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cherry-titz · 5 months

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HI GUYS @cherryjuiceblues here ! oof, this took me longer than i anticipated to finish, and for that i am sorry, friends! this is my installment to mine and @1800titz first collab :D if you haven't already read part one, written by titz herself, then you can do so here !!

some warnings before you read! following on from part one, this is dark harry. some very dark themes going on. and once again, as miss titz previously stated, harry is simply a faceclaim here. there is absolutely no intention to associate the real harry with this fictitious one !!

content warnings include: dom/sub themes, exhibitionism, light spanking/impact play, choking, name-calling, degradation, praise, threats of intending to cause harm (hitchhikerry is not a good man at all). generally, he's a bit meaner in this one!

word count is just under 11k (both of us had aimed to write a short and snappy 6-7k each but here we are LMAO) !! ENJOY :D

This bathroom is filthy. The slanted mirror swirls a little, in a thick, hypnotic puddle, as Y/N stares at the smeared reflection before her.

A new low, perhaps—this night, for Y/N (only competing with one other evening that springs to mind). In an unloved bar, in a dingy bathroom, fingers digging into grimy porcelain that no amount of suds from the muddy bar of soap could clean. (And, really—whose idea was it to have bars of soap in a public place?) Clenching digits in an attempt to wake up some from the wave of paranoia that skittered across her skin in the public eye of the bar.

Y/N swears her pupils fluctuate as she grounds herself in them. Recollects herself in this pigsty of an establishment. Forces some of the alcohol to evaporate off of her in waves as she sobers up to the thought of piss-stained tiles and sticky toilet seats.

Y/N doesn’t drink alone.

But she didn’t do hitchhikers either and look where that got her.

In a shithole—that’s where. In a shithole, on her lonesome, on a Monday night of all nights. Argued to be the worst day of the week to wake up, go to school, work—and most relevantly—get drunk. But she’d considered it important to force herself out—to maintain control over her actions whether they be sensible or not. It was rather unimportant to Y/N what day of the week it was. They’d sort of all merged into one since receiving the phone call—every day reduced to the same thoughts tick, tick, ticking inside of her head. Hours spent ping-ponging back and forth over every moment in which her life could have ended inside of that car.

She’d tried since; to phone him back. Each time met with the denying wall of a payphone. Y/N almost grew comforted by that failure—that safety of knowing no one would ever answer—until rationality kicked in and she blocked the number. A small, tiny ounce of power to hold.

And there’s a part of her, still, that doesn’t quite believe it. That surely friendly Harry—adorned in his soft sweatshirt, with his dimpled cheeks and yellow nails—could have only been laughing with his friends, all huddled around his phone that blasted on speaker, at the successful spooking of an unassuming girl. Despite the fact of all the evidence stacking up against him—that she’d heard only his breaths, only his voice, and the undeniable dead of night surrounding him. She needn’t even ponder over the possibility to accept it—lone stranger on the side of the road, in the dead of night, sleeping at a motel, so eager to manhandle and encourage Y/N’s struggle—

The door clatters, and then a body pushes it open, the heavy wood resisting some and disguising Y/N’s flinch at the sudden intrusion. She clears her throat, turning the tap on and pretending to wash her hands as she meets the eyes of a woman in the mirror, a small weak smile upturning Y/N’s lips, before she disappears inside a cubicle.

She’s retraced every single moment of that night. Looking back with shame and humiliation. Because (and it’s pointless to waste even a second on it now but) how silly—how stupid—does someone have to be; how lacking in common sense or respect for one’s self, to pick up a stranger on the side of the road. Harry was right to scold her over the phone, no matter the irony of it all. She might as well have served herself up on a platter for him to take. So easy, he’d said.

So easy it hadn’t been fun, is all Y/N can assume.

The broken seal of the door reminds her of the outside world, shaking her head—an attempt to rattle her thoughts into submission, to collect herself and focus on the surface level image of her reflection. To remember the facts. That she looks pretty. Pretty and put-together—and ready to drown more of her sorrows in another cocktail mixed with her chosen spirit.

It’s as quiet as it was before Y/N slipped into the bathroom, a handful of lonely men scattered on opposite ends of the bar—the occasional group huddled around a table—or a couple sprawled against a sofa. The wall-mounted television has been switched on, subtitles an obnoxious fluorescent yellow as the news captures the attention of few desolate drinkers. Y/N doesn’t notice the extra body occupying a high-top table nearest to the bar, her back turned towards them, as she makes herself (comfortable would be an exaggeration) settled once again on a rickety, wooden stool.

She doesn’t notice. Not until she orders a Cosmopolitan and twists her clutch onto her lap, opening the zipper’s teeth, fingers pinching the familiar edge of her card just enough for it to peek past the confines, and is hastily denied by the bartender. He shakes his head, hands busy as he mixes her drink, nodding in some direction behind her as he says, “Gentleman over there paid for it.”

And that… that can’t be right. Gentle and man are two respected words in their own right but together? Y/N’s spine straightens and her muscles tighten. There’s no way she could know, but somehow she does—shutting her eyes, expelling a breath in preparation—as she twists around on her stool to see the man who she invited into her sedan all those days ago. There was nothing gentle about that night.

Or so she found out.

And he looks… the same. Of course he does.

Same chocolate-swirled curls brushing against the unperturbed smoothness of his forehead. Same strong line of his nose, same hard clench of his jaw dusted in scruff that she’d let him brush against her face as they’d kissed. Same plush lips that purse around the rim of a tumbler, cheekbones sharp as he tips his head back enough to allow the cool liquid to slick down his throat. Same rough, sinewy fingers—the subdued yellow of his nails (so far along the spectrum from the blinding fluorescence of the television subtitles) now chipped in a way that suggests it’s fashionable as opposed to scruffy.

All the same features and yet Y/N can’t help but picture them in a new, scathing light—those soft tendrils matted with thick, dark blood, splatters dripping down his temple and beading at his chin. Blush-tinted lips curled up in a sinister, satisfied smile—chilling enough to slow the blood in Y/N’s veins—and those hands; his fingers that had previously delivered so much pleasure, wrapping around the handle of a sharpened blade with the intent to inflict more than she could have bargained for—no sunshine yellow in sight.

And the morbid image is hardly helped by the baggy garments that swallow his limbs, grey sweats and black hoodie selling one of two different visuals. Either that of a cosy boyfriend or a looming presence on a dimly lit street, late at night. Y/N’s brain opts for the latter.

Harry meets Y/N’s gaze with confidence—if he is surprised, or displeased, or worried by her presence then it shows none on his face. She watches the tick of his throat as he swallows the remainder of what looks like whiskey, before carelessly sliding the glass across the table in which he is slouching away from with arrogance, to meet its other empty friend as they clink together. His posture suggests complete ease—the sort of position you would take on a deep-set sofa—an ankle slung across a knee, an elbow propped behind you. Perhaps the type of arrogance only the person who had admitted their desire to murder you could have.

She blinks at him, unable to startle back around in fear. Not in order to preserve any sort of upper hand—but from a complete lack of said immediate panic; that fight or flight response. She blinks as she sees the screen of her phone behind her eyelids; as she sees every unanswered call she dialled to that payphone. The ringing in her ear as she waited, and waited, and waited.

The reminiscence, the amusement in his tone—that switched as though controlled by one—to disappointment and disdain, to deliver a warning with such severity that only left Y/N with more questions. Why wait an entire week to call? Why tell her about his intention? How many times had he killed before? Why didn’t he kill her?

“—Police have found what they believe to be the body of twenty-five-year-old Ruby Wilcox…” Y/N doesn’t know why this specific statement is deemed salient enough to shove it’s way past all the other droning noise and embed itself deep within her head—but it is. As though Ruby Wilcox is her own name, Y/N feels a pit of dread churning around inside of her stomach, twisting and turning in a true derivation of discomfort, as she peers around to acknowledge that she’s heard correctly, skimming the subtitles with grave trepidation. The journalist goes on, “...reported missing six days ago…” but Y/N already feels as though she’s heard the story.

She turns back towards Harry, unsure as to why it feels necessary to do so—the moment their eyes met the first time, she should have bolted. Harry’s already looking at her, as though his eyes have never trailed away, and it’s telling—the quirk of his lips. The way his tongue darts out to wet them and he can’t contain the small bracket that they form into.

His left eye flutters closed in a wink as new droning voices of monotonous news presenters burrow deeper and deeper into Y/N’s skin. The fear is undeniable. It aches deep inside the marrow of her bones; a lingering, languishing throbbing that can only be attributed to embedded dread. But if Y/N can’t deny that she hasn’t run for the hills then she also can’t deny the way the fear dances atop her skin like little bolts of lightning. Displacing the panic with a desperate flush of rage—a desire for violence to be met with violence—in a less than chaste way.

The danger—it… excites her, it challenges her. To know why, and how, to learn the extent of what spared her life. To take more. It feels reckless; almost demanding of death. It feels belittling, and demeaning, and like everything every girl is ever taught not to do. Could Y/N really justify endangering her life for the perversity of something as insignificant as body-slumping sex? Could she ever look herself in the eye again?

…Did it matter?

It doesn’t seem to when Harry suddenly stretches his arms out above his head, cracking the bones from his strenuous period of sitting down, and pushes himself up from the creaking, groaning chair. It seems as though the decision is made for Y/N when she bolts to follow him without a second thought. Or she bolts in her mind—her body delivers a much more convincing performance of nonchalance—seemingly casual as she sifts through her clutch in a faux check of inventory.

And then, when Harry’s broad back faces her for long enough, weaving his way towards the steel door of the back entrance—that’s when Y/N jumps down from her stool, downs the entirety of her drink and relishes in the warmth that blossoms in her chest, and leaves the bar.

The heavy door screams on its hinges, slamming shut with a reverberating bang. Y/N peers left down the alleyway, dim light from a distant streetlamp casting shadows across gravel—

“Sneaky little thing.”

Y/N startles, whipping around to see her stranger (surprised but not understandably by logic) as he mutters, “No self-preservation.” Effortlessly cool, leaning against the exterior of the bar—rough brick undoubtedly frigid and scratchy. His jaw works incessantly, clearly nursing a flavour of gum that he can only just have popped into his mouth—and disgust gurgles in Y/N’s stomach at the sight of his demeanour—unsettling yet titillating, all the same.

“Y’following me?” he pushes forward off of the wall, height suddenly looming as his lip curls into a simper much less pleasant than that of the man she’d met last week. Though it fails to feel threatening, her mouth still runs dry, now faced with the opportunity to say… anything—to ask, demand, accuse to her heart’s content—but she… she can’t, too inundated by the possibilities as her brain splutters and jolts like an empty engine.

When Y/N doesn’t answer, Harry’s mouth crooks up, pulling back to reveal a deceptively pretty smile—before he purses his lips to blow a cool stream of breath directly into Y/N’s face. Her nose crinkles as the conspicuous scent of peppermint forces its way, no doubt into her brain—to associate peppermint with him for the rest of her life—may it be long or considerably shorter after tonight. “Minty fresh,” Harry smiles around a chew, impishly delighted by Y/N’s scowl. “Wha’s the matter? Don’t like peppermint?”

Sure—yes, sure, she likes peppermint but what level of absurdity— A humourless bark of a laugh fizzles between them, Y/N unable and unwilling to ignore the fatuity of the situation. Y/N could say so much, but it seems she chooses, “I prefer bubblegum,” clearing her throat to ignore the waver in her voice.

Harry nods earnestly—as though her taste in confectionery holds the same gravity as that of an embarrassing truth or a confession of crisis—jaw flexing on its hinges, “Mm, makes sense. Little—” his arm reaches out, finger uncurling to brush a knuckle against a loose strand of her hair, “bubblegum princess,” and Y/N wonders if he might be a little insane, body tight as the distance between them lessens. Distance that could only be described as valuable in such a situation, with such a person.

It strikes Y/N now, the difference in his temperament—gone is the charm of a man brimming with polite conversation to show his gratitude towards her—in his place stands the one who spewed filth inside the confines of her sedan. Shameless, smug, awash with a handful of complexes, she’s now sure.

Despite the blast of fresh air and biting peppermint encouraging sobriety, dregs of intoxication still prevalently linger in Y/N’s bloodstream. That boost of liquid courage she needs to say what she does, to be reminded of that vehement anger, and to ignore the pounding of her heart—the way it begs and pleads with her to go back inside—as her foot takes her a step forward. Her voice drops to a whisper as she tilts her head up, now intimately close, “Do you still think my eyes are pretty?”

And Harry laughs—the sound forced from his lungs as he fails to conceal amusement. “Christ, no shame…” he pauses, eyes darting back and forth between Y/N’s falsely confident ones, “‘f course I do, I meant everything I said... Everything.”

It’s those words that drive home the reality of the situation; a clear confession, a clear joy to remember—“I was going to kill you that night. Thought about draining the life from those pretty eyes the second you rolled your window down.”

Y/N’s tether to sanity unravels, hanging on by a mere thread as she throws her hands in front of her wildly. “I let you inside my fucking car!” The fury finally weaponised, despite the whiny defiance of her tone, that is only further fuelled by Harry’s wry smile, growing and growing. It sets something alight in Y/N; the defeating realisation of a true psychopath before her. Nothing she could say would allow sympathy to seep into his bones.

Not that she demanded sympathy. What good would an apology do? An apology for what… scaring her? Disturbing her so deeply to her core that life felt bathed—drowned—in danger? The only real, tangible thing Harry had done to her was have sex with her and that— That was nothing to apologise for, no matter the embarrassment to admit as such.

So why… bother… Why bother to fight when he smells so inviting and the warmth of his body yearns to take the chill off of hers?

Harry dips down—peppermint again, mixed with the same pleasant cologne from the night he tainted her backseats, that had blotted itself in her memory unknowingly—eyes boring into her own. “You did more than that, pet,” an effort to get the words out without scoffing, “You let me fuck you inside your car. Begged me—”

She shoves demurely at his chest, coils of heat tightening at the memory, causing only the slightest of stumbles as Harry grips her hand to his chest and tugs her with him “—pleaded me—for it, in fact.” His breath fans across her face; close enough to still be warm and pebble her cheeks with goosebumps. Her lashes flutter innocuously—the perfect picture of doe-eyed and yet she has no intention behind it.

Y/N’s face is warm with the alcohol coursing underneath her skin and the tingling of Harry’s air dusted across it, that jacket of heat the only thing bracing her against the whipping breeze against her bare legs. Naturally, if it wasn’t for the existence of Harry, Y/N would feel perfectly content right now. Tipsy but not detrimentally so—surfing along the wave of intoxication with only an occasional plunge beneath the bracing waters. She feels good like this, most of the time. She feels confident, and sexy, and free of all of life’s burdens.

But now one of life’s more recent burdens is standing in front of her, simmering smile surely on the verge of snapping. Y/N wonders what she might do in order to make that happen—so be it, if that puts herself at risk. There's no such thing as risk when you’re a drink or two down. The anger feels subdued, the fear feels subdued—something in the back of her mind convincing Y/N of some faux sense of safety—however real or fake it may be.

“Didn’t you?” Harry nudges, sly fingertips catching her off guard as they tap sequentially against the curve of her waist, gently—subtly—manoeuvring Y/N’s body to rest against the harsh stone. She hardly realises she’s moving, too honed in on the whispering taunt of Harry’s voice.

Yes. She did.

But she doesn’t care to focus on that anymore—she doesn’t care to play the regretful part. Y/N has moved onto bigger and better things. She tilts her chin up, defiant in nature, as her tone takes on that of a snarky assertion, “How—how were you g’na do it? Tell me.”

It doesn’t seem as though Harry needs a reminder; he knows what she’s referring to. He knows and he shows zero interest in humouring it—her perverse request. Tapping fingers trail their way up, up, up until they’re cradling her collarbones, vast palm spread out across her chest.

He plays gentle, unknowing, as he shushes her, “It doesn’t matter…” he murmurs, hand slipping higher still until his long fingers can curl and wrap around her throat, the first indication of the whiskey having its desired effect clear when his eyelids flutter and syllables threaten to merge.

He doesn’t squeeze and it’s disturbingly unforeseen—the hold in which he keeps her in without pressure. But it’s not enough, and Y/N’s not satisfied with such an answer. No matter the desperation to surge forward and kiss him messily, or the eagerness to find out whether he’ll explore her mouth again or degrade her for his pleasure, Y/N doesn’t budge.

“Tell me,” she insists, voice teetering on the edge of too loud in the soulless alleyway. Her fist comes up in a weak thud against his chest, unable to display any other sort of physicality. “How were you gonna kill me, Harry—?” Her breath catches as he digs his fingers into the side of her throat—finally satisfied to see the edge of that smirk wiped off of his face. Piercing green holds her in place, sneer dominating her vision.

“Shut up—”

“When you were cumming inside me—?”

“—Shut the fuck up.”

Y/N wheezes when he squeezes even harder, mouth dropping open in a masochistic smile—eyes half-lidded as the blood fights its way to her brain. The warmth of Harry’s palm against the column of her neck presses just as hard, taunting and tormenting her airways—daring her to breathe.

“What—did you—” a second of respite in which he loosens his grip, as Y/N inhales as much as her little lungs can take, “do to that—woman?”

He scoffs at her—almost annoyed that she would care enough to ask—that he even has to waste his energy thinking about it. “I didn’t fuck her if that’s what you’re worried about,” serrated ice in his tone, freezing over when he spits out, “sweetheart.” No attempt at denial, no reassurance of his innocence—just. I didn’t fuck her.

It comes barrelling out; the provocation, “Had to get your fix somewhere else, then,” Y/N accuses, swallowing underneath the weight of his hand. “Didn’t kill me so you had to hurt poor Ruby Wilcox, didn’t you?”

“—Don’t play detective, pet,” he expertly deflects, squeezing harder—disguising any sort of discomfort with the quirk of his lips, “it doesn’t suit you. Much preferred it when you were dumb around my fingers, barking f’me like a good girl. D’you remember that?”

Very well. Too well. Even still after learning the truth, Y/N had remembered it in great detail. “Why didn’t you kill me?” she whispers, numb now to the pads of his digits and the way they demand bruising against the delicate skin of her neck. Pointed indentations to aggravate with her own pressing fingers (assuming she lives long enough for them to form).

“Maybe I just wanted another taste,” Harry admits, eyes clear—surprisingly sincere despite the vulnerability of such a claim. “Maybe I wanted to hear about more of your bad dates—”

“—It wasn’t a date—”

“Maybe…” and Y/N starts to doubt that earnest expression, “maybe I got off on the idea of ruining something—of leaving this kind, sweet, generous girl… with something real to cry about.”

Something real? Something real?

“Why me?” She’s not kidding herself; there’s nothing special or unique that might have altered years and years of Harry’s personal psychology—but maybe, just maybe—Y/N might be given something to help her sleep a little better at night. A reason; valid or not, just something to roll around in the palm of her hands until she could make sense of it.

She’s granted no such thing.

“You stopped the car, Y/N,” he drawls in such a casual tone, sounding the same as the man who had told her his name, debated the importance of the rules of Uno, and breathed a sincere wish that she got home safe. “You let me in. I had nothing to do with it,” Harry promises. But it’s not a friendly promise, nor a reassuring one. It’s an assertion that leaves no room for interpretation, a cold, hard fact that can never be dissected. And unfortunately for Y/N, the fact of the matter remains that this is all her fault.

Cold fingers curl into the front of his hoodie, material scrunching between her digits. Harry tuts, “Hands off,” but Y/N only grips him tighter—knuckles tensing as she urges him closer towards her body by the baggy fabric. (When she’s sober she might berate herself for pushing him the wrong way.)

It’s discernible; Harry’s distaste—eyes sharpening as they slice into her own. He takes matters into his own hands, forcibly removing hers from his front and squeezing the delicate bones of her wrists as he presses them, less than gently, into the harsh bricks.

“Not so obedient today, are we?” Their hips dare to meet, twitches and nudges teasing the inevitable. Y/N can’t disguise the way she bucks a little, thin dress waiting to be bunched and moulded by bigger hands. She knows what he feels like—and it’s impossible not to yearn for it.

Her words are airy—breathless from no exertion—heartbeat drumming in her chest with anticipation. “I assumed you…liked a struggle.”

“I do,” Harry hums, a smile edging back onto his face, as he dips down enough for his breath to kiss her ear, “...but where’s my easy little stray gone?” he pouts, leaning back to tilt his head in a way that suggests simple curiosity. “Girl I met two weeks ago was already open wide f’me by now… Wanna show me your tongue again, pet?”

And it’s juvenile—but Y/N isn’t sober and neither is Harry—when she sticks it out in a way similar to that of a snotty toddler as opposed to the languid reveal she gave him in her car. She pokes it out and scrunches her nose, almost amusing herself in the process. In what is a ridiculous display of immaturity that far from pleases Harry.

He grunts, “Yeah, that’s funny,” patting the side of her face. Hard. Not a slap but something that makes her cheek tingle and her jaw loosen. Even more so when Harry’s fingers squeeze either side and manhandle her face left and right—moving her as he pleases and reveling in the dipping of her eyebrows and the rounding of her eyes. It’s pathetic, really, how quickly she can be reduced to insignificance with just a little pawing.

But he underestimates her ever so slightly. She’s not quite finished it seems, when—through the mush of her mouth—she gurgles, “Are y’gonna kill me this time?”

The amusement that dances so often in Harry’s eyes fizzles out once more. “Shut up, Y/N,” he shoves closer, the blushing tip of his nose daring to brush against her bridge. “Don’t make me say it again.”

She practically preens, rocking up onto the tips of her toes, forcing their chill-bitten skin to brush. “Or what? You’ll make me?” The question floats between them like a perilous snowflake, not for long enough before she jeers, “How you g’na do it? You’ll finally get to watch th—”

Harry’s had enough of her voice, surging forward, desperately capturing the end of Y/N’s exhalation and coalescing it with his own. It’s rough, and it’s dirty—his fingers still controlling every purse of Y/N’s lips—hips finally clashing in a grinding of bones. He lets go of her face, encompassing hands tugging through her hair as he holds the back of her head. The only gesture of comfort he grants her away from the wall; not for long before those same fingers roam and dishevel—nails pinching just on the side of too hard.

Every subconscious twitch of her own fingers has Harry alert—any attempt of Y/N’s made to touch him in exchange meets her swift return of each wrist pinned to either side of her head—knuckles brushing sharp bumps of brick. A small noise seeps out of her mouth and into his own, vibrating against his lips and reducing Harry to a deep, acknowledging sigh.

They’re uncoordinated; desperation dominating precision and finesse. Laboured exhalations blanket their cheeks, noses squished and lips swollen. Harry’s hands float back up to her face, pressing coolly against the sides, spanning the entirety as his thumbs bracket their mouths. He holds her like he wants to consume her—crawl inside her skin, swallow her down—tongue boldly stroking against her own in contrastingly lazy flicks. A dizzying enmeshment of fast and slow, hard and soft.

Y/N’s neck aches from the angle in which she’s forced to meet Harry’s mouth, strong palms nearly pulling her off of her toes as he cups her cheeks with almost too much chivalry, too much romance. It would be all too easy to forget his confession, encompassed in his warmth, his scent—too easy to pretend it didn’t matter.

She sinks her teeth into his bottom lip, pulling back as they clamp and opening her eyes just enough to watch the flesh snap back into place. There’s no time to smile with sadistic glee before Y/N’s head is yanked back by the roots of her hair, slender fingers wrapped in tendrils and tugging. Hard. A gasp is ripped from the back of her throat, cold and sharp against her tonsils. And Harry gets to experience the twitch of his lips and the amusement of winning as Y/N’s back bends to accommodate the sudden stretch of her neck.

He peers down at her parted lips, the slight tension in her brows from the strain, and her heavy arms that slowly droop down against the wall. Small clouds of mist pass between them—the cold air kissing their recycled breaths—soaking in the chill the longer they stay outdoors. The stray street light bounces off of one side of Harry's back, casting a glowing outline around his body as he blocks Y/N in against the wall. The irony of such an image. She shuffles her feet atop the gravel, aching from lack of movement—twitching when a thick thigh nudges its way between her own—soft sweatpants stroking her naked skin.

“Bite me again, sweetheart…” Harry taunts, voice scarily steady, “see what happens.”

A choked laugh escapes from Y/N’s chest, forced through her open mouth. A delightful invitation. She pushes as far up on her toes as she can manage, pulling against the force of Harry’s hand—reaching as far as his chin before she eases the tension. He smirks down at her, wandering fingers teasing the hem of her dress as his thigh warms between hers.

“Pity I don’t get to rip another pair of little tights,” he tuts, trailing a digit up the inside of her knee. “Trying to make the old men happy tonight, were we?” tugging at the material, tight against the tops of her thighs. “Hoping one of them might take you to the bathroom and let you call him Daddy.” He tuts again, “How sad.”

“Would you have?” she pouts, eyes bright with mirth. “Let me call you Daddy?”

“Would I have let you? Would I have given you permission? I don’t think so, pet.” He squishes her cheeks together again—demeaning, degrading—leaning back down to ghost his mouth across her puckered lips. “I don’t think you deserve to call me anything at all.”

Her lungs are tight; desperate for more than just a shallow inhale through her nose, borrowed from another. He’d slowly, ever so slowly, meshed their mouths together once more—stopping her from replying with anything other than a scalding kiss, tongues overlapping in an erotic embrace.

But Y/N finds herself impatient—and Y/N falls short in the realm of manners, greedy hands sneaking down when she gets the chance—palming at the thick outline through Harry’s sweatpants.

“Ah—ah, hands off,” he echoes, fingers tugging at her scalp again, forcibly expelling the breath from her lungs. “Ask nicely. I know you know better than that.”

“I do,” she pants, lips tingling with the imprint of Harry’s own. “I don’t think psychos…deserve nicely.” A dangerous blow. One he doesn’t take lightly—one that makes Y/N think she’s hit a nerve when he grits out his next command, jaw tight and eyes stormy.

“Turn around. You’re pissing me off,” not granting her the option to do so herself before his spanning hands are forcing her waist in a squirming prod until her front meets the wall. She wants to push back but Harry is consuming all the space behind her, chest expanding against her shoulder blades. The heat against her ass is dizzying, tunnelling all of her thoughts to places dissolute.

Harry spits his next words, anger palpable, “Fuckin’ brat,” pulling her against his crotch by the small of her waist. Y/N gasps, ears momentarily filled with nothing but white noise. “I let you go and the universe brought us back together, isn’t that something?” A pause; clearly waiting for her snarky response but he gets nothing. She’s too overtaken by the buzzing between her thighs. “I thought so,” he sighs, “but you’re being such a little bitch tonight.”

A pathetic whine crawls its way out of her downturned lips, wisping between them like a sad trail of smoke. Her head feels thick, like she wants to let it fall back and rest upon Harry’s shoulder. What was she annoyed about again? It feels futile.

The harsh emphasis of ‘bitch’ echoes in her ears about five beats after he’s gritted it out. And it burns deep within her abdomen, a searing coalescence of shame and arousal. “...Not a bitch,” she mumbles, eyes fluttering closed as her hands brace against the wall—willing herself to stay upright; to focus on anything but the heavy bump against her backside. But it is futile, because the insult doesn’t land the way it’s supposed to—it doesn’t upset or offend—and that’s when it becomes clear to Harry that the wall is crumbling. That his charm remains absolute.

“Oh, baby,” he coos, voice lathering her skin like thick globules of honey, “still so easy,” lips kissing the shell of her ear as his breath seeps into her hair, coating and warming. “My little bitch, how about that? Do you like the sound of that?”

She wants to shake her head but it’s too heavy, clogged with the fog of Harry’s voice—every nerve tingling as he glides his palms over her hips and down… across her pelvis and curling around the edge of her dress, teasing it, bunching it up just enough to dance his digits over her mound. Y/N’s hips twitch in anticipation, giving away what her words don’t say.

“Y’want my fingers…” an electrifying brush over her clothed clit, “here?” She exhales a shaky breath, trying to push back into him—it’s the only thing she can do, with her fingernails threatening to dig into stone and her forehead sure to come away with its imprint. Her heartbeat throbs between her thighs and a swallowed whimper seeps out of her mouth. “Got to hear you say it, pet. Say you want me to play with your hot, little cunt.”

“Mhm,” is all Y/N can manage, hoping—praying—that for once it might be good enough.

It’s not.

“Mhm,” Harry echoes, the pressure on her clit disappearing and the bulge nudging against her ass harder. Y/N pushes back—Harry pushes forward. A cant of his hips and a teasing reveal of more and more of her skin, the skirt of her dress manipulated high enough to brush across the small of her back and reveal the breadth of her underwear; less salacious than the purple thong Harry had admired previously. A soft white cotton and frilly pink decorating the hem.

“These are sweet, pet,” he mumbles. But it doesn’t fill her chest with warmth; it fills her with trepidation—waiting for the other shoe to drop—for Harry to tear them or rip them, defile them or taint them. But he never does. He doesn’t do anything aside from stroke his thumb across the hem of her panties, up and along the seam. Y/N exhales, trying to sway her hips in order to sway him but it seems he needs no persuasion.

“I’m waiting,” he scorns—much to Y/N’s distaste. Because waiting is not a luxury that either of them can afford right now. Time… Privacy… Two valuable assets that are not provided by the dimly lit alleyways between dingy bars and the rest of the population. The steel door barely a metre beside Y/N could swing open at any point—revealing a disgruntled worker tired after a long shift—or an impatient pedestrian could decide to try their luck exploring a shortcut and happen upon their preoccupied bodies. And surely there must be a view from a window somewhere, anywhere.

So Y/N says what she knows he wants to hear. “Please,” a whisper—unpossessing of the desperation Harry often desires. But she’s not finished. “Please. Please play with my— my…” his fingers drag down across the gusset, prodding at her fluttering hole through the thin material that’s far from dry. A motivating caress that wobbles Y/N’s voice, “—M-my hot, little cunt.”

Shame bathes in her skin, cheeks blooming with an imprudent heat. But Harry laughs at her compliance, no matter how pathetic or meek. He thuds the width of his fingers over her clit suddenly, Y/N’s knees buckling with the unforeseen impact but Harry grips onto her waist, holding her against the warm wall of his body as his fingers push at her underwear.

The wetness is embarrassing, thick and glossy through the cotton. Harry seems to take pride in it, spending too long nudging his fingers over the slick at her hole instead of focusing where they both know Y/N wants. And then a slip to the side, fingertips prodding at the flimsy hem—manoeuvring it over and out of the way, just enough for the shame to coat his skin.

They’re cold against the radiating heat from between her thighs, pulsing and rolling in waves throughout her insides. A jolt; a twitch, the width of Harry’s chest against her back.

“Hold them—fuck, you’re sopping—hold them f’me,” he instructs, Y/N’s shaking fingers obliging before they even know what for, slinking down the front of her body and shucking the gusset of her panties aside enough for Harry’s liking, “Y’always get this wet or is it just f’me?”

And Harry must know the answer—well acquainted with her pussy once before—asking the questions he knows will satisfy him most. “Jus’ you.” A pathetic admission—even more so when Y/N realises it’s not even a lie.

She’s never been more sure of something. Not by her own hand, not by another cock; never has she been so ruined. “No wonder everyone you fuck bores you.”

Yeah… she had insinuated that—she’d yearned for it to hurt, for it to be interesting—inadvertently matching Harry’s sick sense of pleasure. Because here she was, wetting his fingers—the same fingers he’d taken so much away with—and yet they felt so good.

“You need a bit of danger, baby?” Harry cups over her tightly. “Yeah?”

“—Mhm—”

He smiles, leaning forward into the back of her hair. “Need to pick strange men off of the side of the road? Need to fuck them in alleyways?” His palm grinds along her clit in slow, torturous circles, the tips of his fingers daring to dip inside of her but never breaching. “You gonna let me fuck you, pet? Gonna squeeze that cunt over me again like a good—” he retracts slightly, heavy hand slapping over her pussy and rendering Y/N immobilised, “—fucking—girl?” Each smack jolts her body, knees buckling, crumpled mouth whimpering.

“Ye-yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, please,” her tone borders on watery, thick with overwhelming urgency—coaxing him to warm his fingers inside of her—pleading with her grabbing hand as it reaches behind her and palms at the front of his sweats. And he’s told her no once… twice before already… so it’s only fair that he slaps down on her again. Harder. Louder. The sound of Y/N’s cry echoing out, just teetering over the edge of too pitchy. He doesn’t bother to smother it.

He’s terse, words forced through the gaps of his teeth as he grits, “Stop fucking touching me. Just…” he sighs, warm breath tickling the shell of her ear, “Jus’ be a… good… little hole, yeah?”

Yeah. Yeah. She can do that, she can— “Okay,” the breath trails out of her lips, wispy and frail, body tightening up when she feels… feels his middle finger circling the outside of her cunt—silently pleading for his touch—“O-okay,” she mewls again, dumbstruck as he pushes in—up to the first knuckle, and then the second, and the third.

“There you go,” it’s gentle, almost nurturing; far too soft for the stolen secrecy of an alleyway. Y/N keens, knuckles tightening around the gusset she’s still holding onto for dear life—empty hand flying down to cover Harry’s own. Delicacy coalescing with rigidity. She begs for his finger to sink deeper, to curl and to soothe—to be cajoled by another—to carve its path inside of her.

Harry wiggles it tauntingly, chest puffing out with a frustrated exhalation. “Give me your hand—come on—” he’s rough as he twists it behind her back, away from his skin and exposed to the cold air, “keep it there, stop—bothering me.” She’s not even rewarded with his bruising grasp around her wrist, just the aching chore of correcting each slip down her back as her arm tires.

His ring finger squeezes beside his middle, tip teasing Y/N’s achy hole, soft pads pressing into the spongy front of her walls. He scissors his fingers inside of her slowly, rubbing with virility as the backs of his index and pinky slap into the plush flesh either side of her wet cunt. And then he gets faster, grunting senselessly through every twitch and clench of her pussy. He finds that spot—and then he abuses it—Y/N unable to support her own weight when her knees start buckling and her tired bicep suffers behind her back.

“Can’t handle it, pet?” the cadence of his tone matches each punch of his fingers inside of her—the pit in Y/N’s stomach edged and taunted with every curl against her gummy walls. “S’it too good? Got you shaking all over th’place with just m’fingers.”

She thinks she garbles something unintelligent but it’s impossible to be sure when all the blood is rushing between her legs.

Harry murmurs, lips catching the shell of her ear, “I think you’re a little slut, baby,” biting down on her lobe with contrasting care. “Letting me ruin you in a dirty alleyway… Outside where anyone could see you—see your drippy pussy soaking m’hand.”

“Yes,” a sigh slips—agreeing to nothing in particular—an expression of pleasure, a plea for more.

A dark laugh stretches taut between them, powerful as his fingers speed up, palm slapping against her clit with each thrust. It vibrates and buzzes, twitches and pulsates. “You’re g’na cum for me, pet. Right now.”

It’s a simple demand. One that manhandles Y/N to the very edge—it dangles her over as the drop below taunts her. It beckons her like a siren call. Harry nudges her spot again, and again, and again—coaxing it, consoling it. Every curl of his fingers, every thud of his palm. It fills her up, breath catching, head falling back on her neck. And then she falls, plummets, cascades down—jaw dropped in a silent cry as her cunt convulses seismically around Harry’s fingers—clamping near violently. He rubs her through it, stroking her walls in heavy thrusts as he slows and forces her to feel it all.

“There you go, good girl. Filthy girl.” His hand glistens with her slick, pulling strings away with it. Y/N mourns his fingers, his warmth when he pulls away. Her hole flutters and her body suddenly feels cold—isolated and alone.

He exhales, “Fuck—put your hands on the wall, bend over a bit—that’s it,” crouching down, perverse in the way he inspects the glistening between her thighs. At least, that’s what Y/N assumes he’s doing as he nestles in closer to her cunt, close enough for his breaths to wash over her shaking form.

One heavy forearm pins the skirt of her dress over the rounds of her arse, his free hand coming up to spread her open with the precision of a man who has much more time than either of them currently do. Y/N doesn’t see the way her slick creates ribbons between his fingers after he nudges at her opening and pulls away to scrutinise them. She doesn’t see the way his throat bobs as he tucks his digits past his blushing lips and laves his tongue around them salaciously. She only hears the muffled hum, and the harsh breath leave his nose as the man beneath her drools around himself.

“Sweet little thing,” he pants, voice gruff—gravelly—when he finally brings his fingers back to her centre. He pets at her, thudding the thick of them against her quivering cunt unnecessarily; from a want to render her even less stable on her aching legs. “Absolutely drenched f’me, aren’t you. Does that scare you, sweetheart?”

A whimper climbs out from Y/N’s throat, delayed in her response. Answering of the wrong question—the one she would lie about if she were sober. She needs more—she needs something more… something all-consuming.

“Fuck—fuck me—now,” she pleads, hips pushing back as her neck cranes to catch a glimpse of the man below her.

He rises to his full height. “That’s not how you ask.”

“Please. Or I’ll… I’ll—”

“You’ll what, pet?”

“—I’ll tell everyone…” she whines, trailing off when her words reach no conclusion.

“Yeah? You’ll tell everyone. You’ll go to the police?” She’s nodding mindlessly, head weighing her down. “And what will you say?” tone turning petulant and shrieky, “‘I let him defile me, officer. I let him stretch me out on his big cock, officer. I let him do whatever he wanted, officer—’”

“Please,” her voice is thick, full with a sob—and a wave of panic washes over her at the possibility of not having him at all.

“Don’t know if you deserve it now,” drumming his fingers across the small of her back. “Threatening me, huh? Silly girl.”

No reasoning comes to mind—nothing smart or clever to wield as a rebuttal. Just a slew of pathetic sounds; only possibly attractive to someone yearning for power—someone like Harry. Her body answers for her, still desperately twitching and searching for his own and being rewarded with nothing. He stays stoic, mild palm smoothing along the expanses of her chill-bitten backside.

“Tell you what…” he starts, a sly smile morphing the sound of his voice. “You be quiet f’me, yeah? You be quiet and I’ll give you what you want. Don’t w’na hear a single fucking thing else from this bratty, little mouth, you understand?”

A trick—an attempt for her to slip up before they’ve even begun. She nods frantically, teeth clamped together, lips equally as shut. She’s ready to offer more than is wise, for him to fuck her—ready to give herself up completely just so he’ll quell that ache. The nerves of their exposition are really starting to buzz along the surface of her skin.

“There you go, not so hard, is it?” She shakes her head no, enthralled by the soft sound of skin rubbing against thick cotton, fingers slipping underneath elasticated waistbands. “Good,” Harry murmurs, so quiet that Y/N wouldn’t have heard it if it weren’t for her heightened senses. And then again, even softer, swallowed around a gruff exhale that she can only assume is in response to curling his fingers around himself. “Good girl.”

She feels him tug at the gusset of her panties—haphazardly skewed across her centre, unable to conform without the curl of Y/N’s prying joints keeping them astray. Harry stretches the stitches easily, forcing the fabric to adhere to his perversion, as his thumb strokes the skin adjacent to where she would really feel it.

The corner of a condom wrapper flutters to the floor out of Y/N’s periphery, landing by her achy feet, as the image of Harry tearing it with his teeth flashes behind her eyelids. He rolls it on silently—and for a moment she wishes she could see—picture the length, the girth that had scripted her deepest desires so dominantly.

He smooths his hand up, underneath her dress, shuffling in closer behind her as he nudges the head of his cock against her slick cunt. Y/N’s jaw drops open in a silent whimper—catching the noise, suffocating it in her throat before it ripples out around them. Sweat gathers in the palms of her hands, irritated against the rough brick wall when they’d much rather be buried in his hair. Her forehead dips down, willing Harry to do something… anything.

He strokes up and down her clit, smiling at every overstimulated twitch, dipping down to smear arousal. He teases her, letting the thick of his tip stretch her entrance before he pulls back. Once, twice, three times… And then he sinks in, fingertips creating divots in her hips, holding harder with each inch that he carves out inside of her. When his pelvis cushions against her ass, he sighs—a long exhale of breath—followed by a rumbling from within his chest, “Perfect little pussy.”

Y/N can’t help the little whimper that falls from her lips, brows scrunched, dipping towards the centre of her face. Either Harry has a change of heart or he doesn’t hear her—too enraptured in the feeling of every vein and ridge perfectly filling the space surrounding him; as though created just for him, his cock.

He doesn’t move, perfectly still—embedded deep inside of her convulsing pussy—feeling her out. Mentally (though physically too). Waiting and waiting, regarding her presence with a slight jerk of his hips that already press demandingly into her backside. Waiting for those words to fall off of the tip of her tongue, with a protesting or begging cadence, and redirect his little game. A game Harry doesn’t even know the rules to—the only importance serving in his right to manhandle Y/N every which way; however he may please. A single plea, or a frustrated curse… that’s all he needs.

But she holds on. She stays silent and her hands stay slipping down the bricks. Enough so to have the opposite effect; to rile Harry up, to have his digits curl tighter into her skin and pull out all the way—feel her clench around him in an effort to keep him inside—and then rock back into her. Harder. The thud of their flesh meeting rippling out around them.

Y/N doesn’t think that’s very fair; physically forcing the sounds from her larynx—punching the air from her lungs in such a way that makes it impossible for her silence to remain. She cries out, quiet enough to suggest a desire for modesty but loud enough for Harry’s lips to curl up nefariously.

“What did I say?” His hand clamps around her mouth, fingers brushing her eyelashes if he stretches them out far enough. The grip forces Y/N’s neck to stretch, trembling body elongating as Harry straightens her out and melds her into the wall. Her forearms squish into her biceps and her chest flattens indelicately. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he was trying to cast her into the bricks, grout and all.

His hips snap back into her.

“Fuck,” Harry moans wantonly—exaggerated as he amuses himself with the pleasure of her newfound silence—“that’s sexy,” teeth grazing her ear. “So much hotter with your mouth shut, you know that?” She opens it just to spite him, tongue laving over his palm. His hips slap harder against her in return, eager to manoeuvre and curl his digits along the flesh of her tongue—eliciting a harsh gag from her unprepared throat.

It perturbs him none when she presses her teeth into his skin, clamping gently at first but losing the capacity to be anything when Harry slinks his other hand around her neck. The blood fights for its strength, struggling and forcing its way through to her brain as the periphery of Y/N’s vision darkens. There’s nothing scary about it—and if they weren’t outside she might feel a semblance of peace.

“You prefer it like this, don’t you?” Harry gruffs against the side of her face, lashes threatening to kiss over her temple. “Jus’ w’na be treated like a silly—little—slut.” His thrusts punctuate each word, short cries forcing their way between his fingers. Drool gathers in the well of his palm, shameful rivulets smearing against Y/N’s chin.

“Don’t you?”

“Mhm—Mhmn—” she garbles something thick, tongue heavy in her mouth—battling against the extra weight of Harry’s intrusive digits. She swallows around them.

He’s everywhere—soft clothes baggy on him and swamping her frame as he swallows her up—sure that if someone were to simply glance down their alleyway she would not be seen. Heat plagues her, rolling out of her pores in thick, murky waves—the kind of heat she suddenly fears she will always be cold without. The presence against her back, the stoicity of his figure.

Her noises topple out.

Sad, desperate, pathetic little whines—snappy with the way Harry pummels into her. No one would have to ponder for long to dissect the cause of such sounds. Flesh smacking, fabric chafing, laboured breathing.

“Yeah. Yeah. I know,” fingers tighten around her throat. “Shrieky thing, you are. Can’t stay quiet to save your life.”

The insinuation is not lost on her, no matter the delirium that she’s submerged under. And Harry relishes in it; of course he does.

He slurs, “Would you die happy? Right now? Right now, baby?”

And Y/N knows she’s deeply flawed when his words scratch a spot. When she doesn’t recoil in disgust, attempt to pull away and run—but instead melts even further into his grasp. Nodding in jerky nudges of her head. She’s not giving him permission to stop the beating of her heart but she supposes it doesn’t matter either way.

Harry rips his hand from her mouth, trailing saliva down the front of her dress, squeezing his thick forearm between her abdomen and the wall as he searches cruelly to overstimulate her. She’s been so easy thus far, soft and pliable no matter Harry’s propensity for writhing. But when he skims over her clit, that…—that’s when she starts to struggle. To will her body away from the torturous pads of his fingers.

This only encourages her tormentor, deft digits pulling up the hood, allowing no room to hide as he applies direct pressure and tightens the barrier of his arm as her body spasms out of control. A sob rips from Y/N’s chest, loud enough to be deemed inappropriate—and no matter how much pleasure he might find in those sounds, she’s teetering on the brink of becoming dangerous. The grasp around her neck loosens, fingers slipping up to push past her lips again; the only effective method of muffling her at all.

Y/N keens with the weight in her mouth, relishes in the way her lips have to wrap around his big, masculine fingers. “Fucking tight, pet,” Harry grunts, ministrations messy and uncoordinated as he rubs over her clit, bumping into his shaft with every thrust. And she is—clamping down so hard her muscles yearn to loosen. They yearn to melt into a softness, into a safety, into a slumber. But her brain is running away, and Harry’s not slowing down, the tip of his cock abusing the spot he already petted at so perfectly with his fingers.

And he knows she’s nearly there, smiles into the crook of her neck and lets his teeth bite into her flesh for just a second.

But just as her orgasm starts to topple over the edge, he stops. He leans back, pulling her hips so her bum juts out and her back arches again.

“Come on, I’m tired, baby,” he teases, a slither of playfulness lost to the tightness in his voice, hips dragging to a still. “Long day of slaughtering.” Y/N is too far gone to find the joke inappropriate. To even register anymore that this whole affair is inappropriate. “Work for it a little,” Harry leans back, eyeing up the place in which they meet, shining in the glow of the streetlight. She’s still for too long, trying to process where his movements have gone—confused pants turning the ends of Harry’s lips.

“S’feel good?” Hands aid hips slightly—just enough to gain momentum, as Y/N fails to question why she’s suddenly the one fucking him—only chasing the return of the blissful prodding of her insides. Harry’s eyes are glued to her pussy, stretched deliciously around the thick of his cock, dragging back and forth with each nudge of her over him. The soft of her ass meets his pelvis and he delivers a squeeze in return, fingers destined to leave their presence known as he manhandles the flesh. Pulling and indenting, the other hand hanging heavily by his side as his gaze trails over Y/N’s bending body.

He deigns to let the saliva in his mouth pool in the hollow of his tongue, lips pursing as a line of drool drips down onto her puckered hole—the sudden sensation making Y/N convulse around him—twitch and gasp, stutter her hips and still for a moment. Harry thumbs over her carelessly, moving his thumb down to the stretch of her cunt around his prick; an unnecessary wetness. Somewhat possessed by the image below him, removed of all purpose except this one.

“Did I tell you to stop?”

Y/N shakes her head, a squeak ripped from her throat when Harry’s palm comes down on her ass, the sound reverberating through the silence of the alleyway. “N-no,” she cries. No, he didn’t. He never told her to stop.

“So keep fucking moving, sweetheart.” She nods mindlessly, head shaking up and down as her hips pick back up—thighs burning quicker with the exertion of it all. Her forehead scrapes against the wall, eyes squeezing shut with concentration as she focuses on the in and out, back and forth—every stretch against her walls dizzying—every nudge inside of her rendering more and more of her body to jelly.

She wants that feeling back; the one where she’s constantly on the verge of cumming. But there’s too much to focus on—her hands digging into the bricks, her thighs shaking, her clit untouched and overstimulated at the same time.

“I don’t have all fucking day—” Y/N would scoff if she could but the frustration spikes, “—come on. Fuck’s sake—”

Harry loses his patience, pulling out completely in a jarring sequence of motion, leaving Y/N panting—struggling to stay afloat if she were treading water. He physically turns her around and hoists her up as though she is made of nothing—slinging her thighs around the bumps of his hips.

And this is the first time she’s seen his face in… a while. The first time since he’d started dismantling her with his fingers, his cock. Y/N’s heart jumps, the stoicity in which he displays; unsettling and erotic simultaneously. She lifts her heavy hands, moving with the weight of a thousand tonnes, but Harry is quick to catch them. He yanks them overhead, grazing the stone, incarcerated within the circumference of his hand.

It hurts. The wall scratches up the delicate skin of her back, through the flimsy material of her dress. It hurts but it’s grounding—Y/N only thinks about the way her flesh will serve as a reminder of Harry, of this bar, and of this alleyway.

“Gonna make me do everything myself, hm?” gripping around his shaft, painting it across her slit with a harshness that makes Y/N shudder. He’s disrespectful, sliding in indelicately, rough palm yanking down the front of her chest to smooth over her neglected tits, squeezing and moulding between his fingers.

Y/N’s already there, she’s sure. The pit at the bottom of her stomach tightening, her eyes clenching shut, head falling back unceremoniously despite the view she has below her. Harry’s grunting, low, gravelly sounds that enmesh with her own whimpery exhalations.

“Fucking look at me—look at me,” pinching digits squish her cheeks together. A smirk tugs at the corners of Harry’s mouth, tongue darting out to wet his lips when Y/N stares at them. “Let me see that pretty, slutty face.” Her brows quirk when he rocks in particularly deep, eyes flitting around—unsure of what to look at first. Harry’s own face is flushed; perhaps the only indicator he can even feel her at all. That and the size of his pupils—the shortness of his breaths as they wash across her face.

She holds his gaze, mouth ajar with soundless cries.

“You’ll always be my filthy—plaything,” pressing in so close their noses touch. “Even after I’m… long gone—and… you’ve got some other man’s cock inside you,” his breathing shallows, “you’ll always have been mine.” Y/N doesn’t doubt him, she doesn’t even try. Not when he punctuates every word with a thrust so deep it lingers and blossoms inside of her, spreading through each limb and tingling in her fingertips.

Harry’s hand manhandles her face from side to side, grip immovable.

“When you go running back to—Cody… and he can’t fuck you properly… and all you’ll wish for is me—but you’ll hate yourself for it, won’t you, pet?” He pouts, eyes rounding out in a faux sense of sympathy. “For wanting a cold-blooded killer to make you feel good.”

He hammers the final nail into the coffin, lips brushing her own in a sadistic contradiction, voice only a whisper when he says, “You’ll never feel this good again.”

Y/N sobs audibly this time, cunt clenching from his words alone. She thinks he could talk her over the finish line entirely. The promise is dreadful, and it weighs heavy despite how perfectly it nuzzles against her sweet spot. But then he drops her cheeks and snakes those same fingers down, circling easily over her swollen clit. She convulses, weak wrists tugging against the constraints of his hand.

Harry’s close, desperate now to reach his peak. He sinks his teeth into her bottom lip. “Go on. Cum. Cum on your stranger’s cock.”

It’s a wonder Y/N doesn’t crumple to the floor as she cums—but somehow her thighs stay gripped around Harry’s hips. If anything they tighten, squeezing up to his waist, yearning to crush him between her as he pushes her over the edge again and joins her himself as he releases rope after rope into the condom, hips rocking all the way through. He’s moaning a slew of real pretty noises, and Y/N can’t help but pulse at every single one—orgasm begging to last forever—forcing her eyes open no matter the struggle, so that she can really see what he looks like.

It’s devastating—when he smiles. Pleasure written all over his face as his thrusts slow down, cock still dragging through her but no longer with a purpose. And Y/N finds it disorienting; the happiness in which she could be convinced he is feeling. As if it were all a joke—some twisted roleplay—that they were simply playing a fun, little sex game, of all things.

He pats her hip when he slides out, too gentle for Y/N’s post-orgasmic haze. She’s tired now. Too tired to be out at a bar, alone.

Harry encourages her legs from around his waist. “That’s it, down you get, good girl.” Her legs wobble as her feet meet the ground, the centre of her thighs vibrating and pulsating. She only somewhat sees him tying the condom and tucking it back into the wrapper.

“Do you need some help getting home?” Y/N feels like crying. Of course she does. But not from him, never from him—that would be even sillier than letting him fuck her. And then fuck her again.

“N-no,” her voice dry and scratchy.

He’s not convinced but he doesn’t ask again. He simply crouches down and searches for the hem of her underwear under her dress. Y/N thinks he might fix the gusset back over the mess of her pussy but he doesn’t. No, he wiggles them down her thighs and lifts up each shaky leg to retrieve the fabric and twirl it around a slender finger.

“Let me have these, yeah, pet? A little trophy, hm?” Something screams from within Y/N to be scared. But she’s tired now. “It’s only fair… don’t y’think?—if I can’t have what I truly want.” She wishes to wonder why he can’t, but the thought doesn’t form fully. Perhaps he’ll kill her now, after all. She’s fulfilled her brief, performed her duties.

But he’s already taking a few steps back; a distance that feels gargantuan in her current state. She blinks, and then blinks again, mindless fingers fixing clothes and brushing hair from her face. The cold suddenly hits her like a freight train, bare legs littered in goosebumps.

Harry sighs, like he’s considering something in his head before shucking his hoodie from his body and letting it hang between them. An offer. “Keep it warm f’me,” he murmurs, eyes insistent. She takes it with a shaky hand, and hurries to drown herself in his second-hand heat.

He’s already beginning to walk away by the time her head emerges from the fabric, eyes flitting in a panic as they focus back on his shrinking frame. Y/N is offered one final glimpse when he angles his head back to see her, a small smile upturning his mouth. His words fill no hole, quell no worries, heal no wounds. They add insult to injury, smirk morphing his tone.

“Why don’t you… go back inside, yeah? Have another drink for me.”

Y/N’s feet feel stuck—glued to the gravel, too scared to take her eyes off of him for even a moment. But he nods his head towards the door, silently repeating his assertion. “Go on.”

Slowly, she heads back into the bar, the heavy door squealing on its rusty hinges. She sits back down on her previously claimed stool.

She waits.

The stranger never follows her inside. Y/N never notes his silhouette in her peripherals on the other end of the bar, yellow-polished fingertips stroking over a rocks glass as the two pretend not to know one another.

He never comes in and… maybe it’s for the better.

Y/N never sees him again.

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles smut #harry styles one shots #harry styles fanfiction #dark harry styles #dom!harry #dom!harry styles x sub!reader #dark harry #harry styles writing #harry styles imagines

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firstkanaphans · 6 months

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if i have permission to be a bit of a bitch in your inbox (feel free to ignore this if not), the dichotomy people build between bl and queer media is sooooo fascinating. and of course by that i mean it gives me hives. the universalizing of 'real queer experiences' is obnoxious as hell, but how its been applied to ofts has really shown me why i find it so obnoxious. most of the people who hold this dichotomy would never classify a bl that ignores homophobia as 'authentically queer' media. but i definitely saw people who hoped that the 'authentically queer' ofts would exist in a bubble without any slutshaming, or that it would be resolutely shut down in show. but in my aroallo experience? that would be as inauthentic as the no homophobia bubble, so where does that leave us?

also the circular logic in the bl vs queer media arguments is mind numbing. 'bl doesnt cover these types of themes' yeah dude because you forcibly remove everything with those themes from the bl category in your head. 'queer media must acknowledge homophobia' the idea that a story by queer people about queer characters isnt really queer because it chooses to focus on joy or discovery or any other facet of queer existence is so fucking depressing. go hug a queer friend and think about why you feel queerness is defined by suffering before anything else.

Oh, hey, you found my soap box, Anon! Let me just step on up there with you for a minute.

So, first off, let me just say how much I hate the term “authentically” queer. It seems to suggest that in order to be queer, you have to be queer a certain way. As an ultra femme lesbian, the queer community often makes me feel like I’m not queer enough. That I don’t understand the hardships that come with being gay because I am “straight-passing.” This is the same thing people do to BLs. News flash: if you’re queer, you’re queer. Period. Congratulations, that’s all it takes to be authentic!

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a large percentage of the people I see using this designation are straight women who think that queer suffering is a necessary part of the queer experience, but a lot of “authentically queer” people—me included—don’t want to be reminded of our real-life suffering every time we turn on the TV. Heartstopper is triggering for me. Bad Buddy is not. As a queer woman currently living in Ron DeSantis’s Florida, I deserve to be able to turn on the TV every once in a while and not be reminded that there are people in the world who want me dead.

I’ve learned that when people describe a BL as “authentically queer,” what they actually mean is “This BL feels more Western”—the racist insinuation there being that Western media is inherently better.

I feel like The Eclipse is a good example of this hypocrisy. No one has ever called The Eclipse “authentically queer” despite the fact that it delivers one of the most nuanced takes on the dangers of systemic homophobia that I have seen anywhere. The writers of both the source material and the script are gay men. The director is queer. That seems to meet all of the qualifications these people set for “authentically queer” and yet no one has ever questioned that The Eclipse is a BL. Why? Because it incorporates traditionally Asian/yaoi humor tropes such as the pratfall and the accidental kiss.

Are you sensing a pattern? It’s not the queer-ness of a piece of media that determines whether it is seen as “authentic.” It is its “Western-ness.”

Let me be very clear: All BLs are “authentically queer” media because the only requirement needed for a piece of media to be “authentically” queer is for the characters to be queer. And if you don’t like that, then maybe stop watching BLs.

If the people who were producing these shows had a problem with the term, that would be another discussion, but they don’t. P’Jojo has never advertised Only Friends as anything other than a BL. The fandom did that for him. And with all due respect, if the people making the fucking thing are calling it a BL, then it’s a fucking BL.

So, yeah. Not liking BLs doesn’t make you cool. It makes you a bigot. The fact that the term has become so derogatory is rooted in both racism and misogyny because this was originally a genre created by women, for women, and the hobbies of women are so often infantilized.

BLs are queer media. Die mad about it.

#i'm a bit heated this morning guys 😅#the eclipse #only friends the series #asks #thai bl

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candycandy00 · 7 months

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Little Miss Nobody Part 3 - A Gojo x Reader Fanfic

You’re a weak, lowly sorcerer who barely qualifies as an assistant, but you get the opportunity to work on a mission that includes THE Gojo Satoru. Unbeknownst to you, he finds you incredibly attractive despite privately looking down on you as a nobody. On the last night of the mission, he invites you to his hotel room.

Read Part One Here! Read Part Two Here!

Any feedback or comments whatsoever is greatly appreciated! Thank you to @doumadono for the name Mystigram!

Smut. 18+. Gojo x short/thick/curvy fem Reader. Rough sex, oral sex (69), implied bondage/use of toys, mention of Gojo being bisexual. Just pretend the Shibuya Incident never happened!

**********

You allowed yourself to grieve for one week. You took time off from work and spent those days crying, yelling at no one about how much of an asshole Gojo was, and eating ice cream from the carton to numb your pain. Once the week was over, you cleaned up, went back to work, and returned to your normal daily life.

It still hurt to think about him, and despite your best efforts not to, you did still have the occasional intrusive thought. Sometimes you wondered if he regretted anything he said to you, or if he simply regretted ever meeting you. Sometimes you wondered what kind of mission he might be on and who was in his hotel room with him. Sometimes you dreamed about him, dreamed of his hands gripping your hips, his cock rough and powerful between your thighs.

In a weak moment you decided to check his page on Mystigram. A few particularly tech savvy sorcerers had made a social media site just for Jujutsu sorcerers. It began as a way for sorcerers to stay connected to their coworkers and share information, but it had grown to be something used for networking, planning social outings, and getting to know sorcerers from different branches.

You’d looked at Gojo’s page before of course, back before you met him, when you were just a curious fan. He mostly shared memes about Jujutsu society, pictures from the places he’d traveled for work, and photos of the various treats and desserts he discovered at different restaurants and shops. There were occasional selfies, almost always with his sunglasses rather than his blindfold, and a few photos of him with friends. He often had his arms casually thrown around Ieiri Shoko and Nanami Kento, with both of them generally looking annoyed.

You scrolled through his page, feeling desperate and pathetic as you searched for any sign that he felt anything at all about what happened between you. Even him sharing a vague, sort of sad quote or meme would have satisfied you. There was a four day period immediately following your last encounter where he didn’t post anything at all, but he could have simply been busy with work.

One of his most recent posts was a selfie of him pulling down his shades and looking at the camera with gorgeous, bedroom eyes. It was the first one you’d seen with his eyes clearly visible, and it made you ache in more ways than one. The caption read, “The real reason I keep my eyes covered is to keep the whole world from instantly falling in love with me!” What a Gojo thing to say.

His students had responded with laughing emojis (and in a couple of cases, barfing emojis). Ieiri Shoko commented with only a gif of a woman dramatically rolling her eyes. Nanami Kento commented with one word: “Disgusting.” You found the interactions charming, but also felt sad when you realized you’d never be a part of that group, a part of Gojo’s life. You’d never be able to casually talk and joke with him like the others did.

Just once, during a night when you couldn’t sleep, you actually wondered if you should have just let him keep using you for sex. You thought about the “weekend of debauchery” he’d mentioned and imagined what it would have been like. Did he really want to tie you up in his basement? And why did the thought of that make you wet?

You finally fell asleep right after thinking these things, and had a nightmare in which he kept telling you how unworthy you were to be his girlfriend, as he walked off with a glamorous, powerful woman on his arm.

When you awoke, you had renewed resolve that you made the right decision to walk away from him.

Nearly a month after your second time sleeping with him, you crossed paths with him on the street. He was wearing his blindfold, but he pulled it down as he stopped in front of you and asked how you were doing.

You wished he hadn’t. You didn’t want to see his eyes. You gave a vague, cordial reply and continued walking down the street, taking deep and steady breaths to keep yourself from bursting into tears until you could get far enough down the street to dart into a cafe. You bought a coffee just for an excuse to be there, but left it untouched on the counter and instead rushed into the restroom to cry in private.

Seeing him hurt. Hearing his voice hurt. The fact that he didn’t seem bothered at all, that he had absolutely no hesitation in speaking to you, as if you were just friendly acquaintances, hurt. Deeply. But you pulled yourself together, dried your eyes, and walked out of the cafe with your head up.

It would take time to fully heal, as all wounds to the heart did.

Three weeks later, you met a grade one sorcerer on a mission who asked you to have dinner with him sometime. His name was Haruto, and he was kind to you. Handsome in a completely different way than Gojo, he was respected and liked among the assistants for his down to earth attitude. You accepted the dinner invite, and soon after, the two of you began dating.

You liked him, but so far you hadn’t fallen in love with him. You kept waiting to feel that burning passion you felt for Gojo, that ache to be in his arms, but it hadn’t happened yet. Still, a slow burn romance might be a better fit for you, and you enjoyed Haruto’s company enough to date him a while longer and decide how you felt. It was clear that he wanted to be intimate with you, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do that yet, not so soon after your experience with Gojo. But Haruto was patient, never pressuring you.

As time passed by and the season changed from autumn to winter, you thought less and less about Gojo.

****************

Gojo wasn’t dealing with the fallout from his last hookup with Little Miss Nobody very well. He’d went through several different reactions, from anger at her for saying the things she said to guilt for saying the things he said to her. At first he tried to convince himself that he’d done nothing wrong. He’d been honest with her about the sort of relationship they could have. His only mistake was in telling her that after fucking her again.

Just like before, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Despite being busier than ever with missions and his teaching job, his mind kept wandering to her. He worried she would do something reckless on a mission. She wasn’t a fighter, but she clearly wouldn’t hesitate to endanger herself to save someone. He admired the courage that took, but he found himself wishing she would just be a coward from now on. She didn’t have the strength to back up that desire to protect.

Sometimes he laid awake at night, jacking off while remembering their encounters. It was almost too easy to get off, picturing her with her hands tied behind her back, her face pressed into the pillows. Every time he wore his blindfold, he remembered how it had looked around her wrists.

Then, he saw her on the street one day. He spotted her from across the road, but she hadn’t noticed him yet. She looked like every wet dream he’d ever had, jeans tight over her perfect ass, a form-fitting sweater with a cutout right over her ample cleavage. She looked soft and squeezable. Pliable. His first thought was that he wanted to pull her into his arms and just hold her. His second was that he wanted to hear her voice.

He crossed the road and approached her, trying to act as casual as possible. When she looked at him, there was an instant where she looked stunned, but she quickly covered that up with a pleasant smile. He pulled his blindfold down and said, “Hey, how’ve you been?”

It was petty of him, he knew, but he knew she liked his eyes. He wanted her to see them again, perhaps to make her want him again. There were plenty of hotels in the area and-

“I’ve been good,” she said, her face frozen in that same mild expression. “Thank you for asking.”

And then she was gone, walking away quickly and then going into a cafe down the street. He thought briefly of following her, trying to talk to her again, but abandoned the idea. She clearly didn’t want to talk to him, and he wouldn’t press her into a situation that upset her.

He’d left feeling frustrated, in several different ways. Finally, he grew desperate enough to talk to his friend about what was going on. But when he’d gone to Shoko for advice, she had been blunt with him as usual.

“Are you a fucking moron?”

He gaped at her. “Huh?!”

Shoko took a drag of her cigarette and regarded him with a withering stare. “You find a girl who’s sweet, brave, laughs at your shitty jokes, who fucking bakes, and likes it rough? And you manage to screw it up? You’re hopeless.”

Gojo was sitting on a bench in the outdoor area of the high school, near some vending machines. He leaned back, slapping his forehead as Shoko stood beside him. “I don’t know where I screwed up,” he said, “I just told her the truth.”

“You told her she wasn’t good enough for you immediately after fucking her. Do you think anyone wants to hear that?”

He glanced up at his friend. “I didn’t say that to her.”

Shoko met his eyes. “Did you deny it?”

He sat there silently for a moment, thinking. “I didn’t know how to respond to that,” he finally said. “I don’t think she’s not good enough for me. If anything, she’s way too good.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“It’s not about her as a person, or even me as a person. Maybe I’m being a narcissistic asshole. But I feel like I should be with someone closer to my level in terms of status, you know?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t know.”

Gojo sighed. “I just… can’t imagine myself with an assistant who can barely use cursed energy. She’s weak. She’s not from a sorcerer family…”

“Geto wasn’t from a sorcerer family,” Shoko pointed out. “That didn’t seem to bother you.”

Gojo looked at her suddenly. Shoko rarely mentioned their departed friend. “Suguru was strong. At one point as strong as me,” he replied.

“So?” Shoko asked. “A lot of people would call me weak. I sure as hell can’t fight.”

He stared at her, realizing she was making excellent points. Why did it matter what someone’s status was? He never cared about status when it came to picking friends, so why care now? Maybe he had to face the fact that he’d gotten too full of himself over the years. He’d started looking down on those who were weak within Jujutsu society, even if he felt no ill will toward them.

He looked at Shoko, who was a precious friend, and couldn’t imagine looking down on her, even though she was exponentially weaker than him. Then he remembered Little Miss Nobody’s crying face, and he realized how monumentally stupid he’d been.

“I seriously fucked up, didn’t I?”

Shoko exhaled, smoke drifting around her face. “Sure did.”

He leaned forward on the bench, resting his hands on his thighs. “Any ideas on how to fix this?”

“For starters, you better be damn sure of what you want,” she told him. “I’m serious, Gojo. Don’t toy with her again. Don’t contact her, don’t stir up her feelings, and for God’s sake don’t fuck her unless you’re sure you want to start something serious with her.”

Gojo nodded. “I’m sure.” He’d never felt more certain of anything. He saw her face everywhere he looked. He heard her voice in his dreams. He hadn’t even been able to fuck anyone else since her. He’d tried once and couldn’t finish, and boy was that embarrassing.

“Then call her,” Shoko said. “Apologize, tell her you were wrong.”

“I don’t have her number,” Gojo said, remembering with a small degree of shame how she’d shyly offered it to him after their first time together and how he’d rejected it.

“We can probably find it,” Shoko told him, digging into the pocket of her white coat for her cell phone. “I have a couple of friends who work at her branch.”

Gojo perked up, listening as Shoko called someone and made a bit of small talk before asking if they knew Little Miss Nobody. Shoko gave him a thumbs up, and asked the person to text the number over. Then he heard Shoko say, “Oh, she is? Right now?”

After the call ended, Shoko said, “They’re sending the number over but they said she’s in Tokyo right now. She’s supposedly meeting some friends for drinks at that bar for sorcerers in Ikebukuro.”

Gojo stood up. This was the perfect opportunity. He could talk to her in person, apologize properly and see if this could be fixed. He knew exactly where the bar was, having gone there to hang out with Shoko and Utahime just one week prior. He thanked Shoko for her help and hurried over to the bar.

It wasn’t very crowded yet when Gojo arrived. It was late afternoon, and customers wouldn’t start pouring in until at least seven. He scanned the room for her when he first walked in, and quickly spotted her sitting amongst several other sorcerers in a corner booth. She was smiling, and he was glad to see her happy.

He took a seat at the bar and ordered a soda, then tried to keep from attracting any attention. It didn’t happen all the time, but occasionally people recognized him and acted like they’d seen a celebrity. He supposed he was the closest thing Jujutsu society had to a celebrity, and while he usually found it flattering to be approached in that way, today he hoped no one noticed him. He planned to wait for her to go to the rest room or even to the bar. He didn’t want to approach her when she was surrounded by people.

So he sat, and waited, and watched. After several minutes, he noticed that the man sitting to her right was a little too handsy with her. The man kept touching her arm and subtly leaning closer to her. Gojo didn’t like that, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was a little naive about things like that, so maybe she didn’t even notice.

But the more he watched and listened, the more a knot tied itself together in his stomach. She was also leaning toward the man, giggling at something he said, playfully slapping his arm. Then, the man threw his arm around her, and she smiled, doing nothing to push it away.

The realization hit Gojo like a punch to the face. She was with this man, romantically. Gojo was too late. He’d spent too much time being an egotistical jackass, and now she’d moved on. He couldn’t blame her. She had the right to pursue happiness with someone else. But where did that leave him? He sighed and lowered his head. For the first time in his life he considered trying to get drunk.

He heard chattering from her table and glanced over. Little Miss Nobody, as well as the rest of the women in the group, were leaving together. Something about going to see a movie together. Gojo moved to the other side of the bar before they got near, making sure not to be seen. He watched her walk out, and it felt like she was stomping on his heart with each step she took.

The thought occurred to him that he could potentially take her away from the man. If Gojo talked to her, maybe she’d decide she liked him more. But should he do that? She seemed happy. What right did he have to burst back into her life and possibly screw it up?

While he sat there, deep in thought, he almost didn’t notice the man she’d been with coming to sit at the bar, just a few seats down. But he did notice, and he couldn’t help paying attention to him.

The man’s friend, the only other man who’d been at the table, sat down next to him.

“Any luck yet?” the friend asked.

The man shook his head and took a drink from his glass. “Nope. She’s still holding out. I think she’s hung up on some ex boyfriend or something, but she won’t say it.”

Gojo’s ears felt like they were on fire. His full attention was now on this conversation, but he sipped his Coke and pretended not to be listening.

The friend laughed. “Sucks to be you, dude. You score a hot girlfriend and can’t even fuck her.”

The man laughed too. “I’ll wear her down. She’ll be sucking my dick soon enough.”

Gojo’s hand gripped the glass so hard, he had to force himself to calm down to avoid shattering it.

Then the friend said something else, and Gojo felt his skin prickling with rage.

“Don’t forget to record it when you finally get her naked. You promised you’d show off the goods.”

The man nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ve got cameras hid around my bedroom already. She doesn’t have a clue.”

“Good,” the friend replied, “cause I’ve been dying to see those tits for months.”

They both laughed, and Gojo stood up from his seat. He walked the few steps over to the two men and stood looming over them. He was wearing sunglasses instead of his blindfold, but he was still recognizable to most people who noticed him. The man she’d been with gaped up at him. “Gojo?”

Gojo grinned widely. “I couldn’t help but overhear you guys,” he said in a friendly tone. “Can you share those recordings with me when you make them?”

The men glanced at each other, looking like students who’d been caught smoking by a teacher who then asked for a cigarette.

“You… want me to send you recordings? Of my girlfriend?”

Gojo’s grin was probably becoming more frightening as the moments passed. “Well you’re sharing them with your buddy, right? What’s one more?”

The man shrugged, still looking a little uneasy. “Sure, why not? Give me your number.”

Gojo kept staring at him. “So she has no idea you plan to do this?”

The man must have mistaken Gojo’s slightly unhinged expression for perversion. He laughed and said, “She’s clueless. Totally naive. Wait till you see her! Huge tits, fat ass, cute face. She’d be a perfect porn star.”

The friend chuckled and added, “Hell, I guess she will be after this. We could make a fortune selling the videos!”

That was enough. That was all Gojo could bear to listen to. He’d let the guy dig a big enough hole for himself. “Call her,” he said in a low voice, and both men looked at him with confusion.

“What?”

Gojo’s smile was gone. He pulled off his shades and glared at the man. “Call her. Tell her you need to see her in private. It’s urgent.”

The man didn’t move, he just stared up at Gojo as if he’d sprouted another head.

Gojo leaned down. “I think she has the right to know about this, don’t you?”

The man looked positively horrified. A bead of sweat ran down his face. “You want me to tell her? I can’t do that! She’ll-“

Gojo looked at the man the way he would look at a curse that had just attacked him, and the man’s words died in his throat. Gojo put one hand on the man’s shoulder. “I said call her. Right fucking now.”

The man’s fingers were trembling as he pulled his phone from his pocket. As he began dialing, Gojo pointed at the friend. “And you, if you ever so much as glance at her again, I’ll rip your eyeballs out of your fucking head.”

****************

You were standing in line with three of your friends to buy tickets for a movie when one of them asked how things were going with Haruto.

“Okay I guess,” you answered. “I’m still not sure how I feel about him. I like him, but I don’t think I’m in love with him.”

Your friend Sumi smiled reassuringly. “Give it a little more time. You guys are still getting to know each other.”

Aiko, another friend that you had been on many missions with, sighed and patted your back. “You’re still holding out for Gojo Satoru, aren’t you?”

Sumi and the third friend Keiko looked surprised, and you instantly reddened. “Huh? Gojo? What do you mean?”

Sumi asked, looking from Aiko to you.

“They hooked up,” Aiko said, “twice.”

You looked at her with wide eyes. You’d never told her about that. “How did you know?”

She grinned. “Actually I just suspected it, but now you’ve confirmed it.”

You winced, but she laughed and went on. “The first mission we were all three on, you left the sushi joint with his arm around you on the last night. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. Especially with his reputation. Then the second time, you two disappeared together in the middle of a mission.”

Sumi and Keiko stared at you for a moment. When you didn’t deny anything Aiko said, they launched into a string of rapid questions.

“How was it?”

You shrugged. “Uh, nice?”

“Is he good in bed?”

“…. Yes.”

“Does he really have a huge dick?”

You blushed, but nodded, and the girls made a squealing sound.

“I heard he keeps his sunglasses on during sex. Is that true?”

“I asked him to take them off,” you answered.

“Can’t believe you scored him twice,” Aiko said, interrupting the interrogation. “From what I’ve heard, he never sleeps with the same person more than once.”

You blinked. “Really?”

Aiko nodded. “Yeah, he’s a one and done kinda guy. Guess he doesn’t want to get serious with anyone. Speaking of which, you should be careful. Don’t get too involved with him. He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to settle down, from what everyone says about him.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.” You gave a vague answer. Aiko had no idea what had really happened between you and Gojo. You hadn’t realized that being a repeat lover for him was so rare. You wondered what the girls would think if they knew he’d invited you to spend the weekend at his place.

But all that was over, you reminded yourself. You and Gojo were over. You had more respect for yourself than to be flattered by a guy, even one as amazing as Gojo, wanting to use you as a sex friend.

Your phone suddenly rang, and you fished it out of your purse to see who the caller was, thankful for the distraction. It was Haruto, and you felt a little guilty that you’d just been talking and thinking about another man. You answered, and his voice sounded strained on the other end.

“I need to see you,” he was saying, the words coming out a little too quickly. “It’s urgent.”

“Right now? But we were just together,” you said, confusion building in your mind. You hoped he wasn’t just trying to get you in bed. His attempts had started to feel a little pushy lately.

“It’s important,” he said. “I’ve rented a hotel room near the bar so we can talk privately.”

“Haruto, I’m really not comfortable going to a hotel with you.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking, I swear,” he told you, his voice sounding frantic. “I just… need to talk to you. And it has to be in person. Okay?”

You sighed. “Alright. If it’s just to talk.”

After you ended the call, you got a text from Haruto with the name of the hotel and the room number. You told your friends what happened and waved goodbye to them before heading back to see what was so urgent.

As you walked down the carpeted hallway of the hotel, you felt a faint feeling of panic, like something might be very wrong. Had Haruto received bad news? Or perhaps he’d grown tired of waiting and had decided to break up with you. The thought made you feel relieved rather than worried, and you thought that was a bad sign for your relationship.

You reached room 404 and took a deep breath before knocking. A few seconds later, the door opened, and Haruto stood on the other side. He looked terrible! His face was damp with sweat, his skin was pale, his eyes darted about like a frightened animal’s. “Haruto?” you asked. “What’s wrong?”

He stepped back and motioned you in without a word. When you stepped through the door, your breath caught in your throat.

Sitting on the edge of the bed was Gojo. No blindfold or sunglasses, which was rare, and his face looked deadly serious, which was even more rare. He stood up as Haruto shut the door behind you.

“Gojo? What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

Gojo’s expression softened when he looked at you. “I overheard your boyfriend talking to his buddy at the bar after you left. I think you deserve to know what he was saying.”

You looked curiously at Haruto. He wrung his hands nervously and looked at the floor.

“Haruto,” Gojo said, and there was a coldness to his tone that you’d never heard before. It was like that one word alone was the most terrifying threat in the world.

Haruto nearly jumped at the sound, then he finally looked you in the face. “Alright! Fuck it, I’ll admit it! I have cameras hidden all over my bedroom. I was gonna record us whenever I could talk you into sleeping with me!”

You stared at him, hearing the words but not processing them. “Record us? What are you talking about?”

“I was gonna make videos of you without telling you,” he said.

Gojo chimed in. “Tell her what you were gonna do with the videos, Haruto.”

Haruto was avoiding your gaze again. “I was gonna share them with my friends. And maybe sell them online.”

Ah. So that was it. He didn’t like you. He didn’t care about you at all. He just wanted to sleep with you, just like Gojo. Just like all the guys who approached you in high school and even now. Only this was much worse. He wanted to share your intimate moments with others against your will. Thank god you hadn’t slept with him.

You glared at him, your face feeling hot with humiliation and your eyes becoming wet. All this had to happen in front of Gojo! Haruto took a step toward you. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t-“

“Stop,” you said, cutting him off. “I don’t want to hear another word. Stay away from me.”

He must have known you were serious by the look on your face. His expression changed from guilt to annoyance. “Fine. Whatever. I was only interested in you for your tits anyway. Not like you’ve got anything else I want.”

Gojo stepped over to Haruto and shoved him toward the door. “Alright, you can get the fuck out now, you useless piece of shit.”

Haruto flinched at the harshness of Gojo’s voice, and was out the door in seconds. Now alone in the room with Gojo, you turned your back to him so he couldn’t look at your face. You were already embarrassed enough.

“Thank you for warning me about him,” you said, trying and failing to keep your voice steady. You wanted to leave, but you also wanted to give Haruto enough time to be gone by the time you got down to the hotel lobby. You definitely didn’t want to run into him again.

You heard Gojo’s footsteps coming closer to you, then his voice, so much softer than before, asking, “Are you okay?”

Wiping your eyes, you turned to face him, surprised that he was already so close. “I’ll be fine,” you said with a fake smile plastered on your mouth. Then you stepped toward the door to leave.

Gojo suddenly grabbed your wrist. “Wait,” he said, “I was at the bar tonight because I knew you’d be there. I wanted to talk to you.”

You pulled your hand free of his gentle grip. Tears were still burning your eyes. “Please, I can’t handle this right now,” you told him.

“Handle what?”

“You telling me again how I don’t meet your standards but you’ll lower yourself enough to fuck me sometimes. I get it, okay? Just please leave me alone.”

Gojo just stared at you, a hurt expression on his face. “I guess I deserve that,” he said. “But no, I came to apologize. I was wrong. I was an idiot, a dumbass, whatever you wanna call me. I said a lot of stupid shit that hurt you, and I’m sorry. If it’s not too late, could we start over?”

Your heart was doing flip flops. You’d longed to hear him say those words, but… after what just happened with Haruto, you had to be more careful.

You looked away from him, not wanting to let him charm you with those beautiful eyes of his. “Do you want me as a sex friend?

Or something more?”

He moved closer, close enough to put his hands on your shoulders. “You’re all I can think about when we’re apart. I miss the way we talked during that first mission, the way you laughed. I want us to go back to that. I want to see where this goes. So I guess I’m asking if you’ll be my girlfriend.”

You turned away from him. “I’d love to, but I can’t be a secret, Gojo. If you can’t tell anyone about us-“

“I’ll tell the whole world!”

You looked at his face. “What?”

He looked totally serious. “I’ll tell everyone. I want everyone to know.”

You almost dove into his arms, but something held you back. “It’s easy to say that here, right now, in a hotel room. Will you still say that in the morning?”

He hesitated for a moment, and you felt that familiar sense of dread. But then he pulled out his phone and closed the distance between you. He wrapped one arm around you and pulled your face closer to his, then he kissed your cheek. At the same time, his other hand held up his phone and took a selfie of the two of you.

He pulled away and began tapping on his phone, leaving you stunned into silence. Then, your phone chimed. You pulled it out and found a notification that you’d been tagged in a post on Mystigram. With trembling fingers, you opened it to see.

Gojo had posted the picture of him kissing your cheek to his page, and tagged you in it. The caption read: “Me and my hot girlfriend! Try not to be jealous!”

Your eyes flew back to his face. He was grinning at you. The post started getting comments immediately.

Itadori Yuji: Congrats, sensei! 😁

Kugisaki Nobara: Ugh, she’s way too pretty for you!

Ieiri Shoko: Try not to fuck this up.

You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling. But you had one more question.

“What made you change your mind?”

Gojo was laughing as he read over the comments pouring in. “Oh, it just took Shoko talking some sense into me. I was going crazy, worrying about you being on missions, wondering what you were doing, craving your homemade sweets… so I went to her for advice. She’s always had a way of making me see logic.”

“You told her about me?”

“We’ve been friends since high school. Of course I told her,” he said. Then he laughed again. “I told Nanami too but I don’t think he was paying much attention. I was mid sentence when he said, ‘Please stop telling me about your sordid escapades. I’m going to vomit.’ And that was all he had to say about it.”

He’d told his friends about you. He’d been worried enough about this situation to consult them. And he didn’t mind those closest to him knowing about you, even before realizing he’d been wrong. Those thoughts warmed your heart.

Before you knew it, you were crying again, so overwhelmed with emotion. Gojo dropped his phone on the bed and wrapped his arms around you. “So? Are we a couple now?” he asked.

You nodded against his chest, and his arms tightened slightly. “Great,” he said, stroking your hair. “Want me to fuck you?”

A laugh escaped your lips, and the tears stopped. You pulled back and looked up at him. “So romantic.”

He leaned down and kissed you. “I’ve been dreaming about rearranging your insides,” he whispered, his voice tingling in your ear. “Have you been dreaming about me?”

You kissed him back, tasting his lips. “Yes,” you breathed out.

“What were you dreaming?” he asked, his voice turning husky as his hands began to roam over your body.

“Ahh,” you moaned as he kissed your neck. “It’s… embarrassing…” You had been dreaming about him. A lot. Most of it had been quite filthy.

One of his hands slipped under your dress, rubbing up your bare thigh and then squeezing your ass. “Embarrassing? Heh. I’m gonna have to fuck that shyness out of you.”

That sounded fun, you thought, raising your arms to allow him to pull your dress over your head. You unzipped his jacket, your hands desperately trying to get his clothes off as fast as possible.

The jacket discarded, he pulled his black T-shirt off next, then stood back to look at you in your silky black underwear. “Seriously,” he said, “tell me what you want. I’ll make it happen, whatever it is. Any fantasy, any dirty idea that pops into your head. I wanna hear it.”

You looked at the floor and muttered something.

“What was that?”

You stepped closer and met his gaze. “I said… I want you in my mouth.”

His beautiful eyes widened, and there was a glimmer of excitement in them as he grinned and said, “Holy fuck, I hit the jackpot!”

***********

Gojo was lying on his back in the bed, completely nude, his naked girlfriend halfway across him, her warm, wet mouth greedily sucking his cock. He raised his head up to watch. He couldn’t imagine a more lovely sight than her soft, full lips sliding down his shaft.

He moved one hand down to touch her hair, just happy to have her within reach. She glanced sideways at him, her face tinted pink. How cute of her to be shy even while deep throating him.

He’d had plenty of blowjobs in his life, even given a few, but this… this was different. Was it because he’d formed an emotional connection to her? He felt so much affection for her that simply being touched by her at all felt far better than anything he’d experienced with anyone else.

Well, with one exception, but he wasn’t ready to think about that, to compare them. He’d tucked those memories into a neat little box in the back of his mind where they could remain untouched and protected.

But this wasn’t enough. He wanted to taste her too. He grabbed hold of her legs and swung them up and over him, so that she was lying face down on top of him, her head at his groin and his at hers. She gave a little cry of surprise and drew her knees forward to lift herself off him, but that only spread her thighs apart and gave him easier access.

“G-Gojo, what are you doing?” Her voice sounded so flustered. He could practically hear the embarrassed arousal.

“I thought I told you to call me Satoru,” he murmured, pressing his lips ever so gently to her heated, quivering flesh. She jerked, but he grabbed her hips and held her in place. He waited, feeling her taut legs relax slowly, giving her time to get used to this extremely intimate position.

“Don’t stare at me,” she said in a shy voice, then he felt her lips around his cock again.

“Oh I’m gonna do so much more than stare,” he said back, using his fingers to open her folds. “I’m gonna do so many embarrassing things to you…” He ran his tongue over her open slit, tasting the plentiful juices. She was drenched, and deliciously sweet. He felt her body twitch nervously, but her mouth never slacked off. He felt her tongue lapping at his tip, her soft hands squeezing wherever they could.

Her clit was so cute, sitting there so glossy with his saliva and her fluids, completely defenseless to him. His thumb rubbed over it, then he prodded it with his tongue, drawing circles around it.

She shifted, her mouth leaving his dick long enough for her to moan out, “Satoru… I’m… I’m about to…”

He licked her clit again, slowly. “You can cum first,” he said.

She wiggled a bit in his grasp, but then took him into her mouth again, stifling her own moans. She took him so far in it felt like he was being swallowed, and the little gagging sound she made sent shivers through his entire body. Now it felt like a competition, and Gojo never lost.

His tongue was on her clit again, and he pushed two fingers inside her, curling them in a way that made her thighs tremble on either side of him. He felt himself slide out of her mouth, and then her tongue was gliding over him from base to tip. He could feel his cock twitching under her touch, but he kept himself under control. Then, he heard her sweet little voice say, “Satoru… cum in my mouth… please?”

Fuck, she wasn’t playing fair! His breath hitched in his throat, a shudder rippling through him, but he wasn’t defeated just yet. He leaned up and lapped at her clit again, gently, slowly, feeling her clenching his fingers, and then he grazed his teeth over it, lightly pulling on the tiny nub.

She moaned around his cock, her legs shaking, and he knew he’d won. He kept pumping his fingers into her as she rode out her orgasm, her lips still around the base of his cock. With no more reason to hold back, he let the feeling of her hot mouth overwhelm him, and he came straight into her throat.

He let his head fall back onto the pillow as he panted, and she took the opportunity to turn her body around so that her legs fell off the side of the bed, her face still buried in his crotch. She waited until he was completely empty before she removed her mouth, but a few strings of cum were drizzling down his cock. He held his head up enough to look down at her as she licked him clean.

When finished, she straightened up, sitting on her knees beside the bed. She looked like an angel, or a goddess. How could he have ever thought he was out of her league? How did it take him so long to realize how amazing she was? He’d been a fucking fool.

He sat up in the bed and smiled at her. “Take a shower with me?”

She blushed. “A shower? I guess so.”

He laughed. “How are you shy after everything we’ve done? I had my face shoved in your pussy just now.”

She turned beet red. “Ahhh! Don’t say that! I was trying not to think about it!”

He stood up from the bed and pulled her into a hug, their naked bodies pressed against each other. “Do you still doubt how hot you are? You can’t even imagine how many times I’ve jacked off while thinking about you.”

She looked up at him. “Really?”

He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Really.”

She smiled then, and took his hand as they walked into the bathroom.

**************

You were still nervous about showering with Gojo. It felt like such a private thing to do, but he seemed really into the idea, so you agreed. He joked around as he turned the water on, pretending he didn’t know how to work the knobs and “accidentally” spraying himself in the face. He was trying to put you at ease, and it was mostly working. You found yourself giggling at his antics as you both stepped into the large, walk-in shower.

Before you could even reach for the small bottle of shampoo sitting in a tiny corner shelf, Gojo suddenly shoved your back against the glass shower door and kissed you passionately, his mouth overtaking your own. The steamy water was spraying both your bodies, soaking his shiny hair, running down his torso. Without even looking, you knew he was hard again, the large erection pressing against your stomach.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and his hands slipped under your thighs, lifting you up so that your legs could wrap around his body. You were pinned against the shower door when you felt him push inside you, deeply, roughly, the way you loved it. Your back collided with the glass with every powerful thrust, an ache you’d been craving building between your legs as he pounded into you.

You were going to be covered in bruises after this, but that thought only turned you on even more. Gojo had that wild look in his eyes, the one that almost made you cum on the spot. You wanted him to break you. It wasn’t that you were a masochist. It wasn’t pain that excited you, but rather watching him lose control, seeing that unhinged expression and knowing you had that effect on him, that you could drive him mad with your body. The pain, the bruises, they were just the evidence.

Burying your face in his neck, you tried to muffle your moans, your breaths shuddering. He was making such lovely grunts and growls, his fingers digging into your soft thighs. You chanced a peek at his face, and he looked like an entirely different person from the man who’d just been joking around with you. His wet hair was partially covering one eye, the other practically glowing with uncontrolled lust, his lips parted, teeth showing as ragged breaths pushed through them.

God, he was beautiful. Frighteningly so. Inhumanly so. For the second time, you wondered if he actually was a god that had been banished to earth. He certainly fucked like one.

Your legs slipped from his waist, the water making it hard to keep your grip, and they dangled helplessly above the floor. He didn’t even seem to notice that he was holding more of your weight as he plowed into you, every thrust feeling deeper than the last. Your arms were still around his neck, but your strength was failing you. You clasped your hands tightly and leaned your face up to kiss him. His mouth was hungry upon yours, his tongue shoving its way in.

When you came, your arms fell to your sides and your body went limp in his arms, quivering with pleasure as he kept fucking you. His grip on you tightened, and after several more minutes of being slammed into the glass door, you felt his whole body stiffen. Then, you felt hot cum shoot deeply inside you as Gojo groaned.

He stayed inside you for several more minutes, even after he’d finished cumming. It was like he didn’t want to separate from you, but eventually he pulled out and set you back on your feet. You legs gave way immediately, as if they were made of spaghetti, but Gojo caught you. He held you gently until you regained your strength, then he reached you the soap with a grin.

“I’ll wash your back if you wash mine,” he said.

You laughed, taking the soap from him as he turned his toned back to you.

An hour later, you were both dressed and sitting on the bed in the hotel room, talking about what each of you had been up to lately. During a lull in the conversation, you leaned your head over on his shoulder and whispered, “Is this real?”

“Hmm?”

You hesitated, then said, “I keep waiting for you to say this won’t work out.”

He wrapped an arm around you. “I’m not gonna lie and say this will be easy. I travel a lot for missions, and my teaching job is important to me, but we can make it work. We’ll spend time together whenever we can. Speaking of which… wanna come to my place next weekend?”

You laughed, feeling the tension dissipate from your body. “For pancakes? Sure.”

“And debauchery,” he said. “Don’t forget the debauchery.”

****************

Epilogue:

The first thing you thought when you arrived at Gojo’s house was, “Holy shit, it’s huge!”

Gojo stepped up beside you and gave you a peck on the cheek. “That’s what she said.”

You giggled at his silly joke and let him lead you inside. The house was of an old fashioned design, with a closed in yard, sliding doors, tatami floors, the whole works. It was a sprawling estate that looked as if it would have dozens of servants roaming the halls.

“You really live here all by yourself?”

He shook his head as he laid out some slippers for you to change into, then pulled off his own shoes. “I have an apartment near the school that I use most of the time. I don’t use this place often, but this is a special weekend.”

“It’s beautiful,” you said, looking around. Despite the classic design of the structure, it had modern furnishings. You were admiring a lovely vase on a glossy wooden end table when you noticed a large cardboard box sitting just inside the living room. It looked totally out of place, and Gojo noticed your interest.

“Go ahead and look inside,” he told you, a strange smile on his lips.

“Okay…”

You approached the box and pulled the flaps open, squatting down to get a good look. Inside was an assortment of items you couldn’t quite identify at first. But as you began pulling them out and looking more closely, your face began to burn.

“Are these… all sex toys?!”

Gojo laughed at your reaction. “Well, not all of them. There’s some costumes, handcuffs, edible underwear…”

You grimaced as you pulled out what appeared to be a riding crop, then the biggest dildo you’d ever seen in your life. There was also a skimpy maid costume, among other bizarre garments. “Why is all this stuff just sitting here in a box?”

Gojo rubbed the back of his head, messing up his hair a bit. He looked oddly shy. “I ordered it all. I figured we could have fun trying a bunch of stuff, see what we like.”

That did sound like fun. You examined each item, sometimes having no idea what its function was.

Gojo sat down on the floor beside you, watching your face as you looked though the box. “If there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable, just put it back in the box and I’ll toss it. Or better yet, I’ll have it delivered to Nanami’s place.”

You laughed then, imagining the strait laced-looking man you met a few days ago opening a box full of items like these.

When you were finished sorting them into piles of “will definitely try”, “might try”, and “hard no”, you and Gojo both stood up. “So, are you going to give me a tour?” you asked.

Gojo gave you a somewhat menacing grin, his dark sunglasses blocking out your view of his eyes. “Sure. Let’s start with the basement.”

The End.

Tag List:

@snowprincesa1 @pandoraium @hitori979 @famousdestinyland @gloomysel @noodlejitsu @postmancat @lanecass @aquamarine001 @officialholyagua @lil-bexie @kisssatoru @tqd4455 @yoriichiskatana @karmcrim15 @pyschopotatomeme @whippedbyikemen @changingchances @1985bitch @ritsatoru @prophecyflame @haileycannotcometothephonern @creolequeen11210 @onyxino @crimsonmarabou @thick-skull89 @risuola @yourhotcupcake101

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo #gojo satoru #gojo smut #Gojo x you #satoru x reader

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ladystoneboobs · 3 months

Text

[Bran, to Theon:]“But you’re Father’s ward.” [Theon, to Bran:]“And now you and your brother are my wards. [...] You’ll tell them how you’ve yielded Winterfell to me, and command them to serve and obey their new lord as they did the old.” -Bran VI, aCoK “He[Ramsay] is a great hunter,” said Wyman Manderly, “and women are his favorite prey. He strips them naked and sets them loose in the woods. They have a half day’s start before he sets out after them with hounds and horns. From time to time some wench escapes and lives to tell the tale. Most are less fortunate. When Ramsay catches them he rapes them, flays them, feeds their corpses to his dogs, and brings their skins back to the Dreadfort as trophies. If they have given him good sport, he slits their throats before he skins them. Elsewise, t’other way around.” -Davos IV, aDwD [Roose, to Theon, about Ramsay's mother:]"[...]I was hunting a fox along the Weeping Water when I chanced upon a mill and saw a young woman washing clothes in the stream. The old miller had gotten himself a new young wife, a girl not half his age. She was a tall, willowy creature, very healthy-looking. Long legs and small firm breasts, like two ripe plums. Pretty, in a common sort of way. The moment that I set eyes on her I wanted her. Such was my due. [...] This miller’s marriage had been performed without my leave or knowledge. The man had cheated me. So I had him hanged, and claimed my rights beneath the tree where he was swaying. If truth be told, the wench was hardly worth the rope. The fox escaped as well, and on our way back to the Dreadfort my favorite courser came up lame, so all in all it was a dismal day." -Reek(/Theon) III, aDwD

something something the way theon tries to rectify his childhood trauma by taking his captor's place as lord of wf and taking ned's younger sons as his "wards"/hostages, while ramsay repeatedly reenacts different versions of his own conception by hunting and raping peasant women. except theon fails in his role reversal when (unlike him in his own captivity at wf) bran and rickon escape custody. and ramsay enhances roose's "dismal day" by killing all the women he catches to prevent any more bolton bastards and further punishing those of them who fail to give him "good sport" (which his mother apparently did not give roose) while those who do satisfy him are "honored" with a quick death (and a canine namesake). and then the consequences of theon's failure to replace his captor/cold noerthern father figure include losing wf to house bolton and becoming the new "reek"/another of ramsay's dogs. (meaning he made himself ramsay's prey but gave him "good sport" in the experience)

ramsay starts out as deceptive dark trickster figure/evil adviser/devil on theon's shoulder in clash but he's also a dark mirror of theon, and a more successful one at that, not just better suited to villainy but more able to get away with his crimes. neither will ever be truly accepted by their fathers but ramsay is made heir once he's the only son while theon is rejected as such despite his better birth. ramsay profits from the alleged kinslaying of his actual brother by blood, while theon is more openly condemned (and seen as still not punished enough) for (falsely) killing stark boys who were never his actual kin. it's almost as if ramsay is an evil force who came into being to find theon and was drawn to him upon his return to the north. we first learn of the bastard of bolton's existence after theon returns to pyke and learns of his father's invasion plans, then his last hunt with the original reek just shortly precedes the ironborn attacks, all so that he's captured and waiting in wf right in time for theon's real plan to go into action, and we don't actually meet (disguised) ramsay in-person through dialogue with rodrik cassell or any other northerner but only when theon arrives as the new lord to free him from the dungeon. as the first reek may have corrupted ramsay, ramsay-as-reek corrupts theon. reek belongs to ramsay and ramsay belongs to reek.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #theon greyjoy #ramsay snow #happy theon thursday!#(c)lsb

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toastbaby · 3 months

Text

Summary: Peeta finally gets a chance to talk with his childhood crush when she shows up at his door to sell some ingredients for his pastries.

for @isarnicole

a/n: A little something I wrote for @thgseasonofhope holiday gift exchange! Hope you enjoy! (Ps. this is my first - but hopefully not last - Everlark fic, so I'd love to know what you think! But please be gentle since English is not my first language!)

words: 3900+

Rated: T

Read on AO3

...

“Peeta!”

The 20-year-old baker pulled his attention away from the dough he had been preparing, turning his head towards the source of the voice. His dad was standing in the doorway, his face glistening with sweat because of the rush hour at the bakery.

“Yes, dad?”

“Someone’s coming to sell some herbs and other things we could use in our pastries. Could you please take care of it? My hands are a bit full right now,” the older man huffed, gesturing towards the busy cafe area.

“Sure. Not a problem.”

As Peeta had gotten older, his dad had gradually started giving him more responsibilities at the bakery, intending to leave it to him one day. Peeta’s older brothers weren’t interested in running the place, and Peeta knew he was a better baker than them anyway, thanks to excessive training he had done since he was a kid. Despite that, sometimes the voice of his mother nagged in his head, calling him useless, but the signs of confidence his father showed towards him helped him to ignore it.

He continued kneading the dough once his dad left, but about five minutes later there was a knock at the backdoor of the bakery.

“Just a minute!” Peeta yelled before quickly pulling his hands from the dough and rinsing them under the sink. In his rush he didn’t realize that he had a bit of flour all over his body, including his hair, from carrying a huge bag earlier.

The smile he was wearing on his face when he opened the door froze when he saw a short young woman with a sleek, black braid, olive skin and piercing, gray eyes standing right in front of him. The very same woman who had been a part of his dreams for longer than he could remember: Katniss Everdeen.

“H-hi!” he stuttered, just standing there dumbly as she was taking his floury frame in.

“Uh, hello?” Her greeting sounded almost like a question. When he didn’t move for a moment, she asked: “Can I come in? It’s kind of cold out here.”

That made Peeta finally snap out of his daze.

“Yeah, of course.” He backed up into the kitchen. “Sorry, I was just… surprised, I guess. When my dad told me I was going to have a business meeting with someone, I didn’t realize it was going to be you.”

Katniss gave him a strange look.

“Well, your dad seemed to think that my herbs and vegetables are what he’s looking for, so here I am.”

“Right. Um, listen… Could we start this over? I swear I’m not usually like this.” When Katniss gave him an expectant look, he extended his hand to her, like he would with any guest. “It’s good to see you, Katniss. What did you bring with you?”

Katniss’ mouth twitched ever so slightly at Peeta’s attempt to fix the situation, a sight that made Peeta happier than he thought was normal, but she did take his hand and gave it a firm, warm squeeze. After that she went straight into business mode and marched to the baking counter where she could display her products.

“Some dill, mint leaves, rosemary, basil, oregano, peppers, tomatoes, even a piece of the goat cheese made of the milk of Prim’s goat… Well, Lady’s the only goat we have so our cheese supply is limited right now but you could have whatever we can sell.”

Peeta looked in awe at the impressive collection of herbs and vegetables. The smell of the herbs was truly quite delicious and he could see that they were well taken care of. However, focusing on his actual task of buying Katniss’ products was a bit challenging when she was standing so close to him. Even with the herbs right in front of him he swore he could sense a whiff of pine trees coming from her hair.

“Would you like to taste the cheese?” Katniss asked, unwrapping the foil the cheese was kept in.

“Sure. I’ll get a knife so I can cut it.”

Peeta had been prepared to lie in case he wouldn't have liked the cheese, but turned out it really was worth all the praise he could give. It seemed that Katniss was far prouder for her sister’s achievements than her own, so she accepted the compliments he gave her sister happily. After that the talk moved to the herbs.

“The rosemary could go well with the cheese buns, and mint is good in some sweet things… Smoothie? Mousse? A chocolate cake?” He started listing ideas that came to his head as he tried to keep his focus on the things Katniss had brought. He didn’t miss the way Katniss’ eyes lit with interest when he mentioned the chocolate cake. “Hey, as controversial as this opinion may be, I’ve always liked mint chocolate. Maybe you should sell some of this to my brother; he runs a small chocolate factory nearby.”

“You think he’d buy it?” Katniss asked, a little shyly.

“Oh, absolutely! He’s always on the lookout for new products that make his business stand out. What’s better than combining the chocolate with fresh, local ingredients grown with love?”

“I do love chocolate as well,” Katniss admitted. “I guess you’re going to have to give me his contact info.”

Peeta wasn’t quite sure what got to him when he raised his eyebrow playfully and asked: “What about me? Would you like to have my contact info too?”

For a moment Katniss looked utterly confused.

“But I already know where this bakery is, and I already have its phone number…”

“That’s not quite what I meant…” Peeta shook his head, scratching the back of his head. “Um, never mind that. So, about the price. My dad left some suggestions here,” he dug out a paper where his father had written down what the usual price for specific herbs was, “But he said that he trusts us so if you think that these are too little, we can still change them…”

Katniss’ eyes moved rapidly as she took in the numbers, her frown deepening with each word.

“Peeta… I can’t accept this much. This is way more than what I get when I sell my herbs at the market.”

Peeta stopped her before she could resist even further. “See, that’s the thing, Katniss. Both my father and I agree that for all the hard work that you do on your own you deserve a hell of a lot more than what you get. I don’t think you even understand how much people appreciate local, freshly picked products these days. So, this is the least we can do to both support other local entrepreneurs and also boost our own image! Please, just accept the offer.”

Katniss bit her lip for a moment, her frown still visible. “Fine,” she said finally. “But you’ll have to let me do something in return for you.”

Peeta grinned mischievously, already feeling a lot more relaxed than in the beginning of this meeting. “Well, I would appreciate it if you remembered to mention to your customers that Mellark’s bakery makes the best cheese buns in the entire country.” He winked and Katniss’ cheeks got some extra color. “I’m just kidding. You don’t have to do that. Not saying that I would complain about free advertisements, but really, we would be happy to simply get to use your products.”

He stopped for a moment, gathering the nerve to say what he had been itching to say for a while. “Oh, and I might also be in need of a test taster. Can’t sell products without even knowing if they’re any good, right? My dad has probably never said a critical word in his life so he isn’t the right person for that job.”

Whatever Peeta had expected Katniss to answer to his request, it was not this: “I’ve eaten your cheese buns. And cinnamon rolls. And if those are any indication of what you can create, I highly doubt that you are capable of making anything that tastes bad.”

Did she really just compliment my baking? was all that Peeta could think of, and it took him a while to realize that she was probably expecting him to say something back. The small, shy smile on her face wasn’t really helping him to come up with anything coherent enough.

“I… You would be surprised to know how much trial and error really goes into making new recipes. You should have seen that one time when I thought it’d be a good idea to mix black pepper into a red velvet cake batter. What was worse, my brother accidentally used the peppery layer in a cake that had been ordered for a wedding. The bride wasn’t very happy about it!”

Now Katniss was actually laughing, and it softened the blow of him remembering that his mother’s reaction afterwards had been far from funny. Her voice was soft and bright and it made Peeta’s heart skip a beat.

“Poor thing,” Katniss chuckled. “That must have been quite a surprise.”

“Yep,” Peeta cringed at the memory. “We did luckily have an extra cake in the freezer that only needed to be decorated so they did get a better cake in the end, but the damage was already done. I learned my lesson, though: do not mix black pepper with anything sweet.”

Katniss rested her hand on Peeta’s shoulder for a moment, and that alone made him forget about all the unpleasant thoughts he had had earlier.

“How old were you when that happened?” she asked, more seriously, almost as if she had sensed the negative undertones the story had had despite his attempt to keep his appearance cheerful.

“I think maybe 12-13. I know it sounds young but I had already made plenty of cakes and done decorating at that point.” He shrugged.

“You decorated cookies too,” Katniss said, more of a statement than a question. Peeta wondered if she was thinking about the same thing he was, a memory from years ago.

“I did,” he nodded. Her eyes didn’t leave him for quite a while and it looked like she was about to say something, but then thought better of it.

“So, a test taster?'' She returned to the original topic. “And you think I’d be suitable for that job?”

“Absolutely. I need someone who isn’t afraid to say what they think, and I mean that in the best way possible. Your opinion does mean a lot to me, Katniss.” He gave her a reassuring smile, and she finally relented.

“Alright. Just tell me when you want me to be here.”

…

The next weekend Peeta was bouncing on his heels in the backroom of the bakery as he was waiting for 6 pm, the time Katniss was set to arrive. Since it was almost time for the holidays, he was dressed in a green sweater instead of his usual work attire, and he had also picked one of his nicer pairs of pants and even tried to tame his curly hair a bit beforehand. His brothers had given him a lot of shit for his not so subtle attempt at trying to impress his guest, but he knew that they were actually happy that he was finally taking the chance that he should have taken years ago. Happy enough that Rye had even helped Peeta with some last minute preparations and left the bakery with a wink, promising to stay out of his way. Peeta’s dad was also aware of the test tasting plans and he had only patted encouragingly on his son’s shoulder before closing the door behind him.

Finally, Peeta heard a quiet tap at the backdoor and he got there embarrassingly fast. Behind the door he found a heavily glad Katniss, who seemed to be wearing multiple sweaters under the big leather jacket he was used to seeing on her. Her shoulders were covered in a thin layer of snow from the snowfall outside and her cheeks had gotten some extra color from the cool winter air, so she managed to look even more adorable than usual in Peeta’s eyes as she was standing there in front of him.

“Hi,” she greeted him first.

“Hi. C’mon in. I’m glad you could make it.”

He moved to let Katniss into the bakery, and when she was removing her jacket, the first thing he noticed was that the sweater underneath it was soft orange.

“What? Is something wrong?” Katniss asked when he wouldn’t stop staring.

Peeta shook his head, his lips tugging upwards. “Nothing. I just like the color of your sweater. It reminds me of the sunset.”

Katniss looked down at her sweater and after that took in his outfit. “I guess it kind of does. And I like the green of your sweater. It makes me think of a forest.”

Peeta tried to not look too happy about his successful sweater choice. “Or the plants you grow.”

Once Katniss had left her outdoor clothes on the coat rack, he led her to the big dining table in the middle of the kitchen. “Um, here we have some things for you to taste. I haven't had time to test them myself, but I do promise you that none of them have black pepper in them.”

“Good to know,” Katniss smiled at him, and his heart did something weird again. “I would say that’s a great start.

“So, I thought you could first try the rosemary cheese buns. Sorry, I may have gone a bit overboard with these…” He gestured in the direction of the huge pile of pastries.

“They smell incredible!” Katniss exclaimed, her eyes wide, as she hovered over the freshly made cheese buns. She took one into her small hand and buried her nose into it for a second before taking a small bite. “Oh my god, Peeta! These…” she searched for the right words for a moment, “somehow these are even better than the regular cheese buns!”

Something melted in Peeta’s heart when he saw the contentment on Katniss’ face. “I guess I need to make a note to have cheese buns ready whenever you’re about to visit.” He grinned. “As the creator of the recipe it makes me really happy to hear that you like them”

“Like them? I think I could eat 10 of these at once and not regret it a single bit.” she mumbled while still eating, not even caring there were cheese bun grumps on her sweater. That just made her more endearing in Peeta’s eyes, somehow.

“Good thing you know someone who can make them, then,” he said, entirely incapable of keeping his face straight as he saw her enthusiasm.

They kept chatting while Katniss ate. At first the talk was about more mundane things, such as their old school days, new recipes Peeta still wanted to try and his plans to improve the bakery in the near future. But after Peeta had told Katniss he enjoyed working at the bakery because it allowed him to be creative, she shyly told Peeta about what had originally inspired her to start her own business. When she had been little, both her parents had enjoyed growing their own garden and they had encouraged their daughters to do the same. Her mother had been particularly interested in the medical properties of various herbs and she had been selling them before the accident that took her father’s life changed everything for the Everdeen family. But gardening brought Katniss memories of happier times and she had a natural love for all kinds of plants from being out in the woods so much as a kid, so continuing the work had felt like the right decision after finishing high school. Maybe one day she would manage to save enough money to continue her studies, but for now, she was happy the way she was.

“That makes sense,” Peeta commented. “My mother would have wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer or something like that, but really, I was never that into studying – my favorite subjects were English and arts so those were the only things I could have imagined studying further. I think I knew from pretty early on this is what I wanted to do, and when my mom left a few years ago, that kind of sealed the deal for me… I had nothing stopping me from staying.”

“So you were happy your mom left?” Katniss asked hesitantly.

Peeta nodded. “I think you already have an idea about what kind of person she is. My dad stood her much longer than he should have. What she did… It was more verbal than physical abuse, constant reminders of things I couldn’t do… But sometimes she’d hit us too.”

Katniss’ gaze turned to the gingerbread cookies that were laid on a plate near Peeta. It seemed to be drawn to a very specific cookie: a round one, with a dandelion frosting

“I remember wondering why you had a red cheek once when we were eleven… Did she do that?” She asked, surprising Peeta by stepping closer to him and cradling his cheeks between her hands.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, unable to look into her eyes. He remembered that particular occasion Katniss was referring to all too well.

Instead of saying something like “I’m so sorry”, which was what Peeta usually got when people discovered the real reason for his mother leaving her family behind, Katniss took an entirely different approach. Her voice was quiet and her eyes shone with unshed tears when she said:

“You know… a very kind boy once left me dandelion cookies very similar to those right next to you… Although admittedly, the frosting was a little sloppier, but still, definitely recognizable. It happened during a time when I was this close to just giving up on everything. But that small act of kindness reminded me that there was hope. That no matter how dark things seemed, there was someone who cared. Even if the giver himself didn’t think of his deed as anything huge, it meant a world to me. One time I caught him by my locker, sneaking those cookies in from the small gap on the top, but he left before I had a chance to say anything. I always wished I could thank him for his kindness, but I never seemed to find the right words. But I guess this is as good an opportunity as any, so: thank you. Sincerely.”

“I… I’m glad I could help. But to be honest, I often felt like I should have done more, should have actually talked to you, but I always chickened out… Looks like our thoughts were pretty similar back then.”

“I guess so.” Katniss shrugged, her hand still lingering on his cheek.

“But I suppose it’s never too late to fix our past mistakes,” Peeta whispered.

There was a weird kind of tension in the air between them. Peeta wished he could close the gap between them and just kiss her, but that would certainly just freak her out, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. And so, mainly to stop himself from doing something he’d regret, he put some distance between them, cleared his throat and noted: “You haven’t tried the chocolate cake yet. I saved the best for last!”

“Oh?” Katniss cocked her eyebrow playfully. “Be careful of what you promise. You should know that after the cheese buns my expectations are impossibly high.”

Peeta snorted. “You really liked my buns, huh?” Katniss rolled her eyes at the double entendre. “Sorry, don’t mind me. Would you like something to drink with the cake? Tea? Hot chocolate? Juice?”

“Maybe some tea, please, since the cake already has chocolate in it.”

The pair cut small slices from the cake and Peeta poured them some tea before they sat down to eat. However, Katniss had barely tasted the piece when she started coughing and took a napkin to spit the rest of it out. “Peeta, what’s this?”

Peeta tasted his piece carefully and immediately understood what had happened.

“The frosting… tastes like garlic? Is that on purpose?” Katniss asked.

“I swear I didn’t know about this!” Peeta raised his hands in the air. “I think my lovely brother Rye just paid back for that time when he had to take the blame for the pepper cake. He knew you were coming here and he was helping me before you arrived…”

“What do I have to do with this?” Katniss questioned.

“Nothing,” Peeta rushed to answer before he had to explain to Katniss that his brothers knew about his longtime crush. “Ugh, I really am sorry. I promise I will bake you another cake in the near future and make sure no brothers are nearby to mix the wrong ingredients into it… That is, if you allow it.”

He must have looked miserable because Katniss’ scowl melted into a smile.

“I’ll allow it.”

And suddenly, both of them were laughing so hard that Katniss had to lean against Peeta’s shoulder, and they didn’t stop for several minutes.

“When I said it was going to taste even better than the cheese buns this definitely wasn’t what I had in my mind,” he finally said while swiping the tears of laughter from his cheeks.

“I bet you didn’t,” Katniss grinned, and the weight dropped from Peeta’s heart.

“Here,” he threw her a chocolate ball from a bag Rye had left behind and she caught it. “Something to take the garlic taste from your mouth. I tasted these myself before you arrived so I know they are fine.”

“These are really good,” Katniss commented after popping the chocolate into her mouth. “Tell Rye I might forgive him for the garlic trick if I get a bag of these for free.”

“I will let him know,” Peeta smirked.

The two of them kept eating the chocolate balls, occasionally throwing them into each other’s mouths. Just when Peeta was about to voice a question that had been bothering him the whole night, his dad entered the room. It was only then that Peeta realized how close he was still standing to Katniss.

“Peeta, I wouldn’t interrupt you if it wasn’t important but it seems there’s been some mix up with an order and I need you to check it quickly.”

“Alright,” Peeta sighed. “I’ll be back soon,” he told Katniss before following his dad out of the kitchen.

When he came back, he found Katniss loading their dishes into the dishwasher and humming a Christmas song quietly. When she noticed him, she seemed a bit startled, as if she had been caught doing something wrong, but when Peeta reassured her he had liked her humming, she soon calmed down.

“Actually…” He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to another as he debated if he should really say what he wanted to say next. “I remember you singing in front of our class when we were five. That was the first moment when I really noticed you. Your voice was the prettiest thing I had ever heard… and still is.”

Katniss was quiet for a moment. “Peeta… When you gave me those cookies, why did you do it?”

“Why do you think I did?”

He didn’t have a chance to say anything else when her lips were on his, causing his brain to malfunction entirely. Somehow he still managed to respond to the kiss, not quite able to believe that it was actually happening. The moment was over too soon for his liking, but the feeling of her soft lips still lingered on his when he asked:

“Do you think… there is a chance you would be willing to go out with me some time? And not just for test tasting?

“Yeah. I think I might,” she smiled shyly, and kissed him again.

#everlark #thg #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #my fics

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mjoffic · 4 months

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last minute shopping - eddie munson holiday blurb

I work retail and this popped in my head while refolding a graphic tee table and it's truly just a bunch of fluf and eddie being a cute boi

~ enjoy and happy holidays ~

word count: 1.2k

The holidays. A time focused around family, the reason for the season, cozy sweaters and hot cocoa. Twinkling lights couldn't be missed for miles as every house had some sort of big bulk convenience store decoration. No need for 'frosted windows in a can', oh no, Hawkins was seeing a very white Christmas with snow fall never ending and the chill of the wind cutting through every jacket and parka leaving no survivors behind. The joy was like an electric buzz in the air, only one thing could diminish the feeling.

The Starcourt Mall.

Eddie wasn't the best planner, never had been. Despite this year trying his best to be on top of the holidays he still had yet to get something for Uncle Wayne. With Christmas Day only two days away, it was a scramble for the perfect gift and it was absolute hell trying to get anywhere in the mall.

He could try The Gap? Nah, too pricey.

Maybe a gift certificate to Scoops Ahoy? But when would Wayne ever find the time to use it? He's always working.

Eddie sighed in frustration, running a hand through his mop of curls. He took a moment to look around the area, peeking over the heads of bustling mothers herding their kids to meet Santa, dads sitting on benches with shopping bags galore, teenagers running around the food court with their Orange Julius's sloshing all over the place. This was a nightmare. Slim pickings. Would Wayne be upset over a hand drawn card?

He was near giving up when he spotted Macy's on the far end. It was a department store, and while it seemed busy, it wasn't as congested as the inner workings of the mall. He squeezed his way through and slid through a sliver of space in between two groups of families; one included a mother scolding her husband for losing their credit card, the other group had a child crying over not getting the remote control car on the front table. Eddie pursed his lips, so glad he wasn't in that stage of life just yet.

There seemed to be never ending options for Eddie to look through, he wondered why he hadn't stopped in in the first place. It also made this decision much more difficult. He knew that he would definitely be walking out with something, no doubt, but genuinely the starting point slowly began to stump him and he felt his once eager energy depleting. A three pack of ties? When did Wayne dress up? A mug? Sure, lets add to the hundreds of them adorning the trailer wall. Maybe a fancy glass set? Even if the glasses were on sale, it was definitely out of Eddie's comfort range of spending.

"Well the sign says fifty percent off!"

A screech from an older woman pulled Eddie out of his daze and his attention turned to the scene on his right.

"Ma'am, I understand your frustration, however the sign details specifically to the gift sets. This sweater is on the table, but is signed for thirty percent off."

Eddie shifted his gaze from the woman, red in the face, almost matching her Christmas red sweater, to you. You stood behind a counter, not currently in use to ring up customers, but he noticed a stack of scarves next to you. He assumed you'd been cleaning up. You wore emerald green, very festive, and an elf hat to match. Despite your professional aura, the bell on the end of hat could almost send him into a fit of giggles every time your head even moved an inch.

"I'd be more than happy to show you-" you started, before being interrupted.

"You can show me to your manager! This is false advertising!" the women shouted, drawing a few more eyes into encounter.

"Ma'am, I'll have to ask you to keep from yelling in the store," you responded, face void of emotion. "If you would let me-"

"I'll yell if I want to! This is a free country!"

Eddie watched you take a deep breath, before picking a landline off the counter. You typed quietly while the woman continued her banter. You faked a smile to her before speaking again. "Hi, hey Ron, it's Y/n! Yeah, yeah, doing good, hey listen, would you mind sending security down to gifts? I have a disgruntled customer who refuses to listen. Awesome, thanks so much!"

The womens jaw dropped as you placed the phone back to the receiver, Eddie snickering quietly at this interaction.

"Who do you think you are!" the woman shouted, feigning a hand to her chest dramatically. "Do you know who I am?"

You smiled and shook your head, folding your hands on the counter. "No, ma'am, I don't! However I am the manager of this department and am asking you to remove yourself before security gets here."

The woman stared dumbfounded, slowly backing up from your bubble. Eddie stared in wonder at the interaction, and if he was honestly, completed turned on by your dominance.

"Merry Christmas!" you smiled, waving as the woman moved away from the scene.

Eddie noticed security at the end of the walkway and he shook his head, laughing slightly. Finding the nerve to walk up to you, he leaned softly against the counter and looked to the way in which the Grinch had left. "I think that was better than any of those movies playing in the theater right now."

You looked to him when he had approached, and smirked a bit at his words. "I try. Gotta keep some sort of sanity in this place."

"I get it, it's a madhouse in here," Eddie nodded, giving his best smile before extending his hand. "Eddie."

Your smirk simmered into a smile and you shook his hand back, nodding. "Y/n."

"Well, Y/n, I'm wondering if you might be of some use to me," he said, straightening back up.

"Oh?" you questioned, crossing your arms.

"Yeah, I mean, you are the manager of this department," Eddie said. "I'm in the works for the perfect gift."

"Ah," you nodded, stepping out from around the counter and glancing around your section. "Mom? Sibling? Girlfriend?"

Eddie stifled a laugh and he slowly followed beside you. "Uh, no mom. No siblings. And no girlfriend."

Your face erupted in pink and you stumbled over your words. "Oh, um, I'm sorry, I just assumed-"

"Hey, hey," Eddie grinned. "All good here. I'm shopping for my uncle, wanna try to find him something nice. Not much of a budget but I figured I'd find something on sale."

You felt your panic subside and sat a cool hand against your cheek, the heat subsiding. "Well, I'm sure we can find something perfect for him! Maybe something for you? Doesn't hurt to treat yourself sometimes."

Eddie pursed his lips a little bit and dug his hands in his pockets, following slightly behind you. He watched the way the bell of your hat jingled with every step you took. You arms slightly swayed when you walked, and you barely made a sound when taking a step. He began to notice the little things, and started to quietly thank the stars he'd came into the mall after all.

"I think I already have."

#stranger things #eddie stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #christmas #xmas #holidays #eddie munson blurb #blurb #managerreader #yeehaw #i thought this was cute

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camlannpod · 2 months

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Character Playlist: Gwen (Shújūn) Liu

Number four in our character playlist series, this time for episode 4, which is focused on our beloved Gwen / Shújūn. Like the other playlists for Dai, Morgan and Perry, I'll be going through track by track and talking a bit more about Gwen's character and why I included these specific songs. Enjoy!

1.Mirror Mirror by Juniper Vale

Followed me into a dream And twirled me out of time Down a trail of twisted tales That mythemized my mind All my memories they ring a bell But taper with each toll Mirror, mirror who am I now? I don't know

Like everyone, Gwen is struggling with identity in this apocalypse. Especially as a woman who grew up in Hong Kong and is now stranded in the UK, with no way to know what's happened to her friends and family, being judged and shaped by a British story, she's being pulled in a lot of different directions at once. For her, it feels like a very strange waking dream. She's probably the most Alice in Wonderland character in the series.

2. Paper Mache by Iris Lune

I almost lost everything I got to this Scratch at my soul, I clench my fist Counting the lights on my way out There is no time to lose, must replay the scene

Fundamentally Gwen is a survivor. She was alone in a monster-infested wilderness for far too long, and as to what happened to the other survivors she was with? It wasn't pretty. Gwen is the definition of that quote about hope being covered in blood and mud and getting up again anyway.

3. Eastward of Eden by Amelia Day

Our children, they spread to outnumber the stars Oh, Eastward of Eden, where day turns to dark Dark Leave it all, leave it all, leave it all behind

The world ended. And again, Gwen in particular feels lost in an alien and foreign landscape, completely disconnected from the world she knew. She has family in the UK - aunts and cousins, but she only moved to Leicester for university. Now she's 6,000 miles from Hong Kong and trapped, forced to forge a new path for herself with no one there to help her. And on top of all of that, she's inherited this strange, massive power that influences her interactions with everything and everyone she meets.

4. All Things Devour by aeseaes

worms and spiders spin inside her like the story make me holy this thing all things devours

Gwen, like the others in the gang with Names, has a very conflicted relationship with Guinevere. She sees the name as a tool, a weapon in her arsenal that's helped her survive. But she's also painfully aware that she's dancing with fire, and she's seen the ways that her Name puts her and the people she loves in danger, too. She worries that one day she'll put the costume on and not be able to take it off.

5. Sad Forever by Lauv

'Cause lately, I've been in the backseat to my own life Trying to take control, but I don't know how to I don't wanna be sad forever I don't wanna be sad no more I don't wanna wake up and wonder What the hell am I doing this for?

Gwen is a woman whose actions speak louder than words. She has to be careful around Perry, Morgan and Dai because she's a stranger and she needs the shelter they offer. But privately, she's determined not to give into fear or despair, despite all the grief and horror she's suffered. She's so frustrated by the way she's being pulled around this apocalypse like a puppet, and she's determined to take the reins.

6. Only Lonely by The Ballroom Thieves

She knows I have a tendency I make mountains out of stones And with that timber, burn a hundred fires

The first time they meet, Morgan brings Gwen back to reality. Morgan's stubbornness, her directness and her anger help snap Gwen out of the daydream of the story and back into reality. Gwen finds Morgan fascinating, and funny, and grounding like nothing and no one else she's ever met. Whenever Gwen is scared of getting lost in the clouds and being unable to come back, Morgan anchors her.

7. On Board by Alana Henderson

I'll be the figurehead On your ship's bow I'll be the last glimpse of a topsail As we go down I'll be waiting on the seabed Repeating the words Don't forget (you said), ships were not built to be safe

Gwen is maybe more conscious than Morgan of how explosive and dangerous to both of them their closeness can be - the way that others might see it as a threat, the way their own stories might react in ways they can't predict. And despite this, despite knowing that Morgan is an objectively dangerous woman to her, Gwen can't help but be drawn to her.

8. Throw Me in the Water by WILD

Pushin' away Only gets me closer Fallin' fast Can we move it slower?

Morgan is not good at creating relationships. Gwen is amazing at making new friends, and Gwen can see all the ways that Morgan prickles and pushes her away. Gwen chooses to ignore the spiky armour Morgan wears. If anything, she finds it an interesting challenge. Morgan is the wild untamed stallion and Gwen is the horse girl in this movie. Gwen desperately wants to untangle the knot that Morgan is and see what lies underneath, again, despite all the danger that presents.

9. We Will All Be Changed by Seryn

We look for home, but we'll never know Distance will grow, but I'll always know

What happened to Hong Kong and her dad, Kai, is a huge unanswered question that lingers over Gwen's head every day, this unresolved grief that she has to get up every day and live with. But she keeps going, in the hope that one day she'll answer it.

#gwen liu #Shújūn Liu #camlann #camlann podcast #we're gonna pretend that this was on time it's fiiiiine

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annasinterests · 10 months

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don't look at me like that unless you mean it

prologue

|| series masterlist || main masterlist ||

a/n: i am VERY excited and nervous to finally be posting on tumblr after having it since like,, 2014,, which is embarrassing as hell to admit.. but fuck it we ball! anyways, here is my first ever fic i'm sharing on this platform. i tend to write up a lot of things but have always been too intimidated to post them, so this is me trying to get over that! also, please know that this piece is completely optional. i only wrote it to give context on the relationship reader and joel have, plus ellie as well, but you absolutely can skip past it if that's not your cup of tea, or check back in later once i post more chapters! also, please bear with me as i get used to posting and including all the necessary tags and warnings & whatnot.

word count: 2.7k

pairings: joel miller x f!reader

warnings & tags: minors dni, swearing, mentions of violence & death, canon events, strangers to friends, friends to lovers? (we'll find out), slowburnish, pining, age gap (14-ish yrs) — please tell me if i missed anything!

You'd been at each other's side for nearly seventeen years, first meeting when you arrived in the Boston QZ almost eight years after outbreak day. To say you were a hardened survivor was putting it lightly; you had endured every unimaginable loss possible. Tragedy became a constant companion of yours as you lost beloved friends and family, and you grew to know nothing but anger and violence.

At first, you thought nothing of him. He was just your neighbor across the hall, coming and going at all different points throughout the day and night. Another face in the sea of struggling people. Your paths occasionally crossed during the same shift of the same shitty jobs FEDRA assigned for a cruel amount of ration cards. You'd exchange brief nods every so often, and on the rare occasion, a mutter that was only decipherable as a greeting.

On a chance encounter beyond the walls of the QZ, you ran into him with another woman during one of your smuggling runs. You had frozen, with no indication of the kind of people they were, they could've either kept it to themselves or reported you, essentially sentencing you to death. Thankfully, a higher power had been on your side that day as the woman had concluded you weren't a threat to them, simply giving you a nod before they carried on. It was a subtle understanding that passed around you three. You worry about your business, and I'll worry about mine.

Things shifted after that.

The more you would see them, either together or separately, the more of a connection began to form. It started off small– bowing your heads at one another in passing, giving the faintest of smiles. Notes would be slipped under your door from time to time with a tip regarding stashed goods or potential dangers within the QZ and outside of it. It would be signed off by 'Tess' or 'Joel', with Tess being the more frequent sender. In return, you'd do the same, leaving helpful tips and sometimes doubling what they had left for you.

It graduated to in-person visits, primarily initiated by Tess. Joel kept his distance for the most part, despite literally living across the hall. That didn't mean that his lingering gaze went unnoticed by you, though.

Over the next twelve years, you banded together as a trio. Trust was one of the rarest commodities to come across, and you had found it in one another. Over time, your walls had come down, and you shared parts of yourself that had been long buried for years. You’d engaged in casual conversations, tactical strategies, and even light-hearted banter at times.

Smuggling operations became a team effort, though often it left you to work with Joel alone. Tess would go off on her own for recon, utilizing her expertise and connections to gather vital information, also because she was way more likely to be reciprocated in her efforts compared to Joel. Nonetheless, you formed a formidable duo, working seamlessly together to navigate the dangers when they presented themselves.

There became an unspoken understanding between you and Joel that communicated in volumes. You developed a rhythm, anticipating each other's moves and providing support when it was needed the most. A dynamic that had set your relationship apart from Tess.

Through the long nights, you both shared snippets of your lives before the outbreak. He spoke of growing up in Texas, the memories of a time when life was normal and filled with simple pleasures, like playing guitar. He mentioned a distant brother, Tommy, who was somewhere out west. He'd worked as a contractor, though dreamed of building something of his own. He spoke with a hint of regret, remembering the long hours he worked while still struggling to make ends meet. Reluctantly, he'd even shared the fact that he had a daughter, though he hardly said her name or other details. The most you learned was that he had a daughter, and then he didn't.

You enlightened him about how you lived a calm life. You grew up in the mountains, which explained your affinity for nature, and you found solace in music. You had both your parents and a brother, who was your closest ally. If one of you were doing something, the other tagged along with no questions asked. It was a month in to your last year of high school when outbreak day came along, forever fucking up your life. You recounted the graphic and harrowing moments of loss, the pain of watching your loved ones fall one by one in the span of two years. The next four years were spent traveling alone in search of a place to close your eyes without fearing that something was coming for you, whether it was alive or dead. Through whispers on the road, you heard of the Boston QZ, one of the remaining zones that retained enough stability. You didn't believe it, deeming it as something that was too good to be true after the world had been so cruel to you, but what else did you have to lose?

You still carried on your work the same, but it was clear that your relationship had shifted once again, this time more personally. He looked at you differently, like he was truly seeing you in a way no one else ever had. It showed in the way his voice was softer when he spoke to you and became overall more attentive towards you. He'd stop by your place more often, either sticking around for a few minutes or several hours. But it was in moments of vulnerability that spoke to the depth of your relationship. When you suffered serious injuries that left you barely conscious, he was there without hesitation. With gentle hands and meticulous care, he'd clean and patch you up, letting you rest your weary body against his for however long you needed.

You couldn't deny the growing affection in your heart for him by the frequent moments in which you felt a closeness that went beyond friendship. There was an unspoken intimacy, a silent understanding of the uncharted territory your hearts were treading, saying stay with me, and, why wouldn't i?

Insert Ellie into your lives. A young, electrifying girl from the Fireflies, a group you'd come to loathe.

You three had been on your way to find Robert, the dickbag that sold your guns, when you got caught in a scuffle between FEDRA and the Fireflies, being forced to flee and take an alternate route, leading you right to Marlene, Queen Firefly, as you liked to call her. Upon discovering she had your guns, she proposed an exchange: Smuggle a girl out of the QZ for the guns. You and Joel scoffed at the idea, immediately wanting to call it off, but somehow, someway, Tess convinced you both to go forward with it.

She was everything you expected her to be at first; unaware and a liability. She eyed you three cautiously, not really okay with the idea of leaving Marlene, but not having another option to go with either. In pushing towards the capitol, you reminded her of what felt like every five minutes to stay down, stay quiet, and do exactly as told as Tess led and Joel trailed behind.

After several attacks and encounters with infected, the true reason was revealed as to why Marlene needed the fourteen-year-old smuggled out: She was immune to infection. Even after the girl's explanations of finding a cure in a lab out west, you shook with laughter in disbelief. How many times had you heard this shit before? Tess, seemingly the only one to believe her, executively decided to push forward, earning disconcerted looks from you and Joel.

You couldn't have said you were surprised when you turned up to the empty capitol, the Fireflies once again proving how they were fucking unreliable as always. Your smugness quickly turned to mild panic as Tess began to have a meltdown, ultimately confessing her bite that made time stop ticking for you. Fuck.

It had been sixteen years since you last lost someone you cared about in the same way, your ability to react and process was nonexistent, so you just stood and stared as if it would disappear. With FEDRA looming beyond the doors, Tess had urged you both to take Ellie and find Tommy, find a way to get her to that damned lab.

So that's what you did.

The first few months were rough on all three of you. You faced infected, as expected, but it was harder to deal with each other more than anything. Ellie tried to find where she stood with you and Joel, wanting to help at every turn but keeping her head down to stay out of the way. You respected how she held her own and didn't take shit from Bill when stopping through his town, and how she handled losing people as quickly as she met them, like Sam and Henry. Despite her efforts, you often found Joel not letting up, only praising her once in a blue moon.

You realized it wasn't so bad after all, being with Ellie. She had spirit and faith, traits you hadn't seen someone possess in quite some time. In her presence, you found yourself rediscovering the capacity for joy and laughter, something that had felt distant and unattainable for far too long. You watched as she got to see and experience things in her life for the first time, like walking through forests; things that you had taken for granted. Her needs, before a burden, had now become a responsibility you willingly tended to, making sure she was the first to eat, drink, and sleep at all times. Each night, you watched her drift off, knowing she was protected by you and Joel and catching a feeling of a profound sense of purpose.

Stumbling into Tommy and his crew wasn't the reunion that you hoped for when fall rolled around. Ellie and Joel's relationship had taken a turn when she caught wind of him wanting to leave her with Tommy, figuring that he could do a better job, though you disagreed. Consequently, it led to her and Joel getting into an argument while you and Tommy awkwardly lingered outside of an abandoned ranch house. And though you were outside, you could still hear bits and pieces, finally hearing the name of Joel's daughter and understanding the pain that shaped his actions towards Ellie.

Upon coming to Eastern Colorado University weeks later, the Fireflies once again proved to be unreliable in staying in a fucking singular location. While you found scattered recordings that indicated them to be in Utah, you also found yourselves caught between hunters and infected, leading to yet another one of the traumatizing moments in your life: Joel falling off a second story and being impaled in the abdomen by a jagged piece of rebar. You and Ellie had managed to defend yourselves while also protecting Joel, talking to him through gritted teeth and coaxing him to move, repeating the words like a mantra.

The winter had been particularly cruel that year, leaving you short on food. You and Ellie had eventually found shelter in an abandoned lake house, securing Joel and carefully tending to him for the following weeks. Deep down, you knew Joel's body couldn’t continue fighting sepsis without proper medicine, and the thought of him dying brought you to near tears. While out hunting alone, you had run into two men. They’d traded you medicine for the deer, but not without leaving you with the eerie fact that they knew you, and knew you killed their men back at the university. You had fled back to Joel and Ellie as quickly as possible, sticking the syringe in him with shaky hands as you urgently warned her to be ready to face danger once again.

Your gut instinct had been right as the next morning you had heard the sound of people nearby, scrambling to tell Ellie to stay with Joel while you led them away and strictly emphasizing that she was not to leave. As you lured off and killed a few hunters, they unfortunately bested you, knocking you out cold and dragging you back to their settlement. You had woken up in a makeshift cage, with your weapons gone and zipties bounding your hands and feet together, as David watched you from afar, speaking to you in a tone that drastically contrasted the words he spoke. You fought through the grogginess, your mind was only set on one thing: Finding Ellie and Joel, alive. Discreetly, you had broken out of the restrictions and kicked out the gate, grabbing the broken chain and slinging it at him as you escaped.

You hid in abandoned storefronts and evaded your enemies, silently taking down the ones that drew too close with makeshift weapons and leaving a trail of bodies in your wake. The harsh snowfall made it all the more challenging, obscuring your vision and forcing you to rely on your sense of sound. When you went to strike at another body, you were caught off-guard as strong hands seized your wrists and pinned you against the wall. At the realization that it was Joel pressed against you, tears brimmed in your eyes as you threw your arms around him, thanking whatever higher power there was for bringing him back to you.

Together, you had found Ellie in a burning restaurant, rushing in to see her hacking away at David. Joel ripped her away from him, her cries and pleads tearing you apart. You fell to your knees as she wept out, taking her into your arms as Joel held the both of you, smoothing her hair and whispering soothing reassurances. It was in that moment that you realized that you and Joel had become more than just a guardian for this young girl. There was an understanding that you both would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

A feeling of disappointment had set in when Ellie declined Joel's offer to go back to Jackson after arriving in Salt Lake City. After what she had gone through, you saw that she felt an obligation to finish what brought you all together in the first place. While navigating through flooded streets, you were faced with rescuing and resuscitating both Joel and Ellie as they became trapped underwater and falling unconscious, the moments blurring together all too fast before you'd been knocked out by two Fireflies from behind.

You had woken up to Joel in a hospital bed next to you, along with Marlene. The Fireflies had set up base at the St. Mary's Hospital, not too far from where you were clocked. Through Marlene you learned that Ellie had been okay, but was immediately taken in for surgery. When you had asked how the procedure would play out, Marlene hesitantly explained that Ellie's brain was at the center of it all, and you had put the pieces together that it all pointed towards death. Both you and Joel grew angry and had protested that another way had to be possible, but of course, Marlene disregarded and ordered for your leave.

What followed in that hospital became yet another turning point in your relationship, not only with Joel, but Ellie too. You were both aware that once you killed the first person in your way, that there was no going back.

And nothing made more sense.

Not a living soul made it out of that hospital except for you, Joel, and Ellie. The chance couldn't be taken that you'd be tracked or followed. So, you returned to Jackson in one piece, and held a secret that only strengthened your bond to each other.

You had moved into the last house on Rancher Street, a decent sized home with a separate garage and fenced in yard. Joel took up the bigger bedroom upon your insistence, and the garage converted to a space designed just for Ellie. You found work in patrol, with Joel and Tommy, and administration by Maria’s side.

It undoubtedly marked a new chapter; no more traveling, no more searching, no more sleeping with one eye open. You had food, clothes, and a roof over your head, in a thriving community, moreover.

Everything had fallen into place, just like it was supposed to.

And you, Joel, and Ellie were finally safe.

Right?

if you read this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart! i hope you'll continue to stick around for their story. feedback is appreciated <3 y'all have a lovely day!

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fic #tlou #the last of us #tlou fanfiction #annasmasterlist #annawrites

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delucadarling · 6 months

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:D directors commentary on your lovely Wayhaven regency au? (I've been meaning to ask if you have a masterlist of those entries at all, because I'm not sure I caught all of them and the Tumblr search wasn't working! No worries if not!)

Oo, oh man I've barely thought about the regency au in a minute (I chalk that up to Emma and I having busted through Bridgerton months ago). Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of masterlist of that fic, though iirc there's only 5 parts posted at the moment. They'll all be on my writing blog, @delucadarlingwriting under the tag 'regency au'. Making a masterlist of fic wouldn't be a bad idea though 🤔

Commentary down below!

I'll start with some backstory from part 1:

So, I'm sure I've mentioned before, but this is not really historical fanfiction. I'm doing some baseline research, but I am also deliberately twisting certain things, like racism, homophobia, xenophobia...lots of a 'phobias u kno. They don't not exist, but they are more or less not present among the majority of people. It's only the upper class that gives those things much thought, because they're rich bastards obsessed with their own bloodlines and being better than other people based on arbitrary standards. You get the gist.

Patriarchy is still very present, and Barbie and Lucas' mother (and father before he beefed it) were very invested in upholding that. Their mom in my version of canon is a fundie boy mom, and that translates pretty well to this au. She's obsessed with Lucas, especially now that he's the Earl. Barbie is...there. Something the be bragged about in company and to complain about in private. Kira, despite being the ward of the Peachtree house, manages to escape most of the complaining. Barbie's mom most just ignores her.

Another thing here is Lucas and Kira are both gay, but because of their status in life, they can't be open about it. Kira isn't even fully aware at this point, but it won't take much for her to realize why men don't interest her. Barbie is still bi, but her preferences have always leaned masculine, which means she doesn't have a lot of opportunities to realize she's attracted to women as well.

From part 2:

Again, this is an AU that @crownleys and I work on together, so Rebecca is Kira's mom. I don't remember if I've mentioned it anywhere else, but the way we've had it, is Rebecca was not part of high society before marrying Rook. She was a working woman within the Agency, which was socially appropriate for someone of her station. However, once she and Rook fell in love, there was stiffling pressure to change herself. Rook himself never asked her to change, and even offered to retreat from high society entirely. So for a time they did.

Then Rook died. Rebecca maintained his wealth and the title she married into. She had no other support though, so she tried to re-enter society. It went so poorly that she gave it all up, including her high born daughter, so she could go back to what she was before meeting Rook. In her mind, this gave Kira the best chance at a good, safe life, while also allowing Rebecca to escape her grief.

With Murphy targeting people within the ton though, Rebecca has no choice but to use her unwanted place in society to track him down.

I can't really think of much else I had in mind while writing this! It was a very fun little series to play with, and I do want to add more to it with time, but I do suspect it will be a perpetual WIP. If we ever get Bridgerton season 3, that'll probably be what sparks my desire to revive it.

#darling speaks #ask meme #thanks for the ask!

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saintreinettewrites · 10 months

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Writeblr (Re)Introduction!

Hello! I'm Luke (30, he/him), and this is my writing blog (aka Writeblr). This is a sideblog, so I interact from @yamiunicorn. I am looking to interact with other writers, especially other poets and YA authors!

I've been known to say that I'm a poet by nature and an author by trade. My poetry is at times gruesome, usually visceral, and always straight from the heart.

My original fiction tends to jump around between a few different worlds (from what I lovingly refer to as the Luke Extended Universe). Most of my original fiction at least somewhat loosely falls into the category of high fantasy. Some of my WIPs include:

Valkyrie's Moon. Edvin's family and village were destroyed by the dragon Njalur when he was only twelve winters old. He was then adopted by the warrior Aksel, Thrudhall's former Lord Valkyrie. Once Thrudhall's greatest asset in their war against the dragons, Aksel was forced into retirement after sustaining injuries in his final clash with Njalur. Wanting revenge on Njalur, Edvin trains beneath Aksel in the hopes of becoming Thrudhall's next Lord Valkyrie. Little does he know, Aksel is hiding something from him, and, perhaps worse, Thrudhall's leadership is hiding something even bigger from its own citizens.

Vision of Wings. Dag, a disillusioned "shieldmaiden," has received prophetic visions from Loki since childhood. They then meet Baldric, a captured amnesiac who also shares a strange connection to the gods. Dag and Baldric embark on a journey from Midgard to Jotunheim in search of clues that could lead them back to Baldric's past, but the further they stray from home, the more ominous their tale becomes.

Riltan Steel Saga. A series of stories taking place on Rilta, a continent in a fictional world inhabited by mortals and magical entities alike. These stories are organized by era and currently fall into the following (chronological) order:

Stiletto. A tragic romance between Ruuntaka's Prince Rancor and his witch consort Mana. Their happily-ever-after is foiled by a jealous nobleman, who sets off a chain of events that leads to witchcraft being outlawed in Ruuntaka -- by punishment of death or exile to the frozen wastes of the northern territory known as Cibere.

Urumi. Takes place during the height of Ruuntaka's ban on witchcraft. A young witch named Han comes to serve as Princess Kelta's attendant, with the two of them concealing his magic until adulthood -- before their world falls apart when he accidentally commits murder in an act of self-defense.

Morningstar. Georg, a Kielan necromancer seeking a cure for his wife Rokiste's terminal illness, meets a phoenix named Ravenna who has taken a human form. Ravenna and her witch husband Miedo both grow attached to Georg, and their families end up blending together until they become indistinguishable from one another.

Saber. An untrained Ruuntakan witch named Tenken comes of age in a world that, despite progress in the right direction, still hates him for what he is. When the Ciberean necromancer Miedo threatens to tear even that world asunder, he and the friends he has finally made have to stand up to protect Ruuntaka from invasion -- and, presumably, destruction.

Labrys. Ruuntaka's Prince Kailus is the son of the nation's witch King Tenken and half-phoenix Queen Bianca, but his physical disability and chronic pain make it nearly impossible for him to use his magic, let alone transform. Enter his new tutor, Xel -- a woman from Kiel who is meant to train him in all things kingly so that he will be prepared to inherit the throne. Xel, however, is not who she claims to be, and Agony, the sister of the woman she killed, is prepared to do anything to seek her revenge.

Claymore. A demon doctor named Argos and his mortal husband Isrun work as bounty hunters, of a sort. Their main targets? Angels, who, as literal pieces of the goddess Asha, are more powerful than any human witch. Argos and Isrun adopt a half-angel girl named Airin, and she helps them find purpose beyond their shared hunt.

Pistol. Rewar, an angel who has killed countless phoenixes and unicorns, goes further than any of his siblings in their holy mother's name, siring thirteen half-human children whom he intends to use to conquer Kiel before moving on to the rest of the world. One of Rewar's sons, Jean, escapes his clutches and is instead raised by his human mother, Gwen, who hides him in a convent of the Order of the Lady of Cerberus -- an organization dedicated to protecting humankind from Asha and her angels.

Anyway! Thank you for stopping by, and, as always, have a safe journey.

#writeblr intro #poetry #original fiction #vision of wings #riltan steel saga #valkyrie's moon

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starlightsoulwriting · 2 years

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Ghost-blood//Revenant: 2

Khonshu, Marc Spector, Steven Grant x Fem!Reader

Maybe some Layla x Reader later if you guys are as Bi as I am

AO3

Chapter List, Including Prologue

Rating: PG-13/T, for cursing and later violence

Warnings: None

Summary: Steven meets a certain someone at the museum.

A/N: Being an Art Courier is a real job, and it's really cool! My dad met one on a plane during a business trip, and that's the only reason I know it exists. So thanks to That Guy for making this meet-cute chapter happen lol.

“C’mon, Scotty, I told you they’re getting the new pieces set up in there.” J.B. sighed as he looked at Steven, getting his name wrong for the nth time and simultaneously crushing his hopes.

“The memo said employees could watch if they wanted to.” He gives the security guard an uneven smile while gesturing to the sign and ropes stating that the exhibit’s currently closed while the new displays are unpacked and installed. “I’m an employee.”

“I’m pretty sure they just meant the curators and such, but have at it.” J.B. shrugged, but unhooked the rope anyway. “Seems boring to me, bruv.”

“Well… that’s your opinion.” Steven muttered awkwardly even as shoulders slumped with relief that he hadn’t come in off-shift for nothing, and hurried into the room just to find it unexpectedly quiet despite the crowd, an increased security detail and a number of guides and curators surrounding the perimeter of the room, all staring tensely at the knee-high crate in the center of the room that hadn’t yet been opened as the curators surveyed it for any signs of damage, little clipboards in their hands as other set up a variety of tools and trays on a little other off to the right, and still others exchange paperwork and cheek kisses over laughter.

So he hadn’t missed it!

He shuffled his way as close as he could without intruding on the wide bubble surrounding the team that included the head Egyptology Curator and -

And a woman that gave off an aura unlike anyone he’d ever seen, wearing a multicolored, fine-woven scarf around her neck, held together by an intricate golden scarab pin, feathered wings outstretched wide to either side. Her hair lit up from behind because of the extra lights brought in for the job, making her look otherworldly, like a halo forming around her. An angel.

An overwhelming wave of mixed emotions hit Steven all at once, something familiar and warm and longing overtaking his chest at the same time as a horrible, throbbing ache. That alone was nearly enough to make his step falter, but - “Don’t go anywhere near her, worm.”

Truth be told, he let out a girlish, embarrassing scream as his left foot landed wrong and he couldn’t catch himself in time to stop him from eating tile.

…Silence interspersed with chuckling was all he heard for several moments.

“Are you okay?” Gentle hands lifted his shoulder from the ground as he groaned, pain radiating through his face, even though his hands took the brunt of the impact, stinging in the back of his head. Though, the last dregs of his morning tea had been splattered over the glossy floor, almost to the feet of the installation crew.

Except for the pair of comfortable-looking shoes that rested in the spillage, right in front of his nose as the owner helped him up.

Oh. It was her. As if he wasn’t blushing enough.

“Yeah,” he said weakly, the word half-way lodged in his throat. “Good thing the crate wasn’t open yet, yeah? I heard from Teresa you have one of the only intact depictions of the Daughter of Neith?”

“Well, they’re safe and wrapped up in plastic, but yeah,” She graced him with a cheeky chuckle as she pulled him to standing, nodding to one of the people around her to get a towel or something. She smiled at him, and his heart sped up in his chest. “Wouldn’t have been good if I’d been inspecting them.”

“You’re the handler?” His breath stopped. "So you've studied Egyptian art at a real university, then?"

God, he wanted to pick her brain so bad.

She nodded, head lifting in slight pride. "Yup. Two Masters from Columbia." Her face dropped slightly and she looked at him apologetically. "I do need you to take a few steps back though."

The words brought him back to himself much the same way ice poured over his head would. "Right. Sorry, you must be busy."

"No problem." She shook her head and patted him on the shoulder. "It's not your fault you fell." She leaned in conspiratorially, tone laced with humor. "Darn invisible rocks just don't know when to get out of the way, do they?"

"Oh, yeah, never." At least it sounded less like she was making fun of him and more like she was trying to make him feel more comfortable. "Out to get me, really."

“You can call me Iris.” She giggled at his response, telling him a name that didn’t match the one on her visitor's badge. Iris. As in the Greek goddess of rainbows? "Talk to you more later?"

!!!!

"What, me?" You plonker. "I mean sure. Totally. I'm Steven. With a V."

Oh, stuff it, she doesn’t care how you spell your name!

She gave him a cute wave goodbye, other hand happily flapping at her side before she turned to return to her work.

The rest of the unpacking and installation went smoothly after Iris took the crowbar and cracked open the crate herself, taking out each of the stone tablets with delicate touches and gloved hands, inspecting each carefully for signs of transit damage, a sweet smile overtaking your face as she told the assistant next to her that they were in the same condition as when they left New York.

It took only a little while longer for the curators to set up the displays in the center of the room, on a pedestal that allowed guests to see both the front and the back.

The room broke out in applause when they lowered the glass, and declared them officially installed.

He tried not to be crushed in the small crowd that encircled the new arrivals, instead waiting in the wings of the room as Iris laughed and playfully shoved at her crew.

A bit of him welled up with envy - at the ability to relax and socialize so easily with people he’d never met. He had half a mind to just leave right then and there, the ache of loneliness settled in long ago driving him to want to hide in his flat once more. After all, why would she want to talk to him anyway? She was probably just being polite. She seemed busy.

Still, his feet wouldn’t move, even as he shuffled his weight awkwardly from one to another.

Wait, she’s walking over to him, why was she walking over to him?

And she smiled wide, and his breath halted in his lungs.

“Why don’t I buy you some more tea and we can talk some more? I have another few days in London until I get shipped back home, mind if I pick your brain for some good spots?”

How is this happening? He could only nod. “Not at all. I don't mind some brain picking.” He cringed at his phrasing but your lips just lifted wryly. “There's this place around the corner from here that has good pastries…”

“Well, then, lead the way~” She gave him a theatrical bow and held her elbow out for him to grab.

“I told you to stay away.” He gingerly gripped the crook of her elbow, jumping as the deep voice in his head returned, an unnatural wind flowing through the halls of the museum and ruffling at his hair, and even worse when they stepped outside, but Iris didn’t seem to care, simply placing herself between him and the brunt of it.

Well, mysterious voice, you can stuff it. He thought, an unfamiliar tang of spite and rebellion coursing through him.

I’ve got a date with the pretty art courier.

Don't forget to comment/reblog if you liked it! It helps a lot!

Things might slow down a bit as my summer classes start, but I'll still be working on it :)

#moon knight x reader #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #khonshu x reader #marvel x reader #x reader #fanfiction #my writing #reader insert #ghost-blood

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sebastianshaw · 1 year

Text

Since there wasn’t IC content, have a lil thing I worked on earlier this week summarizing Shaw and Maddie’s relationship in the 90s and my thoughts about it! Ok so if you don’t know who M.adelyne P.ryor is (shame on you!) she’s probably been done more dirty than like…anyone else at Marvel. I cannot fucking BEGIN to get into what happened to her before this, but basically she died horribly in the 80s as an insane villain (not her fault, every writer EVER since seems to forget she was acting under demonic influence she’d been infected with, she didn’t just turn evil DESPITE EVERYTHING I always need to note this) Ok so. N.ate G.rey, the test tube (literally) baby of Jean and Cyclops from Ag.e of Apocalypse, arrives in 616, the Marvel mainstream comics universe. He’s alone in a new world and needs a friend. His psyche subconsciously seeks out the mother he never knew, and instead finds Maddie’s ghost on the astral plane, yanks her out, and jams her in a new telekinetically-constructed body he created ALL WITHOUT HIS REALIZING HE’S DOING IT. And Maddie doesn’t realize he did it either. In fact, she comes back with complete amnesia. All she knows is her name is M.adelyne P.ryor, and she’s drawn to Nate. So she finds him immediately and they become traveling companions.

But! Alas! Madelyne is once more led astray by dark forces who wish to use her for their own wicked purposes! This time, however, it’s Selene, Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. She lures Maddie away from Nate, and Maddie lives with her for awhile (and her cute French maid Ella). Then, Maddie discovers that Selene is actually a soul-sucking mutant vampire sorceress with an absolute PILE of bodies in the attic. . .and she takes it pretty well, which is Selene’s cue that she’s made the right choice in taking Ms. Pryor on as a protege. The next step is introducing her to the Hellfire Club as a potential Inner Circle recruit. This is where she meets Shaw for the first time, and here’s what’s interesting— He immediately knows she’s NOT Jean, without Selene or Maddie or anyone needing to say so. Now, Shaw KNOWS damn well what Jean Grey looks like, his first story is all about him leading the HFC in brainwashing her. Yet when he sees Maddie, he calls her an “unknown being” and does not remark on her resemblance to Jean at all. And when he kisses her hand in the image shown, he makes reference to Inferno, which MADDIE caused (well, her and Yana). He immediately not only knows shes NOT Jean, he also judges her on her own deeds immediately too. Now, that makes sense, given Shaw’s very individualist nature, of course he looks at her deeds as an individual, but how does he KNOW SHE’S NOT JEAN? Thematically, it’s probably, again, to emphasize he sees her as her own person (he NEVER compares her to Jean even ONCE in their relationship, not even in thought, it literally never crosses his mind that we’re ever shown) but in-universe, what gave it away? Well, maybe writer oversight, but I like to think maybe he’s just got a weird talent for picking out clones, shapeshifters, etc.

Now, Maddie still is amnesiac at this point, but she’s already attracted to Shaw, and I think that’s probably BECAUSE of how immediately he clearly sees her as HER. She might not consciously REMEMBER being constantly compared to Jean by everyone, including her husband, but I bet it’s there subconsciously. Anyway, she has a trial to become the Black Rook by doing battle with the Red Rook from the London Branch, she not only wins but pulls Mountjoy (a mutant possessing the Red Rook) out of the other woman’s body, which was nice of her. So anyway, maybe it’s because she senses she’s being used by Selene and doesn’t appreciate it, maybe she thinks Shaw’s big old hairy body is just that hot, but she starts cozying up to him on his yacht. Very, very closely cozying. Shaw seems fine with this—WHY WOULD HE NOT BE—nicknaming her “Spitfire” (he calls her this a few more times in their time together iirc and I think that’s really cute actually) and putting a blanket over her shoulders, which, considering her outfit, is really considerate. Shaw has done one (1) nice thing in his life. But Maddie, as you can see, has other things on her mind—namely, her past!

Suspicious of the woman who caused Inferno suddenly cuddling up to her master, Shaw’s personal assistant Tessa (who is actually a deep cover double agent for Xavier but that wouldn’t be revealed til the 2000s) went on a little telepathic rummage through Maddie’s mind during the night, and ended up accidentally unlocking Maddie’s memories. So, Maddie’s got a LOT to think about now, and despite her attraction to Shaw, she decides to go back to Nate. But she runs into Threnody first, who is the new lady Nate picked up in her absence, and an agent of Sinister, and, uh, they end up not getting along too well, and Maddie kills her. Then Maddie does find Nate, but unfortunately, he’s with J.ean G.rey, and Maddie doesn’t take kindly to that either. Despite his deep friendship with Maddy and having just met Jean, Nate chooses Jean over her in the fight, and Maddy is knocked unconscious. And that’s when Nate tries to kill her. See, Nate realized he was the one to bring her back to life, and he also realized WHY he did it—his subconscious was reaching out in search of a mother in this universe, so it was looking for the Jean Grey of his universe, and it latched on to Madelyne’s ghost on the astral plane and brought her back. He brought Maddy back to life…because he actually wanted Jean. So yet again, a man that Madelyne has grown to love and care about…actually wanted Jean all along. And when Nate realized this, he tried to KILL the unconscious Madelyne. And it was actually Jean who stopped him! Maddy was unconscious for this iirc, but yeah, Madelyne is REPEATEDLY rejected not just by Scott, but by Cable and Nate too. And while with Cable I get it to a degree, as Jean was the one who raised him (partly) while Maddy tried to murder him (but while she was under demonic influence, she was a devoted mother before that, though he probably can’t remember it) with Nate it’s just not only does he reject her AFTER they’ve been friends-maybe-lovers-ick, after he’s known her as a person in her own right, once he realizes “oh I meant to reach Jean, not her” he then tries to UNMAKE HER BODY AND SEND HER BACK TO TO THE AFTERLIFE. WTF DUDE?! In total fairness, it’s done in a way that isn’t hateful or hostile, but out of a sense of pity and responsibility for her, feeling that since he brought her back to this life of pain then he should put her back. But it’s still taking her agency and treating her life as a choice he can make. So now Madelyne’s not only been treated like an object without agency by Sinister and the story itself, but by a good guy too. And it’s JEAN who steps up and says NO, SHE’S A PERSON. Which, YEAH, SHE IS. You might have brought her to life by accident, but that doesn’t mean you should kill her now! Maddy, of course, is not awake to hear this. And if she had been, I’m sure it would just make her hate Jean more. I think she loathes being shown kindness by Jean, I think it makes her sick when Jean is the saintly one because it just plays up all the more how Maddy is the monster, the bad one, the evil whore side of the Madonna/whore dichotomy (she even compares Jean to the Virgin Mary in the eyes of others) Sorry, I have FEELINGS about this. Anyway, when Maddie wakes up, all she knows is that YET AGAIN a man has chosen Jean over her. So understandably, she runs back to the man who WANTS HER FOR HER.

And what’s interesting about this is Shaw doesn’t just sleep with her, he gets into an actual committed relationship with her. As in, he actually does seem to be EXCLUSIVELY with her, to the point that not only does he throw a very public party AT HER REQUEST to announce them as a couple, he also allows her a telepathic link to him, which is a REALLY big deal to a guy like him.

On Maddie’s end, I absolutely understand why she NEEDS commitment, she NEEDS to be the ONLY one and to very publicly MARK her man, given her past. What’s surprising is Shaw goes with it, and he’s not under her control or anything like that. Without derailing this too much, Shaw already canonically had a ton of trust issues at this point as it was, like this is literally textual in The Legacy Quest Trilogy, but he nonetheless lets Maddie “in” even though, as it’s also textually stated, he doesn’t love her. But he does seem to care about her, and want a relationship with her, to the point of being willing to do all this at her request and, as far as is ever shown, honor her desire for commitment. This is the first time he’s been shown attempting a relationship since the death of his fiancee Lourdes (I do NOT recognize Duggan’s “oh actually Shaw abused Lourdes and she was alive all along!” retcons of the 2020s) and, sadly, ends up being the last, since he does get burned. But more on that in a bit—here’s Maddie healing a scar that was over his eye, which he got when his son Shinobi very justifiably tried to kill him.

As a note on this, while I think the implication is her telekinesis is just so advanced she can knit cells back together or something, I prefer to think she retained some of her healing abilities from when she was Anodyne. Everyone remembers her as the G.oblyn Q.ueen, no one remembers her as Anodyne, and I really hate that since Anodyne was what she became when she WASN’T under demonic influence and instead was given powers that canonically reflected who she REALLY WAS—a healer, a hero. Just saying. So, anyway, Selene sees that these two have hit it off in a way she NEVER intended, and she panics. She thinks that they’re plotting some BIG and EVIL and that the entire rest of the Hellfire Club must BE AFRAID and be ready to stand against them, she convinces Tessa and Fitzroy of the same, and. . . . . .no, turns out they’re just a super ordinary couple. They don’t do anything evil together, Shaw doesn’t use her in any schemes, they’re literally just dating like normal people, albeit with one having a lot of money. Like Selene is all OMG WE HAVE TO BREAK THEM UP THEY’RE TOO DANGEROUS AS A PAIR and they’re literally. . .doing nothing. . ..nothing happens….love that, honestly, it’s so funny.

Really though the Hellfire Club is truly just high school with colonial clothes. Seriously, Selene gets mad that her would-be girlfriend is now seeing her sworn enemy so she tries to get the others to break them up, it’s hilarious. THESE ARE THE MOST POWERFUL ELITE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD ROFLMAO actually that explains a lot Honestly, they were really cute while they were together? And Shaw also was sure to keep her safe while Operation Zero Tolerance was going on, he got her out of America and put her up in a nice place in Hong Kong and I’m sure she wanted for nothing. . . . . .which is why, when she left him all of a sudden, Shaw’s assumption was that he’d been used for his money and he was really bitter about it. What’s interesting is he doesn’t seem angry at Maddie for using him (which she wasn’t, but the implication is he THINKS she was), instead berating HIMSELF for letting someone get close, saying “I took a succubus to my chest and paid the price.” So, why did Maddie actually leave him? Shaw wanted to dig up one of Apocalypse’s tombs to take the technology within for his own profit, and this included waking up the Harbinger. The Harbinger is a being created by Apocalypse from what was once a normal human, and is now an eforcer of Apocalypse’s “survival of the fittest” mentality. Madelyne found this to be too evil for her, believing it would result in genocide, which is why she came to tell Cable about it, leading to Cable’s conflict with Shaw and Pierce in this story. After that, she’s never seen with the Hellfire Club or Shaw again, so presumably that’s when and why she quit the Inner Circle and him. She also doesn’t seem to have ever actually told him this. And I just find this SO AMAZING of her. Not the “not telling him why” bit, but the fact she left him over something that had nothing to do with her. Like she had someone who, if he didn’t love her, at least did commit to her sincerely, cared for her, was taking care of her, and didn’t want her to be Jean. She could have led a comfortable, valued existence with him, but she chose to care about people she’d never even met and never would and throw it all away to do the right thing. I think this shows that even though she was much darker now (see: killing Threnody) there was still good in her, the same heroic Maddy she was before the whole “demonic possession” thing (people tend to forget that’s what made her evil, she didn’t just turn into the G.oblyn Q.ueen on her own) She hated the X-Men, understandably, but she wouldn’t allow innocent people to be hurt for Shaw’s greed either, even if that greed benefitted her. So, I think her being with him was good, I think she absolutely deserved to be cared for and valued for herself by someone to get some sugar for awhile and be taken care of and have a rich guy to boss around, but I think her leaving him was good too, because of how well it speaks of her. And I also really liked how this showed Shaw , for all his flaws, is actually a good boyfriend! Like that’s interesting and unexpected and adds a layer of complexity to him (and is another reason I don’t accept Certain Retcons) and also pushes him into NEVER TRYING A RELATIONSHIP EVER AGAIN SINCE because the thing about Shaw is his character development GOES BACKWARDS, like he becomes a WORSE person as time goes on, he gets MORE distrusting of others, loses MORE friends and connections, et. and contributes that much more to his belief everyone will betray him in the end (which is, again, not MY reading but TEXTUAL canon) And like…despite his claim that he doesn’t love her, he definitely seems hurt she left without an apparent explanation. TL;DR everyone forgets the Maddie/Shaw era but I think it was super interesting in what it said about them both

#maddie #spitfire #very careful to make my tags nonspecific so ppl don't find this haha #want ppl to know but so scared at this point of being seen

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