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teddyeyeseddie · 8 months

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To Hell I Go

If She Wants A Cowboy

✰ bull rider Steve x reader

masterlist

✰ cw: broken bones, an er visit, steve in a sling, an eddie debut, first kisses, straddling steve in a creek, smut, minors dni, oral (m rec), boot riding

✰ a/n: this series has been flopping but I am so in love with dandy and our boy that im gonna keep writing it bc they deserve to have their story told, thank you @lofaewrites for betaing :,)

now playing: If She Wants a Cowboy

Steve is rushed right back when he gets to the ER, grumbling an “I’m fine” when he sees the amount of sick kids in the waiting room. Despite his efforts to wait in the lobby, it only takes 30 minutes and he is sitting in a room awaiting his results.

Steve tears up at the news, knowing what this meant for his career. It came to an abrupt stop, throwing Steve forward into a mess of emotions. They did x rays to find that his shoulder was, in fact, broken. His coach eventually leaves, only able to offer so much reassurance and solace.

He sits cooped up in the ER for what felt like hours, left alone to his devices, those emotions from earlier bubbling and breaching the surface now that he was alone. His dad was right, just like he always is. The job chewed him up and spit him out. Usually, a broken shoulder meant the gig was up, not many riders can recover from a serious injury like that.

He wills away his spiraling, putting his head back in order to rest. When he’s about to fall asleep, a soft knock resonates through the room.

“Hey cowboy,” the voice is like music in Steve’s ears, the sound flowing into the air and causing goosebumps to rise on his skin.

“Dandy, they let you in here at this hour?” he questions, a small smirk on his face as he adjusts himself in bed, wincing when he disturbs his shoulder.

“Jus’ had to tell them I was your wife,” she replies sheepishly, wincing slightly.

“I did give ya a ring, didn’t I darlin’?” he cracks a wide smile.

You settle yourself into a chair next to the bed, digging in your purse to find the small paper ring Steve had made you days prior. You slip it on your finger once you find it, flashing it at Steve causing him to let out a full-bellied laugh.

“You kept it?”

You offer a small nod, reaching your hand out to hold Steve’s free hand. The other slung up as the two of you waited to hear what the next steps are in Steve’s recovery.

“What’s the verdict here?” you question softly, rubbing your thumb over Steve's calloused hand.

“Shoulder’s broken. S’ a clean break but fuck if I know what that means,” he groans, throwing his head back as tears form in his eyes.

“Shit Dandy- I’m sorry, don’t mean to turn into a mess while you’re here. It’s just this could be the end of the line for me,” he pulls his hand away from yours in order to wipe his eyes.

He settles his hand back in yours, squeezing it as he stares forward at the wall in front of him.

He didn’t ask you to come and the fact you did makes Steve’s heart flutter inside his chest. You came on your own, and that is more than Steve could ever wish for.

“I’ll be right here with you, Steve,” you break the silence and lean up to kiss his cheek, the first time you had displayed any sort of affection aside from holding hands.

He leans into your touch, relaxing and letting himself be loved on.

The doctors come in moments later, setting his arm and immobilizing it with a fancy looking sling.

Six weeks.

Six weeks of being rendered useless, Steve groans into the night air once he’s been released at the odd hour of 5 in the morning. Hand in yours as you guide him to your car, helping him get settled into the passenger seat.

“I guess in the grand scheme of things, I’m lucky,” he says once you get situated. His head is leaned back, exposing the column of his neck as he turns to look at you.

“How so?”

“A whole summer of being doted on by you?

“Who said I was gonna dote on you?”

“Mmm I just gotta hunch, Dandelion,”

Steve isn’t wrong, you are there every day you're off work, going on walks with him or helping his mother cook dinner.

It’s been about 2 weeks of helping take care of Steve when you pull into his driveway at the early hour of 8am. You softly knock on the door, smiling when you hear a quiet, “come in” from the other side of the door.

You and his mother, Donna you had come to learn, had become well acquainted, spending the evenings cooking dinner together giving you time to converse regularly. You got all the stories of Steve when he was younger, your favorite being the time he peed off the side of the pool when he was potty training.

“Is he awake?” you question, setting the groceries Donna had requested you bring the night prior.

“He’s not, had a rough night last night. He said not to let him sleep in if you’re here though,” she says with a sly smirk on her face, like she knows something you don’t know.

You ignore her look, not wanting to read much into it, trudging upstairs to wake Steve up.

You smile when you see him, he’s propped up by some pillows, something his mom helps him do every night so he is more comfortable.

You sit on the edge of his bed, extending your arm to caress his cheek. He stirs a little bit, waking with a small jolt when you begin to run your thumb across the expanse of his jaw.

“Good morning, Dandelion,” he smiles, his voice thick with sleep, the groggy melody making your cheeks flush.

“Good morning, Steve,”

He sits up at the waist, using his free arm to push him up on the bed. He’s right beside you, free hand coming to rest on your thigh. His lips press a soft kiss to your temple.

“Didn’t think you’d be here this early, sorry I wasn’t up,” he mumbles, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“S’ okay honey, liked getting to wake you up,”

You get up, turning back towards the bed to help him stand. His pajamas are slung low on his hips, soft hair traveling up his belly and to his navel. He looks peaceful like this, freshly woken up, sleep in his eyes and bed head- it makes your heart warm.

He stretches once he’s standing, averting your eyes as his already impossibly low pants stoop even lower.

“You gonna shower?” you question, picking at the comforter on Steve’s bed.

He shakes his head, turning towards his closet and pulling out a pair of wranglers and a t-shirt.

He turns away before dropping his pajama pants, your cheeks flushing at the sight of Steve in just his boxers.

He grabs the clothes he laid out on the bed, shimmying his pants up his legs, frowning as he gets to the button.

“C’mere,” You mumble, buttoning his wranglers, knuckles bumping into his soft belly.

He smiles down at you, brushing a hair out of our face.

“Gonna help me with the top now, dandy?”

You nod, grabbing his top and sliding it up his hurt side, carefully threading his arm through while it is still bent. He chuckles as he pokes his head through the top, easily pulling his other arm through.

You wait on his bed after you get his sling back on his arm, Steve having perfected his one-handed bathroom routine.

He peaks out of the bathroom once he is ready, padding across the room to grab his hat.

“Ya ready?”

You nod, following him downstairs.

When you reach the living room, you’re surprised to see Charlotte and Eddie sitting on the couch.

“Mudslinger! How ya been?” Eddie gets up, pulling Steve into a hug, Lottie shooting him daggers as he does so.

“Careful with the man, Eds. He’s fragile,” Charlotte scolds, pulling Eddie away when he starts to get too rough.

Eddie listens to the woman, settling in beside her with a protective hand on her thigh.

“Wanted to come visit ya, see if there was anything you needed before I head down to the barn to get some lessons started,”

The two of the men fall into easy conversation but you and Charlotte find yourselves stowed away in the kitchen, chatting about anything and everything.

“So- You and Steve, huh? He’s never brought a girl around,” she says as she stirs her tea.

“Yeah- He uh saved me from Billy Hargrove,” you take a sip from your mug, glancing into the living room to check on Steve.

“Oof- Eddie used to work on Billy’s ranch breaking horses. Never got paid enough for the work he did, here though? He’s taken care of, Donna makes sure he is anyways,”

You had learned that a lot of the ranch bonuses and raises used to come from Donna pestering Richard until he caved, that was until Steve came around and gave everyone their well deserved performance based raises.

“Steve’s running it right finally, taught his Daddy more things than he’s taught Steve probably, I can’t wait to see what happens when he finally takes over, maybe he will settle down now that he’s broke himself,” Charlotte rattles off, your stomach lurching at her words, remembering why you’re here.

Steve hurt himself. If he hadn’t been rendered useless in terms of bull riding he’d be off riding in other competitions and eventually nationals. He was kept at home by a broken shoulder, not by you.

You shake the thoughts away, Steve would have wanted you wherever he was, you had to convince yourself.

You and Charlotte continue conversing, finally steering the conversation away from you and Steve.

“Dandy-” You hear Steve shout from the living room, you set down our mug and straighten out your skirt before making your way to him.

“Whatcha need cowboy,” you question, smiling when you round the corner to see him standing, cowboy hat situated on his head.

“Come to the creek with me?” he questions, smiling softly as he holds out his hand.

You turn back towards Charlotte, who is now left alone now that Eddie has gone to the barn to start lessons for the day. She nods her head, shooing the two of you away and out into the summer sun.

Steve laces your fingers with his, boots crunching on gravel as he makes his way to the stables.

“Wish we could take sonny today,” Steve says, frowning slightly when you pass them. You distract him with a kiss to the cheek, bumping into his hat causing him to let out a chuckle.

“Tryna kiss me stupid here, honey?” he asks as he continues walking, dipping into some trees at the edge of the property.

“Just tryna kiss ya, cowboy,” he smiles back at you as he leads you through the trees, finally stopping and letting you settle in next to him once you reach the creek.

You release his hand, kicking off your shoes in order to step in the creek, turning to Steve who is still on the bank.

“Comin’ in?” you grin, looking up at him. He scratches at the scruff that is forming on his chin, contemplating kicking off his boots and joining you.

“I dunno, Dandy,”

“C’mon, don’t make me enjoy this all alone,”

With that, he toes off his boots as you step forward in the water in order to roll up his jeans for him. You hold your hand out, Steve taking it and stepping into the water with you. The two of you wade in the shallow creek, your back to Steve when you feel a splash of water hit the bend of your knees.

You whip around, scowling at Steve who has a wide grin on his face. You bend over, skimming your hand in the water in order to splash him back. Steve walks backwards, tripping over his feet, sending him tumbling, falling on his ass.

You rush to him, dropping to your knees in the shallow water next to him.

“Are you okay?” you question, looking him over as if you’ll see any physical damage.

He simply smiles at you, on your knees-so close to his lap. He wishes he could pull you onto him and kiss you breathless.

That’s when he realizes there’s nothing stopping him.

He hooks his arm around your waist, pulling you towards him. He mumbles a soft, “C’mere,” as he motions with his head for you to get on.

You swing your leg over his lap, heartbeat high in your throat as you look down at him. It’s a little awkward, his sling taking up much of the room between the two of you, but it doesn’t matter.

Steve’s eyes travel to your lips, a smile forming on them as your hand raises to pet the hairs adorning the nape of Steve’s neck.

“I think you’re the one that’s trying to kiss me stupid,” you breathe.

“Just tryna kiss ya,”

With that, he leans in, capturing your lips in a firm kiss. It’s slow–calculated, each movement well thought out as he guides you. You eventually crack a smile while kissing him, teeth knocking together as Steve begins to smile too. You finally pull away when it’s time to catch your breath.

“Why’d you wait so long, cowboy?” you ask, hand still petting at his hair.

“Kinda thought you deserved more, Dandy,” he breaths out, thumb rubbing at your hip as his eyes flash back towards your lips.

“Well- why don’t you let me worry about that, mudslinger” you lean back down, kissing him sweetly before pulling away and getting off his lap. He looks up at you in a daze, lips pink and full as he cracks a smile.

You help him up and out of the creek, using your now half soaked cardigan to dry your legs off before slipping back into your shoes. Steve gets along fine with getting his boots back on, but you can't help but giggle when you turn to see his jeans still rolled up. You bend down to fix them, Steve mumbling a soft thank you.

You walk hand in hand back to the house, offering Eddie a small wave when you pass by the stables.

You’re both still sopping wet when you make it to the front porch, Steve groaning when he’s intercepted by Donna at the door.

“I know you are not about to come in here with those sopping wet jeans on,” She scolds the two of you.

Steve playfully rolls his eyes, nudging past her and making his way inside.

“I’ll clean it Mama,” she playfully smacks his good shoulder before retreating back to the kitchen to continue cooking lunch for the Saturday workers.

Steve opens the door to his room, closing the door after you.

“Skirt’s pretty soaked, do you want some shorts and a new shirt?” he questions, turning towards his closet to grab himself a change of clothes. You squeak out a small “yes” as you kick off your shoes. He hands you a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, turning back towards the closet.

In a surge of courage and confidence, your hands find the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head while Steve’s back is to you.

When Steve turns around, he feels like he’s been punched in the gut. His lungs are void of air as his eyes rake over your frame, drinking you in. He swears he sees stars when your fingers dip into the waistband of your skirt, dropping it to the floor with a wet thud.

You stalk towards him, fingers hooking in his belt loops as you guide him to the chair sitting in the corner of his room.

“Dandelion- sweetheart what are you doing?” Steve asks as you drop to your knees in front of him, eyeing him sweetly.

“Just let me take care of you, Cowboy,” you push him back by his hip, satisfied once you force him to sit in the chair.

Fingers come to unbutton his damp wranglers, cock already straining against the rough fabric. You pop the button, slowly unzipping his pants, tapping his thighs so he will lift his hips.

He’s looking at you with glassy eyes, pupils blown wide as he watches your hand sneak into his boxers and pull out his hard member.

“Fuck, darlin you don’t have to do this,” his hand reaches down to caress the your flushed cheek.

“Want to,” your hand strokes him, the drag causing Steve to throw his head back, loud groans leaving his lips as he indulges in the feeling of you taking care of him.

You suck the head of his cock, tongue swirling around the tip. Steve’s hand comes to thread through your hair, grabbing a fistful and pulling just hard enough to get you off of him.

“You wanna feel good too?” Steve questions, free hand coming to stroke himself. You nod your head, pleading eyes meeting Steve’s.

“Ride me then,”

“S-steve your shoulder,” He laughs, the hand that was stroking his cock now caressing your face. His boot begins tapping on the floor beneath you.

Tap-Tap-Tap

You look up at him through hooded eyes, biting your lip as you lower yourself onto his boot. You let out a soft mewl when the rough leather catches on your clothed clit. You begin to rock back and forth, riding his boot as you take him back into your mouth.

You take him to the back of your throat, nose bumping into the soft pudge of his tummy, being tickled by the pubic hair that adorns the area.

He groans, the deep growl echoing off the walls causing you to pull back and shush him. Steve chuckles as he guides his cock back towards your lips, you greedily sucking him in.

Your hands come to rest on his hairy thighs, your own shaking from the impending orgasm, the coil in your tummy tightening as you use his boot to get off.

“Jesus, Honey. I’m gonna come if you keep takin’ me so deep like that,” he moans as you release his member with a soft pop, a giddy smile on your face as you look up at him.

“Kinda the point, Honey,” you begin to stroke him, hand slippery with your spit and his precum.

“Gonna come,” he grits out, your mouth enveloping him as his hips stutter and his cock twitches in your mouth, hot cum running down your throat.

You pull off him once he winces at the overstimulation. Your hips are still moving, your sopping cunt still dragging across the ridges of Steve’s boots.

“You close honey?” Steve asks, a little hint of pity lacing his tone. You whine when he begins to mock you.

Three more thrusts of your hips and you’re coming undone, panties now soaked with your release and seeping onto his cowboy boot. You slump forward when you’ve finished riding out your high, face resting on his thigh mere inches from his now softening cock. His hand pets your hair, letting you rest there for a while before breaking the silence.

“These pants are still wet darlin, need to change,” he taps your cheek, causing you to rise from the spot in his lap and pull yourself off of his boot. You wince when you disconnect from him, blushing when you see the wet spot you left on the leather. Steve however, props his foot up on the ottoman that you were just wedged between and admires the slick spot on his boot-proud of what you’d done to him.

“Might keep it there,” You whine at his words, embarrassed you’d just come undone so easily for him.

“Hey- don’t pout,” he says as he gets up, a soft grunt leaving his lips as he does so. Tall frame towering over yours, his hand coming to brush your unkempt hair out of your face.

He presses a soft kiss to your forehead, pushing down his pants and stepping out of them. He digs around for a pair of boxers before turning and offering you a pair.

“Figured you’d soaked your-uh,”

“Panties?”

“You just had me ride your boot, now you’re shy about my wet panties?” you question, a small smirk forming on your lips as you take the pair of boxers from him.

Now he turns bright red, cheeks flushing at the mere talk of your underwear.

“I’m a gentleman, Dandy,” you roll your eyes, mumbling a soft, “not in the sheets” as you walk by him.

“Come on mudslinger, let's get dressed. I’ll make us some lunch once we get downstairs,”

#Steve x reader #steve Harrington x reader #steve x you #steve Harrington x you #steve x reader smut #steve Harrington x reader smut #steve Harrington x reader fluff #steve x reader fluff #steve Harrington #steve Harrington fanfiction #steve stranger things #steve angst #steve fanfiction #steve harrington fanficton #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington series #steve harrington angst

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jaebeomsbitch · 11 months

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Not Just A Boy (R.R.)

Summary: You've been dating Roman Roy for a while now when one day he decides he's ready to try. Maybe he's mad about something or one of his siblings said something but tonight is the night he's having sex.

Warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI, humiliation kink, degradation, verbal abuse, and Roman feeling guilty/self harm after. Female reader

A/N: I've had this in my notes for weeks. I have so many half written fics right now. Also I don't think you can write smut about Roman without addressing his intimacy issues which is why I included him feeling disgusted after but he's always comforted.

“Woah easy there tiger,” you say, holding Roman’s shoulders from approaching you any closer. His face a couple inches from yours.

“What? Just trying to fuck my girlfriend, isn’t that what you've always wanted?” He says, a certain harshness to his tone but his face looks like he’s joking.

“A-are you okay? Did something happen?” You ask concerned. He was out of it clearly, I mean he would’ve said if he was ready to try. His brother must’ve said something to him again

“Oh suddenly I want to fuck and I have a problem? ,” he rolls his eyes.

“Roman… you never want to. Not that I’m complaining just- what brought this on?” You ask, confused.

“I want to fuck the shit out of you, what’s the fucking problem?” He’s growing more and more annoyed you won’t even let him try. Roman can be very...aggressive when he wants something.

“If that’s what you want…” you feel weary. Knowing he’s probably in an emotionally precarious state.

“I wanna fuck my girlfriend is that so hard to ask?” He throws his arms out in frustration but he’s got pending nerves stewing away in his gut. Maybe he wanted you to say no but he knew that you never denied him anything. You always gave into his stupid requests even at your own expense.

“Okay, turn off the lights then,” You sigh, knowing he won’t be able to do anything if he sees a shred of his skin. You knew he’d probably wouldn’t go far and he’d get mad at himself but you were willing to try.

He leans over, turning off the lamp. His grip harsh on your hips as he pulls your shorts to your knees.

“Calm down,” You try to say but he ignores, his heated hips pressing to yours quickly. Like he doesn’t want you to see. As if you’ll be able to see in a pitch black room but there’s no arguing with Roman. He gets what he wants, he always has. Being the son of a billionaire certainly afforded him that luxury.

“Just- just let me,” He says breathlessly trying to do it himself but you know he’s near a breaking point. You decide to take charge, you flip him over onto his back.

“I told you to calm down, can’t you listen?” You say annoyed with his pressing.

“What the fuck?” He says, his voice coming out with a certain lilt. You keep your eye contact with him, knowing he doesn’t like anyone looking down at his cock. You grab it, watching as his eyes widen at your touch. He’s only ever been used to the pressure of his own hands so this is a big change.

“Spit,” You command him, holding your hand to his mouth. He just looks at you, his brain foggy as he’s trying to keep up with this change in dynamic.

“W-what?” His eyebrows pinch

“You want to be disgusting, let’s be fucking disgusting or would you prefer me to take over? Can’t use your cock, gotta have your girlfriend do it for you” you taunt, already upset that he thinks he can do whatever he wants. You've spent countless nights with Roman's insistent hips pressed to your leg, his hands bruising the skin he grabs onto. Enough was enough.

“Okay if you want to stop, I'm stopping” You start pulling away from him but his hands grip onto your forearm. He can’t say it, the embarrassment washing over him as his arousal sets in. He likes seeing you like this, your smart mouth being used to put him in his place.

“N-no,” He finally says.

“Look a you, can’t even ask for what you want," You taunt, his big doe eyes looking up at you as he bites down on his lower lip to keep himself from whining. A mewl leaves the back of his throat, his eyes big and desperate.

"You say all those disgusting things to me, send me photos of your dick multiple times a day, and I have to fuck you myself? You’re useless Roman, just a little fucking toy for me aren’t you? That’s what you want?” You sneer, face an inch from his. God he looks so cute like this.

He nods, “Y-yes, m’disgusting,” he says breathlessly. You tease his cock, tapping it at your entrance.

“Yeah, you’re pathetic. You’re nothing but a filthy little piece of shit,” You say, watching his face. He’s lost in your words, his mind foggy at the way you grip his thigh harshly. That familiar pain creeping in mixed with you pumping him dryly at his insistence. A bead of precum spilling out as you move to rub the head of it. He hisses at his sensitivity. You decide to relent, giving him just a moment of sweetness that he doesn’t deserve. You lean down, hot spit spilling onto his cock. You pump faster with the new lubrication, small moans spilling from his mouth.

His chest reddens, Roman could be vocal during phone sex sure but it was always breathless sighs. This was different, the reverberation of his whines pressing into his chest making him feel like a gong. His head pounding with the noise. He tries not to think about it, about this. About how you’ve crossed this line for the first time as more insults spill through your mouth.

“Never gonna be good enough to be anything but my fuckdoll,” You say, looking at the faint outline of your hand working at the skin. The mixture of spit and precum shining under the moonlit night. He feels that familiar heat in his belly, his stomach twitching as his voice climbs. You pump him faster, the skin between your thumb and index finger running up the vein. His breath is ragged as he shudders.

“Shi-it, yeah.. nothing but your fuck toy,” He whines, his head thrashing on the pillow. The heat growing and growing as he loses himself in the feeling. Just as you feel his hips start to twitch you let go. He whimpers at the loss almost crying as he begs for you to touch him again.

“Please— please don’t stop,” He mewls, hands coming to grip your forearm again.

“You take what I fucking give,” You say, your lip curled in disgust as you shake his hands off.

You let him stew in the loss of his orgasm, his dick is painfully hard and spasming as you remove your shorts. You slide his sleep pants off, moving in between his legs so his thighs crowd your knees. Your hands latch onto the meat of his thighs as you hook the back of his knees to your hips. You grab his cock tapping it against your entrance again.

“F-fuck, m’ple—“ He chokes, not getting the full word out.

“Yeah?” You try to make out his face in the darkness, the sound of his head nodding against the pillow mixed with his pants not enough.

“Y-yeah,” He agrees, his voice smaller than normal.

“I’ll stop Rome, I’m serious,” You say a little more sternly.

“Just… fuckin’ put it in already,” He says, embarrassed but whiny at the idea. You give him a second to back down as you line up your hips with the tip of his cock.

“Please,” Finally slips through his gasping lips. The tension in the room crackling as you slowly push into him. Your walls stretching as he slides into you. His hands grip onto the sheets, head thrashing at the sensation. This was much newer and tighter than his soft fist.

“Look at you, so pathetic,” You say choking on your spit. It’s been too long since you’ve felt this, you’d sacrificed your pleasure for your relationship with Roman. One that you were semi-happy with, especially now that he’s moaning under you.

You drag your hips, “Nothing more than a dildo to me,” You say as your hips slap against his ass.

“Ye- yes,” He nods his head, his eyes scrunched closed. You start moving faster against him, the sound of skin slapping filling Roman’s apartment for the first time. You pound into him using him like the most expensive dildo in the world. His mouth hangs open, broken sounds leaving his pink lips.

“So fucking eager for me, no one can fuck you like this, huh? So pathetic look at you moaning under me like a fucking slut,” You breathe as you lean over, your hand next to his head as you use him. You move your hips until you feel him hit that familiar part of you, a grunt leaving your lips.

“Fuck’ disgusting, imagine your dad seeing this. Watching you get fucked, he’d be fucking revolted by you,” You say.

“If only he knew his youngest son likes being treated like a common whore, just a pathetic little fuck toy,” Your voice lowering at the exertion of your movements.

“Thank you thank you,” He mumbles, small droplets of tears in his eyes threaten to spill at his overwhelming pleasure. His moans growing louder and louder, that familiar heat building in his stomach again.

“Please- please don’t stop,” He pleads, a moan hitching at the back of his throat as your hips buck wildly against his ass. The heels of his feet pressing into you to pull you closer. You chase your own release, the familiar fluter of your walls clamping onto him as you grow closer and closer. Grunts spilling from your lips faster, the thought of insulting him flown out the window.

“So fucking perfect,” You gasp, leaning the rest of the way down to suck on whatever exposed skin you can find trying to quiet yourself. Your teeth grazing at the tendon on his neck, tongue gliding against the prominent vein as he clenches his jaw. His hips twitch, chasing his own release. His mind hazy at the feeling of you pressed all over him. He tries to will himself to focus on your words but when your teeth bite down a little harder he feels his eyes roll back. The threatening of his skin breaking at your mercy bringing him closer and closer to the edge until he’s careening over it. He whines and gasps, his face twisting in pleasure, mouth hung open. He sounds more like a rabid animal as broken sounds leave his lips.

“Fuuuck” You gasp as you pummel his abused skin. His ass red with your repeated force and his cock already sensitive but his cum provides an easier glide as you use him. Tears spill down his cheeks at the overstimulation until you feel yourself free fall over the edge. Your hips bouncing against him as your thighs shake. Your face digging deeper into his neck, your mouth left open as you press it harder against his clenched muscles.

You catch your breath before you lower his legs, soothing his aching muscles as he shudders. You try to warm him up, he’s probably not used to subspace. You try to pull him close as you finally lie next to him but he pushes your hands off. The disgust setting deep into his skin until it’s almost consuming him. You recognize that look in his eye, as you forcefully pull him toward the shower. You hand him the loofah, letting him rub his skin until its red and then yank it out of his hand. You’d only ever seen him like this a couple times before, when he decided to touch you on those rare occasions. You fear that this will break your relationship. That maybe you went too far with Roman. You turn around as he dries himself, you hand him a bottle of calming lotion.

“For your skin, you rubbed it pretty raw,” You whisper afraid he’ll somehow runaway at your voice like a street cat. He tries to protest, “Put it on or I’m turning around and doing it myself,” You instruct. Making him feel like a kid again.

“Okay buffalo bill,” He grumbles, slathering himself in the lotion as you put on your pajamas. He walks ahead of you fully dressed again, silently climbing into the bed, you lie next to him afraid he’ll try and run away but he does the unexpected. His head joins your pillow, his hand around your waist, as he breathe in your scent. For once in his life he stays held together, just slightly tattered and bruised because he's just a boy and you're just a girl. He sighs contently as you hug him back, your touch makes all the voices go away as he dozes off to sleep.

#roman roy #succession roman #succession hbo #roman roy x reader #roman roy imagine #succession #roman roy / reader #roman roy smut #roman roy x reader smut #romulus roy #sub and dom #sub and dom dynamics #roman is a sub #roman roy x female reader #roman roy au #slight angst #slight fluff

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sweetiecutie · 2 years

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Pairing: Loki Odinson x fem! Reader

Warnings: NSFW, size kink (I mean, this man is literally 6’4🙄), tummy bulge, bit of overstim, cumplay if you squint

A/n: sorry for being inactive bubs, my sister got in a bad fight w/ her boyfriend and he left the country and took all their shared money savings with him, refusing to pick up his phone, and it was pretty fun to watch. Hope you enjoy this writing💖

Loki was stressed and tired. Tired of always having to maintain the image of calmness and prudence suitable for a member of a royal family. Of his father always underestimating him, instead preferring the older of his two sons. Of said older son aka his brother Thor, overly confident in himself and his abilities which always leaded to him getting into big troubles, at the same time throwing tantrums at every smallest inconvenience

All he needed was some stress relief and you happened to be more than willing to help him out. That’s how you ended up huddled on his huge bed, body rocking with every brutal thrust of his hips, dick plunged deeply inside of your quivering heat, writhing orgasm after orgasm from your shuddering body

You’re laying on your back with Loki settled comfortably in between your opened wide legs, strong hands firmly pinning you down to the mattress, keeping you in one place. Your skin is shiny with sweat, you can feel Loki’s cum drying on your thighs and chest, bringing a slight shriveling feeling but you couldn’t care less. You run your fingers up his sides lovingly, caressing his soft skin with light touches. Your hands come up to man’s shoulders, resting there, digits play with his silky black hair

- Keep your hands up, - Loki rasps breathily in between deep thrusts, forcing his huge cock inside your squelching pussy, slipping out until only the tip is left inside and then slamming his whole length back in. His grip on your hips is firm, long pale fingers dig into the plushy skin, surely leaving dark marks in their wake

- But I wanna touch you, - you whine weakly, lips jutting out into a little pout as you look pleadingly at your lover

Ferocious rutting of Loki’s hips comes to a halt; tall man crouches over, his face is hovering right above yours intimidatingly, noses almost touching as his dark obsidian eyes glare into yours coldly, his long silky hair frames his thin features, stray locks fall down onto your cheeks and neck, tickling sensitive skin there

- I said keep your hands up, - Loki says quietly, putting heavy emphasis on each word. His voice is low and husky, sternness of his tone almost makes you shrink as long-haired man keeps staring down at you admonishingly, daring you to defy his order

You swallow heavily, doing as you’re being told, putting your hands off your lover’s broad shoulders, obediently resting them on a mattress right above your head. Loki hums in approval, resuming the jutting of his hips, plunging his dick in and out of the snug sheath of your cunny. Delicious drag of his throbbing shaft against your velvety walls makes your back arch up in pleasure, eyes flutter closed at the strong sensation

- Good girl, - black-haired murmurs sweetly, thin lips curl into a mischievous smirk and the quick change of his demeanor makes you mind go fizzy, the bottom of your stomach tingles slightly at the praise

He hooks his hands under your bent knees, yanking you towards himself what causes his dick to nudge deeper into your sopping cunt; thick cockhead hits your cervix just right, stretching you out to your limit. You let out a wail of pleasure, eyes rolling back into your skull

- Fuck, doll, just look at that. You’re so small, barely fit me in. I can see my cock moving inside that pretty pussy of yours, - Loki murmurs softly, airy chuckle leaves his throat. His right hand lets go of your hip, resting on your belly instead, slim fingers trail abstruse patterns on the silky skin, causing goosebumps to break out

You rise your head a little, peering down at where your bodies connect and you finally understand what he is talking about. On your lower stomach, right beneath your navel, there is a distinguishable swelling forming every time Loki ferociously slams his cock in your drooling pussy, his fingers tracing the outline of his dick in your tummy. He notices your intense gaze and buries himself inside you to the hilt, stilling his thrusts and staying motionlessly, allowing you to have a better look at what is going on

You mewl thickly when Loki presses his thumb especially hard against the bulge, your head falls back onto the plushy mattresses and man resumes his movements, slanting his hips into yours deliciously, balls hitting your ass with loud smacking sounds that rock the air of the chambers along with your breathy moans and cries of pleasure

You feel your orgasm quickly approaching as Loki’s dick drags along every sweet spot inside of your pulsing walls; the hand that was previously massaging your tummy slides a bit lower, deft fingers rub and toy with your swollen clit, making you thrash in heavy pleasure underneath himself. You grip on the sheets above your head, still not daring to move your hands from their position, thighs wrap around man’s lean torso, seeking some kind of support

Your stomach tightens as you get nearer and nearer to your release and finally, the dam within you breaks, flooding your whole being with a mind-blowing pleasure. It feels like pure electricity surges through your body and your tired muscles shudder violently, making Loki guffaw in excitement, planting light smack to your left thigh

The sight of you falling apart on his dick along with the hectic clutching of your walls pushes Loki closer to the edge; he keeps pummeling your squelching hole, chasing his own release, overstimulating your sensitive body with wide meaty thrusts, making you tremble underneath his bulky form. He pulls out, finishing himself in a few final strokes, releasing his perky cum all over your pubic and quivering pussy with a low groan

Loki swipes the head of his cock over your puffy glistening folds, smearing and smudging his cum all over them, making you jolt harshly at the contact with the overly sensitive nub of your clit, mean chuckle tumbles through his chest at your pathetic cry, your thighs tremble uncontrollably on each side of his body

He leans down, connecting his lips with yours in a lazy wet kiss, tongue slipping in your mouth easily, tangling with yours in a messy dance. You finally decide to move your hands from their position, resting them on top of Loki’s nape, drawing him in even closer to which he happily complies, almost laying on top of you

He breaks your kiss, a shiny string of your shared saliva connecting your lips. Your body sores from multiple rounds of sex and Loki runs his warm hands down your sides, resting them on the concavity of your waist, fingers softly rub your skin there. Black-haired peers into your eyes lovingly, mischievous smile tugs the corners of his lips upwards and he rasps breathily agains your lips, his words bring blush to your face:

- C’mon sweets, one more time. I know you can give it to me🤍

Likes, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated, they inspire me on creating even more content for you💖

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yourangel137 · 1 year

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“Beautiful.” A Kazuha X Fem!reader Fanfic

Again one of my proudest possessions, so I want to post it here too for safe keeping <3

Pairings: Kazuha x Fem!reader

Warnings: reader is insecure. Did not proof read

Genres: fluff

Type: drabble

Word count: 835 words

Summary: Reader is insecure about herself, but Kazuha likes her for who she is. + Confession

Everyone would fall for him if they know what kind of person he is. Gentle and kind by nature, poetic with his words and patient with his gestures, he’s the type to treat his loved one like loyalty and you knew that too. It’s just the fact that,, you aren’t confident enough about yourself to fully accept your feelings for him. To you, he deserves better, he deserves someone prettier and someone whose willing to give more than you think you’re able to give. Yet, every time you try to avoid the kind wanderer, he always seems to find his way back to you. Why was that? Why does he care to stay when he deserves better?

Unknowingly to you Kazuha always has his eyes on you and has always seen you as the most beautiful girl he laid his eyes upon. To him, your body is beautiful, your face is gorgeous and your personality is breathtaking. Even if you try to hide your insecurities from him, he knows you’re insecure. He can feel your attitude change around him, your body posture curling and trying to hide your body in some way. It hurts him seeing you so insecure, but he hopes one day you’ll see yourself the same way he sees you.

Your hand trails over the railing from The Crux, feeling the small marks on the wood. You told yourself you wouldn’t go with Beidou and Kazuha on the boat to Inazuma, but in the end you gave in and joined anyways. Maybe because you could never say no to Kazuha his puppy eyes whenever you reject his ideas at first. ‘Dangit.. Why must he be so cute..’ You think to yourself. A breeze touches your exposed neck, goosebumps forming in your delicate skin. Today the breeze seems to be colder than usual and you didn’t fully prepare for colder weather. Before you can think of a possible solution to the sudden cold temperature, a voice calls out to you. “Are you cold, Y/N? It’s colder than usual today.”

The sudden voice you hear from behind you makes you jump a little before turning around to face him. “Ah.. Kazu.. Yeah I guess it’s kind of chilly today. I’ll be okay though~” You answer him, cheeks flaring up a little from embarrassment he caught you thinking to yourself. “Let’s get you inside instead. I know it’s going to rain soon and I also do not want you to catch a cold.” He holds out a hand for you to take, a gentle yet sweet gesture he uses on you so you’d come with him.

It’s hard to reject such an offer so you gently put your hand on top of his and let him lead you away from the deck and to a warmer place instead. Once you two got inside, you watch him let go of your hand and instead grab a blanket and put it around your body. “You should be more prepared next time, the breeze can get cold really fast. Always bring an extra pair of warm clothes with you, dove.”

The sudden nickname makes your heart skip a beat, cheeks flaring up this time from the sudden rush of love you’re feeling for the man before you. “I’m sorry.” You say, but instead of more scolding, you see Kazuha his eyes soften for you. “Why do you think so little of yourself, darling?”

“W-wha-?”

“I know you’re insecure about yourself. I just personally don’t understand why. To me, you’re like a work of art. Your words flow like music out of your mouth, your personality is as warm and bright as the sun, your beauty is as beautiful as the prettiest and brightest of flowers and your whole existence brightens my life more than the sun is even able to do.”

You’re at loss of words, quickly noticing how Kazuha his cheeks turned pink from his sudden confession. ‘Wait.. is this a confession?’ You ask yourself, yet you couldn’t seem to place those words on your tongue and speak them out loud.

“My words might be a lot to take in right now. So I want you to take your time and let this flow in your mind for a bit longer before you answer me back.”

You quickly shake your head and you part your lips to finally speak your mind too. “I like you.” Yet the way those words left your parted lips, ended up louder than you hoped they would. His cheeks flare up more, turning into a more reddish glow, yet his smile is brighter than his blush.

“That was supposed to be my line, dove.” He let’s out the cutest chuckle before speaking once again. “I hope one day I can make you realize how beautiful you truly are. But... Let’s take things slow and steady my sunshine.” Silently you agree with him, nodding along with his words, words you never thought he’d tell you.

He really is too good to be true.

Thank you for reading <3

Much love,

Angel

Made on: 26-03-2023

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin kazuha #genshin kazuha x reader #genshin kazuha x you #genshin kazuha x y/n #kazuha #kazuha x reader #kazuha x you #kazuha x y/n #kazuha fluff #genshin impact kazuha #genshin impact kazuha x reader #genshin x reader #genshin x female reader #kazuha kaedehara

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ohwowimlonley · 2 years

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Harry Potter nsfw alphabet

Warnings - sub!harry, dom!reader, humiliation, praise

Notes - gonna be doing these for every character on my character list! If there’s anyone you guys desperately wanna see then let me know through my ask box and I’ll put a rush on it!

Likes and reblogs are always appreciated!

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Harry is very panicky after sex, he always worries he’s done something wrong even though he isn’t rough with you. He’d shush you, brush stray hairs away from your forehead, wrap you up in his arms and allow the both of you to calm down. After that, along with a few mumbled words of praise, he’d let you tell him what you needed help with. He’d follow your every word to the letter, anything he could do to help you out.

B = Body Part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partners)

On you? He absolutely adores your tits. It doesn’t matter the size or shape- he just loves to touch them. He’s so needy for them, all the time. Sometimes, he’d just lay there, head between your tits and bathing in your warmth. On him? He doesn’t really like to admit it but he loves his thighs. More specifically, he loves when you grind yourself on his thigh. He loves it when you use him for your own pleasure, telling him to tense and let go, bossing him around.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum, basically)

Harry does what he’s told. Anywhere you let him cum is a privilege, so he doesn’t complain when he doesn’t get to cum where he wants. He does cum a lot though, ropes and ropes of milky white cum landing wherever you let him.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Harry really likes it when you play with his balls. It makes him really embarrassed so he never really asks for you to do it. When you discover this little kink and try it out, it’s safe to say he doesn’t last long.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Harry never really had a lot of time to have girlfriends or boyfriends, and when he did he was too awkward to do anything past heavy petting. So, he’s an amazing kisser but you’d have to teach him everything else (which is good, because he’s an amazing learner)

F = Favorite Position (This goes without saying)

He takes whatever you’re willing to give him, but he does have a preference for you riding him. He doesn’t make you do any of the work; he holds you up by your hips and rabbits into you, watching with dazed eyes as your tits bounce in time.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment? Are they humorous? etc.)

He does have an occasional giggly moment, yeah. It mostly happens when he gets his head stuck in his shirt or a leg of his glasses tangled in his hair. Other than that, though, he’s usually too absorbed in the feeling of you touching him to think about laughing.

H = Hair (How well-groomed are they? Does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He doesn’t really do a whole lot of grooming, but he keeps himself tidy enough. There’s a mostly neat little patch of curly, dark hair just below his happy trail ending just before his length begins.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment? The romantic aspect.)

Harry is such a lil sap :( he loves to hold hands w you and tell you how much he loves you, mumbles it through tears when you’re riding him

J = Jack off (Masturbation Headcanon)

Harry doesn’t touch himself unless you let him. It makes him really needy, sometimes, but it just makes him all the more sensitive when you decide to touch him.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

- Praise kink (obviously, he loves to know when he’s being a good boy for you and it makes him melt every time

- Oral fixation kink (stick a finger in his mouth while riding him and he’ll be putty in your hands I promise)

- Humiliation kink (I have this image in my head of having a needy little Harry begging for your attention at a party, face going all red when you make him rut into your hand in front of all his friends while you make fun of his leaking cock)

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do)

Again, he does what he’s told. Sometimes, if he asks really nicely then you’ll let him fuck you over a desk in an empty classroom (though you’d tease him the whole time about how he’s such a slut for fucking you where anyone could see)

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Pretty much any time you touch him tbh. He’s a good boy about it, though, so most of the time he keeps himself in check in public and when you’re busy.

N = No (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Harry doesn’t like to hurt you. He doesn’t grip on you hard enough to leave bruises, doesn’t restrain your hands and he’d never slap you anywhere on your body. Small hickeys are okay, he thinks they look rather pretty sometimes but it’d never go further than that without talking about it a lot.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

While he does really really love to slip his tongue between your folds, he’s also a sucker for your mouth on him. The best solution for this would probably be for you to climb on top of him, wrap your lips around his tip and let him lean up and lick away all your juices.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

He usually prefers to keep it slow and drive himself in deeper so he can feel all the sensations of your gummy walls clinging to him.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Harry actually quite likes a quickie every now and then. Not all the time, because he loves to spend as much time as possible with you, but he’ll take it in a pinch. It is quite exciting for him, fucking you as fast as he can before someone catches onto the fact you’re both late to Transfigurations and there are suspicious sounds coming from a small storage cupboard.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment? Do they take risks? etc.)

He’s willing to do anything as long as you are, and as long as there’s no possible way of him hurting you.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for? How long do they last?)

Harry never really lasts very long, on account of “you’re just so pretty and you feel so good around me,” but he’s willing to go as many rounds as you want him to, until he’s cumming dry for you.

T = Toys (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He doesn’t really like toys too much. If he knows he won’t see you for a while, he’ll ask very nicely if he can get himself a little fleshlight to use with your permission but other than that he’s perfectly content with no toys.

U = Unfair (How much they like to tease)

Harry doesn’t dare tease you for fear of punishment. When he does, it isn’t on purpose, he’s just naturally beautiful and it’s not his fault he’s relentlessly pretty.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He’s not really very loud a lot, a few whimpers and whines here and there, but he’s mostly too dazed out of his mind to do anything other than stare up at you in awe.

W = Wild Card (A random headcanon for the character)

Thinking about cockwarming w Harry. Him just needing the comfort hug of your tight walls around him and you bathing in his bashful compliments of “thank you baby, love you so much, feels so good,”

X = X-ray (Let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Harry’s not very big, maybe six and a half inches but he’s quite thick and knows just how to use it to his advantage.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Not a very high sex drive, so he doesn’t often initiate sex but sometimes you turn him on beyond belief and he’s forced to follow you around like a lost puppy dog, begging you to let him fuck you.

Z = Zzz (How quickly they fall asleep afterward)

He waits for you to sleep first, watching as you relax more and more as you fall into a deeper sleep. It’s only after he’s sure you’re safely asleep that he allows himself to submit into rest.

#harry potter smut #harry potter #harry potter fic #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fluff #harry potter x y/n #harry potter x oc #harry potter x reader #harry potter x gender neutral reader #harry potter x you #Harry Potter x reader smut #fem!reader #harry potter x fem!reader #•megs smutty daydreams•

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ghostlyyraccoon · 1 year

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fast as you can

ship: kaveh x alhaitham

word count: 11534

warnings: minor violence, short mention of sexual assault

chapters: 1/1

ao3 link: x

summary: “I returned to the tavern after I brought you home, found the man whose name you told me and punched him square in the face. Are you happy now?” Alhaitham leaned closer towards Kaveh. “Do you believe me?” There was a strange intensity to his eyes.The unexpected honesty had Kaveh utterly confused. For a moment, he was quiet as he ran his fingers over his temples.“I don't understand why you would do this for me. Is it to put me in even more debt? Don't I owe you enough already? Tighnari is convinced you did it for my sake.” He let out a dry laugh. “Unless you're like, secretly in love with me, there'd be no-” Kaveh's words, uttered without much thought, got stuck in his throat when for the shortest of moments, a conflicted expression ghosted over Alhaitham's face. Kaveh felt like the air was being pushed out of his lungs.“W- what was that?!”

Alhaitham considered himself a sensible man. He knew how to navigate his feelings, no matter how incomprehensible they tended to appear to the outside world. Oftentimes, his behaviour was seen as either rude or uncaring, yet Alhaitham rarely bothered to correct these assumptions. After all, there was some truth to them that he did not care to debate. He tolerated a set amount of social torment in a day and refused to even entertain the thought of willfully prolonging the experience.

At his house, it was a different story. Alhaitham’s homelife, once quiet and serene, had been turned upside down the moment Kaveh moved in, desperate and hellbent on keeping his new living arrangement a secret. Kaveh’s refusal to let anyone know about his circumstances was truly fascinating to Alhaitham, considering how the architect tended to complain about him to anyone within hearing range the moment a droplet of wine touched his lips.

Kaveh was currently at Lambad’s tavern, doing exactly that. Archons, he would have kept going if Lambad hadn’t called for Alhaitham to come and escort his tipsy roommate back home. Perhaps the fact that Kaveh had gotten involved in a slight brawl with another patron mere hours prior had worried the staff enough to reach out.

The Acting Grand Sage arrived less than half an hour later, the expression on his face unreadable as he nodded at Lambad in silent greeting before paying Kaveh’s tab.

“We are leaving,” he said as he passed by Kaveh, who was lounging on a couch, legs crossed and wine glass in hand. He spared Alhaitham a quick glance and rolled his eyes, refusing to move. When Alhaitham noticed that he had no intentions of getting up, he turned back around and gave him a quick once-over. For a moment, there seemed to be a silent conversation between the two men. They stared each other down, neither of them willing to budge.

“I am waiting,” Alhaitham finally said. “Unless you want to sleep on the streets tonight. If that’s what you’re aiming for, then be my guest.”

Kaveh scoffed and took another sip of his half-empty wine glass before pointing it in Alhaitham's direction. “Did you forget that I have a key? It was you who gave it to me, I might add!”

“Oh? You mean this key?” Alhaitham opened his palm and Kaveh was greeted by his lion keychain dangling off Alhaitham’s ring finger.

“Oh, you little-” Kaveh crossed his arms and leaned forward. His eyes were glowing in the tavern’s low lighting. “And why should I have to listen to you? Just because we live together doesn’t mean I have to go along with everything you say. What do you think I am, your lapdog?!”

A couple of patrons turned their heads around and exchanged curious glances as Alhaitham ran his hand across his face. He wasn’t wearing his earpieces and his expression looked fairly irritated. “Last chance,” he forced out, his tone more quiet than usual. With that, he waved Kaveh’s keys in front of his face again, an eyebrow raised expectantly. Kaveh leapt forward to reclaim what was his and almost got intimately acquainted with the sticky tavern floor in the process.

Kaveh was stumbling down the dimly lit streets, fuelled by two bottles of wine and a certain kind of delirium that only came for those destined to black out soon. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet for the majority of the walk and was most likely sulking due to his night out having been cut short.

After a few more wobbly steps, he unexpectedly began to talk again. “Say, Alhaitham,” he started. “Tell me one thing. Am I not…desirable? With my reputation, one would think there’d be admirers lining up at my front door. Yet all I get stuck with are these desperate good for nothings.”Despite his state of intoxication, he barely slurred his words, so it didn’t take Alhaitham much to understand him. After all, he’d left his earpieces at home and was now unwillingly suffering through the world at full volume.

He shot his roommate a quick side-glance. “For starters, you’d need a front door of your own for that, don’t you think?”

“You-” Kaveh started, but stumbled over his own feet before he could keep going. Alhaitham, attentive as usual, quickly wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled him up before he could hit the ground. Kaveh’s body felt almost feverishly hot against his own chilly skin.

“You are infuriating!” Kaveh exclaimed, out of breath. He hit Ahaitham’s arm thrice in quick succession until the man let go of him again. “I am trying to tell you about this respectless bastard who tried to come onto me, getting all handsy and such! He wouldn't even take a no!”

Finally, Alhaitham turned to look at him. Knowing Kaveh, he’d let that man know exactly how he felt about the unwanted advances. Judging by his reaction, there was little need to worry. Despite knowing that, there was a feeling he couldn't name roaming in his chest.

“Knowing you, that man would’ve run away sooner or later regardless,” Alhaitham added from two steps behind. He pushed the unnamed sensation aside and bookmarked it for future review.

Kaveh gasped.“I don't even know why I try to talk to you. You-! You have the emotional sensibilities of a sumpter beast!” His cheeks flushed red with anger as he stared at him in disbelief. Alhaitham scoffed, but refused to say more.

“And another thing!” Kaveh turned back around, an accusing finger pointed at Alhaitham. “I could get a partner if I really put my back into it. It’s just that I’m too busy at the moment! That is all!”

“Is that so?” Alhaitham said stiffly, furrowing his brows. “Let me know when the time comes and I’ll extend my congratulations to the happy couple.”

Kaveh simply clicked his tongue and started walking faster. The rest of their walk was painted in silence. In spite of his apparent nonchalance, Alhaitham was deep in thought, reflecting on his roommate’s words.

Then Kaveh stumbled a second time and despite his colourful words of protest, Alhaitham pulled his arm over his shoulder and kept him steady until they reached their house.

When Alhaitham finally unlocked the door, Kaveh was already hanging off his shoulder, threatening to fall to the ground. He wrestled him past the doorstep and as soon as the living room was in sight, Kaveh freed himself, stumbled the last few steps forward and crashed on the couch. His head hit the pillow and it was immediately clear the man was gone. Alhaitham watched him from several steps away.

Kaveh's cheek was pushed against his hand and his shirt had wandered, exposing freckled shoulders and a tanned chest. His last job in the desert had turned his skin into the softest shade of brown.

Alhaitham silently moved closer and leaned down, one forearm braced against the couch’s backrest. He tilted his head to the side as he watched Kaveh’s breathing calm down. His hair, pale like wheat, was looking far from pristine with the way it was spread out over the pillow and covering a good part of his face. His lips, plump and wine-tinted, were slightly parted.

Alhaitham allowed himself a good look. The soft sound of Kaveh’s breathing filled his ears. The room was so quiet he could almost hear his own heartbeat.

It was calm moments like these where he was most certain he was losing the rational part of his mind. He knew far too well what his feelings for his roommate meant, knew against his own judgement that the feelings he harboured were far from the camaraderie one should feel for a former classmate. Against better judgement, he’d been aware of the fact that he was in love with Kaveh for the past seven years.

For a split second, he found himself reaching out. With much more care than one would expect from him, he pushed a strand of hair out of Kaveh’s face, careful not to have his fingers touch his skin.

“What am I supposed to do with you,” he mumbled, then stopped himself and opted to flick his fingers against his forehead instead. Kaveh’s eyebrows pulled together in annoyance and his nose scrunched up. Even in his sleep, he swatted at Alhaitham’s hand, mumbling a string of words that were most likely insulting in nature.

Alhaitham smiled before leaning down further, their previous discussion still fresh in his mind. “What was that bastard’s name?” he whispered into his ear.

“-k-m…” At first, Kaveh’s reply was too muffled to understand. It took Alhaitham a moment until the name sorted itself in his head. Then, Kaveh stirred again. “Akim,” he repeated before burying his face deeper in the couch pillows.

Akim, huh?

Alhaitham straightened his back again and searched the room. His eyes stopped at a blanket lying near Kaveh’s feet. It was a gift from an old woman he’d involuntarily helped out, and was irritatingly scratchy. It had the most horrible feel to it, but for some forsaken reason, Kaveh didn’t seem to mind it one bit. Alhaitham gathered the blanket and quickly threw it over him so it fell somewhat clumsily onto his body. Kaveh mumbled another string of words he couldn't understand as he adjusted the blanket so it covered his entire body.

Ahaitham had made up his mind. On his way out, he grabbed Kaveh’s set of keys. There was some place he still had to visit tonight.

He threw his sleeping roommate one last look as he grabbed his soundproof earpieces and pulled the door shut.

Truthfully, Alhaitham had been aware of his feelings for Kaveh for years now.

The first time they met was shortly after Alhaitham’s grandmother died, leaving him an orphan with no immediate family to call his own. The grief was still fresh as a wound the day they met at the House of Daena.

Kaveh, in his own way, had somehow managed to lift his spirits during that time. Alhaitham was barely respondent and borderline rude, yet Kaveh had been there and somehow managed to befriend him along the way. Perhaps this unexpected act of kindness was the last nail in Alhaitham’s coffin. At first, the realisation was nothing but an obstacle to him. It was a riddle he couldn’t solve, a language that failed to come to him naturally. For years thoughts of Kaveh plagued him at night, resulting in him spending restless hours pondering over what could’ve possibly triggered them.

Months passed and everything was fine until it wasn’t. After the complete disaster that was their joint project, they stopped meeting up, stopped talking altogether. One big fight was all it took to tear down the shaky constructs of their friendship. It was one sentence too truthful, uttered without consideration for the repercussions.

Ever since that day, Kaveh refused to look him in the eye. When communication was necessary, he stubbornly insisted on only talking to him through other people. It was incredibly childish and perfectly Kaveh. And although Alhaitham refused to take back what he'd said, there was a part of him that understood why things had to turn out that way.

Despite himself, he missed the camaraderie they’d had. For several weeks he was moody and irritable until he came to accept that his problem wasn’t only the friendship lost, but also the realization that somewhere along the way, he’d fallen for his temperamental senior. As soon as he accepted his feelings for what they were, it turned from an unwanted surprise into a simple acknowledgement of facts.

Alhaitham hated soup, noisy crowds and had fallen in love with a man who had cut off all bonds they'd previously shared. It was reason enough to keep his distance and leave the relationship a broken, unstable thing. Maybe they were too different after all.

Perhaps it would’ve felt more heartbreaking if Alhaitham hadn’t known from the start that it would never work out.

After all, if there was one person in Teyvat unfit to be with Kaveh, it would be him. Kaveh dreamed of a big romance, dreamed of someone sweeping him off his feet into warm and welcoming arms. In the end, that was something Alhaitham would never be able to provide.

Perhaps it was a bittersweet concept to others, yet Alhaitham had never seen it that way. Since he’d considered his chances to be nonexistent right from the start, the disappointment gradually remained at a low point.

A sudden, loud noise disturbed the busy bustling of Lambad’s tavern.

A man stumbled backwards, pressing his hands closely to his nose. A stream of blood was running down his face, for his hands weren’t enough to stop the blood flow.

Alhaitham shook his hand, now speckled with blood, and looked down at the man below him, fist red and knuckles torn. “Don’t try that again. Next time, you won’t be so lucky. Understood?”

The man tried to retaliate, but quickly lifted one hand to protect his face when Alhaitham raised an eyebrow at him. “U-understood.”

He stared him down for good measure, then turned to leave. Lambad was calling his name, but Alhaitham had already turned his earpieces on, paying the world no mind anymore.

Maybe Alhaitham was losing himself in his own way after all. This had nothing to do with him, yet he’d still gone out of his way to rough the man up. His only saving grace was that even if word got out, Kaveh would never believe it. He had never been one to believe in the goodness of Alhaitham’s heart. Admittedly, it was a proper stance to have. After all, he was indeed particular about who he helped out, but when he did, he rarely cared to keep track of the favours people owed him for it.

The walk home was quiet and Alhaitham had to calm his heart that was beating to the tune of his music, before returning to his passed-out roommate.

Kaveh awoke to one of his arms dead asleep. Shooting up from the couch, he spent his first minute awake shaking the life back into his buzzing arm. The uncomfortable feeling was enough to momentarily distract him from what was to come.

As soon as his hand felt as if it belonged to his body again, the nausea hit him. Judging by his debilitating hangover, he'd definitely overdone it yesterday.

Slowly, he started dragging himself to the bathroom, feeling remotely pathetic and spent. The process took him much longer than expected since he had to stop and reconsider his life choices every few steps to make sure he didn't end up throwing up all over Alhaitham‘s atrocious carpet. Once he arrived without any further incidents, he held onto the sink as if it was a lifeline. Kaveh stared at himself in the mirror. His hair looked like a rat’s nest and his eyes were rimmed red.

When he tried to remember how he got home last night, he hit a wall. Even trying to retrace yesterday‘s steps did him no good. Perhaps he’d overdone it more than a little, he quietly had to admit to himself. No matter how hard he tried to remember, his brain wouldn't budge. The memory gap remained, annoying as it was.

He’d worry about it later. First, he had to get ready in time to meet up with Tighnari. They had scheduled a meeting weeks before, and there was no way in hell he’d miss out on it just because of a little hangover. It was rare enough that both of their busy schedules aligned for once.

Kaveh took a quick shower and left the bathroom, feeling slightly more alive again. He checked the time and cursed. If he ran, maybe he’d still make it in time.

Kaveh was sitting, massaging his temples as he tried to nurse the violent hangover he'd woken up to. Tighnari was sitting across from him, throwing him a slightly judgemental look as he stirred his tea. “You know,” he started.”I’d feel bad for you but you should definitely know better.”

“Yeah yeah, rub it in, won't you,” Kaveh complained. The server brought his order and Kaveh poked at it with a finger. It looked good, but the smell made his stomach turn a little.

Tighnari sipped on his tea and fixed him with a curious gaze. “So tell me, how did your night go? Judging by your half-alive state, I’d say not so well.”

Kaveh took a careful first bite and waited to see if his body agreed with what it was being offered. Once it felt safe enough, he dug in with vigour. Yesterday he'd opted out of eating before visiting the tavern - a fatal flaw as it turned out.

“Oh you won’t believe it,” he started between bites. “So picture this. Everything is going great. The wine is lovely, the company even more so. I am having an amazing time until this guy comes in and starts to flirt with me, trying to feel me up. That ugly bastard just wouldn’t take a no!” Kaveh swallowed his food. “He only got the message once I slapped him right across the face.” A quick chortle escaped his lips. “Left a pretty good mark if you ask me. Anyway, after I managed to shoo him off, naturally, I sped up on the drinks. Really, there was no saving the night after that, so who would blame me. And then everything goes black. I’m pulling up a blank slate right here.” He tapped the side of his forehead twice, then groaned as he buried his head in the crook of his arms. “It’s not fair. Let's just hope I didn't do anything stupid.”

Tighnari watched his friend and refilled his cup. Of course, he’d gotten somewhat used to his friend’s nightly escapades, but that didn’t mean they were any less troubling to listen to.

“Are you okay? If you want to, I could ask Cyno to find the guy.” There was genuine worry in his eyes.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ve been through worse.” Kaveh pushed his hair out of his face. In his hurry, he’d forgotten to pin it back. “ I appreciate the offer, but there's really no need. I just wish I’d hit him a little harder. Would have done him some good, I think.”

“About that,” Tighnari started. His ears twitched in anticipation. “Word has it Alhaitham beat someone up at the tavern last night. Do you think that could be related in some way?”

“Huh?” Kaveh’s head shot up and he almost dropped the spoon he‘d been playing with. “What?! Alhaitham beating someone up?! Nonono that can't be. What sort of reason would he have? What would someone have to do to him, dog-ear one of his books? Come on, Tighnari. This is Alhaitham we're talking about here. Al-hai-tham! ” He made sure to drag out his name. “This is ridiculous. Is everyone losing their minds? I mean, really.”

He racked his brain for last night’s memories, but came up with nothing new. Kaveh scoffed in annoyance. “He wasn't even at the tavern last night. I was there the entire time, I would definitely know. Alhaitham, beating someone up. Yeah right,” he scoffed and rolled his eyes.

Tighnari stole a piece of Kaveh’s food and plopped it into his mouth. “Would you though? He always gets called when you overdo it. Archons above, it's beyond me why he still comes to pick you up so often. Kaveh, you’re my friend and you know I cherish you, but I’d definitely have abandoned you after the third time or so.” Tighnari leaned forward and his ears twitched playfully.

“Hey, rude! Aren’t you supposed to be my friend?!”

Tighnari’s tone turned more serious again. “In all honesty, I can't think of anything besides you that routinely gets Alhaitham to act out of bounds like that. I think it’s pretty safe to say that he normally doesn’t care enough to get involved like that.”

Kaveh scoffed once more, but stared at an indent in the table as he felt his cheeks heat up.

“Yeah, there's no way. Even if he did, he was probably just in a bad mood because he got sand in his shoes or something. Or he just read an incredibly bad application for funding. I'll ask him, you'll see! Alhaitham, doing something like that out of the goodness of his heart… yeah, right. What's next, he'll start behaving like a normal human being?!”

Kaveh threw the door open so hard it almost hit the wall.

“Alhaitham!” he yelled as he burst into the house, looking for his roommate. “Alhaitham! I need to talk to you!”

He didn’t have to look for long. There Alhaitham was, lounging on the couch. It was his day off, so he looked fairly relaxed reading his book, not even looking up as Kaveh came bustling in.

“What's the ruckus about this time?” he said, head still turned towards his book. One finger hovered over the pause button of his earpieces.

Kaveh sized him up with a strange look on his face, then stepped forward and quickly snatched the book away from him. Alhaitham looked up at him, irritation clear in his eyes. He reached for the book, but before he could grab it, Kaveh put it even further away.

“Let me check something,” he said. It was more of a demand than a question.

“Return my book and we’ll see about that,” Alhaitham shot back as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Listen to instructions for once in your life and you’ll get it back.”

Alhaitham seemed to consider his options for a moment. “No.”

“Alright, then,” Kaveh muttered under his breath. Instead of continuing to run in conversational circles with Alhaitham, he lunged forward and grabbed both of his hands by the wrists, pulling them close. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Embarrassingly enough, Kaveh was more than acquainted with Alhaitham’s hands and would notice even the slightest change in appearance. He’d always harboured an artist’s adoration for them. Long fingers, almond-shaped nails and soft-looking skin seemed to make for the perfect muse. In the confines of his room, he’d painted them more times than he was proud to admit. Not that he'd ever told anyone about it. Actually, he’d much rather die and turn over in his grave before admitting to such a thing out loud.

He inspected the hands he knew so well with furrowed brows. Alhaitham’s skin was as smooth as he had always expected it to be. When his thumbs ran over split knuckles, Kaveh looked at his roommate with raised eyebrows. Of course, Tighnari just had to be right.

“What the hell, Alhaitham! When Tighnari told me someone saw you getting into a fight at the tavern, I was so sure they must've been mistaken. Feeble scholar my ass.”

Alhaitham tried to pull his hands away, but Kaveh only tightened his grip and pulled them closer.”Don’t you have anything to say?!”

“So what if I did. I don't see how that's any of your business, Kaveh.”

“When did you even get to Lambad’s? You weren't there when I was.”

Alhaitham raised one eyebrow. “You do know the owner calls me whenever someone needs to drag your semi-conscious carcass back home, don’t you? Did you really think you got yourself home in the state you were in?” His hands were unmoving in Kaveh’s and he threw him a taunting look. “Everybody, clap for the genius that is the Light of Kshahrewar,” he replied, his voice dripping in sarcasm. It made Kaveh want to throw a fit. How could one man be this infuriating? He dropped Alhaitham's hands as if he'd been burned. This was as close to an admission as he'd get from him.

“Not only are you a bastard, you’re an ass too! Unbelievable! And to think I was worried about you! Why can't you just communicate like a normal human being?”

Alhaitham shot him a deadpan look as he tried reaching for his book again. Clearly, he didn't want to talk about the issue at hand. But that didn't mean Kaveh would just let him have his way. He moved Alhaitham's book even further out of reach.

“We are not done talking.”

“Says who.”

“Well, I do! And I’m your roommate, so you’ll have to listen to me!”

“Remind me how that works again?”

Kaveh stared him down, exasperated. When he received no further answer, he clicked his tongue and turned on his heel. It was clear from the way his steps echoed through the hallway that he was mad.

What Alhaitham didn't expect however, was for Kaveh to return shortly after, disinfectant and bandages in hand. He plopped down on the sofa, one leg pulled up, the other on the ground.

“Come here,” he said, suddenly quiet. A peace offering.

Alhaitham didn't move an inch, but turned towards him with a raised eyebrow nonetheless. Kaveh rarely ever did things quietly. With him tended to come a boatload of irritating noise.

“Must you always be so difficult?! Come here, Alhaitham,” he repeated himself, this time more demanding.

“What for?” he asked stubbornly, earning him a groan from Kaveh.

“Just stop asking! Here.” Kaveh scooched forward, taking one of Alhaitham's hands and putting it on his leg.

The confusion was almost comically clear on Alhaitham's face. Before he could open his mouth again, Kaveh pressed an alcohol-drenched cotton ball to his split knuckles. His tongue darted past his lips as he ogled the injury once more before carefully applying bandages.

When he was done, he squeezed Alhaitham's healthy hand. “There. Wasn't that bad now, was it? You know, it wouldn't kill you to trust me from time to time.”

Kaveh had always been too kind for his own good. This breached dangerous territories. Alhaitham knew he should thank him, but being open felt like reaching into his chest and exposing a beating piece of his heart he wasn't willing to give up just yet. It was a derailment of what he knew that made his blood run cold.

Carefully, he flexed his fingers as he pondered his next move, decidedly ignoring how warm his cheeks felt after that small touch. Years of little to no touch had made him a degenerate when it came to physical affection, it seemed.

Alhaitham cleared his throat. “You didn't do half bad,” he finally admitted.

“Yeah yeah, you're welcome.” Kaveh made an exaggerated hand movement. “It was nothing.”

But Alhaitham knew better. To him, it was a lot more than that. People generally did not treat him this gently. Archons, people rarely ever touched him. They kept their distance, careful not to gaze over Alhaitham's meticulously built walls. Mostly, he was thankful for it. His fortress was a lone, but sturdy thing. It was safe and most of all, consistently reliable. Leave it to Kaveh to knock it down in the breath of a moment.

“You feel like telling me what happened now? Although I find you terribly insufferable, I don’t know you to be violent without a good reason.”

And Alhaitham decided to give him an inch. He tilted his head back and let his back hit the couch. “Find it out yourself if you're so curious,” he taunted, looking at Kaveh from under his eyelashes. Kaveh returned the gaze with a newfound fire in his eyes.

“Oh, I will. Believe me, I will!”

He pointed one last accusatory finger at his roommate. “This conversation is not over!”

For once, Kaveh made his way down to Lambad’s tavern without the goal of getting absolutely hammered in mind. Today, he was on an important mission.

It should be fairly easy to find the answer to his questions as long as he asked just the right people. After all, Lambad’s tavern was always filled to the brim. There had to have been at least a handful of people who bore witness to Alhatham’s little throwdown yesterday.

Kaveh didn’t have to search for long. Upon entering, first things first, he was faced with a man staring at him, one eye swollen shut and his nose bent in an awkward ankle, most definitely broken. The man opened his mouth, then closed it again when he made eye contact with Kaveh, bearing striking resemblance to a blowfish. His eyes darted to the ground almost immediately.

Suddenly, a memory pushed its way through Kaveh’s hazy brain. Hands trying to grab his waist, attempting to touch where he certainly hadn’t allowed him to.

“You little-” Kaveh started, leaping forward. Before he knew it, he was already grabbing Akim by the collar, pulling him closer to his face.

The scumbag named Akim lifted his hands in defeat, flinching away from him as he scrambled for words. “Your partner already taught me a lesson. I get it now! What I did was wrong and I am sorry. I've had one too many, Kaveh. I was drunk, drunk I say!”

Kaveh's anger came in hot white flashes. “That is not an excuse you- wait. Say that again?”

“I've had one too many?”

“No, the other thing! Did you just say my partner beat you up?” An idea, perhaps even an inkling of what might have occurred started to form in his head. However, it made absolutely no sense to him, no matter which way he turned it. There was only one person Akim could logically be talking about.

“Partner, boyfriend, lover, whatever you’d like to call the Acting Grand Sage.” Akim shied away from his probing gaze. “Knocked the living daylights out of me. Who knew a paper pusher like him could have that much upper body strength? I mean I should’ve known, the man is built like a t-”

Kaveh’s breath hitched in his throat. “The Acting Grand Sage beat you up?!” His voice raised in pitch. “You think Alhaitham and I are…” His cheeks reddened and Akim threw him an almost amused look.

“It's the talk of the town, even more so after he hit me in front of the entire tavern. Honestly, my bad for trying to shoot my shot despite it.”

“You- I- He…Ugh!” Kaveh brought out and let go of Akim’s collar. “It's not like that!” He took a step back and pushed his hair out of his face in exasperation.

“So I still have a chance?” The man’s hopeful smile was disgusting. Without any warning, Kaveh picked an abandoned glass off the table and threw the drink in his face. “You wish!” He left the man behind, dripping from head to toe and looking properly pathetic.

Kaveh made his way towards the bar, grumbling to himself, where Lambad watched him with a certain kind of curiosity.

“Mister Kaveh.” He nodded in greeting. “A bit early to see you here. Might I ask why you are antagonising my clientele this fine midday?”

Throwing himself onto one of the barstools, Kaveh leaned forward, fixing Lambad with a serious gaze. “He deserved it,” he concluded. “I’d keep an eye on him, he's definitely a pervert.”

“Hmm of course. I will keep it in mind. The Acting Grand Sage did already take care of that for you yesterday, didn't he?”

“Did everyone see?!” Nervously, Kaveh tapped his fingers against the counter. “Tell me what happened. Please, it’s… important.”

Lambad sighed. This was far beyond his pay grade.

When he returned home, Alhaitham was still where he’d left him. Kaveh approached, ready to confront him, but soon realised that Alhaitham had fallen asleep. Kaveh tutted his teeth. Whenever he complained to Cyno and Tighnari about how Alhaitham acted like a lazy cat in his free time, they refused to believe him. Yet here he was, once again dozing on the couch, the sunlight kissing his closed eyelids. He was lying on his side, both arms pulled close to his face. Like this, Alhaitham looked closer to the irritating junior Kaveh had met all those years ago. In many aspects, he was still the same. The attitude problem definitely remained, just as his lack of respect for his seniors did.

Kaveh knelt down, inspecting Alhaitham's face. “Hey, Alhaitham,” he said, voice firm. Alhaitham, being an exceptionally heavy sleeper, did not stir. The man was near impossible to wake and even more disagreeable than usual upon waking up. But Kaveh would have to risk it. After all, he wanted answers and he wanted them now.

“Wake up,” he said, shaking Alhaitham's shoulder. The man stirred, but only buried his head further into his arms. Irritated energy was coursing through his veins and Kaveh kicked the bottom of the couch. After all, Alhaitham hated when he made a ruckus. He'd show him what a proper ruckus looked like.

“Come on now, time to wake up!” He shook Alhaitham once more, this time more violently.

Finally, his eyes opened the tiniest bit. “What is it,” he grumbled and they fell shut again. Instead of waking up, he got a hold of Kaveh's arms. The architect promptly lost his balance and toppled over with a squawk. Curse Alhaitham and his stupid strength.

Still having a death grip on Kaveh's arms, Alhaitham turned onto his back, uttering something Kaveh interpreted as. “Just be quiet.”

This was why Kaveh never bothered waking him up. It was an entirely impossible feat and not worth sitting across from a grumpy Alhaitham not even coffee could soothe. Additionally, Kaveh was now partially draped over Alhaitham, unable to move. Determined not to give up, he swung his legs over Alhaitham's body, straddling him. He still couldn't free his hands, which were held tightly against Alhaitham's chest, but at least now he felt like he had the upper hand again.

“Alhaitham!” he said, this time louder. No response. “I'm not your pillow, let go of me!”

“Alright, if you're gonna be like that.” Kaveh leaned down until his head was almost in the crook of Alhaitham's neck, right next to his ear.

“Wake up, you bastard,” he whispered into his ear, sweetly, softly.

Finally, Alhaitham awoke with a startle, his eyes blinking against the light of the dimming sun.

“Kaveh?” Alhaitham was still drunk with sleep and his voice came out sounding both raspy and soft. Kaveh’s heart did something funny in his chest. Perhaps he'd made a mistake after all. He'd never heard Alhaitham utter his name like that.

Kaveh leaned back, dumbfounded, already having forgotten about the position he'd put himself in, and watched the way Alhaitham's eyebrows pulled together as he let go of his hands and yawned. He opened his eyes and suddenly stilled. For a moment, there was confusion on his face as he sat face to face with Kaveh. Neither of them said a word.

“What are you doing s-”

“It’s not what it looks like!”

They both stopped again until Kaveh remembered why he wanted to talk to him in the first place. He cleared his throat and turned his head away defensively. “I was just trying to wake you up. It’s not my fault you are impossible to wake up.”

“More importantly,” he continued. “Do you mind telling me what business you had at the tavern last night?”

Alhaitham sat up as much as he could, looking much livelier than he normally did after having been awoken so crudely. For once, there was some colour to his cheeks. “Actually, I do mind. Didn't I tell you to find it out yourself? What happened to that, gave up so soon? And to think you call yourself a creative genius.”

“I haven't! I just wanted to hear it from your mouth!”

Kaveh crossed his arms and looked down at Alhaitham. His eyes were narrowed.

Alhaitham blew his bangs out of his face and looked up at his roommate, who was still breaching his personal bubble. His eyes were still half-lidded from sleep, making his expression look remotely standoffish.

“I returned to the tavern after I brought you home, found the man whose name you told me and punched him square in the face. Are you happy now?” Alhaitham leaned closer towards Kaveh. “Do you believe me?” There was a strange intensity to his eyes.

The unexpected honesty had Kaveh utterly confused. Slowly, he untangled himself from Alhaitham and slid over to sit down on the couch instead. For a moment, he was quiet as he ran his fingers over his temples. His thoughts were racing.

“I don't understand why you would do this for me. Is it to put me in even more debt? Don't I owe you enough already? Tighnari is convinced you did it for my sake.” He let out a dry laugh. “Unless you're like, secretly in love with me, there'd be no-” Kaveh's words, uttered without much thought, got stuck in his throat when for the shortest of moments, a conflicted expression ghosted over Alhaitham's face. Kaveh felt like the air was being pushed out of his lungs.

“W- what was that?!”

“What was what?” Alhaitham replied, his voice lacking its usual bite. “You need to be more specific if you’re expecting an answer.”

A certain kind of nausea started to fill Kaveh’s guts. “I saw that. That look on your face, you… You must be joking.”

The look on Alhaitham's face was a truly unfamiliar sight. In the 10 years they’d known each other, Kaveh had never seen anything like it.

“This is just a cruel joke right? You've heard me lament about how lonely I am, so this is how you choose to tease me.”

Alhaitham seemed to have regained his composure. His lips parted and Kaveh waited impatiently. It was uncomfortable to see him at a loss for words.

Then finally, Alhaitham looked back at him before averting his eyes again. “It’s beyond me why that would be your first assumption,” he said calmly. “I may be blunt, but I'm rarely intentionally cruel, you should know that.”

“Then tell me that I got it wrong. Geez, don't sca-”

Alhaitham interrupted him before Kaveh could brush off his words. “You didn't. Your assumption was correct. I guess the secret's out now.” Alhaitham let out a dry chuckle.

Kaveh just stared at him as if he'd grown a second head, all possible replies dried out on his tongue. “Am I having a stroke?” he brought out, unable to keep his eyes off Alhaitham’s face. Red eyes met turquoise ones. “Do you want me to believe you of all people would fall in love? With me?”

The question caused more pain than he expected. Perhaps it was an unfair thing to feel hurt over. After all, Kaveh couldn’t have known the impact those exact words would have on him. Still, he recoiled and Kaveh pulled back his hands just as quickly.

“You'll be fine. This is none of your business anyway.”

Alhaitham stood up and pushed the hair out of his face. “For what it's worth…” He didn't turn back around. “I never planned on telling you. Maybe… “ He pulled a grimace. “Forget it.”

“It’s none of my business?! Oh no no, you are not going to get away with this, because I’m not buying it! You-” Kaveh watched Alhaitham, trying to find any change in his behaviour. He seemed just the same, if it weren't for the rigid set of his shoulders and his guarded expression.

“I thought you didn't care,” Kaveh whispered, all his anger blown away in an instant.

“I guess you thought wrong then.”

Kaveh couldn't keep his eyes off him. His heartstrings were aching with a familiar pain.

“You… you've known for a while,” he concluded and Alhaitham nodded. His hands were digging into his thighs hard enough to leave marks. Kaveh didn't dare to step closer, his body frozen in place.

“Obviously.”

“For how long?”

“I don't see how that matters.”

“It matters to me! Alhaitham, of course it matters! How. Long.”

It was obvious Alhaitham didn't want to answer. After a moment of silence however, he caved in. “After we cut contact.”

“After we-” Kaveh's eyes widened. “Seven years?! And you said nothing?!”

“Naturally. You didn't talk to me. Nothing would've changed if I’d thrown another set of obstacles your way.”

“I-”

“You wouldn’t have listened. Nothing would have changed,” he repeated, putting more emphasis on his words. There was a scary level of conviction to his words.

Kaveh's head felt as if it was about to combust. His heart was beating with an anxiety that was yelling at him to escape while he still could. Certainty could be such a frightening thing. “I can't do this right now,” he forced out, caught up in the mess that were his own emotions.

Alhaitham nodded solemnly and sat down again, his hands now pressed flat against his thighs. For once, he seemed reluctant to fight about the issue. “I certainly won't stop you.”

“I'm going to Tighnari’s. Don't come after me.”

“Suit yourself.”

Kaveh rushed to his room to gather a few of his things. His heart was beating to his chest as he threw all his necessities into a bag. When he returned to the living room to retrieve his keys, Alhaitham was staring out of the window, arms crossed and lips pressed into a straight line.

And although there was some part of him yelling at him not to leave him like that, all Kaveh could do was run.

Alhaitham didn't turn around when the door fell shut behind him. As soon as he was alone, his expression dropped. This was the outcome he’d expected, yet it still hurt. It was a foolish, nonsensical thing to grieve about.

His heart ached, the feeling uncommon and new to him. It wasn’t the dull heartache of unrequited love he’d grown accustomed to, but something much more open and fresh instead.

Alhaitham slipped his ear pieces back on and put on instrumental music to soothe his bruised heart. The mellow beats did little to calm his troubled mind.

With a sigh, Alhaitham switched the music off again. Perhaps this was the perfect time to get serious about his temporary position as Acting Grand Sage. A lot of work had piled up and by now it was quite obvious that no one else was ready to step up just yet. Being busy would be a welcome distraction. Despite his efforts, there was nothing and no one waiting for him at home anyway.

Perhaps it was always supposed to end this way. After all, fate had never been particularly kind towards either of them.

Kaveh arrived in Gandharva Ville completely out of breath. He came to a stop, hands braced on his knees, and had to catch his breath for several minutes. As his gaze was turned towards his own feet, they were suddenly joined by a small set of sturdy boots. Kaveh’s head shot up and he was greeted by unruly green hair and big eyes. Tighnari’s little pupil, Collei, mustered him with a worried expression. “Mister Kaveh?! Are you- are you alright? Hold on, let me get you some water, here!”

The young girl unbuckled a flask from her belt and handed it over to him with shaky hands.

Kaveh took a big gulp and relished in the feeling of cold water making its way down his parched throat. He straightened his back and looked up. Kaveh was greeted by the bluest sky he'd seen in a long time. It was a day too perfect for his beaten mood and for once, he found himself wishing for rainy clouds and dark skies.

“Thank you, Collei. You are too kind. Is Tighnari home? I really need to talk to him.”

“Of course, yeah! I'll bring you to him, follow me!”

He followed her through the forest and not too soon after, they arrived at Tighnari's house.

“Master!”

Tighnari's head poked out of the doorway. “Yes, Collei? Oh- Hello Kaveh. I expected to see you sooner or later. Come in, tell me what happened.”

“Tighnari, can I stay here for a couple of days? Please?”

Tighnari put his hands on his hips and sighed. “That bad, huh? Well, come on in first. You can tell me all about what happened with Alhaitham after you’ve settled down a bit.”

“How did you-”

Tighnari sighed deeply. “One way or another, your problems always revolve around him.”

Kaveh opened and closed his mouth. “I complain about other things too!” he retorted, fairly offended.

Tighnari's ear twitched. “Let me be the judge of that.”

After he got settled in, Kaveh and Tighnari sat down at a cozy dinner table. Without saying a word, Tighnari pushed a bottle of wine towards Kaveh.

“You look like you need it.”

Kaveh accepted it gratefully. “Tighnari did the Archons send you?” He poured himself a glass, then settled down. After his first few sips, he pushed the glass away and cradled his head instead, lost in thought. Tighnari poured himself a glass as well and watched his friend with sharp eyes.

“Alhaitham told me he's in love with me.” Straight to the point. The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could even think about stopping them.

Tighnari spilled a bit of wine and cursed. “He did what now? Kaveh…”

“For seven years, Tighnari! He's been keeping this from me for seven years! Can you tell me why he has to be like that?! And he only admitted to it because I straight up asked! If I hadn’t said anything, he would have-'' Kaveh interrupted his stream of words to take another small sip. “He would have kept it all to himself, just like that!” He nursed his drink and pushed out his bottom lip. “He’s so unfair, Tighnari.”

Tighnari furrowed his brows and sighed deeply. “So you finally realized it.”

“Finally? What is that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me…” Kaveh looked over at his friend. Was it that obvious?

“So how did you answer him?”

“Well, I- I mostly didn’t! I ditched him and immediately ran over here!”

With great restraint, Tighnari managed to suppress the urge to put his head in his own hands. Calmly, he folded his hands and leaned forward. “Let me summarize what happened, just to make sure I've got everything right. Alhaitham-”

Kaveh nodded.

“-confessed to you. You got mad at him, left without giving neither answer nor rejection and sought me out? Is that correct?”

Kaveh bit his lip. “Well, if you put it that way…”

“If I were you I’d go back home before he does something stupid.”

Guilt started to fester in Kaveh's bones. “I can't do that.”

“And why not? You can't just hide away forever. Running away from him will only get you so far. Didn’t you just start to rebuild your relationship? ”

“I can't because… because I just can't. It's complicated. He hasn't thought this through.” Kaveh crossed his arms and averted his eyes.

Tighnari didn’t know that everything good he touched eventually withered and died. No matter how irritating he was, he would never put this on Alhaitham, regardless of his own complicated feelings.

Tighnari fixed him with a deadpan stare. “You said yourself that it's been seven years. I think he’s had ample time to mull it over. I'm not trying to push you here, but I think you know very well that the actual problem lies elsewhere.” Tighnari tapped the table and faced him head on. “I just don't want you to ruin something before it's even had the opportunity to grow and bloom. Although Alhaitham is even more prickly than a cactus, I think you know him better than anybody else. Take your time to think it over, but don't just run away. You love him too, don't you?”

Kaveh lowered his head and wrung his hands. “Sometimes I despise how smart you are.”

When Kaveh returned with a made up mind and slightly improved mood, three days had already passed. Surprisingly, he was greeted by an empty home. After searching the entire house up and down, he came to the conclusion that nobody was home. Apparently, Alhaitham himself hadn’t been home in quite a while.

Just as Kaveh put down his bag, a frustrated sigh leaving his lips, the doorbell suddenly rang loud and clear. Kaveh opened the door without any hesitation. Perhaps Alhaitham had simply forgotten his key?

The man standing in front of the door was very clearly not Alhaitham. Still, the man’s face was familiar. Kaveh recognized it from somewhere. Then, it suddenly clicked. This man was Panah, the Mahamata who’d had the displeasure of getting tasked with helping out the Acting Grand Sage at the House of Daena.

“Senior Kaveh, thank Lesser Lord Kusanali!” he exclaimed, sounding both exhausted and out of breath. “Please come quick, we need your help. It's about the Acting Grand Sage. He hasn't left his office in days! Talk some sense into him, none of us are getting through to him! He just won't listen!”

Kaveh's eyes widened. So that was where Alhaitham had been hiding. What a fool.

“Yeah, he tends to do that. Let me grab my keys and I’ll be right behind you.”

Kaveh took the elevator up to Alhaitham's temporary office. To be quite honest, he had no idea what to expect. Despite his genius, Alhaitham was rarely one to do more than the bare minimum. This sudden change was so concerning and out of place that Kaveh couldn’t help but suspect that he was partially to blame for it. Perhaps if he hadn’t run away like a coward, things would’ve been different by now.

Alhaitham was sitting at his desk, the shadows beneath his eyes dark and pronounced as he stared down the document lying in front of him. The light of an almost burnt down candle dipped his features into an ominous light. The quill he was holding had left droplets of ink spattered on the tabled underneath his hand.

“Didn't I ask not to be disturbed?” he asked without lifting his head.

Kaveh walked over to his desk, hands stemmed on his hips. “Finally starting to take this thing seriously after all?” he asked before adding softly. “What are you doing here, Alhaitham?”

The scribe lifted his head and considered Kaveh. “Well, look who's found his way back,” he said drily. “The runaway architect.” He took a look at the clock. “There's still plenty of time left to escape if you ask me. Might make it worth your while.” Okay, so maybe running away had been an even worse decision than first anticipated.

“Alhaitham,” Kaveh started, but found himself at a loss for words once he got a closer look at the Scribe. “You look horrid.”

“Thank you for that astute observation. Now leave.”

Kaveh's eye twitched. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I refuse.”

Alhaitham stared him down. “I said leave, Kaveh. Is that so hard to understand?”

“I am not leaving until you're coming home with me,” Kaveh retorted.

“First you run for the hills and now you want to play martyr? What a kind and empathetic soul you are, Kaveh.” Alhaitham’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, but there was a strange tone buried underneath it. “Maybe you can fix me after all.”

Kaveh slammed both of his hands on top of Alhaitham's table. “Why must everything always be doused in sarcasm with you! Am I not allowed to show that I care about your wellbeing?!”

Alhaitham's gaze was exhausted as he cocked his head to one side. “It's beyond me why you'd do that.” His usual drawl lacked its sparkle. “I never asked for your kindness and I certainly won't start now. Go and offer your charity to somebody else.”

They stared each other down, neither wanting to give in. Alhaitham's eyes drooped with tiredness and Kaveh could tell he almost had him. So really, who would blame him for playing a little dirty. He sat down on the table, arms crossed and back turned away from his roommate.

“How mature,” Alhaitham's voice sounded from behind him.

Kaveh shrugged his shoulders. “And what about it? I don't see you acting your age either, so why should I?”

Alhaitham sighed heavily. Minutes passed, and the scratching of quill on parchment turned from erratic to slow until finally, the quill dropped onto the table and it stopped completely. Kaveh turned back around. Alhaitham's head hung low and his breathing was slow. He had passed out from exhaustion.

“Oh geez,” Kaveh mumbled. “What have you been putting yourself through?” He walked around the table, kneeling down next to him to take a closer look at his face. Despite his slumber he didn't look peaceful.

“Let's get you home,” he whispered, brushing Alhaitham's hair back in place before pulling his arms over his shoulders and taking hold of his legs, carrying him piggy-back. “If you let go I'll never forgive you,” he grumbled. For once, he found himself thankful for Alhaitham’s annoying tendency to sleep like a log. Alhaitham's head dropped onto Kaveh’s shoulder and the hold around his neck tightened. The weight of Alhaitham on his back was almost reassuring, grounding.

The people at the House of Daena, once preoccupied with their various research topics and assignments, were watching Kaveh with eyes as big as dinner plates as he carried the dead asleep Acting Grand Sage towards the exit.

“This,” he pointed at himself, then back to the bystanders, “never happened.” Kaveh lifted one finger in warning before he left. “There's nothing to see here. You didn’t see anything .”

For some reason, he was certain his insistent words would do little to keep the rumours from spreading even further.

If the people of Sumeru city weren't already gossiping about Alhaitham and Kaveh's relationship, seeing Kaveh carry Alhaitham home would certainly give them ample reason to start doing so. For once, Kaveh didn't mind. More so, he found himself busy keeping the suffocating feeling of guilt at bay as he threw various onlookers with far too curious gazes a hard side-eye. Alhaitham the bastard continued to remain dead asleep and only tightened his hold on Kaveh’s neck.

“Are you trying to choke me out in your sleep?” he chuckled quietly. “Are you that cross with me?”

When they finally arrived at home, Kaveh's arms felt about ready to pop off. For a moment, he hovered in the living room, unsure of where to put Alhaitham down. After a moment of consideration, he carried him over to his room. Alhaitham’s room was more spacious after all.

As he stood before the bed, he found himself faced with a small problem. Alhaitham's grip on him was still fairly strong and Kaveh didn't want to wake him just yet, not after the stunt he just pulled at the House of Daena.

So he did the one thing he knew would work. Kaveh maneuvered the both of them onto the bed with as much care as humanly possible. His back cracked during the effort and he sent a quick prayer to the heavens, hoping he didn’t pull a nerve.

Normally, he'd never do this. Sure, he’d think about what it might be like to be in the same bed as Alhaitham, but he’d never act upon it. But it was only the two of them now, and their relationship was already strained. Something like this wouldn't do much except maybe embarrass them even further. Kaveh was tired of it all.

Finally, he had managed to turn himself just so he could let go of Alhaitham without jolting him awake. It was a bit difficult with the man still holding onto him, but Kaveh managed. He wedged his hands in-between Alhaitham's, creating a bit of space for him to move. He turned around, hands still on Alhaitham's arms, and was met with Alhaitham's face very close to his own.

Kaveh gulped. Curiously, he let his eyes roam over Alhaitham’s face. He was filled with the sudden need to trace his nose with gentle fingers. One hand started to wander as he fought the urge, looking for the little dip near Alhaitham's wrist where he was certain to find his pulse instead.It was a fluttering little thing, and he let out a breath of relief upon finding it.

Kaveh hated to admit it, but he was scared. Scared of change, scared of holding on just to be forced to let go again. Ever since his childhood, he'd been nothing but a force of destruction. Kaveh feared his own disastrous feelings would ruin Alhaitham just as they had done to so many before him.

For once, he pulled himself closer and let his eyes fall shut. Alhaitham's grip tightened and Kaveh let his head fall right into the gap between his shoulder and his neck.

And if there were tears staining Alhaitham's shirt, at least there was no one around to witness them fall. Alhaitham’s pulse, a delicate thing beneath Kaveh’s fingers, lulled him to sleep.

Kaveh didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep until he was awoken by movement.

“Five more minutes,” he mumbled as he buried his head further into his pillow. That was until his pillow moved in a way a pillow definitely shouldn’t move.

“Kaveh,” a voice came from under him. It was a voice he knew far too well, so he opened one eye and was greeted by Alhaitham's chest right in his field of vision. He hadn't been sleeping on a pillow, after all. His head was nestled comfortably against Alhaitham's surprisingly soft chest.

“Alhaitham!” His eyes widened in shock and he quickly untangled himself from his roommate. “You're awake?! It’s not-”

“What it looks like? Yes, I thought as much.” Alhaitham pulled his knees close to his body and rubbed the skin behind his ears.

“Are you… okay?” Kaveh asked quietly. The distance between them was nauseating and he didn’t dare reach out.

“Don't ask me that. Don't bother,” Alhaitham forced out. His eyes were fixed on a set point of the wall. There was a dog barking outside, again and again and again and his skin was crawling. His fingers interlaced behind his neck and he took a deep breath, then exhaled audibly.

Kaveh reached out, but before he could reach him, Alhaitham recoiled. “Don't touch me.”

“Alhaitham.”

“No.”

“Alhaitham, I-”

“I said no.” He took another deep breath and avoided looking at Kaveh. “Why did you do that?”

“Do… what?” Kaveh asked despite knowing fully well what Alhaitham was referring to. It was too late to run from this conversation after all.

“You returned, brought me home, went to bed with me. Did it slip your mind or were you simply not listening when I said I don't want your charity? Or is leading people on perhaps a new hobby of yours?” There was a bitter tone hidden behind his words.

Kaveh pressed his lips together and considered his roommate for a moment, searching for the truth between the lines. Alhaitham was always so incredibly hard to read. He took another look at him, took note of his straight spine and unsteady hands.Then, something clicked. Kaveh practically jumped up and left the room with quick steps. Alhaitham turned his head to the side and said nothing. An expected wave of déjy-vu came crashing over him. He snapped out of it when suddenly, there was a voice next to his ear.

“Hold on,” Kaveh mumbled as he slipped Alhaitham's earpieces over his ears. He tried to flip them on, but couldn't find the right button. Alhaitham's hands rose to cover his, aiding him in finding the switch.

For a moment, he kept them there, eyes closed and his breathing finally calming as they breathed together. His hands were soft against his own and he didn’t mind the sensation.

“Better?” Kaveh asked when Alhaitham opened his eyes again. The man read his lips and slowly nodded before releasing Kaveh’s hands. After a few more minutes he pressed a few buttons on the side of his earpieces, adjusting the levels of noise cancelling once more.

The signs had been there, yet Kaveh had failed to pick up on them until he noticed Alhaitham’s state of unease. Kaveh had managed to peer past his meticulously crafted walls. Alhaitham looked overwhelmed and exhausted.

Before he could cringe at the thought, he forced out his next sentence. “I think we really need to talk.”

Alhaitham exhaled loudly and nodded. “We should.”

They sat down next to each other on the edge of the bed. The distance between them felt suffocating.

“So,” Kaveh started. “You like me.”

“Against better judgement, I do.” Kaveh watched him with expectant eyes and he sighed. “I am not delusional to my limits as a person, I know that this isn't anywhere near the realm of possibilities. I never thought so.” He knotted his hands together. “I didn't plan on telling you,.”

“Why did you even open your doors for me if I’d bring you nothing but heartbreak?” Kaveh asked, gaze on the ground.

“One could say you did make the house more lively.”

“Be honest with me.”

Alhaitham sighed and pushed his hair back. “It was the better alternative to not having you in my life at all. It was better than knowing you’re out there somewhere, struggling, refusing to ask for help. I wouldn’t have offered you half of my life if I didn’t want you here.”

“But why?”

Alhaitham moved closer and finally turned towards him. His eyebrows were pulled together. “You have this aggravating tendency to put everyone's needs before your own. How has that been treating you?”

Tears welled up in Kaveh's eyes. The memory of their last argument about the topic still stung. One fear was still present: What if this conversation would end the same way their previous one had?

“How dare you bring that up again,” he uttered. “And what about you?” he continued, voice shaky. “I don't see you putting yourself first either. You never even gave yourself a chance.”

“Should I have? You not talking to me and running off were pretty good indicators of why this wouldn't work.”

Kaveh glanced over at him. Slowly, he slid his hand over his, holding it tight.

“I-”

“Don't force yourself,” Alhaitham interjected, his hand solid as a rock under Kaveh’s.

“Ugh, would you just listen to me?! Who are you to decide what I’m feeling? I was afraid, okay?! There you have it, happy?”

Surprised, Alhaitham finally looked at him.

“You're crying?”

“I am so fucking terrified,” Kaveh admitted, wiping at his tears with his sleeve. “Of what this means, what it could mean for us. I don't want to lose you again. You're infuriating and arrogant and most of the time, you drive me up the wall. But I still-”

Slowly, Alhaitham reached up, wiping a tear away with a curious expression on his face. Kaveh pushed his cheek against his hand. A tear, shiny like a pearl, rolled down the back of Alhaitham’s hand.

“I still…”

“You are looking for someone loving, kind, yet you haven’t formally rejected me.” A statement voiced in confusion, not a question. “Your mind makes little sense to me.”

“As does yours. Did you know half of Sumeru city thinks we’re a couple?” Kaveh suddenly asked. His body was buzzing with anxiety.

“I was aware of the rumours,” Ahaitham answered nonchalantly, as if he’d known about the rumour ever since it’d come up the first time.

“You were?! Why didn't you say anything? And how can you be okay with that, when you're-” In love with me . The words got stuck in his throat.

“Why should I? Let them think what they want.”

“You- You’re infuriating. You are really infuriating and I am going to kiss you right now.” His eyes searched Alhaitham's. The man looked back at him, caught off guard. It took him a second before he recovered and raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“Will you now? I'll believe that once I see it.”

“You little brat. Don't you patronize me.”

Kaveh put his hands on Alhaitham, one gently against his chest, the other cradling his jaw. “Trust me, I will,” he uttered softly, his eyes never straying. With a tilt of his head, he closed the distance between them until there was no space to separate them left.

Alhaitham's lips were soft, pliable, and he kissed back with enthusiasm. He buried one hand in Kaveh's hair, running through the blonde tresses. Their lips slotted together, slowly and carefully. Kaveh pulled himself closer. It simply wasn’t enough. He needed more touch, more stimulation, more of Alhaitham pressed against his skin.

Alhaitham made a small noise and Kaveh pushed him back onto the bed. His back hit the mattress and Kaveh swung one leg over his body, straddling him once again. Alhaitham hugged his waist with one arm. His hand wandered and disappeared under the soft linen of Kaveh's shirt, tracing tight muscles and sharp shoulder blades.

Kaveh broke the kiss to let his lips wander from the corner of his mouth to his jaw down to Alhaitham's neck. First, he pressed an experimental kiss to the sensitive skin before mouthing at it, pulling the skin through his teeth and sucking softly. Kaveh was desperate to leave a mark, any kind of sign that this wasn't just a dream. With one hand, he pushed down Alhaitham's shirt to gain better access to his skin, while the other ran over his chest. Alhaitham shuddered beneath him.

“Kaveh…” he murmured.

His heart squeezed upon hearing his name leaving his roommate’s lips in that tone. He etched another mark into his skin before looking up. Alhaitham was watching him from under his lashes, his face flushed and breath heavy. For a moment, there was nothing but them, entangled in Alhaitham's bed. Kaveh felt tears prick at his eyes. He cradled Alhaitham's face and kissed him again. A soft whimper escaped his lips and Alhaitham pulled back to check up on him.

“Are you okay?”

Kaveh shook his head and buried his face in the crook of Alhaitham's neck.

Without saying another word, Alhaitham hugged him carefully and pressed a kiss to his head.

“Are you regretting this?” he asked reluctantly.

Kaveh shot up and Alhaitham pushed himself up into a sitting position as well, eyes flitting to the side. Kaveh was still straddling him, an unbelieving look on his face as he stared down his roommate.

“No!” he answered quickly. Alhaitham relaxed visibly. “I’m just… happy? Too happy maybe? I can't fully tell.”

“But you're crying.”

“And you're still trembling.”

Alhaitham wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled him closer again. He brushed Kaveh's hair out of his face and ran his thumb over his cheekbone, then pushed it against Kaveh’s lips. Slowly, he leaned in closer and replaced his finger with his mouth, softly, carefully. It was so considerate Kaveh felt like he could burst into tears all over again.

“Tell me what this means,” he mumbled against his lips.

“Everything. It means everything.”

They parted again and Kaveh started tracing the sharp edges of Alhaitham's features, feathery touches from his temple down to his jaw. Shyly, he looked up at Alhaitham and took a deep breath. The words seemed to be stuck in his throat.

“Let's assume I say I like you,” he said. “What then?” He could feel his heartbeat accelerating.

“Let's assume I say I don't believe you. What would you do then?”

Kaveh furrowed his brows. “You're just trying to get me to kiss you again,” he concluded.

“Am I now?” A smile crept up on Alhaitham's face.

“You definitely are,” Kaveh shot back. “Have I ever told you that I find you incredibly insufferable?”

“Plenty of times. You’ll just have to put your hypothesis to the test then, maybe that will convince me,” Alhaitham replied and there was a drawl to his voice that Kaveh couldn't help but find both attractive and annoying.

He shut him up with his lips and felt the rumble of Alhaitham's laugh against his mouth. It was an infuriatingly attractive sound. Kaveh nipped at his lip in retaliation before pulling back again.

“Do you like riling me up this much?”

“Only when I’m getting something out of it.”

“I hate you.”

“Hate me all you want. That’s fine.”

“Hold on. No, it's not! When have you ever been the moderate type? You're alright with that? Okay then, what if I say I love you then? What about now?”

Alhaitham's eyes widened in surprise just as Kaveh's mouth fell open.

“Uhm-” He started to laugh awkwardly. “What I was trying to say was-”

“I can work with that,” Alhaitham replied, a rare smile on his lips. It sent a shiver down Kaveh's spine. “No complaints.” His grip on Kaveh's waist tightened before he pulled him down with him again. Kaveh searched for Alhaitham's hand, interlacing their fingers as he pinned it down next to his head and leaned down to capture his lips again.

This time, he wouldn't run or hide. Kaveh was desperate to stay right where he was, entangled with Alhaitham in his bedroom.

#genshin impact #kaveh x alhaitham #haikaveh #kavetham #my writing #fanfiction #at this point i dont even know if this is good or bad anymore i just know i can't read it anymore #*throws this your way* here fetch #angst #hurt/comfort #miscommunication #idiots in love #also sorry akim but fuck your concresoil commission that's why he got douchebagged

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amberbeach · 1 year

Text

"YOUR PATH IS MY PATH."

gif belongs to me

When RJ returned to Jungle Karma after being captured by Dai Shi, you were upstairs above the pizza parlour, training to keep your mind occupied while hatching a plan to rescue him. You were startled when he stumbled in. The first thing you noticed was his torn clothes and how exhausted he looked.

Despite the pain and exhaustion weighing him down, seeing you again gave him the strength to smile. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you."

"Oh my god, Robbie." You rushed to his side, hands hovering, afraid of touching any injuries.

You wrapped an arm around his waist and walked with him to the bedroom as you asked him about what happened during his capture. RJ left out some details, knowing how worried you would have been the past few days, and he didn't want to worry you further by mentioning his shattered connection to his wolf spirit.

After a shower to freshen up, and an examination for any injuries, you joined the team in the living area. RJ knew you were acutely watching him for any signs he was lying about any pain he was in, so he acted as he did before, and after a few hours when you were listening to his heartbeat as you spoke in bed about what he'd missed, RJ sensed your worries leaving you for the moment, granting you peace to sleep.

While you slept peacefully, his night was more eventful. In the morning he caught a news reporter detailing a supposed animal attack that left people injured and from the claw marks, RJ suspected he was the cause. He had arrived in the early hours of the morning before you had woken, slipping into bed without you noticing, and while the events were cloudy in his mind, RJ wasn't willing to put you or the Rangers at risk.

The parlour was busy that afternoon and Fran had enlisted your help to cook in the kitchen whilst the three Rangers took orders and got customers their drinks and take out their food, keeping the service running smoothly. In the few hours you were gone RJ began to pack a backpack with essentials, believing he could sneak out undetected. However, he was not expected you to come upstairs where you caught him closing the carved box containing his morpher and he quickly replaced the box on the shelf inside the red cupboard, closing the doors. He turned when you spoke and his chest rose and fell with a silent sigh when he saw your expression.

"What are you doing?"

RJ glanced away when he noticed your eyes squint, knowing you could read him better than anyone.

"Were you going to say goodbye?" You continued softly, moving closer. "Of course not." His eyes lifted to meet your gaze when you scoffed and you tilted your head. "I knew something was wrong. I could feel it, but I chose to ignore it because I didn't want to overwhelm you with questions on your first night back." You paused when he sighed. "I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."

"It's my animal spirit. Ever since Dai Shi attacked me," He held his shoulder, his features portraying the pain he was experiencing since the attack, before continuing, "I can't control my animal form."

"Why didn't you tell me?" You asked quietly, glancing at the wooden floors.

"I didn't want you to worry. And I didn't tell the Rangers because they would lose focus on Dai Shi."

"So you were going to - what? Sneak out when everyone was downstairs?" Your gaze lifted to meet his apologetic stare which only intensified when he saw your tears. "How could you do that? After everything we've gone through - you were just gonna leave?"

"It wouldn't be forever. Just until I learned to control it." RJ explained.

"I can help you."

RJ shook his head, "The Rangers need you now. To be their mentor in my absence."

"If you think I'm letting you go through this alone, then you're wrong." You stepped forward and when he glanced away briefly you knew he was faltering, unable to leave while you were looking at him with nothing but understanding and love that showed through everything you did. "Remember what I told you when I diverted the Masters path planned for me?"

"Your path is my path." RJ recited.

"And I meant it." You placed a hand on his chest, tilting your head up to hold his gaze. "Let me help you."

RJ lowered his head, slowly nodding as he met your gaze. "I don't want them to know." You nodded in agreement, the Rangers had enough to worry about with Dai Shi who was growing more powerful every day, and their worry for RJ would be a distraction.

You smiled softly at the man you had risked everything for. While the Masters voiced their opinions about your relationship, you and RJ knew you were stronger together than apart and so you left your position at the academy to join him in preparing the Rangers to defeat Dai Shi and you hadn't looked back since.

RJ lowered his shoulder, letting the backpack fall down his arm before allowing it to drop on the floor, and wrapping his arms around you. He closed his eyes when you kissed his cheek, promising that everything would be okay.

And he knew that it would be because he had you by his side.

#robert james #robert james x reader #robert james imagine #robert james imagines #rj #rj x reader #rj imagine #rj imagines #power rangers jungle fury #power rangers jungle fury imagine #power rangers jungle fury imagines

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itsscatballou · 1 year

Text

The End Will Justify It All - Chapter 4

A Negan Series

Chapter 3 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 1

Warnings - mention of death, mention of torture, other Walking Dead themes.

Part of me wants to apologize that these chapters are going so slowly, but I don't think I will. I do hope you're enjoying them, though! Feedback is always welcome.

She awoke the next morning, the sun higher in the sky than she’d expected, and a dread in her stomach like a rock. She fought to shake the grogginess of the two sleeping pills she’d taken last night – the first time she’d used the gift from Shery, although Sherry left a new supply in her room after every dinner with Negan. As the fog in her mind began dissipating, her memory wasted no time filling the open space with the events of the day before. She’d seen Daryl, worn down and abused, and decided to do exactly what Negan had asked of her. She wouldn’t let him be tortured more than he already had. Not because of her.

So she’d gone to dinner that night, not touching the food, and told him everything she was willing to risk. She drew the layout of Alexandria for him, noting the armory, the make-shift infirmary, and Rick’s house. She’d told him all about Rick. She told him about his love for Glenn and how hard his death would have hit Rick, about his family, the things that made him angry, the things that made him happy, but most importantly, the fears that drove him – the love for his people and the responsibility of protecting them. Negan wanted his next move, and she gave it to him. Keep driving home that he could take any of Rick’s people from him, threaten even one of them, and he’d fold like a lawn chair. She’d told him all about Carl and his recklessness. She’d even gone as far as to suggest that guns were known to be unaccounted for, from time to time.

Negan leaned back in his chair when she finished talking, nodding and staring at her, eyes narrowed as if he could see everything in her mind. “I think you’re holding out on me,” he said after studying her for a long minute. Her stomach dropped, but she gave no physical sign of nervousness. He leaned closer to her. “Tell me,” he demanded, lifting her chin with his thumb grazing her lip. Her stomach fluttered at the touch. Nerves, she’d told herself, nothing more than fearing him.

He had guessed right. She did have another idea. She knew where it had come from, and she wasn’t proud of it. It had come to her while she soaked in her pre-dinner bath, from a part of her that had hardened and darkened after the world fell. A part of her she’d buried deep enough that she hadn’t felt its presence in months and thought she never would again. She hated it, hated the idea it had given her. She didn’t want to tell Negan. If she told him, if she put it out there, there’d be no pretending this dark part of her didn’t exist. No denying it ever again. She feared what it might unleash within her again.

“Tell me,” he said again, his voice a little softer, purring a little. She felt herself flush at the sound of it.

“Make him hold it,” she said finally. “The bat. Lu- Lucille. Make him hold it for you the next time you visit him. For as long as you can, make him carry it around for you.”

Negan sat up straight in surprise. “That,” he said, pausing as a wicked grin crept across his face. “That is sexy. as. hell! Somehow, I knew you had that in you. Man! have never been more turned on than I am right now.” Again she felt that flutter in her stomach, and waited for his next move. But it never came. He’d simply poured them both a drink, laughing to himself as he did. She drained her glass quickly, and walked as fast as she could to her room when he’d dismissed her, where she took her pills and laid shaking in her bed until she was dragged into a dreamless oblivion.

She made her way down to the kitchens for some coffee and breakfast, noting the lack of guard at the wives’ dorm door. That was a first in the 4 days she��d been here.

As she made her way down, she noticed… well, she noticed that she didn’t notice anyone. It was eerily empty in the halls for this late in the morning. When she reached the ground level, she exited the building and found - where there would typically be no less than 20 saviors hanging around - there were only two guys standing guard. She walked around the building to the area where they all parked their bikes and trucks – empty. Except for one box truck and a few pickups that were now being loaded with what seemed to be the remaining Saviors.

She noticed Simon talking with one guy and heading for a truck.

“Simon!” She called after him. He stopped and turned, waiting for her to catch up to him. She and Simon had only had a few short interactions since she got to the Sanctuary, but she’d developed a small sense of safety with him. She liked him, or thought she could if she spent any time with him. “Where are you headed?” She asked as she approached him.

“We are going to see a guy that’s supposed to be dead.” He answered, chuckling a little.

Greg… Hilltop. She remembered the deal Rick had made – the event that marked the start of this whole mess.

“Is everybody else already there?” She asked him, gesturing to the empty – well, everything.

He chuckled again. “Nah, Negan took a big crew to visit your old pals a little earlier. I imagine they’ll be gone most of the day.”

Her heart sank. She knew Negan wouldn’t ignore her advice, but she didn’t know he’d implement it this fast.

She watched as the last of Simon’s crew loaded up and he turned to go, too. “Can I come with you?”

Simon stopped again and turned to look at her. He sighed as he said “I would love to take you along; I think you’d be valuable. But Negan hasn’t okayed you to be on a crew yet.” And with that, he finished his trek to his truck and got in. He gave her a sympathetic look and a nod as they drove past her and out the gate.

When the last truck was out of sight, she turned on her heels and sprinted back to the building.

----

This was her chance. With the place all but empty – at least of Saviors – she could get Daryl out. They’d still have to be careful not to be seen by any of the workers or people who lived here, but that shouldn’t be hard.

She knew where they were keeping him – she’d followed Dwight at as careful of a distance as she could manage after seeing Daryl in the hallway yesterday. She’d watched him put him in a dark room, lock the door, and start playing some godawful song that sounded like it was from a 70s sitcom on a boombox outside his door.

She almost slammed into a wall turning the corner into his hall. And there it was – his door. His door was open. Wait. Open? She rushed into it and immediately deflated. In the light from the hall, she could make out a puddle of vomit in a corner. It was completely empty otherwise. Of course Negan had taken Daryl with them. What better way to remind Rick that Negan could hurt his people than by bringing the one he now owned? She thought for a moment, before quickly making her way to a room she had barely registered as an office when she ran past. She grabbed a pen and found a small piece of paper. She scribbled out a note to him. She needed him to know she was still with him, still working on a plan.

Stay strong. I’m coming for you soon. -Sunshine

She folded it as small as she could and pulled the door behind her in the cell just shy of closing. She followed the small stream of light from under the door and placed the note on the edge of it. No one else would notice it, she hoped.

She took one last look around his cell. Fury rose in her as she pictured him sleeping on the cold concrete for the last 3 nights. Her shoulders sagged and she felt suddenly exhausted as she made her way back to her room. How long could she go on like this? How long could she hold onto hope that she really would get Daryl and herself out of here? Back in her room, she crawled into bed and stared at the wall until she let herself slip into a restless sleep.

----

She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but when she opened her eyes again it was dark outside. She blinked away the blur of a long nap, and almost shouted when she heard a throat clear in the dark.

“You’re awake.” Negan. In her room? Her pulse quickened. He was back, which meant Daryl was back… had someone found her note after all? Was he here to punish her? She slowly moved into a sitting position with her back against the headboard, and looked to where he sat in the armchair in the corner of her room. She furrowed her brow in a question.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he said in answer, “but I found you asleep. Sherry said you’d been asleep since 2pm. I was worried you might be sick.” She saw what looked like genuine concern in his eyes. He was worried about her? He waited for her to respond.

“I’m fine.” She croaked out, with a dry mouth.

“Good!” He exclaimed suddenly and stood to walk to her bedside. He sat down beside her, grinning that wicked Negan grin. “I have good news for you! I went to see your old friends today, and I have to say, it went so. much. better. than I had hoped. And that is all thanks to you!” He patted her leg on the last word, a little high on her thigh, and a jolt shot through her from the touch.

“I just did what you asked,” she answered humbly.

“Oh, you did more than that,” he chuckled, “and like I told you, I am a generous husband. You start with Simon’s crew bright and early tomorrow morning!”

She was still processing the information; stuck on a question she was too afraid to ask. He must have read it on her face.

“Well, I had hoped for a little more gratitude…” he said pointedly.

He sighed. “What is it? I thought you’d be happy to get what you wanted.”

“No, I am. Really. I just…” she looked into his eyes, let him see her concern. “You saw…everyone? How was Maggie doing? She was the sick one the night everything happened.”

He went still, his face serious. He shook his head slightly, “she didn’t make it.”

She tried to hold back the tears stinging her eyes, but there were too many. She turned her head away from Negan to wipe them.

He watched her, and when she finally turned back to him, she was surprised to see sympathy on his face.

“I liked Maggie,” she explained, closing her eyes to stop more tears. “She accepted me faster than the others, quickly became my friend. We got close.” She didn’t tell him about the baby – that secret wasn’t hers to tell. Especially not with him.

She felt the bed shift, and suddenly Negan was scooting beside her, wedging himself between her and the headboard. He wrapped his arms around her, and she found herself resting her head on his chest, unable to stop her crying now. She hated that he felt… good, with his arms around her, comforting her. Even though she’d slept most of the day, she felt exhausted with the weight of grief. He held her while she cried, rubbing her shoulder with his hand. She cried for Maggie and Maggie’s baby. She cried for Glenn and Abraham – she had not let herself feel that until now. She cried for Daryl and the unimaginable things he was experiencing. She cried in fear that she might not be able to pull this off after-all, that she might have taken on more than she could handle. And she cried for herself, for the change she could feel blooming in her. It scared her - what she might become. So she kept crying, and Negan kept holding her, until she fell asleep against his chest.

She awoke again a few hours later to feel him standing from her bed and making his way to the door.

“Thank you, Negan,” she said softly as she settled into her pillow. Whether she was thanking him for letting her join a crew, for telling her about Maggie, or for offering her comfort in her grief, she wasn’t sure. Maybe a little of each. “I really am grateful.”

“You can show me tomorrow how much,” he answered from the door, and she could hear that wicked grin in it. It didn’t register that she grinned, too.

#the walking dead imagine #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead fic #the walking dead daryl #the walking dead x reader #the walking dead negan #negan x y/n #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon #daryl dixon twd #twd daryl #twd rick #twd negan #twd fanfiction #twd #twd x reader

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tngrace · 1 year

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Oscar Night

I'm writing my 1st ever RPF fic and while I'm nervous as heck, this idea just wouldn't leave me alone. divider by @firefly-graphics

🏷: @bayisdying @mrsjaderogers @callmemana @ladylanera

You had known Miles for the better part of ten years. You'd met when you had been in New York during college before he was a big star. You'd stayed in contact over the years, even as his career took off. After two years in the big city, you returned home to the Blue Ridge Mountains, declaring the city was too much. Miles understood and supported your decision, making you promise you'd stay in touch.

As the days went on, you found yourself falling in love. Though you rarely got to see him, with his filming schedule and bouncing around between projects, you talked a lot. Miles became your best friend, your confidant, and you couldn't stop yourself from falling.

When his publicist pushed him into a relationship for his public image in the industry, you understood. You weren't exactly thrilled, but you also knew Hollywood wasn't for you. You tried to get on with your life; your job as a freelance proofreader keeping you busy. You traveled some, but nowhere fancy, and you did your best to find a partner. But no one compared to the man you'd fallen in love with, and no one understood how you two still talked and carried on as if you'd see each other soon. So you'd basically given up on dating; it just wasn't worth it.

While Miles got along with his girlfriend in public, they weren't exactly compatible and argued .... a lot. She wanted more than he was willing to give, and couldn't understand that it was a relationship of convenience to make certain people happy. You tried to sympathize with him, but short of telling him to get a real girlfriend, you couldn't help, but you still always listened.

He'd tease you by saying you could be his real girlfriend, but you knew he didn't really mean it. Or so you thought. There was no way he'd feel the same as you.

But after six years of pretending, Miles was done. Getting his girlfriend to understand that was a different story, and when he'd finally had enough, he told her he had someone else. When she asked for proof, he showed her a picture of you. She'd known about you the whole time so to say she was pissed was an understatement. You were slightly shocked when he told you, but you also knew where he was coming from so you didn't mind.

Finding Miles on your doorstep the night after that fight was a surprise, but you let him hide out for a week until the heat in Hollywood died down. After that week, he was off to film his next project, which he'd told you about in secret, and you were over the moon excited for him. Landing the role in Top Gun Maverick was going to be amazing for him, you just knew it.

During filming, he'd send you behind the scene things, and once more you two were talking all the time. The more you talked, the more you fell, even deeper. You knew eventually he'd find someone and fall in love, but until then, you treasured your conversations.

When COVID hit, you had to stay on opposite sides of the country, which was rough because you two had made some plans together, but also not because you barely saw him as it was over the years. You'd seen him for a bit between Top Gun and his next project, so you told yourself you were fine; it's not like you two were dating. His publicist was once again on him about a relationship and his image, but Miles put his foot down this time. There would be no more fake relationships.

When Miles returned from filming Spiderhead in Australia, he spent a month with you. During that month, you two finally moved from friends to lovers, Miles taking the leap one night and confessing his feelings for you. You were shocked, but also so very happy your feelings were returned. After that, things just fell into place. He'd spend time at your home with you, and when you felt brave enough to face his world, you'd follow him across the country, and watch him work. Your favorite times was watching him watch sports, whether it be his beloved Eagles or Phillies. While you didn't care for either team, you loved watching him.

During Top Gun Maverick's premiere, you met a lot of people you'd admired and adored from afar most of your life. It was exhilarating and exciting, but also terrifying. You two weren't ready to go public or put you in front of a bunch of fans who'd fallen in love with the cast, so while you went to all the events, you stayed in the background. And that was more than fine with you. You'd run into Miles' ex a few times at some of the events, her publicist putting her there in the hopes of reconciliation. But Miles never gave her the attention. Fans seemed to speculate they were getting back together, but you didn't let it bother you because you knew the truth.

You knew the movie was going to be a hit, but no one knew just how much it was going to explode. Miles' movies and shows became more popular than ever, and everywhere you looked, your boyfriend was showing up. It was entertaining to search fan sites to see what all they were saying, and you loved teasing Miles to no end about it. You especially loved when he'd blush at your teasing, and then remind you that you were the only one he wanted and loved.

A little over three months after the movie premiere, Miles surprised you by popping the question in your home town. It was beautiful and romantic, Miles having planned a picnic in the mountains. You were over the moon. You two decided to have just a small ceremony fairly soon, with family and the cast from TGM that you'd both gotten close with. You planned a December wedding, and were pleasantly surprised when your little home town ended up with snow for it.

It was a beautiful, simple wedding, and before you knew it, you were Mrs. Miles Teller. Miles planned the perfect honeymoon, and you spent two weeks in Turks and Caicos, lost in each other. It was absolute bliss.

When awards season started, you two decided to play each one by ear and decide whether to make things public. You were more than fine with coming out, but you also knew how Miles was protective of you. When he was asked to present at Critics Choice with his newest co-star, you were more than happy for him. You two decided then that this would be the time. Miles was more than ready to show you off, and he was more than ready to have you on his arm at all the upcoming awards and press tours that would be happening.

While you were nervous, things went smoothly. During one of his interviews, he pulled you close and explained how yall had a simple ceremony in December and how happy you two were. While on stage, his eyes stayed on you the whole time, the smile on his face genuine. He was killing you in his tux with his full beard, and you were more than happy to skip after parties to get back to the room.

Oscar nominations came out not long after Critics Choice and you were so excited for the whole cast with the nominations. You two had been spotted frequently especially after Critics Choice, and rumors where flying about your relationship, how yall met, how you were able to tie him down. You didn't pay much attention to it, more than happy to just be in the moment with your man, especially with the test confirmation you got the morning of the Oscars. Miles was over the moon, and he showed you all morning long, just how happy he was.

The hair and makeup team had been there since lunch and when they finally left the suite was quite. You stared at yourself in the mirror, looking and feeling like a true princess. It wasn't but a minute, and arms wrapped around your waist, over your flat stomach that would be expanding soon, and a chin rested on your shoulder. You smiled as you met his stare in the mirror.

"You look stunning," you whispered to him. You knew he'd take your breath in a full tux and his beard, just like Critics Choice, but every time still made you catch your breath and wonder how you got so lucky. He'd trimmed his beard up, and while you liked the fuller look from a few months prior, he was still so damn breathtaking.

"Mmmm not as stunning as you." His lips softly traced your jawline, while his hands never moved from your stomach. You two were very affectionate and touchy-feely, and you know that would only get worse the further along you got. A shiver shot through you causing him to smirk. "You ready to go be best dressed?"

"I highly doubt that will be me. Maybe you," you grins.

"Na. You'll steal the carpet." He knew you were nervous, but he kept reminding you that he would be right there the whole time. Besides, it wasn't exactly your first red carpet event, it was just first with the whole world knowing you were married.

The car ride was quick and painless, and you rather enjoyed yourself. But upon arrival, you felt yourself start to panic. You weren't expecting all the fans - even though you should've- the reporters and paps were waiting at the car before you even made it to the carpet. "I can't... you...."

He leans over and silences you with a soft kiss, his hand cupping your jaw. "Y/N/N look at me," he whispers. Your eyes slowly meet his and he gives you a true, genuine soft smile. "I'm right here. Not gonna leave you. You're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're amazing and I love you more than words can say. You're the only one I want by my side... forever."

He gives you another kiss before pulling your hand up and softly kissing your finger where your engagement ring and wedding band sit. "Me and you.... forever."

"Forever," you whispers with a smile.

Miles leans down and kisses your stomach, not for the first time, whispering "be good to mommy tonight ok peanut?" Making you absolutely melt before he finally unlocks the door and slides out. He waves to some fans who call out to him, and then he reaches in helping you out. Cameras flash repeatedly, and fans scream and squeal. Miles tucks you into his side and the two of you make your way to the carpet.

Pictures take forever, but it's the first time you've ever seen a genuine smile on his face at an event like this. True to his word, he sticks right by your side, only stepping away for moments at a time for interviews, and even then someone from the cast is always around. It was great being able to meet up with them, so you weren't just standing around awkwardly while he gave his brief interviews.

He does finally get asked about you, and he beams as he pulls you closer. "I'd like to introduce you to my wife Y/N."

"Yea you made quite the stir with that announcement at Critics Choice, if I remember?"

You blush as Miles pulls you closer as he laughs. "Yea we did. But this girl," he gazes at you for a moment. "She's been by my side for a long time, and it was so easy falling in love with her. No one else I'd rather spend my life with."

Your blush gets worse, and you'd love nothing more than to hide your face in his chest, but you don't. "Well you two seem very happy and in love so we wish you all the best."

"Thank you," Miles smiles big before you two walk off to rejoin your friends. Everybody worked their way through interviews and more pictures putting everybody closer to going inside to their seats. Miles was about ten feet away giving a final interview about his new upcoming project, and you were standing with Monica, Danny and his date Baylie, Glen and his date Alana, and Greg, when you saw Miles' ex and one of her so called friends coming towards the group.

Everybody knew her, and while you were hoping to avoid any kind of confrontation, you were almost positive it was going to happen. You held your breath when they stopped next to your group, and you couldn't stop your eyes flicking back to Miles.

"Well, well, well..... if it isn't the little home wrecker. He finally decided to bring you around?" The friend says.

You feel yourself tense, but you also bite your tongue to keep from saying anything.

"For a while I thought she was just made up."

Baylie and Alana were standing on each of your sides, and you weren't surprised when Glen and Danny stepped in front of all three of you. Greg stepped up beside Monica essentially putting her beside you three.

"What do you want?" Glen asks through gritted teeth.

You're not surprised it's the ex who speaks up first. "Oh don't be like that Glenny. We just wanted to stop by and say hi to the most popular cast here tonight. Can't believe you all actually let him bring her around though."

You feel Baylie and Alana both move to defend you, but Danny and Glen don't let them through. You know Baylie would throw punches if she could, but you really, really don't want to cause a scene. Before anyone can say anything, Miles is standing in front of everybody. "And I'm surprised you were even invited."

You don't hide your laugh very well at his ex's offended face.

"She's with me!" the friend speaks up.

"Of course." He steps back and pulls you into his side, before he leans down and lays a searing, never ending kiss on you. When you both pull back to catch a breath, he gives you a soft grin, and then another soft little peck. All your friends are trying to hide their laughs because he is usually so reserved, especially in public. This was the most public display you two had ever put on, and Monica being a good friend, got it on video. He swipes a curl that had come loose from your updo behind your ear, and then looks around. "Oh your still here?"

You laugh into his chest when you hear Baylie and Alana let out snorts of their own. You really do have some of the best friends ever.

"I can't believe you! Six years! Six years wasted! And for what?! You never did any of this with me! Ever! We could've already had a family!"

Miles lays another kiss to your forehead. You know this whole scene is going to be headline news, and you're worried for your husband. But Miles is so done with her shit and her lies, so you're not surprised when he doesn't back down.

"Six years of a forced fake relationship you mean. You never had this because we were not real! It was a publicity stunt and you knew it when you signed the damn contract! Move on because we never were a thing and we never will be again." With that, he laces his fingers with yours and your whole group heads in to get seats.

The whole show, Miles spends with his arm and hand touching you somewhere keeping you close. It's a fun night, despite the little scene on the carpet. While you thought the movie deserved more than just the one award it won, you had the best time and was so proud of your husband and the whole cast. You two decided to skip the after party, despite your friends' multiple protests, but you promised them to catch up later.

The cast had their own private party back at the hotel which was way more low-key and relaxed which was more your style. It was a fun night, and you were happy when Miles shared the good news with your friends that night. You got so many congratulations and promises of the perfect baby shower, even though you laughed them off and told them you still had a while to go.

The confrontation did make headline news the next morning, but the main picture was Miles leaning you back while he laid the searing kiss on you. You still blushed seeing it, even though most people's reactions were positive for the two of you. The fans loved seeing him happy, and you loved knowing that you being in the picture didn't change anything for him. You knew it might've been your first Oscar night, but it certainly wouldn't be your last.

"Forever," he'd whispered to you and forever he meant.

#miles teller #miles teller fic #miles teller x reader #miles teller x you #rpf #my writing

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apparitionism · 1 year

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Tabled 5

This slow-motion @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange gift for @barbarawar , a tale that concerns Myka and Helena’s post-Boone coffee(s) and the fallout therefrom, continues to be quite difficult to get right. It’s still got the shape I envisioned, with Myka sitting at tables and lying and consulting a book to find out her future, but I have to say I didn’t expect the Bering and the Wells to need to hit so very many beats in the course of enacting, or embodying, that shape: witness my optimism in each of part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 that that part would (might) be penultimate. Then again these two were never going to be able to “get coffee” with any degree of ease, much less find their way back to—or is it simply to, for the first time?—good. Slow and steady may not in the end win the race, but it does finish the race (eventually, though not today); however, please know, @barbarawar , I’ll always be apologizing to you for letting this race, such as it is, continue to run. Anyway, the prior leg ended with Myka and Helena behind the locked door of a hotel room. Myka’s hand had just touched, then trailed away from, Helena’s shoulder.

Tabled 5

Blunders. So the book had said. Satisfactory, so it had also said.

Myka raises her right hand again; it wants to meet Helena’s waist, meet and seek, seek and sway... this hand, so empty as it rises, could be, at long last, full, full, full as it blunders...

But Helena backs away, raising her own right hand, warding Myka off. “Oh no,” she says. “You’re not getting out of anything that easily.”

Rendered purposeless by the refusal, Myka looks down at her reaching (empty) hand, her wanting (empty) body. “Easily?” she asks, because what could that mean? Such blundering could never be easy, no matter how satisfactory.

And yet satisfactory would mean satisfaction. At long last, satisfaction.

Keeping her own hand up, Helena says, “Privacy and nothing more. I said it to you and I meant it. You’ll blame me if in the end it proves untrue, and as for any intemperance of your own? I don’t doubt you’ll indict me for that as well, particularly in the event you’re forced to confess it. Does Pete even know you’re here?”

Myka wants to say yes. As if that lie would make what she wants defensible. As if it would be reasonable of her to say “yes, he trusts me, and isn’t that foolish”: as if by saying that, by getting agreement on that, she could in fact implicate Helena in all of it too. She glances at the table, bolted down, solid. It could give her cover to put that lie in motion.

As if she could do any of that... all right, yes, she could do it to herself. But she should not do it to Helena.

But you can, unison the snake and the lizard and all the other animal manifestations of... well. Animals.

And as she fights to maintain that “should not”: Aren’t you an animal? is their next enticing chorus.

Obviously...

“Obviously not,” Helena says, which brings Myka up short until she walks herself back to Helena having asked about Pete. About what he knows. Myka wishes, for a bloodless, anti-animal moment, that he could know, that she could have told him, told him cold, such that he could understand her as, because he himself also was, then and now and going forward, purely pragmatic.

But Pete is not pragmatic.

“I refuse to serve as your release valve,” Helena goes on, the last two words harsh.

“How could you say that?” Myka demands, trying to make her taking of offense believable, trying to dismiss from her head the evidence that was her raised, reaching hand. Her raised, reaching knowledge of the blunders she would volunteer to make.

“How could you say you have romantic feelings for Pete?” Helena counters. “Never mind what you’re willing to do when his back is turned.”

This is not just about what Myka has said, or even what she’s willing to do. It is not. And apparently now is the time to crash full speed into these walls: “How could you say you had romantic feelings for Nate? For nonexistent Giselle?”

“I did not say that. I invite you to search your prodigious memory, in which you will fail to find me saying that.”

“Really? Semantics? You implied!” This is not the hill to die on; Myka knows that. But she will be dying, and here is a hill. Why not plant her flag?

“Perhaps. But you inferred. And you seem to be doing it again. About my... what shall we call it? Use-value?”

Myka, mortified by intention and error and invalid inference, accuses, “You are the one who brought us to this room.”

“Yes. I do seem to be the one who acts. Leaving aside the recent poorly considered raise of hand.”

Myka doesn’t understand the fuller itch of meaning in Helena’s words. Maybe on purpose. “What are you talking about?” she demands, but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear the answer. Hearing it will surely require yet more bracing.

“Why did you come to Boone?” Helena asks.

The question confounds. Is she trying to punish Myka by making her put herself back in that place? “Because you called me about the artifact.”

“Yes. I contacted you.”

“I know. Like I said.” Are they negotiating something? Myka can’t reach to it, whatever it is. Maybe that’s on purpose too. She’d rather just raise her hand again, regardless of what tainted meaning Helena might assign it. She wouldn’t say no twice, would she?

Helena’s exhale—exasperated, closing in on angry—suggests she would indeed say no twice, in fact infinitely, based on how obtuse she finds Myka’s response. “Do you not see why I might have had reason to question your... interest?”

“What?” Myka does hate how often she uses, how often she seems to have to use, that word as a mark of utter bafflement.

“It isn’t as if you were looking for me.”

Myka’s entire being sinks. “How do you know?” she asks. A question isn’t a lie, but she feels the further fall of where this must go if the truth comes out, and it’s awful and unpardonable and she will never live it down in front of herself, never mind in front of Helena.

“You didn’t find me,” Helena says, and the backhand of that compliment slaps Myka hard across her pride, because Helena’s right. On every accusatory level, she’s right.

All Myka can muster, in pathetic defense, is, “I didn’t know where to start.”

“So you didn’t. Start.”

Myka doesn’t affirm it. She doesn’t have to.

“Were we not just speaking of who acts,” Helena says. That’s no blunt slap; rather, it’s the lightness of a perfect blade.

“I should have,” Myka says. Her wince is contemptibly inadequate. “Started.”

“You didn’t.”

Myka wishes that had been an angry accusation rather than a dispassionate statement of fact. She begins in response, “Well, you should have...” But she can find no similarly dispassionate retroscription.

“Held myself in limbo?” Helena finishes for her, brutal and true in what she knows Myka wished—what she and Myka both know was unreasonable for Myka to have wished. “I had had enough of limbo. Bronze. Incorporeality. And furthermore, I didn’t betray you.”

Here at this late date, Myka should say it out loud, this unjustifiable position that has irrationally sustained her: “It feels like you did.”

Helena takes a moment, her breathing again exasperated, then says, “Your feelings were not—are not—the primary determinant of my actions. Do you know why?”

“Yes.” Myka wishes she didn’t have to hear the elaboration. But she deserves it.

“Because I did not know your feelings.”

“I said yes,” Myka stubborns. “And it’s not my fault you didn’t know them; that’s Mrs. Frederic’s fault.” Myka would have spoken; she knows it. If Helena hadn’t disappeared, she would have spoken.

But you could have spoken if you’d looked for her and found her! Those animals again. Sing-song. Laughing at all her inabilities.

Helena sniffs. “Her fault perhaps at first. Subsequently, however, your fault.”

The animals and Helena, singing together. Their accord makes Myka dig deeper into her resentment. “I didn’t know yours either.”

“I did keep them close, first from necessity,” Helena says. She’s very serious now, intensity legible in her brow, and Myka feels herself pierced by a familiarly impossible love for that concentration—so lanced that she might fall to her knees, stricken. “But later,” Helena continues, even more severely, as if in rebuke (of the love, of any drama of possible expression), “because I saw quite clearly that my choices in Boone altered your opinion of me. Fundamentally. Not my other sins, grievous as they were, but my choices in Boone. As evidenced by your pulling further and further away... even unto Pete.” She hardens. “I don’t understand your morality. I don’t believe I care to.”

“Then we’re even,” Myka says, trying for similarly hard but faltering, failing, because the soft, vulnerable fact is that she has desperately tried to but doesn’t understand Helena’s morality, particularly (but not solely) how she could have, even for a second, entangled herself with—wanted to be with—that... person, whose daughter could not possibly have offset enough of anything. She doesn’t understand how Helena could ever have taken any comfort in that mediocrity, that fakery, never mind any effect those choices were always going to have had on Myka’s heart. Never mind that.

Never mind it, and Helena can deny that it was a betrayal, but it’s sharp like that, there in Myka’s heart... the condemnation of betrayal is part of her morality, that’s always been a bedrock, and she recognizes a sick mortification at the acute, astute contrast Helena has drawn between her ability to justify Helena’s other sins but not her choices in Boone.

In further contradiction, Myka isn’t condemning herself for betrayal—well, not yet—and of course Helena would call out that flagrant inconsistency. Call it out and condemn it. “You’re changing your opinion of me. Here, now,” Myka accuses, and Helena’s set face is confirmation enough. “We said we knew each other so well,” Myka says, an illogical lament for that tragic, though clearer, time.

Helena shakes her head. “Sentimental claims in an extreme circumstance.”

Nothing but sentimental claims, those words they’d said... and here Myka had thought she already had sufficient fault from that incident to scourge herself forever: Oh, Pete, I’ll refuse to watch you kill Helena, but I’ll let you kill her. As if “I can’t watch this” were a moral stance.

Sins, sins, but omissions not commissions, for what Helena has laid out before her seems now entirely right: Myka doesn’t act. She lets others do the acting. She lets others do the acting; worse, she lets them do the unholy, if thwarted, killing; but most of all she lets them do the saving, which Steve and Pete and above all Helena have done for her. Again and again. Damningly, because whenever she should have thought of ways to save Helena, she’s failed. Perhaps the greatest reason they both must walk away is that the scales between them will never be even.

Myka isn’t crying, because she doesn’t cry; instead, she steels. But in this moment, her tempering goes awry. She feels heat in her throat, threatening to overfill, for she is here, now, realizing that she hasn’t truly believed in this as the end, even though she’s the one who determined so deliberately to bring it about. There have been so many supposed ends—ends-that-were-not—that she’s harbored (yes, tied tight to a dock in her heart) a lifeboat of hope that Helena would save her this time too.

But just as the book declined to save her, Helena is declining as well. Myka can’t see a way out, can’t see any way for them to stop reminding each other of everything that begrimes what once promised blinding beauty, everything that makes the possibility of that beauty harder and harder to discern, even for Myka who can replay all its promise in detail, every brilliant episode, over and over at will... but never fresh. Never without everything else replaying too.

She isn’t crying, but she is grieving. “We can’t fix this,” she says.

“No,” Helena agrees.

It’s a final verdict.

The coffeemaker exhales loudly, inserting itself back into the conversation, and Myka turns to it, numb. Two small filled cups await her, determinedly present. Her hand shakes as she takes one and sets it next to the machine on the bureau; it shakes again as she takes the other and hands to Helena, saying “here,” to which Helena says “thank you”—a domestic little exchange, as if a glimpse of that other reality, the one with the couples therapy. A quiet scene from a pleasant time before they needed the therapy. It’s an achingly calming view.

But the picture fades, going and going, away away, as Helena says, “I don’t know what to do now.” Bleak. Newly so.

Myka stands inarticulate, because she doesn’t know either. Into the gap, she places her best guess: “Drink our coffee?”

So they do that, in this quiet, private space. The lack of distraction brings home to Myka that she has never really attended to how Helena drinks coffee. Their “coffees” have not allowed for that sort of observation, but now she attends, and she readily discerns a pattern: Helena takes a sip, then follows it with a near-gulp; another sip, another gulp. Hesitant, sure; hesitant, sure. Over and over, but then too soon she’s through, through and walking to the table, setting her cup there.

Helena retreats back to the bedside, and Myka understands that she, too, must finish. This is now become a ceremony.

She raises her cup to her mouth and drinks. In a final irony, it’s strong and good.

When her cup is empty, she places it next to Helena’s on the table—this final table that might have supported disastrous, yet satisfactory, blundering.

But even as Myka for one escaping instant lets her imagination soar to the potential transcendence of that blunder, she is visited by a question that crashes it into dirt: could “satisfactory” ever have been enough?

Of course not, say some animals, writhing and reveling in contradiction.

So has Helena in the end saved her one last time?

Sorry, book.

Involuntarily, Myka glances at the clock on the nightstand. It informs her that she can catch her plane if she hurries. Plane, flight, flying...

Oh, I’m flying...

The wisp from that early, beautiful part of their story, when everything was possibility, forces her to try to steel again, this time into cynicism and distance. All it really does is lead her to an incongruous near-regret that she has no gun.

Things should end as they began.

But then they very nearly do, in an even more literal sense: both Myka and Helena move toward the door, then veer away, saying “sorry” as their paths threaten to intersect. Myka takes a step back, yielding.

Helena’s hand is reaching for the door’s handle, to push it down, then to pull, thus breaking the seal that has kept them here.

However: a certainty rises in Myka, a conviction that this part of their story shouldn’t end as it began. They can’t fix everything, can’t fix enough of anything, but maybe Myka can fix this one thing. “Wait,” she says, and she’s gratified to see Helena still her hand’s rise. “I lied to you,” she says.

Helena turns minimally, as if Myka’s request that she stop her motion is an unreasonable burden. “About you and Pete. Your supposed feelings. Yes, I know.”

“Not that lie,” Myka says without thought, then realizes what she’s said, then realizes it doesn’t matter at all that she’s said it. “I’m talking about Nebraska.”

Helena twists her face. “My proving ground.”

“What?” Bafflement again. More mortification.

“Speaking of lies,” Helena clarifies.

It’s not a relief, that acknowledgment—that the “home” talk was fabricated—but it’s something. “Mine too,” Myka begins.

Helena cuts in with, “You were not well.”

So she knows. Knows the lie. Which means she knows the truth. “Is this Claudia again?” Myka asks, defeated.

Helena breathes.

“It isn’t fair that you had a spy the whole time,” Myka says. If only she had had a spy.

Helena says, “No—and I mean no, it isn’t fair, but also no, not ‘the whole time.’ In fact that was how she and I came into contact again: because you didn’t seem well. Egotistically, I thought it might have had to do with me. So I inquired.”

“Which means you know everything.”

“I’d like to think so,” Helena says, with a momentary sparkle of full charm, “but in fact, I don’t. Why did you lie?”

Myka, helpless against the charm, gives the most real answer she can: “I didn’t see a way to be honest with that version of you.”

“Ah,” is all Helena says, and Myka doesn’t know what that means. Implies. Carries. Before she can ask, Helena continues, “And are you well now?”

“I’m sure your spy told you the answer to that.”

“She may have believed she had. But I would like to hear it from you. Honestly.”

“I’m fine,” Myka says. It isn’t honest. She’s about to walk away from Helena for the last time. She is not fine.

“You’re lying. Yet again,” Helena says, with obvious disappointment.

Myka has never wanted to disappoint Helena. Helena has disappointed her, more than once, but for the reverse to be true—it’s pain Myka will suffer in perpetuity.

Helena sighs. “Of course it’s what we do.”

“You and I?” Myka asks, desolate.

Helena curls her lip. “Humans. We’re feral little fabulists who put ends before means.”

If there’s a better formulation of what Myka’s been performing, lately but never when it would do her any real good, she doesn’t know it. “I didn’t look for you,” she says, condemning herself. “And I didn’t burn Boone down to get you free.”

Now Helena smiles fully. Condescendingly. “To what would you have touched your match?”

Myka doesn’t bother answering, because there is no answer. Instead she says, because she should say it aloud, “You’re very good at saving me. I’m terrible at saving you.”

“That’s not true,” Helena says, gentling.

She sounds sincere, and she might mean it, but Myka knows better. “I never hoisted you into the sky.”

“But you did serve as my eventual impetus to leave Boone: essential, once it was allowed. I admit that in the circumstance, faced with your disapproval, I became more obstinate.” Helena ratchets her face down to a half-smile, one that self-deprecates rather than condescends. “Would that you could have hoisted me into the sky.”

“I think the car had already hit you,” Myka says. “I think you stepped in front of the car and begged it to hit you.”

With a bow of head, Helena says, “Apt.”

“Was that because of me? All that I didn’t do?”

“In part? But that can’t be the entire answer.”

“I guess I did the same,” Myka says. She isn’t guessing.

“Because of me?”

Myka wants to put everything on Helena, but she can’t. Well. She can, but she shouldn’t. “In part,” she echoes. Then, “If we had both just said.” It’s a lament.

“We don’t just say.”

“Humans?” Feral little not-sayers, Helena might clarify, which would make their own not-saying at least in some way justified, if not fully excusable, and—

“No,” Helena says. “In this case, you and I.”

Myka’s desolation is complete. “Maybe in another life we would.” She looks at the clock again. Time, time. She knows she should hurry now, but instead she’s fixated on that other life. It’s different, that life. It’s just—different. She wishes she could see her way back and through to how it might have come about, but there are too many branching points, an exploding tree of “why didn’t I” choices; they mingle and blur into a chaos that she has to push down, push down and hide, to prevent that back-tracery from taking her over.

Helena is again moving to the door. Again raising her hand to it. The action—graceful, as always so graceful, a movement flowing as if through water, not air—unfolds in slow motion, stretching time, and is this why Helena always moves with such grace? To prove, over and over, her mastery of time itself?

Tellingly, Myka’s first impulse is to turn away: I can’t watch this. The consequence for Helena here today is not so dire; for Myka, though, it might as well be.

But turning her back on what is most difficult is not—should never have been—part of her morality.

Face it. Face it.

She orients herself toward the door, readying to watch that graceful hand open it. Readying to watch that beloved body recross—uncross?—the threshold. Facing it, just as she should have faced Helena’s imminent actual destruction.

She wishes, hard, that she could have been the one to deliver the reprieve then, wishes she could have parried all of Pete’s and Helena’s arguments about usefulness and nobility, parried them and found a better way, found it and brought it about. That would have been more moral, surely, than a simple turning of her face toward what she never wanted to see...

At that, her brain clicks. More moral? The moral. The lesson hadn’t been—isn’t—“Watch, even when you want to look away.” Because: “Things you don’t want to watch are things that shouldn’t happen.” And so the real moral, of all these stories: “Find a better way and bring it about.”

But this insight, valid as it may be, offers her no vision here of how to find, of how to bring about, that better way.

She tries to think, tries to find, but laughably, in spite of everything, her hand wants to rise again, to catch somewhere, anywhere, on Helena’s body; she feels her wrist, palm, fingers pulling against all the gravity, as if trying to get everyone’s attention, as if that could be the way, as if the argument of a wanting hand could ever be stronger than that of history. As if it could fix any of what had gone wrong.

It couldn’t.

Of course it couldn’t.

But. But. But.

In raising her hand, before, in that inarticulate closed-door wish, she’d been prepared to... what?

Fix nothing. Certainly, she’d been prepared to fix nothing. So: what, then, had her intention been?

To ignore everything that stood between that reaching hand and what she wanted it to achieve.

And if for a blundering moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago...

What if the book, in its prediction, hadn’t been referring only to what might happen in a blundering moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago?

What if Myka is meant to blunder—satisfactorily—well beyond this moment in a hotel in an airport in Chicago?

What if the book had told of more than her immediate future? What if it had understood what she had been “about to undertake” as... the rest of her life?

And one final what if—one final move of mind, like the anticipatory shudder of the second hand the instant before it calls a clock’s alarm to life—what if learning to let language slip hasn’t been about dirty work at all? What if it’s the key?

Try it try it try it try it...

“Wait!” Myka yells—it’s no yawp; she’s got purpose now. “We can’t fix this,” she fevers out.

Helena slews her head around, and yes, yes, now she’s caught again; and this, yes, yes, this is what Myka needs. She isn’t surprised, however, when Helena says, “I know. If I hadn’t before, I know it now.”

“No. Listen.” Language, the slip, the work. “‘Fix.’ That’s the word I said.”

“I did listen,” Helena says, and the set stone in her voice rhymes with the adamant of her face. “That is the word you said, and I agreed. And thus we are finished.”

“No!” Myka throws the exclamation up against that tall wall. “We need a different word! Change the vocabulary!”

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Tabled #B&W holiday gift exchange #part 5 #barbarawar #the various burdens under which these poor beings have labored #are extensive:#choices among which every option yields pain #the twinned obligations of gratitude and graceful acceptance thereof #not to mention years of frustrated wanting #hopes raised and dashed #aspirations soured...#anyway it's rough terrain stretching as far as the eye can see #or the distance any plane might fly

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