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mandosaur · 7 months

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Green-Eyed Monster (Ezra Bridger / Reader)

Fandom: Star Wars

Pairing: Ezra Bridger/Reader

Summary:

“ Your one insecurity had always been that you were second to Sabine. Even when Ezra had disappeared all those years ago and your heart had painfully torn in two, you still felt second best. Ezra had left you a beautiful little message telling you he loved you for the first time before he had disappeared, yet Sabine had received one too. Even worse, Ahsoka had taken Sabine as an apprentice years ago instead of you though you both lacked an affinity for the force. Another insult your insecurities had twisted into a blade against you.

Now, ten years later, that jealousy had not dissipated. Instead, it had crossed with the horrible feeling of guilt.

While you had mourned Ezra’s death and moved on slowly, Sabine had never given up hope. She had remained on Lothal for years and always kept her ear out for news of Ezra. You had returned to your home planet and given up hope of ever finding your childhood sweetheart. Sabine had beat you yet again in seemingly being a better option for Ezra.”

Reader gets reunited with Ezra after ten years all while tormented by the thought that Sabine would be a better fit for him.

Warnings: Depictions of a panic attack. Spoilers for Ahsoka Season 1.

Word Count: 7,962

Expected Reading Time: 28:57

Jealousy. There’s a horrible feeling deep in your very bones that rakes a claw down your being. You can feel every deep gash clearly as you scowl at the bottom of your tea. Your fingers curl and uncurl against the handle of the mug as Sabine chatters with Ahsoka.

Huyang turns his mechanic head towards you from the pilot seat and Ahsoka glances your way as if sensing your turmoil from the force, but Sabine remains oblivious. Once more, everyone can sense your emotions except the very target of your ire. You bury your anger as you take a long sip of the tea and let the liquid burn your tongue.

It’s been ten years since you lost Ezra and you still can’t manage to reel in the jealousy you feel towards Sabine. She’s an old friend, someone you trust implicitly, and yet the ugly green eyed monster rears its head every time she’s near.

Ever since you were kids, you envied her. She was an old friend from your imperial academy days and seemed to be better than you even then. She was born to high ranked Mandalorian parents whereas you were born the youngest to farmers in a backwater planet. She climbed up high in the academy and won awards while you hid in her shadow and merely fulfilled requirements. She was scouted by Hera and the rebels while you simply tagged along for the ride.

And she was the person that Ezra originally had a crush on while you watched painfully from the sidelines.

Ten years ago, you had fallen in love with someone you thought you could never have. One Ezra Bridger had won you over and crushed your heart without meaning to. While you had pined for him in the background, he had pined over Sabine. You had watched it all happen while cursing yourself for yet again not being as great as her.

Even after a miracle had happened and Ezra’s sights had turned to you, you had still felt jealousy towards Sabine. While Ezra had reassured you that he liked you and made you his girlfriend, you had still harbored some resentment towards your oldest friend. There had always been a little voice inside your head that had taunted you with the knowledge that Ezra was only yours because Sabine hadn’t wanted him. That you had been a consolation prize and second best.

Your one insecurity had always been that you were second to Sabine. Even when Ezra had disappeared all those years ago and your heart had painfully torn in two, you still felt second best. Ezra had left you a beautiful little message telling you he loved you for the first time before he had disappeared, yet Sabine had received one too. Even worse, Ahsoka had taken Sabine as an apprentice years ago instead of you though you both lacked an affinity for the force. Another insult your insecurities had twisted into a blade against you.

Now, ten years later, that jealousy had not dissipated. Instead, it had crossed with the horrible feeling of guilt.

For years, she had tried to get you on her side. She had told you to not give up hope and to help her find Ezra, yet you had pushed her away. Your grief and heartache were easier to manage if you told yourself Ezra was gone for good. As much as it pained you, you gave up all hope and harshly rebuked Sabine for still clinging to the idea of him returning. Anything to kill the last shreds of hope that remained within you before time could do it for you.

You had, had a massive falling out and hadn’t spoken in years. Not until Hera had commed you with Ahsoka and told you to return to Lothal because of a lead Ahsoka had about Thrawn.

Thrawn, Hera claimed, was the key to finding Ezra. The two of them had disappeared together. If one of them was rumored to be alive, the other might be too.

You had come back to Lothal after much trepidation and reunited with Sabine. To her credit, she had accepted you back into her group even if things between you were awkward and strained.

Still, being back near her and reopening the wound of Ezra’s disappearance had brought back a decade worth of insecurity and envy.

The tea burns down your throat as you finish it off. You wish Ashoka had packed something stronger. Were you back home, you would have loved to drink until the edge wore off.

Stuck in a ship with Sabine though, you bite your lip.

It truly isn’t fair, you know. Sabine was your oldest friend. You had met at the imperial academy and struck a friendship. You both had joined the empire as a way to rise in rank for your families, and both had seen past the gilded veneer of fascism. Once upon a time, you two regarded each other as sisters and you made quite the trio with Ketsu-

But fate had driven a wedge between you. You had fallen for someone who liked Sabine at the time and always felt second best. That jealousy had torn you to shreds and created a wall between the two of you. You aren’t sure how to manage it and the thought stings.

The call of your name brings you out of your thoughts. Sabine remains unaware of the darkness coiling inside you and calls for you to look over something. She’s brought her research with her and has been pouring over diagrams that she thinks could help in the hunt for Ezra.

You wander over to her side and pretend to make sense of the mess of lines and circles she’s drawn on a holomap. Ahsoka eyes you wearily as Sabine talks and you suppress the urge to clench your fists.

“No, I’ve never seen this galaxy either,” you murmur. Your eyes don’t even gaze at the map Sabine is pointing at. Your mind is miles away running from you and the horrible pit in your stomach that grows with every second.

Guilt and jealousy swirl within you. You are angry. Furious even. Angry at Sabine for dragging you back in the hopes of finding a man you love that you’ve tried hard to get over. Angry at the force for tearing Ezra away from you-

And angry at yourself for yet again being weaker than Sabine.

Sabine had never given up. While you had run from Lothal and tried hard to forget your childhood sweetheart, Sabine had remained steadfast. It was she who had unlocked the map coordinates while you had stared at that damn ball for hours until your head hurt and your eyes had turned red. It was Sabine who could think of a million different ways to continue the hunt while you could barely keep yourself from screaming.

In every way that counted, in every Maker’s damned one sided competition, she had always been ahead.

“Can you read this for me-?“

Sabine reaches past you to click on a screen. Projections of documents appear before you all with the names of different galaxies and star maps. You clench your jaw as you notice all the notes she’s taken over each document. She’s been at it for years, no doubt, always searching. Never giving up. Unlike you-

The one person that should have never given up on Ezra. The one who had sworn to love him forever, the one who had dreamed of marrying him, the one who should have been fighting from the beginning to find him-

Ahsoka’s hand touches your shoulder. You turn your head and find her gaze on you.

“Perhaps Huyang should look over the information instead. He can process it faster,” Ahsoka tells Sabine.

Huyang accepts the assignment and takes the tablet from Sabine. Sabine hardly notices the way you glare in her direction.

“Are you feeling alright?” Ahsoka questions. Her tone is gentle yet firm. Concerned for your feelings yet weary of the darkness inside you.

Briefly, you remember Kanan and Ezra discussing the force. Mentioning how they could sometimes sense emotions and tell when people were struggling. You’re sure Ahsoka has noticed how you flicker between rage and heartbreak over and over again.

You aren’t sure whether you should apologize or thank her for interceding. Had she not stepped in, you think you might have snapped and started screaming at Sabine to leave you alone.

“Fine,” you whisper back.

You certainly don’t feel fine and the lie tastes bitter in your mouth, but you shrug away her arm. Murmuring something about needing a break, you move past the group and disappear into another room of the ship.

Huyang’s workshop is tidy and neatly organized. You take stock of every lightsaber piece as your fingers trace every groove and indent.

To add further insult to injury, you don’t have possession of Ezra’s lightsaber either. You had, had it once right after Lothal had been freed but had surrendered it to Sabine on Ahsoka’s suggestion. When Ahsoka had decided to train Sabine as a Jedi over you, you had silently handed over the last remnant of the boy you loved and stormed off broken and bitter.

The lightsaber pieces around you are each different. You don’t see anything that resembles Ezra’s pieces anywhere. After a while, you end up just sliding into an empty seat and your head falls into your hands.

Everything is utterly in disarray. Your mind races with a million thoughts and you’re sure your heart is a pile of jagged pieces each shattered beyond repair.

The truth of the matter is that you know your insecurities are right. Sabine is better than you. At everything.

Had she liked Ezra back years ago, he would have never looked in your direction. The bittersweet memories you had of dating him would have never happened. You would have never been chosen if his first choice hadn’t panned out. Ezra had tried once to tell you that it wasn’t true, that he had genuinely fallen for you and it had nothing to do with Sabine only seeing him as a brother, but you hadn’t believed him.

And now? Now she was definitely better than you.

You had given up. You had once promised Ezra to love him forever yet had believed him dead. You had left Lothal, the planet he had sacrificed everything to protect, and suppressed every memory of him. You had dated around in hopes of forgetting his ghost and tried hard to move on-

All while Sabine had never lost hope. She had always fought for him and looked everywhere. She had never once believed him gone. You had the obligation to search for him as his girlfriend, yet you had failed him. Had it not been for Sabine, Ezra would have been truly lost.

The thought makes you want to scream. You grit your teeth tightly until your jaw hurts. If you weren’t so indebted to Sabine for finding a lead, you think you’d want to swing at her. She’s always been better than you. Ezra should have just held out for her all along rather than taking you as a consolation prize.

Feeling suddenly like you’re suffocating, you slam your fist into the control panel to slide open the door. Sabine looks up as you enter and Ahsoka quietly moves to allow you to retake your old seat. You ignore them all as you slide into place and hover your fingers over the tablet.

You need a distraction. Anything to keep the terrible feelings at bay. You slam some keys down until the maps disappear and you’re staring at a blank slate.

Quietly, you bury yourself in your work all the while stewing and boiling with rage.

———————————————

Days later, Sabine’s determination beats you once more. Cornered by Baylan and Shin, you and Sabine are forced to make a choice on what to do. Ashoka is gone and the map is in Sabine’s possession. You two have to decide whether to turn it over to the very people Ahsoka wanted to keep it from or cling to the hope that Ezra can be found.

When Baylan promises to take you both to him, you hesitate. Ahsoka’s words play over and over again in your head. She has long been warning you about what will happen if Thrawn returns. You know she would want you to destroy the map and keep Thrawn in exile forever-

But what about Ezra? Will destroying the map strand him wherever he is forever too? Will you give up your last chance at ever finding him?

Your mind and your heart wage a war. You want desperately to see Ezra again but you remember his sacrifice. You know he’d want to protect the galaxy from the Empire. You don’t know what to do-

In the end, Sabine beats you to it. Better than you in every way, she hands over the map to Baylan. She accepts the terms for you both and tells you to drop your weapon with a calm, clear voice. You both hate her and feel grateful that she’s taken the choice out of your hands.

You let them cuff you and don’t even react when Shin uses the force to cut off your airway. Nothing she could possibly do could hurt more than the ugly feeling of being a disappointment. Once more, Sabine has proven herself a better fit for Ezra than you. Were he to ever find out that you hesitated on this choice, you think he’d leave you once and for all and realize that Sabine has always been better for him.

When you and Sabine face off Thrawn, you hardly pay attention. The villain that plagued you for years hasn’t changed much. His glowing red eyes sweep over you with mild boredom before he directs all his attention at Sabine. He seems genuinely unamused when he realizes Sabine has traded the galaxy for the hope of finding Ezra.

You feel a cold knife twist in your stomach and look away as Sabine faces Thrawn off. There is no hesitation or remorse in her gaze when she coldly tells Thrawn that he could never understand. You wince feeling guilty at the memory of your own hesitation.

It seems like Sabine is the only one completing this journey. When the two of you mount your steeds, it’s her who fights off the bandits. She moves like a lightning strike taking them down while you throw punches and kicks at random barely managing to take down one while she’s got the squad down in moments. When a Noti appears, it’s Sabine who realizes he’s wearing a Jedi symbol on his clothing.

You feel like a shadow merely following her around. Every new revelation and step closer to finding Ezra brings you both joy and envy.

Sabine feels like she’s better suited for the role of Ezra’s partner compared to you. She’s been loyal, determined, and fierce in his search. You, who had a responsibility to find him, had given up. Ezra deserved better than you.

By the time you make it back to Noti’s village, you feel the weight of your own soul crushing you. You feel painfully jealous, angry at yourself, and broken down. You try to ignore Sabine as she urges you forward telling you that something about this particular village feels different.

You’re so downtrodden that you don’t even realize someone is calling your name until you turn your head and hear Sabine’s breath hitch. Time seems to slow down as your eyes meet a striking blue that you haven’t seen in years. Your heart races and you move to run at Ezra-

When Sabine beats you to it.

She all but rushes past you to beat you to Ezra first. Ezra, half way to you, is interrupted as Sabine crashes into him. Her arms wrap around his frame and she buries her head into his neck. He looks like he wants to move to you for a brief moment before he hugs her back and greets her for the first time in ten years.

You hang back awkwardly watching the love of your life embrace someone else. Every hurtful thought you’ve ever heard about not deserving to be at Ezra’s side plays over and over again in your mind. Worse still, you are forced to see how good Sabine looks with Ezra. They click together like puzzle pieces and look perfect. Two halves of the same whole.

A coldness seeps into your very bones. You suppress the tears forming and grit your teeth painfully. If anything, Sabine deserves this moment. She’s the one who found Ezra. You don’t deserve him.

Despite the way it almost kills you to see Sabine steal your moment, you hang back. The ugly insecurities in you taunt and laugh as you watch them. You can’t escape the feeling that you’re an outsider looking in and intruding in a moment that you don’t deserve.

It feels like an eternity when the two of them finally separate. Sabine is smiling wide oblivious to your pain. Slowly, Ezra moves away from her and moves towards you instead. You force yourself to shove aside the familiar jealousy deciding that seeing Ezra again after a decade is worth more than the agony in your chest.

You meet Ezra halfway as he runs. Your own arms wrap around his frame and he all but picks you up to hold you close. He breathes out your name and you’re struck by how different he is.

Your hands shake as you press your palms to his face. He has a beard now, his cheeks are thin, no doubt from the lack of food, and there’s a certain maturity in his eyes that wasn’t there before-

But he’s Ezra.

Tears spill before you can stop them. His fingers wipe them away gently and his smile is bright. He says your name again like a sacred prayer.

“You’re alive,” you whisper. It’s the only sentence that you can form past the haze. Everything feels so surreal.

Ezra stands in front of you. The love of your life. The boy that had won you over ten years ago and never once let you go-

The one a part of you isn’t sure you deserve.

Ezra presses his forehead against yours. A familiar little habit he had back from when you were kids. A way to soothe you and reassure you that everything is going to be okay-

A sob breaks past your lips at the familiar action and you busy yourself burying your head in his chest. He holds you tighter to him. Underneath your palms, his heart races.

For a moment, every insecurity stops. The cold words you tell yourself over and over again in your head quiet for just this one moment. A sense of peace fills you and everything makes sense. For just a moment, all of the pain of the last decade goes away.

Ezra moves his head forward like he’s going to kiss you. He seems hesitant, unsure if he still has the right after a decade, and you want to meet him halfway-

But then Sabine interrupts the moment. She’s being herded by a Noti away and another one chirps out a different language to Ezra. You suddenly remember where you are you and draw back too fast. It feels maddening to separate from him after losing him for so long, but you think it’s better this way. It’s not like you deserve to kiss him after everything you’ve done.

The loss of him hurts like an open wound. You miss holding him. After ten years, you had given up hope of ever having that chance. It feels so cruel to lose it now-

And of course Sabine had to ruin this moment too. She’s always ruined everything for you. Perhaps she’s finally realized her feelings for Ezra and how better she is for him than you.

Your blood feels cold as you watch her grab his arm. She links their arms together and begins speaking. He gives you one last look over his shoulder before a Noti grabs your own arm to tug you forward. You are forced to trail after them feeling like a third wheel among their partnership. Something you’ve tended to always feel when the three of you are together.

They form a good team. It looks entirely natural for the two of them to be together. Sabine just makes sense at his side. She’s saved him after you’d given up, always been beside him throughout your time together as members of the Ghost, and was the first person he was ever interested in. It makes perfect sense for her to be the one with him.

A painful lump forms in your throat and you wave away the Noti’s concern when it curiously looks up at you. You trail silently through the village as Ezra begins to explain everything.

He tells you and Sabine pieces of his time here. He tells you how he and Thrawn made it here, how he ran from Thrawn and found the Noti by chance, and how he’s spent time with them since. They’re a peaceful people and have welcomed him into their ranks. He accompanies them on their travels, but he’s ready to come home.

He smiles at you both as he thanks you for coming back for him. He can’t wait to return to your galaxy and see Hera, Zeb, and Chopper.

Guilt grips you tightly. You don’t have the courage to admit that you had thought him lost. Had it not been for Sabine, he would have remained on this forsaken planet forever.

A coward to the end, you bite your tongue and hesitate at his words. When Ezra tries to move towards you, hand shyly reaching for your own, you move away as if his touch burns. You don’t think you deserve his gratefulness. Not with how awful you’ve been all these years.

It’s almost a relief when Sabine takes over. As much as it pains you to see her slowly replace you, you know you deserve it.

Before Ezra can ask you what’s wrong, you turn away and pretend to be busy with a Noti who is patching up something to the far side of the village. You turn your back on Sabine and Ezra and remain rigid as they walk away. Ezra keeps glancing back at you from time to time while Sabine urges him along to discuss things with him.

By the time they’re finally gone, you wander off further from the village and then promptly bury your head in your hands. The last of your strength leaves you and you sink to the ground below. The pain you’ve been suppressing returns in waves and you give in to the horrible voices that tell you what a terrible person you are and how you don’t deserve Ezra.

———————————————

By the time the sun sets, you’re a ticking time bomb. You’ve spent a long time wallowing in self pity. Everything aches as you make the trek back to the village.

The Noti are tiny, so it’s not hard to spot Sabine and Ezra. Ezra is holding something by the fire while Sabine messes with her vambrace. She seemingly hasn’t told Ezra about how the two of you are stuck here and how Ahsoka is dead.

When you get back, both of their attention is turned towards you. Ezra lights up and waves you over. He means to let you sit with them, but you quickly note that there’s no room. The Noti are half your size and don’t use large spaces. The log Ezra and Sabine sit at is out of room. You have no place beside Ezra with Sabine there.

Suppressing a grimace, you elect to remain standing.

“What are you two up to?” You ask. Your voice sounds colder than you intended, bitter.

Ezra looks at you and you evade his gaze. There’s something deep in his eyes that you don’t want to dwell too long on. He looks like he doesn’t quite know what to make of you. You have a feeling you aren’t who he remembers.

Good.

Maybe if he no longer recognizes you, he can give you a clean break. It’s become very apparent that you no longer belong at his side. Perhaps if he realizes he made a mistake in choosing you once upon a time, he can find someone better. The sooner he moves on the sooner you can kill what’s left of your broken heart.

Sabine is the one who answers. You’re quite frankly sick of her by then.

“I was telling Ezra everything’s that’s happened since he’s been gone. The Empire, Lothal, everything,” she responds.

Ezra awkwardly nods at her words. You feel a pit form in your stomach. Idly you wonder if Sabine has told Ezra how terrible you’ve been. Wonder if he knows you had given up on the hope of ever seeing him and tried to move on. Is that why he can’t seem to look at you anymore?

Anger and pain throb in your chest. You squeeze your jaw together.

The rest of the night passes far too quickly. Ezra and Sabine chat until the embers of the fire die down. You respond only when necessary and keep your remarks short.

Every once in a while, you think you see Ezra stealing glances at you but you ignore him. It feels like you’re having a terrible out of body experience. You’re so close to him, finally after mourning him for a decade, yet you know you have no right to rejoice at finding him. The guilt and jealousy you feel outweigh everything else.

It’s a mercy when the Noti begin to prepare to sleep. They offer the perfect excuse for the night to finally come to a close.

Ezra stands up and runs a hand through his hair.

“I sleep in the big room over there. It’s as human sized as you can get here. You both look exhausted. The journey here couldn’t have been easy. Why don’t you both take it? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept outside with the Noti,” Ezra offers.

“We can’t take your place-“

“I insist,” Ezra interrupts Sabine, “I’m used to camping out. The Noti constantly move from place to place seeking shelter so sometimes we have to rough it on the ground. It’s nothing unusual. You both can take it.”

Sabine glances at you with a nod of her head.

“Is that alright with you? You wanna share that tent with

me?” She asks.

Both Ezra and Sabine seem to be very interested in your answer. Ezra searches your face for something. You think there’s a question he’s longing to ask, something he’s dying to know, but he can’t bring himself to say it. It seems like he’s too afraid of whatever he thinks he’ll find or won’t find.

Truthfully, you don’t have the patience to speculate on what the two of them are trying to find out. It’s been a long day and you’ve suffered enough already.

You shrug, “Fine.”

A one word response. Sabine blinks and Ezra winces. There’s almost a flash of pain in his gaze before he looks away. You highly suspect that whatever test has just transpired, you’ve failed.

Sabine shares a glance with Ezra. You try to ignore the way the knife in your heart twists to see them communicate silently. Years apart and yet they seem to still know each other well enough to talk through simple glances and looks.

It’s all too much. You spin on your heel and march off mumbling some excuse about being exhausted.

Inside the metal tent, you close your eyes and count to ten. There’s a roar in your ears and a headache forming at the very back of your skull. You aren’t sure how much more this you can take. Already, it feels like you’re hitting a boiling point.

Everything feels terrible. The jealousy, the heartbreak, the anger, the guilt. All of it is becoming too much.

By the time Sabine returns, you’re at your limit. You don’t even flinch when she waves a hand in front of your face to test if you’re paying attention.

“What’s wrong?” She sounds concerned as she peers down at you, “You’ve been out of it all day. I thought you’d be really happy. I mean, we found Ezra-“

A scoff breaks out before you can stop it. You hate that she’s using the word “we.”There is no “we” here. It’s all her. It’s always been her. She’s the hero who saved Ezra. You’re the terrible ex girlfriend that abandoned him.

“I’m just tired,” you shrug. It’s a weak lie. She doesn’t seem to buy it as she presses you more.

“You’re not acting okay. I didn’t think you’d want to share a room with me. I thought you’d make an excuse to get out of it.”

Your eyes roll. She stops and stares at you as if finally realizing just how angry you are.

By now, the pain is cooling to anger. There’s a rage vibrating deep within you towards her. You’d love nothing more than to shut her up once and for all.

She calls your name with a frown. Concern and frustration are evident in her face.

“Seriously, is everything okay? Ezra wanted you to stay with him outside. He was waiting for you to ask to stay with him-“

“Well, didn’t you want to stay with him? You should have volunteered,” you tug angrily at your jacket. The fury is burning you from the inside. You feel like a star about to combust. It takes all of your strength to remain composed.

Sabine has the gall to look confused. She makes a face like she doesn’t get it. You aren’t sure whether she’s being coy or if she’s just dying to hear you spell it out to her.

“What are you talking about?” She moves to grab your arm. Perhaps she wants you to face her and explain why you’re suddenly so angry, “You hurt him, you know. He doesn’t know where he stands with you. You haven’t spoken to him or made a move. He’s scared you’ve moved on-“

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll comfort him. You’ve been much better for him than me,” you bite.

Again, there’s a moment of confusion. By now, Sabine herself is growing frustrated with your attitude. It seems she can’t wrap her head around why you’re so upset.

“What is wrong with you? Seriously. You finally get Ezra back and you just ice him out-“

Something snaps. The anger you’ve been suppressing spills forward like a dam. Before you can even think about what you’re doing, you’re shoving her as hard as you can away from you. There’s a sense of satisfaction in the way you take her by surprise. She’s much stronger than you, yet you manage to make her slam into the metal walls. Her armor makes a satisfying thud when it collides against them.

“Oh, shut up, Sabine!”

You move to shove her again, rage boiling over.

It’s all too much. Every negative emotion you’ve been feeling since Sabine unlocked the map where you failed has spilled over. You feel like a bomb exploding. You aren’t a violent person, yet you find yourself pushing her again.

This time, she’s ready for you. Her eyes are wide and there’s shock in her voice when she calls your name. She grabs your wrist and twists you around until she’s holding your arms in place. A move you had only ever seen her do on stormtroopers.

“Maker, what’s wrong-?”

Her voice trails off in shock as you shove off her hold. You press your hands to your face feeling adrenaline course through your veins. It burns white hot against your skin. You swear you feel your blood boiling.

“Do you know how sick I am of you?” You jab a finger at the center of her chest plate, “You just have to rub everything in. I get it, alright? I get that you’re better than me. You have always been better at everything. I never stood a chance.”

You back away from her suddenly feeling like you’re boxed in. The anger is coursing red hot but there’s something else there. It’s all consuming and harsh. You feel it practically strangling you.

While you are threatened by Sabine’s presence, some part of you knows it’s not just her that’s causing this outburst. Really, it’s more than that. A part of you is just angry with yourself.

It’s yourself you despise. Had it not been for Sabine, Ezra would have been stuck here forever. You had given up on ever finding him. For all your promises of loving him years ago, you had simply given up. He would have never have given up on you.

Spinning around, you press your fists against your eyelids to try and stop the tears forming behind your eyes.

“You found him. I gave up on him,” you whisper. It’s a harsh admission out loud, “You’re better than me. He deserves better. He deserves you.”

Sabine is stunned. She blinks and makes a face like she can’t believe what you just said. You don’t have it in you to explain. The anger is slowly becoming despair. You want nothing more than to just curl up into a ball and die.

“What? I-Do you-Is that what this is about? You think I have feelings for Ezra?” She takes you by the shoulders and holds you steady.

You’re shaking, you realize. Your hands are quivering and your breath is coming out in short pants. A panic attack.

“Don’t you?” You bite the inside of your cheek to quell the rising panic. Your chest feels too tight. It constricts against your clothing, “It’s okay if you do. He’s always liked you. You could make him happier. You didn’t give up on him like I did.”

It hurts to say everything out loud. You don’t think you could survive seeing Sabine with Ezra. It would break whatever remnants of your heart are still working, but you wouldn’t stand in their way. Ezra deserves to be happy and you’re not the person that can give that to him. If Sabine can, then she should. It would break you, but you deserve it. An atonement for your sins.

Sabine calls out your name. She pulls your arms away from your face and shakes her head firmly. She looks stunned and hurt. She’s hurt by your words.

“I don’t like Ezra romantically. He’s a brother to me. That’s it. He loves you-“

You close your eyes against the rising panic. It takes all your willpower to remember how to breathe. It feels like something has gotten a hold of your body. You feel everything mounting until it bursts. Emotions and words pour out of you. You aren’t sure just what you’re saying. Everything feels like it’s happening far away.

“He had a crush on you first. He didn’t even look at me until he realized you weren’t interested. I always knew I was his second choice. I was always so angry with you. You two spent so much time together. I was always just counting the days until he left me for you. You two just fit together. Ten years later and you two can just go back to being close. I don’t know how I could ever face him knowing that I gave up-“

The feeling of choking returns. You press your hand to your chest feeling like your lungs will give out. There’s a painful squeeze to your heart. Is this what a heart attack feels like-?

Suddenly someone is taking you gently by the shoulders. Familiar hands press against your face cradling you softly. You hear your name whispered in a low voice. You know who it is without even opening your eyes.

Ezra.

“Hey, breathe. Breathe with me,” he whispers. He shows you some deep breaths. His arms hold you in place firmly but not tightly. It’s his way of showing you that he’s here. That you’re not alone.

Slowly you try and copy his breaths. It’s a struggle to do it. It feels like every painful gasp of air you inhale rattles against your lungs. It takes much longer than it should to finally regulate your breathing.

By the time the panic attack is finally underway, you feel exhausted. There’s a heaviness to your body you haven’t felt in a while. You’re shaking as Ezra slowly moves you towards a makeshift bed. He eases you gently into a sitting position. Idly, you realize that Sabine is inching out of the encampment probably wanting to give you and Ezra space to talk.

“Are you okay? Do you need water? A blanket?” Ezra kneels to be eye level with you. His eyes are concerned, scared for you.

It’s not fair. He’s the one who’s been lost for ten years, yet here he is worried about you. You don’t deserve him.

That’s what finally does you in. You begin to sob and press your hands firmly to your face. The tears pour out of you. It’s been a long ten years. Everything just shatters.

In the last decade, you’ve cried more times than you want to admit. Grief has been a friend for ages. You’ve cried until you had nothing more to give, yet this breakdown feels different. There’s a war or emotions pouring out of you. Anger, grief, jealousy, insecurity, pain. They rush over you in waves to the point where you feel like you’re being physically crushed under the weight of them.

Ezra wraps his arms around you and lets you cry against his shoulder. He holds you firmly in place whispering words of encouragement. You don’t deserve it. You weakly fight against his hold.

Words spill forth in a whisper before you even realize half of what you’re saying. There’s just a frantic need to pour everything out. The admissions slip from your tongue without truly registering in your brain. You just need him to understand why he should hate you.

“I gave up on ever finding you. I spent an entire year unable to get out of bed. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t think. Every little thing reminded me of you. I thought I was going to go insane. Everyone was worried about me. Hera had just had Jacen, yet she was taking care of me instead of her newborn. It felt horrible to worry everyone. At some point, I just had to let you go. I told myself you were dead and mourned you. I needed the closure so I gave up. If you were gone forever, then I could slowly move forward. I didn’t want to but it was breaking me. Thinking that you were out here somewhere was driving me insane.”

Ezra holds you tighter at your admission. You’re not sure but you swear you think you can hear him say he’s sorry. It’s heartbreaking for him to apologize. He’s the one that you’ve wronged.

“I couldn’t move on from you. I tried dating again a few years after you were gone but never made it past the first or second date. Everyone was all wrong. They just weren’t you. I kept telling myself that you were gone and that I should move on, but I couldn’t. I was driving myself crazy with grief. I even had a falling out with Sabine. Sabine kept searching for you. She never stopped. She’s the one who found you. Had it not been for her, you would have been lost forever. She’s better than me. You deserve better,” you force yourself to look at his eyes and are shocked when you see that he’s crying too. You never meant to hurt him but the confessions keep pouring out, “I know you liked her first. You only started dating me because she didn’t like you back. I told myself all these years that, that was okay. I loved you enough to be your second choice. Then these last ten years happened and they made me realize that I don’t deserve you. I gave up on you. She didn’t. She-you both make perfect sense. You just click with each other. She’s a better choice for you. I love you, but I know you’d be happier with her. She was your first choice after all.”

Now that everything is out, you feel tired. You bury your face in his shoulder and feel the way his heart is racing. His body feels tense as he lets all your words sink in.

“What? Do you think I like Sabine?” He sounds stunned. Gently, he pulls you away so that he can look at your eyes.

His eyes are red and there’s tears running down his face. He looks heartbroken. He calls your name softly and his voice cracks.

“You’re not my second choice, Maker. I’ve loved you for over a decade. It’s always been you. I admired Sabine when we were kids, but I always saw her as a sister. That’s all she is. You’re the one I’ve loved all these years. I dreamt of you every night, I tried using the force to find you whenever I meditated, the thought of you has kept me going all these years. It’s you that kept me alive. Any time I wanted to give up, I remembered you and everyone else back home and that kept me going. You were never my second choice. You’ve always been my only love. Always,” his fingers wipe away your tears and his breath stutters, “I thought you’d moved on. You didn’t want to spend time around me. You pulled away when I tried to kiss you. I thought you didn’t care me for me anymore. I was going to accept that. It’s been ten years. You didn’t know I was still alive. If you had moved on and married someone else, I would have never held it against you. Don’t blame yourself for needing to move forward.”

“You wouldn’t have given up on me. Ezra, you would have been lost without Sabine. I thought you were gone.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Ezra would have never given up hope. He would have kept searching until the very end. You didn’t.

His hold on you tightens.

“Ten years. I was gone for ten years. I don’t blame you for thinking I was dead. Maker, the ship had lost its airlock. I thought I was going to die when we hit hyperspace. You had no way of knowing I was alive. Sabine said you all only thought I was still alive when Ahsoka heard rumors about Thrawn returning. There’s no way anyone could have predicted I was in another galaxy,” he says.

You keep your eyes closed.

The rumors about Thrawn’s return are what had made this entire search possible. You had dropped everything when Hera and Ahsoka had commed you and rushed back to help the search. Sabine was steps ahead of you which hurts to admit, but you had rushed back to help.

Wearily, you think of everything you’ve done so far.

You think of how Ahsoka refused to train you in favor of Sabine because she said you were ‘too attached’ to be open to the force. You think of how you couldn’t open the map and had spent hours turning it every which way until your fingers had cramped and bled trying to pry it open. You remember that terrible moment where Shin and Baylan had you cornered, how they had offered you and Sabine passage to Ezra in exchange for the map. Logic would have had you destroy the map and prevent Thrawn from ever returning. Ahsoka would have wanted it that way, yet you had hesitated too. Your brain had said you needed to destroy it, but your heart had frozen. Destroying it meant never finding Ezra. You had let Sabine take over on that choice and hadn’t protested when she handed the map over. You’re sure now you would have made the same choice albeit not as fast as her.

As if sensing where your thoughts are going, Ezra places his forehead to yours. His way for reassuring you.

“I don’t blame you for anything. I’m sorry I hurt you all these years. If you’ve moved on, I get it. Just please don’t feel guilty you had to think I was dead to survive. Forgive yourself,” he urges.

You snap your eyes open startled.

“Ezra, I’ve never moved on. I love you. I have for all these years. I was just too guilty to express it. Sabine found you. I gave up. You deserve better. The two of you could-“

Suddenly Ezra dives forward. His lips press to yours and he holds you in place tightly. You make a sound of surprise before giving in.

It feels like something between you clicks. The world stops and everything feels so natural as you kiss him back. It’s been ten years since you’ve last been able to hold him. You don’t think you can survive another ten without him. You barely made it through these last few years.

He feels like home. After all the suffering and the self loathing, kissing him feels like everything is falling into place.

After a long kiss that takes your breath away, he withdraws. His breath is a harsh pant. His beard tickles your face as he presses smaller kisses to your forehead and cheeks. You cling to him tighter and take in the feeling of being in his arms again.

“I love you,” he breathes out, “It’s only ever been you. Please don’t say you don’t deserve me. You kept me alive all these years. It’s always been you.”

The last of your energy snaps. You feel so painfully exhausted. You cling to him tightly and let him move you back to the bed. He climbs in next to you and holds you to him as if he’s afraid to let you go.

Everything you’ve been through today makes you feel so tired. You want nothing more than to go to sleep and come back to this tomorrow. You don’t have the energy to keep going today.

Thankfully, Ezra doesn’t withdraw. Instead, he climbs into the bed next to you and holds you close. All of those terrible voices in your head quiet when he presses another kiss to your forehead.

You close your eyes feeling everything fading. The two of you aren’t done discussing this. He still needs to know that you love him too and that you are sorry for everything that’s happened. You also will have to apologize to Sabine tomorrow. It’s not her fault your own insecurities turned against her.

Still, for now, this moment feels like peace.

You curl into his arms and hold him tight the way you used to when you were young. He holds you to him and refuses to let you go. In a low whisper, you tell him you love him. As you drift off, you hear him say it back.

And for the first time in ten years, you finally feel a semblance of peace.

#ezra bridger x reader #ezra bridger / reader #star wars rebels #ahsoka show #star wars

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boopshoops · 1 month

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TWST OC INTRODUCTION - TCOAV

Ezra Goldspire - Who Knows Best

Name: Ezra Goldspire

Nicknames: Ezzie, Killifish

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: Homosexual

Birthday: May 7 (Taurus)

Age: 362 (In canon and AU)

Height: 5'11 or 179cm

Voice Claim(s): Caleb Hyles

Twisted from: Mother Gothel/Esther Gothel of Tangled

Unique Magic: "What Once was Mine" Through the use of magical herbs and alchemy, Ezra is able to capture the likeness of himself and other individuals. He can share and change other's physical features with these concoctions, ranging anywhere from shoe size to facial structure to vocal coords. These changes last as long as he desires as well as under his own set conditions at the cost of requiring outside materials to complete. Typically the magic is contained in what appears to be a type of spice or powder, and the change leaves a mark/tattoo on the individual which the magic is cast to indicate what exactly was changed.

Grade: Primarily teaches Sophomores and Juniors

Class: Teaches art and music, along with being the homeroom teacher of class 3-D.

Hobbies: Alchemy, botany, herbology, singing, painting, playing the harp, improv.

Likes: Broadway, theater, pasta alla gricia, small spaces, spring, jewelry, floral arrangements, experimental learning, any music.

Dislikes: Crickets, wrinkles, scars, wasted talent, mumbling/whispering, tracking time.

Fears: Aging, other Changeling Fae, not being recognized by those he cares for, forgetting people.

Summary: As the most easygoing teacher on the entirety of campus, many of the students and fellow staff members view him as a scatter-brained daydreamer. However, his dreams filled with immense passion, as he desires for nothing more than to watch his student's talent blossom... and keep the bloom contained and protected in a glass case.

Now, don't get him wrong! He has the best intentions, of course. There are many, many scary people and places out there in this Twisted Wonderland. People who would take advantage of such bright minds. He is simply preventing that from happening. The man has been around for a long time and has been through his own share of ordeals, so he would most definitely know.

He has a big heart. While he goes about an odd, constrictive way of showing it, he does truly care. He has a hard time letting things go, and he simply wants the best for those he cares for. Ezra would spoil every single one of his students rotten if he were able. Even as a rather new professor at NRC, he wishes to guide every single one of them on the right path.

Outfit Inspiration

Author's Notes: ARGHHH MY BOY... Ezra is a very new character I made only a few months ago. He was created specifically for TCOAV, but alas I have grown attached. Given we already have quite a few gaslight gatekeep girlboss type characters over here, I decided to focus more on twisting different aspects of Mother Gothel. I particularly focused on her parental tendencies as well as her means of "caring" for Rapunzel. Whereas whether Gothel truly cares for Rapunzel or not is still up in the air, and they truly had a toxic relationship nonetheless, I wanted to make Ezra a more misguided but good individual.

#boopshoopsoc #twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #disney twst #oc #twst wonderland #original character #oc art #ezra goldspire #digital drawing #digital doodle #digital art #oc profile #character art #original character art #boopshoopsart #boopshoopswriting

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stealingpotatoes · 7 months

Note

Invitation to talk about Sayuri and Nymie?

:D CAN OF WORMS: OPENED!! i'll tell u abt how they got found as Jedi

ok so Sayuri is one of the students that doesn't rlly go home bc there isn't much to go back to. Basically her parents were Rebellion pilots (or one was a pilot the other a mechanic. kinda unsure) but were both killed in action against the Empire abt 3-4ABY ish. obvs the Rebellion couldn't look after a 7-8yo while fighting the Empire

so the remainder of the squad manage to get her back to her parents' home village/ where she was born. so having like Everything change all at once leaves her pretty ?? and gives her some serious trusting-her-environment issues. her coolgirl "i dont care" persona is very much a result of this bc she's worried abt getting too comfy in smthn. (which is at odds w the OTHER issue she got from this event which is "deathly afraid of flying" an issue not helped if Master "traffic laws are just guidelines" Skywalker is piloting. but she tries 2 act like shes fine)

this is gonna get kinda long so im gonna smack some unposted art here and then go into a readmore

anyway fast forwarding to when Sayuri's abt 13 (roughly 9aby) she's visiting her parent's old squadron on a New Republic bc they'd all come visit whenever she could and after the Empire's fall they did a lot more pick her up and fly her to a base to ALL see her. and they're like omg Sayuri you came at the PERFECT time bc this rlly amazing pilot war hero who's also some like. mystical whatever is here!! he's on his way to some magic place we heard. maybe u can meet him!! which sayuri meets w her usual whatever bc she's not that gassed abt war heroes.

very worth noting that the squad's probably all seen her move shit with her mind, but theyre like oh you know how it is with teenage girls. the "nobody knows what a jedi is" + "the empire existed for a decent bit of her childhood" thing has kept anyone from being like yeahh sayuri should like. talk to someone abt this.

anyway she goes along when the squad are like c'mon let's see if we can see him. ok the only way i can describe this is you know the spiderverse like... spidey-sense recognition thing? that's basically what happens LOL Luke and Sayuri both have a FORCE USER RECOGNISED?? moment and Luke then makes a beeline for her then realises oh shit tiny teenager not jedi. would you LIKE to be a jedi?? and sayuri who hates her village and is feeling the strongest emotional connection she's felt in forever w this stranger she met 2 seconds ago is like okay fuckin sure yeah. and woo jedi!!

i posted my unposted nymie art yesterday but likkeeee pretend theres some here <3

So Sayuri falls into the "one of the Jedi found them thru the force or by chance" category of students who get found. However Nymie very much falls into the second category, which is "CAN SOMEONE DEAL WITH THIS WEIRD SUPERPOWERED CHILD FOR US????"

So 2 things about Nymie: 1. like i've said before, she's from a very rich high class pantoran family. super stuck up, mostly raised by nannies & tutors, but somehow Nymie just didn't get the stuck-up genes like all her (4!!) siblings who are just obsessed w their social standing etc and is instead just :D all the time. 2. her proficiency ig is the living force esp in the 'good at connecting to animals' way (which I think means I legally need to draw her w Ezra).

so the former often led her to escaping her family's stuffy parties and galas or whatever (usually to whoever's house it is' garden or somewhere she wasnt meant to be) to find something interesting. usually a pet <3 one particular time when she was 9 she was following her Pet Sense but couldnt find anything in the house. so she kinda just reached out more and long story short thats how Nymie managed to call this hugemassive beast (i'd tell u what it was if i knew pantoran animals LOL) out of the nearby countryside to her. massively distressing for everyone, all these rich ppl were like "OH MY GOD I NEARLY DIED" (it didnt attack anyone). very funny exciting time for Nymie who was enjoying this new beastie friend til animal control showed up. saddening. everyone is confused bc HOW did that happen

a dude old (and cool) enough to have seen more than one jedi in their heyday (+ idk uni researcher knows his shit) noticed what happened w it going straight to Nymie and overheard her account and realised what happened and was like hi nymie's parents. i think u need to get into contact w the new republic bc thats a jedi right there (which they take and go oo social climbing. we have a jedi child people will think we're cooler. bc theyre assholes)

and yeah im losing steam now but luke shows up and she joins the academyyay!

#i tried to NOT go on a 2000 hour ted talk #bc im pretty sure i could give a solid 5k of meta on top of any explanations of abt... 95% of my OCs lolll #which does mean this comes off as a lil messy but hey #sayuri ireshla #nymie #oc #original characters #luke's students

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gffa · 8 months

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One of the benefits of speed running the entire Rebels series over the course of four days (or at least I'm trying to) is that the arcs of things stand out to me a lot better than when I watched it week to week, especially the way the show handled Ezra's struggle with the dark side. The first time around, it felt like it came up out of nowhere and then was gone just as fast! While I appreciated the content of it and it provided a lot of good analysis fodder, it still felt very fast to me. This time around, though, I'm noticing just how much Ezra has been struggling since the beginning, in a way that feels very natural to someone of his age struggling through becoming an adult, struggling through finding his path in life, struggling through living on a war-torn world and joining a rebellion against an evil Empire, and struggling through learning to be a psychic space wizard whose powers work based on your emotions. All the way back in season one, Ezra was afraid, he was terrified of learning what happened to his parents, he was so angry when he saw Tseebo again, he was so afraid of being honest with himself that he caused the Fyrnocks to attack the Grand Inquisitor on Fort Anaxes. He was still struggling to deal with the loss of his parents in season two when he met Ryder Azadi who knew about them. Even all throughout season three, once he gets a better grip on himself, he still struggles with loving this new family of his and learning to trust them--it's so hard for him to let Sabine go on a dangerous mission on her own because he wants to protect her, to the point Kanan has to talk to him and remind him that being a Jedi means you have to trust people and learn to let them go. He struggles with having Maul in his head. He struggles with his guilt about getting Kanan blinded. Season four will also ultimately deal with Ezra struggling to let go of the chance to bring back his parents, because some part of him still desperately doesn't want to live without them. He's going to struggle with Kanan's death and letting him go, rather than wrecking time and space to bring him back. All of these things are rooted in fear and the desperation to cling to things and people--the very definitions of attachment when it comes to how the Jedi use it/more along the Buddhist lines of meaning--that I know Ezra will overcome, one step at a time, but it's so much clearer to me that it's threaded throughout the entire show, not just a handful of episodes, that it comes to a head now and again, but it's always there, because that's what a Jedi goes through at that age. It's a struggle every Jedi has to make their way through, and Ezra just has it harder because he doesn't have a community to support him or protect him from those who would kill him just for the way he was born. But it's a consistent story across all of Rebels that's actually really well told and being able to watch the episodes so close together really highlights that.

#lumi.txt #star wars #ezra bridger #dark side

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hoodharlow · 1 month

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Know My Name, Ring a Bell

AN: I saw a reel about women soccer players and thought "what if Miriam didn't get injured and she still played" so here y'all go. Ty to my faves Ezra, @heavyhitterheaux , and Cherry for saying yes 🤭🤭🤭

Warnings: Jack embarrassing himself, Mateo yelling at Miriam (tw to those that have parents issues), rude people, and a resolved misunderstanding

Requested: me and my faves

Word Count: 4.9k words

Jack choked on his hot chocolate, feeling the cocoa powder remnants on his throat. It was the first and last time he was buying hot chocolate from a concessions stand. He tossed the drink in the trash, $5 down the drain.

He was going to a Racing Louisville FC game, Louisville's women's team. His childhood friend, Larissa played for the team and for once Jack was free so he went to see her play. They were playing Angel City FC.

The stadium didn't get as full when the women played, much less when they played early in the morning. So Jack took advantage and roamed around without any security. He jogged down the steps towards the front. There was only one other person sitting in his section. They had an iPad and tripod set up. Jack wondered if they were from FIFA. Larissa told him they were scouting for the US team because it was their year playing at the World Cup.

Their phone rang and the person removed the large hood from their winter coat, revealing none other than Mateo Dominguez. He was Jack's favorite soccer player. It took everything in Jack not to interrupt his phone call. He'd met Mateo a few times in passing at events but he'd never had a full on conversation with him.

“No, I haven't told her. I'm waiting until after the game. Amor, you know how Miriam gets. I want her to concentrate on the game.” Mateo said.

Jack grabbed his phone and texted Urban that their fave was sitting three seats away from him. He then busied himself by checking the weather app so it's obvious that he's not eavesdropping on him talking about his youngest daughter. Miriam Dominguez-Miller was a force to be reckoned with. Jack learned about her through following Mateo on instagram and briefly through Larissa because they played together in college. Miriam played for UC Berkeley and after she graduated she went to Brazil to play for their women's league in Rio until this past December she was bought by Angel City FC. From the 3am rabbit holes he went on, according to the reddit threads he read, Miriam wasn't liked by her team. Apparently they thought her dad bought her place because he had connections with the team. He and Isabela, Miriam's mom, sponsored a little girls league for underprivileged girls to play for free.

Jack seen a few games and he could see the hostility between Miriam and her teammates. While Miriam was naturally good, it didn't help that she had a bad temper and played aggressively when provoked.

“You're Jack Harlow, right?” Mateo asked. “I'm Mateo. We met a few times.”

“Yes, that's,” Jack's voice cracked. He coughed. “‘Cuse me, yes that's me. I remember you, sir. It's always an honor to see you, even more so now because you're in my hometown.”

“My baby is playing today.” He said, rubbing his hands nervously.

“Nervous?” He asked Mateo.

“There's a lot riding on this game for Miriam.” He looked over to Miriam.

Her team was stretching a few feet from her with their backs to her so she couldn't join their circle. Jack watched her look down at her wrists and mumble something under her breath. Miriam got up and scanned the stadium. Her eyes met Jack's but then skipped over to her dad. She jogged to him.

“Papi, can you hold these?” She removed two gold bracelets from her wrist.

“Ay, Miriam.” Mateo shook his head, stuffing them in his coat pocket.

“Sorry, I got–”

“Go, you're wasting time.” He cut her off, motioning her to go back to her team.

Miriam glanced over to Jack and he pretended to be entranced with the way his apps were organized. Though, he didn’t miss that dirty look she gave him before walking away. He frowned, confused why she would even look at him like that. He only interacted with her once at the Met Gala last year. She was dressed by Givenchy like him and they spent the entire evening talking. She gave him her number and everything. Then a few days later when she went back to Rio, she posted herself working out to NUN FREE on instagram but she blocked him when he slid in her dms.

The game started a few minutes after. Right away Miriam's teammates forgot she was also on the field. She yelled at them that she was open but they ignored her. If the ball did get near her one of her teammates would intervene before she could even touch the ball. As the game progressed Jack could see the frustration get to Miriam. The referee blew the whistle, indicating half-time. Louisville was winning 2-0.

Jack not so subtly watched how the shorts hugged Miriam’s ass as she jogged to the one teammate that kept taking the ball. Jack couldn't hear from where he was sitting but they were having a heated argument. The player got in Miriam’s face so the logical thing Miriam did was put her hand in front of them to create space between them. Her teammate took it the wrong way and shoved Miriam. She stumbled back a few steps, but caught herself. She went after her teammate and pushed her to the ground. The ref saw their exchange and pulled out a red card on Miriam, ejecting her from the game. Beside Jack, Mateo cursed and packed up his set up.

He turned to Jack before going up the steps and defeatedly said, “Guess we'll be seeing each other more.”

Miriam was fuming, but her dad was even more pissed. The entire ride to the hotel Mateo was silent. Miriam hated getting aggressive. She didn't mean to push her teammate; it was an act of self-defense. Her teammate got in her face and took the frustrations of losing out on Miriam. All Miriam told her teammate was to pass her the ball so they could try to score at least. Her teammate took it personally and got in Miriam's face, calling her a bunch of rude names.

As they made their way to their shared suite, Miriam turned on her phone. The second it came to life her phone flooded with notifications. Texts from friends and families, her Instagram was blowing up with comments, and lastly the Google alert she had on herself also went off. One particular article caught her attention. ‘MIRIAM DOMINGUEZ-MILLER TO BE TRADED, TEAM TBA.’ She tried to scroll down but the website bombarded her with ads.

“I'm being traded?” She asked her dad.

“Yes.” He said, nonchalantly.

“Wha– why?” She frowned.

“Because you don't fucking listen to me, Miriam.” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You're a fucking liability. You and that fucking attitude can only get you so far with my help.”

“I get attacked by my own teammate and I'm supposed to stand there?” She snapped.

“You fall into their traps cada pinche vez, Miriam.” He yelled back. “Do you think I don't know what it's like to know your teammates don't fuck with you? I dealt with that shit for years and didn't let every little comment get under my skin.”

Miriam felt herself get small. She sat on a chair and pulled her knees up, hugging them.

“Today was your last strike. They told me that if you got aggressive you were getting traded.” Mateo said, grabbing a water bottle from the mini fridge.

Miriam frowned. “Why didn't you tell me? I would have kept calm or–”

“I know you, Miriam. You would've tried to keep it together for a few games then blow up. You have to deal with the consequences. I've told you countless times to stay focus on the game and not–”

“It's not fucking fair that when my teammates provoke me, I'm the only one dealing with it. I never instigate anything.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Miriam hated crying in front of her dad. She didn't want him to think she was weak.

“I know you don't, Miriam.” He patted her shoulder.

“Where am I going to go now? Nobody fucking likes me.” She sniffled.

“I've been making calls and Racing Louisville has an opening. Lucky for you, one of their players is pregnant and they don't want to go through tryouts.” Mateo said, not looking up from his phone.

“You want me to stay here? In Kentucky? Papi, no.” She whined.

“It's this or we look for international teams.” He shrugged.

Miriam sighed. As much as she loved playing in Rio, she couldn't move abroad. She missed her family way too much. Kentucky may be far from LA but it didn't compare to her being in a different continent.

“Fine.” She agreed defeatedly.

Mateo nodded. “Excellent, you have three weeks to move here before they officially announce you joining their team.”

***

“Dude, I'm not inviting her.” Larissa told Jack.

“It's my birthday.” He pleaded. “I have to give it back to her.”

After the game, Jack found one of the bracelets Miriam gave her dad before the game for safe keeping on the ground. He figured it must've fallen when he was rushing to deal with the few sports reporters. Jack tried dm'ing Mateo but he never responded.

“Or you could just give it to me. I don't see why you're doing the most when I could just return the bracelet to her.” Larissa arched an eyebrow at him.

“I have to talk to her. We're going to be seeing more of each other now that she moved here.” Jack explained.

“We live in a decently populated town not some small town where everyone knows everyone and who's fucking the deacon. Besides, she has her reasons why she doesn't fuck with you.” She mumbled that last part.

“You know, don't you?” He asked.

Larissa shook her head. “I'm not getting in the middle of whatever you have made up in your head.”

“Riss, c'mon.” he sighed.

“I gotta go get ready for my hot date. I'll see you in a few days.” she waved before she left his place.

Jack sighed once more and plopped on his couch. Larissa was right. He could just give her the bracelet and everything will be fine. But the people pleaser in him couldn't let go of why she didn't like him. Not to toot his own horn, but he was liked by many. So Miriam not liking him bruised his ego. He couldn't process how one minute she's laughing and holding onto his arm as he tells her another joke. Then days later she blocked him.

It took him a few days to work up the courage to dm her. To his luck she posted one of his songs and used it as an in. He wanted to hear her laugh again. It had been a while since he made anyone laugh like that. The last time was probably in Brazil when he was performing at Lollapalooza. He and a few friends were invited to Anitta's birthday party. He ran into a girl who spoke English and spent the entire time talking to her and making her laugh. One thing led to another and they found a guest room.

Jack closed his eyes and his mind went back to that night. It was pretty hazy. He was jet-lagged from all the traveling and performing. But he did remember the soft brown he stared into as he came twice. His mind slowly expanded those eyes into a face.

“Miriam!” He yelled to himself.

He had hooked up with Miriam. He cursed himself. How could he forget that he literally was inside of her. But that still didn't answer why she blocked him days after the Met Gala. If the sex was bad, it wasn't, she would've been prompted to block him then. But she didn't. Something must've happened but for the life of him he couldn't remember. The days after the Met Gala he spent them promoting his album. This entire thing was going to bother him.

His phone began to buzz from the coffee table. Jack walked over and checked who it was.

“‘Sup Zack.” He answered.

“Hey man, I landed a while ago but I wanted to ask if I could invite a friend. She moved here recently. She's pretty chill and gets the whole private party thing in case you're worried about her posting.” Zack said.

“Yeah, just give me her name so I can have Neelam add her to the list.” Jack said, pulling up the Google doc.

“You probably know her since you're into your home teams. Her name is Miriam Dominguez-Miller, she just started playing for the women's soccer team here.”

Miriam twisted her wet curls into a bun and quickly got dressed. She just completed her first week of practice with her new. They were a 180 from her previous team. They were kind and were nice to her. They treated her like the team player that she was. She found a groove with her new teammates and they let her be herself.

She started a bit after every practice she would sing a song for their tiktok and Instagram reels. Her song choices ranged from Bad Bunny to showtunes to Glee covers. The other day she sang 96000 from In the Heights and Lin Manuel Miranda reposted it. Her old team tried to shade her by doing their own singing but it backfired on them because they weren't good singers. Miriam was and her comments were filled begging her to use her nepotism privileges to get into singing or on Broadway.

For a minute she almost got into music and even recorded some demos with an old hookup but she focused more on soccer. Maybe in the future once she retired from playing then she would pick it up. But for now all her focus was soccer and getting into the USA team for the World Cup in the summer.

Dione, one of her new teammates, passed her the mini mic when they walked to the parking lot. “It’s now time for song of the day-yyay-ay with Miriam.”

Miriam pressed shuffle on her phone and Hot Girl by Megan Thee Stallion began to play. She set her bag down and performed for them. A few teammates joined in and danced along to her rapping. They all belted out ‘Don't get mad hoe, get a bag hoe!’ chorus. Miriam dropped her winter coat, wearing only her cropped workout top and its matching leggings that made her ass big. She lifted one leg on the back bumper of her car and twerked with one leg as she finished the song. She bowed and handed the small mic to Dione. They went their separate ways after. Miriam stayed in her car for a bit.

She scrolled through her pictures and picked a picture of her and Larissa at UC Berkeley, then one of her in her new away jersey and from a few days ago of her and Larissa at practice. She added a cheesy caption and posted it on Instagram. Her comments began flooding in. She exited out of the app and went to spotify and played some Bad Bunny for her drive home. She started her car and reversed out of her parking spot.

She was belting out Un Ratito when she got an incoming text from Zack Bia. He was a friend, well he was her siblings friends and she would tag along here and there whenever she was in LA. They weren't really that close but they ran in the same circle of nepo babies. He was in town DJing for someone's birthday and invited Miriam to the party. She said maybe and to ask whoever it was if it was okay for her to tag along.

Miriam decided to wait until she got to her apartment to read the message. She was still getting used to driving in Louisville, and driving overall. Once she arrived, she set her practice equipment in the small laundry room and changed into more comfy clothes. She ordered herself some dinner.

She finally settled in her velvet green couch and played a movie while she waited for her food. Miriam then looked at whatever Zack sent her. ‘Jack said it's cool.’ She frowned and replied back, asking who he was referring to. ‘Jack Harlow, he lives here. He's chill.’ He sent her another message with instructions and a QR-code for her. Miriam left him on read.

There's no way she was going to his birthday party. Especially after what happened at the Met Gala. What he said was so rude and she was blindsided from his actions. Since then she vowed to never be in the same room as him if she could help it.

•••

@'mdm: reunited with my better half @'larissa12 💜🤍 ty to @'racinglouisvillefc for the amazing opportunity and for welcoming me into the family

@calwsoc: two pretty best friends

@'larissa12: ilysm

@'katdominguez: can I have the Versace heels you left in LA

-> @'mdm: touch my shit y vas a ver 🩴

-> @'josephdominguez: can I move into your old room

-> @'mdm: no!

@'zendaya: booking a flight to see you play

@'oldteammate: miss you 🥺

@'racinglouisvillefc: 💜🤍

@'miriamhater: imagine your dad being a legendary soccer player and you end up playing for Kentucky of all teams because you're a liability 🤣

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•••

Jack jogged up the steps to the balcony where the DJ booth for Zack was set up. Zack had told him that Miriam said she was going to come but Jack hadn't seen her. He'd done laps around the venue looking for her. He had her bracelet in his car and wanted to give it to her. He also told himself that if Miriam didn't show up to just accept it and give Larissa the bracelet to give to her.

“Has your friend shown up yet?” Jack asked him casually.

“What friend?” Clay asked Jack.

“No one.” His older brother mumbled.

“You know Mateo Dominguez, right?” Urban began. Clay nodded. “Well his daughter plays for Louisville and Jack has a thing for her but he's an idiot and already fucked it up.”

“Oh my fucking god, grab the mic tell the rest.” Jack rolled his eyes.

“She got here like five minutes ago and she's at the bar.” Zack said, without looking away from his monitor.

Clay, Urban, and Jack all looked over the balcony. Miriam was sitting in the corner on her phone in one hand and she was chewing nervously on her thumb.

“How the fuck do you fumble her?” Clay asked.

“I didn't…it's complicated.” Jack explained vaguely.

“I'm getting her side. Cuz knowing you, it was deserved.” He said before making his way down.

“Clay!” Jack called after him.

Clay reached the bar and introduced himself to Miriam. Jack stood far enough that Miriam wouldn't see him but close enough that Clay could see that he was waving him over to leave Miriam alone. But his younger brother ignored him. In fact he stayed with Miriam for another five minutes making her laugh with whatever he was telling. Having enough of that, he went over to where his parents and other family members were.

“Mom, go get your son.” Jack nodded over to Clay.

Maggie over. “Oh she's gorgeous, good for Clay.”

“Don't say that.” He frowned.

“Do you not think she's pretty?” His mom asked.

“Of course I do, but…it's complicated. And Clay is making it worse.” He rolled his eyes.

“What did you do to her?” She crossed her arms.

“Why does everyone think I did something?” Jack sighed.

“Baby, I say this with love, but I know you.” Maggie rubbed his arm. “I don't know what happened or what all of this is about but I know you didn't intend for whatever to go about the way it did. Just be respectful and don't overstep any boundaries. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Jack nodded.

He looked over to Clay and Miriam and sighed defeatedly. Jack made his way out to the parking lot for some fresh air. He leaned back on the cool brick wall, feeling the music thump against his back. He sipped his can of phocus and closed his eyes.

The door flew open. He heard heels click against the sidewalk, in a pacing pattern.

“Hey, sorry I couldn't hear you.” The voice.

It was Miriam. Jack cursed and pushed himself off the wall to inside. He dropped his drink, making her look back at him. He cursed as the can rolled to her. He was trying to be sneaky so she wouldn't see him.

“Clau, can I call you tomorrow after practice? Okay, bye, love you.” Miriam placed her phone in her small Prada bag. She bent down and picked up his can. “You dropped this.”

“I did.” he nodded.

“Do you want it? There's still some.” She said.

“I should recycle it.” Jack said, taking the can from her. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

They both stood in silence waiting for the other to say something.

“I have your bracelet.” “Your party seems fun.” They said the same time.

“Sorry, you first.” They said in unison.

Jack nodded for her to go first.

“Your party seems nice. Uh, happy birthday.” She pulled put a decently sized box from her large leather jacket. “There wasn't, like, a gift table so I didn't know where to put it. I was going to give it to your brother so he could give it to you but he randomly left me at the bar.”

“He does that. He floats around to different people. And thanks for this.” Jack said. “I'm pretty sure you're the only person to actually give me a gift besides my parents and grandparents.”

Out of curiosity of what she could've gifted him, he opened the box. It was a Brunello Cucinelli cheese cutlery set. Jack never heard of the brand before but he figured it was expensive.

“Gonna go ham at Morris Deli and buy a shit ton of cheese.” Jack said, pulling out his keys.

His car was the closest to them. He unlocked it and placed the gift under the passenger seat. He grabbed a small key and used it to open the glove compartment. He took out Miriam's bracelet.

“Here,” he handed her her bracelet. “I'm sorry it took me this long to return it. I should've just given it to Riss. I shouldn't have taken it hostage. I get why you blocked me. I'm sorry if I pushed you back in Brazil and crossed any other boundaries.”

“What night in Brasil?” Miriam's eye brows furrowed.

“At Anitta's birthday party. We hooked up…that's why you blocked me after the Met Gala last year.” Jack said.

“Oh my god, that was you?” Miriam laughed. “That night was a blur. I was in Brasília for a tournament and flew to São Paulo in the night. All I remember is some white guy being way too enthusiastic for missionary sex.”

“I mean they call me missionary Jack for a reason.” He smirked. He then frowned. “That doesn't explain why you blocked me. I had a nice time hanging out with you at the Met.”

“I get fashion isn't everyone's thing but I love going above and beyond for the Met. It's the fucking Met. I don't appreciate people being all nice to me there and then going to some radio show to talk shit about me.” She said, crossing her arms.

“What does that have to do with me?” He asked.

“That's literally what you did? Are you seriously going to act like you didn't?” Miriam frowned.

“Because I didn't.”

“Yes you fucking did. It was for some radio with the lady that talked shit about Kehlani when they were promoting their album.”

It took Jack a second but then he remembered. “That shit was taken out of context. They used that clip for clicks. I was actually complimenting you and the other people that put effort into the Met Gala.”

“Oh…wow, I feel like an idiot. I'm sorry.” Miriam felt her cheeks heat up.

“You're fine. Why don't we start fresh? I mean we're going to be seeing a lot of each other, I don't want any bad energy between us.” Jack suggested.

“I'd like that.” She smiled.

Just like that they fell into conversation. They caught each other up in what happened with them in the almost year. Miriam told Jack about how she played for a few more months in Brasil then went to Germany to film a secret project she couldn't talk about yet. Then she moved back to LA. Jack told her about filming White Men Can't Jump and how he toured for almost six months straight. He even confessed to her that in the last few months he'd been working on an album for shits and giggles.

Miriam’s feet began to hurt from her heels so they went to sit on the sidewalk edge. They sat pretty close, giggling and whispering among themselves. They were so wrapped up in each other that they didn't hear the door open until they Clay's voice.

“Riss, the cake can fucking wait.” He said, pulling Larissa back. He gave Jack and Miriam an apologetic look.

Larissa pulled her arm back. “They want you to cut the cake, Jack.”

“We should go.” Jack told Miriam. He got up and stretched down his hands for Miriam to use them to pull herself up.

“Thanks.” She said dusting her backside.

Jack went in with Clay. Miriam followed behind Larissa.

“I thought you hated Jack.” She told Miriam when they hung back as the other party goers circled around Jack and Urban.

“It was a misunderstanding. We resolved it.” Miriam said.

“It better be. I don't want to get in the middle again.” Larissa sipped her drink.

“I never asked you to be. I would actually appreciate it if you didn't. Your friendship with Jack should be separate and objective to our friendship okay?” Miriam said.

“Fine, just don't come venting to me. Jack's a playboy and I recommend that you don't get involved with him.” She said.

“Like I just said not even a minute ago, I'm not asking nor looking for your opinion of what happens between me and Jack. But if knowing helps you sleep at night, I'm setting it straight that we're just going to be friends. And honestly, i don't like how you're bringing up my personal life right now.”

“You're right. I'm sorry, Mimi. I'm just looking out for the two of you. From now on you won't hear a peep from me about this.” Larissa said apologetically.

“Thank you.” Miriam smiled.

They gave their full attention to Jack and Urban. Miriam made a mental note to get Urban a present. She didn't know it was also his birthday party until she got to the venue. She felt bad because she only got Jack something.

The rest of the party went by fast. Jack introduced Miriam to his friend group. She noticed how the girls in the group all shared a look when Jack mentioned that she was a friend of Larissa but she didn't say anything. Larissa wasn't everyone's cup of tea. She could be intense and sometimes people mistake that for her being mean. Miriam grew accustomed to it so she didn't mind it. Larissa left half an hour after the cake with the guy she was kinda seeing so Miriam didn't get to hang out with her, but she was seeing her the following morning at practice.

By the end of the party, Miriam was still there. She spent the majority of it talking to Jack. She even met his parents and they mentioned how Jack was a huge fan of her dad.

“Where’s your car?” Jack asked Miriam as they left the venue.

“Oh I'm getting an Uber.” She said, typing away.

“Let me take you home. It's late.” He said.

“I don't want to impose.” Miriam said.

“It's fine. C'mon.” He opened the passenger door for her.

“Thanks.” She smiled.

Jack handed her his phone with Spotify open. “The longevity of our friendship is going to be determined by who you play.”

“I was just gonna play Bad Bunny so I don't fall asleep in your car.” she said.

“Good answer.” He said in a tone he had no business talking to her.

Miriam regretted mentally friendzoning him. But she also didn't want to cause any drama so it was that they just stay friends. No matter how hot she thought it was that he backed out of the parking lot. She was so mesmerized by how good he looked driving that she completely forgot that she put in her address and was surprised that he pulled up to her building.

“Damn, even I can't afford living here.” Jack said, taking in the luxury building.

“Ugh, I didn't even want to live here but my dad insisted.” Miriam sighed.

“Fuck your dad for wanting you to live in one of the most opulent parts of town.” He said in the same tone as her.

“Oh my god you make me sound so spoiled.” She laughed. She glanced at the time on his touch screen. It was almost three in the morning. “I should get going. I have practice in, like, four hours.”

Jack quickly got out and opened the door for her.

“Thanks for the ride.” She smiled softly. “And I'm glad we sorted all that out.”

“Me too.” He smiled back.

Miriam stood on her tippy toes and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Jack hugged her back. They slowly pulled apart but still held onto each other. Jack cleared his throat. Miriam turned her head, only inches away from his. Her eyes drifted down to his lips and back to his blue eyes. He waited for her to make the first move, but it never came.

“Thanks again, Jack.” She said, taking a step back.

“Night Miriam.” He said.

Miriam smiled and made her way to the lobby door. The doorman opened the door and let her in. Jack stayed until he saw her go in the elevator before heading back to his place. Once settled in his pajamas he looked through all the pictures taken at the photobooth. He found the one he was looking for and posted it.

•••

@'jackharlowsource: Jack with Miriam Dominguez-Miller, the daughter of his soccer player and the newest player of @'racinglouisvillefc via Instagram Stories

@'jackfan: I know shipping people irl is bad but hear me out...

@'mdmfan: this is the randomest link up ever

-> @'jackstan: one of her teammates from college is a childhood friend of Jack's and she's friends with Zack Bia

@'jackharlowstan: oh he's obsessed with that family 😭

@'miriamhater: I hope Jack stays away from her. She's a bitch and fights her own teammates, that's why she got traded to Louisville

-> @'miriamstan: you mean when her old teammate provoked her and initiated the fight? Yeah don't speak on her

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#jack harlow #jack and miriam: soccer edition #jack and miriam

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netherfeildren · 1 year

Text

Forfeiting My Mystique

Pairing: Ezra x F!Reader

Summary: You're a girl made of golden gossamer, a work of art come to life, and Ezra, well he's dedicated his life to collecting beautiful things.

-OR-

An Ezra Art Collector AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: voyeurism; kind of objectifying? (not sure how to tag the strange shit going on here); ezra’s weird; mommy issues; references to past childhood abuse; touch aversion/touch starved (at the same time); sugar daddy vibes; size difference; oral sex (f! receiving); butt stuff lite; dom/sub undertones; power dynamics; self esteem issues x2; panty thieving; masturbation; obsessive behavior; possessive behavior; brief mention of recreational drug use; brief discussion of parent death

A/N: This is extremely self indulgent - basically I wrote it for me, but you guys can read it too. I know I took some liberties with Ezra's characterization but whatever.

Inspo (and some of the dialogue) pulled from Lenny Kravitz’s Paris town house Vogue tour, Jeremy Strong’s favorite things GQ interview, and “Marianne” from Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin.

Title is from the poem by the same name by Kaveh Akbar.

Word Count: 12K

Read on AO3

Ezra has always loved beautiful things. Since he was a child, his mother taught him to instill an appreciation for beauty into all facets of his world. She herself, a gorgeously beautiful creature, was well versed in such a life. But beautiful as she was, she was also cruel, selfish, capricious to her very core, and she’d turned him into a strange amalgamation of a man by proxy. At once also cruel and selfish and capricious, but hurt and soft and gnarled, as well, so that he was also made gentle and aware and hopeful. That above all else, his greatest weakness, always hopeful. Perhaps, to the point of naivety, the point of peril. For he looked for beauty in all things, and to do that, he was forced to bestow his hopeful eye upon even the ugly and harsh things of the world.

And so he’d dedicated his life to finding those beautiful things. An art collector by virtue, they called him. A vulture, a scavenger, a treasure hunter. A man full of greed and pride, demons and too much money. All he thought of himself as, was hungry. So yes, perhaps a scavenger, a morsel of greed within the marrow of his bones, always looking for the next sublime artifact, painting, statue – person. But he also liked to think of himself as a protector of those beautiful things, of historic things. Things that changed the very face of humanity, shifted the tide of the world. A collector – always in search of the next life changing sight. Always certain the world was filled with endless possibilities for beauty, for loveliness, for sensuality, for something to captivate, to overwhelm him.

The first thing he sees are your feet. Standing in the gallery over from the one you’re inhabiting, people he doesnt know or give a fuck about talking at him, schmoozing and preening and prostrating themselves. Probably hoping he’ll cough up a couple million euro for whatever cause they’re pretending to crusade behind at the moment. He can see only the quarter bottom half of the famed performance artist he’d heard so much about. The entire exhibit tonight had been built around you, and it had the whole of Paris raving and ravenous for a piece of the lovely morsel they so claimed you posed as. Shallow and vain creatures that the peers of his echelon were, they were easily amused and easily bored by the smallest passing fads. At once desperate to be the first to see or speak of a thing, and consequently, the first to discard it as dépassé.

He’d made the trek all the way to the Left Bank from his townhouse in the 16th arrondissement, to see the performance of the woman whom his associate, Oruf, had said would change the way he thought of a living creature forevermore. Big words from a little man, Ezra had no real inclination to believe.

The angle of the wall blocks most of you from his view – granting him the sight of only your knees down. Your feet are small, he can see the tiny square shape of your nails, the gleam of them under the soft warm overhead light – lying on your side, one slotted above the other. The fine architecture of your ankles – delicate, the blue hued veins crawling like vines up the top of your foot, lost to the pale of your skin. The smooth, glossy slope of your calf, up to the flat round of your patella. It’s all he can admire from where he stands. Pretty legs, but nothing to lose one’s head over so far.

The person talking at him is interminably long winded. Ezra would like nothing more than to beg them to shut the fuck up and be on his way. He wants another drink. He wants to see you in full. He’d heard so much about the woman sitting for the live art exhibit. You’d been heralded into a creature of myth by the wagging tongues of Paris. He wanted to discern for himself the level of sanctity you deserved. He wanted to see your face.

Finally, he’s able to demure from the conversation, the promise of ten million euro for the charity of the sycophant’s choice, promised off-handedly – any amount of money would’ve been too little to get the gaping, begging maw to quit it’s yapping.

He slinks along the shadows of the walls, a vulture in its natural habitat. The lights brought down to a low warm hue, meant to shape itself along the contours of your skin, bring out the soft gleam within you. Surely the oldest trick in the book, that of light and shadows. He moves further into the room slowly, your back to him. The plush round of your bottom comes into view, two little dimples gracing the low of your back, the notches of your spine, up, up, to the heavy mantle of your hair. You’re resting on your hip, your torso twisted so your chest is pressed to the chaise you lounge on, your head laying cradled in the circle of your bent arms. There is a tiny, delicate outline of a sparrow tattooed at your shoulder. He watches the slow rise and fall of your back, the shadow of your ribs – he’d feed you more if you were his. The thought comes unbidden – a little shocking – a lovely bottom, beautiful, long hair, but for a man like Ezra – one who so wholly avoided any sort of ownership by another or over another, the thought of such intimacy, something to cause revulsion, not desire, coming from his own psyche, it’s almost distressing to acknowledge as his own.

The crown of your head gleams like a halo in the soft overhead gallery light. The room is muted, voices hushed, and the patrons rove around your unmoving body, the rhythm of your breath the only discernible sign of life on your form from back here. Oruf had claimed that you did not move a single millimeter during the entirety of the three hour long performance. He sure as fuck didn’t believe that. He was having a quite, self proclaimed, contrary and bitter season, by his own choosing, and was prone to bouts of obstinance and general disagreement at anything and everything that presented itself to him. He was choosing, as of now, to not believe in your myth.

He moves further around the center where you lay in repose. He needs to see your face. That will give him the answer he’s come here for.

There’s a large group standing right in front of you – rudely pointing, whispering, and he feels a surge of annoyance at the sight of them. You were here to be observed, appreciated, not fucking ogled like some cheap attraction, and he was here to see you – they needed to get the fuck out of his way.

Finally, they shuffle off, leaving the space directly in front of you open. He makes the final round above your head, comes to stand before you. Oruf had said the only part of you that moved were your eyes.

They fall on Ezra now.

It could have been as if, in that moment, you’d gotten up, naked as Venus, to shriek directly in his face. That powerful was the force behind your gaze – a punch to the gut, his mothers handbag swinging unexpectedly, purposefully into his stomach as he scurried meekly behind her as a child.

He pulls his Jacques Marie Mage frames from his nose. He needs to look away from the searing power of your attention. He needs a moment to collect himself, taking deep breaths as he studies the glasses, runs the tip of his finger over the bridge. He’s held frozen in place by the feel of your gaze still upon him.

He decides in that very instant he has to have you.

When he looks back at you, your eyes flit away. He is dismissed – made ravenous. On the verge of tears, perhaps. Look back at me, look back at me, look back at me. What sort of reaction is this to a woman whose name he doesn’t even know? Nonsensical. Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation – the edibles he’d downed before coming, maybe he’s having a bad reaction.

But the gift of your slow, lazy gaze roves around the space he inhabits now, everywhere but directly at him, almost like a punishment for having looked away from you first – even for a second.

He’s never considered the prospect of trying to buy a person. The moral question or dilemma of it. He decides he doesn’t necessarily care. Whatever he has to do to get you to leave this place with him, he’ll do. What he’ll be able to bring himself to let happen after that, if he’ll even be able to touch you, be brave enough to let you touch him, remains to be seen. Inconsequential too, he finds.

He circles the gallery for close to an hour before he can no longer help himself, can no longer feign casualness. The rest of the art here is pale and dull in the light of your luminescence. He finally comes to a stop in a corner diagonal from where you face, in the shadow of the sculpture of Paolo e Virginia. At this moment, he feels certain Puttinati prophecised your existence, to so depict the vision of reverence he’s feeling for you in this moment.

The performance is three hours long. In that time you don’t move your body at all, Oruf was right – lying with the stillness of marble. The only thing that moves are your eyes, and you watch the patrons closely, examine them. Your gaze is part of the art, part of the power of it.

The visage of you is shocking, not for your nudity, but because in a lifetime filled with unimaginably lovely things, you are, by far, the most magnificently gorgeous creature Ezra has ever laid eyes on. It is like a recurring bullet to the temple over and over again for the visceral shock you pull out of him.

Finally, finally, your gaze falls on him again. The meeting of your eyes, like the strike of lightning against the earth. He can feel his cock thicken, grow heavy, just at the touch of your gaze. It’s voyeuristic – unexpected – he can’t remember the last time he got hard. He feels almost perverted, sporting an erection at the mere sight of you, surrounded by all these people in this crowded gallery.

He can’t see your breasts entirely, pressed to the chaise as they are, only the full, pale sides. He wonders desperately at the color of your nipples, the shade, the hue. He’d like to imprint it in his mind. Know the taste of them, as well, of all your skin – wonders if the color there matches that of the skin between your legs. The thought causes hunger to climb like fire up his chest into his throat, saliva pooling heavy in his mouth at the mere suggestion of your cunt in his mind.

His eyes leave you for a moment, to cast the wide net of his gaze around the room, at the other men. He wonders if they’re hard too, if only your naked skin, lying still in repose, has the power to make their blood rush, their muscles thicken. He is not pleased by the thought of that. And when he comes back to you, you’re still on him. Gaze roaming down his body, taking in the fine cashmere sweater, his perfectly tailored suit, built to hang in a precisely designed loose cut over his shoulders, down his long legs, the incongruous sneakers, back, back up to his face, the spot of blonde at the front of his hair. A single delicate eyebrow crooks in a minute arch at him. It is all the answer he needs

You are looking back at him. It’s all he needs to know.

As the three hour mark comes to a head the lights dim even further until only a singular overhead spotlight falls upon your form. Your skin glows, seems to flare brighter for a single moment, and then a golden sheet of gossamer begins to slowly fall from the ceiling, and right before it lands upon your body, you finally move. Your body stretches, toes pointing and curling, long arms stretched in an arc over your head. The fine lines and slopes of your body coming into startling clarity for one moment, and then you turn over, away from him, where he can’t see your face anymore, and curl in on yourself. The golden gusset falls upon your coiled form, as if you’ve finally been put to rest. The lights dim until all that’s visible is the luminous gleam of the shroud over your curled body.

You are a girl made of golden myth and gossamer, and he must have you.

“Hello, Sparrow.” He steps into the small, warm space of your dressing room.

You turn to face him, you’ve been waiting for him. “Hello,” you say slowly. “You were watching me.”

“Everyone was watching you.”

“Not like you were–”

“No… not like I was.” His accent is some strange sort of concoction of eclectic European – at once French, but also slightly Germanic, with an inflection of deep American South at the end. The vowels and consonants rolling off his tongue, smooth and hypnotizing like the warm pour of honey, and then, suddenly, inflected with a bout of sharpness. Something that snaps you awake, forces you to come to attention, to pay attention to him. That was all it was really, you could tell, a forceful, demanding grab for attention at all times. He called it to himself, seduced the people around him into ardor. Whether they knowingly chose to be entranced or not, was not up to them.

“Ezra,” he gives an imitation of a little flourished bow. You give him your own name in return. “You were watching me back.”

“I couldn’t help it.” He had demanded it of you, after all, no need to lie now.

“I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me.” You turn back to continue packing your bag.

“I’m not very hungry.” You feel him come closer, hear the subtle hint of pleading desperation in his sensual voice that has pleasure coiling deep in your belly.

“A drink then.”

You’d like to be on clear ground with this man who you can see, even now, is an enigma not to be trifled with unconscionably. “Where? At your house?” you turn to crook a sardonic brow at him.

“Would you like me to take you to my house?”

“Yes. If that’s what you want too.” You’d already decided, didn’t see the point in prolonging the game.

His security takes you out the back of the gallery, dark Maybach rolling smoothly up as soon as you reach the curb, and you feel the searing phantom heat of his large palm hovering over the small of your back.

He hasn’t touched you a single time yet, and everything within you is coiled tight, waiting for that first graze.

He pulls the car door open for you himself, and then his driver is there, smoothly offering you his hand to help you step into the sleek interior. The leather beneath you is buttery chocolate brown and you press your thighs together. His security had taken your bag from you, and you felt bereft and listless without the protective clutch of it within your hands now.

He follows after you, sliding gracefully onto the seat across. You can see he’s wearing two gold chains around his neck that rest in the dip of his collarbones, and your mouth waters at the sight. The car pulls quietly away from the curb and then you’re merging into the busy city traffic, ensconced in the quiet of this liminal space he’s stolen you into with him.

He crosses one knee over the other, one thick arm thrown languidly over the back of the seat. You can see a small gold signet ring gracing his pinky – some sort of crest emblazoned on it.

Fucking family crest kind of rich. God. You don’t know if you’re prepared for this.

You cock your head to the side, the muscles in your neck are a little stiff and sore from holding your pose for so long, and you let your neck roll back on the head rest.

He’s quiet, still observing, as if you’re still existing within the walls of the gallery, and not being spirited away to his home so that he might have his way with you.

“Are you going to fuck me?” Might as well be blunt, you think, now that you’re here. He was so gorgeous in that room, watching you, circling you like a beast hunting in the wild. There was really no other way this night was destined to end, but with you beneath him, taking him into your cunt.

“Would you like me to fuck you?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t respond, only gives you a melodic little non-committal hum, continues to look at you from the seat across with those deceptively guileless eyes. You want him to snatch you by the chin and spit in your mouth.

The drive ends in front of the grand façade of a pristine Parisian townhouse on a secluded street in the 16th arrondissement – flanked by national embassies, no less.

You are very, very far from home. In a Paris you’ve not ventured into in all your years of living here.

He helps you from the car, finally, finally, finally, thick palm wrapping entirely around the thin of your wrist. Everything within you coils and pulses, tight and wet. His skin is warm and dry, you can feel the pull of rough calluses on his palm. You’re sure he can feel the hammering staccato of your pulse through the thin membrane as you stare at the way his fingers overlap completely around the circumference of your limb.

He lets you step into the foyer ahead of him as one of his staff sweeps the door open for the two of you, ready and waiting for their master to return with a respectably quiet, monsieur, mademoiselle, in greeting. There’s a huge Basquiat in the entrance hall, across from the sweeping staircase.

“Lots of his art came my way,” he says at your obvious admiration, shock, desire to tuck tail and run back home. “We weren’t friends, but I was roommates with a guy he’d lived with. His last girlfriend was best friends with my girlfriend at the time, so when he died we had one of the first calls.”

“It’s wonderful–” Your voice is full of awe, eyes taking in a type of home you’ve never seen before up close like this. Something out of a picture book that sits on the coffee table of someone wishing for more.

“How many bedrooms does it have?”

“Well… they get used for different things – so I’m not sure. Let’s call it eight.”

You huff a small laugh, run your finger along the keys of the opulent crystal Steinway. “Let’s call it eight, sure.”

Now that you’re here, that he hasn’t overtly said he’s brought you here for sex, you don’t really know what it is he wants from you. A bad thought, but an honest one.

“Drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He leads you into an elegantly lush reception room, hovering hand again at the place above the small of your back. There’s a gargantuan crystal chandelier hanging at the center of the room, two enormous elephant tusks flank the elaborate mantelpiece. The room is a mix of eclectic eccentricities, both neutrally elegant and demure in its obvious wealth, but inflected with touches of vibrant color and idiosyncrasies to bring the room together in a way that you think must reflect the house’s owner.

He moves to the bar, choosing the green bottle of twenty year Laphroaig and pours a knuckle into two crystal tumblers. He’s quiet, subdued, and the lack of small talk to fill the silence has the backs of your knees itching and sweating.

There’s a glossy red panther sculpture prowling across a gold and ivory lacquered coffee table. He comes to hand your glass to you. “That’s a museum piece. I can’t remember where I got it, but it’s rare.” You can’t tell if he’s trying to boast, to impress you, or merely share his satisfaction at owning a piece of art worthy of a museum's gallery. You’d already discerned that at the Basquiat’s first glance, shit, at the first sight of the house. It was a veritable museum on its own. You were sure the number of museum pieces in every room were too many to count in a single night, nay week.

You don’t sit as he goes to do, but start to slowly circle the room. An imitation of his slow roving of you earlier at the gallery. The peat whisky is bold and smoky, a surprising hint of something akin to seawater, but also mellowly sweet. You think that this must be what his skin tastes like, his come – an amalgamation of all the different flavors on the wheel. Saliva pools heavy on your tongue and you take a deeper sip, eyes flitting to him.

“Three hours is a long time to lay so still,” he says.

“It is. But I’m used to it by now.”

“You must be tired.”

“Not particularly – perhaps a bit stiff.”

“Have you been doing this for a long time?”

“Not so long, but not so short, either.”

“So just the right amount?”

“Yes.” He’s quiet for a moment then, still watching, watching, watching. His gaze upon you feels like the drag of a specter’s fingers along your skin, goosebumps rising in its wake. You wonder if this is how he felt while you watched him in the low light of the gallery. Hunted. But no, you imagine there isn’t anything that could make a man such as this feel like prey.

“Can I draw you a bath?” You pause at this – firmer, more familiar ground, finally. This is what you’ve been waiting for. His request for you to get naked for him, to let him into your body. It’s what you want also. He’s not rushing this, and it’s making you feel unstable, unsure of the ground you’re treading here together.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

He leads you upstairs, to one of the guest bedrooms. The en suite, one of his favorites in the house – dark marble tub in the center of the room under a low hanging crystal chandelier. The French windows let in the soft glow of the moon outside, and he draws the bath for you as you peer through the glass. The reflection of your face in the windows, eternally distracting.

When the water is warm and ready, a splash of Neroli Portofino Body Oil poured under the stream, he turns to you. He’s hesitant – both of himself and you, equally. It’s been a long time since he’s touched a body not his own, and he feels the slight anxious tremor of his hands. Although he can’t be sure if that’s strictly attributed to nerves, or all the blood in his body pooling in his cock at the moment.

“Can I take your clothes off?” said as gently as possible, so as not to spook you.

Your gaze is as direct as it was while you lay watching him, surrounded by half of Paris. “Yes.”

He starts at the tiny bow holding the front of your soft silk blouse together – the weave so fine, it’s almost translucent, and he can see the outline of your evasive nipples he’s been so desperate to see. He pulls on the string letting the neck of the blouse fall open, then down to the tiny pearl buttons holding the rest of it together. All without touching your skin.

You’re panting, face already flushed, eyes bright, almost fevered. His balls are tight and heavy, ready to come, just with this. Just at the mere fucking vision of you ready and panting for him. His belly clenches and then he pushes the silk off the fine bones of your shoulders. The wings of your collarbones, the shadow of the dip in them the most tempting image he’s ever beheld in his entire life. He wants to dip his tongue into the tiny pool, fill them with ambrosia and drink directly from your skin.

He feels his cock begin to leak.

The zipper at the side of your skirt is next. He watches the rise and fall of your ribs, the tremble of your throat as he pulls it down slowly, revealing the rest of your skin to him. There’s a tiny lace thong around your hips, robin's egg blue. Oh, he will be stealing that for himself.

He finally lets himself touch your skin as he pushes the scrap of lace down your legs, crouching smoothly to his knees to help you step out of it. He takes in the sight of your small feet up close now. The fine tendons of your musculature entirely too fucking beguiling. He ghosts the tip of a single finger over the top of your foot and you moan for him. So goddamn sweet and wanton.

He unfolds to his full height and pockets your panties. To be inspected at a later time, pressed to his nose and mouth so that he might drink the scent of you down into himself. He tips his chin at the tub now, holding your wild gaze, breaths coming in short little gasps. Your cheeks are flushed the color of your nipples. The tiny wisps of hair at your neck and temples beginning to curl deliciously in the humidity of the bathroom. He could spill his seed just at the look in your eyes, he’s sure of it.

“In,” he orders, crowds you towards the edge of the tub and grips the bend of your elbow between his thumb and index finger – as little contact as possible – to help you into the water. “Sit.”

You immediately obey, and that fills him with more pleasure than the sight of your naked skin. The control you’re granting him right now, allowing him the privilege of ordering you for the sake of his own comfort – he’s going to reward you very well for being so good for him.

He bends over the edge of the tub, hovering over your beseeching upturned face. He brushes his thumb softly over your full bottom lip. “Good girl.” Your eyes flutter shut, you look down into the water, a lovely pink blush blossoming over your cheeks. “Relax. Soak for a while.”

He can tell you want him. Badly. The flush of your cheeks down to your breasts, rosy little nipples peaked, your quick breath. That want, compounded doubly by his refusal so far to really touch you — his inability. The more he stays his hand, the more you want him, and the more you want him the harder his cock grows, the more frightened he becomes. He thinks it’s very true, that old adage, the harder you try to push a woman away from a man, the closer she will go to him by virtue of rebellion.

You sit in the warm bath for close to an hour, and he watches rapturously, hypnotized by the slick wet of the water rolling over your skin, from his seat on an ottoman at the center of the room. The weight of his gaze on your skin, almost violent in its intense desire. He wants to lick every single droplet from your body and then bite into the heavy lush weight of your tits until his teeth are imprinted in the soft flesh, bruises sucked into the pale globes. He hopes you’ll let him. He hopes he’ll let himself.

Your returning look is equally wanton. He watches your gaze trained and hungry on the heft of his cock hiding beneath his trousers. You spread your legs for him beneath the water as you wash yourself, putting on another show, private, just for him. An unjustly jealous wrath stirs within him, coiled and hissing, at the thought of any other human on earth ever getting to see you the way he is now. Largely a passive man, the violence that surges within him has him surprised and not, in equal measures. For he thinks that no being ever having beheld you, could ever possibly be driven to feel any other way than obsessively possessive over such a creature as yourself. You’re like a siren in this moment, languishing in the warm water of his bath, in his house, where you agreed to come with him tonight. A nymph willingly slinking into the depth of Tartarus, knowing she’s in peril of being wholly devoured by the beasts that lay at its depths, and still going anyways.

He helps you out after a while, tiny little fingers and toes soaked to wrinkles, elbow once again caught between his two fingers, and the heat rolling off your skin sears him. Has a violent tremble running jaggedly down his vertebrae.

He wraps you in a plush white towel, pulled from the warming rack, helps you dry your long hair. Then goes to his room for one of his shirts to put you in. He pulls one he’d worn a few days ago off the pile from the chair in the corner. He wants to know you’re sleeping in something that’s already been on his skin, that smells like him, that you’re soaking now in his own scent.

As he pulls the towel from around your body to once again reveal your bare form to him he presses a soft kiss to your naked waist – can’t help himself, the soft slope entirely too beguiling. Overtaking any apprehensions he may have, and his gut clenches with fear and desire. He can feel the weeping of his cock dribble down his thigh as he presses his lips to the warm, fragrant skin.

You’re quiet, watching him, letting him do with you as he wants. His own little sentient doll, created for his pleasure only. “I have a farm in Brazil,” he says. He rounds your form, starts to braid the long strands of your hair into a single plait. You put up no protest – it feels like water, slipping through his hands. “We grow organic fruit and vegetables and there’s cows, lots of cows. We never kill them, they just live there, graze.” One of his favorite places in the entire world, but perhaps, second to the place he resides now, staring at you, dressing you, touching your hair. “I love it there, I’ll take you.”

“Okay,” you say easily. “I’d like that,” the gift of the gentle curve of your smile. He wants to lick into your mouth, fuck you with his tongue, slap your pussy and watch the blood rush to the surface, feel the tight clench of your asshole as he fills you with his come.

“Will you let me watch you play with your cunt?” he asks gently.

“Won’t you do it?”

“I’m scared to touch you yet – to find out if you’re actually real.” He feels an uncharacteristically self conscious blush mar his cheeks. “I–I’m not ready. I want to watch first.” He comes to kneel between your parted thighs that dangle off the high bed. “Pet your cunt for me – show me how you like it, sweet girl. Please.” He is not above begging. Not for this. Not for you – for the sight of you playing with your wet, pink pussy.

You spread your legs wider, give him the tantalizing peak of your bare sex, your glistening folds. You’re already fucking wet for him. He feels an unrestrained growl claw up his throat like fire. His mouth goes dry, parched. The only way to sate himself, to drink straight from the source of your glossy slick.

You press your fingers to the pearl of your clit, swollen and needy already, he can see. You start to swirl little circles over your slippery flesh, your wet mouth falling open in a gasp. “That’s it, yeah–” he whispers, bringing his face in closer to the apex of your thighs so he can smell you directly from the source. His eyes flutter as he breathes in the scent of you, the deep amber and citrus from the bath oil, but beneath that, entwined in the rich notes, the musky scent of you. Fucking mouthwatering. He hears himself moan, the sound pulled almost unconsciously from his body.

“Inside– put your fingers inside. Let me see you fuck yourself.” You press a single finger in, all the way to the last knuckle, and start to rock your hips. He can feel your gaze on his face, the weight of it heavy and pleading.

“Ezra– p–please, please, you do it,” you beg, let your head roll back as you press another finger in and start to rock your clit against the mound of your palm in earnest.

“But you’re doing so well, sweet girl. About to make that little cunt come for me. Look–” He gives you the weight of a single palm on the bend of your knee and you moan deep and ragged at just that compact touch. He can’t help himself – he pulls the edge of the t-shirt up to bare your tits to him and holds it up against the base of your throat where he cradles the delicate column in his hand – the entire large span of him completely engulfing your smallness. “Your thighs are trembling, treasure. You’re going to do it just for me, aren’t you?.”

“Y–Yes, yes–”

He pushes your knee in his grasp wider, opening you more for the fileting of gaze. “Make yourself come – I want to see it. Fucking come,” it’s a demand you answer, just the sound of it causing the heat of your skin to seemingly ricochet even higher. You start to come – he watches the clenching of the muscles in your stomach as you grind your fingers deep. He can hear how wet you are, the sopping wet squelch of your pulsing cunt, and he worries for one second that he’s about to come in his pants.

You let out a reed high mewl, like you’re singing just for him. “What a good, good girl you are,” he praises, and your eyes flutter shut, pulling your fingers away so that he’s left to admire the clenching of your stretched hole. He can see the glossy shine of your slick sliding down the crevice of your ass, and he wants to lick through your sticky arousal so fucking badly he bites down on his cheek until he tastes blood. He bends his head to press his brow to the edge of the bed between your spread thighs, tightening his grip around your knee until you whimper in pain. He loosens his hold immediately, thumb brushing soothingly over the bend before he stands, lets out a long breath. He stares down at your panting, flushed form. Wet and sated after your orgasm. Fuck all the art in the world. He’d set fire to every single masterpiece he owns in this very moment if he was granted the gift of getting to watch you come even one single time more.

He passes his palm over his mouth, feeling the soft bristles of his scruff. He’d like to see the smooth insides of your thighs rubbed raw with it, he’d like to see the stretch of your cunt as he stuffs you full of himself, the milky white of his spend leaking from all your holes.

“It’s time to put you to bed,” he says instead.

Your brow creases in the sweetest little frown, red mouth puckering, still panting. “You’re not staying?”

“No, sweet girl. I think it’s best if you sleep here tonight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“But–”

“It’s alright. There’s no rush.” He leans over you to press a lingering kiss to your brow, pulls his shirt down to cover your breasts. You give him a little whimper, and he allows your hand to come up to clutch the thick swell of his bicep, the heavy muscle there bunching at the feel of your grip. He moves to help you settle beneath the silk duvet, pleased beyond belief at the sight of you tucked into a bed in his home, wearing his clothes, flushed and wearing the sated look of a recent orgasm.

“Goodnight, treasure.”

“Goodnight, Ezra.”

You find his room later. You can’t help yourself, following the glow of the soft light spilling between the crack of his slightly open door, like he’d left you a bread crumb trail to follow, like he knew you’d come searching. You can’t sleep knowing he’s so close, this dazzling creature come straight from a dream. Twisting and turning in the plush monstrosity of a bed he’d left you in. His shirt, butter soft, the dark, gray blue swimming around your much smaller frame. It smells like him, his cologne – you recognize the scent of Le Labo Another 13. Musky with the softest most subtle hint of jasmine, paired with something earthier – greener, and folded between all that: the soft saltiness of his sweat. Why would you sleep when a figure from your very fantasies was right here in the flesh. Your cunt clenches, wet and aching, even after he’d watched you make yourself come. You need more, want to feel the press of his cock inside of you, the heavy weight of it.

He’s sitting up in bed, reading something on an iPad, glasses propped low on his nose. He looks up at your small knock, not waiting for his permission to slip inside.

“I promise, I’ll be good.” You hold your hands up in surrender. “I won’t touch you. We can put a pillow between us if you like.” You move towards the bed.

There’s a large stack of books sitting on his bedside table, flooded by the warm moss stained light of the antique Tiffany lamp. A single idiosyncrasy of old world charm in a room made stark by its bright modernity. The pile is made up of a book of paintings by Howard Hodgkin, the diaries of Alma Mahler, The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner, the fourth volume of In Search of Lost Time – you appreciate his excellent taste – and at the very top, laying open, facedown, as if he’d just put it down a moment ago, My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard. You find it fascinating to see a book that spoke of life in such a granular way — realistic, simple, a normal man in a normal world, speaking in such extensive, caring detail on the small things in his life — on the bedside table of this enigma, this person who seemed to be, by far and large, a different species to all other men you’d ever met before. To see the spine so cracked and worn — as if he’d read it over and over again, in search of the equation for that simplicity, to thus inject into his own existence – a way to embalm his own world in such appreciation for the small but infinitely significant moments. You wonder if it’s taught him much— if he’s been able to find and implement whatever it was he’d searched for through so many reads.

“Alright,” he says easily, but the look in his eyes is slightly wary. You recognize Glenn Gould’s rendition of the Goldberg Variations playing softly on the surround sound as you crawl into his bed – under the silk smooth sheets, bringing a pillow to blockade you from him, protect him. You don’t want him to be uncomfortable, but you desperately want to be close to him also. The two of you have barely talked tonight – too caught up in the observation of one another, like two animals circling in the wild. You want to talk to him. Want to hear the sound of his deep voice vibrate through your nerve endings.

“Intimacy is… difficult for me,” he says slowly, swallowing. “It’s hard for me to get close to people… emotionally, physically. I need time to — I suppose, to warm up to them.”

“That’s — that’s okay. I understand,” you say, because you do, because you’re the same in many ways.

“It’s why I love art,” he continues. “You can be close to something, feel its warmth, beauty – whatever feeling it is the artist intended to pull out of you, from a distance. Untouched – it’s untouchable. That comforts me for some reason.”

“I think – I think I understand that as well. Something, perhaps, about the idea of a thing remaining as it was initially conceived as, for all time, undisturbed by outside influences.”

“Yes – yes, exactly.” His eyes are alive with the fire of being understood.

You look down at his straining erection. You can’t help it. “You’re hard,” you say. You want to touch him so badly it’s a physical ache inside of you.

“I’ve been hard since I first saw you.”

“Let me help.”

He shakes his head, “Not yet.”

“I was embarrassed that the other patrons would be able to tell how wet my pussy was lying there staring at you.” Shocking words. His eyes flutter shut, fuck, he murmurs under his breath, brings his hand up to rub at his jaw. You’ve noticed he does that a lot – a tell of sorts. He takes several deep breaths, the tension seeming to seep out of his body by sheer force of will.

You take him in as he settles back into the pillows, relaxing, or at least pretending to. His face, smooth and serene, laying there watching you, despite his heavy erection, but the look in his eyes – it’s also slightly provoking. As if he wants you to challenge him, question him, but also afraid, perhaps, that you’ll force his hand, that he’ll be forced to give in to what you both want before he’s ready. You decide to choose mercy – change the subject. More curious to see how he chooses to play this out.

“Let’s play the question game.”

“The question game?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he turns to lay on his side, facing you. Both of your hands are tucked beneath your cheeks. He’s wearing a soft, worn sweater, a tiny hole at the collar, the sleeves stretched and overly long. Oh, this may just be too much for you to handle.

“We’ll start with something easy – what’s your favorite color?”

“That’s easy?”

“Yes.” You roll your eyes at him, laughing.

“Depends on the day,” he says very seriously. His blinks are slow, his pupils huge and dilated in the warm light of the lamp. You wonder if he’s taken something. Every time he blinks the thick fringe of his lashes fans over his cheeks, the pause of his languor allows you a moment to appreciate them.

“That’s not an answer – you have to give a real answer.” You want to reach your finger out and brush along that thick fringe, through the patchy hair on his face, threaded through with the smallest hint of silver, stick your nose in his hair and smell him right at the source.

“It’s the only real answer there is – no one’s favorite color stays their favorite color forever.”

“Do you do this a lot?”

“What’s that?”

“Make things purposely difficult.”

A flash of his brilliant white teeth, “Oh, always.” You want very badly for him to bite into your flesh.

“Okay, fine. What’s your favorite color right now?”

Without hesitation: “The color of your eyes – they’re very strange,” you can tell it’s a compliment, and he finally touches you again. A single finger, just the tip, to the point of your chin, tilting your head back slightly for his inspection, as if you were one of the pieces in his collection. You think you may become one by the end of this. You think you’d like that very much. You can feel the slight edge of his fingernail dig into your soft skin.

“I already agreed to fuck you. You don’t have to woo me,” you breathe. You realize that, as of yet, he’s not overtly asked you to have sex with him – you throw the words out anyways, hoping to provoke him. This is too much. This man is too much. You don’t know what it is about him, but you want him desperately, like no one you’ve ever wanted before. You want him to overwhelm you – to take you by force. To take all choice and will and autonomy from your hands. You don’t care what will come of this, what will become of you after he’s done with you, if he discards you, forgets you – none of that matters. All you care about, in this moment, is that he finally decides to take you, that he gives you the opportunity to let go, to relinquish control. To unfold from the pose for just a moment. A slightly deranged spark fizzes in your belly. Your heart pinches a burning little pain at the thought that he hasn’t kissed you yet, that you still don’t know the taste of his mouth.

“None of my answers satisfy you. And yes, I do need to woo you. I find it very necessary.”

You try and emulate an unaffected scoff, his finger is still on your chin, but you feel your brow unwittingly fold into a confused frown. There is a tight knot of want coiled at the very center of you, burning hot and smoldering, and you need him to pick it apart with these strong fingers. He takes his hand away. The look on his face is very telling. He can read everything going on in your mind, you can tell. He looks like the cat that ate the goddamn canary. You try and take a deep, calming breath. “Alright, now you have to ask me one?” you divert.

“Me?”

“Yes, you – that’s how the game works. I do one, you do one.”

“Alright,” he’s quiet for a second, contemplating, “Do you have siblings?”

“No, I’m an only child. Do you?”

“I had a brother, Damon. He died when we were younger.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, well– it was a very long time ago. But thank you. His daughter, Cee, is my ward now. ” Not his niece, not someone mentioned in any capacity as his family. The connection, maintained as if at a distance — his ward — cold. But he gives himself away, his tender vulnerability made transparent, with the sudden flash of bright fondness in his eyes at her name, despite his trying to remain aloof. You are not so easily fooled. You see him despite his attempts to deflect from the true core of himself.

His gaze is so mercurial – at once relaxed, uncaring, and then flaring into something bright hot like a flash fire. But remote, remote always. Like the very center of him, his true gaze is very far away, very deep within him, and this gaze, the one he presents to the world, is merely a farce, a mask. A shroud he pulls over himself to keep others out. His own golden gossamer. You’re shocked that he’s shared this with you.

“My parents died when I was very young,” you offer, your own morsel of ragged soul in the face of his sudden vulnerability.

“I’m sorry to hear that, as well.”

“It wasn’t so bad, after the fact. I went to live with my aunt – my mother’s sister. She was a dancer. My childhood was… unconventional, but wonderful.”

“What about it was unconventional?”

You laugh a little, looking up at the coffered ceiling above you, the thick beams a rich, glossy mahogany. You feel his gaze on your face like a brand. He has not stopped looking at you since he first started. In a sea of years being observed, his gaze is singular in the pleasure it brings you.

“She was a dancer. I mean—” you hum, “What wasn’t unconventional about it? We lived in New York for several years, then Budapest for a time, and then she brought us here, to Paris, where we stayed until her death – where I’ve stayed since. Her girlfriends were always around – fellow dancers, costumes and makeup, drinking and men. They taught me how to smoke when I was eight — Gauloises like a fucking chimney, at all hours of the day, after that — I forced myself to stop a few years ago. Now I only have one on special occasions, sometimes.” He looks at you like he knows you’re the sort to make a special occasion out of a trip to the market. “She had many lovers. Parties… disaster everywhere, but the riotous, happy sort – not the tragic kind.”

“No?”

“No. Perhaps, to the outside eye it may have appeared different… I don’t know. No life for a child, I think. But it was wonderful. She always protected me. But– but never like a mother. She was never like a mother – more like – a friend, or an older sister.” You laugh fondly at the memories, but also a little sadly. In the eyes of an adult now, you’d never want such a life for a child of your own, as exciting as it was at the time.

“One time someone told me I ended up as I did, naked for the world to ogle at, as a means to earn money, because of her. Because of how she was. And perhaps they were right, but… but not in the way they meant — to insult me. She taught me what art was, gave me the means to turn myself into it.”

“Who the fuck said that to you?” His tone makes you look back at him now. All the mystery in his gaze is gone, only fury burns now – very clearly. If he’d let you, you’d cup his cheek, soothe him.

You can see he isn’t ready yet, though. So all you say is: no one that really mattered – the truth, but you can see that it does not soothe him.

“What about you? What was your mother like?” You can appreciate how easily distracted he pretends to be, the deception of it, merely another shroud.

Another one of his long pauses, filled with his eyes on you. He gives you the gift of his touch again. Thick fingers picking up a strand of your hair, running it between his grasp. You feel the slight ghost-like tingle of the tug along your scalp, there but also not, and a jerking shiver moves through you. All the hair on your body standing on end. Fuck, this man.

“She was very beautiful – very cruel,” he says slowly, mesmerized by your hair sliding through his fingers.

“Cruel to you?”

“To the world.”

“Why?”

“But also me.” Succinct in its truth. The thought is a terrible one – for anyone to have been cruel to this magnificent dream of a man. The backs of your eyes pinch. Another long pause. “Hmm,” he tilts his head side to side, still sliding your hair through his fingers, twisting it gently around his hair. He gives it a tiny tug, and you want to scoot forward, even just the smallest bit, just to be a little closer to him, to feel the brush of his belly against yours with the movement of his breathing. “It’s difficult to say – unhappiness, bitterness, boredom. A great and complicated concoction of things that made her into the eternally complex creature she was.”

“She died?”

“Yes. She killed herself.”

“Ezra– I’m so sorry,” the words leave you choked and breathless.

He says it so plainly, starkly, like a slap to the face, one not meant to cause pain or harm, but shock. One meant to cause fear, something to say, look at how fucked up I am, stay away or I’ll infect you with it too. You scoot closer now, you can’t help it, and he goes immediately still, frozen – eyes wide, hesitant, but you don’t touch him. Your hair is still clutched in his hand, and his eyes move back and forth between your own and his hold on you. You’re close enough now, though, that you can feel the heat rolling off his body. Your eyes flutter shut, you say again: “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“She was too vain to grow to old age.” You feel him relax, comforted by the indication that you’re not going to touch him just yet. “I think she felt it was the only recourse for her.”

You open your eyes again, and he’s still staring at you. You so badly want to know what he’s thinking, to feel the press of his mouth against yours, to know the taste of his tongue, the feel of his incisors pressing into your skin.

You pivot three-sixty again: “Do you want kids?” He lets out a loud barking laugh at that, head thrown back so the tendons in his neck jump out starkly. Your cunt clenches around nothing. Wet and jealous.

“This is a very difficult game,” he says, giving you a sly look.

“We don’t have to play anymore, if you don’t want to.” A great lie – you never want to stop playing with him.

“No, I want to keep going.” He slides his whole hand into your hair now, palm cupping the entire side of your head in its broad expanse, and you can’t help the desperate moan that claws out of your throat. His responding hum is all-knowing. “I don’t know. But I love being… I like being able to imagine it.”

Your mind has been lost to a daze induced by the heat of his palm. “Children?” you murmur.

“Yes.”

Your fingers are twisted into the front of your shirt, clawing at yourself to maintain respect for his boundaries. “I want them. Lots of them. I hated being an only child. I always felt alone. I want to have lots of babies.” And his eyes flare with heat at that. The first blazing sign of lust in them tonight. Everything else before this, you realize, was merely a low simmering boil. The fist in your hair tightens so that your head tilts back slightly, the line of your throat exposed for his eyes to follow.

“Lots of them?” You nod your head minutely, wide eyed, equally ensnared by that look in his gaze as you are by his hand.

“Then you shall have them, Sparrow.” You let out a shuddering breath, turn your face into the pillow, enjoying the slight pull to your sensitive scalp as his hand follows, try to breathe deep, temper your racing heart. You’re so wet, you can feel it seeping out of you in a constant throbbing stream. The conversation serving as a more intense form of foreplay than anything else you’ve ever done with a man.

“It’s my turn again. When was the last time you fucked someone?” Blunt – thrown at your face to throw you off kilter. Oh, he fucking loves this. A broken little whimper claws out of your throat at that. Your cheeks are flushed, you can feel them burning, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. The smug look in his eyes taunts you, tells you he knows just how soaked you are. But it is also wild, as wanting as you are.

“Hmm?” he presses.

“Three years ago.” It’s his turn to be shocked now. You see the pause of surprise in that bright light within his gaze.

“Three years? Why?”

“You’re not the only one who finds it difficult to be close to people.”

“And yet you agreed to come here with me?”

“And yet I agreed to come here with you.” You don’t return the question. You wouldn’t like to know, you don’t think. And you can tell he sees that in your gaze, for he doesn’t offer up the information either. You like the mystique of him. Like some eldritch beast, a deity of old, something amorphous, not to be contained or understood. The unknowable aspect of him is appealing to you for reasons you haven't quite figured out yet, despite this game of questions you’re flirting with.

You go next: “Are you lonely?”

“Yes, very.” A pause, and then: “You are too.” This is no question. He can see it, recognizes the same scent of it that permeates the air around him, following you. “You seemed it, laying in the center of that crowded room, naked – bared for everyone to see.” It is not said cruelly. He is only telling you that which you already know about yourself, that which is plain for the whole world to see. “And then shrouded in gold, as if you wanted to hide that vein of aloneness that flows through you – it didn’t work very well.”

“Do you think everyone could see it?”

“No.” Good. You only wanted him.

You take another turn, you can’t help but break the rules with him. “Have you ever been with someone who– who you didn’t really want to be with, but you were– you were so lonely and needed… something… or someone?” All the surety you’d posed your previous questions with is gone now. He’s already discerned so much of you, what’s a little more bared skin? “So you just– you just settled for being with that person even though you knew it was wrong, and the only thing on your mind was the other person you really wanted to be with?”

Without hesitation: “Yes.”

“I think that’s the only type of relationship I’ve ever had. Although, the other person hasn’t really existed – just – just something I’ve thought up in my own head.”

“I accidentally called her by the other person’s name. She never spoke to me again. It was terrible– terrible of me.”

“I want to touch you so badly,” you plead suddenly. Unable to hold it in anymore in the light of all he’s shared with you. Your voice cracking and begging. “I want you to touch me, so badly.”

“I know.” Yes, he does. “You want me to fuck you.” All you can do is let your eyes flutter shut, try to continue to breathe, nod your head.

“Why was your mother cruel to you? What did she do?” You feel like crying now.

“Many things… I had terrible night terrors as a child. Scared her half to death. I’d scream and cry and sleep walk. For years. She didn’t know what to make of me. Some sort of demon come from her very womb to possess and haunt her house. She hated me – would lock me in a closet furthest from her bedroom to keep my howling away from her.”

The blazing heat of anger floods your cheeks, your eyes filled with tears, and he clicks his tongue, smoothes his thumb over the slope of your cheek. “None of that, sweet girl.”

“You were just a little boy – she should have– she should have comforted you. Helped you.”

“It wasn’t in her nature. You cannot fault a thing for not being what it was never made to be. She was a killer of soft things – within herself, within me too, I think. Or she tried, at least. She tried to kill everything soft she came into contact with. But she did love me. In her own way – a wrong way, but she did. That comforts me immensely.”

“That she loved you even if it was the wrong way?”

He nods, “And that I loved her – despite all her flaws.”

“Why?”

“I… I appreciate the idea of being a bad person, and still being able to find someone to love you.”

“You’re a killer.” It is not a question for you already know the answer – you can see it in his eyes, it is his inheritance. You know that either way, it won’t make a difference to you.

“I am, indeed. But, are you?.” The soft curve of his cunning smile is so incredibly beguiling. The most tempting thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. You shake your head, you’re not, you never have been. You think it must be very obvious at first glance, for the patronizing look he gives you as he asks anyways.

“Sometimes I can be very bad,” he whispers slowly, drags the tip of his finger over your shoulder, down the swell of your breast, stopping just shy of your peaked nipple, circling the point.

“What do you do?” your voice is breathless, beseeching.

He smooths his thumb over your bottom lip, pushes between to get inside, presses down on the hard edge of your bottom teeth to inspect the wet gleam of your tongue. “I steal beautiful things for myself–” His voice is like smoke – his confession fortuitous, on the verge of disappearing. His mystique enshrouds the both of you. You hope you disappear alongside him.

“Is that what you’re doing now? Stealing me?”

“Yes.”

“I think I like being stolen.”

He wakes, very late into the night, or very early in the morning, the confounding blue hue of the outside world seeping in through the heavy drapes over the tall windows. Shielding the two of you from the real world.

Your body is entirely draped over his own. You’ve invaded him in your sleep, taken over all the space and air and thought he’s ever possessed. The soft weight of your breasts presses into his chest, your head tucked in the hollow of his clavicle so that he can feel each pass of your damp breath wash over his throat and chin. He expects to feel overwhelmed, uncomfortable, perhaps even disgusted, so much skin, so much heat, your legs intertwined with his – but all he can focus on is the fullness of your tits pressed up against him, the hot wet apex of your cunt against his thigh. You’re wet in your sleep for him – he can feel your dampness seeping through the silk of your extra panties.

One of your hands is curled over his shoulder and he brings it to his mouth, presses a kiss to the soft, small palm. His hand dwarfs yours, swallows it whole. He sucks each one of the tips of your fingers into his mouth, bites down as gently as he can. Your hips start to shift over him, needy cunt trying to unconsciously rub up against his thigh.

He’s going to fuck you now. His cock is hard, aching, leaking, balls heavy – has been for ages, but finally, finally his mind has caught up. Thank fuck.

He passes his palm down the smooth line of your back, pushes his t-shirt you’re wearing up your back to get to your skin. This lovely smooth back he’d spent almost an hour staring at in that gallery. He feels a terrible, unfounded curl of jealousy, once again, that anyone else in the world has ever gazed upon the magnificence that is your skin. He wants it to be only for him, he wants you to be only for him – to own you.

His hand moves down to clutch the full swell of your bottom, pushes under your panties to take a handful of your bare flesh. He bends his knee slightly to put more pressure on your core and starts to roll your hips over him. You let out a soft little moan, sleepy, so sweet.

“It’s time to wake up, Sparrow. I’m going to fuck you now.”

“Ezra–” you murmur, coming to. Your body seems to take stock of the situation before your mind does, little cunt suddenly grinding down more firmly onto his thigh. You let out a moan that goes straight to his cock. He grips your hips and flips you over, settling between the spread of your thighs, slotting his length into your wet cleft, he starts a slow rock that has his head pressing up and into your clit.

“Tell me how you want to be fucked.”

Your eyes are glassy, dazed and confused. He says again, “Tell me how you want to be fucked, or I will decide for you.”

And then your soft little voice, grabbing him by the balls and showing him that as sleepy or drowsy or small as you may appear, you’re still aware of the power you hold over him: “I think I’d like you to decide for me, please.”

Fuck– he deepens the pressure of his thrusts so that his tip presses into your opening over your panties. Your jaw is hinged open, panting wet breaths as you moan for him.

He sits back on his heels then, pulls his t-shirt up over your head and then slides your panties over your hips and down your legs, grips your knees to spread your legs wide for him.

He was right, your cunt is the same color as your nipples. Beautiful.

It’s drooling, begging for him, and oh, how that fills him with pleasure – for such a beautiful thing to desire him, as much as he desires it. He ghosts the back of his knuckles over your slit, using his thumbs to spread your lips wide – he bends for a taste, moans deep and long from his chest.

“Fuck, you’re so sweet. Do you want me to feed your cunt, baby?”

“Ezra, please – yes – I want it so bad.”

“I know, I could see – all night, I could see how hungry you were. I’m going to eat you now.”

Please, please.

He settles between your thighs. Soft little licks to your swollen clit, then down to thrust his tongue into your hole. He grips the back of one thigh to press it up and back into your chest, uses his other hand to press down low on your pelvis, gives you more pressure as he sucks your clit back into his mouth. He can feel the clench of your pussy around his tongue, the shake in your thighs. Your keening moans move through him, have him grinding his aching cock into the mattress. You’re going to come in his mouth, he can feel it, taste it, your slick running from you, sweet and musky, all for him.

Your hands clutch at his curls, pulling and tugging hard as you arch your back and start to orgasm. Ezra, Ezra, Ezra. It’s a litany, a benediction. You are a work of art come to life to sing into his ear.

He gentles his mouth over your quivering sex, laps slowly at your pulsing entrance. He wipes his mouth over the tender slope of your inner thigh and goes back to his knees, licks his palm of your wet as he watches your gaze on him.

He cradles your small foot in his hold. He likes the thought that he can grasp that which has carried you through your life, in his hand. For some reason, it fills him with immense pleasure, the feel of your soft foot, the thought of you walking through life, walking through the world, towards him, to find him. Always him, only him.

There is a wound in him, dark, and putrid, overwhelming his existence always. It was only through the cathartic fulfillment of holding a beautiful thing in his hands that he felt reprieved of the terrible thing. He feels that reprieve in this moment, with the delicate weight of your small foot cradled within his palm.

He brings it to his mouth and digs his thumb harshly into the elegant arch, forcing a moan out of you, deepening the curve of your spine, then drags his teeth along the instep, presses a soft kiss to your first toe. He can see the clench of your little hole at his ministrations, the flush of your skin from the peaks of your breasts to your cheeks.

Your breath is hitching, breasts quivering with your gasps. He bends to lick into your mouth, thin ankle still held in his grasp, finally, finally taking the taste of your tongue onto his own and you moan, wanton and desperate, your legs wrapping around his waist to bring him closer.

“I’m going to give you my cock now,” he presses into your skin, open mouthed kisses to your throat, your neck, your breasts. He nips a gentle bite to one swollen little nipple.

He grasps the base of his cock, passes his hand slowly from root to tip once, twice, and then presses the flushed head to your clit, grinds there for a moment, you jerk, then moves down to your hole, feeds you just the tip. You cant your hips, try and take him deeper, but he holds back, pulls out and moves back up to circle your clit again, and then back down again to press inside. “No, no, no, Ezra, please – I need it so badly – so badly.” He watches a tiny tear, track down your temple and back into your hair, and he gives you the entire thick length of him at that, fucks inside, all the way to the end of you.

“There? How’s that?” He presses a kiss to your breast, sucks it into his mouth. The taste of you is godly. “Is that better, needy thing?”

“So good – so good,” you sigh. Stretching your arms high above your head, arching your back to let him in deeper.

“Fuck, yes–” he groans. He sits back on his heels, grips your hips and starts to give it to you hard. The strong swing of his hips causing the soft jiggle of your tits with every thrust. Your eyes are closed, lashes fluttering, soft mouth open and wet. So fucking beautiful.

“Will you let me fuck your ass too?” Your head is already nodding, all rational thought currently being fucked out of you. “You will, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes – anything you want.”

“Good girl.”

He changes the angle, fucks up into that spongy devastating part of you he plans to own after this is done, and he starts to feel the tight pull of your inner muscles working to suck him deeper. “That’s it, beautiful, just like that. Taking me so wonderfully.”

“God– I– I’m–” you press your palms to his belly and he brings one of your ankles up to his shoulder, presses a kiss to the bone.

“God isn’t here right now – just me–” He grits his teeth, gives it to you harder. He can feel his orgasm start to pool, hot and liquid, at the base of his spine, balls drawing up tight.

“Give me another, Sparrow, one more. Need to feel it around my cock,” spit through clenched teeth.

“Oh, fuck – that’s so good,” you moan, and then you’re milking him, pulling his come out of him with the tight wet clutch of your muscles.

“Fucking perfect, yes – just like that.” He lets his head roll back on his neck, hand grasping your ankle as he fills you.

He watches you eat your pain au chocolat. Sitting in the warm morning sun of the observatory. Tiny bites of the flaky sweet bread, dollop of chocolate sitting at the corner of your mouth that he plans to lick off in a second. He is mesmerized. He knows, empirically, he probably looks like a fucking creep, staring you down as he is, but he can also see the subtle preen in your gaze when you glance up at him every so often. You enjoy this part of your play as much as he does, so it seems. The watching.

“Will you let me take you somewhere today?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Brazil? I’d show you the farm.”

You swallow, the most guileless eyes he’s ever beheld, shining in the light. “Brazil? Really?”

“Of course, treasure. Or anywhere you want. Your happiness is mine to watch over now. I would do anything for you.” As he says it, he can tell, you did not lie when you said you’d like to be stolen.

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