#it'll be more like a companion piece

[starsarefire824]

Demons of Change and Wildflower Eyes sequel?

It's more likely than you think. ;)

#byler #demons of change #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #justmyname #byler fanfic #troy walsh #it'll be more like a companion piece #can you guess what it will chronicle? 👀

[yeyinde]

dangle on the leash | Simon "Ghost" Riley x F!Reader

The flimsy sarcophagus housing all his wants, his desires, cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant. Ghost cocks his head in consideration. Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. But he's a rabid dog burning with the urge to bite. No one should really be surprised when he finally decides to sink his teeth into you. Unfortunately, that hail mary Price sent into the aether never reached you.

(your bird is too big for a cage— —but maybe a collar would do.)

this is a babytrapping fic lmao but please read the tags carefully. a companion piece to this (Price + babytrapping).

DEAD DOVE. SMUT. 18+

HARD WARNINGS—coercion. dependency. intentional alienation. unsafe, unprotected sex. this very much toes the line of noncon (that is still very dubcon even when consent is given) in many ways, notably: somnophilia, and condom/contraceptive tampering. intrusive, violent thoughts. mentions of violence. manipulation; slight gaslighting. implied kidnapping. references to past abuse (Ghost), brief mention of drugging/threats of drugging (ambiguous as to if it was ever followed through on or not, mostly just Ghost's internal monologue unfiltered). ADDITIONAL TAGS—smut. rough sex. unsafe sex. dom!Ghost. mean, obsessive, unhinged!Ghost. spit kink. dacryphilia.

he's feral, but he's yours. too bad for you, no one is really sure if that's a good thing or not.

One of the things Price often tells new recruits is to shove their old life into a box. 

“There's home,” he huffs, fingers twitching as if he's subconsciously flexing around the hilt of a lit cigar. “And then there's work. Whatever box you decide to put this, or your family, your personal life, into is your choice. But for fuck’s sake. Keep them separate.” 

Most of the new recruits are fresh off selection, shaded sickly chartreuse, and take his words as a literal gospel. Work, this; home, them. They don't start to unravel the second part of his gruff speech until much later. Until they can't wash the blood from their hands, and the scent of their mum’s eucalyptus hand soap is nauseating. Unfamiliar. When being in civvies feels like wearing skin that doesn't fit, and everyone around you is alien, foreign. They don't know. They'll never know. 

It's only when they find themselves gazing at the clock on the wall of their family home, counting down the minutes until their mandatory leave is over do they realise that home is the barracks. 

That's something Ghost has always understood. Maybe it was because his home life was already in ruins, tatters. Beer soaking into the knock-off Persian rug a cousin nicked from a flea market when he was nine. No fine china in the cupboards because it'll end up in shards on the floor. Plastic plates and forks and cups. Always. Howling in his head. Screaming from down the hall in his mum's room. His bedroom door creaking open at night. The anger, the curdling fear (shameful—be a man; punch him back, hit him before he hits you, you useless prick—), of not knowing whether or not it was his dad, high as hell and itching for a fight after busting their mum’s lip wide open, or Tommy sneaking into his bed at night because his is soaked in piss and he can’t sleep when they scream at each other like this.  

(Funny that, he always found; neither of them could ever sleep when it was silent, either.)

Blood on the linoleum. Trying to eat burnt toast and overcooked beans with a busted lip and a twinge in his jaw—

(Fractured, they'll say later, years later, during his mandatory medical checkup when he's first recruited. Healed all wrong. Son, didn't anyone take you to hospital?) 

He understands the separation between home and work—even if the former lost all relevancy nearly a decade ago. Back when he buried them all. Was buried himself—

What Ghost never really understood was the box. 

Shove it into a box. 

When he asks over cheap whisky somewhere in Siberia, Price tightens his fingers around his glass before bringing it up to his head. His index finger juts out. He knocks the tip of that bruised, scabbed knuckle against his temple. Once, thrice. Levels Simon with a pointed look he both can’t understand and somehow knows all too well. 

“Up here."

“Paid nearly fifty quid for that,” he grouses, shaking his head. “Think I've been ripped-off, Price.” 

Price scoffs, places the glass down with a hollow thud. “Don't be a fuckin’ muppet, Simon—” his real name makes his shoulders tense. Around the barracks, they know him only as the Ghost. “You put it away somewhere. Hide it. I don't fuckin’ know. But if it keeps you goin’, keeps you sane, and doesn't become a mess I gotta clean up, well—”

The implication is stark. Heavy. 

Price was always good at chiselling through layers of accumulated indifference to get to the madness within, but considering Ghost’s past and his mile-long rap sheet, the warning digging into his words like a dull blade isn't unwarranted. 

Old dogs, he'd called the pair of them when they first met. There was a sharp keenness in his eye when he lifted his hand, waved his cigar toward the tangled mess of scar tissue crisscrossing his face (made with a dull, rusted knife, one that gouged out deep pocks of skin, ugly fuck, looks like the badlands, don't he? like a postcard from the Grand Canyon, sweetheart. not so cute anymore, are ya, pretty boy—), and said, “well, you're fuckin’ rabid, ain't you? Better put a muzzle on that before it becomes a problem, mm.”

His problem, specifically. 

And Ghost gets it. Thinks Price might understand that particular brand of madness—despite growing up on literal opposite sides of the track, his Manchester to the others Liverpool; poverty and prestige—if only just. Because Price seems to be able to curb those baser impulses in a way Ghost hadn't yet mastered (and won't for quite some time yet). He's put together. Sort of. Respected. Normal.

The men in the barracks don't look at him and flinch. 

But he sees the way the man's eyes linger in the crowd, shrewd and careless, before falling on the pretty bartender in the back. The one with roses in her eyes and a smile full of dandelions. Soft, like butterscotch. It's here when they darken. When he reaches, almost angrily, for his whisky. Pats his chest with a heavy fist searching for his cigar. 

She's a sweet thing, he reckons. All pretty and trusting. Birds like her make his head itch—

“Don't even think about it, Simon,” Price grumbles, and it feels like territorial posturing, a challenge he almost raises to meet with his chin, if only to make Price fluster, but it's hollow. Empty. He denies himself, too. The prick. 

“How'd you do it?” He asks, and doesn't specify. Doesn't think he needs to. 

When Price swallows, it looks like a grimace. “Years of practice.” 

He considers the weight of it, his eyes straying back to the woman behind the bar. She's tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wrist delicate like bone china, the kind they could never afford, and for a moment, the intrusive thoughts, the ones he gets sometimes about wanting to tear things to bloody pieces, rears—

It's stamped down in a swig of flat lager You stupid fuckin’ mutt, Price would say tomorrow morning, shaking his head. You always think with your prick? 

Simon cranks his head sharply to the side instead. The resounding crack seems to echo through the empty pub. 

Price just shakes his head. “Christ. No one ever house break you, yet?” 

“Yeah, they did,” he rasps, staring at the bartender who gazes back at him now. Skittish, unsure. Not so sweet after all. She looks away, cowed. Her hands tremble. He leans back, and hums. “And now I piss outside, like a good ‘ol boy.” “Ain't nothin’ good about you, Simon. Fuckin' Christ—”

And he's not wrong. 

The Ghost has a reputation of being a cold-hearted bastard. A Frankensteinian beast cobbled together with spare parts robbed from a jailhouse graveyard. Worst of the worst. An arm from a mass murder. The leg from a spree killer. Heart a patchwork mess of ichor and sulphur. Sutured together with barbed wire. 

It's all sort of macabre. Rather trite, too. 

The rumour mill in the barracks is insatiable.

But sometimes, he wakes up and he's still buried. Still dead. Dirt in his throat, lodged in his nose. He breathes in and feels pebbles scraping his lungs. Feels worms in his ears. Maggots in his head. 

They crawl through his grey matter. Leeches burrowing into his thoughts, sucking the good in him dry. 

Or, whatever's left of it, anyway. 

He thinks with his teeth because it's easier that way. Cold, calculative instinct. Just barely boxed into a neat package slapped on the desk of Price's higher-ups. 

A good man, they say, and turn him loose on the streets. One of the best we have, as he breaks jaws, and tears through jugulars. A force to be reckoned with. 

They hand him a gun, a rifle, when the bloodied footprints leading back to camp become too much of a hassle to clean. Shoot from a distance. He takes to it like the bulk of metal was made for his scarred hands. Scythe to a Reaper. 

It feels like bloodletting. Draining him of his anger, his fury, until a cold, gnarled indifference curls in the basin left behind. Icy, frigid. Down to the bone. 

Sometimes, he doesn't remember what it felt like to be warm, even buried under a thick balaclava and layers of military fatigues. 

Frankenstein’s monster. Patched together from the rotten remains of horrible men. 

And as he stares in the mirror at the patchwork ruins of his face, his body, he wonders if there's some truth to it, after all. He's pretty sure if someone cracked his skull open—again—they’d find rot. Tumulus. Infested with maggots and worms. Cobwebs behind his eyes. In his nose. His brain perfectly preserved: a zombified tombstone. And oh, how it hungers. 

Wants. 

But in a box it goes. One shaped like a coffin. Placed pretty in the back of his broken head. 

He stares in the mirror and thinks he sees something moving under his eye. Wriggling around. The temptation to claw it out rears, but the shredded tissue on his thighs reminds him of what happens when he listens to that insidious hiss in the back of his head (some amalgamation of his old man, and that bastard—) and goes searching for gold in bone marrow. 

He huffs. Fingers curling around the porcelain. His head is rotten. Putrefied. He can feel the decomposing sludge press against his temples. It grows teeth sharp like a razor blade and hacks away at jaundiced bone. Ghost lifts his hand, digs his fingers into his temple. Down boy—

(Simon doesn't even want to consider what his heart must look like, then.)

Cold-hearted, sure—

But he likes sweet things. 

The kind that will undoubtedly give him cavities. A spillover, perhaps, when candy bars were too expensive, and the only dessert he was given was a toffee by the neighbour when she wasn't moaning to his old man about all the shit he and Tommy got up to. 

(Bruises came afterwards, the colour of liquorice. Sour cherries.)

Unfortunately for him, sweet things don't like him much—a shame, really. Simon has always had a sweet tooth. 

His rough edges are too sharp for their liking, and Simon's—

Intense. Like a dog with a bone, he doesn't know when to let go. When to unhinge his jaw from the morsel between his teeth. He bites hard. Shakes his head. Tears into the things he wants until it's bloodied meat pinched in his incisors. 

And so, they keep their distance. Like they can smell the rot on him. The funeral dirt. The stench of an unearthed sarcophagi. 

Sometimes, though, the wiley ones will inch closer, looking to get messed up badly by a bad man, and it makes something inside his head howl when he turns them down. Following Price’s creed. Can't give in to the pretty ones, he'd said. Nothin’ but trouble. 

Trouble, like a pair of shackles. A noose. Trouble, like gentle, clean hands and fragile bones. Fine china. Fine powder. The marshmallow soft kind of trouble that will melt in the acid that leaks from his pores. Aqua regia. Attacking anything that gets close. 

(Breakable, is what Price means. Pretty chew toys that are beyond repair once he's finished with them.

He must think Ghost is some sort of psychopath—)

But still. He stays away. It's easier on base, in safe houses, too far out from the general public to have to worry about doe eyes and soft touches. He doesn't need it, anyway—

Then comes you. 

And the forfeiture of his self-control. 

You're trouble of a different kind. 

Trouble, like the end of a sledgehammer. Trouble, like the grill of a car. The barrel of a gun. 

In the shape of a battering ram, one strong enough to dislodge the madness in the back of his head. Where the corrosive acid should ruin you, eat you alive, it doesn't. Not with your tantalum skin. 

But oh, do you pack a punch—

At first, you think he's homeless. 

Some scruffed-up man sleeping on a park bench outside of your apartment. 

In another life, he might have been. He isn't a stranger to bad habits, and had the military not been his only choice in life for some semblance of good (laughable, considering what he does for a living), he could see the threads of his life leading him here. Drugs. Manchester is good for it, this he knows all too well. Especially the shithole neighbourhood he's from. 

He doesn't clue into this, though, until you glance at him, warily, and then shuffle into the cafè he’s holed outside of, the place where his current target gorges himself on steeped tea and crumpets. 

(Price's dry text sits, open, on his burner phone: and don't fuck this up—)

It feels a bit like an omen. Made worse when you meet his gaze through the glass, and—

Well. Shit. 

The impact is a collision. Hitting a pole at top speed. Metal bent around concrete. 

His teeth ache (so, so bad—).

You emerge from the small building a few minutes later—the faded eggshell with chocolate trim is nauseatingly sweet against your pastel yellow raincoat—holding a takeaway bag, and balancing a tray of coffees in your hand. 

He tenses. It's instinctual. There's nothing about you that's an immediate threat to his person—unless you plan on adding to his scars with the tip of your umbrella, the scalding coffee in your hand—but it's odd, isn’t it? No one approaches him. Not unless they have a reason to. 

And no one, in his experience, ever has a good one. 

“Hi,” you chirp, disarmingly sweet, as you come to stand in front of him. His jaw aches. Even sprawled across a bench, you're barely looking down at him. Sticky, cold fingers tap a strange rhythm down his spine. “I, um, hope this isn't weird, but I saw you sitting here, and—well. I got this—”

You wiggle the bag. He smells something greasy. A breakfast sandwich, he's sure.

It's an unusual assassination attempt. Price will be livid. 

“What for?” He rumbles, sitting up in the seat. The shift of his bulk seems to make you nervous. You take a step back, and he fights the urge to follow. To back you into a corner. No escape. 

You regain your footing, even if the smile on your face wobbles. Weakens under his flat stare. Some people can smell the rot on him. 

He wonders if you can, too. 

(Pity that. You're a pretty bird, ain't you?)

And the way you take him in lacks a distinct thrum of hesitation, fear that’s normally there. It occurs to him, then, that you see him as just another man. Just another person. 

(“deader than a doorknob, this one. such a goddamn waste, boss. he was a fun one, wasn’t he? should we burn ‘em?” 

nah. bury him out back—)

It's laughable, really. A joke. He has the urge to crack one—sick and awful enough to make that little smile on your face wilt. Wither away. Almost does, too, but it get tangled in his throat when he feels the weight of your stare on him. 

The easy sweep of your eyes is barely discrete, but it's clinical. Pitying. But the softened edges of that empathy dissolve as your pretty head adds up all the numbers on him, coming to a standstill. Your eyes linger on his wrist. The gold of his wristwatch peeks out beneath the black sleeve of his hoodie. An intricate web of complex timekeeping that only he's privy to. A little luxury he picked up in Italy when the cash he'd been given was getting too tiresome to carry around. 

Dead men, after all, don't need bank accounts. 

And then—

You fluster. “Sorry, I just thought—”

It clicks, then. The pity. The soft words. The goddamn coffee— 

His gums itch. He has the sudden urge to be mean about it. Pick you apart in this street until nothing but embarrassment and humiliation remains. 

“That I was homeless? ‘nd you brought me, what? A coffee? ‘ow sweet of you. Some breakfast, too. Well, aren't you a lovely girl?” 

You are embarrassed. It blisters across your expression. Has your hands trembling around the cardboard tray, spilling droplets of coffee down the side. Your head is bowed, cowed in shame. It reminds him of that bartender some years prior. Pulling away when the bad dog growls—

But there's a thin sheen of intrigue in your eyes, burrowing holes into the shoes in front of you; a tangled knot of want coiling in the heat of your embarrassment over this blunder. Over offending him. 

Well—

That's new. 

Some get off on it. On humiliation. Specifically, of the public variety. He didn't take you as the type. The way you twist, squirming in place, is odd, though. It doesn't fit as well as he originally thought. No. It's not the public shame, but—

Him. 

Ah. 

Sweet, sweet girl. 

(So naïve.)

He reckons he could get you to do just about anything to make it up to him. You would, too. You're soft enough to be submissive, to bow your head in contrition, but there's a flicker of defiance in the jut of your chin when you lift your head. 

This is a blunder and you're sweetly embarrassed, sure, but it isn't enough to break you. 

And now Simon just wants to ruin you. Teach you a lesson about bad, vile men—

(Something you'd welcome with open arms, wouldn't you?)

“Didn’t know Manchester was so charitable,” he rasps. His throat is dry. Parched. He reaches for the coffee—black, with extra creamer and sugar on the side, tucked neatly in a little bag; fuckin’ hell. Ain't you just adorable—and places it on the spot beside him. “I’ll be takin’ this. Will need it for later.” 

You look like you want to protest. Fight back. His hackles rise, ready for it—eager. Something anticipatory, dark, bleeds through the moulted mess of his head. Sickly. Terrible. He thinks about what you'd look like sprawled under him, shaking and begging for more, for him to stop—

Fuck. Birds usually make his head itch, but you make his fucking skin crawl. 

In the end, you just huff. Roll your eyes. He wants to chew them out of your head. Pop them between his teeth. He bet you'd taste divine. 

You walk away from him before he can. You don't look back once. 

Pity, he thinks. Someone's gonna snatch you clean off the streets like that—

Hours later, he sends Price a text message with the coordinates for where to pick up the package Ghost left. 

He considers it a blessing when the man sends him back, good job, now get a pint from me as a little reward. Can't say I don't treat my team well. 

A reward, huh? 

Well. With your stature in comparison to his own, Ghost easily can see you being considered a pint. 

So, he follows you home, and tallies this one as being on Price. 

It's easy. Too easy. He slips deftly behind you, tucked away from view, and masks his footsteps under the echo of yours until he's standing in the shadows outside of your house. This, too, feels like a blessing. It's a duplex. He waits for one of the lights to flicker on, and—

The window brightens. Room number two. 

He hums, and palms his pockets for the pack of smokes he nicked off the man. Needing something to take the edge off. To quell the urge to bite. 

It's even easier to engineer meetings. Random run-ins. All blamed on happenstance, chance. Of course. This towering mountain of a man with his thick manc twang—the sort of gallows humour that can only be found in the blue-collar streets of Salford from the nasty old men squatting on the corners—must have better things to do than stalk you. Surely. You're not special enough to be hunted, right? 

Still. You're a touch wary of him. Distrustful. You keep your distance—six inches for Jesus Christ, aren’t you a peach?—and try to skirt the line between neutrally polite to the strange man loitering outside of the shops you frequent (your schedule burned to his memory, naturally) and that fascinating skittish intrigue from before. All simmering heat. Blunt want. The kind wrapped up in silk threads. 

It's interesting to watch it play out when he steps closer and all those long-forgotten instincts in the back of your head flare up. The shaky step you take back. The inward frown of confusion when you're not sure why your body craves space, acting almost on its own. And then the sweet defiance that breaks over you. The intentional step closer. The feigned warmth in your tone as you talk to him.

It's easy to pocket the uglier aspects of his personality. The coldness. The indifference. The flat, droll insincerity that leaks into his tone. All of it shelved, locked away, and he's not sure if Price would be happy that he listened to what he said, followed his example, or furious that he's bastardising it to lure this pretty fish in.

)The latter, undoubtedly. But Simon gets a sick kick from it all.)

Especially when it brings you closer to him. Thaws you as you rationalise his reaction during the first meeting, gears spinning. Kicking up excuses. 

Anyone would be angry, offended. It's natural. He's alright now—

It makes you look at him differently as you forcefully fight the urge to flee. 

Silly bird. 

Wary eyes rake over his massive bulk. Brows furrow at the series of black medical masks he wears in public. Always. That, in addition to the heavy black of his wardrobe—black jacket, black hoodie, black leather gloves—sometimes makes you glance at him with a touch of worry. Fear. Probably wondering if you brought home a delinquent. 

But it changes when he rolls up his sleeves one day after you've been moaning about your broken beach cruiser (the, I don't know, chain—or something—keeps catching—), and crouches down to fix it. 

There's a hitch in your breath. A distinct swallow. A guilty tinge of something shy, deliciously so, shading your eyes ruby-red when you look down at him. 

And ah—

Sweet little treat snagged on the line. Ain't he a lucky lad? 

It's all the better when you do the work for him. Reeling yourself in, practically throwing yourself in his cooler when you ask about his tattoos, carefully—considerately—nudging the topic away from his ugly scars. 

He guts you clean as he tells you he's in the military. Top secret, pet. Don't ask because I'd hate to ‘ave to hurt a pretty face like yours—

You preen under it. Pet. Pretty. You don't even notice when he slides his knife over your scales, dices you up on his chopping board. 

You're the picture of sweetness when he unkinks the chain in your bike, and sets it straight. All happiness. Smiles. Appreciative glances. You flutter your pretty eyes at him as you say—

“Thank you—”

You're waiting for a name. His belly rumbles. He could eat, he thinks, and licks his teeth. 

“Simon. Simon Riley.” 

The risk-reward ratio is balanced when you breathe it out between plump lips, chasing the end of it with your tongue. He wants to eat it out of your mouth. Swallow it down. 

You touch his arm, hand warm, soft. “If there's anything I can do to pay you back—”

He takes you out for a kebab later on. Nudges you out of the way when you open your wallet to pay. Draft girl. Naïve, too, because he can feel the heat in your cheeks from where he stands, reaching over to snatch the bag from the man with a grunt. 

You must think him quite the gentleman. So trusting. 

Doesn't matter. He lets it take root. Especially when you shyly invite him back to yours to eat. 

He makes a feast of it, and fucks you on your mint green chaisse after he's finished. 

(Not on birth control, you say, and hand him a box of condoms, suddenly shy. It's unopened. He hums, and burns that to memory.) 

He keeps his distance—an easy feat when he's halfway around the world, and you're stuck in the gloom of Manchester. 

It's purposeful, of course. He made a promise to Price not to give him a reason to worry, but fuck—

You're proving hard to quit. He's never had anyone cuff him upside the head on his bullshit. Not anymore, anyway. Not as the Ghost. He likes the thrill of it, of this chase. 

You don't let him steamroll you when he's in a mood to fight. You punch back, hitting him right in the mess of his guts, and fuck. Fuck. He's a little bit obsessed with it. With you. This wily little fish that acts so shy when he's got three fingers buried in your cunt, but rides him after like you're starving for it. Clawing at his chest. Scratching his arms. It's raw. Primal. He wants to break you—this fiery little kitten that bites his fingers until they bleed, and then purrs in his lap as he drives a pickaxe through your head, shredding logic into pieces. Rummaging around until he nicks the optic nerve that lets you see red. 

You’re everywhere. In everything. In the back of his head, under the howling that hadn't stopped since you trailed your finger down the jagged topography of his bare chest, digging your nail into the crude x across his heart, and whispered, soft and sweet: you're all kinds of fucked up, aren't you? 

A bludgeon to his self-control—

He resists. Has to. Is mean about it, too. Doesn't tell you where he's going (it's need to know), or what he's doing (would ‘ave to bash your pretty ‘ead in if I told you), but keeps you strung on the line (keep thinkin’ about that pretty cunt of yours; can't wait to come ‘ome and ‘ave you sit on my ugly mug—). 

It's dangerous, this game of his. Thrilling for all the wrong reasons. 

But he’s a good mutt. Good—

Until the text. 

The one you send to him when you're out with friends. A picture. You're in a pub somewhere in Moss Side, a drink in hand. A gaggle of nobodies crowded around you. It makes sense, he supposes. There's that old idiom—you’ll trap more flies with honey—and he doesn't know anyone nearly as sweet as you. 

His sweet girl.

(you fuckin’ mutt—)

Ghost stares at you for a moment, teeth aching. The little ensemble—a crop top and jeans—is a vision, he reckons. But it's spoiled when he catches more eyes on you than pointed at the camera. Practically spilling out of your top, aren't you? 

He breathes heavily through his nose. Tastes guncotton in his throat. 

Ghost commits every face to memory, and then calls you. 

You're drunk. Too drunk to remember it tomorrow. Stuck in a pub on what's supposedly a bad part of town. Chatting away about going to your friend’s house. He gets the address, and something sour twits in his stomach. Shit council houses. 

“That safe?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. He's already chubbed up in his slacks at the slur in your voice. “And dressed like that? Didn't take you for a slag—”

It makes you sputter on the line. “I'm—I’m not—”

You're so quick to placate him. So hasty to make him happy. Please don't be angry with me, Simon. I'm just having some fun—

The claws and fangs are tucked away when you're drunk. He shoves the information in the cache, eyes burning. Head aching. He's feverish. Hot under the collar.

Odd considering he's dead—

“Sounds like you will be.”

“It's not like that—”

“‘ow would you know? Might meet a nice fellow. Might take him home.”

“I don’t—I wouldn't—”

The sniffle makes him throb. Fuck. “Yeah? Well, ain't none of my business, I reckon—”

“It is.”

“Oh? How's tha’?”

“I—I like you, Simon—” he can taste your embarrassment through the phone. He didn't even need to bring you flowers and you're already boxing him into monogamy, confessing to him. So sweet. So tender. If he were a better man, he might have told you to sober up. To talk about this tomorrow. 

Too bad for you, he isn't. And what’s worse is that he’s a loyal bastard, too. 

But that's later, and right now—

He's halfway across the world, and you're vulnerable. In the den of hungry mutts. 

It’s charr in his throat. Anger in his veins. “You like me? An’ you go out dressed like that?”

“There's nothing wrong with how I'm dressed—”

He sucks his teeth. “Dunno ‘bout tha’, pet. You look like you're achin’ to get fucked.”

You take a shuddering breath. “I just want you—”

“Yeah?” It's a growl. His cock spits prespend in his trousers. “Then be my good girl. Go home and wait for me.”

It's quiet on the line. He catches the hitch in your throat, the sharp exhale, like you can't really be sure if he's serious or not. He says nothing. Waits. 

Where there would have been a fight—fists and teeth and snarling words—you quieten in the silence. Docile. Submissive. It's in you, he knows. He saw the glimpses back when you first met, when he'd bent down and fixed the bike he broke. All it needs is a little—

“Jus’ worried about my sweet girl, is all.” 

And you relent. 

Corrosive oil spills out of the necrosed holes in his head. It curls over his thoughts, liquid sin. He takes himself in his hand, blood pulsing in his veins, white-hot, damning, and bares his teeth at the urge to come to you, to push you down on the floor, and mount you like a snarling beast—

“Good girl,” he growls when you tell him you'll call a taxi, that you'll go home and have some wine with your friend instead.

Friend. Friends. 

He'll have to do something about that. 

(The thing about deprivation is that it bleeds into a vicious sense of possession when it's finally obtained. Greed. His wants have wants, have wants—

A perfect ouroboros. One you feed into almost destructively.)

Because the thing is—

Simon wants to tie you to his bed. Keep you locked up in the safe house he has in Manchester. Chained, shackled. A prisoner with him as your iron guard. 

It isn't just fantasy, either. 

The flies that congregate around you are an annoying, incessant buzzing in his ears. Remora clinging to the biggest fish. 

But they're easy to scatter when he waves his hand. 

(Waves off. Threatens with bodily harm, with physical aggression—

Same thing.)

The sting in his knuckles and the blood on his shoes are worth it in the end when your tantalum skin cracks. An aggregate of beautiful lines, pretty in their fragility, their brokenness. He wedges his fingers between the splints, widening the chasm to pet at the sticky-soft centre hiding beneath all that rough rock. Sweet girl. Hard candy enclosing taffy-softness. 

His coos melt you to the consistency of mercury. Liquid silver pebbles along your lash line, spilling over in a dizzying display of raw vulnerability. 

It makes every predatory instinct inside of him bristle. Locking onto the sweet lines of crystalline sadness that run down your cheeks. It has his heart racing. Eager, anticipatory. The thrill of the chase, of running you down into the ground until you're fine powder under him. 

And it’s there, it's in his arms—the maw of a beast—where you seek comfort, lamenting the loss of your friends, your coworkers. No one wants to hang out with you anymore. They don't return your calls or answer your texts. 

What did I do? You sniffle, throat bared. Belly turned up. 

Flooded with tears. The lachrymal face that peers up at him makes his teeth ache. He rolls his head back, feels himself thicken in his pants. 

Simon loves it when you cry.

“Fuck ‘em,” he rasps, words sticking to his dry throat. “If they can't see what a catch you are, then they don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

It makes you cry harder, makes you mumble into his chest about how lucky you are to have someone like him. Someone who cares. 

His breath hitches. Warm floods his veins, fever-hot. 

“Thank you, Simon—”

And then you, smooth silver and wickedly sweet, cradle him in your palms as if you could hold all the broken pieces of him together. 

He thinks it's cute. 

Doesn't really have the heart to tell you it's a lost cause.

“Anytime, pet.”

And you're perfect, too.

You take this mangy mutt into your house, and let it eat your food, sleep in your bed. You let him fuck you stupid, and listen so prettily when he convinces you to let him spoil you. Let him pay your rent, your bills. Let Simon dote on you the only way he knows how—mercilessly possessive, and a touch cruel, mean—but you roll over, showing your belly. Submissive and sweet. 

It's even better when you try to lash out at him with a collar in the shape of his teeth branding your neck, spitting and hissing like a feral cat who doesn't know yet that's claws have been clipped. Only to then curl up in his lap, purring as he strokes your fur, and carves out a place for himself in your life. 

He wants to sink his teeth into you, and you think he's a big dog. Undomesticated. One who comes and goes as he pleases. A stray. A mutt. 

It's said fondly. Full of love—

His mouth is full of cavities. His teeth ache. His gums bleed. 

(do you know he's rabid? that the faded name on his dog tags once read cujo—)

Everything about you makes that sludge flood behind his eyes, pounding rotten fists against his temple. take, take, take; mine, mine—

The howling doesn't stop. It tells him to press you into the mattress and fuck you stupid. Tie you to the bedposts and never let you go—

He throws fists in the dark, trying to hit the madness in his head. Ends up with bloody knuckles and laughter in his ears. 

(a voice of reason says, your bird is too big for a cage—)

He clings to it. 

You're warm beside him. Burning hot. He syphons it from your veins when you're asleep, pulling you close just to feel something on his skin other than dirt. Other than blood. 

It's easy to pretend he's fine with these little nips. Leaving teeth marks in your neck. Bloody rings snaking up your thighs. 

He wraps one hand around both of your wrists, holds them high above your head, and tells himself it's enough. Shackled by him, under him, as he takes you apart, pulling at your sense of independence like the gnarled fingers of winter bringing defoliation to summer's bloom, but even with this, all of it, he still aches. Still wants. Needs—

Stupid fuckin’ mutt. 

Then you bring his hands up to your throat, letting him wrap his bearish paws around your delicate neck, and he knows these little bites will never satiate the hunger in his guts. 

He wakes up the next morning feeling warm. Full. Edges softened, if only just, by the sticky sweetness of your breath ghosting over his chest. 

Simon curls his arm around you, holding tight.  He won't let go. Won't—

Hide it. Put it away. 

Ghost does neither of those things. He buries it, instead.  

But in doing so, you find cracks in the foundation. Ones that are just big enough for your willfulness to slip through. To hand him back the cash he gave with a scoff, and a, i work, too, you know? i don't need your money, Simon. that's not why i’m with you—

(All he hears is, I don't need you.)

And then you send him a text. I'm going out with friends from work tonight. We're going drinking. I'll talk to you tomorrow! 

In the zombified remains of his head, a new howling starts. The hisses tell him you're pulling away, running from him—

It's a big world out there. It'll eat you whole—

Like Tommy.

The thing about want is that sometimes it grows teeth, hands. Claws. Without a body of its own, it tends to mould itself after its maker because that's all it knows how to do: devour, consume. Yearn. 

He shouldn't be too surprised to find that this need of his has dug itself out of the grave he buried it in. 

(he did, too—)

The flimsy sarcophagus cracks open when Price announces that his missus is pregnant.

The howling in the back of his head stops abruptly. The pulsing ache in his temple abates. It's heavy, this weight. This absolute, utter emptiness—

No. It's not hollow. The chasm isn't drained, it's—

(In the silence, something growls. Feral. Possessed.)

—full. Perfect equilibrium. All of the patchwork parts of himself, the ones that don't quite fit, suddenly find synergy. 

Communion. 

Ghost cocks his head in consideration.

(your bird is too big for a cage—

—but maybe a collar would do.)

—after all, could you ever leave him with his name etched into your womb—

In leaving the key under the mat for him to come and go as he pleases, you've left yourself vulnerable. But—

Not anymore. 

He has a safehouse he'll take you to. You'll let him, too, because it'll be the best choice for you. The three of you.

He's never entertained any ideas of family, not when the closest approximation he has is drenched in gun oil and smells of smoke from artillery fire, but the howling in his head quietens at the idea of it. He can't shackle you to the bed—stupid fucking mutt—but he can tie you down all the same. Make you his. Wholly. Always. 

And the thing is—despite a pickaxe making figure-eights out of his grey matter; lead poisoning and rust giving him these sour, awful thoughts about locking you up in his house, leaving you a needy mess, dependent only on him—Simon supposes he knows right from wrong. 

Intentionally knocking you up is amoral. Probably illegal. Somehow, even more dastardly when the reason for it is simply selfishness. Want. Greed. Hunger. 

But in carving himself a place in your life, he failed to realise that the walls behind him closed in. No way out. And so, his only option is to go forward. To keep moving.

He'll be crucified for this, but that's fine. 

He doesn't intend for you to find out, anyway. It'll be an accident. He came home early, and found you drunk. Drank with you. Your drunken idiocy merged, creating a terrible, noxious cocktail of awful, bad choices. Permanent ones. Irreversible. 

(You're so sweet, so docile when you're drunk—)

It'll be easy to convince you. To play the part of a stoic man suddenly in turmoil. You'll offer to get rid of it, a suggestion that he'll flinch at—a cornered dog, a hand raising in the air. You'll whimper. Shake in his arms as you tentatively smooth over the wrinkles in his brow, murmuring out your options in a stilted breath.

You'll be a Riley before the end of your term. It's only proper, he'll mutter, stiff and uncomfortable, and you'll melt. Liquid tantalum in his palm. The fruits of his labour laid bare, seeping from the corners of his mouth. Tucked tight between his teeth. Mercury he can swallow down, keep in the bracket of his rotten ribs. Safekeeping from this world that just takes. Devours. 

But not if he eats you first. 

The mere notion alone serves as an anchor, locking him to the seafloor. The tumult in his head calmed at the promise of owning. Biting to claim. To have. Greedy for it. For you, and the strange sense of quiet your proximity brings him. The warmth, too. 

He's a rabid dog. This he knows—has known—for quite some time. Indisputable. It pools in his mouth. Liquid sin. Makes him ache for just a sip. Unquenchable, though, because he's wary of water. Hydrophobia, but only for how it washes his efforts away. Cleanses. 

The urge inside of him to bite, to infect, quietens when he gets closer to you. 

(a rabid mutt licking at the window you're on the opposite side of, dreaming of just a taste—)

A byproduct of that maddening virus in his veins, the one he must have picked up six feet in the ground. Bite, bitebite—

—and give you a collar in the shape of his teeth.

He finds you in bed. A bottle of wine on the end table beside you, courtesy of your friend. The one lingering remora he couldn't snap at—one who sends you messages about how you are being manipulated. Taken advantage of. Fuck that loser, the latest one says when he picks up your phone, scrolling through the dwindling conversations housed within. Just him now, and them. 

It preaches about empowerment. About how you shouldn't let a man pay your bills (textbook manipulation. he's putting you in a position of dependency. making you feel obligated to stay. it's all on Google, babes. like, fucking get a clue!!!!), or how it's moving so quickly (maybe you should come stay with me in Durham for a bit, hun. get away for a weekend. i worry about ya, is all). He hums, thumbing through the old chats. 

You told her to fuck off about the manipulation, but it came after a lot of, oh, yeah. well, he's just. you know. he's different, and you haven't declined the invitation. i’ll think about it, is what you write. 

It simmers under his skin. That independence he plans on stomping out under his heel. With his kin. 

(sick, sick sick, wrong—)

It's desperation, this. Clawing at the walls—the dirt—until his nails are torn off his fingers. Until his skin splits, peels. Broken under rock and rubble. That animalistic need for air. To breathe. Basic training tells him not to save the person drowning unless he's sure they won't kill him in their struggle to live. But what's he supposed to do when that person is his rotting body, sinking down to unfathomable depths? When all he has is you to cling to—

Damnation built by his own hands. 

You'll die together, he reckons, and tosses your phone on the hamper in the corner of the room. 

Ghost can't remember the last time someone made him feel anything at all other than impartiality. Indifference. Casual apathy. 

Price is the exception to this on the grounds of being consanguineous to him.

And you—

An outlier. 

One he intends on sinking as deep as he can with. Anchored, maybe, by this little plan that beats and pulses in the back of his head. That clogs his throat with a want so thick, he can already taste the brine from the ocean. Water in his nose. Down his esophagus—

Better than dirt, he supposes. And it spurns him forward.

You're malleable like this. Tensile. He bends you easily with just a touch until you're flat on your back, a pillow shoved beneath your tailbone, and stripped. The loose shirt you wear to sleep is hiked up under your neck. Panties are pulled off until your sweet, bare cunt is revealed to him. All pretty and soft, and his. Untouched, he notes, and gives an appreciative stroke over your clit with his thumb. 

It was something you were whining about the other day, panting in his ear as if he wasn't a continent away. Pleading with him on the phone to please, please let you come. 

Simon likes the way you cling to him when it's been a while since something has wrecked you as thoroughly as his cock. When your spoiled pussy was neglected for a few days, weeks, and starved for attention. You were so sweet to him then, cooing in his ear how good you've been, how much you want him and only him, need him. Begging so prettily for it. 

He's almost sad to spoil himself in your cunt when you can't weep for it. Can't bully him closer. Try to claw his eyes out. That delicious push-pull where you hiss at him for pulling away, but whine when he gets too close. 

Sad, but—

Not enough to stop himself. 

You're not wet enough for him to slide inside unprepared—his cock too big, something that makes his bones tremble—and he rectifies it by leaning down, letting saliva pool between his teeth and lips. He holds it there for a moment as he spreads your folds apart with his thumb and forefinger. 

And then he spits on your bare cunt. 

It hits your clit, the thick glob siding down your slit. He reaches between your thighs, pawing at you. Slides his fingers through the slick mess he made, teases around your tight rim. 

Simon usually likes to take his time with you. Lapping at your pussy for hours until you're a weeping, snot-nosed mess whining in the sheets. Spoiled rotten. Begging him to fuck you already, Simon, you can't take it anymore—

He's mean. Cruel. Edges you for hours until your legs shake, trembling around his ears. He never lets you reach that peak—doesn’t let you come until he's buried inside of you. 

Coming on his tongue, his fingers, is rarely a privilege you ever earn. Too much of a spitfire, a spiteful little kitten, to give in and do what he demands. So he keeps you on the precipice until he's ready to fuck you, ignoring your bribes, your bargains. Simon doesn't give in even when you beg, when you relent and tell him you'll finally be good. 

You never are. 

Spoiled, he always huffs. Down to the fuckin’ bone. 

Like now. Pulling away from him. Him, the only person in your life who stuck around. A little bullying (bones breaking, splintering under his fists; the wet, hot smear of blood on his hands, skulls smacking against the pavement—an’ if you tell anyone, he cracks his battered fists and it sounds like a snarl, a gunshot, your parents will be cryin’ over an empty grave—) shooed the gnats away. He took a more clandestine approach to others. Birds that kept circling you tight. Protective, shrill. They made his head ache, but—

(don't want to start nothin’, but i don't want to be alone wit’ ‘er. tried to kiss me, is all. ain't like that, pet—)

It was a test. And they all failed. All but him. 

Yet—

come to Durham. 

i’ll think about it. 

Ungrateful. It's his fault, though. Simon doted on you too much, cosseted by his affection, when he should have clipped your wings from the beginning. 

Ah, well—

Lesson learned. 

You're wet enough now. He pushes in two fingers, scissoring them apart. You'd be yowling at him, kicking up a fuss if you'd been awake. But you're not. It thrums through him. Thick, heady. He likes you like this—probably more than he should. The heat simmering in his veins bubbles. Pops. Sap on charring wood. It clogs his throat with his smoke until it burns, a dry forest fire. 

He needs you. Needs to be in you. He's tired of waiting. Impatience burrows into him like a maelstrom. 

Simon adjusts his hold on your leg, fingers curling behind your kneecap. Steadying himself. His fingers slip out of your cunt with a sloppy squelch that ghosts across his spine. Anticipatory. A touch anxious. He wants you. Wants you bad—

He takes himself in his hand, and slides the weeping tip over your slit. Taps it once, thrice on your clit. And then guides it to your centre. Your warmth bleeds into him. Eager, he shuffles forward. Feeds you his cock. Eyes drilling into the place where his head slips in, swallowed by your sloppy, wet hole. The glands make you stretch around him. Rim pulled taut. 

The sight alone must have been crafted by some Luciferian dream, dangled before him in the shade of nirvana. 

take a bite, it urges. and then take more—

Like this, passed out with your legs hitched over his shoulders, drooling into the pillow unawares, you're just a doll. 

Made for him, and—

“Fuckin’ hell—” He presses into you—cock splitting tight, warm heat—and tries not to lose himself to the sensation of being bare, raw, inside of you. 

—“A perfect fit.”

It's always been condoms. You're not on birth control. Ink blots in his eyes. He goes a little feral with it. Instincts unleashed. Unfettered. 

Simon bullies his fat cock into you until his hips tap the back of your thighs, buried as deep as he can go. It's molten heat cocooning him—a warm embrace. For the first time, ever, he thinks he understands the meaning of home. Sliding home, in particular. 

(Welcome home. Home. Home. He'll make a house out of your body. Sleep inside the brackets of your thighs, head pillowed on your chest—)

As good as you feel around him—slick, wet, and tight—and as much as he wants to saviour the sight of you, passed out on the pillow, cunt split by his cock, he has a goal, a mission, to see through. 

His hand falls, slick and tacky, to your lower belly. Palm pressing against the subtle bulge in your abdomen, the outline of his cock. You always whine and hiss that he's too big for you. That you can't take him to the root. 

Hurts, you complain, hand against your naval. Fingers knotting over the place that aches. 

He presses his fingers there instead, feeling himself under your skin. Changing your anatomy to make room for him to fit—

It lights him in fire. Spurns him on. He bucks into you, pace sloppy, clumsy. Selfish. He's unrelenting as he splits you apart, drilling the full length of himself into your supine body, supple flesh relaxed under him, practically melting into the sheets. 

The thread keeping his resolve, his self-control, sprung up tight begins to quiver. Each piston into you has delicate fingers drumming across the strings of a harpsichord. It reverberates through him, echoing in the stifling, suffocating, silence of the bedroom, overtaking it. Clouding it with the musk of his desire, his devotion to you, to this dream blooming in the prison of his mind. 

Everything narrows into a needlepoint. 

There's just your burning flesh beneath him, softer than it's ever been; pillowy. Welcoming. And the sounds of him fucking into you—lewd squelches, slick and wet; the sound of his cock finding home in the basin of your spread thighs; his heavy breaths, his groans and growls that seem to rattle the bed. The noise breaks, an incomplete requiem of sin in his head, and he loses himself in the lulling notes, dragged under in the bestial beat of taking what his—

A sudden noise shatters through the room. Beneath him, you stir, gasping wetly. The sound mangled in your throat. 

There's confusion in your sleepy, hazy gaze when you peer up at him, lashes clumping together. You moan, whimpering, as you struggle to latch on to the threads of cognisance that he's content to fuck out of you. Your hand lifts, falls to his wrist still pressed against your lower belly. The grip is lax, loose. You’re not pushing him away, but clinging to him. Centring yourself. 

It makes his blood thicken. Has him burning red-hot. 

“Wha’s a’matter, pet?” He taunts, grinding his cock into you hard enough to make your dazed eyes water. Your hand tightens around him, holding steady. “Don't like it? Not fuckin’ you hard enough?”

“Simon—”

His name tapers off into a keen when he angles hips, and starts pistoning into you with a mean, merciless fury. The desperate noises that spill, unhindered, from your slack mouth is the perfect accompaniment to the lewd sound of him fucking your sopping cunt; the piece he was missing when this started. His requiem, complete. 

It's a serrated blade to his self-control, already frayed and threadbare as it is. The pressure makes it snap.

“C'mon, sweet thing. Thought you wanted this?” 

There's a place in hell just for him. It's sealed when you blink your tired, sleepy eyes up at him, mind a slurry of lingering somnolence and the heady alcohol on your breath, and offer a shuddering whimper. Always so soft for him, so agreeable when you’re drunk. 

“So’ry, Simon—”

You can barely string words together. Poor, pitiful you—vulnerable under him. Breakable. Malleable. Anyone else could have tricked you into this same position when he was away. Got you beneath them like this, compliant and unawares, and took what belongs to him. 

(The only thing in this destitute existence he claims for himself—)

Not anymore. Not ever again. 

It's almost callous when he grinds into you. Hateful. Brutish. Furious. And dazed as you are, you barely even flinch at the snarls that spill, unfettered, from the back of his throat. The low groans of him making promises with devils unknown; constructing shackles from brass, iron. 

Entrenching his future in motion, cupped protectively between the parentheses your thighs make around his hips. It's almost a vicious sort of poetry, one laid bare in the odious ruins of that broken thing he calls a heart. Etched into his rotten pericardium. Necrosed devotion. He'll see it through—however noxious, and putrid, you might find the miasmal stench of it spun tight in his web. 

It's for your own good.

And as if you agree, you answer him in perfect euphony, moaning sweetly as you tilt your hips up for more. 

Ghost groans low in his throat, bestial and spinning rapidly out of his control. He feels everything spinning, slipping; the trudge to the finish line narrows into a pinprink. He needs something to cling to, to hold on to with broken hands—

The only purchase he finds is in your demise. 

His hand lifts, shaking yours loose. He reaches up, fingers dig into your chin, forcing your pouty mouth open. You blink at him, sluggish, but he catches the thin gossamer of awareness spooling thin cobwebs over darkened crevasses, covering the canyons in your eyes with cognisance. It makes him leer. 

“Stick your tongue out, pretty girl,” he rasps, words sticking together, muffled under the mask. Crushed aggregate stone under the weight of his own desire. “Tha’s it. Open up nice and wide—”

He lets spit gather again, pooling on his tongue. It's degrading, you always say. Gross. But you swallow it down like a good girl, anyway. Always. You come at him with fangs and claws, but somehow, you always merge in a perfectly dizzying polyphony. 

Ghost spits on your tongue. Lets it land right in the middle of fleshy pink. A sick, twisted pleasure thrums in his veins at the sight. 

There's checking the boxes of an established kink, and this. Horrifically proprietary. Ownership that ignites a fire in his marrow, setting him alight from the inside out. Turns bone into blackened char, cinder. He can almost taste it on his tongue. 

It's made worse, turned frenzied, when you—sweet, perfect, you—bracket it protectively in the curve of your tongue. Completely dazed, head filled with a heady slurry of somnolence and alcohol, but still aware enough to know, even if only through muscle memory, what you're meant to do when he spits in your mouth. 

If anything, you're more obedient like this. Little doll. Coddling it lovingly, this little piece of him that he gives you. 

And it might be the madness speaking—these fraying thoughts take on a vitriolic edge, corrosive aqua regia pooling in his throat—but Christ. He's been stabbed in the guts, repeatedly, and it somehow packed less of a punch than this. 

He wants, wants—

Family never crossed his mind, was never even on the table or something to be considered, but with you it brims. Blooms in rot. Roots in tenebrous. 

He has this insatiable urge to devour you whole so you'll always be with him. The waves of his desire are monstrous. The waters below are rapacious. A gaping maw eager to eat you up—

Pity it’s not an option. 

But he’ll make do. Buy a ring tomorrow. Something pretty that matches your eyes. The curve of your smile. Sanctioned ownership. A collar in gemstones and gold, glimmering and shining bright enough that should any light fade from your gaze, it’ll illuminate in the gloom; twilight made in sorrow. The prettiest blues—

Said eyes water. Ghost’s hold on your face relaxes when you give a muffled keen, cheeks bubbling up against the pressure. Tongue still stuck out even as he takes his pleasure from your supine flesh. Suspended in motion, stasis. Such a good girl for him—

He swallows. Tastes poison, rot, on his tongue. “Swallow.” 

You're a little sluggish, a little slow, but you follow his command all the same. He knows, then, that it could only ever be you. 

No one gets under his skin like this. No one makes him itch, want, crave, as much as you do—

You make a face, twisted up in some amalgamation of pleasure and confusion. It nudges the ruins of his chest and feels almost like a heartbeat when it pulses in his flesh. 

“Simon, Simon—”

His name is all you can say, and he's not sure if you're begging for mercy, or muttering it out into the scant air between your heaving breaths like an obsecration, an orison, but he eats it all the same. Bites down on your pleas, your cries, your prayers, and chews them up between fangled teeth. Takes them down into the swirling pits of his belly where they're eaten alive by what grows in the decay.

(belly full of dirt:

he heaves, and heaves, but nothing comes out even though he can taste humus in his throat, feel worms using his organs like a playground—)

“Somethin’ you want, pet?” He taunts, and shifts his hips back just enough to drag a few inches of his cock out of your drenched cunt. A tease—cruel and mean. He’d get lobbed upside the head for this had you been in your right mind. A tap to his temple, shaking the cobwebs loose. He would have bent down, and sunk broken teeth into your jugular. Merging violence with love until bloody knuckles feel like a kiss. “All you ‘ave to do is ask. Use your words, pretty thing—”

You whine, low and drawn out. A lazy whimper in the back of your throat. “Pl’se—”

You can barely speak. Tongue too thick. Sleep too heavy in your veins. Alcohol, too. A lesson, perhaps, for his willful little pet come the morning when you struggle to measure just how deep into his gullet you’ve let yourself fall. 

He can’t help rubbing salt into the shallow cuts, if only because he likes the way you pout. 

“C’mon, sweetheart. You can do better’n that.”

And damn him—damn you—you do. Your hand curls over his wrist, pulling it close to your mouth where you place a kiss against his palm. Tender. Chaste. Midnight blooms in your eyes, casts shadows under pale moonlight. His breath stutters in his chest when you lean your head back, letting his hand fall to your bared neck. 

Your heavy, lidded eyes gaze back at him, cutting through the shade of night that sews the air like satin. Etched in the file silk is threads of trust in stark white. The kind that bleeds for him; hungers. One that aches, always tender like a bruise. The throb of it echoes between mouldering ribs. Booms between his ears. 

Ghost doesn’t fall into pieces. Doesn’t shatter. No. Something in the splintered remains shifts. Settles. He wraps his fingers around the thick of your throat, thumb notched tight against your pulse, and he feels complete. Whole. Remade from the ruins. 

Your breath hitches. The sound is a gunshot in his ears. He squeezes down, a gentle press. Just enough to make the air spill out of your lungs, to let your eyes water. Lachrymose, eager. It does something to him when you cry. He feels tipped upside down, torn inside out. Left all askew, asunder. He wants to drown in the pebbling river growing against your lashline. Wants to drink it down until it quenches his neverending thirst. Wants, wants—

He feels his name spill from your lips. Brassy and broken, trembling against his palm. A plea—

More.

And he gives it to you. 

Simon hitches your ankle on his shoulder. Adjusts the grip he has on your throat. He settles over your body, blanketing you under his bulk. Stygian beast devouring the maiden whole. The thought amuses him even as it knocks the air from his lungs. 

He anchors himself into the mattress with his knees, steadying himself, curls his other hand around the iron ring of the headboard. All the while, you look up at him—glossy eyes burning coals in the dark, in the gloom. Wanting, hungry. Mouth held open as if you’re waiting for his scraps—

And then he bucks into you, the leverage giving his thrust a savage edge. 

The whines are snuffed out under his palm. Your eyes widen, tears now spilling down your temple, soaking the pillow below your head. 

He groans, head rolling back. “Fuckin’ hell—ain’t you a pretty sight?”

Tucked under him, throat swallowed by his palm. Split on his cock, slick and wet. The tears streaming down your face makes him feel wicked, foul; but the spit running down your slackened jaw quells any doubt. The hand on his wrist holds him tight, tighter still, to your flesh. 

You want this. His spoiled rotten bird.

So, he gives it to you.

Simon’s almost ruthless when he snaps his hips into yours, cooing viciously into your ear about how you feel, how you look, how you sound—so pretty wrapped around him, under him; his little doll—

“S’where you belong, pet—” guttural words spill, flintlike and savage, from his mangled throat. Reinforced with the hateful way he blugeons his cock into you. Times it perfectly with the firm squeezes against your jugular, never letting you catch your breath. Your eyes roll back, legs trembling. Shaking. But you don’t move, don’t struggle. The hand on his wrist is a shackle, and it makes him smirk, scars pulling up in a gnarled mess of mirth; ugly and mean. “Right where you belong. Ain’t tha’ right?”

He leans down, babbles nonsense into your temple. Promises you the heads of gods, the ichor they bleed. Swears he’ll build a shrine for you in Durham.

But for as mocking as these words he murmurs into your ear are, they’re tremulous. Raw. A current roars beneath; a steady stream, a plea, all full of need: stay, stay staystay—

(please)

He buries his nose into your hairline to stem the ravening ache in his guts, breathes in the heady scent of you—of sex, and wine, and sweat. Drags it into his lungs in harsh, angry gasps to stain his skin with the smell of you. Of him. 

It goes right to his head in a heavy rush until he’s dizzy, almost sick, with the swell of it flooding in. An animal, he thinks, drunk on merging pheromones that make him mindless. Unfettered. 

It’s as if he’s driven on instinct alone; his frenzied pace ebbs, grows sloppy. The air around him feels thick. Syrupy. Stifling. The balmy breath in his chest is nearly as unbearable as it is addicting. Sickeningly sweet. Still—

His chest expands, taking as much of the potent miasma into his lungs as he can, filling them up, up, until he feels the edges threaten to brust. It’s only then, when ink moults across his vision, that he lifts his head just enough to shove his mouth against yours, a broken snarl ripping free from his throat as he forces the infectious air into your mouth, down to your lungs. Polluting you with the same sickness. The same rot. 

Little hiccups tumble past your lips as you swallow it down, taking everything he gives you, and he catches them on his tongue. Plays with them between his teeth, basking in the salty tang of you—brine, loam; peatsalt. Ashes, guncotton. Molasses. He’s not sure if he wants to drown you in him, or crawl into the warm, wet cavern of your mouth that pulses around his tongue like a heartbeat. 

Both, maybe. Everything. All of it. 

Always—

But he’s chasing pleasure on fumes. Trying to run with broken legs. There’s nothing refined about this. About the way he cudgels the head of his cock into the places that make your mouth twist away from his greedy lips in a silent scream. His weight is crushing you, he’s sure, but you cling to him harder, holding him tighter. Almost afraid to let go. And fuck—the notion alone is a kick to the chest, harsh and heavy. He nearly gags on the litany of broken moans spiling out of his mouth, landing on your tongue. 

Driven mad, maybe (or pussy-drunk, and high off of his own poison); but in that madness, he discovers this:

Nirvana exists between your thighs. 

Home, too. 

(well—

not yet.)

Pleasure fissions down his spine. The paroxysm taking him deeper into the battle-worn depths of his demise until the walls narrow, closing in. Crushing. No escape. But—

He won’t climb out of his hole he dug. Not until he makes a bed from your flesh; shelter out of your bones. He wants to ingrain himself as deep within you as he can, arsenic subsumed down to your marrow. Poisoned with the fill of him, too sick to let go. 

(Bone nausea. 

A death sentence.)

It metastasises inside of him, filling the barren spaces up until it leaks from his pores. 

He wants it: this dream so tantalisingly close. 

Simon lifts his hand from your throat, and reaches out, grasps at it with a shaking paw—

All it takes is a few crass, careless swipes of his calloused thumb across your clit, cock angled toward that spot that makes you rake your broken nails down his back, yowling in his ear for more, there, please, Simon, please—

You clench like a vice around him. A pretty bow tied up at the base of his cock. He bows over you, grunts spilling from his chest as he sinks his teeth into your nape, splitting skin btween his teeth. The warm, ozonous tang of your blood flooding his tongue is euphoric, eclipsing his mind in a haze of pleasure that crackles and burns at the base of his spine, spitting smoke up his body and into his skull. 

The harsh whine you let out—all prey, all animal; wounded, stuck under his muzzle—has some part of him, basal and inborn, rearing up. Roaring in his ears, ripping talons across the jagged remains of his head. 

(mine, mine, mine—)

He answers your scream with a growl, one caught in the smoke clogging his throat. It sounds inhuman when its wrenched out of his mouth—more animal than man: the devastating howl of a forest on fire—but the feel of it vibrating between his teeth is connatural. Innate. It belongs between his incisors; fits like a puzzle piece in his broken muzzle. Unleashed now. Finally free from this ill-fitting cage he housed it, this goddamn box—

Cobbled together from palm ash and brimstone, ichor and salt. Sewed up with copper sutures in the shape of a man for a perfect fit. 

Every cell in his body screams that he was made for this. To be over you, in you. Maw filled with your blood. Pussy stuffed full of his cock. 

He might not have clawed out of the dirt for you, but this mossy, gnarled lump in his chest beats now only for you. Apodictic. Ironclad. His teeth in your jugular, your life pulsing wetly on his tongue. 

It’s his apotheosis. His end. 

His hips stutter. White noise in his head. It drowns out the shrill screams, the hisses. Everything is just—static. Pleasure of a silent kind, humming, buzzing, and molten. Ghost buries himself inside of you as deep as he can, until his cock is fit snug against the plug of your womb, and lays his claim by branding it with the potency of his name. 

Tidally locked, you’re dragged down the summit with him, tumbling to your demise. Too dazed, too wound tight in his arms, his embrace, to see the jagged rock at the bottom of the hungry chasm thirsting for your blood, you just cling to him. Refusing to let go. 

(silly girl—

His pretty little perigee.)

His body aches in ways that cruelly remind him of his age. Joints stiff, stomach quivering. His knuckles sting when he unfurls it from the headboard, skin pink and raw from the tight hold he had around the metal. 

It’s made worse when he heaves a harsh breath, and pulls away from you with a long, drawn out groan. He settles back on his haunches, eyes searing into the space between your thighs. Messy with his spend. It dribbles down your slit, your ass, pools on the sheets below. 

Your chest shudders, legs splayed out how he left you. He thinks, viciously, of gazelles, and wonders if the blood he feels drying on his mouth looks anything like the muddied mane of a lion after eating its fill. 

“Fuckin’ hell—”

He should clean you up, hide his crime, but he burns the image of you into his head (another tattoo over scar tissue), and drops to a heap beside you. The moment his back hits the mattress and all thoughts of moving are erased in silk, in smoke and clover. 

Chest heaving, slick with sweat, he feels the thrum of his victory in his veins. The high of the chase abates, and he nearly purrs with contentment. Hangs his pride on a pedestal, and doesn’t think about the absence of any guilt. Doesn’t even entertain the thought, not when victory dries between your thighs. When you roll over with a huff, reaching out for him. 

It's as if you're trying to bury yourself inside of him, crawl into the safety of his ribs. 

Ghost grunts, feels his sensitive, spent cock give a feeble twitch on his sticky thigh. The idea of you, blissfully unaware, seeking comfort from the man who writ your body with his virile spend, irrevocably changing your life and entwining it so deeply and so messily with his own that to severe either of you from each other is nearly impossible, floods him with satisfaction so deep, euphorically heady, that his chest seems to shudder. Resounding with some amalgamation of a purr, a grow, so utterly primal, that he sounds more beast than man. 

His roots run deep within you, now, and every misaligned piece of his patchwork body seems to sag and shiver in an almost perfect parallelism. Congruence ascertained with the cupping of you between its mismatched maw. Shackled in a baleen prison. Nestled, safe and sound, between white teeth. 

Ghost pulls you close, holding tight, and hums. As you drool on his shoulder, dripping with his spend, he knows he'll keep you there forever, until you're nothing but bones. 

There's a cloud of confusion hanging over you the next morning, a twinge of uncertainty gnarling across the gaps in your memory. The pieces of a puzzle that belong to a different set. He watches you scramble through them, filling in blanks. Oscillating so deliciously between wariness and discontent. 

“‘morning,” he greets, as if his spend hasn’t dried on your thigh last night. Tucked up nice and tight against your fertile, unprotected womb. As if he couldn't taste brimstone in the back of his throat when you wince as you walk, achy and battle-worn from the weight of his desire crushing you all night. 

“Morning,” it's a sticky rasp in your throat. He wonders if you taste him on your tongue. “When did you get in?”

“Las’ night.”

You nod, but it's absent. Flickering through the timeline of events that aren’t drenched in black, shaded over like a heavy bruise. Your expression is fractured. Raw. Pensive. Something untouchable, unchartable, and yet he reads you as plainly as the tea leaves at the bottom of his cup. 

You don’t remember. Don’t know what to make of this chasm, this fissure, that looms, icy and deep, before you. There’s no anger, though. You don’t demand recompense for what he stole, what he took. The lashings he deserves are tucked quietly between your teeth. Hidden under layers of normalcy to prevent yourself from seeing him as is: a beast. 

“Well, um. Some homecoming, huh?” You joke, but it's hollow. Flat. Fragile like fine glass. You're digging for more. Rooting around to connect these vague, absent dots that linger, lost in the vacancy of your memory. 

He almost purrs. 

He wants to chew you up. Spit you in the palm of his hand. Maybe tuck you in his breast pocket, nestled against the lump in his chest—the one those silly enough to dream might call a heart. Keep you there forever. Hidden in the barrel of his loaded gun. 

“Bit rowdy.” 

It’s horrifically vague, but you cling to the prevacation he proffers to you; a lifeline in the turbulent sea, letting it overwrite the absence, the itching in your skull that must be clanging on the walls, begging for you to run. 

“Sorry,” it's sheepish. He knows the ferality in which you sometimes come at him when he's buried deep inside you is something that makes you twinge with embarrassment. Little kitten clawing at the old dog trying to get it to play. Rolling over immediately when it growls. Docile, sickeningly sweet.

But even naive kittens know to watch out for the frothing, foaming maw. 

“Did you use a—?”

He dips his chin. “I might ‘ave.”

And you take it as gospel. As truth. Why would Simon have any reason to lie to you about this? 

Relief shudders over your shoulders. You relax, inching toward the seat across from him. Gazelle making a home for itself in the lion’s den. 

The spell of unease is broken, now, and you quickly fill the chasm with chatter about your day. Your plans. Asking him how he’s been. 

You shove at the warning signs until they’re hidden away, and ignore the bones of your brethren scattered around you. All because you trust him. 

He aches with the urge to crush it between his teeth. 

And he will one day soon, he’s sure, because it’s just as easy to enact his plan as it was to get you to open the door. 

It starts with him convincing you to drink with him after dinner. Jus’ a glass. Got this fancy bottle. Reckon we should ‘ave some. 

But—

Can’t drink forever—no matter what his dogshit dad thought. 

So, he pokes holes in the condoms you hide in the bedside table, a little wary now. A touch fretful about your contraceptives in a way that makes him preen. You have good instincts, but rarely do you listen to them. Your head must be filled with sirens, but it's futile, he supposes. He's already stuffed cotton into your ears. 

It only feeds into that gaping chasm that bellows up from the depths that this world is not good for you. That it will tear you into pieces, into shreds. You need him. Need the Ghost to protect you. 

Case in point:

You’re needy beneath him, panting and mewling into the sheets as he teases your clit with his thumb. So wet, it almost feels like hot oil on his skin. Syrupy thick. 

In your desperation, you cling to him, throat bared. Fragile fine china. Belly up. Vulnerable. 

You barely notice when he pulls off the condom, crumpling it up into a ball and shoving it in the pocket of his slacks.. Don’t even react when he shoves his bare, raw cock into you. 

You don't even notice. 

(or when he slurs in your ear about how badly he wants to knock you up—breed his pretty girl until she’s stuffed full of him, making life with what he offers. salvation in the form of creation. ain’ tha’ a thought? he huffs into your ear, humid mirth curling over your skin. a stain. and the way it unfetters you—tightening around him, gushing slick—he finds his answer, one reinforced in the rolling of your eyes as your common sense, independence, trickle out of your ears and down your slackened jaw—)

And when that fails, he just slips you a sleeping pill. There's always an easier way to the finish line, he finds. 

(stupid fuckin’ mutt—)

Nothing bleeds from the cracks he wrought, or slinks from the shadows cast by his machinations until weeks later. 

Life just goes back to what it once was—Simon coming and going, letting himself into your home with the door you leave unlocked. You go to work, and chatter aimlessly about this vision you have about a home in the countryside, near the ocean. Saving up—uselessly—for sheep and goats, and the sought-after Highland cows. Chickens and ducks first, you say, and barely notice when his gaze drops, drilling holes into your stomach. Watchful. Leering. 

He can almost scent the change on you. Nose pressed to your skin; bloodhound sniffing the ground. 

Ghost keeps time in the slow, susurrus drawl of your voice sifting through the cotton in his ears, waiting for those precious decibels to catch on, to tilt up at the end as your eyes skim the calendar he keeps scratching x’s across in red, almost delicate, innocent even though it's from his sanguinary hand. A countdown to something you haven’t yet caught on to. 

And it’s all so sweet. 

—the waiting game, the subtle changes, the desperate way you cling to normalcy—

Sweet, like the way you carve this life out for yourself, filled with stuffed animals full of idealism. So much so, that it's almost bitter. Acrid. He watches the light glow in your eyes as your plans take shape, moulding putty between your hands, and like a pit viper, he coils in on himself. Frenzied. Fearful—

But only just. 

The excitation has run its course. He’s drifting, languid, into his scheme. Content. The notion of you slipping from his fingers is a thought that rarely crosses his mind these days, especially when that house on the prairie grows from an occupant of one to two—

“And, you know… when you're not out saving the world—” your eye roll and air quotes make his lips twitch, tugging at the scar tissue, the acid burns, splashed across his mouth. An ugly fucking Pollock. “—maybe you can come visit.”

“Never fancied myself a rancher,” he drawls, just to watch you squirm. Brow furrowing into a deep ravine as you struggle to make your intentions known without actually giving them sound. Skirting around the issue of wanting him there, of planning a home with him. 

(Too much, maybe? Or too soon—? 

if only you knew—)

He finds it charming, really. 

Still—

“It's just a thought,” you mutter, downcast. He wants to choke on your misery. Your sadness. Drown himself in your anger. Float in your happiness. 

Fuckin' Christ—

All this playing daddy in his head has thrown him off his rocker. Made him soft. Sentimental. It's probably why he yields to you. Offers a lazy shrug and another smarmy twitch of his lips. 

“Sounds like a plan,” and the way you brighten is a dagger to his chest. 

And the thing is. It does. It sounds like a dream, a perfect vision. Just—

Maybe not in the way you'd want. 

He's been looking into places unmarred by human hands. Ghost towns, uncharted territories. His home here isn't perfect for it, not like the vast geography of Mexico. The uninhabited wilderness of Canada, places so remote that it's almost untethered to modern civilisation. Islands of forest, mountains, all on their own. 

Vast corners and crevasses where someone can disappear and never be found. 

But those won't work in tandem with his flighty lifestyle. While he plans on keeping you barefoot and pregnant (common sense in the back of his head screams that he's foul, vile, monstrous—), he will continue to work. Has to, really, to avoid suspicion. 

So—

Home it is. 

But he gets inspiration from the Highland cows you coo on about and purchases a plot of land in the Western Isles. Gives this whim of his—yours, really—a concrete foundation made of the abstract. The filament provided by his newly christened Sergeant—an overeager mutt that bleeds warning signs from his pores. 

(don’t get close, reactive dog. will bite—

the little mutt is a great pyrenees, ain’t he?)

But bless Johnny’s bleedin’ heart, he thought as the man prattled on about this cabin he owns. A place of solitude. Could fire a gun and no one would even peek out the curtains. Beautiful, the way all of Scotland is. The highlands, he breathes in that shade of catholic madness only the dutiful soldiers of god's right-handed wrath can be, is where he keeps his home. A place chiselled from stone, surrounded by wilderness that eats tourists alive. 

(he didn’t ask at the time why Johnny was so keen on finding these places scattered around Scotland, ones with little traffic and a nearly negligible amount of souls within the vicinity, but he finds its best not to get too close to mutts crossbred with wolves.)

But Simon is nothing if not devoted, and so. 

You’ll get your fantasy ranch in the middle of nowhere. Your highland cows, your billy goats, your chicken, sheep, and ducks. A baby in your arms, too. One that shows its hand the next morning, dashing all your carefully laid plans. These paths of independence of yours run parallel to his whims but never converge. There’s the potential in this for these fraying threads to split, and diverge. Separate. 

(But it’s all put to rest at the sound of you heaving in the adjoining washroom. His path eats yours until it’s overtaken. Consumed. 

The evasive, unfettered little bird trammelled, caught. Wing-clipped, and all his.) 

Any misgivings the part of his gyri not buried under the frothing mess of his polluted grey matter might have is vitiated by the unwavering certitude that, despite his own gains in this, it really is in your best interest. 

And maybe it's something that should have come earlier in your relationship—however threadbare that word is in conjunction with the unhinged desire blooming in the pit of his chest; madness masquerading as love or some obsessive, desperate facsimile of it. Maybe a proper man, a better one, might have dug down and fully laid out the reality of intertwining your life with the living dead. That the idea of danger, death, and revenge are all everpresent threats scratching at the walls of this sickeningly sweet fantasy you wrap around yourself. 

He’s a dangerous man. A creature of devastation—manmade, bent into, or congenital is yet to be unearthed—which, in itself, brings about a certain lifestyle. One with fewer people around, and always shrouded in secrecy. Friends, family—none of that matters when death curdles gnarled fingers around his jugular. 

You’ll get used to it. Eventually. The only other choice is to let you, his now flightless bird, go. Released back into the wild vulnerable and reeking of his stench. 

You’ll be devoured before daylight, ripped into pieces—only if they’re feeling generous, that is. 

Simon has his own twisted remora. Ones with claws and fangs and a hunger that runs deep. Insatiable. Any scraps that fall from his mouth are devoured before they can touch the sea floor. They’ll crush you in their maw and dangle your mangled body from the gaps between their teeth. 

You’re not made for the wild. Not anymore. You’re meant to be protected. You—this fragile, delicate thing. He’ll hold you close, keep you secure and safe in a mausoleum of your own making. 

This little glass jar domicile. 

A billet in the mountains. 

He’ll fill it with the finest things—silk linens, fine china; mahogany and teak, pink ivory; a bed of soft, downy feathers, sherpa, Egyptian cotton; (sticks and stones and grass and moss). Buy you whatever you need. Chickens and ducks. Sheep and goats. 

They’ll keep you company when he’s away. 

(and if that fails, he can always plan playdates for you with whatever dirty secret Johnny’s been keeping tucked away in the woods.)

He draws an x in the empty, white box of the calendar, the tip of his red marker gliding silkily across the glossy surface. Something unfurls in his guts. Blossoms in his bones. There’s an almost indescribable sense of satisfaction—primal and animalistic—that grows from the upturned dirt in his head. Life composted from rot. 

Ghost hums to himself when he turns, the sound nearly a purr—bestial as it is, suffocated under sulphur. It reverberates through his chest, trembling across the brackets of his ribs that expand with his deep, heavy inhale—breathing in the sight that greets him like a lover’s kiss

The kebab he ordered lays untouched on the table across from the television—some trashy reality show playing in the background while you tried to eat; a dating show, you’d said when he merely shrugged, having other things on his mind over what to watch while you ate. It all seems to be preserved in time. Frozen in on the exact moment when you’d sniffed the döner kebab he got for you—the same thing you order each time—and then promptly wrenched yourself back, gagging. The sandwich was flung back in the takeaway box before you slapped your hand over your mouth, rushing into the washroom. 

If his phone wasn’t in the other room, he might have taken a picture. A little memento to remember this moment. Framed it in iron and perched it on the desk they gave him back in Hereford, the one just down the hall from Price. 

(ah, speaking of—he’ll have to send that caustic bastard a fruit basket, or something, won’t he? maybe some pretty flowers for his lady.)

His reverie is shaken when the door to the washroom creaks open slowly, and you emerge through the gap with sweat on your brow, knots across your forehead, and a shaking hand resting over your churning stomach. 

Shame, he thinks. He really should have brought his phone—

You lean against the wall, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to steady yourself, confusion and worry knitting over you like a thundercloud. It tastes of ozone when he inhales. An approaching storm. In the blue gloom of the living room, illuminated only by the light flooding out from the washroom behind you and the static glow of the television, you look etiolated. A wilting flower. 

His budding rose. 

He coos. “You alright?”

You glance sideways at the kebab on the table, mouth pinching into a grimace as if to stem the nausea still rippling through you. You stare at it for a long moment, seemingly trying to make sense of the reality sitting in front of you on scratched, old pine; confusion runs laps over the dawn cresting in your eyes. This puzzle is too unfathomable for you to piece together; the keys and slots all askew. 

The air around him grows still. Silent. Anticipatory. A tiger crouched low in the tussock. A little fawn roaming too close. 

There’s a heaviness in your eyes when they flicker back to the wall where he stands, drilling holes into the x. Something implacable frissons over your threadbare expression, fracturing across sallow cheeks. 

The air is electric. It pulses across his bare flesh, irritating scar tissue, acid burns, and scorch marks. His skin prickles at its whisper. 

“Feelin’ sick, pet?” He ponders, playing pretend. He’s viciously, deeply amused at the desperate denial splashing across your cheeks. The thin shade of askance that unfurls like the leaves of a flytrap when you look at him. “Mus’t’a been the kebab. Bad meat, I reckon?”

You offer a weak nod in response, pinching your lips tight together. The matter seemingly concluded, brushed aside. Pocketed for later. 

And you say nothing else for the rest of the night—gaze unseeing, turned inward; pensive—but he purrs in contentment as if everything was alright, sprawled across the couch with his head pillowed against your churning stomach as if he could hear the whisper of another heartbeat from within. 

In the saturated blue light, he catches your eyes listing toward the calendar every so often. Wary. Nervous. He thinks you might say something, might ask, but you don’t. It’s caught on a stilted breath. A harsh swallow. 

All you do is bring your hand to his shorn head, and raze the stumps of your clipped claws against his scalp. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soothe the madness from within. Scratching that itch deep inside until it goes away. Gentle hands play pretend and dress up as a panacea. Affection to scrape the illness away. 

He thinks you should know better than that, even as he leans into it with a soft exhale, more relaxed than he'd ever been his entire life. Content. Unassailable in his conquest. 

Simon has always been more scar tissue than man, and no place is damaged more than the upturned tumulus inside his head. 

But oh. How you try—

His sweet, sweet girl. 

The look you give him the next evening is, in parts, brumous. 

A polynya of dread, worry, guilt, fear that frissons across the deep valleys in your eyes, shaded in plumes of darkness, filled in deliciously with the weight of your beleaguered uncertainty. It yawns out before him, this heavy gloom. 

So close he catch the embers in his hand. 

“Simon… We should—talk. I, uh—”

You hold up a little rectangle, dismay, misery, etched in the blue tinge spreading across your face. It seems to steal the words from your throat, turn them into ash. What else are you meant to say, he supposes, when you look out at the world now from the gape in his maw? 

But there’s a veil of wonderment that hides below the tidal wave; this precious, deadly, undercurrent that rents the air, splits his chest in two.

The happiness, however meagre, thin, it is right now (just a sunken boat on the seafloor), is there. Ripe for salvage, and he sees that it’s handled with care. Cupped between his palms, nurtured by his own conviction to do what’s right, an’—fuck, pet—know this ain’t what we planned, but—

but:

The howling quiets, turns to a low growl, and then a susurrus hum, when you shakily utter the words he was waiting for. 

“Yes, Simon—”

You shudder when his fist closes over your wrist, pulling you into his purring chest. Shaking like a prey animal in the jowls of a beast, bested and ensnared. It has a profound, almost predatory, sense of satisfaction curling over his bones. He knows this was the right choice, and is sure, in time, you'll come to realise that, too. You’re in the early stages, he knows. Prodromal. You need to be handled with care to curb the lacrimation, the hyperesthesia. 

And there’s no one better than him to guide you through the throes of it. To lead you to the unequivocal end. 

He leans down, and whispers in your crown—

“Good girl—”

—and the sound of his voice is gravel encased in sticky, sweet honey. Dark, smokey molasses. The very same cadence as a key sliding inside of a lock; metal grazing metal. Turning—

“If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tommy.”

Click. 

(he gives you that ring he promised when he takes you to the mountains. you smile wide, and tell him it fits like a gyve.)

Simon stops shovelling his want under the cold dirt and starts burying it inside you instead. Makes a domicile from your flesh; a place where he can rest his aching head every night until the howling scraping down fractured bone stops— (paralytic)

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost x reader #goddd this is foul #and was supposed to be up hours agooo but Nahanni closed at 5 today oops #cod #call of duty #simon ghost riley x reader #cod smut #simon riley smut #simon riley cod #ghost call of duty x reader #ghost cod x reader #in many ways this is a psa on the symptoms of rabies

[thatfreshi]

Hi! Can I request a story about Tav having trouble fighting cause Astarion just fed on her and so he gets worried and protective ofc. Maybe they were ambushed at camp or something? Thank you so much for your work! I really like how you write Astarion

Tw - animal attack, lots of gore, themes of death

Recommended Song: Seek and Destroy - SZA

Against better judgment, you let Astarion feed on you almost every night. It's just one of those things, a sacrifice you make, an act of love. After decades of disrespect, scavenging for next to nothing, you thought it'd be nice for him to have something better than animals. While he always insists it isn't necessary, he never passes you up on the offer. A ritual before bed every night, like a lover's embrace, you've come to adore the feeling of his teeth.

This evening in particular, he took quite a bit. You don't mind, considering you go to bed almost right after. Light-headed, woozy, you're wrapped up in his arms.

"Thank you darling."

His embrace almost feels warm when you're this drained. You almost drift off, but he keeps you awake.

"Tav, you need to eat something first."

You groan, absolutely exhausted, trying to keep him in the bedroll.

"Nooo, I'll just do it tomorrow."

He smiles, moving your hair out of your eyes.

"That's not how it works my sweet. Now, let me get up so I can-"

Goblin war drums. The sound of the percussive rhythms bouncing off all the trees, they're not far off, and Astarion knows they're on the way. Karlach starts making her way to every tent, telling your companions to get their asses in gear.

"Tav, Astarion, let's go!"

"Shit."

Astarion whispers to himself. You're still not fully there, in and out of sleep.

"What's going on?"

Double vision, you see two of your vampire lover get up and start rummaging around for his daggers.

"Just- just stay here Tav. It's alright."

You try to rub at your eyes, desperately wanting to figure out what's going on. Before you can ask again, he's gone, and you hear more war drums outside. You quickly realize it's goblins. They must've found where you've been hiding, but your head is still spinning. Trying to get up and grab your blade, you almost fall back to the ground. Steadying yourself for a moment, you try your best to listen to what's going on outside. It sounds deadly, metal, screams. You hear Shadowheart casting left and right.

When you manage to stumble out of the tent, you're tackled by one of their dogs, or whatever wretched things they are. A scream rips out of your throat, trying to hold the thing off. It bites rabidly at your arm, leaving numerous gashes, until it's thrown off of you and stabbed to death, relentlessly.

"Gods damnit, I told you to stay in the tent Tav!"

You're too worried about your arm throbbing in pain to care about the validity of his argument. He's angry, and perhaps both of you aren't entirely certain why. It's your dominant arm, you can barely move it. Astarion goes to wrap your arm, but is quickly overpowered by the numbers again. They must've sent a large party after the lot of you. Halsin and Shadowheart are running out of magic, already drained. It's bad, but it'll end soon. With a couple more fights and a thunderwave from Gale, the rest of the goblins scurry off, knowing they're fighting a losing battle. Astarion doesn't even stop to loot their corpses, running to your side.

"You're a fucking idiot Tav, you know that?"

Gods, he could sound so mean when he wanted to. You know he says those things out of fear, but they still hurt. Despite how angry he is, he starts ripping pieces of cloth from his shirt, wrapping your arm, which is bleeding far too fast. Shadowheart and Halsin come over to supervise, both out of arcana until they get some rest.

"Yes, the two of you standing over my shoulder is quite helpful. Might as well cheer me on while you're at it!"

His movements are ragged, furious, only making your arm hurt more than it does. He's lost though, somewhere in his head, unable to hear the cries of pain as he's wrapping your arm. You're even more lost than before, your blood leaving rapidly.

"Aster, I-"

"Hush."

He then realizes you were going to tell him you were about to pass out, because you almost immediately fall over.

"Damnit!"

He holds you in his arms, your limb still not fully wrapped.

"If the two of you want to be helpful, get me some actual bandages instead of gawking at me!"

Sure, Astarion hates doing things that require hard work, but he knows how. How many times did he have to do something like this to himself, when no one was there to help wrap his wounds? Shadowheart quickly returns with all of the bandage wraps she has.

"We have to clean it or it'll get infected."

"Well, Shadowheart, I don't know how you think you're going to clean it if Tav bleeds to death."

The two healers decide it's best if he handles this himself. While he obsessively wraps your arm, the rest of the camp watches on, knowing he's too possessive to let them help. He doesn't trust them like he trusts you.

And I trusted you to stay put.

There's no way to give you more blood, not in a way that would work for you. For a moment, he simply thinks that he'll feed you some of his blood, and then he remembers. All he can do is hope you retained enough, that he didn't preemptively kill you by feeding on you tonight. Your pulse is still going, but it's slow, and you're paler than usual.

Astarion begins to think to himself, asking why he ever fell in love, why he ever let himself think twice about you. It's easy to play the game when you have nothing to lose. Second thoughts, always, he's always thinking for two people now. It's been his survival, for as long as he can remember, and now you're lodged in his brain.

"Damn you Tav, I can't do this. I can't lose you like this."

He begins to sob as he holds you, still unconscious. This beckons Gale to come over, often a voice of reason for the vampire.

"You've done all you can. Perhaps we should get Tav back inside? Away from the elements?"

Astarion is too distraught to argue, helping Gale carry you back into the tent.

"The second Shadowheart is awake, she'll be back to check on Tav."

"Yeah, if they don't die from blood loss in the middle of the night."

Gale simply sighs, knowing there's no point in fighting with him. He leaves your pale lover to wallow in his misery. Hours pass, you're still clinging on, and Astarion watches over you, panicking every time he can't see your chest rise and fall, constantly checking your pulse. You're cold, your heartbeat dangerously slow, and he keeps wracking his brain about what else he could possibly do. But there's nothing, only fate, only the gods. He sadly chuckles to himself at the thought of even trying to pray, knowing there's no higher power out there, at least one that cares about him.

"W... what are you... laughing at?"

You ask weakly, oblivious to the horrific stress he's been through. Astarion whips around quickly, wondering if perhaps he's imagining your voice. When he sees your eyes fluttering, lost somewhere between dreams and reality, he rushes to your side.

"Oh gods Tav... you- you really scared me there."

He tries to hold back tears, failing miserably. You try to speak again, but groan in pain as the feeling in your arm starts to come back.

"I know, I know it hurts. It's okay my darling, you'll be alright."

He begins fully sobbing, and you have no idea why, without being awake enough to comprehend the situation. Astarion always tries to be strong when you're weak, but watching you teeter on the line between life and death, it was simply too much to bear.

"You can't pull that shit, ever again my love, I'm so serious. I know I'm normally quite serious, but ever more so right now."

Then, a joyful, tiny laugh. Happiness. Happy that you're alive. The memories of the fight slowly start coming back, the beast that ripped up your arm, Astarion yelling.

"Aster...?"

"Yes my dear?"

You start to tear up a little, still a tad delirious.

"I'm sorry."

And then remembers as well, the things he said, the tone he spoke to you in.

"No, no my love I'm sorry. You weren't yourself, I was being entirely unreasonable. I just..."

He almost can't finish his sentence.

"I'm just happy you're okay. That's enough for me."

Your lover slowly and carefully lays down beside you, pulling you into him, being sure not to let your wounded arm drag on the ground. He holds you for a long time, until Shadowheart wakes at dawn, fully rested and ready to fix your wounds. Astarion vows silently that he'll never let it come that close, ever again.

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #angst #comfort

[stickyspeckledlight]

Waxing, Waning, My Unraveled Body Beheld By the Moon [Yan!Aventurine x GN!Reader]

The sun is not always shining. But the moon can only shine because of the sun. A companion piece to Sunrise, Sunset, My Destroyed Body in the Onset. This fic assumes you've read it, so I heavily recommend you read it first before reading this. It'll make more sense if you do.

Ao3

Word count: 15.6k

TW: Implied/referenced noncon, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, mild gore, violence against reader, choking/strangulation, Stockholm syndrome, Aventurine's Past shows up, EXTREME tonal whiplash due to the beginning (but frankly it's so you can brace yourselves...the calm before the storm), Reader needs a hug, Ratio where are you my man needs therapy NOW, twisted "happy endings" my beloved

Note: This got so out of hand. Aventurine is the most potent brain worm I've had in a while. Poor reader though. They used to be such a cringefail, now they're a poor little meow meow 😔

(Written before 2.2)

You stand on the top of a tower. 

It’s a modest and small thing, but every second and breath you’ve taken is in its service. Time is its mortar, and actions are its bricks. It is stable, with a wide and strong base, with little deviation. If it had a shaky foundation, then you wouldn’t even bother.

You have no plans to construct it into something grandiose and spectacular. It’s best to keep your ambitions realistic, for it is so very easy to use and dispose of those with dreams bigger than themselves and small enough to be crushed in the palms of those atop skyscrapers. Your tower is modest, and you will keep it that way. You will have to become a cog in the machine for that to happen, but you can meagerly control the stability of your cog. 

It is cruel that it has to be that way, but you aren’t capable enough to change the way things are done. You might as well make the most out of this.

You know this song and dance, by now. The park is closed at this time of night, but, and it might be your greatest achievement of them all, you found a way to sneak in undetected. Granted, there weren't many people to stop you, but you’ll still take your W, thank you very much. 

You park your bike, well hidden in the bushes and trees. This is the noisiest part of your visit since the bike is heavy and you can’t suppress your soft grunts as you weasel it into its spot. But it’s worth it. After that, you walk along the trail, and when you’re far enough away, you stop trying to silence your steps and enjoy the sound of your boots falling onto the dirt. It’s a soft but firm sound, and it brings you a sense of peace. You hike until you reach it: a little trail to the side. Few sets of feet have paved the dirt, and even those who decide to pursue it usually turn back at the impenetrable foliage. But there is an opening in the forest’s defense. It’s tucked away, discovered by a much younger and adventurous you. You’re not sure if you found this place because you wanted to pretend to be a fairy princess or a heroic knight who saves the princess, or if you might’ve always been a little bit lonely. Whatever the case, you found this place, and it has since been your reprieve whenever things become too much. 

You know the area like the back of your hand, turning off your phone’s flashlight as you make your way. It’s a small clearing of forest, but it’s perfect. Bushes and trees surround you in a half-circle from behind, and in front of you is the ledge of a cliff. The sky is in full view here and lends itself to beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Sometimes, when your mind wanders, you wonder how long you’d fall if you tripped over the ledge. But those are just musings you have no intention of acting on. 

The moon does not grace you with its shine, but that’s alright. You’re here to see the world that moonlight blankets, not to be a part of it. You’ll bask in the darkness, and admire the silver sheen on the rest of the world; the world which gets a fraction of the sun, even at night. You settle into your spot against the tree trunk, shaped so it nearly encircles you in its embrace. A silly thought crosses your mind: does this tree love you? Of course not, but it’s just that: a silly little thought. 

You’re not here for any especially soul-crushing reason or anything. It’s the usual: schoolwork ramping up and deadlines creeping up. And the accompanying existentialism of what comes after. It’s just another peaceful night during a stressful time. It will soothe your soul, the comfort within shall ebb and flow, and then it will all fade away when you’ve returned to the world blanketed in the sun’s golden sheen. When it all piles up again, you know you can always come back here: your special place, where you can curl into yourself as much as you want to. And as always, you will fight the urge—so tiny that it’s insignificant but still so omnipresent—to sink your head fully into your stomach and become a mass of unthinking flesh. Becoming smaller and smaller until you aren’t even a speck.

The wind picks up. The cold doesn’t bother you much, but you’re still human. Instinct has you nuzzling into your cotton scarf. It does mean you have to wash it often, but the inconvenience doesn’t outweigh the comfort it provides. Yes, tonight will be a lovely one, spent doing nothing but staring at the moon from the shadows, alone with your thoughts and nocturnal critters that may tussle in the shrubbery. You hear a series of quick rustles—squirrels, maybe? Two of them, considering the frequency of rustling and the fact that it’s their mating season (well, you’re pretty sure spring is mating season. It could be wrong, but it’s useless trivia anyway, isn’t it? In the back of your mind, you imagine someone berating you). Another rustle plays, and you sigh wistfully. And then—

“…Hello,” A voice, shrewd and low sounds out.

Ink makes your vision go black and the only reason you don’t gasp or scream is because you’ve always froze before you ran. But even if you were a runner, where was there to go? You don’t know who this person is, where they are, why they are in your special place and why they’ve come here like a malicious boy kicking down a toddler’s sand castle or could they be here to prevent you from ever coming back to your special—

You swallow your panic and look for an exit before it forces itself back up. It’s not the first time someone’s noticed you, but you never really had to worry; you could just slip into here, and they’d give up when you couldn’t be found. But this is uncharted territory. More importantly, if anyone else were to know about this place, it would be a ranger. And you aren’t very interested in counting empty donut boxes and coffee cups during a run-of-the-mill interrogation. 

Slowly, and as quietly as you can, you make your move. Your hands are clammy, and each step feels like it will cause the earth to crack and send you falling into its molten core. You’ll be melted down, and the idea that you may be reforged sends another surge of panic within you. You cannot let a single brick crack. 

“I’m not here to hurt you if that’s what you’re thinking,” the voice says, much much much closer now. The words themselves should be of relief to you, but the fact that he’s closer means he knows where you are—in fact when you turn to look behind you, you can see a vague silhouette. Still, the few seconds you took to turn around also made it so that rather than relief and panic nulling each other, somewhat cool relief washed over you. Even if this entire situation is very, very, very weird. Maybe the relief you feel is a defense mechanism to prevent you from putting yourself in shit.

Should you just leave? He could just be lying to you. You weren’t great at figuring out people’s intentions, but you’d think that the most likely one in this situation leaned toward the malicious. However, you didn’t even notice his existence until he spoke. It’s the fact that he could weave through mostly undetected. If he could do that, then you think it’s not very likely you can just get away. 

You accept that defeat, so you decide to do something a little stupid. You talk to the stranger. In the event he’s a serial killer or something, maybe a conversation will let you get a good enough handle on him that he might just…let you go. Your heart hammers and you want to do nothing but shake, but you will yourself into a blizzard. If you are there, then you might be able to freeze and delay the ink that begins to drip. 

“I’m pretty shocked,” you mutter. Your voice is still a bit disconnected, still reeling, “I’ve never met someone here. How’d you find this place? Why’d you come to this place?” You ask these questions, and you won’t mind dying as much if they’re answered.

“Work,” he cryptically says. You just barely pick up on a sardonic lilt.

“So you’re a park ranger,” you deflate, and you nuzzle into your scarf as you brace yourself. But levity is powerful, and you’ll tap into it. “Here to arrest little ol’ me, then? You could’ve waited, at least until the moon started to dip. It’s a pretty solid night, methinks.” Your heart feels a little numb from hammering into your ribs so much. 

The ranger hums, “Moon’s the moon. It’s not bad, but the sun’s always pretty nice. But you’re right. It would’ve been better to wait till the sunrise. Alas, my schedule as of late has been a horribly rigid thing. I’m sure you know how it is.”

“Hmph,” you frown. It feels like he’s a cat playing with a mouse. You sigh with defeat, “Oh well. I’m not exactly known for being slippery, so I’m not even going to try and outrun a ranger of all people,” you extend your hand lazily, “Just get the cuffs already,” you decide to pout, to turn the situation around to something more comical and less soul-crushing, “Any longer, and the suspense’ll bury me six feet under. The records might call that cardiac arrest, but I call it embarrassing—the thought of dying like that is a real heartstopper.” Ha, look at you! A true punster, you little rascal. There is no reason for you to defame or attack a guy just doing his job, so if you go down, you’ll at least go down with a slow-witted joke or two. Across from you is a law-abiding Joe, and you are the evil thief mothers warn their children about. Truly, it cannot be more black and white than this, so it’s best for everyone that you don’t make too much of a fuss. See? You are capable of ethics! Or maybe that was more like philosophy? Eh, what’s the difference? You’re still fucked, and you very much want to die. 

“Arrest you?” The ranger’s voice teeters toward, um…you think it’s some mix of sarcastic, mocking, and—oh wait, you’d call it ‘teasing.’ “Do you want to be arrested?” He teases, but it feels like the way an owner would talk down to a beloved puppy. You don’t appreciate it. 

You frown. “No. Why would I want to be arrested?” You deadpan, “Can you please stop skirting around the issue?” More ink blots your sight, as your palms start to clam with unwanted anticipation. You think they could be gushing with your blood, if this guy keeps dragging your arrest out like this. 

The ranger laughs. Laughs. You aren’t sure if you want to join him or shove him off the cliff. Whatever the case, now you know that there is a nonzero chance this ranger has a bit of a sadistic streak. Instinctively, you take a few steps back, as if that could save you from disaster, from plummeting over the edge of your tower. 

“…Please tell me you aren’t planning anything…” The words you were thinking of saying suddenly elude you, but you’re already speaking. You have no choice but to see what haphazard replacements you make, “…goofy silly. Or something.”

The ranger clicks his tongue. It seems he’s fully dipped into a playful veneer; whether that’s his true self, or the mask he thinks you’ll best respond to in the way he wants, it nudges you a little further to the edge. You defensively nuzzle into your scarf, trying but failing to calm your nerves. You’ll give yourself one point, though: you thought you’d be more inclined to be screaming or crying. That’s probably because you are technically doing something illegal, so there’s really no one but yourself to blame for this predicament. Really, why do you still come here like this, when you know it’s against the rules? It’s not the first time you’ve asked yourself that question, but it’s certainly the first time it feels sort of tangible. 

“‘Goofy silly?’” The words seem all at once perfect and dubious when carried in the ranger’s voice, “Hm…you know what? I do feel like I’m in a ‘goofy silly’ mood!” 

Oh. Well, guess you’re double fucked. It was a good life, the clean record, you suppose. But what is life if not change? You’re entering a new era now, you hardened criminal. Crime will be your lifeblood; anything scared shall disintegrate into something depraved at your touch. You’ll do it all: tax evasion, defamation, shoplifting, parking offenses. Society will not be free of your crime sprees—all will fear the Suburban Terror. Karens will cower before you, the neighbors will hate you, the teenagers will prank you, and the children will scream with fear at you. All because the consequences of your actions caught up with you at the behest of the actions of some guy who just so happens to be able to arrest you. 

“So, about that arresting,” the ranger continues, “I won’t be doing that!” he peps.

Everything stands in place. “What?” 

“I’m not gonna arrest you!” 

“W-well, I heard that,” you stammer, “but why? You literally said you’re here for work!” 

You can practically sense the ranger’s lighthearted shrug, “I am. And I’m not arresting you. Simple as that!”

Everything feels like it's going too fast and too slowly. Whiplash isn’t good for the soul, in your opinion. “But…but the law…”

“Who said the law needs to be followed?” 

“The government and state…” and then something clicks, “Hey, if you’re a park ranger, then aren’t you working for the government? Is this corruption?” 

You imagine the ranger smirks. “What is corruption but a tool of the game?” 

“What does that have to do with this conversation?” You find yourself deadpanning. “And why aren’t you answering?”

“Life’s a game,” he breezily purrs, “and conversation is a part of life, so really, it has everything to do with this conversation.” 

“I think I’d rather go through a physics textbook than deconstruct that sentence,” but you find yourself smiling. The ranger has a good sense of humor, you find. You take a few more steps, no longer teetering on the edge. In the back of your mind, you think that he could just be lowering your guard, but honestly? Maybe you shouldn’t doubt a person’s goodwill, even if it’s technically illegal. Well, you don’t care about what’s illegal and not; if hairless monkeys with godless monkey brains are imperfect, then the things they make are imperfect too. Regardless…you don’t know his face, and he doesn’t know yours either. In other words, you’re both complete strangers. If you ever meet each other, you won’t even recognize each other, won’t ever truly register each other’s existence outside this singular shared moment. 

That anonymity, the opportunity to exist without future consequence…it entices you, and you’re drawn into it. Drawn into levity and shedding your superficial guard. 

“Careful, you might insult a doctor of physics or two,” the ranger says with an insinuating lilt. Perhaps he knows a physicist or a student suffering with their doctorate thesis. Information that is all at once useful and impeccably useless. “You might just get a piece of chalk lodged in your skull.”

You shrug. “I’m living my best life while they’re stressing over the mechanics of a rat yawning and how that like. Affects the physics of the air or something.”

That gets a soft huff, like he breathed out a laugh, “I say that too, but then he starts going on about quantum mechanics and wormholes…probably a lot more than that, but the stuff’s so incomprehensible I tune out.”

“Your friend sounds…well, like a scientist,” you unceremoniously blurt. “Sure, they’re called nerds, but for good reason. They can talk your ear off, all the while you nod without understanding a single thing…and then they sigh to go talk to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.” 

“‘Talk your ear off’ is a bit of an understatement,” the ranger says, “though I think it’s better to say ‘gives a tongue-lashing.’”

You wince at the image. “Oof. Sorry about that.” 

“I’m used to it,” the stranger says. “Besides, I have a quip or two to throw back.”

“Oh.” You aren’t sure how to react. “That…that sucks.” 

“‘That sucks?’” his tone isn’t accusatory; it’s curious, with a hint of what you believe is wariness. 

It flusters you a bit, for some reason. “W-well,” you stammer, “if you’re used to it, then that means you get, uh, ‘tongue-lashings’ a ton, right? I don’t think people should be getting a ton of tongue-lashings…” 

“But what if I do things that deserve a tongue-lashing?” 

“Well, then you’d get a tongue-lashing. But, I dunno. I don’t think people should be mean to each other all the time, I guess,” you try, practically rambling, “Maybe it’s just cuz I know I’d just be on the floor in a sobbing heap if someone so much as raised their voice at me…but…but…w-well, you know what I mean!” You raise your hands, making desperate gestures as if you could telepathically communicate with them. Unfortunately, you do not live in a sci-fi with magical reality-bending wizard monk powers, not unless you devote yourself to a singular concept. “There’s always plenty of room for, um. Positive reinforcement, yeah! In fact, let’s practice!” Shit, your cheeks are heating and at this point you’re just incoherently blabbering but now that you’ve started you just can’t stop oh dear Aeons save you— “Uh…you…you follow your heart! By choosing not to arrest me out of…out of principle or, or, or pity…um, well, point is, you have defied the law of your own choosing, which is a pretty uh, gr~eat show of your super strong will! Your beliefs! They say within all delinquents lies a heart of gold, after all! And you know how to be sneak of super! I mean sneak super! I mean super sneak! Urgh, I mean suppppperrrrrrr sneaky. And I bet that’s really nice and I know that’s really cool! It’s a super power on par with that of uh. Uh. An Aeon? Yeah, an Aeon!”

You’ve lost your steam, and now you’re left blinking. The embarrassment flusters you, and now you’re something in between a fish being choked in the hand of a cruel fisherman and a wonderfully eloquent failing car engine. You truly are the epitome of grace and elegance. There was no way the ranger wasn’t at least cringing. Maybe he’d change his mind and just arrest you; after all, how else to fix cringe if not rehabilitate it? Well, if he did arrest you over this, you’d be back to haunt him with like, cheese, or something. You’d jump that hurdle when you got there. 

Hm…but you think you kind of wanna crawl into a hole and die…but that expression is too cliche, so instead, you think you wanna crawl into a hole and start a society of mole people. It’ll be like LARPing, except you wouldn’t be role-playing! …Actually, yeah…someone should just kill you right now before you start to laugh and then cry as your embarrassment transitions into self-conscious despair……..that’s how it usually went when you got like this….

It’s a good thing you can’t be seen. 

You think the ranger will laugh, stand in baffled silence, mock you, or just walk away, but he chuckles. “Hmmm…you know, I could get used to this; hearing people stumble over their words to compliment me!”

You’re a little dumbfounded, but you’re decent enough at rolling with the punches. You can come up with a headcanon or two on the spot. “Yeah! That’s the spirit! Now that’s what I call some good old-fashioned character development!”

He lets out a soft whistle, “That so? What trope would you say I embody, out of curiosity?”

“Hm…” you tap your chin in thought. You’re in a forest, and there’s a moon, and you get an award-winning idea. “Maybe…hrmmmm…a mysterious vampire, here to whisk the unassuming protagonist away to a forbidden romance, sustaining your very being on their essence…” 

“Oh? Am I really that charming even without a face?” He teases.

You laugh. “Well, you are pretty charming, but I was just kidding. I couldn’t just let that opportunity slip away,” your laugh calms into a soft chuckle. “No, I’d say…a mysterious stranger, with a past unearthed and a charming veneer, but beneath it all lay an affable man…who may or may not heed the word of law. A Robin Hood-esque character of sorts.” Sure, it’s cheesy, but you don’t care if he likes cheese or not. You like cheese, and that’s all that matters in this cruel world! If the world doesn’t like that, it can kiss your ass! (You think all of the is while very aware that the world can just as easily kick your ass)

“So…you’re just saying you don’t have a single clue about what my deal is.” 

You feel a little offended. In hindsight, maybe you wouldn’t have been great at terrorizing Karens. “I mean, I’ve only known you for like, half an hour. All that I know about right now is that you’re some flavor of anarchist. Probably. Maybe.” But the same applies to him! He knows nothing about you! “But if you’re so confident, then it’s time to prove your mettle!” You point towards him challengingly, even though again, he cannot see you, “You tell me what character trope I am!” (And you briefly realize that you feel light and happy, that your smile is wide)

And at that moment, just at the cusp of truly extraordinary conversation (a claim which may or may not be exaggerated), an annoying thing happens. Your phone vibrates and your screen lights up; your alarm has gone off. Your phone always has the best timing, and you don’t want to scream at it and crush its sorry little body into itty bitty pieces. 

“Oh…” you awkwardly exclaim. You’re wearing a light jacket, so the ranger can see the soft glow just as you do. “That’s…yeah, that’s sorta…alarm. Yeah. It’s my alarm. Not me alerting the IPC or the CFSS or something. I…have to go.” 

“I see,” the ranger’s voice is light and airy, entirely unaffected. “A shame. I really did enjoy our conversation.” Your mind tells you it’s all empty, but your heart is aching to soar to heights unseen. Because you are only human, those with lone hearts die first.

You want to ignore it so badly, to just converse with this ranger a little bit longer but…but you really can’t. You must abide by it if you want to mitigate your suffering in the morning (re: you’ve run out of energy drinks and coffee at home and it’ll be hell to start your morning without slugging around like a zombie). And just like that, the ranger and your conversation will fizzle away into a distant memory. And you’ll still live, the same as you’ve ever been. And because you’re both strangers, there is no reason to ask each other for anything. Because if you do, then you will both have to live with the consequences of your words. And who knows? Maybe the ranger has only spared you this night because he was in a good mood. Maybe he won’t be so affable the next time you meet. 

But there’s something to it. Some allure—no, the same allure of your special place. So you offer something, and you think your face might melt off, with how your cheeks fluster to the point its searing. 

“...I come to this place a lot. It’s like…my special little place,” you awkwardly offer. “If…if you were curious about that, er, sorta thing. Yeah. Bye, have a good night.” You stutter awkwardly, stiffly and uncertain. And then you walk away, simultaneously desiring and afraid of hearing what his response to that would be. Of having your fear being validated with rejection. 

If there was one moment you could point to that sealed your fate, it wouldn’t have been that conversation by a longshot, nor was it your second, third, tenth, or even your final conversation before he revealed himself to you; it was your offer. After all, people only think fate is immediate whenever it comes to hit them straight in the face. In truth, fate is gradual, of many bricks stacking up into a skyscraper. That offer led you to swim in ink; to traipse into fields of cotton; to weather against frozen infernos; and then finally, to dance in a flowering meadow, your feet raw and bleeding, sanded against the soft blades of poison ivy and oak. 

—

He sees you’re on the balcony.

(Only right after when he woke up and felt that you weren’t in his arms and nearly tore apart everything and anything with a scream and that you were gone and had left him like everyone else—)

He’s rather taken aback by this. He was sure you wouldn’t even be able stand come the dawn. But you still unwittingly find ways to surprise him even now. You should really give yourself a pat on the back! Even if it seems like you’re leaning onto the railing for dear life. 

The moon covers you in its silken silver sheen. The breeze tussles your hair and makes your robes softly billow. It’s a heart-throbbing serenity, and he finds an iota of respect within him to make his ambush on you gentle. You’ll squeak, pout, insult him, banter, and hiss before you resign and then he can hold you in peace. It’s a predictable song and dance, but he hasn’t tired of it. Seems even he can surprise himself.

(But oh, it’s because it’s something resembling a warm thing he thought was lost to him…and a sturdy rock he can hold onto)

The smile spreads on his face easily (but whenever he’s around you, it’s a little less weighted, a little less about pitiful survival), “Sick of me already?” he adopts his signature lilt, albeit weighed by sleep, as his arms encircle your form. “We’ve only been a couple for a few of months.” You squeak, comically so, and violently flinch as he settles his head in the crook of your neck. Your reaction almost immediately invigorates him, like he’s wide awake in the sun. Your heart rate beats more rapidly, but your tensed muscles relax, just a little. You’ve been practicing, he thinks, to lessen your own burden rather than increase his pleasure. Maybe there’ll come a time when you can mold yourself however you please, and he’ll be none the wiser in your embrace when your hand snakes into his back. 

(Don’t do that. Please, he just asks that you melt in his touch, melt right into him and stay—)

He inhales—his chest expanding into your back, and he feels your own breath hitch as if it slices into you—taking in your scent, all at once overwhelming and (newly) customary. A pungent ink comes to burn his nose at first, but underneath it comes moonlit snow, fresh and cool; dancing within a floral and earthy aroma, a dusty cedar scent with wilting flowers; and the afternotes of a decaying musk, passionate and vying for an end. He hums in appreciation, exhaling with contentment. You shudder in disgust because it’s him and you still aren’t used to the way his breath feathers and scratches your skin, over the bits of dried blood speckled over your neck. 

“Aw, nuts…” you softly curse, but there’s no surprise to be found. Your words are laced with sleep, but there’s something else to them, he’s noticed. Your words still drip with vitriol (though it’s always been measured with ink, and it makes him purr in delight and it makes him feel even more empty—), but they’ve gotten softer, for lack of a better word. Exhausted, the same way one is when they’ve walked through a blizzard or sandstorm for long enough. How one gets frozen in the bowels of hell’s fires, or how one burns in solitary inferno in the frigid arctic. 

And still, you haven’t reached your limit and killed him. 

Surprisingly, you turn to face him, and he turns down the urge to lean in and kiss you. For now, at least. He’ll take it when you’ve said your piece. 

You probably think yourself expressionless, but there’s a certain way your mouth subconsciously curls in displeasure like you want to scream or vomit your organs. Your eyes can host anything from enraged clarity to dull acceptance. The latter has only appeared a few times, but he anticipates that it will be a common sight as the months pass by. He wipes that look from his mind, and smiles wide as he looks intently into your eyes. The scent of ink burns his sinuses. Right now, your eyes are exhausted, disgusted, and a touch confused; nothing he isn’t used to. His smile goes soft, for he is more than willing to swallow the poison you gift him. And as lovers, you’ll have to reciprocate, won’t you?

(Stop. Let him apply thinner to that ink, let him wash it all away and please please stop drowning in it)

“I was sick of you the moment you revealed yourself as the orchestrator.” you bluntly say, as if it’s an obvious fact—it is—and for a moment he feels like he’s touching ice. You shake your head and sigh, looking back to the moon. You don’t want to discuss the matter, so you move on to another. “I just woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s nothing personal. Happens all the time.” 

“‘All the time?’” He echoes and slides his hand into one of yours, where you lean on your arms against the railing. Your hands have been clamming; gosh, he really was something, to get you so worked up in a matter of minutes! His self-restraint is already on a thread when it comes to you. He gives in and gives you a chaste peck. Your lips slightly pucker with disgust, like you’ve sucked on a rancid lemon. But the kiss was meant to be brief, so that’s not an issue he’s too hung up on in the moment. He’ll just work on it with you, later. He trusts that you’ll cooperate, anyway. 

(That you do not immediately hurl in his mere presence is miracle enough. He’ll take what he can get, and work from there. That’s how he got here)

He tilts his head boyishly and gives your cheek a playful pinch, “I mean…lately, you’ve been able to fall asleep without medicine—” your eyes widen and your cheeks flush as you’re caught off guard—but he doesn’t cut open your stomach or slice at your ribs to let your own body be the weapon which kills you—his goal is always to win, but that doesn’t mean you have to fight. Right now, he’s merely having a heart-to-heart with you, sweetheart. So he doesn’t bother to point out the red on your cheeks, because he knows you hate it. Knows you understand it on a logical basis but still hate it so, so, so deeply and intricately. He doesn’t mind pushing you, but he would rather not see you bashing your head on the wall, crushing your skull and mind into lumps of grounded flesh, to try and ‘fix’ it. He sees that you’re mentally dismembering yourself when you locate the opening you gave him anyway. He doesn’t really need to try with you sometimes. It’s not an insult, it’s the truth, and he still loves you so very much despite it. “These nighttime stirrings of yours aren’t going to be the norm, you know. If you’re able to fall asleep in my arms once, you can do so twice.”

Your eyes flit through a captivating kaleidoscope of disgust, intrigue, disgust again, pungent ink, and then victorious confusion. You scoff, but you don’t entirely deny what he said. “Waking up in the middle of the night and not falling asleep is a common thing. You shouldn’t misconstrue these sorta things y’know. Makes you seem desperate.” 

“‘Desperate?’ Coming from you, should I consider that bonafide or just another desperate act?”

You frown. “I was only desperate because of you. The shit you pulled gave me no other choice.”

“Really?” He smirks, letting out a mocking huff, “You weren’t desperate before that?”

You scoff. “If you’re talking about school, then fine, I guess I was desperate to graduate as soon as possible.”

“Errr,” he mimics a buzzer, “two strikes.”

“Are you just projecting?”

“Make that three.”

“Bruh.” You deadpan. You’re quite amazing to be able to momentarily take yourself out of reality, he muses. 

(He’s a bit jealous)

“I’m not desperate,” you insist, practically hissing the words.

“If you weren’t desperate, then why’d you blindly befriend someone whose face you didn’t even know?”

“…I don’t know my online friends’ faces,” you weakly respond. You’ve conceded. Your response was merely for show. For him or for you or for you both. He’s not sure either. 

“Alright,” he pretends to concede, “Putting aside that they could just trace your information and learn everything about you…” his hand strokes your neck, goosebumps blazing in its wake, “They wouldn’t have been able to just…snap your neck, with you none the wiser,” He presses a kiss to your uneven pulse with a soft huff of laughter. 

“It’s not like I didn’t think that,” you shoot back, “I figured at the time that if you could sneak up on me like that, then I’d be helpless to your whims.” 

“Ah, but then…you offered me something: another night, in your special place, underneath the moon…who’s to say that I wouldn’t have been able to carry out any malicious actions? To continue to gain your trust and then stab you in the back?”

You frown. “Well…I…”

“Cat caught your tongue? Well, as I’ve said, the word you’re looking for is ‘desperate.’”

You swallow, and then you say, meekly, softly, like your voice is about to crack, “…I guess. And in the end, you did stab me in the back.”

He did, it’s true. That same iota of respect emerges, which makes him gently kiss you instead of speaking. Anything he’d say would only dampen your mood. You both may know about how disposable—

(Yet when it comes to you, something unpleasant twists his tongue, whenever he calls you disposable. He can’t bring himself to actually vocalize such a statement)

—the two of you are. Nothing more than dots in the universe, nothing more than pawns in another’s game. The hand that moves him is the IPC, and it’s only natural he’s found a pawn of his own: you. Even if you’re not particularly valuable on the grand chessboard. 

[Do you even want them on the chessboard in the first place?] 

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promises. But you don’t believe him. 

“You can make it up to me by never showing your face to me.” Ice encases his hands, stabbing into him; but it also roots him right at his spot. He is unused to the ice’s painful cold, but for as much as it is a deterrent, ice has a tendency to trap.

“Hmmm…how about no?” 

“You half-ass…” You groan, tired and defeated. He feels a thread fall. “Seriously, people like you who use others to make promises you can’t and don’t keep are just…well, you know just how much you disgust me.” 

(But he admits. He admits that your vitriol is tiring. He admits that he wants to hear you whisper in his ear, the same way he does to you, that he wants you to harbor the same carnal adoration he has for you—that he wants you to tear into him and expose him and then kiss and embrace him and that he wants to feast on you devour you consume you infuse you with his heart and soul so that he knows you’re here and will always be h—)

His jaw expands and closes down. Blood spreads along his tongue like wine, bitter, salty, metallic, and well-aged. You let out a scream of pain, and he only bites harder so that he burns himself into your skin to prove that he has you and that he is hu—

“Ah—ow…ow ow ow owwww—” you hiss, muddied by a sob, “W-why…?” You whimper, “When you already—AH!” His mind is blank, excited by the sweet flesh, only focused on devo—

“S-s-stop! Please!” You beg, and he feels you struggle uselessly, “H-hurts! I-I, what d-did I do to—?! Gh!”

Satisfaction and triumph weave into him. Your screams mean you’re here, means he’s carved himself into you, means he’s indulging in wine. 

(But that’s a bit of a leap. He wishes he was as calculated as he makes himself out in front of you when it comes to you)

He pulls away. You breathe laboriously, looking at him with hate and terror, cradling your weeping neck with your hand. You aren’t completely exhausted, but he has made you even wearier if such a thing was possible. “Sorry,” he emptily apologizes, and presses a soft kiss to irritated skin, before moving on to your tears. Blood quickly smears your skin.

You growl, the pain making way for your unfiltered words. “You keep doing it, and it’s always so fucking painful.”

“It doesn’t help with how irresistible you are, sweetheart,” he smiles, and you bristle. “You know it’s because I love you,” he says, to rile you up a little. It helps that he means it. 

(So you don’t notice the fact that he was in a hypnotic daze) 

“‘Love.’” Your voice shakes. Your eyes are wide, angry, disbelieving, and blank. 

“Yep.” 

You shake slightly with anger. “Eat shit.” You spit. “Whatever the fuck this is, don’t call it that. Don’t you dare twist that word like that.” 

He blinks. It’s not the first time you’ve lashed out over the word or the admission, but he still doesn’t quite know how to answer you. He settles, then, for what he’s always said. “Then what is it?” 

“I don’t know. Obsession. Hate. Sadism. Loneliness. Whatever it’s called, it’s one hell of an insatiable beast. All that matters is that it’s hurting me.” You grunt, and bury your face into your hand, sighing blearily. “It’s late. Let’s…let’s not,” you exhale, tired, “Let’s not,” you repeat as if it were all a hopeless prayer. It might be more fitting to see you as a beggar, however. Leave me alone, you beg. Get buried beneath the sands already you Sigo—

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” he softly mutters, gently tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, and presses a kiss to your cheek. The lingering blood on his lips blossoms into a weeping flower, a venomous and invasive species. They can be found throughout your skin, dried and wilting, but they’ll always blossom back. “You can sleep in.” Translation: he’ll still wake you up, but only for a kiss before heading to work. You’ll be free to do as you please for the day! Isn’t that just enticing? Though you’re still hesitant to exercise any bit of freedom he offers you. To be fair to you, you’re so very well aware of where your freedom and “freedom” lie. One has been crucified, and the other is merely its poorly preserved remains. 

His mercy isn’t lost on you, but the hope in your eyes is quickly simmered by your hesitation and dread. You look away and grunt, likely hoping he’ll just shrug and walk away. Or at least delay the inevitable. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, you know. So painfully aware of your complete lack of power, so painfully aware that any outright resistance just isn’t worth it; isn’t worth risking the pain you fear so, so, so much. But that doesn’t mean that a reminder is remiss. Hesitation is fatal for the gambler, after all.

He hums and grins. You shrink, knowing he’s planning something. Like a little fawn, he muses, helpless without its mother. He suddenly pulls you back and flips you around so that your back leans against the railing, slightly hiked up so the tips of your toes just barely press against the ground. It grants him an unfettered view of your expression, almost comical shock morphing into fear as you register your newfound positions. You may not be entirely dangling over the railings…but you’re still at his mercy. You don’t hold onto his hand for dear life because that’s just what he’s decided. Simple instinct has you desperately hoping he doesn’t even fancy the scenario. He can so easily squash you between his fingers, and smear your remains on a handkerchief to be discarded: like a pestering fly.

[You mean…you want to point a gun into their heart, again?]

Fortunately, he has other plans. As much as he loves staring into your eyes, it’s not the only thing he likes about you. He moves his head against your chest, right against that sweet heart of yours. It misses a beat before it resumes its cacophonous rhythm. “Wha…what?” your mortified tongue manages to get out. “Put…put me down!” He gives a content hum in response, nuzzling further into your heartbeat, tracing patterns into your back with one hand and securing you by the waist with the other. His silence only intensifies the cacophony, but he could never bear to shut down any sound of yours. He chuckles. You shiver and let out a helpless sound, a cross between a cry, sob, and whimper. He can see you fight not to struggle, in fear that it would send you plummeting.

“It could be so much worse. You know that, don’t you? You live without chains and in a land where dawn shines, but that’s all my choice.” He finally speaks, when he’s decided you’ve had enough. Sure enough, the sound of screams and crumbling cities joins the cacophony. He pushes so he may discover all of the cacophonies your heart plays. He giggles, to twist the point further, “Relax! You haven’t done anything to warrant that! Yet.” You take a sharp breath. “But you still do things. Small things, but they’re still bad things,” you quiver. “I’ve had a few thoughts. Like a tattoo,” your heart skips a beat, “of a peacock’s feather, maybe, tickling your thigh, or an ace of spades. Nothing too extravagant. Hm, although,” your shaking has turned violent, so he moves his hand up to drift around your chest, clutching your waist tighter, “maybe we can just have my name, somewhere here…or…” he hums, for any and all matters pertaining to you need great care and thought, “....maybe we can just go with them all!” He exclaims. 

(What is he doing what is he doing no he knows what he’s doing yes he needs to see and feel and taste your ink he’ll take what he can get but what is he doing why is he doing why why why is he doing but why is he asking it feels so so so good to be the one towering above to be the one pouring wine)

He resists the urge to look up at your expression. Not yet, he’ll save it for when it’s truly exquisite, for when ink burns up into his skull. “Oh, and now that I think about it, maybe something fancy on your back? Ah, haha, but it can’t be super big. It has to complement you, not overtake you! On that note, a piercing or two wouldn’t be half bad. Your ears are a no-brainer, but…” he takes on a teasing lilt, like he’s a boy unsure how to act around his crush, “...where~ else~ do we go? The belly button? That’d be pretty cute! Or…” his hand drifts further along your chest, “here…” he giggles, “that’d be so awfully adorable, wouldn’t it?” Your unease rolls out in waves. His grin widens further, foxlike. He silently thanks you for giving him so many openings. “Ah, but doing all of that’s like saying you aren’t enough, isn’t it? I’m sorry for implying that,” he purrs the faux apology, “and maybe those kinds of accessories would get in the way of your full resplendence.” He sighs, similar to the way he does whenever he’s done talking. That he’s done torturing you. That your feet will touch the ground. After a few moments, the cacophony quiets down, the ink merely stings, and your breaths steady ever so slightly. Awww…poor thing. He brushes your neck. You think he’s done? “Clothes, too.” Your heart plunges into the depths. His hand teases dipping into your robes, “Why have a wardrobe when it can’t possibly do you justice?” He clicks his tongue. “That just~ won’t~ do~,” he singsongs, and then transitions into a friendly tone, “and hey! You can just think of it likeeee…going full-on commando!” He feels you seize up with disgust drawn out from the very depths of your soul. “That’d be pretty fun, wouldn’t it?” He laughs, “And comfy. A self-proclaimed couch potato’s dream is to endlessly lounge away the days, right? So, then,” he slightly dips his fingers, featherlight against shadowed skin and bitten gifts, “you really should just spend all day in bed. It’s not like you could go outside anyway. And just think about it—” An image pops into his mind, widening his smile, “Wrapped in my blankets, tangled in silk, entrapped into a web of it…” he slides a hand around your trembling wrist, brushing his thumb over your thundering pulse, “this would look so beautiful, in red ribbon,” he presses a chaste kiss to your thundering pulse, “your ankles, waist…a mess of them over your chest, covering your eyes…” he sighs, but he isn’t a negligible man, drifting his touch to lovingly wrap his hand around your neck, “and that pretty little neck goes without saying. You’ll be just like a little gift all for me. And,” he chuckles, “I don’t imagine you’d want to leave, either.” You shudder, tremble, make a sound a cross between disgust and a gasp choking on ink. “Hm, actually, that’s a good question,” And then he finally looks up. He is not disappointed in the slightest. You are choking, and completely pale and the only signs of life on your frozen face are your infrequent blinks and quiet breathing. “Do you want to leave me?” He wonders: what will you do? Say? You both know the answer, but for him to ask it would have you second-guessing yourself on what to say. Should you be honest? Should you give him the answer he wants to be true? Should you merely say that the two of you know that already? Or do you just say nothing, as ink clogs your throat? 

[Do you really think you’re playing a game? With them of all people? How do you think they even ended up here in the first place?]

The cacophony of your heart cracks and twists the earth into pieces. You shake like a leaf, slowly but surely devoured by a caterpillar. Soft and innocent at first glance, but it only knows how to feast and gorge itself. Your breath comes out in short gasps, as burning ink drips through them and into your stomach. It forces itself out violently, as your sensitive skin clams up, as it painfully inches out of your skull, to thrust itself out through your eyes.

You’re beautiful. 

What an honor, he thinks. 

(And stand so highly elevated) 

Although your terrified silence was anticipated, he doesn’t quite appreciate having a one-sided conversation, sweetheart. It seems you need a bit of encouragement, but he’s more than happy to provide. Regrettably, that means fully raising his head, but at least he won’t have to strain his neck to get a look at your face. He hikes you up, and you shriek in with fear, vaulting to wrap your arms around his shoulders as you struggle in vain to give yourself any semblance of contact with the ground. But the tips of your toes just barely graze the smooth concrete. “Dar~ling~,” he sing songs, “don’t keep me waiting, now.” 

He smiles kindly. He takes your left hand into his own, gently rubbing in soothing circles. Your heart beats louder, as you’re forced to rely on him even more. You take in a sharp breath, stifled by a flood of ink. He leans his head down, over that nigh-on unbearably beautiful mark on your neck, placing his lips on it like a fleeting feather brushing past. He looks up into your eyes, blackened and blurred, while his own are rounded and soft. He coos and kisses the few that fall, a delightful flavor of vulnerability flowering on his tongue that he can’t get enough of. He tilts his head when he’s done, his expression lovesick and deviously innocent, and goes caress your cheek, to chain you to place. You stay still so that it doesn’t go from choking to cutting. He gives your hand a maliciously reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve got you,” he reassures, “you’re safe, with me.” The words are heavy and loaded yet he says it like he’s holding you close in the afterglow, whispering sweet nothings that mean everything into your ear. Impressively, a scoff is drawn out of you, yanked out through a sea. 

(It reassures him, in some strange way) 

You clutch at him harder, almost pulling him flush against you in an effort not to fall. Adorable. You’re still enveloped in ink, so looking up at him, you seem little more than a trembling newborn fawn. 

Something dark flickers in your eye; the same dark thing he saw on the luckiest day of his life, as the sun shined so brilliantly on the gun held against your forehead. That dark thing which he didn’t foresee, and hadn’t seen since that day, until now. 

You tremble, but you purse your lips, and, as resolutely as you can, give your answer.

“Yes.” And then you lean back. Your feet do not touch the ground. 

His instincts are honed in ways impossible for you to imagine. Pulling you away and into the room is a simple affair. You whimper in pain, struggling against his hold, but it only takes a slight twist to your wrist, an effortless suggestion, for it to cease. 

(It’s his whole body that trembles, but you never seem to notice, when you tremble so much yourself and are so often a prisoner in your own mind) 

“My friend,” he says, dropping any semblance of emotion in his voice. You nearly shriek as you’re engulfed in an inferno, hyperventilating in vain as smoke from your own burning body clogs your lungs. You’ve brought this upon yourself, though. Did you forget in that moment? There isn’t anywhere for you to go, trapped in the fox’s jaw. He smiles emptily, knowing that it makes you want to die. “Why don’t you come back to bed with me? And we can have a chat.” 

(He hides his arm behind his back)

Just before he opens the balcony door, a drop of rain hits his cheek. The clouds obscure the moon, sealing its light shut. The sun will not shine on you two. 

—

You aren’t shoved onto the bed, to skid across it like a sea of sharp rocks or a river of hot coals. That makes it worse, you think. Though, with how heavy your mind is, with how much ink fills it, you could see a blossoming flower and think that doomsday was nigh. 

Trapped in his hold, out of endless possibilities, Aventurine elects to merely guide your forms to sit on the edge of the bed. He releases you, but whatever relief you felt is burned away when he slots your hand with his own, the other held behind his back. Like this, you two must look like a normal couple. One that had a fight, but then cooled down enough for them to sit and have a serious conversation; to communicate their feelings to one another, leading to a gentle reconciliation and promises to do better. Promises to never undermine the respect they hold for one another. But Aventurine…you’re sure that he holds a butcher knife, hidden behind his back, in moments like these. The hand which holds yours digs its claws, tearing into tender flesh so that you cannot rip it away; not if you’d like to keep your hand.

You almost don’t hear him over the pounding in your ears eyes heart and lungs and everything. “Just what were you thinking, acting like that?” 

Thinking? Thinking? Why would you tell him that? Actually, thinking? Did you even think? You feel your hand get squeezed like a lion clamping its jaw into a gazelle. “I—I, I…I,” you stammer. Any word you can even think of instantly turns to ash.

“‘I don’t know?’” and you almost demand for how he was able to guess your answer. He hums and leans in further and further, boring those terrifying eyes right into you; you fear that he’ll bore a hole right through your eyes and fill it with himself. So that even in death, a part of him would always infect you. 

Your mind, badly addled, nods. 

He hums again, betraying no emotion, “I know what you were thinking. And you will, too. I’m sure the two of us are eager to get back to sleep, so it’s best to cut to the chase.” 

“Cut…to the chase?”

“To the takeaway.”

It happens slowly, or quickly, or something, you don’t know you don’t really know at all everything drowns in ink—

He leans toward you, and gently pushes you on your back. You reactively scramble, but it doesn’t take much for him to make your struggle useless—and your neck is squeezed. Softly, then firmly, then roughly, and then air is gone. He doesn’t butcher you, doesn’t spill your blood, doesn’t dismember you and put you back together, doesn’t meticulously carve himself into your skin. He just squeezes. Nothing more, nothing less. No bloodshed to be seen. That might’ve been the truly shocking thing about this. But you can’t think about that when you breathe and nothing comes in. You gasp, but it comes out as a silent, dying wheeze. You kick, but it’s useless. Your legs drop to the bed like rotting sacks of meat. You try and pull his hands away. It’s about as effective as a mannequin trying to move on its own. Useless. Useless useless useless everything is useless your future and very being are an endless abyss devoid of hope and life and everything you do have done will do is useless meaningless meaningless meaningless you’re dying you’re going to die you are dead you are hopeless and miserable and scared and dying dying dying dying dying he’s bored of you sick of you hates you he hates you hates you hates you hates you hates you stabbed you in the back choking you choking you you cry cry cry cry cry but your tears are searing ink that burns your flesh you’re burning burning burning burning there is no sunlight or moonlight—

You think and think about everything and nothing. You think about your cotton scarf. You think about your parents. You think about your degree and how its been such an waste of time and money. You think about the tiramisu you made earlier, how its setting in the fridge so you could eat it come lunchtime. 

But no matter what you think about, or what you stop thinking about, you cannot stop thinking about Aventurine. About who he was, is, and will continue to be. How he’s permeated himself into your life and very being. How your corpse will be in his hands.

It hurts, but you can’t say that. It hurts so much that you feel like your neck will be sliced off your head. You must look so ugly. You feel your eyes bulge, expand from out of your sockets, just a few seconds away from popping out and hanging by a nerve that could so easily be cut and gushing blood that Aventurine will lap up before throwing your corpse out of the window like trash. Your nose uselessly tries to inhale, but all it does is marginally slow the hideous mucus that leaks. Your mouth is equally useless, and it isn’t long until you give up and your tongue ungracefully lolls from your mouth. You feel all at once overwhelmed—the tears from your eyes burn your flesh, your eyes will become weights that shake with every movement, the snot leaves behind anguishing trails of acid, and your tongue feels like a dumbbell crushing your face—and in a weird way, you feel like you float. You decide to float. You think about your cotton scarf, nuzzling into its comforting—

You dimly realize you’re nuzzling into the grip that’s killing you. 

Your body becomes lead. 

Aventurine’s expression betrays nothing. But you feel something shake—your body? It’s surprising because you can hardly even blink, let alone move. It’s mostly around your neck. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen. Your hands have gone limp, uselessly falling to the side, but you haven’t died yet. Aventurine is still busy killing you, and looking at you like you’re nothing and that he couldn’t care less about your reaction. You don’t want to look at him anymore. You don’t want to die with his face as the last thing you see. You’d rather die looking at the moon. But against his ironclad grip, your head doesn’t move. You struggle, but Aventurine’s face remains. Your eyes start to glaze, and your mind begins to fill with cotton, but it's burned away by a particularly forceful squeeze, which quickly lightens, but the damage has been done. 

Your tongue is drying. Your vision spots. Not with black, not with the shade of ink you’ve grown used to, but it spots with light. Sunlight. You’re being cradled in the sunlight. Warm and soft, but you’re wretched out of that false sense of security when your body begins to blaze.

Something burning and cold and wonderful enters your nostrils and mouth—air, air, air air air air you need air air air air air—

The air doesn’t come rushing in like you’ve seen described in books. It painfully pumps into you, but it’s vastly preferable to the pain you were experiencing just a few moments ago. Your head slumps, turning to the moon's salvation—but you see only the clouds.

When your lungs stop burning, and your breathing returns to normal, Aventurine gently pulls you up into his lap, where he leans against the headboard. A single arm draped over your waist confines you to his chest. His other hand is out of sight. When he’s sure you aren’t getting away, he takes a breath, and his hidden hand comes to tip your head up. 

His eyes all at once resemble an aphotic ocean and a flooding dam. You aren’t sure where it comes from, but you realize that, for this brief moment, he has dropped his facade. 

“If you want to die,” he says, quietly, softly, almost vulnerably. You must have brain damage, if this is how he sounds. “this is how it’ll happen. By my hand. By my choice. And trust me when I say it’s infinitely better than anything you could do with your own hands,” he removes his hand from your chin to intertwine it with your own, all at once invasive and sweet, “I promise, (Name).”

Your chest begins to flood with a sob. It comes out wrangled and inhuman, but he only clutches you closer. Strangely, he doesn’t lap up your tears. Like many nights before and to come, you pass out, weighed by the agony of living with a man so obvious and indecipherable.

Your last thought before finally shutting your eyes is that Aventurine won’t be throwing you out anytime soon. You do not celebrate the thought, not entirely, anymore. It’s only much later that you realize why: he finally succeeded in forcing a small part of himself into you. 

—

When you pass out from complete exhaustion, Aventurine quietly tucks your head deeper into his chest. He thinks about yanking apart his ribcage, forcing you into it, and then pinning you there as he forces it shut. It’s begun to rain outside. It pitter-patters, booming in his ears, and nearly shreds his ears apart.

[But a part of you likes it when you drag them down to your level, right, Kakavasha?]

—

His master swirls a glass of red wine. It may as well have been blood; bought by blood, drank in the wake of blood, and spilled into blood. Kakavasha pursues his lips, to not scream in agony as the wine sears his wound; but it will be okay. He is used to weathering the sun, trudging through heavy sand, with his mouth drier than the sand. He can withstand this searing heat. He’s already withstood iron-hot metal pressed into his skin for minute after agonizing minute, no matter his involuntary cries and tears and pleas to stop. 

But that was an exception. The desert has long dried his tears. 

Besides, this is a ‘reward.’ For triumphing yet again. For surviving yet again. So the master sees it fit to briefly lavish him in luxury. At least it’s fitting for the occasion, Kakvasha thinks, the wine puddling out like blood. He waits for it to end. He’s already battered and bloody, beaten down, and he doesn’t need his neck chaffed and bleeding. Every yank of his chain evaporates energy he cannot afford to lose, cannot sacrifice or else there won’t be a bet he can emerge lucky from.

And, he admits. He’s a little (no, very) afraid of being brought to the edge between life and death again. He doesn’t want to be chained to the wall again, and have the chain around his neck pulled further and further away—

A sneer that would get him tortured spreads across his face. His face is already forced to the ground, so he’s not too worried. 

“My lucky hound,” his master drawls, “stay with me. You did pretty well; it’d be a shame if I had to reevaluate you if you pass out just from this. C’mon, gimme a lil’ bark.” 

He wipes his sneer and looks up with a practiced expression: defiant, but sanded down with fear; feisty, but compliant. Just enough fight to entertain, but not enough to be a nuisance. “Alive and kicking,” he grunts. It’s a strange mix of genuine and manufactured, biting back his cries of pain. It took him a bit to figure out what his master liked, but all that matters is that he got there. It’s fine, he tells himself. He doesn’t need to know how much he’s using him, too. “And savoring your gift.” He’s sure it’s the right answer, but the slight tremor indicates the awful anticipation he has for the results. If it isn’t, then everything he’s done to get here would all have been for nothing. He cannot afford to fumble his gamble now. 

Luckily (ha!), it was the right answer. He’s given something his master can poke and prod at, and he’s gladly taken it. “I thought I asked you to bark,” he snarls, and the flaming wine ceases. But it’s for a reason, for he soon gets a kick to the stomach. It knocks the air out of him, but if his master were truly offended, he would’ve done much, much worse. Kakavasha coughs, just enough to suggest that he’s sorry and begging for forgiveness, but not enough to seem desperate and begging for a release and to stop stop stop— “Speaking is for humans. Honestly, I don’t even know why you Sigonian hounds were born with mouths. Universe’d be a better place if slaves like you were born with their mouths sewn shut—by the Aeons, do you disgust me!” he scratches his chin before a smirk twists his face, “Though, ‘suppose that would mean I wouldn’t be able to hear the dogs whimper.” A shoe grinds into his stomach. He wants to see all of Kakavasha’s face then. “So, you gonna bark, or what?” 

Kakavasha doesn’t need to act much, this time. His face falls into grim acceptance; the face he made when heat emanated from his neck; the face he made when the doors to his cell closed; the face he made when he saw the sand bury his sister’s body. Although the expression this time isn’t genuine, it’s not quite fabricated, either. 

It’s fine. It’s fine. This is but one gamble. Acquiesce to his whims just enough, and then strike. 

Soon, wine pools at his feet. But the wine in his master’s hand hasn’t all spilled, yet. Memories flit by in his mind: his master, flaunting his wealth in front of him. 

“Humans wear clothes, accessories, and jewelry…dream all you want, but an animal can never become what it’s fated not to be.” His master’s voice echoes. 

His limp and cold hand is adorned in rings. His still wrist holsters a beautiful watch and tasteful bangle. Kakvasha takes a sip of the wine. It burns, dripping down his throat. It leaves his tongue rancid and as dry as the desert. 

He supposes that’s what it means to be human, then. 

—

When you wake up, pain radiates throughout your neck and legs. Absently, your hand goes to your neck to relieve it but meets soft cotton. Gauze. He must’ve disinfected your wound (brand, that bastard branded me get him out of me I’ll—) when you passed out.

You close your eyes and try to fall back asleep but to no avail. With a moan, and then a hiss of pain, you roll over on your side. You see a note, a couple of pills, and a glass of water have been placed on your nightstand. With concentrated effort, you sit up and read the note. 

Darling, dearest, love of my life, (you’d scoff if it didn’t hurt like hell to even breathe)

A painkiller. One every three hours. I suggest you take it if you want to get through the day comfortably, so please don’t spend your day staring at them in contempt like they’ve killed your dog. Contrary to what you might think, I do care for your comfort. (You feel a jolt of anger through your spine) I’ll try to be back a half hour or so earlier, but if fortune’s on my side, I’ll be back to you a full hour earlier. Wouldn’t that just be amazing? Actually, let me do a coin flip to gauge today’s fortune—oh! Look at that! Seems that it’s an hour. You won’t be lonely for long, I promise. (You frown) Business is wrapping up, so we’re leaving today, but I’ve already packed your bags. Focus on yourself, sweetheart, and get plenty of rest. And before you start overthinking things, I’m not worried at all. You won’t be forgetting anytime soon, and you’re not going anywhere. (You grit your teeth)

Use lots of ice on your neck! It helps a ton. And eat soft foods that go down easy; broth, oatmeal, the works. Now that’s what I call a good excuse to gorge on ice cream; not too much though, you *might* just throw up. And no, you can’t break the windows. Literally. I know you have your impulsive moments, but you’ve gotta be conservative with your energy today. I’ll make sure you are. If not…well, you like guessing games, right? Haha, now I really do have to go. I can’t believe you got me writing such a long letter! Alright, see you later, sweetheart. 

Love, Aventurine. 

You stare at the signature. Love, Aventurine sounding over and over in your mind, hitting the walls and coming back in a cracking echo. Love—a knife impales you—Aventurine—and you’re eaten alive.

Love, love, love, love, love.

You force yourself to look at the painkillers. You have no reason to believe him, but he doesn’t have any reason to lie to you. You decide not to take them.

Instead, you take a few slow sips of water, letting it coat your throat and tongue thoroughly. Then you force your sore body to the kitchen. You stumble, you trip, but you still make it to the countertop. It’s not complicated. Your mind can’t process complexity in its current state anyway. 

It’s simple. You yank a knife from the block and plunge it into your chest, through your ribs, and into your heart. Blood gushes out like a waterfall, glistening like a ruby in the light of the dawn. You grin, pain wobbling your mouth, and swiftly cut open your stomach. Bile creeps up your throat as you gag violently, until you finally retch on the elongated mess of your intestines, unraveling into a bunch. You laugh hysterically when you notice that it looks like a horribly butchered plate of spaghetti—hilarious. It’s all nearly too much to bear, but there’s more work to be done. You’re still thinking; that just won’t do. You raise your knife, the tip shining in the sun and sparkling through your tears, and slam your forehead into it, finally putting an end to your existence.

That’s what should’ve happened. But the knife hasn’t taken that first plunge, yet. You will your arm to rectify the mistake. It only shakes harder. And then everything from the night before rushes to your head, and ink clouds everything and everything and—

You can’t do it. Not by your own hand.

You violently throw the knife into the sink and collapse to the ground in a brutal sob.

You never attempt it again.

—

He was wrong about something. Your shattered limit would never end with his demise—it was yours. 

(Is he really surprised? Or was he in denial this whole time?)

He’s not sure how to feel, that you’d rather destroy yourself than kill when backed into a corner. But he can at least understand that urge of yours to take someone else down with you; only, that person isn’t him, this time. 

The wall you have built crumbles, and he wonders if you care if your destruction ends up killing another unintentionally; if that part of yourself has been killed, or if it has been so twisted that you are born anew. But that’s a bit silly. You can destroy yourself, but you won’t ever lose yourself, even if you become fractured. That’s what experience has taught him, and it is both excruciatingly painful and relieving. 

You’ve pinned him down. Your eyes are wide and dilated, and that spark of life within them is just nearly dimmed out; and yet, beneath that spark, something awful and alive pulsates. They hold an unabashed focus, yet they also look past him. For a rare moment, he is completely taken aback, and cannot conceal his surprise and dubious, almost hesitant delight. But he drops the hesitation. It’s fatal for him.

(His heart nearly stops. Is he pinned to the ground, or is he looking into a mirror? He almost feels like he’s been turned inside out)

“What. Were. You. Thinking?” It’s your voice, but he can’t help but think it takes on a cadence similar to his own. He can see that awful creature brandish its claws.

As much as he enjoys seeing such a creature, he cannot allow himself to be ripped apart by it. He’ll assert his control, and you’ll back off, the same as it’s always been. But he doesn’t quite mind being pinned down by you, so he’ll allow it for the moment. “You watch me gamble all the time, dearest.” He tilts his head, knowing just how much it pisses you off. “I don’t see how that’s gotten you so worked up—and you’ve been so sweet lately.”

Your jaw trembles, like a dog, he thinks, on the verge of barking and biting an intruder. Yet, a part of him also tells him that isn’t quite right. “You played Russian Roulette.” Drip, drip, sounds the blood of his challenger, but such a sound has been white noise all his life. 

He smirks. “Are you jealous?” he teases, “Did you want to kill me, or were you hoping to take the bullet yourself?” 

You, ever so slightly, begin to shake. “No,” you respond, without any sense of the word. “Answer my question,” you demand. He’s a little surprised because you so rarely make demands. He can see the beast grind its teeth, gnashing at the mere idea of his flesh, drooling its filth in gluttonous anticipation. But he knows you so, so, so very well. He can smell your fear—but of what? Fear that you might not be able to personally exact vengeance? He’s a little lost, for once. But he’ll know soon enough, he supposes. He continues with his usual demeanor.

“Mmm,” he hums nonchalantly, making you shake in agitation. “Well, I suppose I’m in no position to refuse. It was a good gamble with a good thrill, of course! I thought you knew this.” He knows you don’t believe that entirely, having spent so much time with him. The look in your eyes tells him it was the answer you were expecting. But you still aren’t satisfied. You still haven’t strewn his guts about the floor, to join the foolish challenger. 

You do not respond, remaining as still as you can be. He decides to encourage you; you can’t just lead him on like this, you know. 

He cups your cheek. “What’s wrong?” he goads. “Or have you finally come around to just how irresistible I am?” 

The blood’s aroma has wafted over. Your eyes glaze impossibly further. The beast breaks its chains. 

“I want to hollow out your chest,” you admit. His heart stops, and it’s only through years of practice that his face doesn’t instantly break out in shock. “And burrow into it, so I can listen to your heartbeat and feel the expanse of your lungs pressing into me with your every breath,” you shake, near violently, and you take each breath as if it’ll be your last. His own heart begins to beat erratically; he’s excited, he doesn’t know what’ll happen, but whatever it is he needs to have have have it— “I want to breathe in your blood, taste your heart, blood, sustain myself on nothing—” Aventurine feels a thread be pulled apart. “—on nothing but you!” You cry out, leaning in closer as you collapse to your knees and elbows, practically exchanging air with him. You’ve finally begun to cry, and with it, the beast has come—

No, he thinks. It’s already ripping apart his flesh. Your tears fall onto his face. His heart beats faster and faster; just as fast as when he hid in those bloody puddles all those years ago. 

“If you die…I might just join you, because…there’s really nothing else for me…” you sob, face contorting in a way he finds so breathtakingly pathetic and beautiful. For a moment, your mouth curls down, not maliciously, but with a determined promise. “If you die…I’m pulling the trigger, not some random sap in a casino.”

Oh. You…you remembered. Of course, you did. You never would forget. You couldn’t ever forget. His chest feels numb with how brutally his heart has beaten it. 

He feels something cool seep into his pants and legs. Blood. So familiar it’s like a second skin.

He is well acquainted with the touch of ice. How could he not? The time spent with you feels like a (fragile) eternity, and in it, he has glued himself to you; and you’ve, however unwittingly, froze him in place. Even if he’s always been able to force you into the desert with him, there are still those moments when a nigh unbearable cold seeps down into his bones, threatening to kill him, to preserve his dead body to be dusted and ogled at whenever the master of the house needs to show off their private collection to guests. But he feels it melting. He feels the cold you’ve desperately embraced crackle. 

You sob, a sound of euphoric despair that has him resisting his every urge to cradle you, and confess the truth; confess your want.

“I love you, Aventurine,” you take in a shuddering gasp. 

His heart explodes. It is then he realizes that he, too, has gasped, and is breathing irregularly. That his composure has shattered without his realization. 

“I love you…” you cough, no longer able to hold back your breakdown, the volcano of your emotions erupting in a destructive blaze that killed a part of you; the part of you that’d been holding on. Flora and flowers burn, snow becomes hellfire, and any and all life is replaced by a hungering beast desperate to keep itself satiated. 

But only Aventurine can satiate it. A blush dusts his cheeks.

“I love you, I love you,” you hiccup and sob, repeating the mantra like a prayer (to a devil in velvet), “I love you I love you I love you I love you.” And then you finally collapse on him, a pile of bricks and rubble and dust. You curl into his chest, over his violet heartbeat. “Don’t throw me away…don’t l-leave me…” he immediately secures your waist. It’s a disgusting implication. Why would he do that to you of all people? “I need you,” and his heart soars. A smile finally cracks his face, shattering something deep inside of him. 

[No, no, Kakavasha, that’s really quite wrong. You haven’t been whole for a very, very long time.] 

And then something brief surfaces in you, a small piece of useless reasoning, “and it’s your f-fault I’m like this…” That’s very true, which is why he needs to take responsibility. Which is why he has to continue keeping you, caring for you, and brutalizing you. The blood has trailed down to his back.

And then you’re back to sobbing, and practically howl, “Please, please Aventurine, tell me you love me and won’t ever let me go!” you beg, and entirely break down into a concentrated sob, distant from reality. You blabber, likely unaware, utterly lovely and incoherent words. The blood has reached the back his head.

His entire body shudders, rapturing him into a pile of broken flesh. He can’t hold back. He holds you tighter than before. It snaps you out of your daze, your body instinctively flinching away, but his grip doesn’t cease; it can’t cease, because if it does you two may never truly meld with one another. He sits up, positioning you so you straddle and completely rely on him for support. He looks at you. His long-lasting appetite has finally been satiated, but now a new one takes hold of his shaking form, his excitement electric and bloody.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he shudders breathlessly, just barely keeping himself from pouncing, “that was beautiful—you’re beautiful,” he pants, as his hunger grows painful, “how could I refuse such a heartfelt and adorable confession? You’re so perfect. You’re the other side of my coin…”

[Took you long enough.]

“...yes,” he groans, “I’d love to bring you down with me, and to tear you apart if I’m back in that dawnless land.” Because you aren’t leaving him, nor could you survive if he plummets back into that land. But you’re still coming with him because you need him (and so does he).

The dawn shines on the two of you, and finally, he kisses you. You’re too dazed to reciprocate, but you offer no resistance at all. But it’s a (relatively) chaste kiss, as he pulls back to whisper against your lips, wholly reverent. “I knew you were the one,” he confesses, and he sees your blush deepen, your eyes widen, “Thank you, for destroying yourself for me,” he brushes your cheek, “It’s truly an honor, sweetheart.”

You blink, eyes wide with tears, and just as he’s about to caress them away your mouth twitches—almost like you’re glitching as if the very expression was some bug in a game—and then you laugh. And it isn’t crazed, it isn’t weighed by madness, nor does it carry that familiar undertone of despair and fear he’s become so used to hearing from you—it’s warm like the dawn has cut through the rain to shine on him.

It’s that lovely laugh which the sun shines overhead and erases any shadow of doubt:

You’re insane. You’ve frozen over in hell, and have shattered yourself into pieces to melt into it.

If ‘I love you, Aventurine’ was the straw that broke the camel’s back, then your laughter is what made the camel burst and seep into searing, soulless sand.

It makes sense. Only someone destroyed and insane could love Aventurine.

(Kakavasha was dead. His hands are sticky, his chains rusty with blood and his throat burns)

[Is he? Or do you just need him to be dead? No matter how you slice it, I still see that same boy who clung to his Big Sis till the very end.]

But he’s a selfish man. If you give him your love, then he’ll gladly take it. 

[Tsk, tsk. A desperate man, Kakavasha.]

But more importantly, there’s a feeling in his heart. It’s the feeling of a peaceful day beneath the scorching sun, of when he wins a game, of when he and his sister were just themselves with each other. All of it coalesces into something he hasn’t felt in—no, something he may have never truly felt until now:

Happiness. 

[The closet thing you can call happiness, you mean.]

And is that feeling that has him lift you up, and spin and twirl with you in his arms. It is sheer elation, a hedonism that is so self-serving yet selfless all at once—sheer bliss—that fills him. This: this is what he wants to feel. Your laughter is infectious, permeating his body and sapping it of rationality, but he does not try to fight this virus. For he is happy. The corner of his eyes crinkle; he is unused to the feeling.

He laughs and laughs with you. His clothes and shoes are tracking blood. Normally the thought of even rain getting on his clothes disgusts him, but now, all he can think about is basking in this crimson victory. The dawn shines on you both, commemorating your unholy union. 

You really are perfect for him, he thinks. Because he must be insane too, when he laughs like a crazed dog—the same dogs he nearly drowned in bloodied water to get away from. 

—

You both deserved a treat. He whisked you away to a room—he can deal with the casino room later, call on a few favors—because you deserve his utmost attention, as he does yours. The prospect of your complete attention, entirely unfettered, excites him.

It’s a fine room. The bed is large and soft, the bath is large and pleasant, and the view is utterly breathtaking. But neither of you cares about that. You could be rolling in sewage and shit and you’d still look at him the way he looks at you, still enter demented laughter and twisted joy, still parade under that veneer of love. 

He gets his fill, as do you—but you both know neither of you will ever be sated, not when you two can’t be joined together in the ways you want to. 

The dawn is rich and bright, shining on the waking and sending the begging crawling away into the shadows. You breathe softly, utterly exhausted. A complete 180 from just a few moments ago. Your arms wrap weakly around him, tucking yourself into him snugly. His kisses, imprinted with your blood, create a field of flowers on your face. As does his own. …He makes a note to tip room service extra for the bloodied sheets. There’s a reason he doesn’t dress (as) extravagantly for when he needs to get his hands dirty. 

Perhaps after this, he’ll gift you something truly special, he thinks. His earring’s twin has just been gathering dust, and that just wouldn’t do. And it would be quite romantic to get your ears pierced by him, too. His heart beats at the thought. He’s sure you’ll agree to it if it’s by his hand; perhaps you can make a date out of it~? Maybe, after this, you’ll wear his gifts of your own accord. Small things, for when you go out, a modest bracelet or watch, a tasteful necklace (of ownership). Nothing overt so as to not draw any thieving eyes, but something to signify to those that know what to look for that you aren’t to be messed with. As for when you’re inside and home…he still remembers how red your face got, and the curses you threw at him. And then you’ll finally concede that his taste is actually pretty solid (don’t worry, it's not a sore spot in the slightest! He’s more mature than that). 

He feels a bit of pride at your exhaustion, smiling as he recalls the beginning of your tryst: 

“I…erm…wanna…well, I can d-do some of the work,” you said, flustered and embarrassed by the mere admission. He found it endearing, that you could confess your desire to burrow into him and then stammer when asking him for something. You really did hate the idea of using him, didn’t you?

(He doesn’t bother dissecting what kind of smile he makes)

However, a single moment is on repeat in his mind. His hand absently drifts to the crook of his neck, weeping but a few minutes ago. Your teeth, sinking in so deeply, intimately, just on the verge of ripping a chunk of his flesh out; you were practically dining on him. It sent him over the edge. 

When you pulled away and looked at him, he was again taken aback at what he saw.

Your lips, slightly parted and utterly breathless, speckled with rouge. Your cheeks were red hot with adoration. Your eyes, brimming with love and care and everything he couldn’t believe someone besides his own family could direct toward him.

(But your love is very different from his family’s. They wanted to nourish. You want to devour. But he sees nothing to criticize there—indulge, and he will gladly indulge back, until there’s nothing left of either of you)

But what truly pushes him over the edge, is the smile you give, softly stained in crimson. It is pure and untainted, angelic and sweet, soft and warm like how the dawn kisses his cheek. It is as if this love of yours was born not of a tower’s rubble but of whispered secrets and touches shared in the shadow of moonlight. It’s as if the love you show him now would’ve been what he got if he was a more selfless man (if he were any other man). You both know he does not deserve the love in your eyes—it is the last thing you owe him. Yet you give it to him anyway.

You are utterly insane. And now that he knows what insanity on you looks like,

He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

But before he can shut his eyes for an hour or two of respite, there’s something he has to do. He promised many things as you both feasted, but there are two absolute ones he has to reaffirm. Two absolute ones you wanted so badly that you unleashed a frozen inferno. 

“I’ll never leave you,” he promises, “And never would. I admit, it stung a bit for you to fear that from me, but…I’ll make it up to you tenfold, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you don’t feel that way ever again,” He kisses your cheek gently. He pictures your response and giggles. “Yeah, I’m being sappy, but you’re,” he boops your nose with each following word, “just~. As~. Guilty~.” You stir with a soft groan, but it’s not enough to rouse you. After a short while, you nuzzle your head further into his neck with a sleepy sigh. Something tells him that even asleep, you’ll somehow know what he’s telling you. Your lips come to rest on the gift you gave him, as if even in sleep you’d rip him apart. His heart flutters. “You’re so sweet…” he exhales with a shudder, “seriously, how do you manage it? Not that I mind, of course…anything but…” he plays with a strand of your hair. Candy and clouds and raw flesh burst on his tongue all at once; a flavor of sickly sweet rot he can’t get enough of. He smiles, a soft and predatory thing, and his lips drift to his favorite spot.

But don’t get him wrong—every part of you is lovely and he would kill to vivisect you if only it didn’t mean killing you and putting you in extreme pain. It’s those two latter thoughts that largely quell his desire to do so. 

(Maybe he would enjoy it, but only for a moment, only for so as long as the euphoria and awe of seeing all of you lasts. If you did die—especially with cries and shrieks of pain—he would sob, curling around your body…and then he would take you with him, so when he goes to that place, you’d be with him on that very first step)

It’s where he first bit you on the luckiest day of his life; a lucky charm. It’s bruised and tender, red and ugly and scarred. Renewed countless times, it is beyond repair. Moments ago it held a crimson sheen, but its been smeared throughout your collarbone and shoulder. It looks like a red mist, a curling wisp of smoke that dirties clouds and infects rainwater. He brings you impossibly closer, to keep you from becoming red mist. But he also realizes that should he squeeze too hard, you might end up as mist anyway. But if that’s how you become mist, at least you’ll have been in his arms; be with him.

(As if to keep you far, far, far away from the rainwater which had swirled with a thick, red mist—to keep you from breathing in it, from having to hide so you don’t end up like the cold bodies which float beside you)

His lips seemingly slot in with the spot perfectly. It only makes sense. It was today where you’ve melded yourself to him.

(And he’s melded himself to you for a long time. Against his better judgment and sense, he melded himself to you; at the time it was only the idea of you, but it didn’t take long for it to be you.)

He sighs in content, but he still has another promise to make. 

“We’ll be together, you and I. Two sides of a single coin can face away from each other, but they can’t exist separate from each other. You’re pretty smart, so I’m sure you get it,” yes, he has plenty of faith in you, sweet thing, but he can’t help but ramble, “and it’s because I love you, (Name).” He says it so tenderly, your name, and unexpectedly (or very expectedly) something he thought he’d never feel ever again invades his chest, and it forces itself out, “I love you, I love you,” he thinks his grip has tightened and that his heart has started to race and that he’s shaking but he doesn’t care about that right now and he doesn’t care if he has been losing composure without his notice. “I love you I love you I love you. You have no idea just how much I want to devour you, just how much I want you tethered to me. How much I need you to be unable to live without me. If I’m alive, you’re alive. If I’m dead…you said it yourself. You’ll follow me. It just needs to be by my hand, and you’ll follow me. You won’t have to worry about being alone, being without me. And it’s all because…

I love you.” 

He dimly realizes that something salty has trailed to his lips. Are you awake? Or are you having a nightmare? Either way, he moves like he has so many other times, to remind you that he’d be there, even at your most vulnerable. He goes up to kiss your eyes and lick your cheek, but nothing’s there. 

Something flutters against his cheek. You’re awake, and he feels something warm and wet travel on his cheek. He’s not sure what he feels, when he looks up to you.

(What does his face look like?)

You blink, eyes bleary with sleep and weighted with content. But tinged with the sleep and contentment, there’s another thing, which makes everything within him burn. Which makes him shake and his heart nearly explodes.

Dimly, he realizes that the fallout of your destruction wasn’t just limited to you. He’s buried beneath the fire and rubble, too. 

[And it’s lovely.]

And then (at that moment), for some reason (for all the reasons), he buries his head in your chest (into your heart), 

To sob in the sunlight, soothed by the hands that unraveled him.

#yandere #yandere hsr #yandere aventurine #destroyed onset #aventurine x reader #yandere aventurine x reader #yandere x you #yandere hsr x reader #tw noncon #tw suicide #next fic is gonna be sitcom esque #the calm before the storm 😉 #and also because i need to write the reader being happy in a #not fucked up way LMFAO

[written-in-flowers]

Red Satin and Pink Leather: YunSangGi x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Jeong Yunho x Kang Yeosang x Song Mingi x fem!Reader

Genre: SMUT MINORS DNI

Word count: 9k

Summary: Catching Yunho on a special video call with you and Mingi, Yeosang is pulled into the party and couldn't be happier for it.

Tags: sub!yeosang, sub!mingi, femdom, dom!reader, dom!yunho, facials, titty-fucking, nipple play, breast worship, voyeurism, filming sex, sex over video calls, phone sex, overstimulation, hand jobs, masturbation, pet names (pretty, baby, baby boy, etc.), anal sex, anal fingering, sex toys, cock rings, orgasm denial, edging, multiple positions, multiple orgasms, dom/sub themes, dom/sub relationships, poly relationships, polyamorous, cum swallowing, cum play, shower sex (brief).

Previously on Idol Companion

*****

He found you where he’d expected: by your mirror, half-dressed, doing your makeup routine. Yeosang leaned against your doorframe, seeing you at your desk applying blush. He liked watching you do your makeup. You always put so much concentration and thought into your appearance regardless of where or who you’ll be with. Tonight, you’d put on your usual routine with an added winged eyeliner and dark lip color. Sexy. Seductive. Yeosang liked the look on you. 

“You know,” he coughed, “You don’t need to put on makeup if you’re staying indoors.”

His voice made you jump, and you turned to him, startled for a moment. Seeing him, you laughed softly. “Yeah,” you said, going back to your mirror, “I know. I just like feeling pretty.”

He walked further into the room. Yeosang noticed the outfit you’d laid out on your bed. A satin halter top in red-wine color with a pair of black denim jeans. His heart nearly stopped at the sight of it. The Top. The Shirt. The Blouse of Death. Yeosang’s blood already pumped thinking of you in the flimsy blouse. Mingi mentioned a night-in rather than going out, but this outfit seemed too formal for an at-home date. Perhaps you’d both changed your minds and picked a destination. Perhaps you’re wearing this to ensnare Mingi into a night of rough, wild, sex. Yeosang pitied Mingi. He’d be helpless against you in a low-cut blouse that sometimes showed flashes of whatever bra you wore underneath. Every Ateez member knew this shirt by sight, and knew what it meant. 

You wanted sex. 

“You’re going to wear this?” Yeosang asked, more amused than anything. He felt the smooth fabric between his fingers, “I hope Mingi’s prepared.”

You looked at him in the mirror, liquid eyeliner in your hand, “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Don’t act so coy,” he replied, “You know what this top does to us.”

“Not my fault a simple piece of clothing turns you all into animals,” you said, trying not to smirk as you applied the black liner. “It’s one of my favorites, and I wanted to wear it tonight.”

“But Mingi…” he frowned, “Is so innocent. Please, have mercy upon him, YN!” He changed to a pleading, desperate tone. “Wear it for me. Wear it for me instead! He's only a boy!”

“Oh hush,” you laughed. Wadding up tissue, you threw in his direction. “Mingi’s been feeling down lately and I want to cheer him up. You know, uplift his spirits a bit.”

“It'll definitely uplift something alright,” he snorted, coming to sit beside you on the bed. 

“Ugh, you're such a guy” you groaned, rolling your eyes. “I mean it. He's been upset lately, so I wanted to be there for him.”

Yeosang quieted. Neither of you wanted to think about Mingi’s depressive stages. They did not happen often, but when they did, they could be terrible. 

“Are you going to be coming back or staying there?” He asked curiously, picking up a cotton swab to gingerly wipe off a stray streak of eyeliner. 

“I might stay there,” you said, smiling gratefully. “What do you think?” 

“Beautiful,” he said, admiring how your hair framed your face. “You could've called me. I would've helped you get ready.”

“I didn't want to bother you after you had a long practice day. Besides, I can dress myself, Yeosang.”

“But I like helping. I want you to look your best all the time.”

You pouted, “Aw, my sweet Yeosang. You can help me get dressed then.” 

So accustomed to seeing you in your underwear, Yeosang didn't mind when you disrobed. A dark red lingerie set covered your intimate areas, mesh and lace showing enough skin to arouse a man. He gazed over your legs, thighs and hips before landing on your chest. The mesh material in the middle thinly covered your breasts, and Yeosang gulped thickly. Yet, he still took up the top to slide over your body before clasping the back behind your neck. 

“Mingi’s going to be a very happy man,” he said as he fixed the draping neckline. Straightening out your small heart necklace, he said, “I don't know how he's going to resist you.”

“Who said I wanted him to?” You grinned at him taking up your jeans. 

He put them at your feet and you stepped into them. Yeosang slowly slid the fabric up your legs and thighs, feeling your smooth skin under his knuckles as he went upwards. At your hips, he couldn't stop himself from leaving a kiss on a spot of skin before covering it. When he stood at eye level, you pecked his lips. 

“You're so helpful,” you said in an alluring voice. “I'm lucky to have a sweet prince who treats me so well.”

Your ‘dom voice’. He loved that voice. It sent tingles that made him shudder. “I only want to take care of you,” he then squeaked out, “Mistress. Your happiness means a lot to me.”

You cupped his cheek and kissed him. “It's too bad I can't reward your behavior right now.”

“Getting to help you is good enough for me.” 

He guided you to your bed where he slipped on your sandals for you. Yeosang wished you'd worn tights again. He liked helping you put them on; it gave him an excuse to touch you further. He placed a gentle kiss on your exposed ankle, buckling the sandal enough to keep it on you all night. You looked down at him lovingly, the way an owner looked at their favorite pet. Yeosang took you aback when he mentioned his submissive tendencies to you. He didn't mind being dominant from time to time, but he liked being babied by you. Something about your dominant personality felt comforting and warm. It made him feel safe. When you first dominated him, he worried it might not work out but you'd gone above and beyond to please him. 

And he'd do just about anything to please you back. 

“There,” he said with finality, standing up from the floor. “You look spectacular.” You tilted your head expectantly, and he added, “Mistress.”

He helped you off the bed onto your feet. “I wish you were coming back,” he pouted, “Then I could help you get ready for bed too.”

You giggled, “You can help me tomorrow night.”

He didn't tell anyone why he really liked living with him and Yunho. Living with you gave him opportunities to serve you in subtle ways: preparing your favorite meals, helping you with morning and night routines, and overall taking care of you. You did not expect it of him every day and he honestly did not do it often, but he liked caring for you. You are not only the princess to his prince or the Yorkie to his Maltese, but you're the mistress to his servant. After the struggles you've had in life, and juggling eight boyfriends, he wished to make your life as easy as possible. If that meant helping you put on shoes or cook you a cup of ramen, he’d do it. 

You went with him into the living room where Yunho sat eating dinner. Cross legged on the couch, he stopped halfway eating noodles when he saw you. 

“Wow,” he said, slurping up the rest and wiping his mouth, “You look amazing.” 

“Thank you,” you grinned, sitting next to him.

“You guys are staying in, right?” He asked, stirring the soup with his chopsticks, “Because otherwise Mingi better learn how to control his boners quick.”

“We might go get coffee or something small,” you shrugged, taking out your phone. 

“I should tell him to put on a big hoodie,” Yunho reached for his phone nearby, “He can hide it that way.”

“Oh my god, you’re all so ridiculous,” you chuckled, scrolling through your phone as you idly played with Yeosang’s hair. He’d grown it out for this exact reason. “It’s just a top.”

“Yeah, the top,” said Yunho, who quickly typed a message to Mingi. “You know how weak Mingi is for you. He’s going to crumble right away.”

“I told her it was cruel of her to wear it,” Yeosang joked. 

He shut his eyes as your fingers gently ran through his scalp. Being this close to you felt comforting. He’d fallen asleep so many times this way, engulfed by your warmth and scent as you pet him. You and Yunho continued talking about your plans for the night as he relaxed into your lap. He didn’t want you to go yet, not when he’s enjoying your body so much. He thought of asking if you and Mingi might stay with them, but he refrained. Every member deserved alone time with you, and Mingi needed it a bit more than the others. Another “baby boy” who needed lots of love, praise and attention from his Mistress. He watched the television before he realized he’d missed something. 

“Mistr-YN,” he quickly corrected him, “You didn’t get your bag.”

“I can just get it when Mingi comes. He won’t be here for a while,” you assured him. “I don’t need it at this moment.”

“I don’t want you to forget it and then have to come back,” he sat up from your lap, already feeling the cold, and said, “You tend to forget stuff.” 

“I do not,” you retorted. 

“No, no, Yeosang’s right,” Yunho intervened, “Yeosang, go get your mistress’s purse before Mingi shows up.” 

His cheeks warmed at his words. He walked back to your room, finding your bag on your bed still, and came back. Yeosang noticed Yunho sat closer, trapping you on the couch with his arm, and talking low. He only made out Yunho’s deep voice and your sweet one but nothing you said. Yeosang did not blame Yunho for trying. The red blouse is every Ateez member’s kryptonite. 

“Here you go,” Yeosang came over, handing you your bag and returning to his spot on the sofa. 

“So sweet,” you cooed, bending to kiss his temple. 

He could be like this forever. The doorbell sounded throughout the house, and Yunho went to answer it. “Mingi’s here,” you said to him, smiling softly at Yeosang’s relaxed position. “I gotta go now.”

Yeosang grumbled and sat up. “Hope you have a good time,” he said, already feeling cold without you, “Kiss?”

“Kiss.”

You let your lips linger on his a few seconds before pulling away. Mingi walked in right as you reached the living room threshold. He didn’t wear the hoodie, but seeing his amazed expression, he likely regretted not taking the advice. Yeosang watched you and Mingi kiss, then say goodbye as you went out the door. The silence built back up once you’d left, your scent and warmth going with you. 

“Atinys are always saying I’m her puppy,” Yunho stood nearby with a teasing smile on his face, “But you’re more of a puppy than me.”

“Shut up,” he laughed softly, throwing a small pillow at him before getting up from the bed. “It’s been a while for me, that’s all.”

“You can always ask her the next time you two go out,” Yunho said, walking to his room with Yeosang behind him. “She’d never say no to her prince.”

Yeosang’s blush crept from his cheeks to his ears, “It’s what I like, okay?”

“I wasn’t dissing you,” he turned when he reached his bedroom door, the smile gone once he saw Yeosang’s face. “We all have different kinks. I mean, I like CNC which isn’t everybody’s thing.”

“You do? When have you done it?”

“When you went to visit your parents’,” he answered as Yeosang passed him. “She wanted to do it, so we did. YN doesn’t mind experimenting,” he smirked, “She loves trying new things. You should ask her to go full dom with you next time; she might do it.”

“You think she would?” he asked meekly. “We kind of do it in bed sometimes, but not all the way. I don’t know if she really does like it.”

“Just ask, Yeosangie. You won’t know until you do. It’s what Wooyoung told me.”

Yes, Yeosang heard all about Wooyoung’s free-use fantasy and how you’d tried it for him. “It’s not really only the sex,” he said. “It’s things outside of the bedroom too. I like taking care of her, and doing things for her.” He snorted a laugh, “I know she likes to be independent so I don’t push it on her.”

Yunho’s eyes darkened with lust, and moved towards Yeosang. For a moment, all the breath in his body came out at the close proximity. “If she doesn’t want a cute submissive to serve her,” he lifted Yeosang’s chin so he looked up at him, “I wouldn’t mind taking her place. I personally think you’d look pretty with one of my collars around your neck…”

“Hyung…”

“I prefer my subs to call me ‘Sir’, but if you like ‘Hyung’ we can use that.”

“Hyung,” he giggled at his forwardness. “I’m gonna go game for a bit before bed,” he said, body flushed in heat when he met Yunho’s eyes, his words sending more warmth to his crotch. “We have a free day tomorrow, but I need to go to the practice room early.”

“Alright,” he accepted, “But if you change your mind, I’ll let you pick your collar.” 

He brushed Yeosang’s lips with his thumb before kissing him softly. The kiss alone flared up the fires kindling inside. Yeosang thought of joining him in bed. He used to do it all the time when they lived in the dorm. On nights where sleep was impossible or stress of debut life became a struggle, the members slipped into each other’s beds. Yeosang remembered falling asleep to Wooyoung and San’s heavy breathing or Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s low whining and whimpering. He particularly enjoyed the nights where he woke up to Yunho stroking him slowly, wanting intimacy and release. 

“Night, pretty,” Yunho said, kissing him one more time before retreating into his bedroom. 

The pet name shook him. Alone in the hallway, he knew he should go before he did something stupid. Yunho is only teasing. He doesn’t actually want to. He probably has a big game session planned anyways. Yeosang walked away from the doorway, taking deep breaths. 

And trying not to think of the old days. 

****

He’d heard your voice. He swore he did. Walking by Yunho’s room, your voice caught his ear and he’ll admit it piqued his curiosity. Yeosang wondered how you’d gotten back in without anyone noticing before he heard another voice, a deeper voice. Mingi. How could you both be here? Why were you in Yunho’s room? Yeosang pictured the three of you entangled in each other on Yunho’s large bed. He remembered the satin top and tight dark jeans; no way any man could resist you in it. He thought Mingi might take you to his dorm, but he’d brought you home instead. He wouldn’t be the first member you brought home.

Curiosity got the better of him, and Yeosang quietly cracked open Yunho’s bedroom. He expected you there, half naked and laying between the two tall men. A surge of arousal burst through him thinking about it, yet when he looked inside, he only saw Yunho. In the bright lighting of his bedroom, Yunho sat against the headboard, legs parted and hand rubbing his crotch. He spotted a miniature tripod at the foot of the bed, his phone attached and facing him. A myriad of dirty thoughts went through Yeosang’s mind. His eyes remained fixated on the screen in front of him, and Yeosang immediately knew what he was doing. Yeosang knew because he did it multiple times himself when you weren’t nearby: Yunho put on a video of you. He shivered hearing your low, seductive voice come from the TV speakers.

“-Oh, is that what you want, huh? And here I thought you only wanted to watch a movie with me.”

“I’d prefer to shoot a movie with you instead.”

Yunho licked his lips as you giggled at Mingi’s response. Yeosang pictured you in Mingi’s arms, likely in his bedroom, about to be ravaged. He thought about your outfit again, and the lacey underwear you wore underneath. You’d look spectacular. He swallowed thickly thinking about your nipples poking the mesh and lace fabric, ready to be licked and sucked. Yeosang is the first to admit his fondness for your tits. He loved kissing, sucking and licking them whenever given the chance. The sounds it drew out made him hard instantly. Soft moans muffled by kisses broke him from his trance, a mixture of your voice with Mingi’s low tone as he undressed you. Would he slide his dick between those tits of yours? Would you suck the tip while he tit-fucked you? Yeosang remembered when you poured oil on them, making them shiny and slippery, as you then let him fuck them. He’d oiled up the rest of you after that.

A deep groan cut off his reminiscence, and he saw Yunho biting his lower lip. He still teased himself outside his boxers. Yeosang himself enjoyed drawing it out. He never immediately jumped to jerking when he watched videos of you by yourself or with the other members. He’d lightly brush his hand over his bulge, much like he was tempted to do now. Yunho traced his outline down to the hem of his shorts, which had ridden up in his sitting position. Yeosang’s jaw dropped seeing him lightly graze the head with his fingers, then pull back the pant leg to reveal it. Nobody outside of ATEEZ and you knew about Yeosang’s sexuality; that he enjoyed both men and women. How could he not when his members had such nice cocks? He was lucky the other members also liked men, otherwise he’d be screwed. 

Yunho trailing his fingers up and down his length made Yeosang’s mouth water. His own dick started pushing the fabric of his sweatpants; he felt it throb at the sight of Yunho sliding a hand up his shirt. When the man started pinching his own nipple, Yeosang did it to himself through his shirt. He saw Yunho’s soft lips, and envisioned them latched around his nipple. His hot tongue would slowly roll around them before giving a gentle suck. Yunho loved to tease. 

He recalled the first time he and Yunho slept together. It’d been in their old dorm room when Yunho walked in on him masturbating. Being comfortable with one another, the confident Yunho carefully unraveled a blushing Yeosang by removing his shorts to grab his dick. He’d eventually returned the favor by licking Yunho’s nipples and stroking him to climax. The same dick that was feet from him now, being teased while Yunho watched you and Mingi on his TV screen.

“God, I love it when you play with my tits like that. It turns me on so much.”

An odd thing for you to say out loud. They all knew you enjoyed that. Wooyoung once made you come by teasing them with toys and his mouth. Yeosang knew this because he’d been there helping him.

“Turn this way, baby. Let him see them.”

‘Let him see them?’ Who? Who else was there?

“Do you like them, Yuyu?”

“Especially in my hands?”

Were they video chatting? He got his answer when Yunho spoke up.

“Yes,” he breathed, “Yes, I do. Keep going just like that.”

Oh god, they were. Yeosang gulped back more saliva as he listened to Mingi continuing to play with your breasts. He wished he had a better view, but he enjoyed watching Yunho in the moment. Yeosang nearly let out an audible whimper when Yunho pulled his pant leg up more. Even just half the shaft had Yeosang drooling. Using one hand to continue teasing his tip, Yunho started palming the balls underneath. The moan he released sounded absolutely erotic. Yeosang wanted to suck those balls, lick and rub them while stroking that cock. You could join too; he never minded sharing.

Yeosang continued rubbing his nipple while his dick started making a tent in his pants. He gave it a gentle tug to relieve pressure, but this tug led to a sudden moan. One loud enough for Yunho to stop and look at the door. He saw Yunho. Yunho saw him. He stood there like a deer in headlights, not sure how to proceed. Should he pretend he saw nothing? This was meant to be a private moment between him, you and Mingi.

“Yeosangie?” Yunho called out to him, still touching himself. “Is that you? Don’t be shy. Come over here. The party’s just getting started.”

Timidly, Yeosang opened the door. Finally exposed, he couldn’t help himself from blushing at being caught. He kept himself a good distance from the bed, not meaning to intrude or interrupt.

“Come,” Yunho beckoned him over, spreading his legs further apart and patting the space, “Sit here and watch with me.”

“Yeosang is there?”

Yeosang looked at the TV, where you’d leaned into the camera to see him more closely. 

“Um, uh…”

“He is,” Yunho grinned, “He was watching me. Little pervert.”

Yeosang blushed at the words, meant to be affectionate instead of insulting.

"I’m sorry,” he said, flustered. “I didn’t mean to…I only heard YN and thought she was home…Don’t let me-”

“-Yeosang, shut up and get over here,” Yunho leaned to the edge and brought Yeosang closer.

Yeosang walked to the edge of the bed but didn’t sit down right away. He took in the young man laying on the bed. His nipples hardened from teasing, his dick already started blushing red as it grew harder. Need filled his round brown eyes, his pink tongue licking his lips at Yeosang. How could anyone resist such a sight? His long legs and thighs remained spread out on the bed so Yeosang could sit between them. 

“Do you want to wear your collar, baby?” Yunho asked him, reaching forward to touch the bulge forming in Yeosang’s pants. “You can pick whichever one you want.” Yeosang nodded shyly, and he grinned, “They’re in the top drawer.” 

Reaching the dresser drawer, he opened it to find a box labeled ‘necklaces’ across the side. Yunho carried collars of every shade and fabric available. He recognized a few right away, and picked out the one he liked the most: a pink leather collar with a heart shaped bell hanging from a hook. Yeosang knew it jingled each time Yunho’s thrusted into him. This only excited him more. Yunho chuckled at Yeosang’s choice, taking it from him when he brought it back. 

“A pretty collar for a pretty boy,” he smiled, clasping it on when Yeosang bent down. 

Wearing the collar boosted his excitement to the roof. 

“Which one did he pick?”

“The pink one with the bell,” answered Yunho. “Sit here and get comfy.” 

Yeosang absentmindedly sat between Yunho’s thighs. He could feel a distinct warmth pressed to his lower back, and resting against Yunho’s hard form built up the anticipation. He stared at the screen to see you and Mingi smirking.

“I wonder what Atinys would say if they knew how perverted Yeosang really is,” said Mingi. “Those YNteez episodes are nothing compared to what we’ve done together. Right, Yeosang?”

"Ye-yes,” he breathed.

“They’d love it,” you giggled, kneeling up to show your torso. “I think secretive perverts are hotter than obvious ones. They’re always so kinky and dirty-minded.”

You brought Mingi’s hands back to your chest where he grabbed them right away. His face buried in your neck, Mingi rolled your nipples between his fingers until you moaned. Yunho’s hands started slowly sliding up his thighs, starting on the outer sides before moving inwards towards the top. He continued doing this, his mouth close to Yeosang’s ear as he spoke.

“She looks good, huh? I told her to wear that top. It’s so sexy and Mingi really likes it on her,” he circled around Yeosang’s pulsing tip, “Her cleavage just barely shows and if she’s wearing that deep red bra, you can see more of it.”

“She’s so fucking hot…” 

“She is,” he said. “It’s why we all want to fuck her when she wears it out in public. At least, I know I do,” he went further up, lifting Yeosang’s shirt to see his nipples. “Last time she wore it, I fucked her in the train station bathroom. She was already wet from me touching her on the train.”

“Fuck…”

Yunho licked the pad of his thumb and brushed it over Yeosang’s nipple. A trickle of sensitivity shot down to his center, making him squirm slightly. On the screen, he saw Mingi carefully unbuttoning your jeans. Laying longways across the bed, you lifted your hips to help him remove them, leaving you in the bra and panties. You’d pulled it down underneath your breasts, so Mingi squeezed one of them as you felt up his back on top of you. He pictured the sensations you must be feeling and how wet they made you. Yeosang imagined Mingi’s dick, only three layers apart from you, growing harder and harder. The first time they touched one another had been with you and Jongho. Not the biggest of the group, it still made Yeosang cum hard at the end. He loved sitting on it just to hear Mingi’s drawn out groan of relief.

“Who knew we’d get so lucky?” Yunho asked him, one hand toying with his nipple while the other stroked him through his sweats. “Having two big sluts in this relationship of ours? We have YN, who will open her legs whenever we like, and we have Yeosang, who bends over whenever we want. The both of you are so dirty apart,” he licked the edge of Yeosang’s ear, “But even dirtier when you’re together.”

When he looked back at the screen, Yeosang saw your back facing the camera. You’d worn the g-string thong tonight, instead of the regular panties. Your ass cheeks sticking out, the string threaded between them, you bent over the bed so Mingi could spank and grab your ass. Yeosang’s mouth dropped open when he rubbed his fingers in the middle of those cheeks, outlining the thong string that went down to your pussy. A ring light behind the camera made the scene much brighter, so he saw everything. Your soft whimpers matched his own soon enough.

“Think he’ll fuck her in the ass tonight?” asked Yunho. “I leant him a few toys to use on her if they did anal. You know how much she likes her holes being filled. I mean, what’s the point in sex if we’re not gangbanging her with toys?”

Yeosang moaned, imagining the sight. “She…She…”

“‘She’ what?”

“She always looks so good with toys inside her,” he breathed, wriggling around as Yunho finally pulled out his cock. Flushed red, the veins continued pumping blood through it so it hardened. “I hope he does use them. Her ass is even nicer with a-with a plug in it.”

“Don’t worry, Yeosang,” said Mingi from the screen. “She’ll get a toy in there soon.”

“Oh god, yes!”

Mingi placed a few well timed spanks on either cheek. Yeosang did not know who he’d rather be: you or Mingi?

“Do you want a plug in you too?” asked Yunho in his ear. “Or do you want that vibrating sleeve you like so much?”

Lord, the sleeve. A single band of two vibrating bullets that Yunho straps to his shaft then turns on always leaves Yeosang drooling. Yunho chuckled hearing Yeosang’s whiny groan. “How about we start off slow?” he emphasized this with a gradual tug of his dick. “Hm? I want to see how hard you can get before I use my toys. Like I told YN once,” he pressed his lips to Yeosang’s ear, drowning out any other sound, “I like to make sweet, pretty things cum all over my toys.”

This nearly took the breath out of Yeosang. But, then the sound of you moaning caught his attention again. Mingi and you mirrored his and Yunho’s position against the headboard. Mingi had finally stuck his hand in your panties, and the touch alone had you grabbing his arms. His other hand massaged your breast, grazing a thumb over your nipple repeatedly. Yeosang would give anything to be there with you, lapping at your soaked cunt while stroking Mingi’s hardon. He’d pleasure both of you until you could barely comprehend anything else. Yunho could even film it before joining in himself. Yeosang’s arousal brought on a slew of dirty images, and Yunho’s dirty talk added to them.

“Isn’t she beautiful like that?” Yunho asked him, thumb swirling over the head. “Her pussy so wet it's seeping through her panties and her nipples hard to the touch? Oh, look what Mingi’s pulled out.”

Yeosang noticed Mingi quickly reach into a drawer and withdraw a short body wand. He couldn’t really hear the low vibrations, but he heard your high-pitched whining. Thighs and legs shaking, you remained still as Mingi slipped the toy in your underwear. The waistband keeping it in place, Mingi started rapidly rolling your nipples.

“God, that’s so fucking hot,” Yunho moaned. Yeosang felt him start grinding into his back, his full length nestled between the both of them. “But, I know someone who’s equally hot.”

Yeosang helped remove his pants and boxers, leaving his bottom half naked and exposed. Yunho moaned as he felt up and down Yeosang’s thighs again to see his cock twitch up to his stomach. He placed soft kisses along Yeosang’s shoulder as the other man gripped the knees on either side of him. Yeosang couldn’t help but push back into the cock against his tailbone. He did not protest when Yunho took out a bottle of lubricant, and coated his entire length in it.

“So pretty and shiny,” he moaned in his ear again, observing the cock glistening in the half light. “Just like when your mistress drools and spits all over it.”

“Oh god…Sir…”

The title made Yunho breathe deeply. “I’m your dom tonight, hm? Because your mistress isn’t home?” 

“If you…If you want to be.”

“I very much do,” he answered. “I told you as much before you went to bed.”

Your whimpering moan caught their attention. You started trembling, holding Mingi’s hand tightly as he slid the wand up and down your pussy rapidly. However, you then broke away from Mingi and grabbed the camera. Clearly a phone on a tripod now, you placed it in front of your pussy. Yeosang groaned at the close up shot, saliva building up when Mingi finally pulled the thong aside. He put the toy aside, and used both hands to rub the wet lips.

“Fuck,” Yunho panted, “Look at how wet she is already. I’d love to have that sitting on my face, don’t you?”

“Ye-y-ye-yes.”

“Remember the time we shared a room, and she sat on my face while you rode my dick?” he asked, adding more lubricant to Yeosang’s balls below. “How you both made out on top of me? I’d love to do that again. I love having the two biggest sluts in our group in my dorm…ready to be fucked and used at my whims.”

“Oh my god…” Yeosang held onto Yunho’s thighs and continued grinding into him. “That was so hot,” he answered, “I’d love to do it again.”

“Oh yeah?” he chuckled, “I’m going to hold you to that, pretty baby. When that woman comes home tomorrow, you two better clear your schedules,” he kissed his ear once more, giving his dick a squeeze, “Because I’m going to fuck you both like the whores you are.”

“Yes,” Yeosang breathed, “Yes, please, fuck me.”

“I will, baby boy,” he cooed. “I will. I just want to play with your body for a little longer. Can you hold it off for me until then?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy.”

Yunho finally reached over to his bedside table where he’d been keeping the vibrating sleeve. Yeosang watched with bated breath as Mingi spread your lips apart and used a single digit to tease your clit. He’d suck those fingers just to get a taste of you. He’d eat that pussy for a taste of your sweetness. Yunho grabbed a silicone connected cock ring.

“Sit on your hands for me,” Yunho directed, pleased when Yeosang immediately did it. “I’m going to put this cock ring on you first, so you don’t cum too quickly.”

He watched Yunho slip his dick and then his balls through the two rings. He gave Yeosang’s length a few more strokes before finally pulling the vibrating sleeve over it. He slid the tube right to the middle of his shaft, leaving his tip for Yunho to tease and squeeze at his leisure. Mingi started fingering you, his long fingers filling your heat slowly. He occasionally circled them around your clit before pushing them deep inside you again. The mewls and moans you let out made Yeosang’s cock stand up all the way. The pleasure heightened once Yunho turned the toy on a low setting. The vibrations sent down to his cock rings, adding more pleasure to it.

“Yes, just like that,” he heard you say, “Finger me just like that.”

“Am I making you feel good, Mistress?”

“You are.” You then said, “Are you using a toy on our Yeosangie, Yunho?”

“I am, YN,” he answered, “You should see him.”

You pulled the camera from your pussy to you and Mingi. Seeing Yeosang half naked, succumbing to the sleeve on his dick, the both of you melted at the sight of him. Mingi clearly began fingering you quicker as you watched Yeosang and Yunho.

“He looks so pretty,” you whined, “My sweet prince leaking and moaning like that. Does it feel good, baby boy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he moaned, spreading his legs farther to make room for Yunho’s hands. Adding even more lubricant, Yunho massaged both testicles and sack. “It feels so good, Mistress. It feels so fucking good.”

“Do you wish we were there?” asked Mingi, kissing your shoulder.

“Yes,” he whimpered.

“I told him I’m going to fuck you both tomorrow, YN,” Yunho said.

“Really?” you asked hopefully, “Can Mingi come too?”

“Of course. We’ll tell the group, and anyone who wants to join can come over.” He kissed the spot beneath Yeosang’s ear and said, “Have a little Yeosang-centric gangbang. You always looked so pretty whenever one of us came all over you. I remember the pictures,” he breathed deeply, using Yeosang’s precum to coat his tip. “Seonghwa-hyung’s fat cock splitting you open or San sticking his tongue inside. I saved the one of Jongho fucking both you and Wooyoung, and you moaning like a bitch in heat. Our slutty baby boy is always so eager to fuck us. You were YN before there was a YN.”

Mingi laid you on your back, straddling your chest and sliding his dick between your tits. He’d added lubricant or oil at some point, but Yeosang caught sight of a particular shine on them. Yeosang nearly came, but held himself back. You suckled the head just like you did with him, keeping your eyes on the camera.

“Titty fucking,” Yunho said, “Your favorite. You think he’ll cum on them?”

“I hope so…”

“I will if you’re a good boy,” you said, having heard him. “You sit there and do whatever Yunho says, and if you don’t cum,” you sucked Mingi’s tip hard enough to make him moan, “Then Mingi will cum on my titties for you, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re going to be good and not cum?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?” you buried Mingi between your breasts as much as possible, and Yeosang imagined you doing it to him.

“I prom-m-mise.”

“Suck my dick,” Yunho ordered, “I want those lips on my dick now.”

Yeosang trembled as he crawled from Yunho, who removed his shirt and shorts. He helped Yeosang out of his shirt, but not before landing several passionate kisses on him. Once he removed Yeosang’s hoodie and shirt, he bent down to suck and nibble his nipples. Kneeling on the bed, profiles facing the camera, you could watch them make out and continue teasing each other. Yeosang clenched his jaw as he reached down to Yunho’s heavy, throbbing dick. When he pressed his toy to Yunho, the other groaned loudly and began rocking into it.

“I want you to suck it, baby,” Yunho told him, laying back against the headboard and stroking himself. "And don’t take it out.” 

He never said it out loud, but Yeosang thought his dick looked delicious. Red, underside vein standing out against the smooth flesh, and leaking precum, Yeosang immediately licked right up to the slit. Yunho’s groan matched Mingi’s on TV. Laying right at Yunho’s hips, Yeosang began hungrily sucking Yunho’s cock. Salty precum spilled onto his tongue at the first touch, and he eagerly swallowed it. 

“Don’t take it out of your mouth, sweetie,” you instructed. “You keep that in there for me.”

Yeosang did as you asked. No matter how much drool and spit it made, Yeosang’s head continued bobbing up and down. The bell on his collar clinked lightly in each bob of his head, adding to the arousal in the room. He couldn’t stop himself now. The suppressed desires finally broke through the surface, and all he wanted to do was serve Yunho. His moans became louder when Yunho spread his ass cheeks apart. He breathed heavily once cool lubricant trickled over his hole, and a warm finger started circling the entrance. Yeosang quivered at the light touch, large hands grabbing and smacking his ass cheeks every so often before returning to his hole. The teasing finger and the vibrator on his dick had Yeosang desperate for an orgasm. 

“Keep watching, baby,” Yunho said, cupping Yeosang’s balls for a tender feeling. “I think things are starting to get interesting.” 

He then angled himself so Yunho remained in his mouth while he watched the TV. 

“I need you to relax for me, okay?” you asked Mingi, gradually stroking him as your fingers rubbed further down. “It won’t hurt if you stay still.”

“O-Okay…”

He realized what you were doing, and whimpered. You gave Mingi a few more slow strokes before reaching for a toy nearby. He recognized the black prostate massager you often used on him. You held the camera at an angle where they both saw the toy slide easily into Mingi, who immediately became a whining mess. Yeosang groaned at the finger sliding around his entrance threatened to slide inside. He wanted it so badly. He went far too long without a proper orgasm, and he knew Yunho could give him one. He always did. 

“There we go, good boy,” you praised Mingi, who did his best to remain spread out and not touch himself. That was when Yeosang realized something: you’d cuffed Mingi to the bed. He’d kill to be Mingi. “Doesn’t that feel good?”

“Yes,” he whined, stomach tensing each time the toy pressed to his g-spot. A very faint buzzing told Yeosang you’d turned on the vibrating function. He cried when you continued stroking him. 

You placed the tripod on the bedside where he got a sideways view of you both. Mingi tied to the bed, a toy vibrating inside him, he was helpless to stop you from sitting on his face. Your reversed position had your ass right on him as you rocked back and forward. 

“Lick it for me,” you moaned, pinching your nipple and keeping your hand on his cock. “Be a good boy and start using that tongue on me.”

And Mingi did. Yeosang sucked Yunho firmly in his moaning, hips bucking as the sleeve continued vibrating softly in well-timed pulsations. He started using his hand in a twisting motion as he greedily sucked the tip. 

“Fuck yes,” Yunho breathed, head tilting back. “Like that. Like that, baby.”

Yunho then slid two fingers into his ass. The sudden plunge made Yeosang yelp around the shaft in his mouth, but he soon settled into it as Yunho started at a slow pace. Using one hand, Yeosang stroked Yunho in a twisting motion while he kept sucking in tandem. He was so close. He could feel his orgasm approaching, tightening his abdomen yet stuck right between dick and balls. His quivering thighs clued Yunho into what was going on. To avoid it happening, Yunho turned off the vibrator which was absolute torture. He whined his displeasure around Yunho, who started pushing his fingers right to Yeosang’s prostate.

“Look at the screen, baby,” Yunho moaned, thrusting up into Yeosang’s mouth. “Look at what they’re doing.”

You still sat on Mingi’s face, but this time you’d bent forward to start pulling and pushing the plug inside him. Mingi shuddered each time you pushed inwards, moaning against your pussy as he sucked it. Enthralled by desire, Yeosang nearly came at the picture of your ass bouncing against Mingi’s face. He wished he could be there pleasuring you too. He loved bringing you to orgasm every time with just his mouth and fingers. 

“Do you like what you see, Yeosangie?”

He nodded, moaning when you started sucking Mingi’s red, leaking tip. Eyes heavy with lust, you laid there using Mingi’s face and cock to pleasure yourself. He is only a toy right now. A toy meant to please his mistress, just like Yeosang is meant for Yunho’s pleasure. 

“Do you want to be filled too?” Yunho asked gently, putting his fingers in knuckle deep. “With something bigger?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Yeosang finally pulled his mouth away, cheeks and jaw slightly burning. Yunho turned so his head faced the foot of the bed to give the couple on the screen a perfect view of Yeosang. He couldn’t wait. The desperation left Yeosang with very little care. Yunho aligned himself with Yeosang’s body, and let him slide down on it. While the stretch did take him by surprise, it brought a bout of relief that also pushed his arousal. Hands on Yunho’s chest, he began rubbing his thumb over Yunho’s nipples as he slowly rocked on top of him. Your own raspy, needy moans started coming through the speakers, Mingi’s muffled groans following soon after. When Yunho flicked the switch back on, the vibrating sleeve drove Yeosang senseless. All he could focus on was the pleasure pulsing inside him. 

He could hardly move, instead letting Yunho take control and push up into him.

“Aw, what’s wrong, baby?” Yunho awed, sliding the sleeve up and down Yeosang’s length until his eyes rolled back, “Is my dick that good?”

Yeosang let out several whiny moans as Yunho pumped in and out quickly.

“Answer his question,” you encouraged him. You took up the body wand to slide up and down Mingi’s shaft. He saw Mingi’s thighs and legs tremble each time you circled his head. “Is his dick so good you can barely speak?”

“Yes,” he panted, starting to bounce on top of Yunho, “Yes, yes, yes.”

That's all he could say as Yunho settled himself into a lower position, grabbed Yeosang’s hips, and guided him. Yeosang saw him reach out for the small phone tripod and place it on his lower stomach. Now, you and Mingi had a perfect view of Yeosang’s leaking member wagging up and down in every thrust. He held it upwards, using the sleeve to add more pressure, and your mouth fell open.

“My special boys are leaking so much,” you moaned, licking up fluids sliding down Mingi’s cock. “I wonder how much longer they can last before they’re making big messes of themselves.”

“Mistress, please,” Yeosang caught Mingi’s pleading words. “Please fuck me. Please.” 

“Fuck you, Mingi?” you asked in a fake surprised tone. “But I’m having so much fun teasing you like this. Your dick is so nice all hard and twitching. It’d be a shame to stop all of that now.”

“Please!”

Your giggle must’ve filled Mingi with desperation. No. He wouldn’t be getting his orgasm any time soon. He’d have to earn it, and he knew that. Hearing your moan suddenly grow louder, and seeing Mingi’s bury his face between your thighs, he knew Mingi planned on earning it the only way he knew how. 

“You’re doing such a good job, pet,” Yunho smiled, sitting up to let Yeosang hold onto him as he rode. Arms wrapped around his waist, Yunho cupped both ass cheeks and spread them apart. “Your tight little hole feels so good squeezing my dick. Are you making it extra tight just for me?”

“Yes,” he said, squeezing his cheeks so his walls hugged the cock inside him. “I want to make you feel…feel good, Sir.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“If you keep going just like this,” he tugged Yeosang’s head back by pulling on the back of the collar, “I might just cum inside you. I know how much you like being cummed in…just like your mistress.” 

The yank of the collar cut off a bit of air, nearly choking him, and Yeosang loved the restriction. His moans struggled to get through the collar, but they came in an endless loop of curses and mumbled words. 

“Mingi, Mingi, Mingi,” your voice caught his attention and he looked over Yunho’s shoulder. “You wanted to fuck me so bad, go ahead. My pussy’s right there. Why aren’t you putting it in?” 

Yeosang saw you’d knelt just high enough that Mingi’s tip touched only your folds. When Mingi desperately pushed his hips upwards, only his head went inside you. This clearly drove Mingi wild. His arousal took over all sense and he’d do anything to be sheathed inside you. Even with a condom on him-as expected-Mingi shuddered when you slid your clit over the throbbing tip. 

‘Mingi…Baby, I thought you wanted to fuck me. You need to put it in me to do that.” 

“I bet you wanna fuck her really badly, huh?” Yunho asked, squeezing the vibrator against Yeosang’s cock until he screamed. “Like the way I’m fucking you?”

Yeosang muttered a reply, dazed and drooling now. Not getting a real response, Yunho lifted Yeosang and flipped him onto his back. “Do you want to fuck your mistress like this,” he said, pounding into Yeosang so their hips snapped together, “And make her cum all over your dick?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“Answer me properly,” he slowed down, keeping himself hilt-deep inside.

“I wan…I wan-want to fu…fuck her like thi-is-s,” he managed to reply, eyes fully shut and body turned into putty in Yunho’s hands.

“Good,” he bent down over Yeosang, kissing and sucking his neck as he talked. “Your mistress deserves only the best dick,” he turned off the sleeve again and gently thrusted into him, “Just like you do.” He captured Yeosang’s lips with him, and kissed him deeply. Sloppy with tongue, the kiss alone made Yeosang mewl pathetically. “I meant what I said,” he hooked his fingers on the collar to keep him still as they kissed, “I’m going to fuck you tomorrow. Mingi is going to fuck you. YN is going to fuck you. Our prince is going to get as much dick as he wants.”

The thought had Yeosang drooling. He pushed himself into Yunho to get him further inside, pressing on the g-spot over and over again. “Ye-y-yes-s oh god!”

“Oooh, look at you go,” he chuckled, “So cock drunk you can barely talk.”

He turned on the vibrator a third time on a higher setting, and Yeosang let out high-pitched wails. His fingers dug into the covers underneath him, trying to keep himself grounded as Yunho fucked him. Yeosang didn’t know how much longer he could go on before he broke completely. He wanted to cum, but it felt too good to stop.

“I wan-want to-to cum,” he cried, eyes watering from the pressure. “Ple-please.”

“Then go ahead, baby,” Yunho said, pushing the vibrator right against his tip. “Go ahead and cum for me.”

Yeosang felt himself finally reaching orgasm. He could almost taste the sensation rolling up to his balls. He parted his legs wider, giving Yunho full permission to go as deep as possible, and moaned louder.

“Come on,” Yunho urged, “You wanted to cum, right? Go on.”

But it never came. The cock ring kept it from happening. It was even worse when Yunho turned off the sleeve and pulled out at the last second. He laughed watching Yeosang writhe and cry underneath him.

“Aw, what happened, baby?” he pouted, pulling out to rub himself against Yeosang’s groin, “I thought you were going to cum for me?”

“I can-can’t.”

“Why not?”

He knew why not. “I ha-a-av-ve…”

“Have what?”

“The-t-the rings!”

“Oh, that’s right!” he smacked his forehead, “You have cock rings on. I totally forgot,” he smirked, giving a low chuckle as he slipped back inside. “You can’t cum with those on, can you?”

“No!”

Meanwhile, on the screen, you held the mini tripod to where you and Mingi met. You’d finally given in and let him fully fill you. All the bravado from before slowly peeled away as Mingi pushed in and out of you quickly. Yeosang wanted to bring you pleasure like that, and he planned on it.

“I don’t know if your mistress wants you to finish before she does,” Yunho said, sliding the toy up and down his shaft without turning it on. “It’s not right to cum before your partner. Maybe we should ask.” He grabbed the tripod on the table at the end, and raised it above Yeosang, who stared into it pleadingly. “YN, should I let Yeosang cum?”

“Hm, I don’t know. What do you think, Mingi?”

“Nobody should cum before you do, Mistress,” Mingi answered, panting and whining as he continued thrusting. Yeosang watched you bend down to unhook his bindings and lay on your back. Mingi’s hands ended up back on your breasts, which you held there as he raised your legs and went back into you. “Not before you.”

You didn’t say anything back. Impaled on his dick, your eyes fell shut as you savored the sensations.

“You heard them,” Yunho said to Yeosang, withdrawing once more to roll him onto his stomach. He rested on top, hand reaching around to turn on the vibrator again. “Only when your mistress comes.”

Yunho slipped back inside him, keeping one leg up for access to the vibrator on Yeosang’s cock. His pace matched Mingi’s on screen, the both of them almost moaning together as they fucked their respective partners. He'd never done anything so erotic before. The smuttiness alone had him reaching to the end again, but he knew he'd only be denied again. Yeosang’s fingers curled into the bed spread, balling it up to keep himself from succumbing as pleasure numbed him to every other sense. Soon enough, he heard your breathy moans grow louder, being sounded through gritted teeth as your orgasm hit you hard. He looked to see you in a similar position to him, hunched and frozen in place as Mingi helped your climax along to the end. That was when Yunho gingerly removed a ring and massaged Yeosang’s balls once more.

He then let go. 

All over Yunho’s sheets. 

Hard, paralyzing, and desensitizing orgasms rocked Yeosang’s body. If any of the other members heard him, they’d know exactly what Yunho was doing to him. Heat rose up around his neck and ears, eyes squeezing shut as streams of white shot from his tip. Yunho halfway rolled him onto his side so everyone could see the thick, white strings dripping from Yeosang’s cock. The sleeve suddenly became too much against the sensitive muscle, and Yeosang wriggled as Yunho kept stroking him even once his orgasm subsided. Just because he’d finished didn’t mean Yunho was done. 

Mingi and Yunho finished almost in perfect unison. Both men charged faster and harder, only withdrawing once they’d gotten right to the edge. Yeosang laid on his back, elbows propping him up, as he opened his mouth to stick out his tongue. Yunho, kneeling over him, quickly jerked himself over him until he finally came. He kept his eyes locked on him the entire time, not moving or daring to turn away. Yunho, sweaty and panting, aimed right for Yeosang’s tongue and got it nearly every time. The streaks that fell onto Yeosang’s chin or cheeks were eagerly licked up and swallowed. 

“Yummy…” Yeosang smirked, licking some he’d swiped off his cheek. 

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” he said, breathing heavily and pushing his tip to Yeosang’s mouth. The low groan he gave once Yeosang started sucking again would’ve been enough to make him want a second round. “Plenty….Plenty more…But, let me clean you up. I didn’t get a taste before.”

Yeosang laid back as Yunho removed the sleeve and started licking up his shaft. Little twinges of pleasure followed the bundles of nerves his tongue sparked. Clearly, you had a similar idea since Yeosang turned to see you stroking and sucking Mingi dry…on your back…your breasts still in view. He held his breath when he saw translucent streaks on your breasts and chest. He whimpered seeing droplets of cum squirt out when you pressed the head to your nipples. Mingi, clearly being overstimulated, did nothing but moan as you played with his cock. With Yunho’s warm mouth sucking him slowly, he laid there watching Mingi’s dick be buried between your breasts. God, you really knew how to keep him going. He knew he’d be a dead man if you did that to him, especially right now. 

“Feel better, Yeosangie?” Yunho asked, still near his crotch, and smiling. “Or do you want to go again?”

“I…” he breathed deeply and realized how sticky he must be. He grabbed a towel Yunho kept in a cabinet next to his bed, and sat up to wipe his face. “I feel great,” he finally sighed, “So much better.”

“Me too.”

Yunho helped him clean up, occasionally breaking it to kiss him, and they looked at the couple on the screen. Yeosang’s legs felt like jelly, so he was more than sure yours felt the same way. Yet, somehow, you were standing and wiping your chest with a wet towel. Your eyes locked with his and you both smiled. Mingi came into the shot, putting his arms around you and kissing you deeply. He only broke away to mutter a question, and when you nodded, he picked up the tripod and brought you to the bathroom. 

“I guess we’re taking this party to our bathroom,” Yunho grinned at him, picking up their mini tripod as well. 

Yeosang, standing on wobbly legs, followed him to their bathroom. As Yunho and Mingi set up their showers, you and Yeosang sat on the toilets with the tripods in hand. 

“How was your date, babe?” Yeosang asked casually, resting his head in his hand as he waited. 

“It was nice,” you replied. He could tell by your hazy eyes you’re slowly surrendering to your exhaustion. “We didn’t do anything particularly crazy. We watched movies, ate snacks, ordered take-out and got coffee. Ooh, he did buy this new game he wanted to play with me, so we did that too.”

“What game?”

The two of you idly chatted. Yeosang loved talking to you after sex. You always acted as if the rigorous sex did not tire you out, but he knew it did. He wished he could cuddle you. Falling asleep between your soft body and Yunho’s hard one sounded like heaven. Both of your showers ready, Yeosang stepped into his with Yunho and you stepped into yours with Mingi. What started off as simple scrubbing became much more when Yunho brought Yeosang to his chest. Lips on his neck, Yunho started lathering the body wash up and down Yeosang’s petite body. 

“Still want more, pretty?” Yunho asked him, using both hands to stroke Yeosang’s cock. Waves of pleasure pinched the sensitive nerves there, which aroused Yeosang more. “I’ll be more than happy to give it to you here.”

“Sir…”

The slippery bubbles made it easy for Yunho’s thumbs to circle his nipples. Yeosang pushed his ass against the cock pressing on him. 

“Again, Yeosangie?” you laughed in your own shower, against the wall as Mingi trailed kisses up your neck. “You boys are insatiable.”

“Only because our owners are so beautiful,” he heard Mingi say. “May I at least keep kissing and touching you? I want to be close to you.” 

“Of course you can.”

You soaped Mingi up as he kissed and touched your body. Yeosang imagined you must be very slippery. Holding him close, Yunho and Yeosang gently washed one another. Bath poufs grazing over nipples or hands sliding up and over ass cheeks, both men gradually became hard again. Yeosang heard your soft moans over the running water and saw Mingi charging into you from behind once more. Both Yeosang and Yunho started stroking one another in earnest, Yunho slipping two fingers back into Yeosang’s bottom. They stayed in this position, squeezing and jerking, before they came once more. Each of them pointed the other upwards to shoot all over their stomachs. This second orgasm came harder, their orgasms bouncing off the tiled walls in the enclosed space. 

“Yeosang…” Yunho breathed, forehead pressed to his as he came down from his high, “You’re so…”

“Arousing? Desirable? Horny?” Yeosang suggested, unable to stop himself from touching the tender Yunho still. “I only want to make my owner happy.”

“You make me very, very, very happy, pretty,” he said, briefly kissing his lips a few times. “Let’s get to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow.” 

After a warm shower in Yunho’s gentle embrace, Yeosang was on cloud nine. “Tired, honey?” you asked him when you were all in your beds. 

“So tired.”

“Now, you’ll sleep like a baby,” said Yunho, bringing him close and kissing his cheek. 

“Me too,” you yawned as Mingi encompassed you, snuggling close as he nuzzled your neck again. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said, already drifting to sleep. 

Saying your farewells, Yunho ended the call and put his phone aside. Yeosang knew he should attempt to clean the bed, but he fell so deep into his relaxation, he didn’t want to do anything. Thankfully, Yunho didn’t say anything about it. He only turned off the lights, and shut his eyes. 

He wondered who he'd be waking up to tomorrow. 

*****

A/N: another steamy installment! I really let my self-indulgence get the better of me with this one. I hope y'all still like it <3 More coming soon!

#ateez #ateez fanfiction #ateez smut #kang yeosang #jeong yunho #song mingi #yunsang #yunho x yeosang #yunho ateez #yeosang ateez #mingi ateez #ateez fluff #ot8 x reader #yunho x reader #yeosang x reader #mingi x reader

[koolades-world]

Can I request headcannons of MC getting in a fight with Solomon and Simeon (separately) about something pretty big and how MC (or Solomon/Simeon depending on the reason for the fight) makes up for it/apologizes? I just need some good old angst to fluff man.

Thank you and your writing is amazing!

hi! of course :)

the solomon one was def a lot more serious that the simeon one just because i couldn't think of much that mc and him would get into a serious fight about haha (this only thing i could think of was mc confronting him about his choices that led to him becoming humans and that needs it's own piece for sure)

i kinda deviated from the prompt as a wrote, so sorry about that haha. that happens sometimes as i write. the solomon one is much more on prompt

enjoy <3

Mc gets into a fight w/ Simeon and Solomon (separately)

Simeon

you get jealous that he's been spending so much time with the members of the school's art club

that in itself isn't the problem and you're glad he's getting out there more with something he doesn't normally do, it's just that you can tell that two other members in specific are very into him

they inserted themselves into your relationship and specifically tried to upset you, which cause you to blowup at them

"So, what time are you going to be home?" You pinched your D.D.D. between your shoulder and your ear as you got together the ingredients for dinner that night, since it was your turn to cook.

"In about an hour. Art club will take a little longer today. We're finishing our paintings. I hope you'll like it." The melodious voice of your boyfriend, Simeon, was piped into your ear.

"I'm sure it'll be amazing. If you're going to be late for dinner, let me know. I'll set aside a portion for you." You smiled at the nervousness you heard in his voice.

"Alright. I'll talk with you later then. Love you, Mc." Simeon said.

""Love you too. Stay safe." You put the phone down, and went back to preparing dinner. After you were done, you left it on the stove on keep warm and went off to get some homework done. Eventually, dinner time had rolled around, and still nothing from Simeon. You assumed everything was as normal, so you called your other housemates to dinner.

"Thank you Mc." Luke sat down at the table with his plate.

"Let me know what you think! I tried a modified recipe today." Before Solomon could speak up, the front door finally opened. You got up to greet who you presumed was just Simeon, but there were three people in the doorway.

"I'm home. Hope you don't mind I brought a few guests." Simeon stepped aside to fully reveal his two companions. You recognized them as two other members of the art club, an incubus and a succubus. They really liked Simeon, which wasn't wrong, but they liked him too much. They knew he was currently in a relationship, but that didn't seem to stop them.

The rest of what happened was somewhat of a blur. You vaguely remembered getting progressively more upset at the two newcomers, until eventually, you stood up from the dinner table and went upstairs to your room.

"Mc? I know you're in there." Simeon knocked on the locked door. you didn't answer him. "I'm sorry for bringing them home. I didn't know they'd say that to you. You can blame me all you want." Instantly, you felt bad for unconsciously pinning the blame on him. He had such an alluring personality, so it wasn't really his fault that everyone liked him.

"It's not your fault." You opened the door, and pulled him into the hug. "They were trying to get a rise out of me, and I took the bait. It was a result of pent up feelings I should've share before. I'm sorry."

Simeon sighed and patted your back. "No need to apologize. It's normal to be jealous. I could have done better and asked, but the past is in the past, isn't it?" He took a step back and picked something up that was leaning against the wall. "This is for you. I'd wanted to prepare some of your favorite cookies to go along with it, but I thought now might be a good time to give it to you." In his hands was a portrait of you.

"Simeon! This is beautiful. Thank you!" You hugged him again.

"I'm glad you like it." Simeon moved to set it down, but you stopped him.

"Let's hang it up right now. I have the perfect spot." Simeon was glad to have been graced with seeing your beautiful smile once more.

Solomon

the two of you get into a fight about his tendency to hole up in his room for days at a time

he says he's doing important experiments but you just want to spend time with him

when he does leave his room, it's a weird hours and it's at one of these times that you happen to run into him

"Sol." You held up your D.D.D.'s flashlight. In front of you was your boyfriend, looking like he hadn't slept in at least a few days. The situation might had been funny if you weren't so upset with him. He froze in the beam, looking like a deer in headlights.

"Mc, my love, my joy, my sunshine. What are you doing up this late?" He chuckled nervously, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

"I could ask you the same thing." You stared at each other in silence. "Babe, it's been three days since I last saw you." He smiled at you sheepishly.

"I've been doing important work." The response he came up with was lackluster.

"What could be more important than your significant other?" You sighed, lowering the flashlight. Solomon didn't respond. "Our anniversary was yesterday. You promised to take me out to dinner. I waited and waited, and even knocked on your door, but you told me you'd be out soon. You never came out." Tears began to well up in your eyes despite promising yourself you wouldn't cry. As the realization hit him, Solomon began to move towards you to comfort you, but you took a few large steps backward.

"My work really is important, but let me make it up to you. We can go out tomorrow morning for brunch, or whatever you'd like." He kept trying to move towards you, but stopped once he realized you didn't want him to close the distance.

"Maybe. I don't know. My feelings are hurt is all. I got dressed up and even had a present ready. I left it outside your door, not that you noticed." You wiped the tears away with your sleeve.

"I made a real breakthrough in my research, if that helps." Solomon suddenly looked much more awake.

"It doesn't. At all. I only wanted one thing from you, but somehow you've managed to avoid it at every turn. I admire your passions, really, I do. But sometimes, I feel like that's the only thing you care about." You turned around, and ran out of the room, taking the only source of light with you.

"Wait! Mc, come back!" Solomon promptly ran headfirst into the door you'd just slammed shut, leaving him alone in the dark, and upset himself.

The next day, he showed up at the HoL, bouquet of flowers in hand. He hesitated for a moment, but knocked. Unfortunately, Satan greeted him. He looked mostly collected, but that didn't stop him from being nervous.

"Hello." Solomon smiled at him.

"I presume those flowers aren't for me." Satan raised an eyebrow.

"Haha, no. They're for..." Your name died on his tongue when he saw you in the background. Your eyes were rimmed red and you had messy hair, but you looked rested. When the two of you made eye contact, you froze.

"Mc, I'm sorry." He held out the flowers to you over Satan's shoulder. He rolled his eyes and stepped a little out of the way. Far enough to give him room, but close enough to force him back outside if needed. You burst into another round of tears, and before Belphie, who was next to you, could grab you, you ran towards him and hugged him tightly.

"That's all I wanted to hear yesterday." Solomon held you close with his free hand.

"I'm sorry for making you think my research was more important that you, I'm sorry for forgetting our anniversary, and I'm sorry for not communicating better." He extended the flowers to you again once you stepped back.

"Thank you. You remembered my favorites." You took them, and gave them a quick whiff.

"Is it too forthcoming of me to ask if you're still up for brunch?" Solomon chuckled.

"No. I'd love that. Just let me get changed." You handed the flowers back to him temporarily to run back inside to get out of your pajamas. Satan had left at some point, but Asmo had found his way into his place.

"Sol. I love you, but if you ever try that again, I think I'll have to put your heart on a spike in the RAD courtyard." Asmo giggled. That was the second time he'd heard his usually endearing nickname spoken in such a threatening way in the past day.

"Noted." Just the reminder he needed never to piss off his s/o or Asmo ever again.

#obey me #obey me! #obey me x reader #obey me asmo #obey me satan #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #omswd #obey me shall we date #obey me! shall we date #obey me! shall we date?

[wannaeatramyeon]

Gun Park x Goo Kim: Nabe

Sorta 479 spoilers but not really. I couldn't resist. Fluffy.

"What's that?"

Goo pokes around the pot with some stray chopsticks, glasses steaming up from the heat.

Gun plucks the offending utensils from the blonde's fingers. "Yosenabe," and snaps it in half.

"Which is?"

"Nabe. A type of stew."

"Whatever, looks and smells like shit,"

"That's fine because you're not having any,"

Goo’s head whips around, eyes narrowing in annoyance, "What! You miser!"

Trying to focus on preparing the ingredients, arranging the greens and meat and seafood, Gun attempts to tune out his partner's voice.

"After all I do for you! You tight ass!"

It's not working. His voice is particularly aggravating tonight. Sense of personal space especially lacking.

"You're not even going to share? You selfish dick! I can't believe-"

Gun grits his teeth and spits out "Fine."

"You fuck-" A pause. A blink. "Fine?"

"Fine you can have some."

.

.

Resting his chin on Gun's shoulder, Goo inspects the chopping board. The ingredients look good, fresh. Blade slightly blunt, knife skills obviously nowhere near as good as himself, but it'll do.

Almost-

"Why aren't you cutting the shiitake all pretty?"

Goo feels the shoulder tensing.

"You know, like when people cut a star into it."

“...”

"But I suppose you can barely hold a knife."

"..."

"Can you make the carrots flower shaped?"

"..."

"That's probably too advanced for you."

Goo swipes at a piece and Gun laments not cutting off his fingers in time. "This one is so much bigger!" It's not. "You can't even cut them to equal size-"

"Get the fuck out of my kitchen."

.

.

Goo chews on a prawn. It's delicious. Tender and succulent and he tells Gun it's not bad. Passable. It'll do for his refined palate.

Receives a huff of amusement in response as Gun tucks into his own serving.

The nabe does wonders to warm them both on this cold night. Peaceful, companionable silence only broken by occasional bowls being refilled, noodles being slurped, hums of appreciation.

Goo wonders if maybe he himself is a cliche, and the way to his heart really is through his stomach.

Munching on a flower shaped carrot and picking his way around the pretty mushrooms with a star carved into it, he finds a flush on his cheeks and a warmth in his chest that has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with the man that sits opposite.

"You're not going to eat those?" Gun frowns. After that bastard specifically made a fuss over them too.

Staring at the shiitake in disgust, Goo can't bear to stomach them even if they do look more appetising tonight.

Pretending to gag, "Ew no, I hate mushrooms!"

#lookism #lookism manhwa #lookism webtoon #lookism fic #lookism x reader #gun x goo #gun park x goo kim #gun park #park jonggun #kim joongoo #goo kim #gungoo #wannaeatramyeon

[space-blue]

Me doing crimes against my companions

They truly cattered to every freak possible.

Look at these nerds! Reading together! Shared central piece with carpet for easy access to each other's tent... I have to freqently remind Gale we're a thing, because the bloodweave is borderline canon!! And we can't be a trouple because some people don't like sharing, right, Gale??

I learned the instrument feat just to make my little guys dance and they're HARDCORE IGNORING ME!!!

Clown power posing face off.

Also I love that Astarion approves if you force anyone else on stage, but will disapprove TWICE if made to go up

In fucking stitches over the Gortash portraits. You know the mods that turn everyone into a Kpop beauty boy? Gortash would approve of them for himself, 100%

I'm making a Tav comic about seeing Rolan like this. It's coming. It'll be the same energy as the Zevlor one, yes. More murdering though.

Astarion talking back to a Djinni and being transformed into a wheel of cheese for the meagre cost of 500 gold! Best use of my fictional money.

I still question why Gale has abs, but I don't question the fact this outfit has the ring RIGHT OVER THE ORB, I'm sorry babygirl you're keeping the bondage undies...

ALSO if you put him in the celestial whatever, basically the princess Leia outfit Figaro sells you, he shows cheek, and truly, truly Larian catters to the freaks and it's incredible...

Like what is this bit of booty and how come I'm getting it for free aaaah!!!!

Man doesn't have the strength to open a jar of pickles, but he still religiously visits the bench press to have the perfect abs for his Tav. Gods bless.

Also the back of this undie has basically a bitch strap. You can have a bitch strap on Astarion, and then give him an open back shirt and grab him any time you need to yank him out of situations.

Also love how the design is altered to give garters to fem bodies but also make sense for someone with a tail. I bet it'll look hot as all shit on dargonborn Durge.

The face he was making while I was asked this question...

Durgeposting... based on this Hannibal meme

#baldur's gate 3 #shitpost #bg3 #bg3 shitpost #tav #tav posting #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #astarion #bg3 astarion #bg3 tav #bg3 rolan #bg3 gortash #bloodweave

[depravitycentral]

(I don't think I've seen this concept before, but if someone else has written about this please let me know and I'll credit them accordingly!)

I have no grounds to base this on but I think that when nen-using yanderes are around their darling, their nen spikes.

Like, a lot.

Which wouldn't be bad at all - particularly if their darling isn't even aware of the existence of nen. Unfortunately, though, this has some bad side effects - namely, these spikes are both unconscious and uncontrollable.

And I like to think this manifests itself in ways that are entirely specific to the yandere - nen is energy, aura, raw, their honest feelings bleeding into their energy output, and when they're around someone who makes their heart race and their palms sweat and possessiveness and lust and desire and need bloom in their chest, their nen starts acting out what the yandere really desires.

And most of the time, this materializes as physical touch; their aura literally holding their darling, enveloping them and keeping them warm, comforted, trapped, whatever their heart is genuinely desiring in that moment. It's scary, for both the yandere and the darling, because even the most skilled nen user can't really control it - it just happens, and it's a dead giveaway for other nen users that this particular darling is already claimed when their companion's aura flares so strongly that it nearly suffocates the room.

Again, each yandere's nen manifests differently, but as a ballpark example of some ways this works is how Franklin's aura always physically picks you up, sweeping you off your feet and cradling you, leaving you floating in mid air princess style while something humming and heavy and invisible presses against your lips, jawline, and neck.

(When this happens, it makes him a bit embarrassed, watching with slightly widened eyes and immediately rushing forward to disperse the nen and set you back on the ground, making sure the nen won't accidentally drop you. He might then pick you up himself, recreating what his natural urges are obviously desiring, but more often than not he'll just nod at you and ask if you're alright, then walk off and try to calm the racing of his heart because god, it's like he could feel your soft skin and warmth through his nen. He'll spend a few minutes pressing soft kisses to his hand, eyes closed, pretending it's your lips, trying to not feel too pathetic.)

Phink's nen is, much to his embarrassment and mild displeasure, always immediately smacking into your ass when it spikes. It's not enough to hurt, but it's a firm, teasing spank, and it's one that leaves you yelping slightly and glancing behind you, wondering what the fuck just happened. Phinks is ashamed that this is what his heart wants most, because it feels cheap and dirty and mean, but it's the truth, and eventually you'll just grow to expect some sort of assault on your backside every time you enter the same room as him. (Sometimes it's a squeeze rather than a smack - equally as jarring, and a bit more humiliating because it's much longer, the nen massaging your skin and making you shiver because it almost feels good.)

(Phinks won't really explain what's going on to you, but he will say that it's nothing to worry about, and will loosely, incompletely explain nen without placing too much of the blame on himself. He doesn't want you to know that his carnal urges are what's fueling your daily ass smacks - except maybe once he tells you about it, maybe you'd let him slap your ass instead of his nen...?)

But by far the most unpredictable nen belongs to none other than Chrollo Lucilfer himself, who's nen response to you ranges from simply brushing over a piece of your hair to pinning you against the wall. It drives him absolutely crazy - he can't control it at all, and it all depends on his mood. Sometimes it'll flare up and simply surround you, not quite touching you, but getting as close as it can, almost like a predator that's waiting to pounce. This happens when Chrollo's in the mood to have a long, drawn out conversation with you - the philosophical kind, the kind that lets him peek into your mind and examine you, the poking and prodding questions he asks about your morality and beliefs leaving your head swimming. Other times, his aura springs on you the moment he walks through the door, the pressure nearly suffocating as it seems to snake under your clothing, pressing against your skin, particularly focused on your chest, thighs, and right between your legs.

(He won't fully acknowledge any questions you ask about this phenomenon - just dancing around the answer, instead managing to redirect the conversation or making some vague, ambiguous response like the heart is a fickle thing. He doesn't want you to realize the hold you have on him - he already feels his position above you is precarious (it's not, you're very aware that he's a cunning, resourceful bastard that you'd probably never successfully rebel against), and he cannot have you knowing that the nen that sometimes goes so far as to rip off your shirt is actually just him wanting to feast his eyes upon your pretty breasts. He hadn't let you wear a bra that morning, so is it really so wrong that that's his heart's biggest desire in the moment? He doesn't think so.)

Anyways, just a fun thought! If you couldn't tell I love thinking about big strong men being embarrassed and unable to control themselves <3

#yandere hxh #yandere hunter x hunter #_hxh #_lee ponders #_franklin bordeau #_phinks magcub #_chrollo lucilfer

[mosaickiwi]

Fall Unto Me (part three)

Part one, part two

I said I was on break but then a lot of things immediately fell out of my brain cause of stress so now I feel silly... sowweeeeee 🤡 Part four WILL be the last part I swear. If you see more Angel!Angel and Demon!Ren from me after that (and da infodump if i get to it) genuinely tell me to shut the FUCK up!!!

yes i am probably writing the NSFW version it'll be in my compendium post if it happens

cw// religious themes

14 Days With You is an 18+ Yandere Visual Novel. MINORS DNI

Your resolve was getting harder to hold on to, but you kept it. This would be the last time. You couldn't part from heaven again after returning. Atonement was waiting for you, eternal devotion to your duty right after.

Another few weeks went by as you stayed with Ren a little longer, the sea of flowers outside your bedroom window changing little by little each day. So many of them were already fully blooming, most of their petals stretched open to show off a myriad of colors while others curled inwards to hide from you. Practically a taunting mockery with how they took their time. As if insulted you would dare leave once they painted the horizon with their beauty.

It made it all the more painful that you'd never see them again. Or the companion that now felt like a piece you'd been missing.

Something about that encroaching deadline had affected the devil, too. Ren was calmer in some ways. They still brought you gifts and knowledge like usual, but he seemed to be taking his time just like the flowers. Simple answers to your curiosities became thorough while he held you close and urged you to ask more questions about whichever object took interest. 

He'd offered to revisit trinkets you loved as well. Until you were as familiar with using them as he was. You couldn't understand it. 

Your time together was draining away by the second. Didn't they want to make exciting memories? No matter how much you enjoyed it, mastery over human instruments or crafts served no purpose. Heaven wouldn't let you bring those things home, nor could you ask a higher power to recreate them for leisure.

Maybe your love was in denial of your departure. Or maybe spending little mundane, quiet days and nights together like this was their way of coming to terms with it.

Today, you chose to fiddle with one of the oldest gifts while chatting with him. The sun was just beginning to set, casting the room in the faded, flaming gold hue you'd only now gotten used to. 

“—Love?” He was calling you, the end of his tail swaying gently in front of your face to get your attention. You’d missed a few words.

“Hm?”

“You've gotten much better at this,” the pink haired devil hummed above you. His chin was resting atop your head as they cradled you in their lap on a frayed rug, his back against the bottom of the couch.

You looked over your work. The woven red string wrapped around and through your fingers took the shape of a pointed star. You knew real stars looked differently, but the human interpretation was interesting.

“Truly, it’s better than before,” you said with wholehearted agreement. The first time you'd tried—only on the third day of your visit to earth—had simply tangled the string to a knotted mess stuck upon your fingers for Ren to deal with while you apologized, embarrassed beyond belief. 

The patterns they taught you were almost easy thanks to your afternoon of trying. You unwound the string and painstakingly wound it again into one that often graced your practice: an angel. He'd been particularly smug about teaching you the motions of that one.

“An impressive self portrait,” Ren joked and squeezed you tighter in their embrace. “Although it'll take more than some thread to capture your divine beauty.”

Naturally, you rolled your eyes even though the soul it was meant for couldn't see it. A mortal gesture you'd gotten the hang of quicker than anything, as he so favored innocent teasing before expressing his deepest sincerities.

You untangled the string and tossed it to the side, then turned in their lap to make a face this time for their benefit. “I’ll do a painting, then. I’ve had enough of this toy.”

He relaxed his hold long enough for you to wander across the room in search of new distractions, but innocently called after you, “We’ll have to light quite a few candles for you to see well. Unless you plan to have me mix paints for you in the dark.” A second passed before he spoke again. “It’d be a pleasant surprise, I’m sure.” 

“Something else?” you replied, making a swift turn towards the bookshelves. You came back with a couple of novels and sat beside them with your treasure. “Is this really all you want to do? You’ve read every book here before.” 

Even the books he’d bought with strange, flimsy paper currency for you, Ren had said so casually, were already familiar territory. Tedium hardly described how boring you thought these weeks must be for him. But he never objected to anything you chose, as long as you both stayed close to home during the day. 

And you always kept your wings hidden in case a human roamed nearby. You'd never seen one come close to the cabin, or even the field of flowers, but he insisted your safety—and proximity to them—was of utmost priority. It was hard to remember the last time you let loose your wings at all after walking on the beach with him. They interrupted your thoughts once more.

“My sweet, delicate angel, I’ve had all the time in the world to do anything I want.” Their blue eyes narrowed with a smile as they spoke and you knew more teasing was coming. “We could even sit here in silence all night, if you asked me nicely.”

“How kind of you, my darling demon,” you teased them back. 

Another jesting response in his gaze faded to something different as you pulled him down for a kiss, gently at first. The books you’d brought over lay forgotten, soon shoved under the couch in favor of your new activity.

Kissing the demon you called yours felt like second nature now. There was no sting that ever came, no homesick aching in your back anymore. Only the flood of tender emotions he gave you, tainted by your own guilt and fears of parting from him.

You needed more. A stronger distraction. Your hand on his shirt tightened, determined to keep him. To stay in this moment as long as possible.

Ren exhaled, a muttering of blasphemous praise you dare not repeat whispered from his lips to yours, along with one word. A word that sounded odd to your ears. 

You'd heard it countless times over the months, but it didn't feel strange until after the first kiss you shared. He must have said it earlier, too, when you were occupied with that damned little red string. Demonic language was much different, it certainly wasn’t that at all. And the sounds of the word did feel similar to mortal languages, but nothing came to mind. So naturally, you could only assume it to be another of their pet names, but…

The thought fell to the side as you focused on him. He was all that needed to matter right now.

Their comforting warmth that called of your sacred home, your nails curling into the bottom of his shirt just to fall lower, an iron, almost nectar-like taste that flowered on your tongue—did you bite him this time? It felt good. 

Desperately, you brushed your hand over his thigh, getting dangerously close to where you knew things risked going further. You caught yourself and froze. You wanted him, you’d known since that day in the rain. In every way a being could yearn for another’s love. And of course he felt the same. But could you really go home if it happened? 

“Before I…” The words hung in the air and what remained weighed in your throat. Before I leave. Departure was looming on the horizon, sure as the sun would rise tomorrow. You dare not mention it to the one you loved again. You opened your eyes to meet theirs, cautiously as you wondered, “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” they answered, longing clear as the evening sky in his voice. “I couldn’t bear—or ever want—to deny you. Little angel, all you desire of me is yours to take.”

Without another word you did just that. You thought nothing of the faint, staggered line you felt under your fingertips that seemed to start somewhere along his shoulder blade as you lifted the shirt away and pushed him to lay on the rug. Your hands pressed their ink-stained arms flat next to the disheveled mess of pink hair and horns. Ren grinned at your audacity to pin him, but held still for your much needed exploration. 

Eyes half lidded with patient lust, mouth parted to show off pointed fangs, the devil looked to be the very picture of your sinful desires.

To be one with them, even just once, was a memory worth making. No matter what punishment waited for you at heaven’s boundary. You skimmed your fingers from the base of his collarbone, down over their stomach, and began to undo the buttons that concealed what you’d been waiting for.

#14 days with you #14dwy ren #14dwy redacted #cw religious themes #momo writing #cannot gush about the story in tags bc spoilers </3 #i must contain myself #sobbing and crying #but p4 queued for next week #maybe my brain will shut up about it once everything is posted!!! #<- hopes and dreams right here #so sorry this AU is all u get out of me for a while... #I'M ON BREAK!!! I AIN'T LYING!!!

[everydayyoulovemeless]

The reaction of the companions of fo3 to the fact that they are in love with Lone Wanderer? Please 🙏

Fo3 Companions Realizing They're In Love With Lone

➼ Word Count » 0.7k ➼ Warnings » Age Gap ➼ Genre » Romantic, Pinning

Charon opts to ignore it. He's got a job to do and is bound by contract. His feelings don't matter for this transaction to work and now is no different. Despite it all, he can't help but notice how much more inclined he is to be of service to you — always offering to take the night shift, or more aware of his surroundings than he normally would be. He's never been so fond of the person holding his contract and it makes him feel so conflicted. What would you say? Would you sell him off if you found out? He's a ghoul, for Godsake, what 19-year-old teen would want him?

Clover isn't sure how to act, so she'll act in the only way she's known how — sexually. She'll run her hands across your shoulders and whisper lowly into your ears just so she can get the message across to you, but in all honesty, she truly isn't sure what it is she feels for you. It'll take he a minute to sit down and think everything over before she comes to the realization that she's in love with you. Once she figures it out, she'll tone her erotic actions toward you down, opting to instead bring you flowers, or clean up around your home. She tries to mimic you in how you treat her, hoping that it'll eventually make you feel the same for her as she does you.

Star Paladin Cross feels a bit conflicted about her feelings for you as you're the kid she helped escort to the vault. She's well aware of her body modifications and the sheer age gap between you two and would, therefore, try to extinguish these feelings at all costs. You two weren't meant to be together, and she needs to get a grip before this turns into anything more than you and her being comrades.

Jericho doesn't care if you catch on to how he feels or not, he'll just pin you up against a wall and try to get you flustered. This has always been his way of showing someone that he's interested in them and he'll stick with this method until you say something about it. He's constantly in your face — whether he be throwing his arms around you or squishing your cheeks between his fingers. He loves the way you swat at him and the cute way you roll your eyes at his antics, however, he doesn't realize that he's in love until you get injured badly. Then reality will hit him and he'll (slightly) drop his douchy act and make an actual attempt at wooing you.

Butch tries to play it off and act the same as he always has, but every time he's around you he can't help but fall into a blushing, flustered mess. He's a teenager who's never actually been in love before, and he hates every second of it. Who do you think you are anyway? Walking around as if you're blissfully unaware of his feelings toward you. He gets meaner towards you — teasing you more often and tripping you whenever the chance arises — but it's only to help try and mask his intentions. He'll only put the pieces together when someone else tries to flirt with you, then he'll pull his pocket knife out, scare the guy off, and go right back to how he was before — a bumbling mess.

Fawkes knew he loved you the second you broke him out of that vault, however, he's well aware of how he looks and would never dream of putting you into a situation like that, so he keeps it to himself. He'll be polite to you — always opening doors and offering to hold onto the heavier items and weapons you may possess, but that's the extent of it. He's older than you and would hate to hold you down in any way, so he'll love you from afar and risk his life for you any chance he gets. It's the only way he can think of to pay you back for being so kind toward him.

#fallout #fallout 3 #fo3 #fo3 charon #charon fo3 #charon x lone wanderer #charon x lone #clover fo3 #fo3 clover #clover x lone #star paladin cross fo3 #fo3 star paladin cross #star paladin cross #star paladin cross x lone #star paladin cross x lone wanderer #fallout 3 x reader #jericho fo3 #fo3 jericho #jericho x lone #jericho x lone wanderer #butch fo3 #fo3 butch #butch x lone wanderer #butch x lone #butch deloria #fo3 fawkes #fawkes fo3 #fawkes x lone #lone wanderer #lone wanderer fo3

[berrypockets]

Voiceless: Threads of Eternity | Woven Destinies

Tommy Shelby x Reader

Tommy, observing her skill and kindness, found himself drawn to the girl who had once been lost in the streets.

"You've got a real talent, Y/N. Never thought I'd see the day when my shirts looked this good."

As time unfurled its wings, Y/N's grandmother passed away, leaving her with a modest inheritance. With determination and skill, Y/N opened a small tailor shop, a place where fabric whispered tales of her craftsmanship. Unbeknownst to her, Tommy harbored more than just appreciation for her sewing prowess.

In the shadows of their evolving connection, Tommy nurtured a silent affection for Y/N. He observed her with an attentive gaze, understanding the nuances of her unspoken language. When he left to fight in the war, Y/N gifted him an embroidered handkerchief, a token of her sentiments that became his talisman through the battles.

"Promise me you'll come back, Tommy. Keep this with you, and it'll be like having a piece of home wherever you are."

Tommy, touched by the gesture, tucked the handkerchief into his pocket. Little did anyone know, this embroidered piece became his steadfast companion through the battles of war and the storms of life. In moments of trouble or solitude, his fingers would find their way to the delicate fabric, a tangible connection to the woman he loved and the promise of a future they built together.

Voiceless Masterlist | Threads of Eternity Masterlist | Next Chapter

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby #tommy shelby imagine #thomas shelby #peaky blinders imagine #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagines #cillian murphy #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #thomas shelby imagines #thomas shelby fanfic #peaky blinders x reader #peaky fucking blinders #peaky fookin blinders #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby one shot #tommy shelby x you #cillian x reader #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian murphy x reader #cillian x fem!reader

[mintmatcha]

jjk manga spoilers:

It's a simple headstone. No dates or adornments are carved into the stone, just his name. Yellow flowers wilt in the vase at the base, their cold rotted petals already begun to drop and scatter themselves across the granite. The tiny amount of water that was once in the bottom is frozen over, locking the stems in place. You crouch down and unscrew the cap to your water bottle to top it off anyway, a futile nicety.

"His sister must have been here." Nanami's breath curls at he talks. Against the sea sick winter sky, he looks paler than ever, almost the same grey as the clouds that threaten to spill even more snow. He stands there and watches, eyes tipped low.

"Mhm," you hum, picking up each petal individually and gathering them in your palm, "This morning."

She had texted you in warning, to make sure your paths didn't cross. Maybe it was too painful to see you, maybe she just wanted to respect her brother's wishes to avoid the sorcerer world. Either way, you can't seen her face since she was a child. Either way, it was better this way.

You take the piles of gold you've collected and pile it below his name. There's not quite enough to form a heart, so it kind of looks like a butt.

Haibara Yu: butt.

He'd laugh at that. Probably a bit too hard.

Nanami breaks the thin layer of humor and it shatters, like ice underfoot.

"I still can't believe he's gone."

Sometimes, when you fight sleep for much too long, you swear you can feel his hand in yours, warm, plush, and soft just like always. You cried when they changed the way they made his old deodorant because it'll never smell the same.

"Me neither." you agree as placidly as you can.

"It's strange to think it's been ten years." He breathes into his hands to warm them, the slightly hint of pink returning to the tips of his fingers, "You two would have been married by now."

"Nana, you're so dramatic," you offer the wisp of a laugh, "Yu and I were, what? 16? 17?"

Seventeen. You knew that for sure. He called you his little dancing queen on your birthday and balked when you didn't know the reference.

"Even if he was still with us, we probably would have gone our separate ways." Your knees already ache from squatting like this. Age and use have already set into your joints. "He'd probably be--"

Your imagination fails you. You're unrecognizable from who you once were. He would be the same, nothing more than an unknowable possibility that you never had the chance to meet. Haibara will always be the boy you once loved and the boy you still do. You'll never be the same.

"He'd probably be doing something much better than hanging with me."

If you passed each other on the street, would he recognize you? Would you recognize yourself?

The wind sighs. Someone down the way is speaking, voice mumbling just below audible. A warm hand cups your shoulder, and the thumb traces a line back and forth, back and forth.

Grief is a shared experience. You and Nanami are linked by it.

"He loved you," Nanami says, "Very much. I don't know if he would have ever let you go."

The rhythm of your heart bounces against your ribcage, even paced as you stand. The feel of it chips away the pit in your stomach, crumbling away bits and pieces of yourself and letting them fall away.

Your companion throws an arm around your shoulder and hesitates before pressing a kiss into your temple. His lips are warm compared to the day and his grasp is firm. Everything about it is chaste and platonic, filled with unspoken comforts.

If Yu was alive, he wouldn't wear the same scents he did as a child. His hands wouldn't be the same width you remember, his laugh the same timber. He would change, just how you've changed in immeasurable ways since you were seventeen.

And yet, the fact remains that you still love him, same as before.

Maybe Nanami is right. Maybe, if things were different, Yu would still be in love with you.

"Ten whole years." You wipe your face with the back of your hand, "Feels like no time's passed at all."

[woncon]

➳ mint choco

➶ felix x gn!reader ｡˚ °

-ˏ` ✎﹏ when you taste the mint chocolate on Felix's mouth, it's too late. Your favorite candy and your favorite boy in the world are chasing you into an unknown, unique addiction. Or, you and Felix realise how much you love each other through minty kisses.

➴ genre: songfic, fluff (literally tooth-rotting), university au, estabilished relationship, second person POV, softballs in love

: ̗̀➛ warnings: toothache, dental intervention, panic, mild hurt/comfort

⌨ :: 4.3k words ♡ ︵ . .

⁀➷ this story was inspired by Leanna Firestone's song, Strawberry Mentos. I have used the song to structure the story and have placed extracts from it at the beginning of each chapter. But I replaced the strawberry mentos with mint chocolate because I was in the midst of a mint chocolate craze when I created this story. On the other hand, I wanted to debut my own fictitious company, the Donut King, in English as well. (As you can see, they're not just in the donut business.)

⁀➷ special thanks to @honeytwo for helping me translate this fic into english, correcting my grammar and other mistakes. thank you for everything! °♡̷•.

➳ stray kids masterlist | main masterlist

1.

you started eating my favorite candy you buy a pack in every store you're in stocking up on strawberry mentos so when you kiss me it'll taste like them

The boy gave you a kiss of welcome, and you flashed a tired smile, returning the gesture to his nose and causing Felix's eyelashes to flutter as a reflex. You were about to ask how the previous afternoon's training had gone and whether he had had time to study, when you noticed the opened box from Donut King. You could see the little bags in the box, chocolate inside each of them.

"Felix is that... mint choco?"

Your boyfriend smiled at the sight and pushed the box in front of you.

"Want some?" He didn't need to ask twice. You nodded.

You took the soft paper between your fingers and bit into the top corner of the rectangular chocolate. As the pleasant choco-wrapping fell away, the bitter-sweet taste of mint spread in your mouth. You looked at him with grateful eyes.

"Why did you buy it?" You knew that Felix wasn't a fan of that flavor, and he didn't usually bring chocolate to the university.

"I was hungry, and the guys informed me that the vending machine was broken. I needed something in my stomach to stop my headache."

"I haven't told you yet, but it's my favorite kind of sweet."

"Really?" Felix looked surprised.

"Uhuh."

You started chewing on another bite. With the glossy mint dripping softly, a few pieces of chocolate fell into the paper, crumbling on top.

"Then I know what I'm gonna give you." Felix put his chin on the palm of his hand with an endearing smile.

"When?"

"Whenever you ask."

"Lix, you’re so sweet!" You laughed.

Sweet just like mint choco.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

"Actually, it's much better than I thought," said Felix, explaining his lunchtime visit to the Donut King, when he returned to you with two more boxes while you were eating your dessert in the cafeteria. "I thought it would be like chewing gum, which is lousy for sweets, but no. This is very good. I can see why it's your favorite."

"I'm glad you like it too." You almost chuckled at the sight of the largest pack of bags in his hand, but you were distracted by Felix's index finger brushing against your lips to wipe off a crumb of sponge cake. You lowered your head in mild embarrassment, concentrating on your fork as your companion sat down opposite you. He stacked his acquisitions carefully.

"If you want to, you can have some,” he suggested. “This is as much mine as it is yours."

"Thank you."

You thought the sight was perfect: your boyfriend was arranging your favorite delicacies and acting like a true angel: incredibly helpful and kind to you.

In that moment, while you had been watching him, you were rising up into the clouds of love.

And maybe those clouds were made of mint choco.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

On the way to Felix's flat and back home, you kept fiddling with your chubby keychain, thinking about something.

Felix watched you, your slightly furrowed eyebrows, the movement of your facial muscles under your skin. He had thought for a moment, then fished out the first box, which now only contained a single piece of chocolate – you both had eaten a lot – which he held out to you.

You paused, looked at the chocolate, then at him, and smiled, touched by the sweet action.

"Let's share," you said.

Felix nodded, broke the candy in half, and handed the larger half to you. You took a bite and sucked on it with satisfaction. Felix kept his eyes on you the whole time – almost tripping over a branch.

"You’re pretty when you eat chocolate. Well, you're pretty even when you eat chocolate." Felix scratched the back of his head. "You're always pretty, actually."

You stopped walking and leaned forward to your boyfriend's lips, then settled back on your heels after a small peck.

"You taste like mint," you whispered, impressed.

"What?" Felix blinked, puzzled. He hadn't heard you quite right.

You leaned forward again and clung to Felix's shoulder. You kissed him again, this time a little longer. Your legs trembled as your boyfriend guided his tongue into your mouth, concentrated with mint and dense with chocolate. Feeling your trembling, Felix wrapped his arms around your waist, hugging you gently, giving you support so you wouldn't buckle.

You sank back to the ground, your mouth slightly open. You looked at him as if you had woken from a dream – a wonderful, pleasant one. Felix was smiling, and his freckles were smiling too. He took your hand, linked your fingers together, and you continued your way.

You could still taste the melted mint.

The taste of Felix.

2.

oh you're so sweet that my teeth are gonna fall out i'll get cavities in every single one taking weekly trips to my dentist but i know that it's worth it because when i tasted strawberry mentos, i knew you were the one

"____! We're going to be late." Jisung's tired voice was filled with concern as he stood from one foot to the other, trying to stay awake.

"I know." Your voice sounded sympathetic, but you still remained in line. "But it's our turn soon."

There were only two people before you: a cute couple. They held hands and smiled as they approached the counter. You reminded yourself that it was inevitable that you would have to bring Felix here again. The atmosphere of the Donut King was perfect for him and for the both of you – and when you'll be there, if you want more chocolate, there will be an opportunity.

"Why is that minty thing so important?" Jisung yawned a little, then continued rubbing his eyes. "That you're even risking being late?"

"I don't know." Your friend gave you a disapproving look. "Really. I have no idea."

And you were honest: you didn't understand why you bought a box every day, why you ate it so quickly, and why the taste made you happy. Maybe you have been a bit addicted lately, but the reason for that was not clear to you.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

Luckily, both of you made it into school, and you even had mint chocolate. You were proud of your sprint and of the way you bounded up the stairs. Even if you fell into the room sweating and panting a little, your fingers weren't shaking on the door handle.

And luckily, your fellow students or the instructor didn't mention your dizziness. Not even Felix; he just watched with a worried expression as you found your seat and waved softly. He waved back. During the break, however, he wanted to talk about it. You were packing up for the next class and putting your eraser left and right, because it kept getting in the way of your textbooks. Felix leaned on the desk, the sunlight streaming into his locks, freckles glistening, his eyes bathed in warm light. He was truly beautiful.

"Lix! Good morning!" You blushed.

"You're getting more and more late these days. Is there a reason for that? I'm worried about you, baby." He sighed, his mouth curved downwards.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, there's nothing wrong. I usually come later," you said, taking out the pink box with the chocolate bars resting in strawberry-shaded sachets "because of this. I buy mint choco every morning; otherwise, I get sad. Not only that, but I'm sorry to make you nervous about this— why are you smiling now?"

"Because I'm not annoyed by you. I'm just worried." He stroked your hair. You quivered a little with the sudden touch, but you looked at him with heart-eyes full of love. "You know, what? I come near the Donut King in the morning. I'll buy you some, okay? Then you can arrive on time,I'll be calm, and you'll have choco."

"Would you do that for me?"

"Yeah. Of course." He smiled.

"You're so incredible, Lix!" You jumped up and hugged your boyfriend. "Thank you," you told to his chest.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

You were measuring your boots when you left the dental office. Your teeth were starting to hurt, and the doctor told you that it would be better for you if you stopped eating too much chocolate because all your teeth were going to rot.

You, her patient, nodded, but you didn't think you could do it. Felix brought you one box every day as promised, and you were happy just to see it. And then there were the many sweet kisses, the edible mint kisses – if kisses were edible, you would surely eat them – that you exchanged with him whenever you wanted. It was like having a birthday every day, and you didn't want to give it up, but you admitted to yourself that you were overindulging and needed to curb your appetite just a little.

Just a little bit.

You decided with determined steps and inner contentment as you headed back to the university.

But it was not so simple.

"Are you sure you don't want some? I know you've just come from the dentist… but are you absolutely sure?" Felix smiled as he took out a small package, holding it out to you. You puffed out your cheeks, then took it with a big sigh to munch its contents.

"You're the reason I eat so much," you mumbled as you ate your source of serotonin.

The memory of the doctor's words is fading further from your mind.

Doc and choc: how funny how they rhyme and one forbids the other.

"In this case" Felix was sitting on the table with his feet on the wooden bench, but he bent down to give a little kiss to your slightly chocolatey lips, "I'm proud of myself."

"That my teeth will fall out prematurely and I'll end up as floating rubber?" You asked.

"No. Chocolate makes you happy, so if I give it to you, I make you happy in some way. And that makes me happy. The number of teeth you have or your weight won't change that."

"Felix~ you'll make my teeth fall out if you're so sweet! Plus, I get emotional when I eat chocolate."

Felix didn't reply; he just stroked your face, gently circling his fingers on your cheeks. He took the opportunity to steal a bite. You didn't mind.

Neither did the chocolate.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

Felix muttered. He studied the text of the book intently, a few tiny locks falling into his forehead, and you could see the chocolate in his mouth melting with the mint. You sit closer to him and kissed his freckles, your favorite stars, which you knew were also on Felix's chest.

You gently pushed him down, continuing to attack him with tiny kisses. The pen rolled away, the blank paper fell, but Felix smiled and hugged you, who were again engaged in this tender activity.

And when you leaned back, you smiled broadly. Your eyes gleamed with loving warmth.

"Don't worry. You can do it."

"You can do it too." You didn't know how Felix knew you had the same fear of the exam, but his words eased your anxiety. "One mint chocolate before class and you'll be unstoppable."

"But kiss me anyway, okay? Then I have guaranteed success."

Felix pressed your lips together.

"I can kiss you right now."

You didn't resist as wings of excitement spread throughout your insides, soft with anticipation and warm with longing. Was it mint intoxication? Or was it intoxicating mint? It didn't matter. What mattered was that you finally realized then why you were addicted to mint chocolate.

"Damn it." You bowed your head and shook it in disbelief. "You're really the reason why I eat so much mint chocolate."

"What do you mean?"

You sat up, then you made a sour expression as you worked on the wording of your reply.

"You know, more and more things remind me of you. Now, when I bite into my chocolate or smell mint, I think of your freckles, your smile and the taste of mint when we kiss. You make me eat a lot of mint choco because…” You furrow your brow in confusion. “You're my mint choco? Does that make sense?"

"It makes sense. I guess it does. Saying I'm your mint chocolate is the equivalent of saying you're beautiful when you eat chocolate. Put it all together, we love each other."

"But if you're my mint chocolate, it's okay if I eat you, right?" You grinned shyly as you snuggled into the crook of his neck, sighing contentedly as you made yourself comfortable, which distracted you from your studies, gave you a little rest.

"No, no problem. But I warn you, you said I'd rot your teeth."

"Don't worry, Lix," You rubbed your nose against his cheekbone, "it's worth it for you."

3.

i've been searching for someone like you my whole life so i pick up black licorice in every candy isle and even though i hate the taste of it i know that when i kiss you it'll make you smile

You, despite the fact that you couldn't exist without your mint choco, wanted to thank Felix for the situation. For being with you, for buying you a box of sweets every morning, for kissing you when he ate mint choco. That he was honest, kind, helpful and supportive.

That he was sweet as chocolate and his heart was soft as mint.

And you wanted to do it in a similar way to the way he'd been taking care of your sugar intake lately: waking up early and stopping by Candyland before going to class, buying lots of sweets you thought Felix would like, and one you were sure he would like. Black liquorice, his favorite.

"Is it my imagination or is your bag heavier than usual?" he asked as he took the bag full of school supplies from you when you met after classes.

"It really is."

"Did you put another book in?"

"You'll see." You smiled suggestively, then dragged him to a bench.

There you sat him down, grabbed your bag and took out the colored cardboard in which the goodies were placed.

"Happy weekend!" You handed it to the slightly disgruntled boy.

Felix untied the ribbon you had used to tie the bag's flaps and took out one of his gifts: four strawberry-shaped sponge cakes, drizzled with white chocolate and covered with praline.

“Thanks, baby.”

"Open the rest!"

He smiled, and you couldn't have been happier.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

After all the chocolate you had shared, you found it very difficult to force yourselves to eat lunch and leave without rolling away. Eventually, unable to go home straight away, you ended up leaning against a tree trunk in the park near the uni, eating the leftovers.

Felix, predictably, left the best for last: the licorice. He also offered it to you, who broke off a small piece and wondered how Felix could eat so much of the chunky stuff at once. After all, it really wasn't sweet or candy. You concluded by thinking that the favorite treats are different. Everyone prefers their favorite – hence favorite – differently. Like you do with mint choco.

Speaking of mint chocolate, you didn't eat or buy any that day. You didn't go to the Donut King, and for once Felix didn't bring any, as he lost track of time, and thought he was late from his first class.

So, if you would kiss Felix, there would be no minty effect. That didn't deter you. Relying on the grass, you leaned over to your cloud-gazing boyfriend and kissed him on the lips as he was chewing a bite.

Felix blinked a few times, then grinned.

"You taste like licorice," he said, and then smoothed your face, and pulled you back.

"If by that you mean I'm your licorice, then this is my best Friday ever," you mumbled in the middle of a kiss that tasted like licorice.

The boy giggled and his sweetness surpassed all the chocolates you had tasted that day.

Even the black licorice.

Even the mint choco.

Especially that.

4.

oh you're so sweet that my teeth are gonna fall out i'll get cavities in every single one taking weekly trips to my dentist but i know that it's worth it because when i tasted strawberry mentos, i knew you were the one i knew you were one

You laughed about something, then you tapped your face and your brow furrowed.

"Your teeth?"

"No." You shrugged.

"Maybe you could really eat less chocolate."

"Says the one who said he was proud of putting so much chocolate in my body," you muttered, reaching defiantly for the box lying next to the books..

Felix noticed your target, stopped the movement with his own hand, and then pressed a kiss on yours. This gesture and the soft touch of his lips melted you.

"I mean no harm. I'm not saying don't eat chocolate ever, but this is serious. We have to take care of your teeth. So one box a week and one choco package a day."

"Four choco package a day?"

"Two."

"Three a day,” you offered.

"Okay, three a day." You smiled in satisfaction, then you gave a snort and smoothed your face again. "Three a day if you see the doctor."

"I hate you." You scowled at your boyfriend, but you let him laughingly kiss the non-painful side of your face as a sort of atonement.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

"What's with the face?" In Felix's opinion, you looked like a little kid who got a bun instead of jelly beans.

"I'm still angry that I had to come here. It didn't make any sense. I was just proving how far I'd go for three a day." You stomped down the steps of the dental office with your hands folded, indicating you didn't feel like grabbing Felix's hand. You headed for the university with him following, and given how slowly you were walking, he caught up.

"I might believe it if I didn't know your expressions." Felix stood in front of you, forcing you to stop. “What about your sore teeth?”

You sighed in surrender.

"There is a hole in it. That's why it hurts. A hole that will be plugged this weekend. And I'm gonna get a big hypodermic needle, and everything's gonna be sizzling in my mouth, and..."

"Hey." The boy put his arms around you gently, caressing your waist soothingly. "I'll come with you and you'll see that your fear is bigger than that needle and louder than the machines."

"You're right." You returned the hug, finding that your heartbeat was not so heavy and pounding.

You didn't understand why you didn't mention the fact of filling earlier, then realized: you were afraid Felix would deprive you of your three a day choco. Because, despite your fear of dental procedures, you were addicted to your favorite sweet. The one that reminded you of your boyfriend.

"Maybe I don't hate you."

"I'm glad to hear that, because I'd like to give you your first mint chocolate today."

"Here, in front of the dental building?" You looked up at him, amazed and fascinated.

"Why not?" He took off his bag, got out the box and handed a small package to you. "We could kiss too."

How could you say no to a minty kiss?

Toothache or no toothache, you were not out of your mind.

5.

you're deliberately kind you make efforts to share your time you're not afraid of your feelings and you're not afraid of mine i never knew love could be soft i never knew love could be light and now i'm so helplessly sugar-high on you (on you) on you on you (on you)

The closer you got to the ominous day, the more you feared it. Felix was always with you whenever you needed a touch, a hug, or anything like that, and even when you didn't hint at anything, he was aware of what you needed. You enjoyed that you understood each other and had time for each other, no matter what. The importance of shared time was always handled well between the two of you.

You were deep in thought, arranging Felix's curls on your chest, but you could still see out of the corner of your eye what he was lifting towards you. Your eyes flashed as you prepared for a small bite, but that was part of Felix's plan, so he withdrew the chocolate and you tasted his lips instead.

He'd just had a piece, he had an irresistible minty taste, so you didn't even lean back for a while.

You loved the fact that, unlike the minty choco, you couldn't get enough of Felix's kisses, and if they lost their minty deliciousness, you'd kiss him with the same enthusiasm.

"Promise me your kisses won't run out?"

"What?" Felix tilted his head on your shoulder.

"That I can always ask for them and not have to pay for them?" You brushed a lock of hair from Felix's forehead.

"Sure." You exchanged another kiss. "Although this paying thing doesn't sound too bad."

Then you laughed. Your laughter had a mint choco sound and tone, just like your love.

6.

oh you're so sweet that my teeth are gonna fall out i'll get cavities in every single one taking weekly trips to my dentist but i know that it's worth it because when i tasted strawberry mentos when i tasted strawberry mentos when i tasted strawberry mentos, i knew you were the one

Your legs shivered. You were standing outside the door of your dentist's room, rubbing your hands together, and you felt that if you didn't sit down, you would collapse. Before you could, however, hands gripped your shoulders and Felix smiled encouragingly at you.

"As promised, I'm here to look after you. Don't be afraid."

You wanted to cling to his words to control the beat of your heart, but were distracted by the minty scent of his breath.

"Did you eat mint choco?"

Felix shook his head in disbelief.

"We're at the dentist's and you're wondering if I've got any mint chocolate?"

"No." You didn't even have to think about the answer.

You gently twirled Felix's locks as you kissed him. His lips were delicious as usual, sweet and minty.

The door opened, revealing the dentist.

"___, you’re next.”

At the sound of your doctor's voice, you flinched, even though your dentist was a short, gray-haired woman with a reassuring smile. She looked a lot like Cinderella's fairy godmother, except she's going to stick her magic wand in your mouth, not conjure up a carriage to take you to a party with your prince.

"Please, Felix, stay with me!" you whispered.

He kissed your nose in agreement, and led you into the room.

You dutifully, speechlessly, and most of all timidly and fearfully, sat down in the chair. You were greatly disturbed by the lamp shining sharply in your eyes. It made you feel blind and helpless, especially when the doctor probed your mouth with the various metallic instruments, but you relaxed as Felix found your hand, his fingers gently circling the back of yours.

You whimpered at the sight of the hypodermic needle, your shock reflected in your expression and the fact that you were gripping your boyfriend's hand tightly. The pain lasted a few seconds as the medical needle sank into the gum and the anesthetic spread. In those few seconds, you almost regretted eating all those minty chocos.

Almost.

Then you went outside with Felix to let the anesthetic make an impact. The dentist advised you to talk to Felix to speed up the process. This was not a problem for you. You knew what you wanted to say.

"It's strange how it took me a hypodermic needle prick to figure it out." You sat down and dragged him down next to you.

"Figure out what?"

"That I don't actually have a mint choco addiction. I just wouldn't eat that much. It's really all your fault. Ever since I tasted the mint on your lips, I've been eating to make your kisses taste like this." You, despite your numb, unfeeling face, tried to pronounce the words and phrase them as clearly as possible. "I am more and more sure that you are the one... My addictive mint choco."

"Oh, god. Just when I want to kiss you so badly, your face goes numb?" Felix, slightly flushed, pressed a kiss into your hair, as he had no other choice. You smiled and continued to talk about your classes, keeping your fingers busy tidying his hair and counting his freckles.

჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ༉ ༘჻ღཾཿ

You were out of the building with gauze-like material on your stuffed teeth, still feeling as if you had no face, and you wanted to get home as soon as possible to distract yourself with some film, wrapped in a blanket, and of course, in Felix's arms.

But as you went down the stairs, Felix's hand slipped from your palm. You turned back to the boy, who was rummaging in his bag, bewildered. With a glorious expression, he pulled out the pink box and looked at you softly.

You were about to remind him that you couldn't eat at all for three hours and dairy for three days when he bit off half the candy, stepped firmly over to you, and kissed you carefully. Although anesthetic ants were having a party in half of your face, you could feel the taste of mint on his lips. You smiled as much as you could, wrapping your arms around him.

"I haven't told you yet, but you're the one for me, too. Unlike you, I'm sure." he mumbled with a soft expression.

"I lied.” You replied. “Then and now I am sure that you are the one.”

Mint chocolate and Felix: no problem at all that these two terms mean the same thing. That love is minty and Felix's freckles are tiny, melted chocolate spots.

You were already sure of that, too.

#fluff #gender neutral y/n #skz fluff #skz felix #felix x reader #felix x you #felix x y/n #stray kids felix #stray kids x gn reader #stray kids x stay #stray kids x y/n #stray kids x you #stray kids x reader #stray kids felix x reader #skz felix x reader #felix fluff

[fusionnukacola]

Companions crushing on Sole before either lets on to their feelings.

Thanks for requesting! I've always loved asks like these.

Cait: The second she saw that, honestly, hot piece of ass stumbled into the Combat Zone and singlehandedly take out all of the raiders, she was smitten. Cait had only been traveling with Sole for a few weeks, but she already found herself looking at them when they weren't watching. Plans to do something about it, but has no idea what to do.

Curie: Had no idea what the feeling was. She'd experienced it once before, decades ago when one of the scientists had been extremely kind to her, but that didn't compare to what she felt now. Will do mostly nothing about it, except for a few spare comments about the weird feeling in her stomach she gets sometimes around Sole.

Danse: Gets scared straight off the bat. He lists all the things wrong with this attraction towards Sole, such as, "I'm their commanding officer." And "This is just straight-up inappropriate." Becomes, somehow, even more, awkward around Sole. Eventually goes to Haylen for advice, and she laughs at him before giving him advice. If Sole has completed Blind Betrayal, he wonders about how they could ever like someone like him, a machine.

Deacon: Worse jokes. Worse humor. He doesn't know how to deal with it, so he denies it every time he can. Tries making flirty jokes and stutters halfway through it and comes up with a different ending, usually ending in jokes that don't make sense at all. "Hey babe-bbbitch how those uhhh . shit. bye." Desdemona wants to deck him.

Hancock: Convinces himself he just wants to fuck Sole. He's wrong. Makes flirty jokes every chance he gets, and Sole thinks he's joking. He is not. Cries to Fahrenhite about how beautiful Sole is every night. She's getting sick of his crush. Tells him to "man-up" and go talk to them before she "throws him out of the window."

MacCready: Genuinely writes a comic book of them both. Spends all night on it and it's written in crayon. Offers to give them sniping tips, but gets too nervous when he's close to Sole like that, and completely messes it up. Blushes very easily.

Nick Valentine: Tells himself that it'll pass, but wonders what it would've been like if the original Nick met Sole before Jennifer. What would they think now, of the pretend Nick Valentine? Doesn't worry about it too much, but also won't make an advance.

Piper: Nervously laughs around them all the time. Purposefully doesn't look at Sole's face, or anywhere at them. Unbelievably awkward. Sole eventually confronts them, asking Piper if she hates them. Piper says. "Oh-uh. No? No. Don't worry about it blue!!!" And runs off.

Preston: Always. Blushing. Sole asks him if he's sunburnt, and he says no. Constantly asking Sole if they would take him with them to the next settlement because "I want to see the Minutemen's General recruit another settlement!" He's a liar. He wants to watch Sole fight. Sometimes, when it's late, he'll think about how likely it is that Sole wouldn't be interested in him.

X6-88: Stone cold. Doesn't blush. Denies it completely, but he can't help feeling drawn to Sole. They were a really good fighter and leader and definitely bound to lead the Institute to success but... it would just be wrong. Doesn't make a move at all.

#fallout 4 companions #fallout 4 #fallout #cait fallout 4 #cait #curie #paladin danse #deacon fallout 4 #hancock #maccready #nick valentine #piper wright #preston garvey #strong #x6-88 #fallout 4 companions react

[42frogs]

"I have feelings for Alhaitham."

Cyno had waited until their next trip to Gandharva Ville to speak to Kaveh, as far away from the eager ears and mouths of the Akademiya as they could be. Here, on the terrace after Tighnari and Collei have gone on their evening patrol, the only creatures to hear them are the birds, and though they might carry his words far away, it is unlikely anyone will be able to decipher them.

Kaveh chokes into his wine cup, kicking his feet out above the trees.

"Archons- really? Good luck with that."

He meets Cyno's gaze. For all his experience in interrogation, facial expressions have always evaded him. Right now, Kaveh seems sincere- eyes widened in surprise, but not hostile.

"Is that all you have to say?" Cyno asks. His hands are braced against the terrace boards, grounding him even this high up. Kaveh shrugs.

"I could question your taste if you like, but you're a sensible man, you've probably done enough of that yourself," he lifts his glass to him, and then narrows his eyes. "Wait - there is something. Why are you telling me? I figured you'd be the type to sort things between you and the object of your affections before you went shouting your heart to others. Have you already told him?"

"I'm not shouting, and I haven't told him," Cyno says. He intends to, because secrets between companions can only lead to unnecessary conflict, but he hasn't decided when, or how, yet. He studies Kaveh for a while, wondering how to approach it. "You're my friend."

"I'm flattered," Kaveh touches his chest. "But you waited until Tighnari was gone, and I'm far more likely to judge you than he is."

"You're my friend, and I care about your feelings," Cyno tries again. Kaveh stares at him blankly. "Aren't you in love with him?"

Kaveh, thankfully, has never been on guard with his expressions, and so Cyno is able to watch the flicker of his pupils as he assembles the pieces - the exhale of breath in laughter, and the flush of pink that dusts his cheek.

"Oh, Cyno, you were worried about me? Or - did you want me to duel you for him? I'd never win, with cards or blades," he chuckles. "I'm not in love with Alhaitham; he's all yours, if you can pull his head out of his ass for long enough to confront his feelings for you."

"His -?" No. Cyno files that away for later. As much as he wants to know - where would Kaveh have gotten that idea from - that isn't what he's here for. "Kaveh, please. I don't want this to come between us."

"I mean it," Kaveh tells him, leaning forward to put a hand on his knee. Cyno allows him into his space; he can smell the wine on his breath. "There's no fooling you, I know, so - yes, once, I thought I loved him. Living in close quarters with someone creates all sorts of fantastical delusions. But it was a long time ago, and I know now that we'd never be compatible."

"You rarely stop talking about him, unless you have a project to discuss," Cyno says, unsure why he is arguing. Does he want to persuade Kaveh otherwise? If Alhaitham did have Kaveh's affections, wouldn't he choose him? It would, at least, bring Cyno some form peace to see them both happy.

"Because he's infuriating. And he's also my roommate, so most of my stories involve him in some way or another. No, I was fooled by a handsome face, and once I saw the rotten inside, my affliction was cured," Kaveh smiles. "It seems to have been the opposite for you, though, doesn't it? Do you think you can fix him?"

Cyno frowns. "I don't think he needs fixing."

"There we have it," Kaveh nudges him with one elbow, throwing back the rest of his wine. "I'll help you win him over."

"I don't want that, either," Cyno says. "He shouldn't have to be persuaded. I have no expectations."

"Well, I've got plenty. I love a good romance, even if it's that heartless dog I have to help. It'll be good for him. Not so sure what it will do for you, but..." Kaveh sways with Cyno on the terrace, imitating the tops of the trees they sit upon, and echoes Cyno's words. "You're my friend, and I care about your feelings. Even the ones that have no rational place in this universe."

Cyno hides a smile in his cheeks.

"Thanks, Kaveh."

"Can I tell Tighnari? You never tell me anything before him, I want to rub it in his face."

"Absolutely not."

#vesh brainworms #just thinking about cyno and kaveh being friends idk #and kaveh being like wtf is wrong with you despite knowing exactly how someone can fall for alhaitham #even if hes been cured of the disease #haino #alhaitham #cyno #kaveh #genshin fic #cytham #p: haino