissed it’s so visible on your face. 

“You’re making me go back, aren’t you?”

“… No. Yours isn’t even good.”

“Oh my god,” he laughs. “Come on.”

“Mm… okay.”

You turn around, and immediately freeze. There, at the edge of the crowd of food-truck goers, you see a distinctly colorful and familiar silhouette. Penelope Garcia is facing away from you, but even from the back you’d never mistake her for someone else. Those metallic green platform heels had very nearly crushed your toes in the elevator just this afternoon. 

“We need to go.”

Spencer frowns when you turn right back around and he has to take a few quick steps to catch up when you feel no qualms about leaving him in the dust. “What? What happened?” He asks, craning his head to scan the crowd shrinking behind you. “Is that Penelope?”

“And Kevin,” you agree. 

“Oh. You don’t want to say hi?”

At first you think he’s joking. But when you feel his eyes on the side of your face for a moment too long, you meet his questioning gaze. “No, I don’t wanna say hi.”

A familiar pause. The one that always comes right before he starts a fight with you. “You don’t want them to see us together?”

You sigh. “I—no. You know I don’t want the team to know yet. And if Garcia finds out, it’s gonna be the whole team. They’ll just… they’ll make it weird.”

“I think you’re making it weird right now. We’re allowed to spend time together outside of work. I sincerely doubt that if they had seen us back there Penelope’s first assumption would be that we’re together.”

We’re not, you want to say—but you bite it back. Because, even if not by name, in effect you are. The only reason to remind him of that at this point would be to hurt his feelings. And you’re not cruel. Or at least—you don’t try to be. 

“I just—I’m not ready for that.”

“We wouldn’t have to tell anyone.”

“Can we please just drop it?” 

You didn’t mean to snap. Luckily your brisk pace has taken you far enough away that the ambient sounds of the city will surely muffle your voices before they reach your coworkers. 

Spencer is silent. Your gelato hits the bottom of a nearby trash can. 

Back at his apartment, things remain slightly tense. You don’t like it—his reticence, the physical distance he maintains. 

Spencer’s getting water in the kitchen when you wordlessly excuse yourself to his bedroom. A few minutes later, you emerge, padding quietly across the antique tile, and he turns around—eyes shamelessly scanning you up and down as he notes your lack of shoes. And pants, probably. 

“I thought you were planning on going home for the night.” He sets the glass down on the counter when you don’t stop coming. 

“Don’t feel like driving.” You wrap your arms around his middle and rest your cheek against his chest. “Can I stay?”

He’s quiet a moment. You don’t always reward him with overt, unapologetic affection like this. Especially not after the recurring what are we argument. “You know you can.”

“Thanks.”

After one more moment of hesitation, or reluctance, or something—his arms snake around you. You relax further into him, eyes fluttering shut. “I’m sorry about earlier. With Penelope.”

The thrum of his heart could lull you to sleep. 

“Me, too,” he murmurs—and there is something like grief laced into the words. You pretend not to notice. 

April 29th

“Sorry I’m late. Crash on the beltway,” you breathe as you blow into the roundtable room one morning, tossing your bag on the table and falling into a seat. 

JJ nods, leaning back in her chair. “Oh, yeah. Spence got delayed, too. Maybe it was the same one.”

You clear your throat and focus on flipping open a file. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Spencer is holding back a grin so bright that you can practically hear the crystalline twinkling as it fights to be freed. 

Later, you corner him by the coffee machine. 

“You have to stop doing that,” you mumble. 

He’s leaning against the counter, one hand in his suit pocket—your favorite suit of his—as he watches you smugly from behind his cup. “Doing what?”

The look you give him then could boil water. He maintains his innocence. 

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Yeah, asshat. Making us late,” you hiss, only after a proprietary scan to make sure nobody’s standing close enough to hear. 

“Friday is statistically the most dangerous day of the week on the beltway in terms of vehicular collisions. But there’s nothing I can do about that. You look nice today, by the way. Had a good morning?”

The audacity on him. Your face burns as you try to think of a retort, but all the signals have been intercepted—playing clips from your rather leisurely morning in a hazy highlight reel that is most certainly not appropriate for the work place. But he doesn’t let you flounder for long. Instead, he’s pushing off the counter and standing too close, just barely resting a hand on the small of your back as he reaches up to grab your mug from a shelf and you try not get dizzy from the proximity. 

“I’ll bring the coffee to you, sweetheart. Go sit down.”

The words, the gesture, are all too subtle for anyone else to notice. They turn you into a puddle of idiot. He’s never called you sweetheart. He’s never condescended to you like that before. You’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to like it so much. 

A few minutes later, the mug hits your desk. With ten words, he’d reduced you down to something shy and nervous, and you look up at him as he slides the coffee toward you like he might do something else crazy and unreasonably attractive. “Thanks,” you murmur, accepting the drink and exerting excessive willpower in order to turn your attention back to the computer screen. 

Rossi calls from the catwalk. “You do deliveries now? Fantastic. I’ll take a cappuccino.”

“Yeah. I’ll get right on that,” Spencer mumbles, and makes a beeline for his desk. You hope his face is red. Serves him right. 

The rest of the day, you’re almost… clingy. At lunch, you silently slide your chair over to his and begin eating without a word. It’s not like you have anything to say, really. You just crave the comfort of his knee against yours. When he fleetingly rests his hand on your thigh under the desk, for the briefest of moments, you’re far too pleased. 

Soon, JJ joins you, and then Penelope. But you don’t mind. Sometimes the nature of your relationship with Spencer and the secrecy of it all is a major source of stress for you—but today, it feels more like an alliance. Something special between the two of you that nobody else gets to share in. 

You keep casting glances at him, just for the pleasure of the view. Hoping he’ll be looking back. The third time you make eye contact, he shakes his head subtly and smiles down at his salad. You bite back a grin of your own, and try to focus on the story Penelope is telling. Sometimes, keeping secrets is fun. 

May 3rd

When Garcia said the case was local, you didn’t think you’d know the final victim. You didn’t think you’d have to watch her die. 

After the EMTs clear you, Spencer takes you to your apartment. You don’t speak a word the entire drive. Not in the parking lot, not in the lobby or the elevator or the hallway. You don’t speak in the bathroom when he quietly asks if you want help getting out of your bloodied clothes. Gently, tactfully, he coaxes a nod from you, and then he’s unbuttoning your shirt. It’s not your blood. 

The shower is started. Do you want me to come with you?

Another shake of your head. He respects your wish for privacy, but leaves the bathroom door cracked. You’d never tell him how much you appreciate that. 

After the shower, after you’re dressed, Spencer brings you tea and sits on the bed with you. At some point he changed from work clothes into pajamas he’d left here, even though he didn’t ask if he could sleep over. You’re grateful. Maybe he noticed that you’d left all the lights off, and he doesn’t try to turn them on. You’re grateful for that, too. 

“We don’t have to talk about it right now. But we can, okay? We can talk about it whenever you’re ready.”

Another morose nod. You stare into the amber depths of your tea. Not now. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. 

“I just wanna go to bed,” you whisper. All the screaming has shredded your throat. The words come out like rice paper. 

Spencer holds you until the room fills with milky grey dawn light. And though neither of you are speaking, he doesn’t fall asleep. You can tell from his breathing that he’s staying awake for you. 

-

You’re supposed to take a week off, at the least. This is not something you want. Being alone for eight hours a day sounds like it’ll be the opposite of helpful—but so what. You can handle it. When Spencer calls to tell you there’s a case—that’s when the panic starts to well. 

You pick at your lip, and then when you remember how he’d scold you for it, switch to pulling a loose thread on your sock, phone poised in your free hand. “I’ll come in.”

“You can’t,” he says, voice tinny through the speaker. “You cannot be in the field right now. You know that.”

You sit up a little straighter, nails biting into the skin of your ankle. “What am I supposed to do—just—just rot here for however fucking long you’re—you guys are gone?”

Spencer sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t want you to be alone. I’m… I’m considering sitting this one out, too.”

Your blood goes cold. “Spencer.”

A beat. “What?”

“You’re not staying behind for me.”

“I’m—”

“No. That’s not—that’s not what this is. That’s not what we do. You’re going to go do your job, and I’m going to stay here.”

“You just said—”

“I don’t care what I said! You’re not putting me ahead of the job! You’re not staying behind to check up on me. I’m an adult.”

“You don’t need to lash out. I’m just worried about you.”

“Worry about doing your fucking job. And don’t call while you’re gone.”

You hang up and throw your phone at the end of the couch. 

-

Spencer gets home at the end of the week to find his apartment broken into. The first clue was that the culprit forgot to lock the door after they used their key. The second and third clues were haphazardly untied and dropped in the middle of the living room. 

He finds you in the dark, curled up on his side of the bed under the blanket. Spencer drops his bag and rounds the bed to you, sitting on the edge and carefully taking your head into his lap, where, as if on cue, you begin to cry. For a long while, he doesn’t say anything—only pushes your hair out of your face with a gentle hand and fruitlessly wipes away tears. You’re not sure you’ve ever cried like this in front of him. 

Eventually, you try to breathe, pushing the heel of your palm into your eye as if you could forcibly hold the tears in. “I c-can’t believe that she’s gone,” you gasp. 

“I know, honey,” Spencer murmurs. “I’m so sorry.”

You sob harder. “It sounds so s-stupid, but I can’t—I don’t underst-stand how she’s dead! I saw her last week!”

“It’s not stupid. Human brains struggle with loss because we constantly function under the assumption that people are still there even when we can’t see them. Your brain is trying to contend with two incompatible realities, and it’s exhausting, and it hurts a lot. I know it does, angel.”

“I just—I saw it happen—I haven’t slept, because—” A cleaving cry pushes through your sentence, cutting you off. The air in the room is vacuous around your grief. 

“I know,” Spencer whispers again. His voice is so tender it bruises more than it breaks. “I know. I wish you hadn’t. I’m sorry.”

The fact that you went days without talking or even exchanging a text goes unmentioned. Your outburst goes unmentioned. Still, Spencer wishes you had told him what was going on sooner. He would’ve come back in a heartbeat. You wish that, too. 

May 20th

Spencer is sick. Over the phone he insists that you don’t come over. So you show up at his door and use your key. What is he going to do? Get up from the sofa and physically remove you? Not likely, in his state. 

As soon as you enter the apartment, you see his head poke up from the couch. Then he groans, hoarse and congested, and drops back down. “I told you to stay away. I’m still contagious.”

“I brought you three kinds of soup,” you say, completely ignoring his bid to send you away as you breeze into the living room and sit on the coffee table across from him, paper bag in tow. “But I think you should start with this one. It’s chicken noodle with garlic, ginger, and turmeric.”

“Anti-inflammatories.”

You give him a dazzling smile. “Exactly. So you’ll get better quicker. I looked it up.” Spencer smiles at this too. Despite the sallow skin and the darker-dark circles, the brilliance of it still has the ability to fluster you—so you move right along. “Um—I also got—I brought honey-herb cough drops, like the ones you keep in your desk. Oh! And this immune-boosting tea. I don’t know if it works, but it sounded good. And… I brought you orange juice for vitamin C—and, okay—you don’t have to try this, but it’s one of those, like, immune-boosting shots? It’s just a tiny little bottle of ginger and turmeric juice, I think. It’ll probably taste bad. But I got one for me, too, so we can take them in solidarity. And maybe then I won’t get sick.”

Spencer just watches you for a moment. You smile awkwardly and pick at a thread on your jeans. “Sorry, I know this is a lot. Sorry if I overdid it. I can go, if you want—I just wanted to make sure you had—”

“Stop. This is amazing. You’re genuinely like an angel. Thank you.” Spencer reaches out and sets a hand on your thigh. The idea that he wants to show you affection but doesn’t want to risk your health is so endearing that you can’t help yourself—you slide to your knees in front of the couch and wrap your arms around him best you can. He chuckles and hooks an arm around your back, rubbing a few short lines over your shirt. 

After a moment you pull back, and press a fleeting kiss to his warm forehead—but you stay kneeling in front of him for a bit longer. Unwisely close, most likely. His eyes are bleary, glazed with illness and watercolor soft on you. 

“What are you gonna tell the team if you get sick?” he murmurs, gaze tracing your face in gentle lines. 

You hum, wrapping your hand around his forearm. “We were doing mouth to mouth resuscitation?”

-

Turns out the immunity shots were a gimmick, because the next week, you’re sick as a dog. The team doesn’t ask any questions—it’s completely reasonable that Spencer could’ve infected you without getting his spit in your mouth. 

“Guess what?” You ask from his couch as soon as he opens the front door, making a beeline for the kitchen to set down his groceries. 

“What?”

“Penelope called me today asking why I wasn’t home. Apparently after work she stopped by to bring me soup. I told her I was at the doctor’s, and she was like, at six PM? And I was like, yeah, she’s a weird naturopathic doctor, and then she started naming all the naturopathic doctors she knows.”

“Technically you are at the doctor’s,” Spencer reminds you as he comes to sit on the coffee table, much like you’d done last week. “You still sound congested. Are you feeling any better?”

You lean into his touch when he checks your temperature with a cool hand to your forehead. “A little, maybe.”

Spencer frowns as he brushes his thumb across your febrile cheek, sporting that little worried line between his brows that you find so cute. “You’re not coughing. Have you been taking that cold medicine?”

“Plenty.”

A slow smile blooms on his face in spite of the concern. “Oh. So you’re high.”

“No!” You giggle, though you’re definitely a little loopy. “And hey—even if I was, that’s medical malpractice on your part. One, you should never share prescriptions, and two, you should never let the patient administer her own doses when she’s really sleepy and out of it.”

Spencer lets you grab his hand, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Can’t leave you alone for even a day,” he scolds through a grin that oozes affection. 

“You know what would make me feel better, Dr. Reid?”

“What?”

“A kiss.”

“Can’t risk it. The virus could have mutated. It might reinfect me.”

“It wouldn’t do that to me,” you promise. Spencer smiles even wider, squeezes your hand tighter. 

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Because we go way back. Like to last week when you got sick.”

“Right. You’re getting cut off the cough syrup, Typhoid Mary.” At that he tries to get up, presumably to go make you dinner—but you refuse to let go of his hand. 

“Hey, wait.”

Spencer, now standing and still holding your hand, looks down at you expectantly. Your head lolls on the pillow as you blink up at him. “Love you.”

He smiles, softer now, and kisses your wrist, right where the feverish blood flows closest to the surface. “I love you.”

After that, it’s hard to feel too bad. 

June 6th

“Can you slow down?” Spencer follows you into the bedroom where you immediately begin yanking open drawers and shoving clothes into your duffel bag. 

“No, because you’re going to try and fix it, and I already told you I don’t want—”

“Jesus Christ—I’m asking you to stop for one fucking second so we can talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I do. There are two of us in this relationship, and I want to talk about it.”

“And I just said I don’t.” Half the clothes you’ve accrued here are on his floor because they wouldn’t fit into the bag. Both of you stomp carelessly over them toward the bathroom. You’re grabbing products at blind from the medicine cabinet. 

“You are unbelievable. How many more times are you going to do this? How many times are we going to break up because you—”

You whip around, brandishing a toothbrush. “We’re not breaking up. We’ve never broken up because we have never been together. That’s the fucking problem—you always think everything means more than it does. You’re obsessive and clingy and smothering and so fucking exhausting to be around. If you want to talk about it, there. That’s why this is happening.” You shove past him and he tails you down the hall. 

“You’re pathetic,” he calls. “Truly. This is pathetic.”

“Stop talking to me.”

“You know what your problem is? You know why we keep doing this? You’re a coward.”

“Oh my god. Great, yeah, this again. Let’s have this conversation again, please.”

“If you don’t like it maybe you should fucking listen to me this time!” 

The yell rings. It might be hard for the average person to get him this angry. To you, it comes naturally. It comes like switching the shower water from hot to room temperature, washing cool down your neck and shoulders. 

“Goodbye.” You’re making for the door, and you get so far as to open it—but then, Spencer has his hand in a vice grip around your wrist, and he’s slamming the door shut. You startle, almost jumping back into him and then whirling around. He’s so close you can see the freckle in his iris. “What the fuck is your problem?” you shout—when he goes low, you go lower. “Let go.”

“I am not going to keep doing this with you,” he breathes, and his eyes are so dark, so full of gravity and swirling with anger—that for the first time, you actually sort of believe him. “I will say this one last time.” Your heart is pounding as his tongue darts over his lips. You’re frozen. Battered silence hangs all around, waiting to be broken and put back together for the umpteenth time this week. But he keeps his voice low. “I have been patient with you. You were taught that the people closest to you are going to let you down and hurt you. It is not your fault that those lessons are biologically ingrained into your nervous system. I understand that sometimes it doesn’t feel safe to let someone in, and you’re just doing what you think you have to do. But you are an adult. I’m done letting you use me as a scapegoat for your own attachment issues. I love you, and I care about you, and I’m never going to punish you for caring about me. I’m not going to hurt you for it, ever. But I am not your doormat. So I need you to understand that the smokescreens and the manipulation tactics are not going to work anymore. If you leave, it’s going to be because you are afraid. Not because I’m clingy or obsessive or exhausting to be around. You’re going to take accountability for what this is.”

Your wrist flexes in his hold. The words are like searing fire in your veins, in your whole body—burning you clean from the inside out. This is the worst thing he could have said to you. The worst thing he could’ve done while he made you look into his eyes like this. You’d rather be stabbed. If you could, you’d play dead. But you have a terrible feeling that he’s ready to stand here, watching you, for hours. For as long as it takes you to move again. 

“You need to let go of me,” you whisper. 

And he does. For a moment, you stand there, afraid to move, watching him wearily like he’s going to grab you and drag you deeper into some cave—somewhere he can wrap you in a web and keep you there to poke at forever. But he doesn’t. Not when your fingers twitch at the doorknob. Not when you twist it open. Nobody chases you down the hallway. 

He simply lets you go. 

June 11th

The team doesn’t know about your most recent split with Spencer. They never do. No matter how many times it happens, no matter how many brutal arguments you get into, no matter how many disgusting things are said, no matter how many of his dishes you shatter—always, without fail, the two of you will go to work the next morning, stand peaceably next to each other in the elevator, and your coworkers will remain none the wiser. How could they possibly suspect a breakup when they never knew you were together?

It makes you feel insane. It’s like the relationship is a shared hallucination, and the only person who’d assure you that you you’re not going crazy is the one person you don’t want to talk to. And, of course, it puts you into situations like this. You and Spencer have been tasked with going to the medical examiner. Just the two of you. Aside from the hum of the wheels spinning against the wide road and the purr of the engine, the SUV is silent. 

“Take a left up here,” Spencer eventually says. 

You shoot him an irritated glance from the driver’s seat that he does not reciprocate. “The GPS is on, Reid.”

“Yeah, but you have it on silent. You keep missing turns. It’s rerouted three times.”

You grimace, glancing between the road and the mapping system several times. “Wh—and you didn’t think to tell me?”

Spencer doesn’t respond. It’s probably for the best. 

Fifteen minutes later, car doors are slamming in almost-unison. LA is hot today—white sunlight bleaches the sidewalk and beams off the shiny car in death rays. You flip your sunglasses down over your eyes and breathe in the wind coming off the ocean, ruffling the towering palm trees and your shirt. You don’t wait for Spencer. All you can think about when you look at him is what he’d said to you against his door—how he’d laid out the truth bare and in turn made you feel stripped and humiliated. Little more than a specimen, belly up, for him to sink his scalpel into. 

“Hold on,” he calls from behind. For decency’s sake, you do. After all, he is your co-worker. You don’t take your hand off the knob as you watch him coming up behind you in the door’s paned reflection against a wide, aggressively cerulean sky. He’s got sunglasses on, too—too many layers of glass between your eyes and his. You wait for him to speak. He takes his sweet time. “We need to be functional.”

“We are.”

“We need to be more functional. No more avoiding talking on the job.”

You open the door, baptizing yourself in the freezing rush of lobby AC. “That was a you problem. I would have vastly preferred if you hadn’t spent the first five minutes of the drive not telling me that I was going the wrong way.”

“I know,” Spencer agrees, holding the door open above your head. “Sorry. You’re just… kind of scary, sometimes.”

A probable understatement. The corner of your mouth twitches as you flash your badge to the receptionist, and she picks up the phone to alert the examiner of your arrival. 

June 30th

The elevator door was sliding shut as you and JJ chatted about where the two of you were going for dinner—perhaps that new Mediterranean spot with the nice outdoor seating—and then, there was a hand. The door stopped and slid back open. Spencer clearly wasn’t anticipating that it’d be you and JJ, but only the briefest flash of hesitation is visible before he’s plastering on an awkward smile and stepping in. 

“Oh, Spence! We were just talking about going out to dinner—do you have plans?”

You bite your tongue at JJ’s invitation and stare at the glowing panel of buttons. Spencer falters—you can feel his eyes on you. 

“Uh—tonight’s not a great night for me, actually.”

“Are you sure? You cancelled on me last month. And the three of us haven’t gone out in a long time.”

That’s how you end up at a smooth wooden table in a stucco courtyard under a big blue umbrella, serenaded by the burbling of a central tiled fountain and some bouncy stringed instrument coming through a wall mounted speaker with JJ and Spencer. And then, because of course, JJ gets a call from Will—something about the kids throwing up—apologizes profusely, and then leaves. Leaves the two of you alone. Together. At a restaurant. 

Silence hangs from the umbrella. You get impatient under the pressure of it. “Wow. We’re already having so much fun.”

The sarcasm does not go over Spencer’s head. “In my defense, I tried not to come.”

You sigh, cheek squished against fist and studying the way sunlight bounces off the splashing water as you slurp forlornly from a straw. “Not your fault.”

“Should we go?”

You turn your attention back to him, squinting and nibbling at the end of your straw. “I don’t know. We already ordered.”

“So… you wanna wait?”

A shrug. “It probably won’t be that long.”

And with that, a silent treaty is signed. 

“You know,” you begin, fishing a strawberry from your glass, “JJ was right. I can’t remember the last time the three of us hung out.”

“September 24th.”

You nod. “Wow. So, like… eight months. We kind of suck.”

The reason you’d stopped going out as a group was as much the changing of seasons as it was the shifting in your dynamic with Spencer. Around that time you’d started to see him one on one a lot more. This truth goes clearly acknowledged, but unspoken, as he tracks a drip of condensation down your glass and then regards you with a cool sort of curiosity. 

“Eight months is quite a while, huh?”

You eye him right back and lean down to your straw. “Basically forever.”

Later, easy chit-chat dots the short walk to your vehicle—it’s been hours, and you haven’t run out of things to say. You could keep going, you realize once you’re standing next to your car. A month without his company, and you’re brimming over with stories and anecdotes you’d been saving for him. He’s the first person you think about when you hear a funny joke or learn something new. That doesn’t just go away when if you’re not on good terms. It simmers. Waits for inevitable release. 

The sky is a gorgeous cocktail of pink and purple and yellow. You tilt your head back and close your eyes, just briefly, breathing in, letting the setting sun soak through your skin. 

“Beautiful,” you observe once your eyes flutter open again, tracing the wispy edges of rose-colored clouds. 

“Very.”

You sigh, taking in just a bit more vitamin D—and then you’re looking back at Spencer. He’s already looking at you, gilded in the heavy aureate light. Studying, in that way of his.

“Are we good?” He asks, after a moment. 

You blink. And then you offer him a small smile. “We’re good.”

July 13th

The trouble of being friends with Spencer is this: once you allow yourself a taste, no matter how small, no matter how innocent—you’re overcome with the desire to bite down. You want him between your teeth and on the back of your tongue. Messy, starving, gnashing, you don’t care. You want and want and want. 

Victim number one of your relapse: the coat tree. It clatters to the ground and spills everything everywhere when Spencer stumbles against it, trying to walk backwards into the apartment after you blindly lock the door. Of course, he couldn’t see where he was going—he was too busy tracing the seam of your bottom lip with his tongue. 

“Shit,” he breathes, nearly tripping again as winter coats and scarves, dormant for summer, wrap around his ankles and threaten to pull him down. You giggle breathlessly, slipping off your own shoes as he kicks at the heavy fabrics like they’re going to bite. Then he’s pulling you back into him, deeper into the apartment, tongues clashing. It’s been a long time, and he’s demanding. Not that you mind—not at all. Though, when he pulls you the opposite direction of his bedroom—toward his desk, in fact—you’re certainly confused.

“Bed?” You whisper against his mouth. 

“Can’t. Rebinding books, they’re laid out on the bed while the glue dries.”

Okay. “Couch?”

Reluctantly, Spencer pulls away. You yelp in surprise when he grabs your hair and uses it as a handle to direct your attention toward the sofa. Also covered in books. It’s amazing, actually, the sheer volume of them when they’re not neatly tucked into the shelf. And he’s got them all memorized. You look back at him, a wave of renewed awe washing through your veins. He’s so fucking strange. You missed him awfully. 

Pressing close enough is impossible, then, as you kiss him hard. There is a blatant, unapologetic hunger in his touch which completely ignores the border that the hem of your short dress presents, grabbing the back of your thigh in a bruising grip. Your breath catches against his mouth at the way his fingers dig into you like you’re wet clay and he knows best, he knows how to make you into something better, as the slow ache crawls up the back of your neck and furrows your brow. Spencer’s not afraid to touch you. He knows exactly how to make sure he’s got all your attention.

Nobody else has ever been able to do that. From other hands, when you’re forced to go begging for the cheap version of what you really want, it’s little more than untrained violence. Spencer knows how to make it feel righteous. Nobody is ever him. That hand comes to slide up the front of your thigh, thumb skimming the hem of your underwear while he dives back into your mouth and you let yourself be completely washed out in the riptide of his desperate affections. All that you’d been missing for months—you want it now. You want to show him how much you missed him. 

“Spencer—” you gasp between kisses. He hums against your mouth, and you let your hand slide down his stomach to hook in his belt. “Spence, can I—please, baby—”

“You don’t have to beg me, honey. I’m gonna give you whatever you want.” Lips against your warm cheek, your forehead, as he lilts sweetly, breathily. “Anything.”

So you’re nodding, dizzy in your anticipation and your desire, wordlessly pleading for more of his mouth on yours while you take off a belt you’re intimately familiar with. The clinking metal wakes up a part of you that’s been asleep since the last time you’d had him like this. When you drop to your knees, he seems vaguely surprised, eyes soft and all love on you. 

“Really?” he croons, hand already at your temple, already smoothing baby hairs. Already being the person you want him to be, because he’s been waiting, because it’s natural. Your nod, your eyes, the way your hands find his legs—it’s all enough for him. You get what you want. 

The hardwood presses against your knees, shifting and squeaking beneath you. Spencer takes his time pushing your hair out of your face, gathering it between his fingers and holding it to the crown of your head with an impossible kind of tenderness as you move. He strokes your cheek, brushes his thumb feather-light over the soft line of your lashes, once, twice. The fabric of his trousers bunches in your hands where they rest on his legs—he’s so kind to you that it hurts, it makes you want to cry, it makes you want to stay here forever just so he’ll keep looking at you like that, so you never forget how his pinky feels against the nape of your neck or the heel of his palm feels against your temple as he plays and plays with your hair, as even when you’re the one on your knees, he worships you. Christens you his own little angel, angel, angel—whispered like he really believes it, like you’re a miracle. Spencer loves in a way that feels like soothing, that feels like an apology for all the bad things that have ever happened to you and a nullifying of all the bad things you have ever done. 

Afterward you press your forehead against his thigh, mostly to hide the welling of your eyes when there’s no longer any good excuse—partially as a kind of supplication. Never let me go again. Please. No matter what I say. I’m sorry. 

Spencer fixes himself, crouches to your level, drops your hair just to push it out of your face and make you look at him. Your chest rises and falls rapidly as your glossy eyes dart between his. But you don’t look away. You don’t want to. When a tear rolls down your cheek, he sees it, and there’s nothing you can do. And you realize you’re not sure you’d want to hide it after all. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he murmurs. “We’re okay. What do you need? What can I give you, sweetheart? Do you want to be done? Want me to move the books so we can sit down?”

“No, no—I don’t wanna be done. I just missed you so much. I was dumb before. I’m sorry.”

He softens impossibly at this, to the point where he’s hazy around the edges, melting into the warm ambient light. “You weren’t. You weren’t dumb. Come here, stand up. You’re never dumb—here, is this okay?” He’s sat you on his desk, shoving things aside to make room—casualties for a later consideration—and he’s already littering kisses over your neck. “I missed you too. I think about you all the time, angel, you don’t need to apologize, just… god, I missed you. Please let me touch you. Please.”

It’s hard to say no to that—what with the begging, and the pull of your lip between his teeth, and the heat of his breath fogging your brain. There’s not a lot of room to work with, but you manage to lean enough of your weight back that he can tug your underwear down your thighs. They end up on the floor, and you feel his hand sliding beneath your dress again, where you’re bare for him, and he doesn’t make you wait. 

“Oh my god, you’re perfect,” he mutters upon discovering just how ready for him you are. You hiss as he slips past the initial resistance. Spencer responds with his lips pressed to your head, but he shows no mercy with the slow rock of his hand, the drag against where you’re softest and where you need him the most, the exact right place to touch you. Your arching, squirming, whimpering, doesn’t deter him in the slightest. When your thighs clamp shut and you shift back, he follows you. When you look up at him, brow furrowed, lips parted—in disbelief but without the words to say it—he’s already looking at you. “I know,” he assures you. “That’s it, huh? Right here?”

Rapidly you nod. His exhale is almost one of relief. “Yeah,” he sighs, knowingly. Melting closer to kiss you again. 

It doesn’t bother him when your nails dig into his flexing forearm as you cum. Judging by the groan, you think he might like it. 

You’re barely recovered by the time he’s lining himself up to you, but you find your bearings quickly. It’s a slow, bated burn, when he finally does it. You’re both silent, tense, hardly breathing in anticipation. What has at times been a slip feels now more like an endless push—it is its own kind of back-arching, toe curling, deep-in-your-spine ecstasy, as he breaks you open slow. Your legs part wider for him, and your hips yearn to push against his.

His words burst forth with the same expelling of pressure, at the same time, as your first sudden cry. “Fuck, angel. Jesus.”

There’s a stinging point of light inside you that he’s pushing against. You close your eyes and watch it flash and spark. “Feels so good,” you promise, nothing more than a whisper. Whatever this is, this pain and pleasure, it’s landed you in some divine plane. You never want it to end. 

“Relax for me, honey. Let go a little.”

“I am, I am,” you defend on a quick exhale, looking down when he stops fighting to get in. “Please—why’d you stop? Please—”

“You’re not ready.”

“Yes, I am, fuck, please, Spencer!”

Something in you is desperate and starving and you need it now—you’ve needed it for a long time—but he doesn’t capitulate. Instead, he kisses you. Softly. Slow and sweet, like you have all the time in the world. You have no choice but to drown in it. It’s a short-circuit in your body when after a minute of this, after he senses the way you’ve dissolved, suddenly his hips are flush with yours. You gasp and a pencil cup clatters to the ground in your search for purchase. You’re little more than a pulsing, glowing star, lightheaded at the depth and the pressure and the way that band of resistance he’d pushed past aches around him in time with the pound of your heart. Spencer is leaning against you, gripping the edge of the desk behind you hard and breathing heavily against your neck. 

Words have every opportunity to pass from your dropped jaw, but you’re actually speechless. Your heartbeat is a white flashing in your eyes. The only verbal expression at your disposal: “Spencer.”

For a moment time suspends like that, and you wonder how the fuck you could ever have made any decision that would take you away from him, away from this. This is so obviously the only right answer. 

Slowly, he draws out, and you stop breathing. Come back. Come back. Your legs spell it out as they wrap around his hips. It’s just as slow on the uptake, and you loose a shuddering, rattling breath. Your body tenses and shifts, trying to pull you up and away from the feeling—but not because it hurts. It’s just so mind-numbingly fucking deep. Everywhere. The base of your spine, the tips of your fingers. Out. While you have a fleeting moment of sentience, you whisper his name a few times in quick succession. This successfully draws his attention and he lifts his head from your shoulder, pupils blown to hell as he’s already dragging back in. A too-honest, too-raw cry pulls from your soul, turns half disbelieving laugh as he presses against your deepest part and black spots dance in your vision. 

His eye darts to the way your knee pulls up, clearly beyond your control—the way your body tries to make sense of him, tries to respond to what he’s doing to you. You watch as it happens—that flash in his eyes. That shift into a kind of determination that always ends with you dead asleep on his pillow, face streaked with dried tears borne of sheer overwhelm. Spencer fits his arm around you and pulls you flush to him, the other hooking under your knee and holding you open. He sets a new pace, and it doesn’t take long to get you gripping at the back of his shirt and tearing up on his shoulder, making due with gasping sips of air and having completely given up on holding in the keens and the pleases and the occasional sob that to the trained ear sounds much like his name. 

You feel it coming—the searing heat, the pound of your heart, the drop of your stomach. It hits as hard as you knew it would. 

Usually he’s a little more talkative—but that comes later. With you pushed over his desk, and his arm around your chest, and his lips pressed to your ear. Blindly you reach back for him—you need him, you need something—and without question he catches your hand, pressing it hard into the dark surface of the wood. His thumb strokes at your hand, his fingers curl with yours, and Spencer continues with those murmurings, like spells—things nobody who knew him would ever imagine him saying. Things that have you making promises, breathing uh-huh’s, telling him you love him. Things that have your vision going black and your throat tightening around choked moans. He’s never had you this vulnerable before. You’re dizzy, drunk on it. This time when the end comes, it’s a heavy crash. It pulls you under. It does whatever the fuck it wants with you and tumbles you in its current forever because he’s not stopping, still slowly closing in on his own peak. There are moments where it goes beyond good. It’s just complete and utter sensation, on all fronts—thoughts come as colors and textures instead of words. You don’t even feel tethered to your body anymore, your grip on reality tenuous at best. 

Eventually all the crashing does end, and you whine brokenly, and he shushes you softly, and finally, finally, stills inside of you. 

Slowly, you come back to yourself. It’s dark outside, now. You can hear weekend traffic on the streets below. His apartment is clean (aside from the shit that got knocked over and the books on the couch) and it’s sticky summer warm, and it smells like home. It’s safe. And everything is okay. You don’t know if you’ve ever felt so okay in your life. 

Spencer adjusts his hold on you when your weight signals that you want to lie flat on the desk, face pressed against your forearm, catching your breath in the wood-lacquer darkness. He follows you down, arms braced on either side of your head. His weight on your back is a comfort, as are his lips at the nape of your neck. 

“Okay?” he murmurs. Two gentle syllables, marked with exertion. You nod against your arm. “Not ready to talk?” Another nod. Another okay. 

For a stretch of time, he’s pressed his face against the back of your shoulder. You’re still seeing dancing colors behind your lids. 

The twinkly laughter comes as a surprise. “I don’t know where to put you, baby. All the places for lying down are covered in antique books.”

There’s not much air in your lungs. You spend it on laughter.

August 3rd

Spencer corners you outside the bathroom. 

“Who was that?” He demands, eyes worrisomely clear on you, voice alarmingly steady. You glance around to see if any of your coworkers can see the way he’s practically got you up against the wall down the dark passageway. The way he’s looking at you. Like he owns you. 

“Who was who?”

“I’m not willing to play stupid with you right now. Answer me.”

It’s easier to hurt your feelings these days. They’re closer to the surface. Sometimes it makes things feel really, really good. Sometimes your eyes sting at the smallest of provocations—things you would’ve brushed off without a second thought a year ago. You meet his eyes and swallow. “You’re being a fucking dick.”

Spencer is unfazed. His response is whip-fast and too loud, even among the chatter and laughter and music and clinking glasses. “Did you sleep with him?”

“What? What is your problem?” you hiss, pushing Spencer just hard enough to get some breathing room. 

“Why won’t you answer the question?”

“God, are you—you know what? No. You are so fucking out of line right now. Fuck off.”

You leave Spencer in the hallway and emerge into the bar. It’s bustling tonight. The whole BAU is here, scattered around, but suddenly, you feel aimless. Your nervous system is rattled after being accosted as soon as you left the bathroom, on what had previously been a good night. So you stand there, looking around and fiddling with your bracelet. 

It’s one Spencer recently gifted to you. A simple, delicate chain, but clearly well-crafted. The clasp is the only real ornamentation—two interlocking circles of equivalent circumference. There is no tail of wider chain loops to create an adjustable size—it is exactly what it is, and it fits you perfectly. To some, it’d be an underwhelming gift. No lavish stones, no poetic engraving, no garish costume-jewelry gold. But it means more to you than you could ever explain to somebody else. More than you’d ever feel comfortable explaining to somebody else. Spencer knows that. Two interlocking circles. 

When he gave it to you, you had a panic attack. Jewelry felt like a big step. But you didn’t do your usual thing where you start a huge fight and then dump him, and he didn’t take offense to your overwhelm. He only comforted you, and when all was said and done, you held out your wrist, and he put the bracelet on for you, and kissed the back of your hand. You haven’t taken it off since. It’s quickly become something of a talisman—you worry at it when you don’t know what to do with your hands. Even now. When you feel like punching him in the face. 

Did you sleep with him? What an asshole. What a fucking asshole. Spencer grovels and simpers and promises he’ll never hurt you, and then he goes and does something like that. The him in question—the one who recognized you when you were ordering a drink, and who held you up for maybe five minutes—is nowhere to be seen. That’s for the best. The recognition was not reciprocal. But rather than humiliate yourself in front of this man who knew your name by admitting you couldn’t place his face, you’d played along. Laughed awkwardly at his jokes like you knew who he was.

You don’t get why Spencer is so angry. He’s not the type to get jealous just because you spoke to another man. Sure, the man was perhaps a little over-familiar with you. He was flirty.

But Spencer is so overreacting. 

Before you can stop yourself, you’re looking back in his direction. 

He’s still in the dimly lit hallway. He’s watching you, hands in suit packets, and for all that you’ve seen his face, all the times you’d swore to commit every bit of it to memory—you can’t read his expression. 

That only pisses you off worse. 

You pointedly turn away, carving a path through the Friday night patrons toward the jukebox. 

The machine takes your quarter, but there’s something of a queue, and you realize you’re in too much of a bad mood to stand around getting jostled by drunk people who are having way more fun than you are. 

That’s how you end up out front, letting the rough stone wall bite into your bare arm and watching the cars go by, surrounded by patrons who’d stepped out for a smoke. 

Maybe you shouldn’t let Spencer ruin your entire night because of some stupid outburst. But you can’t shake it. 

Is that what he thinks of you? That you sleep around? That you cheat? Sure, the two of you haven’t explicitly had the commitment talk. But you thought it was pretty fucking implied. 

The moon is a bright white spotlight overhead. Despite the season, a breeze nips at all your exposed skin, and you cross your arms against the chill. Earlier, in your classy-enough white minidress and blue pumps, you’d felt beautiful. Now you just feel gross. 

Spencer comes out a few minutes later. 

“They’re playing your song.”

You can tell by the way he stops a few feet away that his tail is between his legs. Your head rolls toward him. 

“I can hear.”

It’s true—the buzzy, bouncy twang is distinctive even through a wall, and every drum beat is clear as day. So is the cheer that goes around as a bunch of drunk Generation X-ers and millennials recognize the synth riff. 

Spencer narrows his eyes and searches for the words. “I can’t help but feeling it’s slightly… pointed.”

What? Playing a song called Love Will Tear Us Apart? 

Pointed? 

Surely not. 

You don’t bother using your words—the exaggerated faux-bafflement on your face gets the message across. 

Spencer nods, looking appropriately contrite as he steps closer. You let him. 

“You were right,” he murmurs, speaking just for you now. “I was out of line.”

“Oh, really? Thanks for telling me. I hadn’t noticed.”

He says your name gently. You shut up and cast your glare sideways, watching a crumpled plastic cup make its way down the sidewalk. 

“I’m sorry. I just—I know you’re beautiful. I know people notice you. But we’re not usually in environments where I have to watch it happen. Or… or maybe it just goes over my head. That’s entirely possible. Either way, I’m not used to seeing you get hit on, and I couldn’t tell if you knew the guy, or if… maybe you were just hitting it off, and—I—I panicked, because we’ve never really had that talk before. I know what you are to me. But I’ve never clarified what I am to you. I’m not going to push you on the labels thing. You know I’m not. We should be on the same page about this, though.”

You sigh. Fiddle with your bracelet and watch it glint. “Spencer, I swear that guy—”

“I don’t care about that guy. It wasn’t about him. I’m sorry. I just want you to know that regardless of what we call it, it matters to me that we’re not doing this with anyone else.” His voice takes on that intimate tone—just barely more than a whisper. You look down as he grabs your hand, and drags it back up to his heart. Your breath catches. “You are my person, and I need that to be clear. Is that okay with you?”

His sincerity has stunned you speechless, and the proximity isn’t helping either, so you can only let your fingers catch on his lapel and nod—quick, eager little dips of your head. Yes, yes, you think. I can’t say it like you can. But yes. Please. That’s what I want. 

“Yeah?” he asks quietly, mirroring your nod and fondness twitching at the corners of his mouth. 

What you want to say is, oh, god, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. It burns inside of me, all the time, and I don’t know what to do with it all. I love you I love you I love you. 

Instead, you say, in your smallest voice, “Yeah. Yes.”

The way he slips his hand behind your neck and kisses you against that wall, under the full August moon and between clouds of cigarette smoke, cools your blood. It’s the only thing that works. 

Later in bed, you watch him sleep, that same moonlight casting silver through his hair as you comb your fingers through it, again and again. 

Before he’d fallen asleep, you’d asked him a question that had been on your mind since the bar. 

Spencer?

Hm?

What am I to you?

It’d caught him off guard. He held your hand, pressed the circles of your bracelet just to your racing pulse on the underside of your wrist, and mapped your face with darting eyes, with an intellect that can’t read minds no matter how much he wishes it could. 

Do you actually want me to answer that question?

You’d nodded. 

Is the answer going to freak you out?

At this you’d shaken your head no—which was an assurance made in haste. But you were too curious. You needed to know. 

Spencer weighed something internally for a long moment. 

You’re like… a lens I see the entire world through. I can’t do anything, or make any choice, without thinking about you. I’m always thinking about you. When we’re not together, it feels like I’m waiting for my life to start again. Nothing really counts unless you’re there to experience it with me, you know? I think of you as… I don’t know. Everything. You’re why I know it’s all real. Why it matters. 

It was so much, you had to hide in the curve of his neck. It made you nervous. The bigger it is, the harder it falls. 

But, because it mattered so much to you—because he matters so much—you found the courage to whisper against his neck: Me, too.

It was a really scary thing to admit. Scarier than when you tell him you love him. He kissed you for your bravery. 

Now, he’s asleep. 

You trace the moon-glow line of his cheek. 

Spencer lies sleeping next to you like a Renaissance angel as hot tears burn a scar down the bridge of your nose, and you bargain with god. Let me be good enough for him. Let me be someone else. Anything. I’ll do anything, just—please. Take this feeling away. Make me into a girl who deserves this kind of love. 

God does not answer. 

August 19th

Something is off. 

It started when you and Spencer didn’t take the same car to the airfield. 

Of course, that’s not unheard of—but it is uncommon. If it’s at all possible, he’ll slide in next to you. Today he didn’t even wait—got engrossed in a debate with Emily and followed her right into an almost-full SUV. 

So you stood there, blinked, and climbed into the other car next to Rossi. You didn’t say a word for the whole fifteen minute drive, watching the muddy fields and warehouses roll by beyond the window. 

Spencer isn’t doing anything wrong. 

It’s just that it’s been nearly a week since you’ve spent a night with him. And it’s starting to make you feel restless. There have been crack of dawn doctor’s appointments, and nights where one or both of you are too tired to drive to the other’s place, and preexisting plans with other people. All valid reasons to raincheck. 

But you’re not used to sleeping alone anymore. It’s not what you do. It feels like a really big deal to you that you haven’t had a sleepover for so long, and he hasn’t mentioned it, or given any hint that it’s bothering him the way it’s bothering you. 

God, when was the last time you spent more than two or three nights apart?

The last time you broke up, you realize. 

That is a sobering thought. 

On the jet, it’s not much better. Again, Spencer doesn’t wait for you before boarding. You’re slamming the car door, and he’s already walking up the steps in animated conversation with JJ. 

There is an old, familiar pang in your chest. 

No. No, please—I’m past this. I’m too grown-up for this. 

He loves me. 

But there’s that old paradox, again. If nobody except Spencer knows that you’re dating Spencer—and he’s not acknowledging it—are you really even together?

By the time you get on, he’s at the table. The three seats around him have been filled. You eye each of your coworkers and try not to feel burning rage, because they didn’t do anything wrong. 

Instead, you sit on the far end of the couch, and you pick your nails. 

The whole first day at the precinct is pretty much the same story, though you’re able to engross yourself deeply enough into the job that it doesn’t bother you so much. 

It’s only when the day is over, and you’re showered, and you’re sitting on your perfectly made hotel queen bed, that loneliness turns into gnawing, tearing panic. 

You catch your breath as it hits you—as the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and dread washes out the shell of your body. It’s bad. Worse than you would’ve imagined. 

What is wrong with you?

Why can’t you ever just be alright?

You don’t know if the solution here is to go to Spencer or to remain locked in your room like a psych-patient in a padded cell. 

Panic makes you unreasonable, you think. Pushing off the bed to pace. Moving helps. Moving tells your body that you’re evading the threat, and the panic attack ends sooner. 

Something you’d learned from Spencer, of course. 

Spencer. 

Unreasonable, right. You’re not entirely dependent on him for your mental stability. You have developed implicit expectations, sure—you’re used to being alone with him every night, so you can talk about your days and drink tea and be close. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a routine you’ve developed, and one you’ve come to rely on. Surely it’d be disregulating for anyone if it suddenly changed without warning. It’s not because you’re obsessive, or sick, or overly-needy. And it’s normal for couples to take a few days apart. 

Not obsessive, not sick, not needy. It’s normal. This is normal. 

This becomes your mantra as you pace the patterned carpet, eyes closed, lips moving, like if you stop the panic is going to catch you and swallow you whole. 

For a few minutes, it works. 

Then, for no apparent reason—it stops working. 

And it’s like watching a dam explode from the valley below. 

For a second you don’t know if you should run to the bathroom and throw up or go to Spencer’s door, and then you’re questioning if it’s late enough to go to his room, if maybe someone on the team might be out in the hallway—but your brain is screaming, if you do not go see Spencer, you are going to die. Who gives a fuck about your fucking coworkers. 

You tap lightly at his door. 

He doesn’t answer right away, and the brightly lit hallway seems to stretch on forever. You’re so profoundly anxious that there is a moment of hysterical, perverse humor. Look at you. About to die in a hotel hallway, barefoot and in pajama shorts, if he doesn’t open this fucking door. And of course. Of course he’s not going to open it. This is great stuff. Really, awesome material. Perfect. 

Just as you’re gripping the door frame to stop the building from spinning, just as you’re really, seriously about to pass out—the lock clicks. The door opens. 

Glasses. Sweatshirt. Spencer. 

“Hey! I was just about to—” he stops. Perhaps notices your slumped posture, how you’re white-knuckling the door. Maybe the sheen of sweat on your face. “Hey, okay—come here.”

Spencer wraps an arm around you and helps you in, closing the door and then leading you to his bed. 

“You look like you’re gonna pass out,” he mutters, laying you down carefully—ideally to get the blood flow back to your head. You blink. 

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine.”

You say it because you’re embarrassed. Spencer says your name with an edge that wants the truth. 

“It was just a panic attack.”

This doesn’t satisfy him. 

“Do you often pass out from panic attacks?”

“Um… not never.”

Your vision clears. Your ears stop ringing, and you push yourself up to sit against the headboard. Spencer has a bottle of water locked and loaded, holding it out for you as soon as you’re settled. 

The way he’s watching you as you drink, with so much unabashed and scrutinizing concern in that knit brow, is almost too much. You look away and screw the lid back on. 

“What triggered it?” He asks. 

“I don’t know, I was just sitting there—I was literally just sitting there, and suddenly my brain was like, by the way, you have five minutes to live, and—and I don’t know. I tried walking it off and breathing and stuff. I’m sorry I came here. It’s not your problem.”

“You’re not a problem. This isn’t a problem. You should’ve come before it got this bad.”

When he sets his hand on your knee, you close your eyes and try not to let it feel like medicine. 

It’s not his job to fix you. That’s not what he’s for. 

“Yeah,” is all you say. 

A pause. 

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

It’s clear he’s putting the pieces together. You sigh and fiddle with the bottle cap. Untwist. Twist. Untwist. 

“I… don’t know. I was overthinking.”

“Overthinking what?”

You flash him a look, because he knows he’s pushing you—but he’s unrelenting. 

Spencer’s hair is a corona of unruly curls. He hasn’t shaved in a few days. You don’t want to have this conversation—you want to put your head in his lap and fall asleep to the hotel TV. 

“It’s stupid. It doesn’t make sense. I just—I don’t know, we didn’t talk all day, and—”

You take a quick, shuddering inhale, and close your mouth. Because you realize you’re about to cry. And now you can’t even soften the blow of your insanity—you can’t tell him, I know I’m being crazy, I know nothing is wrong, I know it’s okay for us to not talk for a day or to spend a few nights apart and it doesn’t mean you hate me. 

But you can’t say any of that. It wouldn’t be true, anyways. You don’t know any of those things. 

Spencer is observing you and you can’t tell what he’s thinking. You look down at your folded legs to hide your wobbling chin. 

There’s no hiding the plunk of a fat tear as it hits the mattress, or the subsequent bloom of saltwater grey turning the sheet into a ghostly, sad little garden. You wipe your face with a furious, punishing hand, and speak hoarsely. “Sorry.”

Spencer catches your wrist before you can take out your own eye. “Stop.”

“I’m fine,” you insist, snatching your hand away though you desperately crave the contact. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t know—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Everything is fine.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t—you need to stop doing that. Minimizing everything all the time. If everything was fine, you wouldn’t have had a panic attack and you wouldn’t be crying now.”

“Everything is fine,” you assert. Anger—not at him—begins seeping through your tone, burning you at the edges. “Everything is fine, but I’m obviously not, and I’m sick of getting so fucking upset about nothing all the time.”

“Tell me why you’re upset.”

“Because I’m crazy! Because we haven’t been together all week, and you didn’t sit next to me in the car today, or on the jet, and—and ever since I actually stopped holding you at arm’s length, I’m so fucking involved, and I care so much, and I knew this would happen. Before, it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t spend the night together for a week, because I wasn’t all in, and I knew if I was always giving you just a little less than you were giving me that the dynamic would be in my favor, and I would never have to feel like I was the unwanted one. But I can’t do that anymore, because—’cause I let myself care all the way, and I was so afraid of this happening, and it’s happening. I don’t have any fucking control over myself anymore. I’m so worried, all the time—it’s like, I have a doomsday clock inside of me, but instead of the end of the world it’s measuring how close you are to breaking up with me at any moment. Which is fucked, I know it’s fucked. I know I can’t read your mind, but I don’t have any perspective anymore. And the worst part is that it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know the more insane and hyper-vigilant and codependent I get, the likelier you are to actually break up with me. It was never a problem before. It was never this scary because if I was the one who kept breaking up with you it meant I was in control, but I don’t wanna break up with you at all. I’m terrified of it. But it—it’s like my karma, I—”

“Okay. Slow down.” Your head snaps up—wide, teary eyes on Spencer. You almost forgot he was there. “Breathe. Just—take a deep breath.”

Fuck. You drag your hands to your face, fully prepared to curl in on yourself and die rather than face your own humiliation. 

“No, no—look at me. Come on.”

“I’m going insane,” you sniffle as he peels your hands away and forces you to look at him. “I c-can’t say anything that will make me sound less crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. Your nervous system is just shot, and you’re probably exhausted. Did you eat? I didn’t see you have dinner.”

Guilty, you shake your head. You didn’t realize he was paying attention. 

“I’ll call room service,” he decides. 

“I’m really not hungry.”

Spencer ignores this and picks up the phone anyway. You sit back against the headboard and hug your knees to your chest, staring at nothing as he orders something you’ll like. Waiting for the click of the phone back in its cradle. 

When the call is over, there is tremulous silence. A tension you’re not sure how to go about breaking. 

Spencer does it for you—finding your ankle and carefully pulling your leg straight, so he can run the length of it back and forth with his hand. You watch it go, like waves rolling in and falling back on sand. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend enough time together this week. I missed you, too. I absolutely do not want to break up. Not one part of me wants that.”

“I should be able to know that without you telling me.”

“But you aren’t, yet. You’re going to learn.”

“But—until I do—you’re gonna have to—to reassure me constantly. I’m going to be exhausting and irritating and you’re going to get sick of me.”

He regards you. 

“It makes me really sad that you feel that way. I think you severely underestimate how much I like you.”

“Why, though?” Immediately you’re rolling your eyes and throwing your hands up. “See? Fucking right there. Already. I’m already doing it.”

Spencer is holding back a smile when you look at him. You shrink. 

“No, no—” he laughs, leaning in. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you.”

You end up nearly lying down, with him over you. Breathing in his mint and eucalyptus bedtime smell. The smile fades slowly, as he thumbs over your cheek, your lips. Your lids flutter at the relief of it all. 

“I’m hoping… we’ll never have to do a week like that again. I didn’t like it very much, either.”

You lean into his palm, and don’t speak for a long while. 

“Spencer?”

“Hm?”

“Can—” you swallow involuntarily. You’re scared to ask. But you know what the answer will be. “Can we… I know I’ve messed up a bunch of times, but—can I be your girlfriend? We don’t have to tell anyone, I just… I want to be your real girlfriend.”

The slow blossom of his smile is like a swell in your favorite song as he grins down at you. 

“You’ve been my real girlfriend for a while.”

“I know, but… I want you to tell me that’s what I am. I want to know that when you think of me, you’re thinking about your real-life serious girlfriend.”

He hums. 

“And am I allowed to tell other people that you’re my real-life serious girlfriend?”

You chew your lip. “Some of them.”

“Which ones?”

He’s angling for something, and you know what, but you’re not sure you’re ready for that particular step. 

“I don’t know. We’ll find some.”

“I have a few in mind.”

“We can’t,” you murmur, hugging his arm to your chest. “Not yet. They’ll—it’ll change things. But… but maybe we don’t have to hide it quite as much.”

“Like… no running away when we see someone we know in public?”

You nod. “And I have a rule.”

He strokes your hair. 

“What’s that?”

“You have to always save a seat for me in the cars and on the jet. Always. Capiche?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You tilt your chin up. He kisses you. 

Now that you’ve got him, you’re not going to let go. 

September 1st

“You’re delusional. Truly, you’re acting insane.”

“For wondering why you had to stay three hours late at work to review one interview transcript you could’ve done during lunch?”

Spencer drops his bag onto a chair and rounds the counter, pushing a hand through his hair. You remain leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed.

“It is not that simple.” He insists. “You’re being paranoid and unreasonable. Again.”

“Or you’re being defensive.”

Spencer’s eyes narrow, like he’s just now seeing you for the first time since he got home. That is to say—his home. 

“Am I being accused of something?”

Words catch in your throat. Normally you’d hurl a ridiculous indictment as a matter of anything being possible—but not this time. It would be abjectly absurd to accuse him of cheating at anything other than cards. 

“No,” you huff after a weighty moment. 

“So what? What’s the point of this? I come home after staying at work three hours late listening to a man recounting in excruciating detail how he killed and ate an entire family because nobody else wanted to do it, and as soon as I walk through my own front door you start a fucking fight with me? Over nothing?”

The sudden slope in volume is startling as it rings off the walls like a gunshot. Rarely does he raise his voice before you have the chance to. 

For the few moments you’re stunned into silence, you take note of a few things you hadn’t before. The pound of his heart in his throat and just beneath his eye. Exhaustion evident in the strain of his voice and the mess of his hair, hanging over his face limp in some places and frazzled in others. The fragile glaze over his eyes, even as they widen and crackle with heat. It takes a lot out of a person to sit and listen to what he listened to for as long as he did. Even Spencer—even a man who can intellectualize and pathologize any human atrocity into microscopic pulses of electricity coursing through grey matter. 

It gets to him like it gets to everyone. You know that. 

Fuck. 

The most embarrassing part is that you started this fight because you missed him, and you still haven’t quite figured out how to not be afraid of that feeling. Sometimes when you miss him it feels like a threat to your autonomy, and by extension, your safety. You sure as hell don’t know how to just admit this to him. 

So instead you pick fights. Not as much, anymore, but sometimes when you’re in need of comfort and just can’t ask for it, you’ll start pushing your luck with inflammatory comments. You’ll trigger a meaningless argument. Spencer will eventually whittle your fighting words down to a simple, familiar truth. He will realize that this is your way of telling him you need something, and then you get the sweet after: where he rewards you for nothing, where he tries to apologize for a conflict you’d created with gentle touches and murmured words of comfort. Sun after a storm. It’s easy to accept affection and tenderness if you’ve intentionally scratched open all your old wounds—if you’ve earned it through trial by blood. 

Tonight, he’s not having it. You sense no reality where this ends with a sweet kiss and whispers so soft you can hardly hear them. 

Which means you need to backtrack. 

So you swallow your pride and your shame and your fear. Choke on it, really. But the words come out all the same. 

“I’m sorry.”

Spencer’s chest is still rising and falling quickly. The purple paisley silk of his tie catches your eye. It’s all astray. You want to fix it. He could breathe better if you took it off. And there’s no way he’s not bothered by his hair falling over his face. 

How can you make this go away?

Could it go in the other direction these quarrels sometimes do? Maybe it could end with you achey and tired in his arms, after he kisses the marks around your wrists, the little purple splotches on your hips and the starburst clusters of broken blood vessels on your thighs. Here, too, he’ll end up being sanguine—there’ll just be more steps in between. 

Just as you’re running scenarios in your mind, calculating outcomes and trying to chart the best plan of action, his tongue darts over his lips. It’s enough to stop you in your tracks. 

Why hasn’t his brow relaxed? Those eyes, still darting over your face with a kind of urgency—is that hunger or dissatisfaction with what he sees?

“You should go.”

A beat. 

This does not process instantaneously. You blink and shake your head as if you could clear it that way. 

“What?”

Spencer’s eyes are a forge on you, but he diverts them to the wall. Sparing you from the edge of a glowing sword. You don’t know how you’d prefer it—cool to the touch and sharp enough to cut, or soft and burning and prolonged. He’s probably decided he’s being civil. Doesn’t realize it lasts so much longer this way. 

“I think you should go home for the weekend.”

“Why?” It bursts from you, trembling and affronted. 

“Because I can’t—” he stops himself. Shutters his eyes and takes a deep breath that doesn’t seem to do much of anything. “I am not in the right headspace for this. I need you out of here.”

“What do you mean, this?”

“You. This thing you always do. I do not have it in me to make you feel better about yourself right now.”

It would’ve been quicker to just kick you in the stomach. 

For a moment you’re too stunned to speak as he blurs through a thick cloud of tears. 

“You are such a fucking asshole.”

The words come out too hurt, too quiet.

Spencer is unfazed—leans in closer as if to make sure you understand. Lowers his voice, and the tremor there is not the kind that comes from hurt feelings. You don’t know what it is. 

“Go. Home.”

It’s the kind of quiet that you’re afraid will culminate in a burst eardrum or something worse. He’s not like that, you know he’s not. Even at his worst. Even when you push him to his absolute wit’s end. But you can already hear it. Feel it. Ghost echos that have been rattling around in your head for years. 

A part of you—a rather large part—wants to cover her ears hard and sink to the ground, or otherwise apologize and beg him to love you again. 

But you are an adult. He’s asked you to leave. 

So you do. With an awful pulling in your gut and a hollowing in your chest like a sinkhole falling into itself. 

The static starts outside his door. The raking breaths. That awful warmth on the back of your neck and the greying of your vision. 

You stumble to the stairs and cover your face, letting the waves of panic wash over your shoulders. 

Was that a breakup? Does he still love you? Did he ever? If love can be so quickly taken away, was it ever really there? See, this is why—this is exactly why you’ve done what you’ve done, why you’ve been the way you have and treated him the way you did for so long. Because of this inevitability. Because of your nature, and what happens when a child tells himself he can enjoy a broken toy just the same as a regular one, until he keeps playing with it, and it keeps breaking worse and worse until it’s completely unusable. 

Something snaps inside of you. Gears grind and groan. The static doesn’t go away, it only gets louder, and it sounds a whole lot like his name over and over again—so you’ll just have to drown it out. 

-

It’s hot in this place, and it’s loud—so loud you can feel the throbbing techno beat in your teeth. The flashing lights wash over you like a tide of blood, rising and falling, filling your lungs. 

Whatever is coursing through your veins is not enough to dull the ache. In the middle of the dance floor, and you’re still thinking of Spencer. Spencer. Spencer. With every beat of your heart. Not enough alcohol. Not enough anything. 

It’s so hot in here—sweat drips down your spine and the room is spinning, but all the writhing, shadowed bodies prop you up as you stumble toward the bar. No chance in hell the bartender would keep serving you in the state you’re in, so you find someone to buy the drinks for you. 

And you fall, fall, fall—chasing some wicked, Cheshire gleam at the bottom of that glass, and the next, and the next. 

That gleam is, of course, an illusion. It will shine so brightly you can taste it. It will convince you to reach just a little further. And it will wink at you from the impossible end of a bottomless pit. 

You don’t care. You tip over the edge and let the darkness swallow you whole.

Nothing but stardust, now. 

You blow across the silent black ether. 

September 5th

You’re practically dripping from Spencer as he locks your door.

“Help me out, a little?” he grunts as you make no effort to support your own body weight. 

“Sorry sorry sorry. I’m up.”

He breathes a laugh and walks you deeper into the apartment. It’s a slow process. 

“If I set you down on the couch… are you going to be able to get back up?”

“I don’t know,” you sing-song, stumbling, giggling, and grabbing onto him tighter. “Let’s find out.”

Your ankles threaten to buckle all the way across the room, but he holds you fast. 

“Easy,” he murmurs as you slip your arms from around his neck and drop heavily to the cushions. You blink at him, exhausted, admiring the view. At some point, you’d managed to pull off his tie and undo the first few buttons on his shirt before he’d caught your hands and given you a warning look. Looking at him now, you have absolutely no regrets.

Spencer kneels in front of you, undoing the delicate ankle strap on your shoe. Your blood is pleasantly warmed as you let your head loll to your shoulder—warmer with every sweet way he handles you. Carefully. Like it’s an honor. 

After he slips the heels off, he presses a kiss to the top of each knee. You lace a hand through his hair. “Excellent view.”

There’s a lazy sort of smirk on his face when he tilts his head back up toward you. 

“I’m sure. Don’t get any ideas.”

You grin. 

“Too late.”

Spencer slides a gratuitous hand up your leg, fingertips just brushing the short hem of your dress, and raises his other. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Easy. Six.”

He snorts, pressing his face against your thigh, and you melt into a puddle of giggles. 

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! It was three. See—hey, you can make me say my ABC’s backwards, and I’ll walk in a straight line—”

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

Even that sweet, placating kiss to your thigh isn’t enough to temper the immediate and profound disappointment you feel at his proclamation. “What? Why?”

“Oh—why am I not going to sleep with a woman who couldn’t get up the stairs on her own?”

“Nonono, I’m dead sober. Please?”

He pushes off the ground, towering above you once more, and leans down to press a kiss to your lips. “Sorry. You’ll have to go find someone just as drunk as you.”

You linger there, your head tilted up, so he hangs in your silence, suspended less than an inch above you. 

“What?”

It comes out thin, with the crane of your neck. Quiet because your blood is frozen in your veins. 

Spencer pauses only briefly and then drops one more kiss to your mouth. At the contact your eyes flutter, in spite of yourself. 

“Nothing, baby. It was a joke.”

Then he’s up again, moving toward the kitchen. 

“Why would you joke about that?”

Spencer stops at the end of the couch and gives you an odd look. “Did it bother you?”

“Yes. Don’t—you can’t say stuff like that.”

Why are you breathing so quickly?

Now you’ve really got his attention. He turns fully back toward you, slipping his hands into his pockets.

Spencer doesn’t say a word. His eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. 

There’s a long stretch of silence. You can hear a faucet dripping and try to match your inhales to each plunk of water. 

“What’s wrong?”

One blink of hesitation and you realize your name is halfway signed on your own death sentence. 

“Nothing.”

“Don’t say nothing, you clearly—”

“Oh my god, I said it’s nothing. Just let it go. Jesus.”

And that final utterance, that subtle roll of your eyes, was practically a flourish of the pen. 

You haven’t gone the offense-as-defense route in a while. 

Immediately, something about Spencer’s demeanor goes cold. 

“Did something happen?”

The question is quiet enough to chill your bones and dry your throat. 

“Nothing. What? Nothing happened. I just don’t think it’s funny to joke about stuff like that.”

Fuck. Fuck. There may as well be a giant blinking sign over your head that says I’m lying. 

You watch it wash over him. 

The worst part is that he doesn’t say anything. He stands there for a moment—and then he turns, walking toward the kitchen again. For a moment, you’re frozen. Then you panic. 

“Spencer,” you call, and it breaks down the middle as you try to get up and sit right back down. He will not want to be followed. You take in a deep, grating breath, digging your nails hard into the sides of your legs and staring at the ground, willing the room to stop spinning. Willing your lungs to fill with air. 

Your entire body waits in suspense, taut like a steel guitar string, for shattering glass, or splintering drywall, or a slamming door, or something. It doesn’t come. He’s still here. You know he hasn’t left. 

But he’s going to. 

This is it. 

The unforgivable thing. 

Maybe five minutes later, you hear movement. When he reenters the living room, you keep your head down, tracking him only with your eyes. A yawning chasm seems to open up between your spot on the couch and where he stands, across the room. 

For a moment, neither of you speak—and then both of you try at once. More silence follows. You cover your face with your hands.

“We weren’t together,” you mumble into the cup of them. 

“What did you say?” 

His tone bites. 

“We weren’t together.”

“In your mind we were never together, so I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“No, we—we got in a really big fight—”

“When?”

You swallow. Because you work together, you should be familiar with this part of him—this relentless part, this I-will-run-you-into-the-ground part. But you’re not. 

“Spencer…”

Spencer recognizes this type of quiet. This quiet which means things can only be worse than they seem. The punishing anger is quickly slashed and bled until you feel it swirling around at your feet like water waiting to be swallowed down the drain. Displaced by massive grief, so heavy that you hear the break. The word is small. Too small to be a real question—it is a plea for mercy on a dying breath. 

“When?” 

You try to inhale and choke on it. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t think we were together—”

He snaps. “We are always together. You know exactly what we are. Take some fucking responsibility.”

“I didn’t mean to,” you whisper, desolate. “I didn’t.”

A tremulous pause. Your skin is crawling and you can’t get out of it. 

“What does that mean? What do you mean, you didn’t mean to?”

Snippets come from a reel you’ve been working hard to bury. The blisters on your palms burn. There is blood and dirt caked into the half-moons of your nails, too heavy and too fresh. 

A phantom ache has taken up residence in your bones. It throbs. 

You only shake your head.  

Spencer comes to you again. Gets on his knees for the second time this evening, sets his hands over your legs again in some backwards sort of supplication. Some bastardized retelling of a sweeter story from a few minutes ago. Like he’s pleading with you to recant, rewrite—to fix it so he doesn’t have to leave. 

“What do you mean? Just tell me what happened,” he begs. 

“I can’t,” you whisper.

“Why?”

The pain in his voice pounds at the base of your skull. 

Words dance on the tip of your tongue. Because there is too much I don’t remember. 

But something deeper in your gut keeps them tethered. Pulls hard. Shame, perhaps. There is no excuse for what you did. There is no explaining it away. No circumstance in which you are innocent. A girl goes dancing. Looking for something. She gets drunk. She chases the thing she’s looking for into dark corners and down alleyways. She needs to know what it is she’s chasing—she needs to hold it by the throat and squeeze, thumb against hammering pulse, until it doesn’t have so much power over her.  

She wakes up in a stranger’s bed. That’s the part of the story that matters. 

“I just can’t.”

The words are too quiet, but he hears. Your lungs burn in the pulsing silence that follows. 

No solution. 

He gives you a few minutes in the dark living room to change your mind, to say the right thing. It doesn’t come. 

So he gets up. 

“Wait, wait wait—” your heart is pounding as you stumble off the couch and follow him, barely avoiding tripping over your own feet. He’s at the door. How did he get there so quickly? You catch the wall just behind him. “Spencer, wait.”

The tear in your voice is desperate enough you flinch. 

But it gets him to turn around. 

He looks exhausted. 

The pallor of his skin—the shadows exaggerating where his cheeks sink in and where the troughs beneath each eye get darker in purple half moons.

You fucked up so badly. 

How much more of you can he handle?

Is this the one thing to push him over the edge, for good? 

“I’m sorry,” you breathe. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t—I can’t explain it, but it wasn’t right—I didn’t—” heat wells behind your eyes as you flounder and dig your grave helplessly, flexing and clenching your hands. “I’m never, ever gonna do that again. Something was—I wasn’t myself that night, and it’s not going to happen again, I don’t know why I did it. I was stupid, and I love you so much, and—please. Please, don’t go. I really need you not to go.”

Spencer regards you, gaze flickering up and down, swallowing. His eyes are all foggy and waterlogged. It makes you feel sicker.

“I know you’re sorry.”

Your chin wobbles. 

There’s nothing to fight with in his words. There’s nothing to scratch or kick or bite or cling to. 

“You’re gonna leave?”

A beat. 

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna come back?”

It hangs in the air between you for a very long time. 

September 12th

When you see him at your door a week later, you’re not sure what to say. Spencer has hardly spoken to you at work. It’s not that he’s been cruel, he just… he’s been distant. Understandably so. 

This lack of words, you realize very quickly, is not going to be much of a problem. 

What he wants to do with you does not require a lot of speaking. 

In fact, you start to suspect he doesn’t want to hear you talk at all. It would be hard to form words when he’s kissing you like this.

But you have to try, don’t you?

“Spencer—”

He pulls away, leaves you reeling and head sparkling with fresh oxygen. Disoriented. Desperate to have him in any way you can. A thumb presses against the seam of your lips and you open for him without hesitance. 

He has you against the back of your door, locking it with one hand and pushing down on your tongue with the other thumb. You wish you could do more than let it happen. Do anything but suckle like a lamb. Make him talk to you. Fix it while you can. 

But for the first time in a week he’s close and he’s looking at you like he wants you and you could cry. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he whispers, eyes darting rapidly over your face like he’s hungry for the sight of you. “You are going to listen to me. If I ask you a question, you can say yes, or you can say no. If we need to stop, or if something doesn’t feel right, you tell me. Otherwise, you don’t talk. Do you understand me?”

Your delirious nod is not enough for him as he slips his thumb from your mouth and grips your jaw, angling you carefully upward so as to look right at him through shuttered eyes. 

“Do you understand me?” He repeats lowly, and your breath catches. 

“Yes.”

Those eyes slow, taking you in, that gaze dripping from you like honey. Just barely, he strokes the line of your jaw. He ducks to kiss you again and this time it is not so urgent. 

“Do you want this?” Spencer asks just shy of your own mouth, soft without warning. 

The fabric of his coat bunches in your fist. 

Only if you still love me, you want to say. But you know why he doesn’t want you to talk. So you can’t say things like that. So he doesn’t have to tell you of course I do. Please spare me the humiliation of admitting it. 

“Please,” you whisper. A trembling breath. More than a plead for sex. You are asking that he be kind. Perhaps it’s more than you deserve, but you can’t do this if he doesn’t touch you like he loves you. Not with him. 

You are asking for him to fix something big, something thus far unspoken and which you don’t totally understand yourself. It’s too complicated. He shouldn’t have to do this for you. He doesn’t owe you anything. 

Erase it, you want to say. Make this feeling I can’t talk about go away. I know you love me enough to do it. 

All this, with one please. 

Spencer exhales. And he kisses you again. 

Of course, Spencer’s not good with enforcing rules. Not when you’re opening up to him in this way. Even now he looks at you like you’re a marvel. Touches you like you’re a miracle. As soft and as careful as you could’ve asked for if you’d used the words—he may as well be tracing love letters into your skin. 

All you can do is try and respect his wishes. You hurt him, badly, you know you did. Don’t add salt to those wounds. He needs you to be predictable right now. No sudden movements. No derailments. To the best of your ability, you are quiet and good and gracious and docile. 

But you are only human. Those times you gasp his name under your breath, he just holds your hand tighter. A plead or two are lost against his skin or into the sheets. He takes pity on you—murmurs gentle questions just to give you an outlet. Kisses your teary cheeks as you give your shaky answers. 

He loves me, you think, in absence of the words, over and over, until you feel it, until your whole body is buzzing with it. Until you’re buoyant and nothing is hard anymore. 

Afterwards, his stillness is what draws you back. His heart pounds against yours, he’s exactly the weight and the pressure you need. But he’s still. The momentum of the passion is wearing off, and you can sense it. 

So you allow yourself one quiet, distressed little chirp. One nervous bid for reassurance. Spencer comes to his senses and quells you with a chaste kiss. 

And then he’s out of bed. The weight of all the air in the room, the heavy cold, comes crashing down—pressing into your skin, your stomach, all at once.  

Suddenly you’re paralyzed, unable to look away from the ceiling as he dresses, grabs the glass from your nightstand and disappears into the bathroom. A few moments later he returns bearing a cloth and a full cup. The cup hits the nightstand. The edge of the bed dips. He slides one hand up your calf like always, and you acquiesce, letting the weight of your leg fall against him. A warm washcloth finds your inner thigh. 

Your mind is screaming, deafening static. 

“You okay?” Spencer asks gingerly after a few beats of silence. There is a hesitance, there. A feigned lightness, like he’s afraid of asking. Afraid of opening up this line of conversation and too good not to. 

Your tongue is heavy in your mouth as he cleans up any evidence of his having been here. 

“You got up pretty quick.”

More static. Something fights its way up your throat and you swallow it down. 

“Yeah. An old professor of mine is town. We have dinner plans.”

You don’t know what to say to that as he retrieves a few things from your dresser and returns. Normally he’d slide underwear up your thighs for you and pull a shirt over your head, but today you’re grabbing the garments from him before he has a chance. 

“I can do it,” you mutter, hurrying to yank the clothes on under his measuring gaze. Under other circumstances he might take offense to this. Might at least ask you about it. Now he only stands to give you space and pockets his hands. 

Because he knows. He knew the whole time. 

He’s not sticking around. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. Dust particles swirl through thick beams of molasses light, pouring in from the windows and warming rumpled sheets. How long was he here?

You hug your bare legs to your chest and settle your chin over folded arms, mapping dust like stars in a galaxy. “Why’d you even come?” you murmur.  

The world quiets down. Waits with you, holding its breath for his answer. 

“I don’t know.”

Light glares off the floor in a blinding white pool. Sends shooting pains into the back of your eyes as you fiddle with your own shirtsleeve. 

“Were you trying to… hurt me back, or something?”

“No.” The answer is firm and immediate. “No, I am not trying to hurt you.”

You say nothing. Wood creaks under shifting weight, but you’re not looking at him as he sighs. 

“You have to give me some time.” Your name on his tongue is reprimand, a thing he shouldn’t have to tell you. “It’s been a week. I don’t have any of this figured out. I’m not thinking straight.”

“You were thinking straight enough to drive over here and tell me not to talk while you fucked me.”

“I—” he sighs. At a perpetual loss with you. “I told you it wasn’t well thought out. I’ve been spiraling. All week. I’m not sleeping, I’m not making good choices. I mean—you—you fucked me over!” The words burst out, the way they do when he curses. “I haven’t had anybody to talk to about this. You are the only person. Do you see why that would be difficult? You hurt me so much and I miss you and I’m furious and you’re the only one I can talk to about any of it. That’s insane, right? I think you owe me some grace.”

“Did I owe you that, too?”

You gesture toward the unmade sheets and then bury your face against your arms once more. 

Humiliated. Like usual. 

Spencer is stunned into silence for a moment. 

“No. No, you didn’t. Did I—did I make you feel that way? If that didn’t feel right—”

“No,” you assuage tearfully. “I just wish you t-told me you weren’t going to stay, ’cause I wouldn’t have—I just can’t do that with you.”

“Can’t do what?” he asks, sitting on the bedside once more, hand twitching but ultimately leaving you be. 

“I can’t have sex with you if you’re gonna leave after. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t know that. But, like—you are the one person who can’t—I just really really can’t do that with you, because—” you stop yourself and change course with a shuddering breath, pressing your palms to weeping eyes. “I’m sorry. I know this is literally all my fault. I don’t get to ask for things. I know that.”

Fireworks dance against the back of your lids. Spencer is quiet. 

Then there are hands around your wrists. A thumb smoothing the delicate skin under your palm. You hiccup a gasping cry and melt toward him. It might be the most you get from Spencer, so you focus on the small touch until it burns. His voice is soft—a balm you don’t deserve. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” you sniffle, hands falling an inch, then two, as you go lax under his touch. “You don’t owe me an apology. Just—I can’t do that with you again until… until we have things figured out.”

The stroking thumb stops, and then restarts. 

“Okay.”

Finally, you open your eyes. Can’t make sense of the neutrality on his face.

“What?”

He only shakes his head. Nothing. 

Too tired to push him, you let your hands fall to your lap, and he keeps hold on your wrists. Sweeping. The lines he makes entrance you. 

“I’m sorry I put you in this position,” you whisper. 

No response. Back and forth. 

“I know you’re mad at me. You really, really have the right to be mad at me. I’m sorry for making you be nice to me. That’s so stupid, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for—”

“Angel.”

You bite your tongue and sink your gaze. What a ridiculous petname it is, now. How terrible of him to keep using it. 

“Sorry.”

Afraid to tell him he can leave, and too ashamed to let yourself enjoy his presence while it lasts, you remain in limbo. His silence does not tell you exactly how much he hates being here, but you think if the tables were turned, you wouldn’t be able to stomach it. Is it really better, his lingering, if it’s not because he loves you? With each pass of his thumb, you imagine him hating you more. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. 

“I’m not going to do this again,” he murmurs, jarring you from your obsessive contemplation. 

Now, when you look up, he’s focused on your wrist. 

“… I know.”

“No, honey. I mean… it needs to end.”

This sinks in slowly, with a heat in your face and the back of your neck and a sick tide rising in your stomach. 

The first thing you feel is panic. Drops of adrenaline in your bloodstream like you’ve just realized you’ll need to run for your life. 

“Why? Because—if this is because I said I can’t sleep with you until—”

“That was completely appropriate. You were right. It’s not good for either of us.”

“So why does that mean we can’t try again? I mean—I know you need time. You can have it. You can. We always do this, and then we get back together and it’s better. I already did the worst thing I could do—we’ll get better.”

The breath he takes is quiet, uneven and pronounced. The kind of breath you take when something hurts more than you thought it would. 

“You’re asking me to get over something I haven’t even fully wrapped my mind around.”

You falter. 

“No, I’m—I’m just telling you I’m going to wait, and you can have as long as you need—”

“Stop,” he says, more sad than angry. “You need to stop.”

“I can’t stop,” you whisper, closer to forlorn every second as you tear up and spill all over again. “I have to try.”

Spencer’s voice shakes as he speaks. “Do not do this to yourself. There is nothing you can say, alright? This needs to be over, so it’s going to be over. It’s not good for us.”

“But—but… you can’t just say it’s over, Spencer, we put so much—I’ve been trying so hard. I know I keep messing up, I’m sorry, I’m trying so hard. I don’t know what happened, I’m—I can do more, I know I can.”

“You can’t—this isn’t going to work. You can’t fix it.”

“But I love you. I want to be with you. I did it all for you, all the hard stuff, not for me, I just—I love you. I want you.”

You don’t realize you’re sobbing until he’s wrenching your hands from your face once more and pulling you into him. 

“I know you love me. I wish we were better for each other, angel, I do. But it’s not supposed to feel like this.”

It’s not supposed to feel like this. 

You shudder a cry. 

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to hurt you, really. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want that. You d-didn’t deserve it. I’m so, so sorry, Spencer, I ruined everything, I—”

“Shh. Just… I’ll stay for a little bit longer, okay? Just a while.”

And he does. Until the room goes dark, and the stars watch silently from above.

October 29th

It’s not going to be warm enough to enjoy the outdoors for much longer—but today, the beams of sun are still thick through the turning leaves, still gold when you close your eyes, and the sweet smell of autumn is enough to keep you out criss-cross on Rossi’s swing. 

The seal on the glass door suctions open and then slides shut again, and Penelope is joining you. You accept the mug of apple cider, holding it carefully in your lap. 

“What a gorgeous day,” she sighs, and you hum in agreement. “Probably one of the last good ones. I saw rain on the forecast later this week.”

“It begins,” you mutter. 

“Yeah. And I haven’t even found a suitable mate to hibernate with yet.”

Your brow knits. “You’re not with—”

She pauses mid-sip as you turn to look at her. Right—you weren’t supposed to have seen her with Kevin last spring. Your face warms and you try to play it off. “Oh, right. You guys broke up forever ago.”

To her credit, she doesn’t actually confirm or deny. Instead, a quiet settles. Or—a sort of quiet. Down the yard, in grass that is still lush and green, JJ and Spencer are playing some sort of game with Henry and Michael. One that seems to invoke a lot of delighted screeches from the young boys as they run around and fall over and get back up. 

“What about you?” Penelope asks. 

Apple and clove melt on your tongue and warm your throat. 

“What about me?”

“Are you hunkering down with anybody?”

“No,” you admit without fanfare. Garcia doesn’t respond—probably hoping to get more information out of you. You hesitate, and then go on. “I mean—I was seeing a guy. But it ended a little while ago.”

She speaks her pity gently, in a tone like the velveteen undersides of flower petals. 

“You didn’t tell me.”

You shrug. 

“It wasn’t… official.”

“How long were you seeing him for?”

“It would’ve been a year next month.”

This time, she’s silent for too long. 

When you finally glance over at her, she’s not looking at you, as you would’ve expected. 

She’s… looking at your feet. 

You glance down, ready to be very confused—and then you see the problem. 

Your jeans have ridden up. One sock is striped purple and green. The other, brown, dotted with horseshoes and cacti. They’re visibly too big for you. 

Quickly you try to tuck them further under yourself. But you’re sure it’s too late. 

You could explain this. You could say you forgot to bring socks on a case, and Spencer let you borrow a pair. 

Before you can, she speaks. 

“I worried that maybe you guys had split up.”

You flash her an alarmed look. “What?”

Penelope glances toward the house to make sure nobody’s about to come outside. 

“I mean… honey, you guys weren’t very subtle. I don’t think anyone who lacks my perceptive genius and emotional intelligence would have noticed, but I noticed. Like, I really noticed.”

You swallow, opening your mouth before you’ve decided your plan of action. Deny? 

“When?”

“Well, everyone always knew that you liked each other. But there was this one time—and this was a total invasion of privacy, and I will never do it again unless I have to—where, you know, you… weren’t answering your phone about a case, and I got worried, because no offense, but this team kind of has a track record when it comes to going missing, and so… I checked your location… and it pinged at Spencer’s apartment… who had just told me he didn’t know where you were. And then you both showed up. I’m so sorry, but in my defense, I was not trying to snoop—”

“Penelope, it’s fine.”

“Well—okay—and there’s this other thing that I haven’t told you about because it would’ve been mutually assured destruction, so I kind of don’t ask don’t telled it, which was… me and Kevin saw you guys on a date last spring. And me and Kevin were not supposed to be on a date. And you were not supposed to be sharing spoons—spooning, if you will—with Spencer. But I did see it. And I didn’t tell you and I felt really squicky about it for a long time and I’m sorry.”

You blink. Try to process. 

“You didn’t tell anyone else?”

“No! God, no! I like to gossip, I don’t like to ruin people’s relationships.”

“Who’s ruining whose relationships?” JJ asks breathlessly, carrying a tuckered out Michael on her hip and holding Henry’s hand as she approaches. Your head snaps up. Spencer is trailing a few feet behind her, eyeing you. 

Heat blooms in your cheeks. 

“Theoretical conversation,” Penelope supplies quickly. “Are we finally ready to harass Rossi about dinner?”

JJ looks anything but convinced—and in typical fashion, lets it go. 

“I think we are. What do you think Michael—pizza?”

“Pizza!”

Everyone cheers at that—aside from you and Spencer. Penelope hurries inside after JJ and the boys. Spencer lingers. You quickly try to get your shoes back on before he can tell that you’re wearing his—

“Nice socks.”

You sigh, pausing just a moment before you finish pulling your boot on. 

“Sorry. I need to do laundry.”

You stand, and Spencer opens the door for you. “What socks you choose to wear are none of my business.”

Halfway inside, you pause, glancing up at him. “Do you want them back?”

He narrows his eyes thoughtfully. 

“That’s okay. I have a pair just like them at home.”

This is the first time you’ve exchanged more than a few work-related sentences since he ended things for good. 

It’s sort of ridiculous, after all the melodrama. 

It’s sort of a relief. 

January 1st

Garcia’s New Year’s party was a success. There’d been the most FBI agents you’ve ever seen crammed into her apartment at once. There was a chocolate fountain, three kinds of champagne, and an elaborate charcuterie setup spanning nearly the entire counter. At midnight, you’d popped a confetti gun and blew into a noise maker and cheered and jumped around and hugged your friends. 

An hour and a half later, you’ve taken over as impromptu host—Penelope is decidedly out of commission, snoring atop her bed, still in heels and sequins. 

“Bye, guys! Happy new year!”

You wave as the last stragglers head out the door.

When you close it, and turn around: “Holy shit.”You wade through confetti and streamers and napkins, kicking a few balloons out of your way. Any flat surface is covered in sparkly plastic cups and champagne flutes. “We trashed the place.”

From the kitchen, Spencer chuckles. “It’s pretty bad.”

You frown when you notice him stacking plates. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. I told Garcia I’d handle clean up.”

He checks his watch. 

“The odds of being involved in a fatal car accident are up 208% percent right now, and they won’t be going down for a few hours. Plus, my own blood alcohol content is probably hovering around point zero four, which is well under the legal limit to drive, but I’d prefer for it to be zero flat.”

You shrug and make your way over to the record player, which had finished up A Night At The Opera a while ago. “If you want to ring in the new year by helping me clean, I won’t stop you. Blue or Abbey Road?”

“Neither?”

“Boring,” you accuse, and put on Coltrane. The jazz comes slow and crackly and warm through the speakers. 

Spencer steps aside as you enter the kitchen and hunt for trash bags under the sink—compostable, because it’s Garcia. 

When you stand back up, you’re unprepared for how close he’s going to be—barely an inch separates you and you stumble on your quest to pop backward. “Whoop—” instinctively, he reaches out and steadies you. You grasp onto his arms, eyes flickering up to his and laughing nervously. “Hey.”

Spencer’s gaze is warm and easy on you as he pulls a little smile of his own. “Hi.”

A stuttering inhale. 

A moment that is just too long. 

His fingers seem to relax against your arms, just fractionally, for just a split second. Like he could hold you. Like you could stay this way. 

“Sorry,” you breathe, releasing your grip on him and stepping back. 

“You’re okay.”

A lazy sax solo traces its golden fingers around your thrumming heart until your skin is buzzing. His eyes are the same color as the music. Just as soft. Just as leisurely as they vamp the distance between your own. 

Bio-derived plastic dampens under your fingers as you flee to the living room. 

The next fifteen minutes are spent kneeling in front of the coffee table, cleaning drips of chocolate and splashes of champagne, and trying not to think about the way his eyes caught on your lips. 

Spencer doesn’t miss you. Not like you miss him. Apparently he even went on a date a few weeks ago. 

And with the way things ended, you’re lucky that he doesn’t despise you. Being on decent terms should be enough. Letting your perpetually smoldering want trail its smoke under his nose isn’t fair. Not to you, not to him, and certainly not to his mystery girl. He’s trying to move on, and you don’t have the right to drag him down.  

But, just—that one little moment. One touch, and you’re totally thrown off your game. Now, you’re reading into the silence. You’re wondering what he’s thinking about you. If he’s thinking about you. 

Later—much later—the living room has been mostly cleaned. You’re taking the final trash bag to the kitchen when you notice something on the ceiling fan and pause, frowning up at it. 

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you come here?”

He appears. “What’s up?”

You point at the fan. 

“I think somebody put a cup up there.”

Spencer makes a face and reaches up to grab it. He reads the name Sharpie’d on the side and snorts, before showing it to you. 

Kevin, scrawled next to the worst smiley face you’ve ever seen. 

“How do you mess up a smiley face?” you laugh. 

“I’m sure he’d be able to tell you.”

You suck your teeth. “God—do you think they’re together again?”

“Kevin and Penelope?”

The trash bag drops to the ground as you flop onto the couch, exhausted. Spencer crushes the cup and tosses it in, standing just in front of you, studying you as he thinks. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t entirely surprise me. They’re pretty good at remaining inconspicuous.”

You hum, slinking lower in the faux-leather. Maybe some friendly chit-chat is in order. Friends ask each other questions, don’t they? “Speaking of inconspicuous relationships… I heard you went on a date.”

He slides his hands into his pockets and picks his words in silence for a moment—you hate that. You hate feeling excluded from whatever internal conversation he’s having. Knowing that he’s measuring how much truth he’ll dole out to you. 

“Who’d you hear that from?”

You track him with your eyes as he takes a seat next to you. 

“Did you?” you ask, ignoring the question—more focused on the stubbled line of his jaw. 

Spencer considers his answer for a moment, head reclined on the back of the couch, charting the glittery paper stars suspended from the ceiling. 

“I did. Two, actually.”

Two dates? With the same person?

“How’s that going?”

He approximates a smile. 

“You’re not being very subtle.”

“I’m just curious. You don’t have to answer.”

Spencer meets your eyes. Studies them in turns, like there’s a secret language etched into the fractals of pigment.  

“I like her,” he decides. And your stomach sours. 

“But you didn’t bring her tonight?”

Spencer rolls his head back toward the ceiling—and very nearly his eyes, as he dryly reminds you, “We’ve been on two dates.”

“If you like her, you should’ve brought here. You could’ve kissed her at midnight and sealed the deal.”

A ditch in the conversation. The perfect depth and width for hiding a body, as something in the air changes. Drops a degree or two. Thickens. 

“What are you doing?” he murmurs, looking back at you and finally putting an end to your game. Your face gets warm. Oops. Too far, maybe. 

“I’m being supportive.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. Is that allowed?”

“You’re sure it’s not surveillance?”

“Yes!”

Even to you, you sound overly defensive. 

“Fine.” A moment passes. He’s staring at you, in this lazy sort of way. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You didn’t bring anyone either.”

“Well… I’m not seeing anyone.”

It’s embarrassing to admit. You pinch at the fabric of your skirt, worrying the glitter sewn into black like drops of silver. Stars, or beads of rainwater. 

“Why not?”

“Do I need an excuse to be single?”

“Just curious. Is that allowed?”

Evidently the look you cast him then is not as withering as you’d it to be. Not if he’s so unfazed. Still reading you like a familiar book. 

“God, this is frustrating,” he mutters, as if to himself, tongue darting over his lips and frowning like you’re a question he doesn’t have the answer to. Your own brow pinches, ready to be offended. 

“What is?”

“I just… I thought I’d stop wanting to kiss you by now.”

Behind the safety of a bone cage, tucked where he can’t see, your heart does a somersault. It probably shows in the way your spine straightens, the catch of your breath. 

“Oh. I’m… I’m… sorry.”

Spencer cracks a dry smile. 

“You’re sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“Well—I don’t know. Because… I don’t know. it just seems like… the wrong thing to want. You have a girlfriend.”

The softening of his eyes, the tilt of his head, all spell pity. Like you’re naive. 

“That’s not what she is, honey.”

Honey. You try to remember to breathe. To think.

“Then what is she?”

He hums. 

“Not you. As much as I tried to tell myself that was for the best.”

Scratch somersault. Back handspring. Or maybe a round-off. You swallow. Pick at your nails. 

Did you think this into existence? Was all your desire really so loud?

“Spencer…”

“What?”

“That’s… that’s not fair.”

His eyes are melting glass on yours, voice lowered in a way you’ve sorely missed. “How so?”

It takes you a moment to remember yourself. “Because I’m—I’m trying to be better. I’m really trying. I don’t want anyone to get hurt ’cause of me. So if this girl likes you—”

“Angel. Nobody’s getting hurt. She knew I had someone else on my mind.”

“You can’t call me that,” you whisper brokenly. But he’s close enough you can feel his breath. You don’t know how he got close like this—when you gravitated toward him, charmed as a snake by a flute. When the inevitable outcome limited itself to brilliant, disastrous collision. “We can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because we’re not together.”

“When has that ever stopped us?”

All your air comes out at once. “This is so stupid.”

“You’re so pretty.” Delicately he cups your jaw. Strokes the tips of his fingers along the hollow of your cheek. “I was thinking about it all night. Noticed the glitter as soon as I saw you. Did Penelope do it?”

“Spencer, please.” Breathless. Pathetic. Desperate for him to put you out of your misery, one way or another. 

His throat bobs. “Come here.”

So you do. You lean in, one hand balanced on his knee, the other on his shoulder, and your lips brush so softly it can’t even be called a kiss. Still it sends a high-voltage shock through your whole body. He tastes like champagne as you kiss him deeper, as his hand wanders to the back of your thigh and hoists you across his lap. The other roots in your hair and your head spins. 

“Missed you so much,” he breathes into your mouth, not even bothering to pull away, or even to stop kissing you really. Mellow ivory and brass do a good job of concealing your soft breaths. Less so the undignified noise you make when Spencer shifts you roughly on his lap to pull you closer. 

“This isn’t a nice thing to be doing on ’Nelope’s couch,” you gasp between kisses, gripping at the front of his shirt like someone’s going to try taking him away from you. He alters his course from your mouth to trail down your neck. Lets fingers dip just beneath the hemline of your skirt until you shudder. 

“Then we’ll stop.”

Your jaw drops in a silent squeak as he nips at a delicate spot on your throat. 

The problem is that with the two of you, there is never any stopping. Not definitively. Never permanently. You can say it as emphatically as you’d like. You can even sort of mean it. But the cosmos has other plans. 

Outside, silent snow falls from a blue-black sky. There is nothing but the headlight glare from the occasional passing car. The popping and crackling of distant fireworks set off by the over-imbibed, ringing twelve o’clock in hours after the bloom of the new year. It must be midnight somewhere, you suppose. 

It’s just like you and Spencer, to be in the wrong place at the right time. It’s like you to slip through time-space cracks until you find each other in the accordion folds of the universe. 

It’s basically tradition.

spoilers: reader kinda cheats on Spencer but the consent there is questionable seeing as she was incredibly intoxicated

if u read this far WOW ily I hope u liked it :D I put blood sweat and tears into this bad boy. also shout-out @aliteralsemicolon for helping me so much with this fic she is a very helpful and willing consultant I think this never would've seen the light of day without her!!!

[inbabylontheywept]

How is your life so interesting

Normally, I just kind of laugh this question off, but I've been asked enough times I'm gonna take an honest stab at it.

So, the first thing worth considering is whether the story itself is all that interesting, or whether I am just a good storyteller. My most popular story is about cutting a lot of worms and half, and crying, and then being comforted by my mom. That's not a terribly uncommon or hard to imagine event. A lot of my stories more about the telling than the substance.

There are also some stories that are weird, but they're weird in ways that I also find, like, relateably weird? It might just be that I knew a lot of athletes in college, but I don't think eating raw eggs is that weird. Eating 15 in one go is, but I was roommates with a guy that ate like, three for breakfast, three in his in-class protein shake, and another three at dinner. That guy was attending ASU on a gymnast scholarship, but also, he genuinely ate 5 dozen eggs a week. That seems much more normal than eating 15 in one day.

To say nothing of eating raw onion. Tons of people eat raw onions. It baffles the non-onion eaters, but it's a super common thing. Especially in Mexico.

Some of the stories happen because I am better at noticing story-worthy events than most people. I can't tell you how many times I've been in public, and seen someone do some weirdass thing, and then had to nudge my wife and to get her to watch it too.

If I had to point to the parts of my life that are truly, genuinely, bafflingly weird, they would be my dating stories, and. I dunno. My general thermonuclear dumbass event posts. And I can break down why those two are interesting pretty simply:

I was unbelievably bad at dating. The majority of the time, that just meant that there was a few minutes of stilted small talk and never get a call back. But the thing is, Mormon culture strongly encourages dating as like, a social-practice thing, and I was very motivated to get good at it, so I just kept trying and trying and I think I went on at least 200 first dates before meeting my wife. I genuinely believe that if anyone went on 200 first dates, they would get some pretty incredible bad date stories too. Especially if they had autism. I know I write well, and I can sound very charming here, but it took me a very, very long to get decent social skills. I am just a disturbingly persistent learner.

I am very convincing. This is helpful when I am interacting with other people, because it can do things like, convince them to let me into their secret facility, or convince them to not vote Republican again, or to save at least put the company match into their retirement accounts. But when I'm just debating something with myself, my convincingness works against me: I am very good at tricking myself into believing that bad ideas are, somehow, actually good. This is part of why I have so much sympathy for the right wing lunatics that I work with. Every time I meet a crazy person I go, ah, but for the grace of God, go I. Anyway, this does an unfortunate thing where my excellent verbal skills drive my poor decisions, which results in the very odd combination of welll written, articulate stories about someone being A Fucking Idiot. Like the condom bomber story. I think this is also why most of the lawyers that I meet are insane in their personal lives.

Anyway, those are my theories! I'm gonna tag @lizardho because we mostly had the same childhood, but she has a better grasp on what normal people look like than me, and perhaps she'll have her own theories on the weirdness of our lives.

[theaawalker]

Duke ⇠ Drew ⇠ Drake

Changed it because "Drake" was coined to the rapper and "Drew" reminded me of Drew from Everybody Hates Chris. I wanted a name that wasn't urban seeing as the character is a BIPOC prince in a euro-centric kingdom. "Duke" won the day, meaning "Leader."

Claire ⇠ Fiona

Changed it because Fiona reminded me too much like Fiona the Ogre from Shrek. It addition, it sounded too girlypop, and I was aiming for a more tomboyish name. Something daring. Something that rhymed with dare? In the end, I traded F's for C's and found "Claire," meaning "Clear."

Butch ⇠ Bruce ⇠ Randall

Changed it because "Randall" sounded like a nerdy douche. While that was the vibe I was doing for, I couldn't stop seeing Randall Boggs from Monsters Inc. I wanted a name that was heavier on the douche than the nerd. Bruce came up, but it sounded too douchy. Also, Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo. I decided to mute the Disney characters in my brain and landed on "Butch," meaning "Illustrious."

Lucas ⇠ Lu ⇠ Linus ⇠ Luis ⇠ Louis

Changed it because "Louis" was too suspender-and-red-pants coded (for my 1D girls, iykyk). While I loved the Doncaster loudmouth, I wanted to go for a more flamboyant, fabulous name. "Luis" was giving me small-town gay boy in the big city, but it lacked confidence. Umph. "Linus" barely made the drawing board, seeing as it reminded me of the Sharkboy & Lavagirl antagonist. Only upon reverting to square one did I realize what letters I was basing the name around: L-U. So, I figured, "Why not 'Lu'?" Lu was cute, but it was more of a nickname. So, I went for "Lucas," meaning "Bringer of light," and the rest if history.

Andy ⇠ Jackson ⇠ Jack

Changed it because "Jack" was such an oversaturated name, associated with too many caricatures. Is Jack a farmhand? Is he a bully? Is he a background character? Is he a love interest? Is he a toxic ex-boyfriend? Is he a lovable dad from This Is Us? We don't know!!! "Jackson" narrowed the list down, but it wasn't giving me the right type of southern. For those who aren't from the south, Jacksons are often budlight-downing, football-betting, random-spitting, wife-beating, Republican assholes. The type of guy my character would despise. So, I pictured a tall, blonde, cowboy- booted and hatted farmer exuding southern hospitality and "Andy," meaning "Manly," came to me.

Barry ⇠ Berry

I always knew this character would be named "Barry," meaning "Fair headed." My goody-headed ball of fun. I simply changed a letter because the 'e' was throwing me off and making me hungry for a fruit bowl.

Scott ⇠ Scout ⇠ Scott

Changed it because I thought "Scout" would be more appropriate for a character who not only loves animals and scouts, but is a lycanthrope. It felt too sidekicky. Too mascotty. Too much like Scooby Doo and not a Mystery Inc. human member. So, I gave him back his rightful humanity and went back to "Scott," meaning "Wanderer."

Dawn ⇠ Don ⇠ Sam ⇠ Samson ⇠ Samuel

Changed it because "Samuel" just didn't feel right. I knew I wanted this character's name to be biblical, thus tying into his religious upbringing, but I couldn't get onboard with Samuel. It didn't make me think of a redhaired, grunge teenager demonized by society. Samson was more the vibe, but it reminded me of the lion father from Disney's The Wild. So, I shortened it to Sam. It felt better, but, much like Goldilocks, I knew it just wasn't right. So, I swept the board of 's' names entirely and went to D's. With short names still in mind, I went to Don in a near instant. Honestly, I was certain I'd found a match until Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn hit our screens in 2014. I loved the name so much, I disregarded its categorization as a feminine name and stamped my arc-charged, ever-evolving character as "Dawn," meaning "To become day."

Why did you give your OC their current name? Did their name change at all during development?